Chapter 9

BLACKWOOD’S CONFRONTATION

Blackwood walked into a quiet house. Drawn shutters cast the inside into semi-darkness. The family room opened up on her right. A blue sofa stood against the back wall and a cold fireplace adorned the far right corner. A half-full bottle of red alcohol stood on the small table before the couch, along with a pair of mugs. Blackwood’s brow furrowed at the label. Coinavini? Since when… Her gaze fell on a yellow duffel at the other side of the sofa, against the wall. Her lips parted and she took a couple steps forward, noticing the two folded blankets on a cushion. She blinked, having trouble processing the information.

Someone staying with her brother? It made no sense. Andrew was the most hostile person she’d ever met. Who on Mirrix would stay with him? Who would he let stay with him? Andrew loved his space. He resented every second she was home; she was surprised he hadn’t changed the locks.

A lover? He was seventeen, after all, and probably starting to look. But even if he’d met someone, wouldn’t he or she be sleeping on his bed, instead of the couch? Blackwood’s eyes fell again on the alcohol. She tried to picture Andrew drinking with another person, laughing, kissing. All she could envision was him scowling and looking away the second he was asked about himself. Small wonder there are blankets on the couch.

She admonished herself the moment she thought it. Of course Andrew showed a different side of himself to others. Having company was a good thing. Maybe he was finally opening up. Maybe, someday, she’d see that side of him again herself.

Whatever it meant, Andrew was out of the house now, which was much better than she’d anticipated. She had no intention of robbing Andrew of whatever new romance or friendship he was developing. She’d find a bag, grab the notes, and leave him alone. Clean and easy. No fights, no obligations, no hurt feelings. He probably wouldn’t even notice the notes were gone.

She jogged past the family room and through the hallway, to the broken door at the end. The two boxes of notes were still on the floor of the closet, exactly as she remembered. The skin on her right arm started crawling again. A finger of cold passed through her. She looked at the ceiling, half-expecting lightning to strike again, as if a simple chill would cause it. It was in her bones now; the cold, the tingling, the fear. At least the weakness seemed to have passed. Nevertheless, she felt the dekatite eating into her skin like a timed explosive.

She knelt and picked up the first several papers in the closer box. There was some typeset on them, but a majority of what she saw was handwritten, words crowded between and around the typed words in both her mother’s and father’s hands. Each page was so crammed, it was hard to know where to look first. She glanced through the first few anyway, hoping something would jump out – lightning or Dhavnak or Onosylvani. Shrouding wouldn’t be used yet, that term had come later. But the things Zurlig had mentioned…

Something caught her eye, near the end of the top page. “…dekatite mines in north central Ellemko not to be used. The risk to civilians, should the borders be breached, is too high.” The mines referenced here had been closed down five years earlier, and the FCB built on top of them. It had happened after her parents died – and therefore, after this note had been written. Clearly the dekatite veins were used now, for research and development, if nothing else. Were they no longer worried about the risk to civilians? Blackwood wondered. Or had the need simply outweighed the danger since then? And exactly what risk were they referring to here? Dhavvies? Monsters? Or something else? This happened before, Zurlig had said. Your parents… the factory…

“So you’ll come by for the research, but not for me?” said a voice to her right.

Blackwood jerked her head up. She’d forgotten how quietly her brother moved. Andrew stood in the doorway, dressed in their father’s old coat and hat. The belted coat was huge on his slender frame. Blackwood didn’t know if it was the contrast that made him look so frail, or if he’d gotten worse since the last time she saw him. Did he even eat when she wasn’t home? She put the notes down and rose to her feet.

“Andrew. I was just looking through these while I waited for you. Where have you been? Were you out with someone?”

He ignored the questions, his eyes tracking down to the notes. “Trying to get rid of them again?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Why are you dressed that way?”

She looked down at her infantry uniform, and back again. “Told you. Working at the FCB now. Do you want to head back to the kitchen? I can make us lunch.” It was a challenge to keep her tone so casual, but if she brought up needing the notes now, he might start screaming again. She took a step toward him, one hand out. “What would you like me to make?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

She sighed through her teeth. “Then maybe we can sit on the couch? Catch up?”

