He waited for an answer I wasn’t sure of.
“Approximately,” he said, his over-pronunciation indicating his impatience.
I moved my fingers below where the dip in my throat was. “It stopped about here a week or so before you caught me.”
He nodded and looked as if he were calculating something. “You’re marked for death, but you’ve got a little time.”
The door opened and Burn stepped in, walking over to stand beside Ryker. They both stared at my chest. I inched backward, pulled my shirt up, and closed my coat around me.
“Is it what I thought?” Burn asked.
Ryker’s jaw tensed before he seemed to force himself to relax and answer Burn. “Yes. Her magic has probably been slowing it down.”
I wrapped my arms around myself. “What is ‘marked for death’?”
“Have you ever heard of the Debt Collector?” Ryker asked.
Everyone had heard of the Debt Collector. I lived in the Ruined City, not another universe. I would’ve told him as much, except as the pieces came together, I found I didn’t have the energy or will to snap at him. I barely had the energy to stand. My hands were trembling and my knees wouldn’t stay locked. My back hit the stone wall, then rubbed my skin raw as I slid in an undignified manner to my bum. I sat there numbly as I started to put it all together.
Ryker continued to fill in the picture, helping me along as if I needed it. “Sometime in your past, you were on the verge of death. Two people’s lives were brokered to save yours. Two lives for one—that’s the way the Debt Collector works. One of them didn’t pay up.”
I already knew how it worked. I also knew you didn’t walk away from the Debt Collector. He was always paid.
It would start with a general drain on your life force; I’d been dragging for months.
Then came the night fevers; I’d had those for weeks.
The final piece, an unexplained bruise on the chest, right above your heart.
I should’ve realized it myself. How had I not? But who would’ve done this for me? My parents had turned on me once my mark had shown, not wanting the attention it might bring.
But there was one other who’d had a vested interest in keeping me alive once upon a time. I wondered who he’d killed to save me. Had I known them? I shook off the thoughts. That time had nearly destroyed me, and I couldn’t let the ghosts finish the job.
“Why now? What made me get sick now?” Maybe if I could figure out the trigger, I could reverse it? No, no one reversed it.
Ryker watched me. “Like I said, the Debt Collector needs two lives to keep one alive. One of the people who was supposed to die for you probably died of natural causes before he or she was killed. It can be a tricky game, since no one ever knows when their time will be up. Even seers have trouble calling the day of death. Once that second life, that other person, died naturally, the debt couldn’t be properly fulfilled. You started getting sick.”
Had the second person escaped before they’d been sacrificed for me? At least there had been only one death, if that was some consolation. It didn’t feel like it at the moment.
Would I have a chance to get home and see Ruck and the others one last time? I wasn’t sure that was a great idea anyway, even as I longed for one final goodbye. I’d rather them think I died in a heroic fight. Anything but this, sitting here and withering away.
Burn and Ryker had stopped paying attention to me and were talking to each other. I was already a non-entity. Burn took a final look at me and then exited the room.
I got my feet back underneath me and squared my shoulders. I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t going to go out weak and pathetic. “How long do I have, or are you going to try and kill me first?”
“I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to buy you time and give you a chance. After you do what I need, I’ll bring you to the Debt Collector and try and renegotiate your deal.”
“You know the Debt Collector?”
“Well enough to know how to find him.”
“I do your job and you’ll try and save me? What guarantees do I have that you can do what you say?”
He shrugged. “No assurances, nothing more than what I offered you. It’s the best deal you’re going to get.”
He hated me. I could see it in his eyes. The tone of his voice as he spoke. “If you hate me so much, why keep me? I’m sure there’s someone else who can do it.”
“I know you’re behind the chugger raids. You stole from me, took food out of the mouths of my people. I don’t like you. If I could find someone else, you’d be dead already. You’re alive because you’re my only option.”
He was strong, probably had been his whole life. Someone had obviously trained him in magic, too. It was easy for him to cast aspersions on who I was and what I’d done. He’d never been chilled to the bone, willing to do anything to feed the people that depended on him. He’d always been strong enough to take what he needed and defend it. Too bad we weren’t all as fortunate as him, and had to make decisions that could mean your people ate or not.
“What happens if I can’t?”
“I’m going to teach you how, and you will.”
In other words, I did it or I was out of luck. Or I tried to do it until I figured out how to get out of this mess.
“I have one other request.”
“What?”
“You’re going to have enough food to feed five people delivered to a place of my choosing.”
He tilted his head back, as if that wasn’t the request he’d expected. His eyes narrowed, as if trying to figure out what game I was playing before he finally nodded. “It’ll take a few days to gather that up, but I’ll make it happen. Does that mean you accept my terms, or do you prefer to rot here?”
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. There was stubborn and then there was suicidal. Sometimes I found that line a bit blurry, but it was pretty clear at the moment. I kept my arms crossed and gave him a nod. Neither of us reached out a hand to magically bind ourselves.
