Meridian Six Part 2

At the time, she'd been warning me to find one of the Sister of Crimson's convents before the Troika found me. But it had been too late for both of us back then. My mother died on her way to the Fortress for questioning, and I'd been captured before I'd stumbled tear-blinded and terrified from the burnt out sh.e.l.l of a building in Old New York.

In the seventeen years since that b.l.o.o.d.y night, my mother's face, her scent had blurred and disappeared from my memory. But not her voice.

I'd been raised by my mother's enemies. Trained to serve vampires. To be the model human. To spread the Troika's gospel of blood and glory. To be their wh.o.r.e.

Icarus raised his eyebrow in challenge when I hesitated on the threshold. I blew out a breath, placed the Chatelaine's good luck totem around my neck, and put one foot in front of the other. Dare closed the red door behind me. My heart hammered in time with the bolts slamming home.

Red means life.

Four.

Dawn. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen a sunrise. After years living among the vampires, I'd forgotten the sting to the corneas, the warmth on my face, the way sunlight made the world explode in a riot of color.

Streaks of pink and yellow slashed across the horizon. But closer to our small band, the colors were deep purples and blues. Branches arched like charred bones overhead. Occasionally a puff of white steam emerged from one of our yawning mouths.

I huddled into the threadbare cloak I'd been issued. The shoes the Chatelaine had given me the night before weren't so comfortable when tested by the rocks and crags of what remained of the old highway. Back in the day, the highway had been the main artery into the city, but now it was nothing more than rubble overgrown with thick vines and the carca.s.ses of dead trees.

This was our second day on the road. I'd spent the first day trying to keep my head down and listen to the hushed conversations of my companions. No one spoke to me, but they accepted my presence--almost like I was a dog they tolerated instead of a person.

That suited me just fine. Gave me time to think about what had happened and plan for what was coming. According to the stories Dare told Rabbit to keep him entertained, Saga was a legend among the rebels. In the before times, back when humans ran things, there had been these buildings called "libraries," which were filled with books people could borrow for free. Apparently Saga used to be in charge of one of these libraries.

Now he led an army of starving children.

"Yo, Six," Rabbit called.

I looked behind me to see him jogging to catch up with me. My steps slowed to accommodate him.

When he reached me, his breath puffed out in small clouds of white. A voice cleared nearby and I looked up to see Dare glaring at the boy for speaking to me. I ignored her and smiled at the kid.

"Is it true you're AB neg?"

I tripped over my feet as much from the shock as the thick vine that seemed to come out of nowhere. "Who told you that?"

Rabbit jerked his head toward Dare, who was suddenly very interested in her shoes.

"So what if I am?" I said, evading.

His dirty face morphed into mask of disbelief. "You're kidding, right? There's people give their right arm to be in that blood group."

And many had given their arms. Their heads and lives, too. The caste system set up by the Troika based on blood types had given humans an excuse to turn on each other in all sorts of horrible ways.

"No, Rabbit," I lied. "I'm not AB neg. The Troika made that up as part of their propaganda campaign." I wasn't lying out of some urge to be humble. I lied to save my life. Dare wasn't a Troika vamp, but I didn't trust anyone who craved blood with the knowledge that the rarest of all blood types flowed through my veins.

His face fell. "Well what are ya?"

I briefly considered saying something else, like O positive. No vampire would even think about helping themselves to my blood, then. But it also would have sent up warning bells. O positive people were the lowest of the low in the blood caste system. No doubt it would have marked me as untouchable, but it also would have raised questions since the Troika would never keep such a low-ranking human in such a public role.

"B positive," I said instead. Middle of the road. Neither coveted, nor disdained.

The kid screwed up his lips. "That's boring."

"Sorry." I shrugged. "So, is Icarus your dad or something?"

He shot me a look that said he doubted my intelligence.

I frowned at him. "Where's your family, then?"

"Mom and dad were rebels but died of the thirst when I was tiny. Dare found me and took me in." He turned and motioned at the p.r.i.c.kly vampire who stalked down the road like she was looking for a fight.

"How did you two end up with him?" Icarus wasn't around or I wouldn't have asked. He'd spent most of the last day walking ahead to make sure the path was clear, which was fine with me.

