Bone Season 01: The Bone Season: A Novel (31 page)

“What?”

“Take Paige back to the house! Cleary has pipe bombs in his car, for Christ’s sake—”

“No way. I’m not missing this for the world. If these bastards get in, we’ll never get them out.”

“She’s six years old. She shouldn’t see this.” Kay grabbed my hand. “I’ll take her home if you won’t. Your ma would be ashamed of you.”

“No. I want her to see it.”

He knelt down in front of me and pulled off his cap. His hair was tousled. Finn looked like my father, but his face was warm and open, and his eyes were blue as the summer sky. He put his hands on my shoulders.

“Paige Eva,” he said, in a very serious voice, “do you know what’s happening?”

I shook my head.

“Bad people are coming from over the sea. They’re going to lock us up in our city and never let us leave, and turn this place into a prison city like theirs. We won’t be allowed to sing our songs anymore, or visit people outside Ireland. And people like you, Pip—they don’t like you.”

I looked into Finn’s eyes, and I understood what he meant. Finn had always known that I could see things. I knew where all the ghosts of Dublin lived. Did that make me bad? “But why does Molly have a bag over her head, Finn?” I said.

“Because the bad people do that when they don’t like other people. They put bags over their heads and ropes around their necks.”

“Why?”

“To kill them. Even little girls, like you.”

Now I was shaking. My eyes hurt. A bubble filled my throat, but I didn’t cry. I was brave. I was brave, like Finn.

“Finn,” Kay said, “I see them!”

“
SCION OUT
!
SCION DOWN
!”

My heart was too fast. Finn wiped my tears and put his cap on my head.

“
SCION OUT OF DUBLIN TOWN
!”

“They’re coming, Paige, and we have to stop them.” He grasped my shoulders. “Are you going to help me stop them?”

I nodded.

“Finn, oh God, Finn, they’ve got tanks!”

And then my world exploded. The bad people had raised their guns and aimed their darts of fire into the crowd.

I woke with the sound of guns in my ears.

My skin was slick and cold, but inside I was scalding. The memory had burned through my whole body. I could still see Finn, his face tight with hatred—Finn, who used to call me Pip.

I kicked off the sleeping bag. I could still hear the gunshots, thirteen years later. I could still see Kay, her eyes open, gripped wide in the shock of death. The blood on her shirt. One shot to the heart. That was what made Finn run toward the soldiers, leaving me behind, crouched under Molly’s wheelbarrow. I screamed and screamed for him, but he never came back.

I never saw him again.

I didn’t remember much after that. I know someone got me home. I know I sobbed for Finn until my throat hurt. And I know my father never let Aunt Sandra see me again, not until the memorial service. After that I didn’t cry. Tears couldn’t bring people back. I wiped the sweat from my face with my shirt. I must still be in the grounds of Magdalen. I turned on my side, so cold I couldn’t feel my feet, and curled into a ball.

The fire must have gone out. It was raining, but I wasn’t wet. I reached up. My fingers brushed some kind of canvas sheeting, a temporary shelter from the elements. I pulled up the hood of my jacket and inched out from under it.

“Warden?”

There was no sign of him. Or the deer. Or the fire.

I’d been shivering from cold, but now my shivers worsened. Where had he gone? Surely he couldn’t still be in Sheol I. We hadn’t even left
Sheol I. Magdalen and its grounds were part of the residence system. We’d only strayed about a mile from the cold spot, if that.

The wind was rising. I huddled under my shelter. There was no reason for him to have left me alone, no reason whatsoever. Maybe I just hadn’t been asleep for very long. I pulled on my socks and boots and double-checked the sleeping bag. To my surprise, I found a few supplies: a pair of gloves, a hypodermic needle of adrenaline, and a slim silver torch tucked into the lining, along with a manila envelope. My name was written on the front. I recognized his handwriting and tore it open.

Welcome to No Man’s Land. Your test is simple, return to Sheol I in as little time as possible. You have no food, no water, and no map. Use your gift. Trust your instincts.