He walked out, leaving the door wide open, but then stopped a foot away. “What’s your name?” he asked, his back still to me.
I didn’t reply, debating whether to lie.
“I suggest you provide me with one, because you won’t like my choice.”
“Bugs.”
His head shifted in my direction slightly, as if to ask me where that had come from. He didn’t. He walked away.
Chapter 10
The door swung open the next morning, and I looked up from the corner where I was wrapped in my pelt. I knew it wasn’t Ryker even before I saw Burn in the doorway. Burn had some magic in his veins, but nothing like the levels Ryker threw off. The difference was like comparing the ocean during a storm to a placid lake.
“So, you’re still here?” he said, smiling as if I’d had better options.
Could I have really left? I’d shut the door myself last night, and then opened and closed it ten times, debating whether I should walk out and go home. Would they stop me? Would I have been fast enough to escape after I tripped their ward again? If I did manage to escape, I’d be able to see my crew again. Then I’d become their burden and the food I’d bargained for would never get to them.
I sat up, dragging the pelt with me and giving Burn the evil eye as he moved farther into the room. I had a bone to pick with him.
He tilted his head and smirked in the face of my scorn. “Did you really think I’d agree to free you if I thought you’d actually leave?”
I dropped the glare. The guy had a point, and I would’ve done much worse in the reverse situation. Had done much worse in my past. Plus, Burn wasn’t so bad. He’d brought me a pelt, and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been eating nearly as well if Ryker had been bringing me the meals.
“Get up. I’ll show you around, and then you should probably get some breakfast in before Ryker gets his hands on you. You definitely want to eat before the healer gets her hands on you.”
“What’s t
he healer going to do, exactly?”
“Keep you alive long enough for Ryker to get what he needs from you,” Burn said. The way his eyes went all sorts of owlish and then rolled didn’t make me want to rush out the door.
At least part of that sentence was a good thing for me. Staying alive was definitely a reason to get up, even if it meant Ryker could prepare me to march right back into the hands of death.
“Where’s breakfast?” I got up and brushed off my pants.
“Come on.” He stepped outside the door and waited for me.
I followed him out and squinted into the morning sun. It was a bit too bright and cheery for my current situation. For some reason, I’d expected storm clouds and great bolts of lightning.
Burn waited beside me, letting me soak in my first good look at the heart of the Valley up close and fully awake. Most of the buildings looked old but repaired, with solid walls and roofs without holes. I’d heard there was much more than this, though, that Ryker had claimed hundreds of acres extending south of here, where there was all sorts of livestock and farmland, but no one had actually seen it. The whole story was very odd.
There were lots of people walking around too, of all ages and sexes. I even spotted some babies. I’d known this was a pretty big place, but I hadn’t realized how many people lived here. No one seemed overly unhappy, either. Why didn’t they look miserable?
Every person we passed on our way seemed to check me out. They glanced over but looked away quickly. But they were smiling. I’d expected contempt.
If Burn noticed anything peculiar, he didn’t say.
“Do these people know who I am?” I asked softly enough that someone passing would have to strain to hear me.
“Of course they do. You were held in the clink for days. We can move you to another room if you want.”
That room was the jail? It was the nicest place I’d slept in years. These people were soft if that scared them into being good.
“No. I like it.” It only had one entrance to worry about guarding. Much safer.
Why weren’t they trying to attack me, though? I wasn’t even getting a couple of I wish you were dead stares. Was it so easy here that only Ryker cared that I was the thief who stole their food? What was wrong with these people? I was an enemy in their camp, and I swear, one of them waved at me as we passed by. Was I supposed to do a job with them? A mission where I put my life on the lines with people who smiled at the enemy? This place was even worse than I’d imagined.
We stopped in front of what appeared to be a building that didn’t have a roof. People were walking in, and some were leaving with dripping wet hair. What the hell was going on in there? We walked in, and there were little rooms that had cloth doors.
“What is this?”
“The showers. Here.” Burn handed me a cloth and a bar of soap that he’d grabbed from a shelf nearby. “Don’t lose the soap. You only get one bar every two weeks.”
I was going to get a new one in two weeks? This place was rich.
Burn walked to one of the small rooms. I had all the supplies I could need, but what was I supposed to do now? I’d never seen anything like this. Burn stepped inside the cube and pointed to a handle. “Turn this like this when you’re ready. See that big vat up there?”
I nodded. You couldn’t miss the thing. It was huge.
“When you open this, water from there will travel down that hose and fill this bucket with holes and then drop onto you. It’s a shower, and it’s easier than filling and emptying baths.”
I looked down at what I was supposed to stand on, and it was planks of wood laid over a shallow ditch.
“Where’s all the water go?”
“It leads down to a stream. I’d keep that in mind for the future if you get thirsty. You never want to drink downstream.” Burn stepped out and waved me in.
I nodded then got behind the cloth, shrugged out of my shirt, and hung it over the wall. The shirt disappeared before I’d even turned on the water.
Burn called over the stall, “Where’s your pants?”
