Another tunnel. Brian opened the door to a room forty feet across and sixty wide. The walls were lined with orange boxes seven feet high. Lowell had seen such people-keepers before and knew they were typically top-opened, but Brian moved to the front of one and twiddled with a few buttons on its fleshy face. With a wet rasp, a door peeled open.
"Randy?" Lowell said. "Come on out."
After a moment, the boy poked his head from the door. His head had been shaved and he was in one of the medical robes. Under the poor lighting, he looked as pale as something belched up from the depths of the sea.
"Mr. Lowell?" Randy said. "What are you doing here?"
"Need to ask you a few questions." He glanced at Brian. "We have some privacy?"
The man walked back toward the door, stopping before it to fold his arms and stare at them.
Lowell lowered his voice. "Randy, are you okay?"
"They said I was going on a diplomatic mission up north. Then they took me here. No one will tell me what's going on."
"What are they doing with you?"
"Nothing, really. Nobody's hurt me. They make me do chores."
"Are you the only young person here?"
The boy shook his head. "There's like twenty. They bring in a new one every few days."
Lowell eyed the other boxes. "We'll get that figured out later. For now, I'm getting you out of here." He walked toward Brian, jerking a thumb at Randy. "I need the kid."
Brian strolled forward. "I can't do that."
"Sure you can. This isn't on you, it's on me."
"The new protocols say we're not supposed to let anyone off the ship for any reason."
"This isn't 'any reason.'" Lowell dropped his voice. "This kid's from Catalina. He knows things that are vital to our ongoing operations there. I need him and I need him now."
"Well, I can't let you take him," Brian said. "Feel free to ask him as many questions as you like. But he stays."
"Listen, he's going to…" A look of scared confusion crept over Lowell's face. He pointed at the door. "What is that?"
Brian turned, neck bent. Lowell jammed his left forearm against the back of the man's neck and clamped the crook of his right elbow over his throat, squeezing his arms together as tight as he could. Brian kicked back at his legs and Lowell shifted to protect his groin. The man thrashed around, but he soon ran out of air. His awkward strikes grew spastic.
He went heavy in Lowell's grip. The smell of shit wafted on the moist air. Lowell set him down beside the boxes and checked his pulse.
"Is he dead?" Randy said.
"Yes. Are you ready to leave?"
"What about the others?"
"They'll have to wait. We don't have the time or the numbers to do more."
"We can't just leave them here!"
"Yes we can," Lowell said. "If that's what it takes to get out of here alive."
Randy advanced on him, looking up to meet his eyes. "It's not fair to leave them here. They don't deserve it any more than I do."
"You're right." Lowell rubbed his mouth. "We're going to take you back to Catalina. Tell everyone what's going on here. Then we'll come tear this place apart. Should have done that a long time ago."
He dragged Brian's body into Randy's box and closed the rubbery door. With the boy in tow, Lowell stepped into the hall. He ran straight into Anson, who was holding a pistol and was backed by four armed Sworn.
"Let me guess," Anson said. "There's another body in there."
"You followed me."
"When you left, I knew the look on your face. You'd figured it out. Should we talk? Let's go talk."
He marched them back into the room Lowell had just vacated. While Anson and two of the Sworn kept their guns trained on him, the other two went to the box, withdrew the body, and put Randy back inside.
"They're not leaving, are they?" Lowell said. "The aliens."
Anson sighed heavily. "How did you figure all of this out?"
"You're bringing new workers here. Kids. Why? It's like you said at Catalina: bring them in young, before they know how to hate. Even when it's the aliens. Randy's too old for that, you know."
"Yeah, yeah, but I've got quotas to hit. So what does bringing kids here have to do with our friends not leaving?"
"Because they're looking toward a future. If they were meaning to leave next month, there wouldn't be any point in training human children to do their work."
"Son of a bitch," Anson said. "I knew that was going to be trouble."
"Is there even a rescue ship? What was the rod for?"
"I don't know. They demanded I find it."
Lowell raised a brow. "Or else what?"