Rabbit looked around, like he was afraid of being overheard, too. "We found him a couple years ago. Just after he escaped a labor camp,"

My brows shot up. Most humans who weren't kept as pets by the Troika were divided into labor camps and blood camps, depending on their blood types.

As far as I knew, no one escaped the camps. Ever. Of course, I got all my information from the Troika, who wouldn't be too eager to share that humans were slipping past their security on a regular basis. Still, I a.s.sumed that if Rabbit was telling the truth, Icarus had managed a feat few other humans had managed.

The boy leaned in to share secrets. "That's why he's the way he is." The boy waved a small hand over his arm to indicate Icarus's wounds. "He fell from the wall and broke his arm in five places."

"How did he get the burns?" I asked, unable to resist my curiosity.

"Oh, that was different--"

"Enough talking," Dare snapped. "We need to keep an eye out for rovers."

Rabbit shot me an apologetic look and broke away to continue his patrol of the brush around the road. As the smallest of the group, it was easiest for him to roam in the high gra.s.ses.

I glanced at Dare as the kid disappeared. She glared at me like I'd committed some huge sin of impropriety.

"Until Saga clears you, keep to yourself. I won't have you poisoning the kid with your lies."

I clenched my teeth together to keep from taking her bait. Part of me wondered if she wanted me to lose my temper and fight her. What was the point? We both knew she'd win. While I'd had some training and could hold my own, I couldn't begin to compete with the battle-honed reflexes of a vampire who'd spent most of her life sc.r.a.ping an existence out of the s.h.i.t mountain the world had become.

"Maybe you should be telling that to the kid, then."

"You're smart, huh? We'll see what Saga says about that."

After that, we fell into silence and I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. My brain wanted to worry about what this mysterious scribe had in store for me, but I refused to indulge it. I was living on borrowed time as it was, no sense wasting precious minutes guessing at outcomes I couldn't predict. Besides, even if this mysterious scribe didn't buy my story, I still had a few trump cards up my sleeve.

Trouble arrived two hours later.

Icarus had returned from one of his scouting trips and was softly talking to Dare somewhere behind me when the vibration hit us. A low hum from the horizon, lost at first under the crunch of our feet on the gravel and the howls of the cold winds. Rabbit recognized the danger first. His small body stiffened and his head lifted to the sky, like an animal's scenting the air.

"Bats," he whispered.

That little word was like a match igniting under a bundle of dried kindling. One second everyone froze, the next we scattered like roaches. I wasn't so used to disappearing at a moment's notice, so it took me a few additional, very precious seconds to catch on to the fact they were all suddenly climbing trees. Icarus grabbed me by my shirt collar and pulled me toward the nearest trunk.

"Climb. Quickly!"

Something in his voice told me not to argue. The tree he pushed me toward had a trunk covered with thorns and tiny, sharp twigs. Sc.r.a.pes and cuts welled along my inner arms and face, but I ignored them in my urgency to scramble up into the canopy. Icarus's pants and soft curses reached me as he climbed beneath me. Finally, I reached a large branch well-camouflaged by leaves. Icarus took a large branch a level below mine. "Hang on and try not to move."

Not a problem, I thought, looking down. From that height, a fall would result in multiple broken bones or possibly death. And that would be before the bats got a hold of your flesh.

The black cloud broke the horizon and the sun flashed off thousands of leathery black wings. Closer now, the hum turned into a high-pitched whirr. The vibrations shook me so hard my teeth rattled. I placed my hands over my ears to help m.u.f.fle the sounds, but it didn't help much.

Bats were essentially robotic drones that patrolled the Bad Lands. If they detected any movement or noises indicating life, they would corner the potential prey and report back to the closest Troika substation, which would send out vampires after dark to investigate any anomalies.

All we had to do was stay still and quiet and the swarm would fly right past us. At least that was the ideal scenario.

But just before the black ma.s.s reached us, a loud crack sounded nearby. I lifted my head up and searched for the source. Time slowed. Not fifteen seconds later, a louder second crack exploded. A split second later, a child's shout. One second Rabbit had been clinging to his own branch in a tree several yards from the one Icarus and I perched on. The next, gravity pulled the kid toward the earth. He crashed through three smaller branches on his way down before finally grabbing onto one about ten feet from the ground.

