The 13th Tribe

by Robert Liparulo

  Jagger stretched out to grab Tyler’s hand. “And I say you’re right. You’re a smart kid, you know it?”

  He was smart, but more important, he had a big heart for people. At his school in Virginia, he had stuck up for kids being bullied, but also had a way of sympathizing even with the bullies (“Maybe something’s wrong at home”) that Jagger himself had difficulty comprehending.

  Jagger felt pride for his son well up in his chest. And he thought about how Tyler’s praying that morning had led to his own prayer and to this conversation. He wondered if he’d find his way back into the fold of the faithful not through his physical presence in a holy place but through his family, the two people who’d stuck by him when even he couldn’t stand himself.

  [ 37 ]

  Jagger stood, sweeping Tyler up with him. He carried his son to the bush and held him up so he could brush his fingers along the tips of the dangling stems. Then he set the boy down and playfully stepped on one of his bare feet with one of his own.

  Tyler pulled his foot out and laid it on Jagger’s. “Do you ever wish you’d lost a leg instead of an arm?”

  “You know,” Jagger said, “I do. I think it would be easier to adjust to.”

  “But then you couldn’t run so good, and wouldn’t it be hard walking around the dig and chasing bad guys?”

  Jagger nodded. “I guess—”

  An explosion boomed through the compound—a loud concussion, repeated in diminishing echoes as it bounced off the stone walls, followed by the sharp clatter of debris striking hard surfaces, raining down on roofs and walkways.

  Tyler jumped, and Jagger instinctively wrapped himself over his son. Gripping Tyler’s head with his arm, he looked around. The explosion had come from the other side of the monastery, near the front gate. The basilica blocked his view of the sky in that direction, but he imagined a cloud worthy of the sound: smoke and dust billowing up, drifting away. And then a light fog did reach him, coming from the alley between the basilica and the north wall. Smoky, with the bitter odor of burning plastic.

  “Dad?”

  “It’s okay, Ty. Shhh.”

  Someone was coming for the stranger. He could be wrong, but he doubted it, and he didn’t have time to consider any other possibilities. He had assumed the man was holed up in the monks’ quarters in the Southwest Range Building. If so, the attackers would cross through the entire complex, passing between Jagger and Tyler’s position and their apartment; he couldn’t send Tyler there. He glanced up at the top of the wall holding the burning bush. It was too high to push the boy up there.

  “Come here,” he said and led Tyler to the corner formed by the rounded wall and the chapel. “Sit.” He eased him down, then went back to the overhanging bush. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket, opened it, and clapped RoboHand’s hooks onto the handle.

  The sound of running footsteps bounced off the walls. Lights came on in windows overhead. Deep in the compound, someone yelled in a foreign language.

  Jagger jumped up, grabbed a handful of stems, and pulled them down. He reached high to get into the leafy branches and hacked them off the bush. He did it a second time and brought the cluster of foliage to Tyler. “Hold these in front of you,” he whispered. “Don’t let them shake. Stay here till I get back, you hear? Don’t move.”

  “Dad, what’s happening?” Tyler said in a small voice. “I’m scared.”

  “Everything’s going to be fine. Just stay here and don’t move.”

  Someone screamed, and Tyler gasped.

  Jagger reached around and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Shhh. Be brave, son.” He moved to the stairs where they’d left their shoes and looked back. Tyler was in shadow, but the reflected glow of the bulb that illuminated the bush caught his trembling hands and the vibrating tips of the branches. Jagger would have broken the bulb, but it was twenty feet overhead. The best camouflage was anything that broke up the shape of a human body, and the branches at least did that.

  He rushed up the stairs.

  [ 38 ]

  Be brave. Be brave. Be brave.

  The words flashed in Tyler’s head like a flickering neon sign. But the explosion had been so loud it had even scared his dad, he could tell. People were yelling. Footsteps grew louder, then faded away. It was like everyone was running around, all confused and scared and bumping into the things they were trying to get away from. He hadn’t seen many monster movies, but he’d watched enough to know they were like this.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and felt tears streak down his cheeks. He hadn’t even known he was crying; he wasn’t really, only frightened enough to make his eyes water. That’s all.

  The branches in front of him shook, and he snapped his eyes open, stopping a scream by cutting off his breath. He looked up, knowing some gruesome creature had found him. But there was nothing, only his shaking hands, and he stiffened his muscles to make them stop.

  Be brave. Be brave. Be brave.

  He remembered something his mother had read to him from a story about Joshua: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, because God is always with you. Something like that.

  “God, are you there?” he whispered. “Make me strong and courageous.” He closed his eyes again, releasing another tear. “Make me be okay. Make Dad be okay. And Mom. And Gheronda and Father Leo and Father Jerome and . . .”

  Footsteps were coming down the stairs. Tyler held his breath and stared out through the leaves. No one appeared, and the footsteps echoed away.

  “Dad?” he said quietly, then louder: “Dad?”