"You know, as clever as you think you are, there's a lot you've missed. I'm not some maniac, Geoff. Do you really think I'd hand over children unless I had no other choice?"
"Haven't you?"
"Oh, cut the shit." Anson paced across the room, watched by his bodyguards. "Ever since Abyss cut off trade, I've had to fulfill the squids' demands with our own resources. I keep quiet about this stuff because knowing won't help anyone. It will only make them scared. Make them doubt our cause. If that happens, everything falls apart. I wouldn't even blame them. When I learned what was happening, I doubted. I thought we should give up. Just… let them win."
He moved closer to Lowell. His eyes were bottomless holes. "But I found a solution. A way to ensure that humanity is going to make it through this—and that our people are the ones who live."
The hair stood up across Lowell's body. "What have they got? Nukes? Reinforcements? A second virus?"
"You're starting to get it, aren't you? I'm not some comic book supervillain feeding our babies to the aliens. There are reasons for everything I do." He looked down at his gun. "I should kill you. I should really, really kill you."
Lowell said nothing.
"Because knowing you, you're going to bide your time, kill one of the aliens, inflate their guts with air, and use that as an oxygen source as you swim to the surface."
"Can they do that? Inflate like that?"
Anson scowled. "How should I know, Geoff? Point is, you're not making it off this ship. Not until the time is right. When you do, you're going to walk outside. You're going to see what's happened. And you're going to beg me for forgiveness—because I was right all along."
He nodded to his people. "Lock him up. And seal off the tube. There's no use for it anymore."
Five of them and one of him. He knew that he could get one of their guns away. Probably, he would have enough time to shoot Anson. But that was as far as probably went. After that, one of them would take him down. Then he would be dead and Randy and the others would be trapped on the ship. For the rest of their lives.
He walked where they told him to. When they told him to climb into the box, he climbed into it. It sealed with a slurp, trapping him inside the damp and briny darkness.
26
Despite the bulky modifications they had made to the ships, they were faster than the Sworn, and were closing on them perceptibly. On the enemy vessels, men dashed about the decks, shouting orders and gesturing wildly, taking pot shots at Raina's fleet. It was not easy to aim at sea, however. In addition, Georgia's people had added defensive sandbags behind the railings fore and aft.
But there was more than that. In their preparations for the war, Raina had reached a critical conclusion: they would not be able to win without mastery of all elements. Earth was simple: give your troops the ability to move across it quickly, whether on horseback or bicycle. Air was not as straightforward—they had nothing that could fly—but they were able to put it to use with the Eyes and the fire flowers Raina had used to expose the enemy fleet.
Mastery of fire was self-evident. That left water. Raina hadn't foreseen this specific engagement, but knowing there could be fighting on Catalina, it had been clear they would require ships.
But she'd wanted her ships to be capable of more than mere transport vessels. She wanted them to be dragons.
&n
bsp; Ahead, the Sworn fleet broke to starboard. A machine gun opened up from the rearmost ship. Raina flung herself to the deck. Bullets slashed into the prow, thudding into the sandbags and whacking into the hull. With the enemy changing course, her fleet closed fast. One ship, which Mauser had christened the Smaug, took the lead, moving to engage the nearest of the Sworn.
The fire from the enemy ship ramped up. On the Smaug, which was now lit by lanterns, a silhouette loped forward in a crouch, settling in the prow. The man whipped a tarp off the deck. From her place on a boat a hundred feet to the Smaug's left, Raina was too far away to see it clearly, but she already knew what was there. She plugged her ears.
The nose of the Smaug erupted with flame. The .50 caliber machine gun bolted to the deck boomed with continuous, ruinous thunder. The man behind it whooped and laughed, waving his hat above his head. Splinters stormed from the body of the Sworn boat. Men screamed and fell. One flung himself over the railing, plunging into the open dark. Emboldened, the warriors on the Smaug rose from the sandbags, pouring fire into the beleaguered ship. The heavy machine gun chewed holes in its side. Cheerfully, water bubbled into the hull.
