Dust City

by Robert Paul Weston

  “They’re gonna send me back to St. Remus.”

  Fiona lowers her voice. “Maybe you should go. Let them finish with you.” She shakes her head. “How does running away help? Look what happened to Roy.”

  My throat tightens up. “W-what happened to Roy?” As if I don’t know.

  “They found him a couple nights ago. In Dockside. He’d been left in a gutter, under a pile of trash.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “He was nearly dead.”

  “Nearly?”

  “They have him in the hospital now, pumping him full of dust. But it’s not enough. They can’t wake him up.”

  The cops are out on the street now, trying to surround the thunderstorm of two grappling titans. All of them are armed with rifles, and they are taking aim. David’s heel kicks a parked car and sends it scudding across the street (and there goes the local pool hall).

  “Fire!”

  The police let loose. Tranquilizer darts loaded with sedative dust thwip through the air and pop-pop-pop into the giants’ bodies. Each one explodes on impact, barbs hooking into the skin and puffing out clouds of riot-grade fairydust.

  The creature prods its snout curiously into the cloud. David, meanwhile, is startled. He fans his huge hands, trying to escape the fog of dust. But escape is impossible. The dust knows what—and who—it’s for. David screams as the cloud swarms inside him.

  Almost instantly, the giants’ feet falter and their knees buckle. A moment later, the two of them are slumped on the asphalt, dead to the world and snoring in a bruised and bloody heap.

  “You should go,” Fiona tells me, “but I’m gonna stay. In case David wakes up. He’s not so good at explaining himself.”

  “Okay,” I tell her. I reach out to squeeze her paw. “Thank you.”

  She laughs. “Don’t worry about it. I doubt it’ll be the last time I have to save your butt.”

  I drop to all fours and scamper off into the trees. I follow them along the wall and come out near one of the cemetery’s less conspicuous exits. Before heading any farther, I consult the map. I’m hoping to find another entrance to the refinery, one that will take me in behind the wall where the nixiedust is made. If Dad is right, then somewhere back there I’ll find—

  “Hello, Henry.”

  I close the map and crumple it into my pocket. Standing at point-blank range behind me is Detective White. She’s got her weapon drawn, leveled squarely at my chest.

  “Relax,” she says. “I probably won’t shoot you, but just in case you’re wondering, this isn’t loaded with tranquilizers.” She waves her gun in the air. “I’ve always preferred real bullets.”

  28

  THE WAY THINGS ARE

  WHITE NODS AT THE POCKET WHERE I STUFFED THE MAP. “CARTOGRAPHY,” she says. “It’s good to have a hobby.”

  I raise my paws to show her I mean no harm. “Listen,” I say, “you have to let me go.”

  She laughs. “Why would I have to do that?”

  “Because I know where the fairies are.”

  Her face goes grim. “You shouldn’t joke about that.”

  “Who’s joking?”

  “You are. Obviously.”

  “I’m telling the truth.”

  “No, kid, you might think you’re telling the truth, but you’re not. Nobody knows where the fairies went. They’re just gone. I oughta know. I was on the squad assigned to find them and bring them back. Only we didn’t find squat. Eden was a ghost town.” She spits on the pavement. “They’re gone. It’s just the way things are.”

  “What about that thing back there—that thing that came out of the ground?”

  “What about it?”

  “You ever seen anything like that before?”

  She shrugs. “No.”

  “That’s my point. Maybe sometimes ‘the way things are’ isn’t the way they are at all.”

  She raises the gun until it’s level with my snout. “Enough philosophizing. You’ll make me forget I’m still ticked off about how you gave me the slip last time around. So be a good little pup and do as I say. Sit, roll over, and play dead. It’ll make things easier.”

  “But don’t you—”

  “Do it.”

  A shadow flashes between the trees and springs out of the hedges.

  White manages to mutter something like “Wha—?” before she’s bowled over by Fiona. The gun goes skittering up the path and into the bushes. Fiona snarls and struggles to pin White to the ground. “Told you,” she says to me through gritted teeth, “I’d have to . . . save your butt . . . again.”