“Why are you here?”

“To see you.”

“You never wear a uniform when you’re off duty. Try again.”

She took a moment to choose her words. “I need to look through Mother and Father’s notes. It’s for work. I’m not going to destroy them. Just look at them.”

His shoulders straightened, his eyes widening. “They want them? Now? Why now?”

“It’s nothing. I promise. It’s not even about the research. There was an old colleague they worked with; I’m just looking for a name. It’s low priority – busy work really – until they find something better for me to do.”

“They need a name?” he said, his voice hard. “What name?”

“I can’t talk about this.”

“How big of a secret can it be? I’ve read the notes!”

Small surprise there, after the way he’d acted last time. But the thought still made her tense. “That’s not the point. You don’t work for the government. You don’t have the authorization to–”

“To what? Know about them experimenting on civilians? Against their will?”

The words she’d been preparing froze in her throat. “What do you know about that?” she said slowly.

“What I know,” he said, his eyes boring into hers, “is that you all make such a big deal about the Dhavnaks being monsters while our own government is treating them like animals. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Erasing the evidence?”

Her breath hitched. “Xeil’s grace, Andrew, you should not have read that!”

His eyes narrowed. “You knew?”

“Not exactly, but–”

“So that is why you tried to take them!”

“No!” she shot back. “I told you, I have no intention of destroying the notes.”

He pulled the bedroom door open and stood pointedly to the side. “Get out.”

Blackwood gritted her teeth. He was impossible to talk to. Stay calm. Deep breath. “Andrew. What I’m doing is more important than…” Laying around at home all day. Sleeping. Reading. Drinking, “…than you realize. I need these notes. Either you let me and my associate stay here and look at these, or I will take them. Am I clear?”

Andrew’s face darkened. But before he could answer, a low-pitched wail sounded from all around them – a continuous tone, rising and falling at regular intervals. Blackwood’s gaze shot to the shuttered sandpane.

Air raid siren.

She cursed and turned back toward the closet, looking into the dark corners. No bag. She strode past Andrew and threw open the door across the hallway, sticking her head into the bedroom that used to be hers. Nothing in that closet but a small handbag, suitable for no more than draftnotes and coins.

“What are you doing?” Andrew yelled.

She came back out to the hallway, snarling her answer as she headed into his room. “Looking for a pack.”

“You’re not taking the notes!” he answered.

His room was a mess. Red-stained floor, collapsing piles of books against the walls, blankets bunched at the foot of the bed, glass bottles… everywhere. It smelled strongly of alcohol, and faintly of mold. She tore open his closet door. Mostly empty, except for holes in the back wall and piles of trash. She slammed the door again in disgust. The drone of the air raid siren cut into her skull like a cleaver. She hated it. She’d forgotten how much. It made it hard to think straight. She marched back into the hallway. Andrew was still standing in the doorway of their parents’ room, like he thought he could keep her out.

“Don’t you have a bomb shelter to get to?” she growled.

“Where are you going?” he retorted.

“Holland and I have to get back on base. What do you think?” Not likely, but she wasn’t about to tell Andrew that.

It hit her. Andrew’s friend’s bag. She turned and dashed back to the main room.

“Wait. Who?” Andrew called sharply.

“I told you, I’m here with a colleague,” she said, raising her voice over the siren. “Are you gonna make me stuff you in a bunker on my way out? I’m not leaving without those notes, so you’re wasting your time staying.”

She leaned over the couch to grab the duffel from behind it, then ripped the straps from the clasps. Andrew skidded to a halt just inside the family room, his expression stunned. He started to say something, then noticed what she was doing.

“No! Not–”

She grabbed the bag by the bottom seams and upended the whole thing. A tightly netted bag of clothing thumped from the couch to the floor. A couple books followed, along with a palm-sized star of some kind, dark and heavy. A single piece of paper fluttered out last, drifting to the other side of the couch.

For a moment, the air raid siren was a distant drone, barely touching her. She stared at the paperback on the couch, at the curling black cover with silver-embossed letters. Caertoas An Ugdanarian Rin TaSarrah. The star laying next to it… a sun, its rays fragile and spindly. A sun made of dekatite.

