As she sat, she spilled coffee on her hand and wiped it on her jeans. She sipped the coffee, but it was so bitter she had to resist spitting it back into the cup. Group coffee was always terrible, but it was so much worse when Mateo made it, as he had today. Mateo was one of those ex-soldiers who insisted coffee needed to be strong enough to strip carbon from a rifle's bolt carrier. Sugar would have helped, but it had been months since anyone had seen sugar in Sanwa City. Some brave soul was going to have to mount a supply run to the ruins of Los Angeles one of these days. If they didn't get eaten by Ferals or supernatural beasts, they'd make a fortune. She sipped her coffee again, forcing herself not to make a face. There had always been sugar in the Bunker—and powdered creamer as well—but those supplies were for Home Guard soldiers, not civilians.
She sniffed. Civilians. Well, that was what she was, like it or not.
Mateo and a dozen others sat, the screeching of chair legs echoing about the room. They talked quietly among themselves, mostly men but a handful of women as well: some were ex-Home Guard soldiers like her and Mateo, others were assault victims, a battered wife; there were a pair of firefighters, even a hard-looking Horse Cop with mutton chops, pox scars, and an oft-broken nose. Angie watched the cop, not at all liking what she saw. Like most cops, he was a big man and must have weighed more than two hundred pounds, and it wasn't all fat; his forearms were slabs of muscle. He was still in uniform, his gut hanging over his gun belt. It wasn't very nice of her, but she immediately decided he had to be dirty to be so overweight. Probably shaking down the merchants.
The cop must have noticed her interest, because he paused in his conversation and stared at her. No, leered at her, a toothy smile on his shiny face, his gaze lingering on her chest and hips. There was nothing to see. She wore a loose zip-up sweatshirt over her T-shirt, and her jeans were hardly flattering, especially after a shift at the plant, but his eyes dropped to her crotch and stayed there. Jesus, she thought, glaring at him in disgust. Lick your lips next, asshole. She was about to say as much when the chair next to her groaned as Mateo sat. The cop turned away, resuming his conversation with the bearded man next to him, one of the firefighters.
She exhaled heavily, her anger subsiding, but she felt Mateo's eyes on her. "Angie," he said too softly for anyone but her to hear.
"I'm not doing anything," she answered curtly. "Just enjoying my coffee."
"Right," Mateo sniffed. "'Cause you're so calm and well-behaved."
The trace of a smile ghosted her lips. "These days."
Mateo was a small man, beginning to go soft in his middle years. He kept his hair in the same crew cut he’d had as a soldier when he had been a medic in the Home Guard. He had mustered out as a warrant officer but only after losing his left leg at the knee to an improvised trap set by the Ferals, a two-foot pit filled with punji sticks covered in feces. The wound had become infected, even after treatment with antibiotics. The leg had had to go, and with it Mateo's career. These days he worked the wall as a sentry. His prosthetic limb didn't stop him from standing for hours, even if it hurt like hell some nights. Besides, she knew that bum leg or not, he could still take out a Feral's nut sack with a scoped rifle at eight hundred yards. Not that the Ferals came that close to the city's walls anymore.
She sat back in her chair and crossed a leg over her knee. Her long hair was tied into a ponytail, and she wore a ball cap. She wasn't into this today. Her shift at the canning factory had been long, her feet hurt, and she wanted to go home and take a shower. Judging by the body odor in the room, hanging like a haze, she wasn't the only one who needed a shower. Augusts in the San Joaquin Valley were always miserable, with the temperature a near-constant 85 degrees, but this last summer had been worse than ever. Most days it was like living in a furnace. She had considered blowing off the meeting—they never helped—but when she had mustered out of the Home Guard, she had promised Marshal she'd go. Not that he'd ever know if she didn't, busy as he was these days running for president of the Commonwealth, but she didn't want to break her word. Besides, Mateo had promised to investigate something for her, something way more important than this meeting.