  But White’s as slippery as they come. She’s fast, too. Every motion has the practiced calm of a martial art. All Fiona can do is hope to outweigh her. Unfortunately, as I’ve already seen, a weight advantage isn’t much use against Detective White.

  She slips out of Fiona’s grip, spins low to the ground, and sweeps her leg into the back of Fiona’s knees. Fiona falls flat on her face, while White flips to her feet without any effort at all. She spends an instant roving the path with her eyes. When she can’t spot her weapon, she hunches into a grappler’s stance. Her pale hands, still spotted with scabs of countless brawls, curl into fists.

  “Two against one,” she says. “That’s okay. Try seven against one sometime. That’s more my speed.”

  My own eyes go to the bush where the gun skittered away. I don’t think White saw where—

  Fast as lightning, she’s on me, throwing punches and kicks that seem to come ten at a time. She snatches one of my fingers and chicken-wings me just like she did Gunther, shoving me to my knees. Then, suddenly, she eases off. She steps back with her head cocked to the side.

  “You’re not very good at resisting arrest, are you?”

  “I’ve never had to before.”

  “The least you could do is make it interesting.” She shrugs. “Aw, never mind. I’ve wasted enough time on you already.” She approaches casually, as if it doesn’t matter what I do. That makes me mad. I rise up to my full height and rotate my big, thick skull, smoothing out the kinks. Fiona rises up, too, a pair of big bad wolves against one puny hominid.

  White smiles. “Now that’s more like it.” She rushes me, but this time I’ve steeled myself, and I block as many of her blows as I can. A few still hit their mark, but she’s got to contend with Fiona now, as well. Only White’s ready for her. She seems to get better—swifter, more accurate—when she’s in an unfair fight.

  She chops me one in the throat that sends me coughing and reeling backward, and then deals Fiona a backhanded punch followed by a leaping kick to the ribs. Fiona goes tumbling into the bushes, which makes me even angrier.

  White lunges for me and lands a heel on my thigh muscle. The promise of a bruise resonates all the way into my gut. But she has taught me a thing or two in this fight, namely, diversion and speed (in that order), so I fake with one paw and lash out with the other. She’s fast, but my knuckles catch the curve of her chin.

  She staggers, dazed and shaking some sense back into her head. I can’t help regretting what I just did: punched a woman half my size square in the face. But in a second she’s steadied herself and is regarding me with something that looks a lot like admiration. Cherry-red blood trickles from her cherry-red lips. She doesn’t bother dabbing it away. “Nice one,” she says. “Nobody’s hit me that hard in weeks.” She smiles, spreading her lips so the flow widens and dribbles from her chin. “Maybe I misjudged you. Maybe you’re more like your father than I thought. Maybe someplace deep down, you really do have that killer instinct.”

  I roar at her, and for the first time, I see real fear in the eyes of the infamously hard-bitten Detective White.

  Then there’s a gunshot.

  It’s Fiona. She’s standing in the bushes, White’s gun cocked straight up at Eden.

  White looks her up and down. “I know you,” she says. “Or rather, I know your brother.” She nods thoughtfully. “How’s he making out, by the way?”

  Fiona
points the gun at White. “Where’re your handcuffs?”

  The detective narrows her eyes. “In here.” She points to a pocket. “Why don’t you come and get them?”

  Fiona shakes her head. “Get them yourself. But first, throw me the keys.”

  Reluctantly, White does as she’s told.

  “Good. Now cuff yourself to the fence.”

  White doesn’t move.

  Fiona takes a step forward. “I’m not kidding,” she growls. “Do it.”

  White takes out a pair of hefty cuffs and stands by the fence. “I hope you know you’re about to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble.”

  Fiona smiles. “Guess it runs in the family.”

  “Evidently,” says White. She looks at me. “A lot of that going around lately.”

  “Hurry up, Detective.”

  White locks one wrist to the fence.

  “Thank you.” Fiona’s clearly pleased with herself. “I’m going to leave your gun here in the bushes. You can get it later, okay?”

  “I’m gonna get you later is what I’m gonna do.” White looks to me next. “You, too, Whelp.”