She looked up at Andrew, her breath catching. “A Dhavvie’s staying here?”

Andrew didn’t answer. He was staring down at the paper on the couch. It looked to be a graphite drawing, rough and amateur, of a man with fire instead of hair, wielding a lightning bolt over his head. Their god, she realized with a chill. The Marshal.

Pieces started clicking into place, and she didn’t like the way they were falling. She grabbed the book and flipped through it, stopping on the last page. And there was the name she remembered from four years before, written in black ballpoint. Cu Zanthus Ayaterossi. Stamped underneath it was a square of hands, each one grasping the wrist of the next, and the words Arm Naa Bratheann. She’d seen that logo on uniforms before. On equipment. Army of the Brotherhood. It wasn’t just a Dhavnak book. It was a military-issue Dhavnak book. Her mouth went dry.

“Andrew!” she said.

His head shot up, his eyes wide and panicked. She stepped closer so he could hear her over the siren.

“What is he doing here? What is Cu Zanthus doing here?”

“He’s hiding from his draft,” he managed. “It’s just till the war’s over.”

“Just till the war’s over? He’s here for the damn war! Look!” She thrust the book out before her, holding open the page to the stamp. Andrew only glanced at it a second before looking back at her.

“So?”

“So he’s not hiding from a draft! He’s in the army!”

“He could have gotten that book anywhere. A secondhand store. A friend. I don’t know.”

She threw the book down with a snarl. “Grow up, Andrew! Don’t you see what you’ve done?”

“Nothing! I haven’t done anything!”

“Nothing? You let a Dhavnak into our house! You let a Dhavnak see our parents’ notes!”

“That’s not true!” he said, his voice rising.

Should she just grab the notes and go? It was too late to change what Cu Zanthus had already seen, but if there was a chance he hadn’t been through all of them yet…

She felt faintly nauseous. Then he wouldn’t need Andrew anymore. If she was right about him – and maybe she wasn’t, she could admit that much – but if she was, then who knew what he’d do to Andrew if he returned to find the notes gone? The risk was too great. If he got even a hint that Andrew suspected something, he’d be better off shooting him than letting him live. He probably wouldn’t even hesitate.

“You have to come with me,” she said.

“What are you talking about? No, I don’t!”

“Cu Zanthus might hurt you. It’s too dangerous.”

“He’s not dangerous!”

“Andrew, what do you think he’ll do to you when he’s done? When he doesn’t need you anymore?”

For a moment, Andrew just stared at her, breathing so fast she knew he was on the verge of a panic attack. Then he turned and ran back down the hallway. A door slammed.

“Andrew! No!” She ran after him, skidding to a halt in front of his closed bedroom door. She tried the knob. Locked. She banged on it. “Come out! I’m trying to help!”

“Go away!” he screamed.

She stepped back, lifting her foot – and bumped into something. She spun, fist raised to put through Cu Zanthus’s face if it was him.

But it was Holland, his hands raised in defense. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but when you didn’t–”

“Deckman, go grab that yellow bag and load up as many notes as will fit from the closet in the back bedroom. I have to get my brother.”

“What’s going on?”

“He… he’s not safe here. I’ll explain later.”

“OK, ma’am.”

Holland disappeared again. Blackwood leveled her foot and kicked as hard as she could, driving her heavy army boot between the knob and the latch. It gave on the second kick. Andrew was against the opposite wall, a big hardback book clutched in his hands.

“You don’t care about me!” he yelled. “This isn’t about keeping me safe! It’s about wanting to be a hero for your army, taking the notes, taking Cu Zanthus, proving to them you’re still useful–”

“Andrew, be quiet! We don’t have time for this!”

She strode up to him and tried to take the book. He brought it down hard, hitting her hands when she reached out. She jerked them back, cursing. A spike of anger shot through her. She lunged for him and wrenched the book from his hands before he could swing it again. When he saw the look in her eyes, he turned quickly – maybe to try to escape out the sandpane, maybe to snatch another book – but before he could do either, she dove forward and latched her arm around his neck. A loose book slipped under his foot, and they both fell forward. His face smacked against the sill of the sandpane. Her heart jumped. He slid to the floor beneath it, motionless.

