Captives (28 page)

She began to rise two hours before her shift, drilling ceaselessly with her bow, sparring with bamboo swords with anyone willing to join her. When her work was done, she went to the tavern for dinner and a beer, then left to wander the empty streets north of town. She knew what she'd do if she ran into either of the men who'd been with Doug, the one who'd killed Kolton. If Mauser had caught her out on these unassigned patrols, she'd have told him she was foraging.

A week after her return, from her perch in the hills, she spotted the woman. Dark-haired, pretty, but with a cold turn to her mouth. She descended the trail but kept her distance until the woman was past the tavern.

"Hey there!" Mia called. "Lorna?"

The woman turned. Recognition glimmered in her brown eyes. "Can I help you?"

"I just wanted to thank you for helping me find Walt."

"You found him?"

"Sure did." Mia stopped ten feet from her. "Both of them."

Something shifted in Lorna's expression, but she kept it under control. "Both?"

"The first one was a faker. Trading on the name in exchange for power and sex. But if I hadn't found the impostor, I might not have been here to find the
real
one."

This time, the woman couldn't hide the fear flickering around her eyes. "Did you kill him?"

"I was seconds away. More than once. Until he led me to the truth." The sun poured down on them both. "So here's the question. Should I be thankful that your lies turned up answers anyway? Or angry that you tried to use me to settle your old scores?"

"He's a bad man," Lorna said. "He lies. Cheats. He'll do anything to get what he wants from you."

She moved her hand to the butt of her pistol. "That's not what I asked."

"You were never going to find your brother. Not after so much time. It's better to believe a lie than to have nothing but questions."

"You don't get to make that decision anymore." Mia drew the gun.

Lorna's eyes shifted to the tip of its square mouth. "You work with them now, these people? You're one of their soldiers?"

"These are your last words?"

The woman looked her in the eye. "I know your enemies."

Heat washed over Mia's body. "What are you talking about?"

"The Dead Stars. The men from the north."

"What about them?"

The woman shook her head. "I'll only speak to the sheriff."

Mia laughed. "You think this is a negotiation?"

"I think if I tell you, you'll shoot me anyway. So bring me to the sheriff. Or shoot me—knowing that when this place falls, the blood is on your hands."

She clenched her teeth so hard her jaw creaked. "Hands on your head. Walk ten feet in front of me. If you turn around, if you
sneeze
, I will spread those conniving brains across the sidewalk."

Lorna smiled and did as she was told. Mia marched her around the back streets, coming to the Seat from the rear. Mauser wasn't in. She took Lorna to the fountain and spread word that it was vital she see him. The people gathered there spread out at a jog. Within minutes, a young girl returned with an annoyed-looking Mauser.

"Look at this," Mauser said. He raised an eyebrow at Mia. "Traditionally, the cat deposits its prey on the doorstep, to be found at its master's convenience."

"She's got something on our northern troubles." Mia put away her gun. "She'll only speak to you."

"My goodness. As wise as she is pretty?" He winked at Lorna, then shifted his gaze back to Mia. "Stick around."

He beckoned two soldiers to join him, then led Lorna away. Mia sat on the cool stone bench and stared blankly at the fountain. Most likely, Lorna was playing her. Seizing on whatever she could think of to deflect the bullet coming for her head. That was probably why the woman was so mad at Walt: he reminded her too much of herself.

Well, she was Mauser's to deal with now. Truth or lies, it didn't matter. Lorna was about to apply a spark and Mia couldn't wait for the fire.

An hour later, Mauser returned to the fountain, walking slowly, as if he needed more time to think. On previous encounters involving trouble and strife, his face had toggled between two expressions: cat-like annoyance (when that strife involved him) and impish, perverse delight (when it loomed over someone else). Now, he wore a third look: sober concern.

"That was… interesting," he said. "Thank you for bringing her in."

Mia stood. "What'd she have for you?"

He started to answer, then shook his head. "State secret."

"She said this was about the Dead Stars. Does she know their next move?"

"I'm serious, Thom. I can't say."

"Why not? I'm the one who delivered her."

