Karra scarcely blinked as she did as she was told. In fact, her eyes had not once flickered in either indecision or fear. Unsettling eyes, Chi’ara thought, trying not to break her gaze. She would be glad when the Security arrived.
Just then the front door swung open.
"Hello, all.” Jem’s sudden arrival gave Karra her one vital second as Chi’ara’s attention now turned toward him. He grinned as his sister leaped across the few prems of space and struck the Nevian in the stomach, a well-placed jab with extended fingers. He loved to see her in action.
The pistol flew, landing two steps away from Carlon. Lela crouched, immobile on the couch, crying. Chi’ara crumpled. Carlon lunged at the pistol the same instant the heel of Karra's open hand caught the underside of Chi’ara’s jaw, slamming her backward to the floor. The next split second, Carlon closed his hand around the butt of the gun to bring it around.
But during those two seconds, Jem had not remained stationary either. He brought his foot down on Carlon's hand, crunching his knuckles, his own gun touching his brother's temple.
"Naughty, naughty, Carlon," the younger one mocked, nearly laughing. "So the rumors I've heard about you are true. You've kissed up to them so much, one can't tell your face from Other sass." Jem released the hand, but retrieved the pistol.
Carlon backed away slowly, moving toward Chi’ara who curled on the floor, gasping for breath. As he placed a protective arm across her shoulders, he kept a wary eye on his brother. "Can you breathe?" he whispered.
She nodded, but she still could not speak, Jem noted in satisfaction. The witch deserved this, he thought. Karra, had she wanted to, could have crushed her larynx with a harder blow.
By now, Karra had re-strapped the knife to her thigh. "Go into the kitchen with Aunt Su," she said to Chalatta, and waited for her daughter to get out of earshot before she spoke again.
"You're lucky that Chalatta didn't get hurt in any of this,” Karra said to Carlon between clenched teeth. “If I ever see either of you again, you'd better pray I'm unarmed. If my daughter hadn't been here, neither of you would have walked away."
Jem could almost feel the black energy of her anger. The family had never seen this side of her before.
"Have you met our guest of honor, Jem?" she asked. "This is Chi’ara Kees Sol. You should recognize the name. If her father is V’anel, he’s the head of the investigative committee most active against the Homelander Front, accountable only to High Commissioner A’nden."
"Mistress Kees Sol." Jem made a perfect Nevian bow. "I noticed a few Security aircars headed here. Your input, or your father's? Regardless, I'm afraid we can't stay for dinner as planned." Karra had already moved out of his peripheral range, he guessed toward the kitchen where she had sent her daughter. Like himself, she would make as hasty an exit as possible. He wondered if she would live through this one.
"Karra," he called as he opened the front door and began backing out. "The answer is 'yes.'"
"Thanks, Jem. So is my answer," she called back, her words muffled by the kitchen door.
He shut the front door behind him, but slipped into the next apartment. Renting it and supplying it with a recorder had turned out to be an excellent idea. He had heard everything.
Once in the kitchen, Karra stopped, planning to hug Chalatta, but Suzin stood between them, her face flushed with anger. "You handled that far too well. 'One knife cut, no prints,' they told me. You knew what you were doing then, just like you did in my living room. I doubt very seriously if the Chief Administrator of Education was your first murder. Don't come back, not even for a visit. You're not welcome here."
Karra shrugged indifference, a lie. Su's opinion mattered, but her daughter's mattered even more, and right now she wanted to assure her…
Of what? What can I say after all this? "I love you, baby."
Tears ran down Chalatta’s cheeks.
"Mama!" Karra heard as she left the kitchen, slipping her gun in the hollow of her back. The cry cut her like a knife.
Chapter 11
Security! Halt!" A loudspeaker blared as she flung open the door to the fire escape.