Leo, the group's leader, a gaunt, bearded man with glasses and kind eyes, cleared his throat as he took his seat. "Welcome, everyone. Some ground rules before we begin. First, this is a safe place. Everyone is free to express himself or herself without worry. No one is going to judge you. Second, be honest. It's only when we share the truth that we can find peace from our demons. Finally, first names only, and what gets shared in here stays in here." His gaze swept the faces of the others, who all nodded. Leo smiled. "Good, let's begin."
Demons. Leo had no idea how correctly that term applied to Angie, but she had banished the Other—or, rather, Char had. Her demon was gone.
The nightmares were still there, though.
They took turns sharing. For many, Angie included, nights were the worst, especially the late, dark hours when everyone felt the most alone. One of the women, Cindy, described her home invasion, the rape, and the constant fear the invader would return some day to kill her—even though the Horse Cops had caught the man and hanged him in Veteran's Square.
Kip, the thin, bearded firefighter, spoke of a warehouse fire and the dozens of charred corpses they’d found locked inside the basement hours after the fire had burned out. Someone had sneaked refugees into the city. That sort of thing, sneaking people over the wall, didn't happen as often now as it had during the Food Wars, but there were always a few dirty guards willing to look the other way for enough C-creds. Had they lived, the refugees would have been little more than slaves, the women ending up in brothels until they were worn out and discarded, a hellish existence but better than living in the wild, trying to avoid the Ferals' cook pots. Angie shivered. Like the rapist, the criminals running the warehouse had hanged.
The Horse Cop went next, speaking in a near-whisper of dead prostitutes, their stomachs cut open and their intestines wrapped about their corpses. Angie remembered the murders. When they had caught the killer a few months ago, he had raved like a madman, insisting the winged lizards demanded their sacrifice. He, too, had hanged in Veteran's Square.
There was a lot of that going around these days.
Peter, a small, gaunt man with long gray hair and haunted eyes, went next. He looked to be seventy but could have been forty for all Angie knew. His hands were hard, dirty, and callused, the hands of a man who worked the earth. Peter had been a laborer in one of the outlying farms that supplied food to Sanwa City. As he spoke, his hands shook, and she repressed a shudder. She already knew his story. Peter and a group of others had taken a dangerous chance, one they had paid too high a price for.
There had been an old grape field within a day's ride from their farm. A Home Guard patrol on horseback reported grapes still growing, the forgotten remnants of a crop planted long before the world fell apart. Peter and six other people, including his wife, took their weapons and a horse-drawn carriage and rode for the grapes. Nine times out of ten, they'd have harvested the crops and returned safe, heroes. Fresh grapes would have sold at record prices in Sanwa City or any other walled settlement within the Commonwealth of Cascadia.
This time, the Ferals found them first. The farmers had radioed in the attack, begging for help, but there was no way they could hold off the Ferals long enough. Peter, the only one who had managed to hide, watched from beneath a bush as the Ferals did ... did what Ferals do to the others, including his wife.
Angie said nothing as he told his tale, but she remembered it. She had organized the response, accompanying the Home Guard soldiers in one of the Shrike helicopters. By the time they’d arrived, less than an hour later, Peter had been the only living presence she could sense. All that remained of the others had been bones and blood.
"You brought the grapes back though, right?" the Horse Cop asked.
The silence was like thunder.
"I ... what?" The farmer stared at him, his eyes large. "No, of c
ourse—"
The cop snorted. "Shame. Coulda made wine." He looked about, a grin on his shiny face, but no one laughed. His smile faltered. "Oh, for fuck's sake. It's just a joke. Lighten up."
Peter's lips quivered, and he looked down, his face white.
"Are you really that dense?" Angie asked, her anger clouding her judgment. He was a big dude and a cop. But she remembered that day, remembered how the ground had glistened with blood. "How about you shut the hell up?"
His face darkened, and he stood, his chair falling over to clash against the floor. Shit, he was way bigger than she had first thought and towered over her. He jabbed a thick finger at her, his eyes filled with rage. "How about I take you downtown, honey, and shove my nightstick up your dainty little ass, turn you into a meat puppet?"
Angie stood, putting her weight on her back foot, her right hand drifting closer to the small of her back. She watched his shoulders, his hips, and his feet, looking for the tell that he was about to move. Her fingers moved closer to her spine, brushing under the sweatshirt. But then Mateo was between them, his hand held out to the cop. "Okay, okay. Let's all calm down. No one meant anything. Right, Angie?"
