Scavenger of Souls (17 page)

“Nessa,” I said, but she was no longer listening.

She told me that after Asunder's victory over his father's forces, his tactics had changed: rather than appearing at the compound himself, he started sending emissaries to stir up trouble. A few of Udain's people were convinced by these preachers to join Asunder—though those were the ones, Udain later discovered, who ended up sacrificed as warnings to the rest. But in some ways the missionary runs were worse
than the full-scale assaults, because the people who showed up at camp sometimes posed as refugees from Athan, and that made it hard for Udain to keep them at bay. Finally he got the idea to use his son's technology to cage the Skaldi, and he decreed that anyone from outside would be fed to it. For years there'd been no more attacks, and Udain thought his son might finally have called a truce. Then, a half year ago, the missionary runs started again.

“It was right around the time you keep talking about. The time”—she nodded at me—“you had your first date with the Skaldi.”

“You think there's a connection?”

“The timing fits,” she said. “Just when you join Laman's colony, Athan starts recruiting again. Maybe he learned his big brother was a daddy too, and was getting ready to pluck some fruit from him.”

“Laman's son died,” I said. “His name was Matay. He would have been your cousin.”

“Most of my life is would-have-been,” she sighed. “But I guess I'm not alone.”

“No,” I said.

And then, finally, I told her about my mother. Aleka. Who, if my numbers were right, had been pregnant with me the day Athan's device devoured the desert, killing Mercy's mother and sister, driving its creator insane.

We sat silent for a long time. Mercy stared at nothing, her lips moving occasionally without making a sound. In
the buzzing quiet I tried to total my own list of would-have-beens. I quickly lost count.

“And so you think—what?” she said at last. “That the explosion turned you into some kind of mutant killing machine?”

“I think its power went into me, yes,” I said. “It's the only thing that explains why the Skaldi can't touch me. When they try, it calls out the power of the beam. Except the reaction's so strong it doesn't just paralyze them—it burns. I think the one in the cage must have pulled even more power than usual, and that's why it ignited.”

She stared at me intently, as if she could spot mutation in my eyes. Then she laughed, but her laugh carried a manic edge. “Oh, man, this is too much. Here I am, plotting revenge with the original human glow stick. But it doesn't really help us get into that canyon, does it? Your remarkable powers only work against Skaldi.”

“But Asunder
is
Skaldi,” I said. “Or at least, the product of Skaldi. Don't you see, Mercy? The memory loss is the key. Right before he used the staff on me, he said something about fleeing into the desert and wrestling with a demon. He must have meant the Skaldi. Somehow, the creature that stole his memory fifteen years ago must still be living off his body. Using him to make others forget too. Through the power of his staff.”

“The staff,” she said, and I could see in her eyes that she was trying to believe me but not really succeeding.

“The staff,” I repeated. “It's a bone, right? Could it be from someone the Skaldi killed?”

“Skaldi don't leave bones.”

“I know.” I struggled to think what it could be. When the staff touched me, I saw a child's arms being torn from its body. But I couldn't tell who it was, or how it had happened. What could have given a dead piece of bone that kind of power?

“It doesn't matter,” I said finally, only half convinced by my own words. “All that matters is that I can help you fight him. On his home turf. He won't—he shouldn't be able to kill me. If I can focus the energy against him, he'll be powerless. And then you and Udain—”

She shook her head forcefully. “I'm not dragging Grandpa into this. He'd never believe me in the first place. If we go, we go alone.”

“Two of us. Against his whole colony.”

“I thought you were the one who was so confident,” she said. “Look, it's not like Udain has a bunch of commandoes at his disposal. You think Geller's going to take a spear for you? And a small force stands a better chance of sneaking into the canyon anyway. The only thing we were lacking before was firepower. Which we now have, thanks to you.” When I still hesitated, she went on. “You want that floozy and those kids back, right? And I want my father—”

“Dead.”

“My father
is
dead,” she hissed. “He took everything
from me. Not only Beryl and my mom, but Ardan, too. The least I can do is try to save the only brother I have left.”

I weighed her offer. I didn't like our chances. Mercy was good at what she did, I knew that. Give her the right opportunity, and she'd be the one who turned into some kind of killing machine. But she was also unstable, someone I couldn't trust not to go rogue at the wrong moment. I didn't like the idea of leaving Aleka and the others behind. I didn't know enough about Asunder's powers to be sure we could overcome them. And I didn't know enough about my own power to be sure I could call on it when I needed it. Everything
seemed
to fit, but I'd been wrong before. If I was wrong this time . . .

I didn't know what would happen. I only knew what would happen if I did nothing. The thought of Nessa giving birth to one of Asunder's carbon-copy children clinched it. I held out my hand, and this time Mercy gripped it and shook firmly.

“That's that, then,” she said. “Better go recharge your blood-beam. Tonight, we blow this popsicle stand.”

Blowing this popsicle stand, I discovered, was easier said than done. And not only because I had no clue what a popsicle stand was.

I'd been right that Udain's camp was a prison. But I hadn't realized how right I was. Not only was the front—and only—gate locked and guarded around the clock, but everyone
in the compound, with the possible exception of its commander, had a tracking device implanted under the skin of their upper arm. Mercy rolled up her left sleeve and showed me the place on her biceps, a bump and a scar. “Another of Athan's brilliant inventions,” she said. “It itches.” The tracking device, like everything else in the compound, connected to the control cuff around Udain's wrist, and it sent a distress signal after it passed beyond a certain range. Mercy wasn't sure what the range was—apparently her grandfather could adjust it depending on whim or circumstances—but it was certainly less than the distance it would take us to cross the impact zone and enter Asunder's canyon. The signals of those he'd stolen away had beeped frantically at first but long since fallen dead.