  He squeezed farther back into the corner and adjusted the branches in front of him. His stomach hurt, and his heart was pounding so hard he was sure it would burst out of his chest. He rested the branches against his legs and pressed his palm over his breastbone. Pa-dump, pa-dump, pa-dump.

  All he wanted was to be back in the apartment with Mom and Dad, all of them cuddled up on the couch, reading something cool like Diary of a Wimpy Kid . . . actually, he’d settle for anything, even one of those boring books Mom liked.

  God, please, I’ ll even do the dishes. Just get me out here. Make everything okay, make it—

  He heard his name . . . thought he did. Had Mom just called him? His breathing was too loud in his ears. He forced his lungs to stop, and listened. Footsteps, all over the place, running, echoing. Then: “Tyler!” It was Mom! But not close by . . . he’d heard it many times before: she was calling from the walkway in front of their apartment.

  Someone yelled back. Dad, had to be, but the voice was quieter and Tyler couldn’t make out the words. Did he want him too?

  He tossed the branches aside and sprang up. He took two running steps toward the stairs, kicking up the stuff in his utility case—loud as a siren—and stopped. Stupid, stupid! Last birthday, Grandma Marilyn and Grandpa Tony had bought him sneakers with lights in the soles that flashed when they hit the ground. He’d never worn them, because how could you sneak around in the dark with lights marking your every step? But he’d never considered how unsneaky his utility case was. Around the monastery—uncovering its secrets and spying on monks—he’d always crept. He’d never thought about running quietly.

  He worked the belt buckle, but it was a “friction style,” Dad called it, with a post that tightened the belt against the back of the buckle. He liked it because they’d found it in an army surplus store—a real army belt—but he could never get it undone. After a few seconds of frustrated tugging, Tyler decided walking quietly at least got him moving, and he padded up the steps, past the shoes and socks he and Dad had left behind.

  [ 39 ]

  Following their plan, Phin had scrambled through the smoldering hole where the monastery’s gates stood thirty seconds before and hooked right into the compound. He’d seen Nevaeh’s invisible body float through the plumes of dust and smoke, like a bubble in champagne, beelining into the heart of the monastery. Ben would be moving left, all three of them pushing back toward the rear of the mini-city in search
of their prey.

  Phin ran on light feet, his right hand at his hip, ready to whip his sword from the suit’s thigh pocket. He felt for the MP3 player in his pocket and cranked up the volume. A symphony of percussion instruments—chief among them kettle drums and an insistent, rhythmic gong—slammed his eardrums at a rate of 200 beats per minute. His heart raced to catch up, feeling as though it possibly could. As often as he’d done this—hunted, killed—it never lost its high. The smell of blood helped. True, what he’d told the others, that its odor instilled fear and panic in those whose nostrils it reached, but more so it excited him as it did any wild beast: an olfactory cue to become stealthy, agile, ruthless.

  He took a big whiff, disappointed that the mask caused his breath to dilute the fragrance, and sprinted past the Well of Moses toward the northwest wall. That would take him past the guest quarters, into a tunnel, and right to the big structure along the rear wall that the monks called the Southwest Range Building. Toby had reported that Creed had entered the structure through an emergency door, and it was there that he expected to find his prey. The building was large, with numerous rooms, and housed many of the monks, who were now in protection mode.

  Phin had turned between the wall and the corner of a building when a light washed over him from behind. A monk wielding a heavy walking stick was standing in the doorway of a small homey structure. He pulled the door shut and rushed toward Phin, who had his sword half out before remembering that the monk could not see him. He released the blade and pushed back against the wall.

  As the monk approached, Phin saw that the “walking stick” was in fact a shotgun. Of course they would be armed; protecting the likes of Creed was their sworn duty, and that aside, the brotherhood here hadn’t survived sixteen centuries by merely throwing prayers at their attackers. Over the years, they’d been known to pour boiling oil over enemies at the gate, conduct sophisticated bow-and-arrow defenses, and even sneak outside to kidnap the kings of besieging armies. They adhered to a doctrine in which God expected ferocity of body as well as gentleness of spirit. The time for beating swords into ploughshares had not yet arrived; these monks—and Phin too—believed the era would be ushered in by the godly, and without the occasional use of the sword, the godly would be Abel to the rest of the world’s Cain.

  Bobbing up and down on the balls of his feet, he pushed a button through the suit, stopping the music, and prepared to spring. He’d shove the monk face-first into the wall and find out where they were keeping Creed. Didn’t matter that the man would surely resist divulging the location; Phin knew techniques involving eye sockets, genitals, and the brittle joints of fingers that coud pry information from the tightest lips.

  Someone yelled, snapping his attention away from the monk. A woman was standing on the third-floor terrace of the guest quarters, leaning over the railing.

  Phin let the monk hurry past him.

  “Tyler!” the woman yelled again. She was closer than Phin to the Southwest Range Building. If she came down to ground level, he’d have to pass her.

  Someone responded in a loud whisper: “No . . . Beth, shhh!”

  Phin followed the woman’s gaze and saw a man on the roof of a building across from her. He was patting the air with one hand, signaling her to be quiet. Other voices sprang up around the compound, queries and commands, but they didn’t seem to bother the guy. He said, “Tyler’s safe. Don’t call him. Go back inside until I come.”