The other two Sworn ships were coming about, keeping tight, meaning to swarm the left-most boat in Raina's line, which had drifted out of formation.
"Dee!" Raina shouted against the gunfire. "To their aid!"
The boat swung to port. Sailors went to work on the rigging, tightening the sails against the change in the wind. On the Smaug, the machine gun went silent. The gunner could have been shot or run out of ammo—they didn't have much—but more likely, his target had been sufficiently perforated by the dragon's teeth.
Raina's boat closed the gap with their sister ship as the two Sworn boats came within effective rifle range. The knights got behind the sandbags, returning fire. A runner moved between them with a clinking sack, handing out bottles. The enemy ships slowed as they neared, sails going slack. Intending to board. Raina smiled.
Behind the railings, small fires festooned the boats as knights touched Bic lighters to the saturated rags in the necks of their bottles. One of the Sworn opened up with an AK, forcing the knights to take cover. Bullets thumped into sand. Raina lit a bottle of her own. The oncoming vessels maneuvered into their path; the boat slowed as it shifted course. By the time the two sides came within fifty feet, they were down to a crawl.
The Sworn pounded them with fire. Down the railings from Raina, a knight fell writhing to the deck. The shots ceased. Heavy hooks clanked over the railings of the boat, trailing rope.
Raina cupped her hands to her mouth. "Let the dragon breathe!"
Knights hollered cries of battle. Bottles spun over the railing, their burning rags whirling like disoriented fairies. They landed on the other boats with a crash and a whoomp. The screams of the Sworn were the particular howl of men confronted with fire. Raina ran along the railings, hacking her sword through the ropes of the grappling hooks. With the enemy in panic, San Diego's sailors trimmed their sails to the wind.
Their boats lurched forward, leaving the burning vessels behind. Knights sniped at the silhouetted Sworn attempting to douse the fires. As the flames blossomed, the enemy began to vault over the railings, white capes flapping behind them.
That signaled the battle's end. Raina ordered her ships to come about and fish the Sworn from the water. The defeated men grabbed hungrily for the ropes thrown to them, sloshing aboard with drawn, downcast faces. Most had lost their weapons in the ocean, but the few who hadn't surrendered their arms without complaint.
"If the tables were turned, do you think they'd spare us?" Georgia said.
"I think our troops would be spared." Raina wiped her katana with a rag and returned it to its sheath. "To his credit, Anson would rather absorb his enemies than slaughter them. The threat isn't the people—it is those who would challenge him for control of them. We would be hung from the lamp posts along Wilshire."
In total, they fetched sixteen Sworn from the waters. As at the battle for the Dunemarket, the knights had suffered almost no fatalities and a few minor injuries.
"Good thing that worked out," Mauser said. His hair was askew and his face was smudged with ash. "Our bag of tricks is getting rather shopworn."
"We have taken two big bites from the body," Raina said. "We are far closer to an even match than we were at the start of the day."
"It isn't yet midnight." Georgia gazed over the ocean. Aside from the faint odor of gunpowder and burnt varnish, there was no longer any sign of the struggle that had taken place an hour earlier. "What now?"
"We can't leave San Pedro exposed a minute longer than we have to. Tell the knights to get what rest they can—there's no telling how our visit to Catalina will be received."
* * *
As they made way for Catalina, clouds rolled in from the sea, bringing a thick and inescapable fog that left the decks and railing slick with dew. After some thought, Raina decided this was a good omen.
Rather than arriving at the main docks in the center of the bay, they came to the pier projecting from the point housing the Scaveteria. Knights jogged to the parking lot and established a beachhead while the others debarked. The Scaveteria was locked, but Raina still had a key. She opened it and the knights brought in the wounded, both their own and those of the Sworn.
As they did so, one of the knights on the perimeter called out. Raina ran toward the scene. Five people approached from the road, barely visible through the fog streaming in from the water. They stopped eighty feet away.
"Who is there?" a man said. "Avalon is under curfew!"
