What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) (34 page)

I grope across the table and in front of my male fabricated companion is a portable stereo. I run my fingers along the top, pressing all the buttons until I’m able to switch the thing off.

Everything falls silent, hushed and still.

The hush brings me back to myself, to where I am, to what my options are. I’ve kept the food—the jerky, the broth—down but my stomach is still queasy and my head throbs dully. It’s hard to remain standing but I won’t allow myself to sink back down in the seat. I fumble for the plastic shell of the flashlight from the department store, click it on and off repeatedly, shake it so the batteries rattle but it’s dead.

You can’t see much of anything—one of them could be here, moving with no sound, standing right behind you.
I turn, do a three-sixty around the room but it’s just murk, shadows and gloom.
Outside, get outside. Don’t let yourself be trapped here. Do not become helpless.

I grab the rifle, stumble into the lobby and back out the double doors.

It’s the middle of the night, bitterly cold. The sky is clear now, stars visible, pools of moonlight allowing me to see distinctly the brick buildings, the shape of Blackwell Bridge rising over the river.

This street is nearly clear apart from a few piles of trash and a car or two. Not nearly as much debris as I’ve seen elsewhere. This was not an escape route. In the half-light I can detect no marks in the snow, no evidence that anyone was here.

But someone set that portable stereo on the table. Someone switched it on.

They’re toying with me. I’m a hamster in a giant cage, large hands reaching down from above to place obstacles and enticements in my way.

My throat is scratchy and it’s becoming hard to keep down the sick feeling in my gut. I curse myself for eating the food—but it was
so good
, felt so incredible as it was going down. If I can keep myself from heaving it up, it might give me a little strength.

I sink to my haunches. There’s a ridge of frozen snow around the base of a lamppost and I scratch into it with my fingernails, pry loose a few clumps and stuff them in my mouth. I chew the clumps like they’re hunks of bread, choke them down. I eat until my spine feels like it’s freezing, a spasm of intense cold rocketing up to the base of my skull. But the snow moistens my throat, settles my stomach a little.

Back on my feet, I gaze at the bridge again. I could cross, make the long trek back to the Orphanage.

But there’s a beat in the distance. I have to listen hard, unsure if it’s my imagination.

It’s not. There’s a breeze rattling a few branches, the cry of a seagull but that’s all. And then this roll, this persistent rhythm in an undercurrent so low I have to strain to hear it.

The drummers.
The ceremony
.

They’re expecting me. If I try to go anywhere but where the Riders want me to, they’ll simply round me up and herd me back. And, as Carson informed me, they want me in the square.

I have to face this. I have to see this through to the end.

I let the beat of the drums lead me. It grows louder as I thread through block after block, heading south, then west. I begin passing posh clothing stores and restaurants, imagining the well-dressed shoppers and diners who once browsed these burnt-out spaces—only shreds of high fashion apparel and broken crockery left now. There are the mangled frames of covered bus stops, the remains of relief stations set up in hotel lobbies.

Plodding over the snow’s crunchy surface, back between the city’s high-rises, it gets harder to see, less moonlight sifting down into these deep hollows. There’s more and more debris to dodge. It’s only now that it occurs to me that I could have taken the batteries from the portable stereo in the dance club and replaced those in the flashlight I found.

Trailing after the sound of the drummers makes me feel like a mouse in a maze—a maze of city streets crammed with refuse—following the odor of a piece of cheese.

Except it’s not a smell but a peculiar cacophony I’m after.

The farther I go, the more I’m aware of that screechy quaver from the Rider’s huge boombox. It starts out like the howl of a wounded animal but mutates into something unnatural, synthetic. It’s the same music I heard in the dance club raised to such a pitch the distortion becomes painful—a layer of screaming white noise.

As I edge past the burnt-out shell of a beauty spa, the noise is at the level of a house party coming from the far end of the block. As I reach an intersection and hurry across, it builds to something like a car idling at a stoplight with its radio blaring, subwoofers pounding.

I’m so close, almost there—

And I have no plan. Have no idea what I’ll do when I reach the square.