“Why did you take my shirt?”
“I took it because your stuff needs to be burned.”
“Don’t you dare burn my stuff!”
“Calm down. I won’t burn your stuff. I can’t say I’m not letting laundry get their hands on it, though. Give me your pants. You’ll get them back—unfortunately.”
I was about to ask him how I was going to leave the little room if I did that when a new shirt and pants were slung over the wall.
I grazed my fingers over the supple leather of the pants and the fine weave of the shirt. A lot of the people walking around the camp didn’t even have leather pants, but fabric.
“We don’t have all day,” Burn said.
I shed my pants and turned the knob. Just like he’d said, water started to pour out of the holes in the suspended bucket. Cold water. I made quick work with the soap. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken soap to my hair. When you couldn’t get food, novelties like soap were way out of the realm of possibility. And it was even smelly soap, like they’d found a way to squeeze a fruit into or something.
Another cloth was dropped over the side of the wall after I turned off the water.
“We’re running late,” Burn said.
I tugged on the clothes and stepped out. Burn was leaning on the wall a couple feet away, and turned. His mouth dropped open.
“What?” I snapped.
“You look…”
I took a step back, wanting to retreat behind the cloth of the small room. “I look what?”
He straightened and stopped looking at me weirdly. “You look the same. I just didn’t realize how light your hair was.”
Okay, that wasn’t a big deal.
“Let’s get breakfast.”
I walked out of the building with Burn, and the more we walked, the more my steps faltered. One by one, heads turned, and I could feel myself shrinking. I should’ve fought Burn on the shower, but I’d wanted one.
“I look weird. People are staring at me. I want my dirt back.”
“They aren’t staring because you’re weird.”
“Then why? They didn’t stare at me before. They looked, maybe smiled, but then turned away.”
“They didn’t stare before because you looked scary. Now you look…” His head shifted, and Burn seemed like he couldn’t choose the word for some reason.
“What? I look what?”
“Not as scary. You’re a new face. Just ignore them and they’ll get used to you.” I didn’t have much of a choice, so I tried to do what he said.
We stopped in front of a building that was quite a bit larger than the rest, and like everything else, it looked prewar but well maintained.
Burn walked in, and I followed. Along the wall, there was a huge row of tables in a single line with food in big dishes. People stood behind the dishes, scooped out servings, and placed them on the plates of the people passing. Burn took a plate from a stack, and then waited while I did the same.
He fell in line behind more smiling people, who greeted him and then smiled at me, before getting food on their plates. Burn moved forward and they dumped food onto his plate. I did the same, waiting for someone to tell me that I wasn’t supposed to be here, that I couldn’t get this free food, but they didn’t. Every time he held out his plate, I did the same, and they kept scooping food onto it: eggs, meat, and bready stuff.
When a huge, scarred man got into line behind me, I was waiting for it. This was it. I was getting booted.
He smiled.
What the hell was wrong with these people? Even if they weren’t clear on the fact that I’d stolen from them, I was a stranger. You didn’t let a stranger in on a stash like this. Somebody needed to wake these people up.
“Another scoop of the diced tomatoes,” Burn said right before we came to the end of the line.
I held my plate back out. “Me too.”
The older woman scooping tomatoe
s smiled and added it to the mountain of food on my plate.
Burn nodded to follow him, and we weaved our way through a room full of smiling people. A good majority of them said hello as we passed.
It was all the food. That was why they were happy. They were food drunk. It was the only logical explanation.
Burn put his plate down at a small two-seater table in the corner and started talking while I was busy chewing. “Food is served at eight. Once it’s gone, there’s nothing until noon, so don’t miss it. If somehow you miss breakfast and lunch, you’re done until six.”
Burn, who had appeared to be a bit tougher, seemed to think going over twelve hours without food was a travesty of some sort.
Soft. The whole lot of them. Not that I planned on skipping any meals. Had to get my strength up to make my next move.
Someone would come to their senses and kick me out of here for sure—if they didn’t try and kill me first. I shoveled some eggs into my mouth. My crew would never be this crazy, letting a stranger wander around their stuff.
Even the thought of them dampened my hunger. Ruck was probably going crazy right now while I was eating a feast. I had to get them a message. Ruck had known where I was headed. He might be watching this place now. I ate even though I wasn’t that hungry anymore. I needed to get healthy somehow and then get back to them. I’d wait until nightfall, slip out, climb the highest tree, and try and flash them a message. If he was out there, he’d be waiting for it.
Burn stared over at a clock on the wall. “Shit. You almost done? We’re late.” He looked at my almost empty plate and raised his eyebrows. “Guess that’s not a problem.”
I picked the last couple bits of egg off the plate before I followed him, dropping it into an empty bin as Burn had. I froze, looking at how many half bites had been wasted.
“That could feed a—”
Burn grabbed my arm and tugged me away from the pile of dishes, as if he thought I was going to start licking the plates clean.
Wyrd Blood Page 5