Raina laughed. "That's news to me. Who gave the order? The council? Or the Sworn they now serve?"
The man made a choking noise. "Raina?"
"And I am not alone. I bring an army."
The man shifted the rifle in his grasp. "To do what?"
"I am not here to shed my own people's blood."
"I doubt you're here to bake them a cake, either."
She gestured to the others to stay put, then walked forth alone, blades hanging from her hip. "I thought that was you, Victor. The council, are they in the palace?"
Victor lowered his gun. "Along with many of the townsfolk and warriors. They evacuated the town when the Sworn told them you'd come armed for war."
"I ask you not to let them know we're here. I will speak to them. That is all."
In the gloom, his white eyes skipped between hers. "There's something different about you. You look older."
"Can you trust me?"
He shouldered his gun. "Many will be glad to see you. Peace has come with a hefty price tag."
She wanted to learn more, but every minute counted. She gathered her force, including the prisoners, and led them up the silent, dark avenue into the hills. As they got higher, the fog diminished, but remained thick enough that they were within a half mile of the palace before Raina could make out the lights burning from its walls and windows.
They moved as quietly as they could, but they were still two hundred yards from the barricades when a woman commanded, "Identify yourselves or be fired on!"
Raina squinted at the figure atop the gates. "I am glad to see your eyes have lost none of their sharpness, Stella."
Rather than the surprise Victor had shown, Stella laughed. "I knew you hadn't left us for good."
Raina gestured her people toward the gates. Voices sprung from behind the walls. Faces appeared atop the defenses.
"Stop right there!" a man yelled. "You chose exile, Raina. You don't have any business here."
Raina came to a halt. "I chose exile because I was no longer fit to lead you. But I have regained all that I lost—and more. Bring me the council and everyone who wishes to hear what I have to say. Move your feet!"
The man got a startled look on his face and disappeared from the wall. Raina sat on the dirt path. The ground was cold, but she was too weary to care.
"Might want to keep a sharp eye," Mauser said. "If there were one tim
e to assassinate you, it would be now."
"They won't."
"Have the day's successes left you with a surplus of cojones?"
"My destiny has led to this," Raina said. "It will not end here."
Mauser cleared his throat but said no more. People climbed the walls to peer at the spectacle below them. Like moles popping out of holes, four familiar faces appeared above the gates: Tina Young, Sheriff Gates, Nolan the farmer, and Raul.
"What's this?" Tina said. "You lost your grip on these people, so you try to force them away with an army?"
Raina laughed. "You would think that, Tina. To you, leadership is nothing more than a ball to be wrestled away from an opponent."
"You put us on the brink of extinction. Now, we have peace. Are you really so selfish that you'd resume a war we've already settled?"
"That decision is not up to either of us."
"Let me guess. It's up to all those gunmen at your back."
"I am not here to conquer you," Raina said. "I am here to offer a choice. Remain as you are, here on Catalina, subjects of Anson, who warred against us without cause, killing your brothers and sisters." Raina swept her eyes across the warriors watching from the walls and towers. "Or you can join me. Retake San Pedro. Smash that tyrant's armies. And life forever free."
"That's not a choice. That's a delusion. You could never retake San Pedro."
"I have already done so."
Eyes widened from atop the walls. Tina shook her head, firelight bouncing from her glasses. "Bullshit!"
"Not only that, but I have destroyed the Sworn who sailed from here last night."
"What, all three ships?" Stella called down.
"Sure, and she did it all from the flight deck of the USS Intrepid!" Tina turned to the warriors, spreading her arms wide. "She can march in here and tell you whatever it takes to get her skinny ass back on the throne. Believe it at your peril. You even think about rebellion, and you better believe Anson will hang you from the rafters."
Raina stepped to the side of the path. "Bring out the prisoners."
The lines of Georgia's knights parted. The captured Sworn marched forward. Many had lost their capes at sea, but others had kept them. All gazed ahead leadenly, without focus.
Relapse (Breakers Book 7) Page 34