The only thing you can do—show up. Face them and find out what they want.

What a fool to think I could hunt down the Riders. That I could kill them in their sleep. That they would ever let themselves be so exposed, so vulnerable.

But then why,
why
did I get the rifle back? Is it a challenge? Is it to even the odds? The fact that I have hold of it again
has
to have a purpose. Has to be part of their plan.

Turning a final
corner, it’s the bonfire I see first. The bright pulse of light and heat are mesmerizing. The fire looks two stories tall and I wonder where the Elders found all the kindling to stack it with. To go from a black smudge in the snow at the square’s center to this flaming skyscraper in only a few hours is amazing. If only the Elders could do something constructive—try to build up a new world instead of burning the old one down.

The blaze casts an enormous crimson shimmer across the square. I see the Elders with their drums to one side and the Black Riders flitting in and out of the light. The Riders are lost in their crazed dancing, smashing into each other like slam dancers in a mosh pit. Torches they carry fall sizzling on the damp ground and are swiftly snatched up again. The sound from their boombox is so loud it’s hard to endure. Shrieking, pounding.

I make my way to a kiosk still intact at the edge of the square, using one of its narrow sides for protection. I try to assume a firing position—kneeling down with my left elbow balanced on my knee—but my legs are too weak to stay like that for long.

Maybe I can hold it steady while standing—feet apart, back straight.

I get to my feet and give that a try but something troubles me—
is it loaded?
I haven’t bothered to check. And of course it’s not. I was taking up a stance, all ready to squeeze off a shot—with an unloaded rifle.

I lean against an iron bike stand with the rifle in my lap, take a cartridge from my pocket and slide it into the breech. Even leaning back like this, I might have the necessary seconds to aim and shoot. Might actually be able to hit something even with all the movement, the unsteady light.

But I as stare into the middle of the action, at the chaotic jostling, the blur of shadows, the noise and confusion—it’s overwhelming. There’s no easy target. I can’t identify even one of the Riders, even one of the Elders. All of them look the same, interchangeable. If Emily is here, I have no way of knowing.

And something else begins to prick at my senses.

There’s a smell that the wood smoke and the burning pitch from the torches doesn’t obscure, one that the square is steeped in, that makes my stomach churn. At first I think it’s a compound scent from so many Black Riders massed together but then I realize it’s the odor of actual meat—bloody and raw, from a creature freshly slaughtered.

I peer into the space before the burning pyre and, visible in breaks between the spectral dancers, is the form of a large animal, a deer or an elk. Entrails are leaking from it, a pool of blood is widening out across the square’s brick surface.

As I stare I realize that the Riders are smeared with this blood—it’s wiped across their blanched faces, smeared over their pale white hands. They are more crazed than I’ve ever seen them—blood must affect them like alcohol.

Then the noise of the boombox is cut, abruptly enough to make me jump, just like it did the first time—when I was brought here in the cage. The phantom dancers stop dancing. The Elders hands lie still on the skin of their drums.

“Welcome, Gillian. Come join us.”

Moira’s voice, resounding over the square as if from the lip of a stage. Moira, the master of ceremonies.

Blood ceremonies.

Even in the midst of their deranged revelry, the Riders knew I was there, knew exactly where I had decided to wait, half-hidden by the kiosk. As I was sure they would.

Use the rifle while you have a chance.
Take one of them out. Just one before…

The Riders have pulled back from the rim of the bonfire. If I had chance to target one of them, I’ve lost it now. They’ve faded into the gloom at the fringe of the square, only the quavering glow of several torches to indicate where they might be.

I see the Elders setting aside their drums, rising to their feet, a group of five or six splitting off from the others and heading straight toward me. I get up, raise the rifle.

I hear Moira’s laughter. “Shoot them if you want. You’ll never get them all.”

The Elders come right up to me, not cowed in the least by the weapon I hold. Some look familiar but the only one I know by name is Carson. He has a hood pulled tight over his head, a determined look on his face—all business now, following the Rider’s commands, careful not to make a mistake.