  I do my best to ignore this comment. Instead, I turn to Fiona. “Why are you helping me like this? You’re just making trouble for yourself.”

  Fiona shrugs. “You said you knew where the fairies are. If anyone can help Roy, if anyone can wake him up, it’s them.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know they never really granted wishes for animalia before, but if we saved them—you and me, a pair of wolves—they’d have to, right?”

  “A pair?”

  “Wherever you’re going next, I’m coming with you.”

  29

  A BAD DESTINY

  WE’RE STANDING ON A BRINE-RUSTED PLATFORM OVERLOOKING THE reservoir. Across the street is the flophouse and the underground refinery. There’s a high wind off the reservoir and the water’s choppy. Tankers full of fairydust look like toys, bobbing gently in a vast concrete bath.

  On the way here, I explained everything I know to Fiona, namely, my father’s theory about the perversion of old-time magic and the enslavement of the fairies. She seemed as skeptical as I was, but she’s still here, which means she’s as hopeful as I am, too.

  The platform we’re standing on is two floors below street level and, according to the map, opens onto a tunnel that will lead us to the refinery’s forbidden rooms. On the paper, it’s red—one of the tunnels we aren’t supposed to use. I can only hope there’s not another giant chimerical beast lurking inside.

  “You sure you wanna come with me?”

  Fiona takes my forepaw in hers. I can feel the hair on the back of her fingers. Not coarse like mine. It’s like silk. “Of course I’m sure. I want my brother back, and besides—” She holds up her camera. “We’ll need pictures, right?”

  Thankfully, the tunnel is empty. At the far end, we climb a ladder that leads up to a hatch similar to the one Matt used when he first introduced me to the tunnels. I push it open slowly.

  Silence.

  The hatch opens onto a large, empty room. This place has the somber austerity of a library—and the shelves to match. Aisle after aisle of them. But instead of books, these shelves are packed with fairydust, glimmering in buckets and packaged into bricks like the one Tom and I delivered. It’s more dust than I’ve ever seen in one place, but there’s nothing unusual about that. The nixies are dealers and smugglers. This sort of room—little more than a fortified stash house—is exactly what you’d expect to find behind closed doors.

  “Is this it?” Fiona whispers. “Maybe you should check your map again.”

  “It’s the right place.” I can see the conveyors entering the room over our heads. Looking up, we see that second-story scaffolding rims the walls. Every ten feet or so, there are doorways.

  “Up there, maybe,” I say, pointing at them. “In those rooms.”

  Just as we’re about to climb the stairs, our ears prick up. We hear a click. Silently, I lead Fiona behind the shelves to hide. We watch through the gaps between them as one of the doors opens. It’s Skinner. He’s talking to someone.

  “—as fast as we can,” he’s saying. “Isn’t that right, Pa?”

  Skinner stands aside and ushers out the person he’s addressing. It’s Pa Nixie. I can’t believe it. Few folks have ever laid eyes on him (and have lived to tell about it, that is). But I recognize him from the handful of grainy photos they’ve been printing in newspapers all my life. I can feel the image of his rubbery mass branding itself into my brain. Fiona snatches my paw and squeezes it.

  “Yes,” says Pa. His lower fins shuffle over the floor, carrying his great blubber with careless effort. He casts a glance over one sloping shoulder, back into the room. “We’re still on schedule for, uh—how shall I put this? Market saturation.” He’s speaking to someone else who’s still in the room. My insides flip when I see who it is.

  The Nimbus Brothers, Karl and Ludwig, CEOs of Nimbus Thaumaturgical. They come strolling out as if they belong here, in this dingy place. I’ve only ever seen their faces blown up on billboards or plastered across the sides of streetcars. There’s something eerie about seeing them in real life.

  Karl, the younger and thinner of the two, looks at his brother, grinning happily. “Total market saturation,” he says.

  “Indeed,” says Ludwig.

  Skinner shuts the door and the four of them move to the staircase that swoops to the floor. They’re coming down.

  “You’re certain the new strain has no effect on hominids?” asks Pa.