Still, if it had been Mercy leaving by herself, she probably could have managed it without much fuss. Udain tolerated her random comings and goings, her moods, her need for space. In fact, the way she told it, he'd been more than willing to let her expand her self-directed patrols of the impact zone. Geller would give her a hard time just to tick her off, but even he wouldn't bat an eye if she decided to take a midnight stroll into the stone desert. By the time Udain realized her tracker had gone AWOL, she'd be past the point of no return.

With me, though, our chances of escape dropped to near zero. I wasn't tagged—Mercy checked to make sure Doctor Siva hadn't performed the surgery after my adventure with
the caged Skaldi—but I was still a marked man. When I was alone, all the guards watched me. When I was with Mercy, all the guards pretended not to watch me—which meant they were watching me even closer. Whatever Udain wanted with me, and Mercy swore she didn't know what it was, there was no way they'd let me out of camp, no matter what whopper she came up with. Short of taking on the twenty or so guards with her single weapon—the same weapon they were armed with—I couldn't figure out how we were going to break through the compound's defenses.

“What about the car?” I asked, nodding at the strange vehicle parked by her grandpa's headquarters.

“The moon buggy?” she snorted. “It goes about two miles an hour. I heard we used to have a hot-rod version, but someone took it for a joy ride out into the desert. But never fear”—and she smiled wickedly—“I have a plan.”

We waited until Udain retired for the night, then marched to the power station. With the spotlights that came on at dusk and the constant glow of the beam, the compound seemed even brighter than during the day. Stealth wasn't a concern, though. The generator, Mercy explained, doubled as a charging station for their weapons, walkie-talkies, and anything else that ran off the beam, which meant pretty much everything. The guards were accustomed to people stopping by throughout the day and night, so our presence wouldn't attract a crowd. And what she had in mind would take no longer than a routine recharging, so we'd be well
clear of the station before anyone realized what she'd done.

At the moment, anyway, we had the run of the place. The guards, as she'd anticipated, gave her no more than a bored nod as we came within sight. They did their usual bad job of pretending to ignore me, but I figured I was safe so long as I acted like I was just along for the ride. Now that I'd gotten used to the hum of the beam, the place felt almost eerily quiet. More to break the silence than to hear the answer, I whispered the first question that came to mind.

“What is the power source?”

“Something Athan synthesized,” she answered, not whispering. Her voice sounded unnaturally loud in the stillness of the night. “It's one of the things Grandpa's really closemouthed about. Like he's got this idea of patenting it,” she cackled.

“Patenting?”

“Never mind.”

The power of the generator vibrated through the heavy soles of my boots. My whole body quivered to its pulse. The thought that something similar might be lurking inside me—in my blood, my bones, my brain—gave me a sick, clammy feeling. Whatever Athan's energy source was, unleashing it had destroyed the land in a twenty-mile radius from the point of impact. If that same power lay inside me, did it make me what Mercy said I was—a mutant killing machine?

“You sure this will work?” I asked, unable to keep myself from whispering.

“Udain taught me the codes,” she replied. “In case anything happens to him.”

“He trusts you?”

“Trust has nothing to do with it,” she said. “You saw the tracker in my arm. But the man's pushing ninety.”

She sidled up to the power station, where one of the ever-present keypads rested in the wall. The guards eyed her lazily before turning away. This keypad was far more complex than the others: it bristled with unnumbered buttons, as if whoever had designed it—Athan—wanted the codes to be not only unbreakable but unreadable. A single green light flashed in the center, a sign I took to mean either “safe” or “ready.” But as I watched Mercy's finger fly over the keypad, I couldn't help thinking of that light as a blinking eye, couldn't help wondering if Udain was sitting in front of the protograph screen in his headquarters, monitoring his granddaughter as she sabotaged his compound's power source.

If he was, the first thing he heard was her swearing. “What the—?”

She punched the code again, stabbing the buttons swiftly but firmly. The green light continued to blink. The guards turned their attention back to her. Mercy regarded them for a second before spinning and striding away from the generator.

“I should have known,” she said. “Goddamn it, the old man never misses a trick.”

“What's wrong?”

“Grandpa switched the codes,” she said. “If I enter one more error in the front gate's shut-down sequence, the system's wired to sound an alarm.” She was already halfway to the gate.

“How often does he switch the codes?” I said, catching up to her.

“All the damn time,” she said. “But never without telling me.”

She kept up her march, her strides rapid and jittery. No alarm sounded, no guards appeared. But I had the feeling that dozens of protograph lenses had been planted everywhere around the compound, in the corners of buildings, on the fence posts, on top of the observation tower, all of them targeted at us. I also had the feeling that Mercy had come too far to let this hitch in the plan slow her down.

I was right. “Get ready to run,” she muttered as the gate rose into view. Her rifle remained strapped to her back, but she'd removed a pistol from its holster and started punching the miniature keys on its handle as she walked.

“Is this a good idea?” I tried.

“You got a better one?”

But then she stopped. We'd drawn level with the cage, the black scorch mark standing out in the brightness like a pool of dried blood. Mercy shook her pistol, furiously punched the buttons again, then drew her arm back as if to throw her weapon at the bars. “God
damn
it!” she shouted. She spun to take in the compound, her eyes snapping from
building to building. Maybe she'd felt the same presence of silent, spying eyes that I had.