Mateo kept his eyes on her until she nodded, sitting back down again. "Yeah, right. No problem here," she said. If the cop did anything to her, Marshal would have his ass, but there was no way he could know that. But she needed to keep her anger in check. Besides, that “meat puppet” comment had been way too specific to be an empty threat.
The cop snorted but sat as well, folding his large arms over his chest, a satisfied sneer on his lips. Mateo sat, his gaze on Angie, and Leo cleared his throat, glancing nervously at the cop. "Remember, everyone. This is a safe circle. No judgement."
The cop rolled his eyes.
Leo bit his upper lip, his eyes going to Angie, and a knot of fear washed through her. She should have kept her mouth shut. Idiot! Never attract attention. "Angie, how about you? Share with us."
"I'm, uh... I'm good." She shook her head, her face heating with the attention now on her. She pulled her ball cap lower, trying to sink into her chair.
"It's been six months, Angie," Leo insisted gently but firmly. "It's your turn."
The others offered their encouragement. Mateo nudged her. "Go ahead," he whispered.
She sighed, exhaling heavily. She might have been part of this trust circle, but she felt surrounded by it just the same.
"Yeah, okay," she said softly, trying to put on a brave smile. She had promised Marshal she'd try. They watched her, especially the cop, but she focused on the scuffed floor between them, spoke to that instead. "So, hi, I'm Angie."
The all said hello, their encouragement ringing sincere.
"Up until six months ago, I was a captain in the Home Guard. I was a mage." She felt rather than saw the cop stiffen. Good, fuck you, she thought. Be afraid. "I was the unit intelligence officer, the S2. Before that, I lived and studied in the Fresno Fey Enclave."
"You're the Angel, aren't you?" the cop asked, a tremor of fear in his voice.
"Don't call me that!" she snapped, lifting her head to glare at him. "Not that."
He held out his palms to her, drawing back into his chair. "Sure. Sure. Didn't mean nothing by it, and I'm sorry about before. I'm on edge is all."
"Keep going, Angie," Leo said.
She inhaled deeply, looking down again. "I can't sleep. That's my problem. At least I can't sleep unless I'm exhausted, like in-a-coma exhausted. I'd drink myself to sleep, but I can't ... not without risking losing control over the magic—and if I do that, I'll die. So I'm falling apart, a little bit every day."
"Self-medication doesn't solve anything, anyway, Angie," Leo said. "If you want peace, you need to accept who you are, what was done to you ... what you've done. PTSD is a killer, even for mages."
"Yeah, well, I'm not much of a mage anyway. But I have other skills. I can find people who are hiding. That's why I was the S2. My job was to help plan the operations and to accompany the troops, usually in one of the Shrikes as an airborne magical sensor. That way I could vector in the combat mages and gunfighters to the compounds with life forms. It was supposed to be safe—"
"You know the Seagraves?" Cindy the housewife asked, a trace of hero worship in her voice.
Angie paused, smiling softly. Everyone always wanted to know about the Seagraves, the four brothers and one sister fighting in the Home Guard as Special Forces assaulters. The Seagraves were likely the best known—and most feared—family in the city. She nodded to Cindy. If nothing else, it took the attention from her. "Sure, I know them. Worked with them for years. Not well—no one who isn’t family really knows them well—but I like to think we were friends. Erin often flew in my Shrike as an airborne sniper. That girl can shoot, let me tell you."
"What was it like," another man asked, "serving with a family of werewolves?"
"They don't fight as werewolves. Actually, no one's ever even seen their werewolf forms. It's part of their agreement with Marshal. They go off on their own each month days before the full moon, taking to the wilderness. They look and act just like us. Well ... faster, stronger, with enhanced hearing and vision." She shook her head. "They never needed night-vision devices for night ops. They see perfectly in the dark."
"Angie," Leo said, his tone just a touch reproving.