And do me this honor: survive the night. I’m sure you would rather not be rescued.

Good luck.

I held the note for a moment, then I tore it into strips.

I’d show him. I’d show him right now. He was trying to scare me, and I wouldn’t have it. “Survive the night”? What was that supposed to mean? He must think I was pretty feeble if I couldn’t cope with a bit of wind and rain. If I could deal with the sordid streets of SciLo, I could deal with a dark forest. As for food supplies, why would I need them? It wasn’t like he’d dumped me in the middle of nowhere. Was it?

When I looked outside the tent, I found a case marked with the symbol of ScionIde, the military arm of the government: two lines at a right angle, like gallows, with three shorter lines scored across the vertical mark. Inside the case was another note.

Be careful with the darts. If they break, the acid inside will send you into cardiac arrest. Use the flare in an emergency. It will summon a squad of red-jackets.

Do not go south.

I shone my torch at the contents of the case: a pistol with a long barrel, a flare gun, an old Zippo lighter, a hunting knife, and three pressurized silver darts. The symbols for toxicity and corrosivity were printed across the side, along with the words
HYDROFLUORIC ACID
(
HF
).

A tranquilizer gun and a handful of acid darts. Why couldn’t he have just given me my pistol? Well, I had to start somewhere, unless I wanted to stay in this clearing all night. I rolled up the sleeping bag, compacting it into a small sack, but left the shelter where it was. I could use it as a marker to make sure I wasn’t running in circles.

There was something surrounding the camp. A ring of tiny white crystals. I knelt and dipped my fingers in them, then flicked out the tip of my tongue to taste them.

Salt.

The camp had been made in a circle of salt.

I held very still. There were rumors among voyants that salt could repel spirits—they called it halomancy—but it wasn’t true. It certainly didn’t stop poltergeists. Was he just trying to scare me, leaving it all over the place?

With my hood pulled up and my jacket zipped to the chin, I packed my limited supplies. I put the darts and pistol in the sack, padding them with the sleeping bag, and tucked the flare gun into my waistband. The knife went into my boot, the syringe into my jacket. I pulled on the gloves.

I couldn’t wait to get back and face him, the scurf. I could picture him now, watching the clock, counting the minutes until I got back. Sitting by his nice warm fire.

I’d show him. I would not be overlooked. I was the Pale Dreamer, and he was going to see why. He was going to see why Jax had chosen me: because against all odds,
I had survived
.

I closed my eyes, trying to pick up on ethereal activity, but there was nothing. No dreamscapes. I was alone. When I opened my eyes, the sky caught my attention. It was luck I’d woken when I did: the stars were about to be swallowed up by clouds, and with the sun gone, I had no other means of navigation. With no sign of Sirius, I searched for Orion’s Belt. I knew from Nick’s passionate speeches on astronomy that wherever the Belt was, north was roughly in the other direction. I also knew where it was in relation to Sheol I. I located the three stars and turned slowly to face my path. What lay in front of me was a dense stretch of woodland, as dark as it was thick and overgrown.

My heart pounded. I’d never been scared of the dark, but it would force me to rely on my sixth sense to detect any unrest. Which was probably the point. To test me.

I looked over my shoulder. The woodland was just as dark on the other side of the clearing. That path would lead me south, away from the colony.

Do not go south.

I knew his game. He was relying on me to obey, like a good human. Why should I go north, when north would lead me back to slavery—back to Warden, who had put me here in the first place? I didn’t need to prove myself to him. I turned to face the Belt. I was going south. I was leaving this hellhole.

Wind rushed through the leaves, chilling my wet skin. It was now or never. By the time I’d finished thinking about what might or might not be lurking in there, I wouldn’t have the courage to move. I clenched my jaw and headed into the woods.