“CSO?”

Blackwood looked back. Holland was standing in the doorway, watching in horror.

“What are you – did you – is he–”

Blackwood still had her arm around Andrew’s neck. It must look to Holland as if she’d shoved his face right into the pane. She hurriedly scrambled off him and rolled him over. He let out a moan. He had a nasty gash on his cheekbone from the sharp ledge and he was unconscious, but he was breathing. Xeil be praised.

“Were you choking him?” said Holland.

“No! I mean… I couldn’t force him, not fighting the whole way, so I–”

“Knocked him out.”

“I- I didn’t mean to. Not like that, anyway. It wasn’t out of anger. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Was it? No. She had been angry, but not out of control. I was trying to help him. Why wouldn’t he listen? But there was Vin. There was Zurlig. A flash of fear numbed her for a moment. I could have hurt him. Really hurt him.

Three deep breaths. Andrew was not her enemy. But he was a young and naive adolescent who wouldn’t listen to a word she said.

She didn’t know which was worse.

They’d waited too long. She knew it the second they walked out of the door. Planes rumbled overhead, so loud they completely drowned out the air raid siren – if it was even still sounding. The low booms of explosions carried through the air. Blackwood jogged to the bottom of the steps, Andrew slung over one shoulder. Holland came right on her heels, the hefty duffel slung across his hip.

“Wouldn’t it be safer to stay indoors at this point?” he yelled in Blackwood’s ear.

“I don’t know when Cu Zanthus will be back!” Blackwood answered.

“Who?”

“The Dhavvie who’s been staying with him. Once he finds out Andrew’s been compromised, he’ll kill us all.”

“Kill us, ma’am?”

“I’ll explain later. But we can’t take the risk.” Blackwood swore under her breath. The situation had gotten way too complicated. “The Sandhill Primary School. There’s a bomb shelter there. It’s not far.”

She swung Andrew’s body so he straddled both shoulders and took off at a run. The incessant drone of the planes vibrated through her body until she was nearly numb. She couldn’t help glancing overhead, tracking what seemed like hundreds of black shapes across the sky. She could even see the clusters of bombs falling from their bottoms, in every direction. Bile rose in her throat. The explosions sounded closer by the second; the blast from one washed past them in a cloud of dust and smoke, making the very ground shake. The streets were empty of people, and Blackwood felt like she and Holland were the last survivors at the end of the world.

The more the explosions rattled her brain, the more her dekatite mark hummed like a live wire. The tingling became harder and harder to ignore, tipping from discomfort into pain. Her fear. Her fear was making it worse. She struggled with Andrew’s weight. His body felt like it slipped with every stumble, and she was afraid she’d drop him. The gunshot wound in her arm screamed in pain again too, delivering a sharp jab with every step. Nausea rose in her, sudden and unexpected, and she stopped, gasping for breath. Dust filled her lungs. She hacked to get it out. Holland stumbled to a stop beside her, his breath coming ragged. She saw him wince, pulling at the strap on his shoulder. All that paperwork wouldn’t be a light burden.

They were in front of a physician’s office, though the boarded entrance and shredded awning suggested the place had been long closed, maybe even since before the war. They were about halfway to the school, maybe less. It was farther than Blackwood remembered. She stooped, lowering her brother to the sidewalk. Just long enough to get a better grip, she told herself. That tingling was eating into her skin. If only that would stop, she could think straight. Was it just her? she wondered. Or was Holland’s acting the same way?

“Holland!” she barked.

He looked at her, his pale face coated in dust, and shouted something back. She couldn’t make out his words over the blasts from all around them. She held up her left hand and stabbed a finger at her palm. He shook his head and pointed the other direction: Keep going! She started to step closer, so she could shout her question in his ear, but at that moment, the sidewalk around them darkened. She looked up. Her stomach churned as she saw a black Dhavvie warplane swooping so low, she could actually make out the symbols on the bottoms of its wings – spirals in bright white. It barely cleared the twenty-story building across the street. As she watched, a shape detached from its undercarriage.