  Karl nods. “Elves, dwarves, you nixies, all of us up in Eden, even those insufferable goblins. We isolated a common gene. There aren’t many, but we found one. I can assure you both this is an enchantment for animalia alone.”

  “Excellent,” says Pa.

  They’ve reached the bottom of the steps. They’re about to move directly in front of us. Skinner grins like a carnivorous plant. “I trust we can count on the fairies to provide enough to go around, yes?”

  Ludwig nods. “As you well know, the fairies have been very good to my brother and me over the years.”

  “Indeed,” says Karl. He and his brother glance up at the rooms above. “Very cooperative!”

  All four of them laugh.

  Now it’s my turn to squeeze Fiona’s paw. She looks at me in wide-eyed silence. My father was right. It’s even worse than he suspected. Skinner, the nixies, Nimbus Thaumaturgical. They’re all working together. They’re planning something.

  “Won’t be long now,” says Skinner. He unlocks the door to the rest of the refinery and leads them out.

  We wait and listen to the door being locked. Once the clicks have died away fully, Fiona nuzzles into me. “So it’s all true,” she says.

  As much as I like the idea of having her in my arms, I push her away. I can’t forget where we are. Or why.

  “C’mon.” I take her by the paw and lead her up the stairs. An image of Faelynn flashes into my head. Her lithe arms. Her delicate wings. She could be up there right now. What will she look like, after all this time? What will I say to her?

  We choose the same door we saw Skinner and the others use. It’s locked.

  “Of course it is!” I whisper harshly. I step backward to the railing. “I think I can knock it down.”

  Fiona stops me. “They’ll hear you.” Her eyes search the scaffold. “Look for some loose metal. I can pick any lock.”

  “You can?”

  She smiles at me. “You’re forgetting who my brother is. He taught me years ago. It was kind of a game we played when we were kids.” She crouches down, running her paws over the metal. “I need something long and thin. Preferably two.”

  “What about these?” I fish into my pocket and come out with two rods of gold, the one I found in Doc’s office and the one Skinner gave me at the race.

  Fiona takes them from me, staring. “Are these gold?”

  “It’s a long story.”

 
“Never worked with gold before, but I’ll try.” She slides in the chewed ends, marred with imprints of Skinner’s teeth. Her face loses all expression as she feels her way. Then a thin smile grows on her face. “Got it,” she says. She twists the rods simultaneously and the lock spins, shifting the dead bolt.

  “Let me just say,” I tell her, “I am so glad I brought you with me.”

  “I’m glad I came.” She passes the stalks back to me and I pocket them both.

  I don’t know what I’m expecting to find in here. A fairy prison? A sweatshop full of enchanted creatures? An army of dull eyes and clipped wings? Whatever I’m expecting, it’s not this.

  Fiona has opened the door onto nothing more than another room full of fairydust shelves and arcane refinery equipment. In the center is a large, stainless steel table, something you’d expect to find in a thaumaturgical laboratory. Suspended above the table is a bright white lamp, glaring down on a single object.

  “Is that a branch of deadwood?”

  “Looks like it,” I whisper.

  “So where are all the fairies?”

  “I don’t know.” I reach out and touch the branch that’s lying there, gnarled and twisted. I run the pads of my fingers over the hard white surface.

  “Henry,” Fiona whispers. “I found something.”

  She’s over in the corner near a door. It’s hidden on the far side of a cabinet and it’s not locked. As soon as she opens it, we’re hit with a terrible stench. It smells like—like—well, there’s no other way to put it. It smells like shit, a whole room of it. For some reason, the smell frightens me more than anything else I’ve ever sniffed. There are noises, too. Frightening, unintelligible grunts. Fiona goes in first and I follow, keeping a firm grip on her shoulders.

  “Oh my God,” she whispers.

  The room is full of cages. But there are no fairies. Behind every set of bars, there’s a—wolf? Maybe that’s what you’d call them, but none of these are like me or Fiona or any other wolf I know. These things are primitive beasts. Naked, mindless animals. These are primordial creatures, the animals you only see on the posters in Mrs. L’s biology class, posters used to teach us about evolution and our primitive ancestry.