Seeing him reminds me of Tetch back at the Orphanage, Aiden’s new caretaker. I have a brief flash of her hovering over him, trying to convince him of how much she tried to help him, of how she cared for him while he slept for so long. I wonder how much he’ll believe.

The Elders motion me to follow them and escort me, pressing in close but not attempting to grab hold of me, to drag me along like their prisoner. All of this must be orchestrated, rehearsed—they know exactly what to do. This time Moira isn’t forced to shout out her orders.

As we near the bonfire, I want to stop and bask in the heat of it. It’s melted off a huge circle of snow from the middle of the square—the bricks below my feet are wet and slushy.

I’m so entranced by the crackling flames that I’m only aware of the animal carcass when I set the sole of my boot down on something squishy. I pull back and my boot comes away sticky with blood. The shock of seeing the thing this close nearly makes me drop my rifle.

I’ve come across many dead animals before but never anything like this. It’s worse than if this antlered creature had been attacked by wolves. It’s been shredded by long nails, chunks of it scooped out like it was a ripe melon. Blood is smeared all over, tossed about, trails of it leading off into the shadows.

“Help yourself to our road kill,” one of the Riders jeers. “You won’t find meat any fresher.”

The smell of it slaps me in the face. The smell of death—iron hard and sickly sweet. The Elders have backed away, are staring at me, surprised that I could be so stupid as to stumble over such a big, bloody mess.

We move past the fire and I now have a clear view of the entire square. Torches held in sconces have been set out in a ring, casting deep puddled shadows. To one side of the half-circle of steps are the Elders’ drums and opposite are huddled Aisa, Milo and Bodie. They look like unwelcome guests at a party—no one to talk to, left alone in a corner.

And beyond the steps is the row of fragmented columns, rising one after another from a few feet to the height of a man. On one at the center of the row a body is laid—it can only be Gideon, looking like a supine Buddha—and beside this, perched on the top of another column a foot higher, is Needle. Like a high priest, he rests on robes and cushions. He wears a coat of sable fur that hangs past his knees.

Moira appears as if from nowhere, like she’s stepped from behind the folds of an invisible curtain, a small coterie of Riders flanking her on either side.

She’s arrayed in black jeans that are skin tight and suede leather boots that come up past her knees. She wears a long, black velour coat, cut very close around the waist. Her raven hair is swept up high above her forehead, twin corkscrew curls trailing over each cheek, accenting her dark rimmed eyes, her paler than pale skin.

And from one corner of her mouth is a small stain—the trace of a trickle of blood.

She looks straight at me, pulls back the sleeve covering her right forearm and holds out the soft white flesh of the underside of her wrist. She smiles like a hungry cat as if to say—girl, you
will
pay for this. Don’t think I will
ever
forget.

“Bring out the boy,” she says.

My handful of Elder escorts are still pressed close around me. Following Moira’s order, Carson and one other peel off, make a run for the far side of the square. From where they disappear to I soon hear the doors of a large vehicle slam.

They return dragging William between them. His wrists are in cuffs, his hands held out before him. He’s like a condemned man being led to the gallows, head bent, shoulders drooping, feet dragging. Carson and the other Elder leave him positioned directly in front of Needle’s throne.

Moira turns and looks back at Needle. She says nothing but I see them exchange a subtle nod.

Although he doesn’t speak, Needle must be guiding this ceremony, having gained the stature of a high spiritual authority by virtue of his connection to Gideon. Gideon’s motionless body is like the life-sized effigy of a god brought out for religious rites. Needle and I caused this—the hole in his skull my doing, Needle reaching into it with a long, narrow finger—

“Dreams,” Needle had said, stunned. “Unbelievable dreams. They flooded into me. From him.”

Gideon—dead or not dead, perhaps forever in limbo—now a conduit to a world of dreamscapes only Needle has been able to see.

“Get those cuffs off,” Moira says.

Carson digs into the pocket of his jeans and fishes out a tiny silver key. He holds it up proudly, as if to show how efficient he is, how the necessary key was not forgotten
this
time. He unlocks the cuffs that bind William’s hands.