She threw out her right arm. The mark on her arm twinged, hard and sharp. A white, jagged slash rent the air, crackling with a terrible sizzle. The bright flare seared her eyes and heated her skin. It ripped through the fuselage of the plane. Another branch split from it, striking a direct hit on the falling bomb.

The force of the resulting explosion threw Blackwood against the wall of the office behind her. Pain shot through her left shoulder blade before she crumpled to the stone landing. Shocks rippled through her in quick succession. She curled on the stone sidewalk, hands clenched into tight fists at her midsection that she couldn’t unfold if she tried. Though her eyes were open, all she saw was smoke and the ghostly afterimages of the lightning bolt – a barbed incandescent streak driving down again and again in an unchanging pattern. Thunder crashed around her, almost as loud as the bomb had been.

Seconds later, the plane fell, wings and tail burning as it ripped down the side of a building a half-block away. Chunks of steel and glass shot through the air, along with billowing smoke smelling of gunpowder and hot metal.

Blackwood struggled to move, to get up, but her muscles clenched tightly back toward her body as if they had a will of their own. She trembled. She turned toward the wall instead and used her cramping fists to stabilize her body before forcing her legs underneath her, bringing her up as far as her knees. She didn’t know if the spasms wracking her were persisting shocks or uncontrollable shivers. She pressed her cheek to the wall, trying to muster the energy to pull herself up the rest of the way.

“Blackwood! I’m here.” Holland ducked low to get an arm around her back and pull her up. The pain in her shoulder blade made her gasp, but she pushed through it and kept her feet, though only with the support of Holland on one side and the wall on the other. She could hear the bombing again, breaking through the fading echo of the thunder.

“Are you hurt? How bad?” Half of Holland’s face was covered in blood. The gash was on his right temple; if the flying shrapnel had been a touch to the left, he would have lost the eye.

“No, I’m f- fine.” It was hard to talk for the chattering of her teeth. “You’re cold?”

“J- Just shock. Andrew?”

“Yeah.” Holland started out from under the awning, trying to pull Blackwood along. Blackwood shook her head.

“Don’t think I c- can walk yet. Make sure he’s OK. Come back.”

Holland nodded and ran to the sidewalk. Blackwood closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe in and out deeply, to calm her racing heart. Every breath threatened to pull her from consciousness. Holland was right. It was me. I took out that plane. That bomb… if I hadn’t set it off so high in the air, it would have…

“Blackwood!” The next thing she knew, Holland was holding her up, hands pinning her shoulders against the wall. She realized he’d caught her from falling. “Andrew’s alive. But, Blackwood – you – what you did–”

She nodded, and her head swam.

Holland stared at her, his expression stricken. “You almost killed yourself, CSO! You can barely move.”

“I’m OK.” She shoved away from the wall. Her surroundings spun sickeningly. Holland caught her just before she went down again. Another explosion sounded, its report echoing off the buildings around them.

“CSO, no way are we gonna make that bomb shelter.”

Blackwood grimaced, but the kid was right. “Get us in there,” she said, jerking her head at the building behind them. “It’s better than nothing.”

She crawled back to the wall as Holland ripped a handful of boards off the front door, near the bottom. She listened to the low thrum of concussions in the distance as wind whipped the heat of burning buildings across her face. She could hear a subtle difference in the reports now. Belzene planes fighting back, she thought at first. But no. Something deep in her stomach clenched. Artillery. Tanks. It wasn’t a good sign.

She watched Holland drag Andrew’s limp body inside, then the duffel full of research. The next thing she knew, he was shaking her again. Blackwood drew in her breath, inhaling another lungful of smoke and dust.

“There’s a basement!” Holland shouted. “Nothing big, just something they used for medical supplies, but we should be safer there.”

Blackwood nodded. “You think this is the one?” she asked as she struggled toward the door.

“What one?”

The attack that captures the capital. But she kept herself from saying it at the last moment. No need to plant those thoughts, if Holland wasn’t having them already.

She couldn’t help casting one more glance overhead before heading inside. If Ellemko was taken… would she always wonder if she could have used this new power to save it?