It was black. Blind. The rain had softened the earth, leaving it spongy and damp. My feet made no sound as I trekked through the oak trees, walking quickly, sometimes breaking into a jog, using my hands to feel my way past branches. In the thin beam of my torch, I could make out a hazy mist that wreathed the tree trunks and hung in a thin blanket over the ground, obscuring my boots. There was no natural light. I prayed my torch wouldn’t expire. It was scored with the Scion symbol, probably a borrowed piece of NVD equipment. It was a small relief: Scion-made items didn’t often stop working.

It occurred to me that I must be outside the normal boundaries of Sheol I. This place was called No Man’s Land for a reason: it belonged to no one. Maybe Scion owned it; maybe not. I had no idea where this route would lead me, but I did know that Oxford was north of London. I was heading in the right direction. My jacket and trousers were dark enough to hide me from watchful eyes, and my sixth sense was as finely tuned as ever. I could make it past any Reph guards. I could scale a fence just as easily as I could slip under it. And if anyone attacked me, I could use my gift. I’d sense them in advance.

But then I remembered what Liss had said about this place when I’d first arrived:
“Deserted countryside. We call it No Man’s Land.”
That might have encouraged me if not for what she’d said afterward, when I’d asked if anyone had ever tried to escape via the southern route. “
Yes
,” was all she’d said. Just
yes
. Barefaced confirmation that there was danger on this path. Other voyants had come this way and died. Maybe they’d been tested like this, too. Was the test simply to resist the temptation to escape? I broke a sweat at the thought. Land mines, booby traps—they had them in here. I imagined cameras in the trees, watching my every move, waiting for me to step on a mine. The thought made me slow down.

No, no. I had to carry on. I could get out of here. They were relying on me to think like that, to think on the safe side. I almost turned north, but determination drove me on. Against my will, I pictured Warden, David, and the Overseer by the fire, clinking their glasses as they watched me run into a mine. “Well, gentlemen, here’s to the dreamwalker,” the Overseer would say. “The biggest idiot we ever brought to Sheol I.” And what would they put on my gravestone? Would they carve in
PAIGE MAHONEY
, or would it just be XX-59-40? Assuming there was enough of me left to scrape into a grave, of course.

I stopped and leaned against a tree. This was insane. Why was I imagining these things? Warden couldn’t stand the Overseer. I squeezed my eyes shut and pictured another group: Jaxon, Nick, and Eliza. They were in the citadel, waiting for me, searching for me. If I could just get out of these woods, I could work my way back to them.

After a moment, I opened my eyes. And stared at what was crumpled on the ground.

Bones. Human bones. A skeleton in a ragged white tunic, legs missing from the knee. I backed away, almost falling over my own feet. Something crunched underfoot. A skull.

There was a bag next to the carcass. Its hand still gripped the strap. With a crunch of dry bone, I prized it free. Flies crawled on the remaining flesh; giant, black-haired flies, swollen with dead flesh. They flew up when I snatched the bag from its dead owner. My torch gleamed on the contents, a hunk of rotten bread and a dry bottle.

My skin turned cold and damp. I turned the torch to my right. A few feet away, a crater yawned among the leaves, half-flooded by the rain. Shards of bone and mine casing scattered the ground.

There really was a minefield.

I pressed my back against the trunk of an oak. I couldn’t navigate a minefield in the dark. I edged away from the tree, stepping over the skeleton.
You’re fine, Paige
. Legs shaking, I turned north and picked my way back along the path. I hadn’t gone far from the clearing. I could make it. After moving several feet from the bones, I tripped over a root and hit the ground. I tensed rigid, my heart lurching, but no explosion followed.

Resting my weight on my elbows, I dug into my jacket, took out the Zippo, and flicked it open with my thumb. A clean flame rose. A route to the æther. I wasn’t an augur—fire was no friend to me—but I could use it to perform a miniature séance. “I need a guide,” I whispered. “If anyone is out there, come to the flame.”

For a long time, there was nothing. The flame flinched and guttered. Then my sixth sense jolted to life, and a young spirit emerged from the trees. I pulled myself to my feet. “I need to reach my camp.” I held the lighter out to it. “Will you guide me?”