Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles Book 5) (6 page)

“You threaten others so easily,” he said, sounding hurt. “Without a thought. Why are you so cruel?”

“Bagmen aren’t
others
. They’re monsters.” My mother would be alive if not for them.

“Not to me. They’re my friends.”

The Lovers had called their carnates
children
. “Then you’re sick.”

“And you’re not? You’re over there necking a slithery vine. For all I know, you could be the most evil of the gods. Maybe I should ally with other Arcana and take you out.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve heard of one who could hand you your ass. Doesn’t the Emperor control fire and volcanoes and earthquakes? He should be able to take on some measly plants.”

Enough! “The Emperor is a mass murderer! For sport, he annihilated hundreds of men, women, and children—non-Arcana, people who had nothing to do with this game.”

“Oh, really? And how do you know that?”

“I watched him do it! I heard Richter laugh as his lava burned them alive.”

Right before then . . .
Jack and I had marveled at the snow.

BLINDERS!

Sol frowned at me. “Why should I believe you?”

“Half a day’s ride from Fort Arcana is a valley. You’ll be able to tell that he struck.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why am I even telling you this? You don’t have sympathy for innocent people.”

He quietly asked, “How many people are innocent after the Flash?”

I hated that he had a point.

“Empress, from where I’m sitting, you’re merely the
diablo
I know.”

No, the Devil had been a totally different card.

I could hear the howl of the wind even through the bunker-thick walls of the electrical substation where we’d holed up. Jack always loved to stay in these—concrete cubes with steel doors and no windows. Good A.F. shelters.

Gale-force gusts had foiled my need to push ahead. The canvas on the back of the truck caught the winds like a sail; when we skidded on a patch of black ice, we’d nearly headed off a cliff. Guard-rail maintenance was a thing of the past.

Though I was racking up minutes I didn’t have to spare, I figured I couldn’t help Jack if I was in the bottom of a ravine somewhere.

I’d made a thorn cage inside for the Baggers, keeping them close for leverage. While I’d used flints to start a fire, my vines had dismantled a storage crate for wood. The smoke wisped upward and vanished through some crack or vent overhead. The flames were a reminder of Jack’s death, but soon I’d have him back.

I glanced over at Sol on the other side of the fire. He was still sullen because I’d yelled at him. Sure enough, there’d been a fairly new corpse when we’d stopped to refuel. I’d ordered Sol to remove the dead man’s boots.

The Sun had put up his nose. “That’s disgusting. I’d rather go without.”

I remembered when I’d been too freaked out to source sunglasses off a body. Or to retrieve a precious arrow out of a Bagger. How had Jack put up with me all that time? “You hang out with slimy Bagmen,” I’d pointed out, “and you’re calling a corpse disgusting? Baggers
are
corpses.”

He’d looked at me like I’d insulted his mother.

“Boots, Sol.
Now!
”

He’d refused, launching into a diatribe in Spanish, and things had gone downhill from there. . . .

Now I dug into my bag for a package of freeze-dried soup and a collapsible pot, courtesy of Sol’s “worshippers.” I’d always depended on easy-to-carry energy bars, but beggars, choosers, blah blah.

When had I eaten last? Couldn’t remember.

I dumped the package into the pot, mixing in water from my canteen. After the last week, I’d never take having two hands for granted. I set the pot over the flames, and stirred with an all-purpose utensil.

Sol’s stomach growled. “Are you going to share any with your captive?” He gestured to the soup with his bound hands.

“I might have, if my captive had offered to heat this room—and this meal—with his powers.”

His lips thinned. “If you’re not nicer to me, I’ll make sure you get a Bagman bite. Maybe not tonight, or even this week. But someday.”

I took the pot off the fire. “Try it, Sol. See where that lands you. I’m sure I’m immune.” Well, five percent sure. At his frown, I said, “Poison’s my thing.” I started to eat, blowing to cool my first spoonful.
Pretty good.

“Bagmen don’t inject poison, venom, or even a pathogen. It’s a radiation-based mutation. Like something you’d find in comics.”

“I’ll just take your word for it. Besides, I regenerate. I can’t get sick,” I lied. I had no idea how my body would react to a comic-book mutation. I hadn’t caught bonebreak fever—but then, I hadn’t had the plague injected into my skin via a zombie’s mouth.

“One of my worshippers is a scientist,” Sol said. “He’s been studying Bagmen. Besides, I wouldn’t order a bite to turn you—I’d do it just to be a dick.”

“Ah. So I should watch my back for them?” I pointed to his caged pets. Silent and motionless, the two stared blankly ahead, gruesome with their creased skin.

“Those particular ones don’t bite anyone.”

The pot had cooled, so I drank straight from it. “Again, I’ll take your word for it.”
And your icon, if you don’t shut up.

Once I’d finished about half the soup, I gazed at his seemingly sincere expression. Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to shut Sol up when I could be learning about an enemy. “So . . . does it make you tired to shine?” I took one last swig of dinner, then passed the pot to him.

He beamed. “
Sí
, it does.” He drank the soup straight down, then swiped his brawny arm over his mouth. “The colder the weather, the harder it becomes. But I’m getting more efficient with practice, so I use less power. Soon I’ll be able to light up the entire world, commanding a legion of Bagmen.”

Good to have goals, Sol.
I wondered if the Sun Card had possessed this kind of control over Baggers in past games, latent within him, but had never discovered his ability. After all, there’d been no zombies to experiment with, no Flash to create them. “How’d you figure out you could direct them?”

“I was attacked on Day Zero.” His gaze grew unfocused, and he winced at whatever he was remembering. “I wanted them to stop hurting me, and suddenly they did.”

So he was immune to their bites as well. “Why didn’t your Bagmen react when you were shining? I thought they feared the sunlight.”