The mounted guns of a Security aircar faced her dead on. Still in motion, afraid to stop, she swung over the rail of the platform. The guns, slower, followed her movement and fired just as she thrust herself feet first through the empty window frame of the floor below. Brick exploded near her head as she disappeared inside. She raced through the apartment to the front "door" (it had been missing for years), down six flights of stairs to another empty apartment.
Grateful for the shield of nighttime, Karra slipped back onto the fire escape and eased her way down the stairs until she crouched right over two Security Watch men guarding the rear exit. In one fluid movement, she dropped onto them. Jabbing her fists outward, she knocked the surprised guards to the ground, hoping to gain a lead before the guards regained their footing.
But the whir from the aircar above told her its guns homed in on their target. No time left. She sprinted away.
Just ahead, in a narrow space between two buildings, she saw some ground-level windows. One, she knew, led to a basement hallway that offered a way through the building to another alley, but to open the window, she needed to stop, forcing her to become a still target.
Lights from the aircar edged into the space. Bullets would soon follow. Karra paused to feel for the window with her booted foot. No time to consider locks. She kicked the window savagely as a shower of bullets began to rain around her. She dove through the window just as a bullet tore through her upper arm. Ragged chunks of building and debris tore at her skin and clothes as the bullets blasted the building around her. Shards of glass from the destroyed window ripped through her clothing and dug into her skin. She felt something make a deep gouge along her back. But as she landed, rolling on the rock floor of the basement, her arm screamed the loudest in pain.
She bit back a cry. Get through this alive! she ordered her body when it lay gasping.
But something was also wrong with her right leg. She glanced down. A dagger of glass winked back at her, its shaft embedded in her thigh just below her knife sheath.
"I think we've got her," a voice from above called to others. "I see blood."
"Good. Cover the other side of this building—"
Karra forced herself to stand. She drew her gun and scrabbled for the door to the outside, opening it. A guard's shadow rounded the corner of the building at the same time. She fired her pistol at the figure behind the shadow, knocking him backwards. The bullets she used would not penetrate Security body armor, but she now had one important, precious moment.
By the time the officer managed to steady his aim, Karra had melted into the night, taking a direction away from her destination. She knew they would eventually follow her blood trail, but by the time they knew which way she had taken, she hoped to long gone from this neighborhood.
More than anything, she wanted to find a hole somewhere and wait this out. She needed to find people not swayed by the reward, and the only ones who came to mind lived on the other side of the city, meaning she needed to take the airway system.
The walk to the closest airway usually took an hour. Although she had no way to know the exact time, she knew with her injuries the walk would take longer. Maybe they would follow her blood trail and anticipate her direction.
It did not surprise her that the airway portal closest to home—the one she used to reach school and Carlon used for work—was guarded. That meant she needed to try for the next one, another hour's walk away when she was healthy. With the knife of glass in her thigh making each step difficult, she might not make it at all. If she removed it, her leg would probably bleed as freely as her arm. She preferred being in a safer place where she could lie down and bind the wound before she removed the dagger of glass. Still, she needed to distance herself from the search if possible.
Wrapping her hand in her shirttail, she grasped the shard and pulled, teeth clenched to keep from s
creaming. Her body broke out in a cold sweat. Her knees buckled as she gave a last yank on the glass. She crouched, panting, fighting waves of dizziness. Once the lightheadedness passed, she tore a length from the hem of her shirt and tied it around her thigh, hoping to staunch the flow of blood. Lots of blood, she noticed, but no arterial spurt. Good.
Eventually she pulled herself back to her feet to begin the long walk to the next airway. But even with the glass gone, each step required more and more energy. Walking became a dream where the paths kept getting longer and the destination kept pushing itself into the distance.
She saw the airway's glow before she spied the actual portal. But right in front of it she saw the black figures of guards. Their helmets glinted in the airway’s light. She leaned against the wall of the building beside her. In the morning the headlines would read: "Administrator of Education’s Murderer Found Dead in Area Alley."
Loud music vibrated the wall of the building she had chosen. She recognized the style. Sometimes this band played at Peeti's.