  “But—” the woman started.

  “Beth! Please!”

  Listen to him, Beth, Phin thought. You don’t want to be out here.

  She looked around and slowly moved into the building behind her. The light from her room disappeared with the click of a door. The man waited a few seconds, then turned and vanished.

  Phin ran to catch up to the monk.

  [ 40 ]

  Tyler paused on a landing halfway up to the rooftops. Continuing up would take him the way he and Dad had come, which meant passing the apartment and doubling back through the center of the compound. Instead, he took a different flight of steps down into an alley. It was dark, but he knew the route home: straight to the back corner of the compound, where the Southwest Range Building met the building that housed the guest quarters. Their apartment and the stairs leading to it were at the opposite end of this building. A tunnel ran its length; the left side was lined with the doors to the first-floor rooms. It opened up into a small courtyard, where he’d also find the stairs leading to their third-level apartment.

  As he moved through the black alley, running his hand along one wall, he forced himself to think not of the sharp yells and pounding feet or the explosion and whatever had come into the monastery, but only of the way home: Straight to the three-way intersection . . . turn right into the tunnel . . . courtyard . . . stairs . . . home . . . Mom.

  Directly ahead, the intersection glowed dimly. He pictured the source of the light: after about ten feet or so, the tunnel to the left ended in a door to a monk’s cell. Beside the door was a narrow, curtained window—curtained, he knew, because he had tried to peer in many times. The light must be coming from the window.

  Footsteps echoed out of the tunnel, growing louder. Tyler stopped and pushed himself against the wall. A figure flashed past, heading for the room. Bushy beard, wild hair, black habit—one of the monks. He continued forward and was about to call out when something stopped him: a flickering shadow that was not quite a shadow; it sparkled, just a few pinpricks of bright light, there and gone. He squinted but saw nothing other than the heavily mortared wall of the tunnel.

  A rap sounded—a code upon the door: a single knock, three fast ones, two more.

  Bolts rattled and the door creaked open, spilling bright light into the intersection. Still, no more shadows, no more sparkles. Then, as the closing door pinched off the light, something glistened. Tyler gasped as a sword appeared, growing long and floating in midair at the center of the intersection. Above it, two eyes were glaring at him, and he slapped both hands over his mouth just in time to catch his scream.

  [ 41 ]

  Phin stared at the kid, mostly obscured by shadow, but obviously terrified. He chuckled quietly, and the boy’s eyes grew even larger. He waved his sword, shooing the kid away. The boy backed up, taking two steps before tripping and sitting down hard, causing something to rattle, as though his butt were made out of Legos.

  Phin almost laughed again, but dancing shadows drew his attention to the window, where a face was pressed against the glass. Phin closed his eyes and slowly twisted the sword so its thin edge faced the viewer. When he looked again, only swaying curtains moved behind the window.

  And the boy was still sitting in the alley. “Go away,” Phin whispered. “The monsters are out tonight.” The kid began pushing himself back, crabbing farther into darkness.

  Phin turned toward the door. He had made a quick calculation that the odds favored finding Creed by following the monk instead of torturing him for information. The guy had a gun: where else would he be heading other than to the location of the man he was attempting to protect?

  Phin walked to the window but couldn’t see beyond the curtains. Faint shadows moved within. Monks’ cells were tiny, barely enough room for a bed and small dresser. He guessed that if Creed was inside, there would be no more than two, three others.

  It didn’t concern him that no one stood guard outside; that would be like hanging out a neon He’s in here! sign. If they were to keep an external watch, he suspected it would be from afar: the alley where the boy was or the tunnel entrances. But Phin was invisible and he’d been fast, faster than the monks would have been getting to their posts.

  He stepped in front of the door and kicked it hard. It rattled against its bolts, but didn’t open. He ducked away, crouching under the window. One of the monks inside opened fire: a blast blew a head-sized hole through the center of the door, spraying splinters into the tunnel. A second later the window blew out. Glass and bits of curtain sailed over Phin’
s head. The glass played a chaotic, chimelike rhythm against the tunnel’s walls and stone floor.

  Phin hopped up and kicked the door again. It crashed open, and he was in. Through a haze of smoke he quickly assessed the situation. The monk directly in front of him was busy breaking the shotgun open and fumbling to extract the spent shells. On his right, another monk was pressed into the corner, near the window. He was waving a revolver at the destroyed door like a frocked Harry Callahan, looking for something to shoot. His mouth was open and his eyelids beat like butterfly wings, probably stunned by his brother blasting out the window he was so near.

  Creed sat on the bed, his back up against the wall, his own handgun leveled at the door.

  Phin tossed his sword into the far corner beside the shotgun-toting monk and dropped to the floor. Dirty Harry fired two quick rounds at the sword, causing his brother to flinch away and lose a handful of shotgun shells. Creed did as Phin had expected: he began firing, panning the gun from one side of the room to the other, returning it to chest level after each recoil. He would know his attackers could be invisible.