“If they’re not starving or dried out, the light doesn’t seem to bother them too much. In fact, they are drawn to me, seeming to sense me, even ones I’m not controlling.” He shrugged. “Unless they’re simply attracted to what they fear.”

As I’d been with Death?
Aric, where are you?
Silence. I glanced over at the two Baggers. “Can you talk to them in any way?”

“I can command them with my thoughts, see through their eyes, and hear through their ears. I can merge my mind with any Bagman within a certain range.”

“You borrow their senses?” As the Lovers had with their carnates, and Lark did with animals.

“Sí.”
His eyes turned filmy white. “I can see the scorched Statue of Liberty through one Bagger’s eyes. Another Bagger just limped down a highway exit for Disney World.”

“What else?” Vincent had said his carnates had ranged all over, finding only ash and waste. “What about people?”

“Lots of fighting. Murders. Rapes.” Sol’s eyes cleared. “If you saw what I do every day, you would not have so much sympathy for the men in those cages.”

Probably.

“Each week, my range extends, and I’m able to meld with Bagmen farther away. One day I hope to reach my native Spain.” In a softer tone, he said, “Maybe my family survived.”

“Would you know if they were . . . turned?”

He nodded. “It’s likely they were. So many were transformed.”

I thought about those boys in the Lovers’ tent, the ones they’d purposely infected. I cringed to remember a half-turned boy crying over a trough of blood, fully aware of what was happening to him. I asked Sol, “What do you feed these two?”

“Blood. There will be a jug of it in the back of the truck. My worshippers would know to pack some.”

And where had they gotten the blood? From the fallen men on Olympus’s field? “Your pets don’t smell as bad as some.” Still, I grew red roses on their thorn cage to scent the air.

“The slime is what stinks. It takes a few days after it seeps to rot. I keep their skin clean.”

“Why are these particular ones special to you?”

His gaze grew shuttered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine.” Switching subjects. “How did you get good soil for crops?”

“We harvested it from caves. If you get deep enough, it’s still fertile.”

He and his followers had figured out a way to cultivate crops, and they’d discovered the Bagger mutation. If Sol could be believed, then they were doing
some
good.

“We’ve been growing for about half a year, so no trees yet,” he said. “No apples, pears, or oranges.”

I’d grown Tess an orange tree to atone for nearly killing her. As if that would make up for the risk I’d forced her to take when she’d unleashed her power. At least my own powers couldn’t end me.

Sol asked, “You don’t need dirt to grow things, do you?”

I shook my head, figuring that reveal couldn’t hurt.

“Do you have any seeds? Maybe apple? I could give you some sun, and we could have apples tonight!” he said, as if it were an apple-pie-in-the-sky dream.

I sliced my thumb with a claw, and started a tree. When it grew to a sprout, I said, “Be my guest.”

Excitement lit his gaze—heated brown eyes framed with thick dark lashes. He beamed, sunlight pouring from his chest, arms, and legs.

I went heavy-lidded as the tree shot to the ceiling.

“Dios!”

I directed one of its limbs to him and one to me. We each plucked a shiny red apple. At his first bite, he groaned. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

I tasted mine. Not bad. “What did you do before the Flash?”

“I was a history student, and I ran a party promotion service with some partners. We hosted raves in abandoned buildings. Everyone thought we got paid to have fun, but actually a lot of work was involved.”

“So you went from raves to bloody free-for-alls?”

He answered with a Russell Crowe
Gladiator
impression: “Are you not
entertained
???”

“You
didn’t
just do that.”

He shrugged.

“Why’d you go Roman?”

His eyes lit up again. I’d compared Aric’s starry gaze to a sunrise, but Sol’s blazing eyes were like high noon at the equator. His irises went from dark brown to backlit caramel. “I learned from my job: presentation is everything. And talk about a culture that understood presentation! The Romans had emblems, symbols, elaborate uniforms, pageants. They were ruthless, but had codes of honor. They adored warriors and contests. And they worshipped me.”

Ugh! “FYI, you are not a sun god. We were enabled by gods, but we are not divine.”

“Speak for yourself,
querida
.” He flashed me his seductive smile. “Kiss my lips, then tell me I’m not divine.”

If I hadn’t seen him hosting a death match, I would’ve found him charming. He was as playful as Finn, but also possessed a simmering charisma.

“In Roman times, one fighter with a sword could change the world,” he said, his excitement making him seem younger.

“How old are you?” I found myself asking.

“Twenty-three. You must be”—he took his time checking me out—“twenty?”

“Seventeen.”

His lips parted. “I’ve been lusting after a girl that young?”

I rolled my eyes. The effect was ruined by a yawn. The soup had warmed me, making me drowsy. Plus I hadn’t slept in days.

“You look wiped out. Understandable, since you are a child,
pequeña
.”

“What does that mean?”

“Little one. You should get some sleep.”

“With a hostage nearby? An evil hostage?” Not unless he was contained.

“Evil? I’m
layered
.” He grew serious. “Empress, what can I do to convince you that I’m not all bad? What will make you trust me?”

“Even if you’re
half
bad, I still wouldn’t trust you.”

He was an Arcana. He might be targeting me for betrayal, the way Lark had. He might know more about the game than he was letting on, as Selena had done.

Hadn’t I heard music drifting from Olympus right when I’d been on the jagged edge? It had drawn me straight to Sol’s lair.
Beware the lures.

With a wave of my hand, I stretched the Baggers’ thorn cage over him as well, then released his wrists—keeping the collar in place.

How ironic that Sol wanted me to trust him—just as I’d wished Aric and Circe would trust me. But then, I’d once been as evil as they came.

I might not trust Sol. Or want to be his friend. But I couldn’t
judge
him.