The music stopped. They're taking a break, she realized. She supposed she ought to use her friendship with the musicians to her advantage someway.
"Hey, baby," a man called as he rounded the corner.
She said nothing. Her hand felt for the pistol at her back. "Area Hero Captures Administrator of Education’s Murderer," the new headline in her mind read. Puzzled, the man walked toward her. "Baby? Somethin' wrong?"
Curious as to why he would care, she stared back at him. Her hand clenched the gun butt. She eased it from the hollow of her back and slipped it in the pocket of her thickweave trousers.
"Fancy!"
"Leahl?" The drummer. She had met him last year at Peeti's. Of all of them, he had been sensitive. A rarity.
Leahl studied her in characteristic compassion. Last year his concern had been amusing. Last year he had wanted to buy her out of the business. She had fought laughing at him then, considering she rarely used her yellow certificate anymore. Now, nothing was funny.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Security trouble," she said, nodding at the guards around the airway.
He examined her bloody shirtsleeve. "How bad’re you hurt?"
She shrugged with one shoulder. "I think pretty bad," she told him. "Gotta get outa here," she added, hoping he was still nice.
Beyond thinking, she drew his emotions toward her. You love me, she told him in that place where he felt. He would never hear her words, but he would feel the emotion. You want to help me.
"There's a place…" He glanced at the airway doubtfully. "But them guards…" His eyes returned to her. "Stay here."
Several minutes later a crowd of party-makers left the bar, ambling toward the Security guards at the airway entrance. Boisterous laughter flooded the streets. She tried to focus on them, wondering what they were doing, but they kept fading in and out to the rhythm of her pain.
She heard a voice laugh at her discomfort in waves of sickly red. All at once remembrance of the hallucinations from Walliz’s office struck her with terror. She glanced around her, fully expecting to see her father assassinated again, or some other horror.
"Fancy," she heard. Someone grabbed her uninjured arm.
Karra pulled her gun and swung it toward the voice.
Leahl backed away. "Put that away,” he hissed. “You wanta get outa here?"
You'll die tonight, the voice that was not Leahl’s taunted.
"What?" she asked the voice, surprised that she heard it so clearly.
“Look," Leahl was saying. "I'll get you inside and press the right coordinates. All you need to do is walk straight ahead. And pocket that thing, or you’ll be going for lockaway instead. Got it?"
Karra returned the gun to her pocket and allowed Leahl to pull her through the crowd. Leahl wanted her safe. She could trust him. But that other voice…
Around her, people laughed and pushed at the distracted Security guards. "One at a time," a guard kept saying. "One at a time. No one boards the airway without proper ID. Proper ID!" But no one listened. A shot blasted through the air overhead to discourage the crowd. Karra reached for her pistol.
"Not now," Leahl growled, stopping her arm. Without ceremony, he shoved her into the entrance with one hand while the other tapped the code. "Walk straight ahead," he told her as the membrane contracted.
The airway bubble carried her away.
When it stopped and the membrane opened, she fell into the street. Walk straight ahead, she repeated, unsure which direction was straight. They all seemed to curve. She struggled to her feet, noticing that passersby glanced away quickly. Few were willing to associate themselves with the trouble her condition presented. She headed for the nearest shadow before she thought to walk straight again. In the distance ahead of her was a two-story building. She lurched forward.
The rest of the structures were homes, single houses, dual dwellings, quads, all with gardens around them, and far fewer people than in her neighborhood. It was hard to believe such a place existed in the Area: individual homes without people nearly elbow to elbow.
Maybe her sister bought her produce from one of those gardens. Is that what you did, Su? she asked, pleased to find Su and Chalatta walking next to her.
Walk straight ahead, Su told her sagely.
Karra glanced ahead and noticed she had veered off course. She headed back towards the building. As she stumbled along, Su disappeared. Karra gave a mental shrug. Throughout most of her life members of her family crossed her path for short periods of time, leave their influence, and then abandon her to her own devices. Karra was a loner, they said. No one had hugged her or held her in a very long time. Maybe she no longer needed hugs.