"s.h.i.t," I whispered. Relief that he hadn't hit the ground was short-lived as the realization he was way too exposed sunk in. "We have to help him." I glanced over and saw Icarus scanning the area, like he was looking for solutions that weren't materializing. The hand I could see was reaching back as if to remove something from his pocket.

"Don't. Move." I didn't actually hear the words come from his mouth. It was more a combination of lip reading and my own mind telling me the same message. My mind and Icarus had nothing to worry about because I was frozen in fear. Over the years, I'd seen Troika officers laughing over footage of bats ripping apart animals. I knew they were designed to inflict ultimate pain and a slow, torturous death.

But before Icarus could do whatever he had planned, Dare decided he had taken too long to act. She leapt down from her own branch. Just when it looked like she was going to land on the same branch as Rabbit, her hand slipped. She plummeted toward the ground and landed in a heap. In the next moment, the swarm of bats reached the tree.

My heart tried to claw its way out of my chest. I moved to leap down, but Icarus's shout stopped me.

"Do you want to die, too?"

"Of course not, but I can't just sit here and watch them get killed." I couldn't keep the accusation out of my voice. The judgment over his own a.s.sumed lack of interest in saving his team. Before he could answer or defend himself I started crawling out of my perch.

"d.a.m.n it!"

The high-pitched noises made my eardrums feel like they would burst any second. The thorns and branches bit into my hands. And behind me, Icarus launched creative curses after my retreating form. I focused on trying to reach Dare before the bats decided to attack. By the time my feet touched the ground, the kid was screaming for help. I didn't pause to see if Icarus followed me. I just launched myself toward Dare's too-still body.

The bats were circling the tree. I had to duck and roll to avoid the wide ribbon of claws and metal fangs.

"Six!" Rabbit called. "Help her!"

I nodded curtly, not making eye contact in case he'd see my fear. A few more running steps and I slid onto my side to land next to Dare. I curled my body around her, ducking my head over her shoulder to look into her face. Her eyes were closed and a nasty red wound pulsed on her scalp. A blood-smeared rock nearby told me she'd had the roughest possible landing.

The wings circling us kicked up a cyclone of wind. Small rocks, dry gra.s.s stalks and dirt got into my eyes, my mouth. I shied away from the stinging projectiles, but Dare didn't move. I wedged two fingers against her neck. The quadruple beat of her six-chambered vampire heart was dull but blessedly present.

Alive--for now.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Icarus climbing Rabbit's tree. Squinting, I cursed the coward for not helping me. Even if Dare regained consciousness and could fight, the two of us versus a swarm of blood-thirsty bats was no contest.

Why were they sitting there for so long? Were they toying with us? I felt my own thumping heartbeat and decided they were toying with us. Blood was best served warm, after all, and nothing warmed a human's blood like fear.

My eyes were scanning the immediate area for a weapon when the air shifted. Hard to tell what exactly. A lessening, I guess. I licked at my dry lips and tried to keep my legs from twitching despite the overwhelming urge to run. I curled tighter around Dare's body, hoping the position would afford us both some protection. And then, from what seemed a far distance, the sound of a concussion--almost like a bottle rocket--cut through the other noise, muted but distinctive. The noise sounded, the thump-thump-thump of my heart in my ears, the maddening flap of thousands of wings. And, finally, the entire swarm of bats took off like tiny bullets through the blue sky.

I didn't move for a long time. I'm not sure for how long, but it was well after the vibrations had quieted and the wind had died down and the sudden silence pressed in from all sides. Eventually, the undergrowth rustled and the sounds of breathing reached me. Jerking around from surprise, I turned to see Icarus's solemn face peering down at me.

He didn't offer a comforting touch of the arm or a polite inquiry about my well-being. Instead, he simply said, "Time to move."

"Wh--why did they leave so quickly?"

He held up a small device. I recognized it as the item I'd seen him pull from his pocket earlier. "Sonic charge."