"And who are you, exactly?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure what you mean."

The look of feline annoyance stole across his face. "Know what, I don't have the patience to play Socrates. Answer: you're a grunt. And I'm the brass. In your no doubt vast experience in the armed forces, have you ever found that the brass was in the habit of sharing security secrets with the grunts?"

"I've never been in an army."

"Color me shocked. Would you like to hazard a guess?"

She glared at him. "Sounds like guessing would be above my pay grade."

"Now you're talking like a grunt!" He looked beyond pleased with himself. "If it's any consolation, you won't be in the dark for long."

"It isn't. Consolation." She folded her arms. "What are you doing with the woman?"

"Lorna? Tricky situation. On the one hand, she was withholding vital information regarding the future of the Place. By one definition, that would qualify as treason."

"On the other hand, if she's useful to you now, she might be useful to you in the future."

Mauser nodded significantly. "When you're handed authority over others—responsibility
for
others—there's a temptation to become high and mighty. After all, you must be someone pretty special, to be entrusted with such power. Surely it's a sign that you know what's best for all."

He was leading her, but she would have cut straight to the answer anyway. "But the truth is you're just another man."

"Precisely. One who would rather get things done and be seen as scum than mess things up while being hailed as a paragon." He stared at the fountain, then changed his expression as quickly as a TV channel. "What do you know about her, anyway?"

"Little to nothing. I've only spoken to her once before today." She caught the look in his eye and straightened her spine. "Wait. No. She's dangerous, Mauser."

"Dangerous like a cobra? Or like eating too much cake before going cliff diving?"

She was gearing up to deliver a scathing comment about men when she remembered that she was one. "These men killed Kolton. When you look at her, remember that."

"Now there's a boner-slayer for you," he winced. "Good work today."

She wanted this to be true, yet her accomplishment changed nothing. The afternoon remained before her, an arid void. In the morning, she watched the Dunemarket, but there was nothing to watch. Time hung over her like the night sky. If she concentrated on her feet, she could forget it was there. But if she glanced up for one moment, there it was, so sprawling and deep that she could barely stand to exist beneath it. At times, it felt like the world was screaming at her. Two hundred voices competing to shout down all the others. At others, it felt like she'd been deafened; everything came through in muddy, distorted tones; while everyone else received instructions about who to be and how to live, she heard nothing but underwater mumbles and French horn warbles.

She thought about resuming her old news-gathering habits to kill the time, but she could no longer stand to hear their stories. They were all the same. Dreams they couldn't admit would never come true.

And then the orders came: it was time to march.

Party of nine. Herself, Mauser, four men, three women. Other than Jensen, whose gray hair contrasted his deep brown skin, she and Mauser were the oldest of the bunch. She didn't know if the age of their recruits was a conscious practice or if Raina's youth drew in her cohort while acting as a deterrent to anyone over thirty. Whatever the case, the median age of her troops was about twenty-one.

Not that she believed this made them less effective. It was a young person's world. Less able to see the risks of what they undertook. As they headed out, they crossed the streets to the freeway carrying the conviction that, whatever came next, they would return intact and unharmed.

Mauser led them across the docks and the harbors to the north-south freeway that ran parallel to the Los Angeles River, a concrete channel splitting Long Beach down the middle. Near its mouth, water filled it from one side to the other, a shallow span some four hundred feet across. As they made their way north, sticking to the narrow path between the river and the freeway, protected by shrubs on one side and refineries on the other, the waters contracted, leaving the sloped concrete green with algae.

Ahead, another highway spanned the river, arched to allow the passage of small boats. Beneath it, four people toiled at the water's edge, using pedal-powered cranks to pass water into a giant metal tub. From this, hoses flowed to a half dozen kegs. Mia hadn't been to this place before, but she recognized the kegs: two were stationed at each end of the Dunemarket, replaced regularly by a team of horses. The area's primary water supply.