"Right, so like I said, I was supposed to be out of the action. Safe..." Her voice trailed off, and once more she remembered the dream from last night, the smoke, the warning alarms in the aircraft as it spun, burning. Her heart rate quickened, as did her breathing, and she was there again, like it was yesterday. Sweat coated her skin, and she felt as though she were shrinking, as if she might disappear into the floor. "We hit a villa in the disputed southern region. It ... it wasn't ... safe at all. We thought the villa was a Nortie supply depot supporting the local insurgents, but it was a forward military base, well armed. Really well armed. They had anti-aircraft missiles." She chuckled, but it came out more like a sob, her throat dry. "Jesus, who has anti-aircraft missiles these days? There are damned few aircraft left at all. I'd blame bad intel, but I was the S2. Talk about poetic justice." She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears, which only made her angry. She couldn't afford to show weakness. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes, hating herself. "I'm ... I'm sorry. I'm done."
"That's fine, Angie," Leo said. "Next time."
"Goddamned Norties," someone said angrily.
"Well," Mateo said, "at least they're better than the Aztalans. Better to get shot down than have your heart cut out of you on an altar."
The meeting continued, but Angie barely heard a word. Her thoughts were consumed by memories of that day.
And the things she had done after she had been shot down.
After the meeting, Angie followed Mateo outside, where he smoked a cigarette in an alley that stank of urine and garbage. It was just after eight p.m., and the sun was dropping below the Tremblor Mountains to the west, casting shadows behind the corrugated steel wall that circled Sanwa City. It was still furnace hot and would be for hours yet. After that, it would only be oven hot.
The city was quiet. Most of the citizens went to bed early to save on the need for candles or kerosene, and those businesses that could afford it waited until later to turn on their generators. Even the kerosene streetlamps were still unlit. The densely packed-together buildings were almost entirely devoid of light. There was some movement on the streets. Children still played, and there were always stray animals. The odd dog or cat might be eaten by hungry civilians, but there was safety behind the walls. Since the Awakening eighteen years ago, even the animals had learned there were other things out in the wild that would do worse than eat you.
Mateo turned to watch when he saw her coming, his face sour. "Couldn't resist poking the bear, huh?"
"Poking the pig, you mean?" she said with a sly smile.
He snorted without a trace of a smile on his lips or a hint of amusement in his eyes. "Th
at kind of shit is going to get you in a lot of trouble one day, Angie. The kind of trouble the colonel isn't going to be able to help you with."
"Marshal's not a colonel anymore, he's first councilor of the city, probably end up as president of the entire Commonwealth in another year or two. Besides, he doesn't even know I'm alive."
"Keep deflecting, Captain. Keep deflecting."
"And I'm not a captain, either." She sighed, hands on her hips, as she watched the sun go down. She took the cigarette from Mateo's lips and took a drag. The smoke from the harsh homegrown tobacco scored at the inside of her throat, and she coughed as she handed the butt back. "Okay, you're right. I'm an idiot. It just kind of got away from me. I never did like bullies."
"Or assholes."
"Or assholes." She glanced sideways at Mateo, and they shared a smile.
The tension slipped, if only for a bit. She had always been more comfortable in the presence of soldiers like Mateo. Civilians confused her, especially other women with their dependence on men to look after them. A woman needed to ally herself with strong men in order to take care of herself, as she had done in the Home Guard with Nathan. She had been as much a soldier as he and the others were, accepted as an equal.
But that had been a lifetime ago.
They stood together in silence, Mateo smoking, Angie watching the sunset. Finally, he spoke first, as she knew he would when he was ready. "I don't know if this is a great idea, but he'll meet you tonight, his place."
"His place, the bar, right? Not his place, his place." No way she was meeting this guy without people around.
"Strip club, not bar. Actually, it’s more a whorehouse where the girls strip, but potatoes, po-tah-toes. You know the place, right?"
"Everybody knows Hurricane Joe's."
And they did. Not only did it have a working generator, but you could see its bright-red neon lights from just about anywhere in the city. And then there was its reputation... She had never gone inside, of course. There was no reason to—unless she wanted to lap dance for her C-creds, and no thank you, the canning factory was plenty enough unpleasant for her. "So, what do I do, just go in and ask to see him?"
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 3