He knelt down beside me and checked Dare's vitals. Using a dirty hand, he slapped at her cheeks and poured a little of our precious water supply on her lips. Eventually, she sputtered and came to cursing.

"What the f.u.c.k happened?" she demanded.

Icarus smiled down at her. It was the first time I'd seen the expression on his face and was shocked to find it utterly transformed his looks. The scars were less noticeable and it was hard not to think this Icarus was maybe a little likable. But then I remembered how he'd hung back while Dare lay so vulnerable on the ground. "You tried to be a hero," he said. "And almost got yourself killed." His expression didn't change despite the reprimand inherent in his words.

She gasped and tried to sit up. "The kid?"

Icarus and I pressed her back. Behind us, Rabbit called out. "I'm okay."

I turned to see Rabbit looking incredibly young and vulnerable as he leaned against a tree trunk like he needed its support. He forced a brave smile, but his hands were digging into the bark behind him. Then Icarus made some joke I didn't get--some sort of insider secret joke I wasn't invited to share. Rabbit laughed and Dare chuckled between wheezes.

While they talked, I checked over her limbs for broken bones. She gasped when I touched her ribs on the side she'd landed on, but I quickly realized they were bruised, not broken. Icarus met my gaze over her and raised a brow. "She'll live," I said. "But I'm worried about moving her."

He grimaced. "No choice. That diversion won't keep the bats away long. We need to double time to Book Mountain before dark."

We both glanced down at Dare, who'd been listening to the exchange. She licked her lips. "I'll be okay, I think. Just help me up,"

Together, we hefted her off the ground, ignoring the groans and hisses she couldn't keep in. Finally, after a little bit of wobbling, she managed to stand on her own. She had a goose egg on her forehead, a few bruised ribs and probably some nasty contusions down the right side of her body. I grabbed all her gear despite her protests while Rabbit found a long branch for her to lean on. When he ran back, holding it out to her like a trophy, she threw it aside. Ignoring the kid's hurt look, she raised her chin. "I can do this on my own."

With that she limped off with Rabbit trailing her with a hangdog expression. I stayed behind for a few moments. Tilting my head back, I look up at the perfectly blue sky with fat cotton wool clouds. If I squinted just right, the image totally filled my vision. For those few seconds, I could imagine I wasn't standing in the middle of a ravaged wasteland filled with vampires who wanted me dead--or worse. I could pretend that I was still young. Still five years old, laying in a field next to my mom, who pointed out clouds with interesting shapes. My eyes stung for those long ago days, back before the vampires came and mama died. I mourned for that little girl who had yet to suffer the touch of cold, dead hands.

"Six!" Dare yelled. "Move!"

Five.

Three hours later, the sun was a b.l.o.o.d.y highlight along the horizon. Overhead the happy blue sky had dissolved into the inky twilight shadows. I smelled our destination before I saw it. The closer we got, the more the putrid cloud of rot and decay coated the nose and mouth. I covered my face with my elbow. "Christ, what is that smell?" I demanded through the crook of my elbow.

By this point, we'd come over a rise and could see the source of the stench. Spread out before us were dozens of mounds of garbage that seemed to stretch for miles. A large fence surrounded the place, but it was pocked with holes and fallen sections, like the people who created the landfill had even given up on it.

Icarus motioned ahead in a wide, sweeping gesture. "Welcome to the Book Mountain."

"Book Mountain?" I said. "More like Trash Mountain."

Icarus's eyebrows twitched with annoyance. "Under all that trash is one man's greatest treasure."

"Saga?" I said, repeating the name they'd mentioned.

"Only rebels get to call him by that name," Dare said. "You will call him 'The Scribe.'"

"Do you even know what a book is?" Icarus said, his tone insulting.

I frowned at him. "Of course." Although I hadn't seen an actual book in years, I still hadn't forgotten how precious they were to my mother. Our little apartment was filled with rickety bookcases made from cinder blocks and wood. Mom used to leave paperbacks all over the house so she'd never be more than an arm's length away from one of her precious books.

The rusted metal gates were covered in pits and flakes of paint. A drunken sign hanging from the top warned trespa.s.sers to keep out.