Mauser gestured for the others to stay put, then diverted to the embankment to speak to the water-gatherers. They gestured south, toward the ocean, then north, inland to the parts of L.A. you never used to hear mentioned outside of West Coast rap songs. Mauser nodded, rubbed his mouth, returned to the group. They continued along the disintegrating road. A mile and a half later, they passed through a cloverleaf onramp and stopped on the other side.

Mauser got out a metal canteen and took a long swig. "This river's without doubt the ugliest I've ever seen. You know that when they channeled it, they killed all the native fish? The only stuff in there now is the shit that outgrew its aquarium."

"Eats like anything else," Henna said. She was eighteen or nineteen, her hair cut close on the sides, longer on top. She wore a lightweight gray serape that left her arms free to move, presumably to make best use of the twin short swords on her hips.

"It drinks fine, too. Without it, we might not be fucked and pregnant, per se, but we wouldn't be looking forward to an Ivy League future, either." He rested his hand on the hilt of his sword, a thin blade Mia only saw him wear when he was out on official sheriff business. He'd left his red uniform at home today, however. "A few days ago, something came through the grapevine. What you might call a plausible threat. Our job is to follow up on that threat, determine if there's any weight behind it, and, if so, to neutralize it."

"What kind of threat?" Henna said. "Skunk shitting in the water?"

"No." Mauser waited for the chuckles to die down. Kids would laugh at anything. "Though that might wind up an apt metaphor. I'm sure you've heard about the new group up north?"

Several of them nodded. Jensen spat. "Ones who murdered Kolton."

"As far as we know, yes. Well, they might be dipping a toe in our river, too."

Anger creased their young faces. Henna rested her elbow on the grip of her sword. "If we find them?"

"If they threaten our water, they threaten all of us," Mauser said, a new edge to his voice. "They've already taken one of our people. The moon's growing thin. Time to prove we can feed it."

He sent Henna and one of the boys ahead to scout, Henna from the other side of the river. The landscape remained the same. Grim strips of park along the river. Industrial grime next to that, then the highway, ground-level, with empty shops across it. It didn't seem to Mia to be worth fighting for.

Then again, maybe the Place wasn't, either. She had few ties to any of it. With Raymond behind her, she mostly felt like a ghost, wandering the world long after she'd ceased living. For half a second, she believed she
was
dead, that she'd died in the bombing and that this was nothing more than the fevered dream of her brain in the instant that it died—or that there was a hell after all—and then she stepped over a crumpled can of Budweiser so sun-faded she only recognized it from the shape of its logo. Seeing that—the yellow weeds grown around it, the dirt around its rim, the dead cricket caught in the spider webs crossing its mouth—the delusion left her. This was real. This was real, and so was she.

So was the Place. Despite everything, there was something about it that stirred welcome feelings in her. If nothing else, this trip marked the opportunity to die.

The highway unfurled. Henna and the boy jogged back every hour to report in to Mauser. The danger of a trip like this was that you could get hypnotized by the sameness, caught devastatingly off guard once something finally emerged from it. But the others stayed alert beyond their years.

Past Rosecrans and a gigantic tangle of onramps and exits, the river to their right narrowed again, tightening to a blue band down the center of the concrete channel. The next time Henna returned, there was a new fire in her eye. She spoke with Mauser, then remained with the group.

"Silence from here on out," he murmured. "Teeth out."

The others drew guns and bows. Mia had a pistol, but selected her bow instead. The party advanced along the river. Within a quarter mile, she finally heard something besides the caw of crows and the chiding of crickets: the semi-rhythmic, careless whack of hammers on nails. It was muffled, though, flattened, as if the heads had been wrapped in cloth. Steps rustled the weeds. The group stopped, weapons in hand. The scout whistled softly, then emerged from a dense line of shrubby palms whose leaves were as long as a man's arm. He took them away from the river and they crawled down the corrugated cement wall enclosing the highway. Once they were across it, he brought them through a shopping mall and up a stairwell to the roof.

Mauser gestured everyone down. They army-crawled to the roof's edge. It offered a vista of the ugly land beyond—the highway, the river, the glum buildings across it. Another bridge connected the two sides. Beneath it, men labored in shadows, securing boards to the dam they'd drawn across the concrete bed.