Except from Chalatta, she realized the next moment, pleased to see that her daughter had not disappeared with Su.
Chalatta differed from the rest. The baby needs my attention, she would tell herself when it became difficult to be kind and giving.
Walk straight ahead, Chalatta told her, grabbing her hand.
A tangle of thick brush grew straight ahead, right before the wall of the building. Somehow she had missed the front door.
Curling up under a bush would do nicely. She nearly decided to bury herself in the nest of leaves between the wall and the brush.
Administrator of Education’s Murderer Found Frozen Under Bush, the unknown voice said, laughing at her in news headline.
"No!" she told it aloud. She pushed through the branches and felt along the wall. Surely there was another door to this place. Her body trembled with fatigue. She clutched at a branch to steady herself and tried to lock her wavering knees, but they turned to butter and let her slip to the ground. The little in her stomach came up, pushing a wave of unconsciousness toward her. She forced herself to stand on her wobbly legs and continued to creep along the wall.
There was a door on this side after all, she discovered. Had she not found the latch, she would have missed it altogether. The door was flush with the wall and had no identifying frame. She lifted the latch, expecting it to be locked. She found it unlocked, but it refused to push inward. Did it open the other way? No, her hand told her as it felt for hinges and found none.
Push, Chalatta said.
She rammed her shoulder against the door and sent a jarring wave of pain through the wounds in her arm and leg. The black edge of unconsciousness moved closer.
Again, Chalatta insisted.
Karra slammed at it again with her shoulder, and this time heard the clatter of boxes falling as the door moved inward. She fell among the boxes, half inside the door, and lost consciousness.
A peaceful cold embraced her, numbing, like death. But she didn’t care as long as Chalatta snuggled against her. There were so many things she had wanted to do with her daughter. She wanted to hear her stories of her friends, of school, plan excursions to art galleries and amusement parks in the Inner City. She planned to introduce Chalatta to fruity icy-balls, a summer treat only offered in one partic
ular park. She had wanted to teach her ice-skating and roller skimming, flatboarding and twine-cycling. I’ve made a mess of it, haven’t I?
You’ll be all right, she thought she heard Chalatta say, but it sounded more like an adult speaking. This is a safe place, the voice that was not quite Chalatta’s added.
Together they watched a cold sun open the night sky.
Shadows moved behind the sun.
Run, baby! she tried to scream.
But Chalatta had already vanished.
The shadows took her! Alarmed, Karra raised her hand to point her gun at the shadows, but her fist clutched air.
The shadows, murmuring among themselves, stole closer, keeping the sun in front of them.
Then Karra saw her gun. It lay at her side. She must have set it down to hold Chalatta. Her eyes on the figures behind the sun, she grasped the gun and raised it in line with the closest shadow.
"Put the gun away, child," a voice rasped. "No one will harm you here."
I will kill him, she promised, squeezing the trigger. I will kill him.
"Put the gun down, child," he repeated, almost in a monotone.
"I will kill you," she whispered.
"You are safe here," the voice continued in the monotone, hypnotizing the hand, lowering it.
"Very good," the man encouraged. "You do not want to hurt anyone.”
“I do,” she said. I want to kill them all, she told the hand, which was nearly to the floor again.
“Now release your fingers, child.”
Surprised, she felt her fingers relax, and the gun fell from her grasp. Don’t touch me, she wanted to warn him. Don’t touch… Don’t…
But he plucked the pistol from her unclenched fingers while murmuring assurances that washed against her resistance. Her eyes began to close.
“She is hurt, Megan,” he continued as he backed behind the sun again.
The sun bent closer, and the figure holding it let out a cry of exclamation. “By the Maker! Look at all that blood!”
Her Darkest Beauty: An Alien Invasion Series - The Second Generation Page 11
