Each step of blackness through the side of a building at the city’s wall piqued Elena’s curiosity more. By the time she emerged with Lilly onto a third-floor vantage point, she was about ready to shout and demand to know. That’s when Lilly gestured for her to kneel, showing her an old pair of digital binoculars. Military grade.
“What am I looking at?” Elena asked, picking them up and noting the distance of about one thousand yards. Before Lilly could respond, the binoculars’ red crosshairs already had selected a spot, where two people were moving.
“You’re seeing outsiders preparing to make a trade,” Lilly said. “Not right away, but… soon.”
“Trade for what?” Elena spotted movement. Several suitcases, handled with extreme care. She already had a guess.
“New Gold.” Lilly knelt next to her, taking the binoculars and checking. She nodded. “That right there… by our guess… maybe five or six pounds.”
“Holy shit. So… what? We find a way to run out there and snatch it?”
Lilly chuckled, handing back the binoculars but making an adjustment. “Look there, you’ll see why that wouldn’t be the best idea.”
Elena checked, finding several large men and women with rifles at the ready, eyes on the ruins around them.
“Any idea when this trade is happening?”
“Not exactly, but they wouldn’t have been moving this close or been so active if it wasn’t soon. Maybe today, maybe within the hour.”
Staring down at all that New Gold, Elena had a bad feeling that the city was about to change for the worse. If Kevin managed to get control and have that sort of power, he would be unstoppable. Worse, she wasn’t sure he would be able to control his intake of the substance or that of his warlords. Soon, Wicker City could have its own population of Diluted creating carnage in its streets.
Eyeing the stuff though made her realize something. This New Gold… had it been around before the Great Downfall? The painting of the ship with its gold light came to mind, and maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe not?
“I… have an idea,” she said, backing up until she was clear, then turning and heading for the way down.
“We’ll keep watch, I’ll get you if anything changes. Where’re you going?”
Elena turned back, hesitant. “To see Alex.”
Lilly’s expression hardened, but she nodded. “I’ll send someone. Not myself.”
“Roger that.”
Elena continued out of there, breaking into a run as soon as she was out of the building. Careful to stay to the shadows, she was relieved to see the billboard with the perfume lady not far off. In a matter of minutes, she was pounding up the stairs, not bothering with the secret path this time, and ran up to the door to knock.
Only, it was ajar. Not busted open, though there were scorch marks around the lock. She nudged the door the rest of the way open, eyes scouring the place for any sign of trouble.
“Hello?” She stepped in, repeating the word but getting no response. A turned over table, a broken vase and a hole in the wall, about the size of a head. Blood splattered across a beige wall, though not much. Without a doubt there had been a struggle.
Her heart sank, gut clenching at the thought of what had gone down here. Judging by the look of it, she would bet money that the Civilized had come for Alex. There went her plan, then.
She turned to give up, when she spotted a green strap sticking out from under the couch, just at the edge and barely visible. Curious, she went over and knelt, pulling at the strap. Sure enough, it was Alex’s bag, the one he’d had at the pawnshop, and the one that had held the blaster. Her breath caught as she unzipped the bag to find the blaster still there. Only… broken.
With a deep breath in, Elena told herself not to worry. She had been a scavenger on the outside, after all. If the Elsewhere had taught her anything other than simple survival, it was how to tinker with odds and ends to get a working-something out of them. In this case, it was only three quick adjustments and she had it.
The blaster by itself wasn’t what she had come here for, though. She fished her plastic bag out of her pocket, checked to see only a small pinch of the New Gold left. It had to be enough, she told herself. At least enough to know if it would work.
She took about half of the pinch, found the opening at the side of the blaster, and breathed deep as she told herself she had to do this. Wasting New Gold was foolish, but this might be her only chance at stopping Kevin.
Her fingers released, and the substance trickled into the port. For a moment she sat there, feeling the slight surge of the effect from having touched the New Gold. It was like she could hear every change in wind, smell all the scents in the room, including…. Wendy? She sniffed, finding a slight linen smell, and turned to see the woman at the doorway, watching her.
With a glance around, Elena said, “I’m sorry. If we’d been able to pay them off sooner...”
“What, the Civilized?” Wendy scoffed. “No, not yet anyway. This was us—we had a fight, I threw him out.”
“Oh, shit.” Another glance around the carnage of the house made Elena a bit worried for the man, considering the fact that Wendy didn’t seem to have a scratch on her. Elena held up the blaster. “He didn’t take this with?”
“Wouldn’t let him. It’s what caused so many problems, so I broke it. Or… thought I had.”
“I fixed it.”
Wendy nodded. “What are you planning to do with it?”
Elena held up the blaster. “This old thing? Just…” She had been about to say ‘nothing,’ or make up some other excuse, when the blaster seemed to come alive. A sliver of gold light appeared along the side of it leading to the barrel, the whole thing glowing.
“It works.” Wendy stumbled in, then paused, hand at her mouth. “How?”
“I have to go,” Elena said, not about to spill the beans quite yet.
“Pay off his debt,” Wendy said. “Agree to do that, and you take that blaster, no questions asked. We call it square.”
“Excuse me?”
“Alex is in trouble, you know that. With everything that’s happened, I seem to have nothing to pay with.”
“Sabin’s money?”
“Kevin took it all.”
That didn’t surprise Elena, but she had a question. “Were you not working with Kevin? That day at the warehouse, you were arriving while Sabin lay dying. I assumed…”
Wendy nodded, eyes narrowing, and then ran her tongue along her teeth. “He wasn’t supposed to kill Sabin, you know? That wasn’t… part of the deal.”
“Never make a deal with the devil.”
Elena stood, moving for the door just as a young girl appeared in the hallway. That first Sister she had met when coming out of the water, that day when her mom had died. The Sister nodded.
It was on, and Elena was ready.