Captives (45 page)

"Would be nice if this thing worked," she muttered, tipping her head at the pistol on her hip. "But she's tied up and I have knives."

He kissed her and jogged down the hill. Below, the ocean was a gorgeous blue spread. A lone boat sailed back toward the Santa Monica pier. He hit PCH and continued into the city. Once he reached the sign, he stopped to do some jumping jacks in front of the blue posts, then moved uphill to watch.

She arrived a half hour later, gazing up the road, frowning vaguely. Walt jogged to her, waving. "Hey Soo!"

"Dalton?" She smiled incredulously. "I heard you ran off! I was afraid I'd done something wrong."

"I imagine they'd rather let you believe that than tell you they enslaved me. Hey, here's the deal. I just kidnapped Reeds. Can you be a pal and run to the Heart to let Anson know that if he doesn't bring me the kids, he'll never see her alive again?"

Soo blinked, then looked as if she might turn and run. It took him another minute to convince her he was serious and then to confirm she understood the details.

Finished, he smiled. "Thanks, Soo. By the way, once you're done with this, you might want to run away and never look back. If you think what
I'm
doing is messed up, you should hear what they're up to with the aliens."

She backed up, keeping her eyes locked on him, then turned and ran. Walt left the road and hiked overland until he reconnected with the road through Topanga. He hiked back to Carrie, who was waiting with Reeds in a canyon extending from the road.

"Message sent," he said. "Told him to come alone with the kids before sundown."

"That won't be possible," Reeds put in. "He is out in the field."

"Then it's a good thing you've got horses, huh?"

Carrie put her hands on her hips, stretching her legs. "Guess I'd better get to my post."

He smiled at her. "After this, it's vacation time. What do you think? Jamaica? Cancun?"

"Anywhere that doesn't have a colony of assholes."

"The moon, then. Fortunately, I already know where we can find a rocket."

She smiled back and jogged up the side of the canyon. It would have been nice if she'd had a rifle to cover him with, but at least she'd give advance notice if Anson tried to bring any minions to the party. He glanced up at the sun. Still a lot of daylight ahead of them. He hoped it would be enough.

Wind ambled through the grass. Reeds stood with her heels together, hands tied behind her back. On the slope, Carrie disappeared behind a ragged line of shrubs.

"Please," Walt said. "Tell me you're getting more from the aliens than a few sparkly gewgaws."

Reeds didn't move. "You don't expect me to answer that. You like to hear yourself talk. Does it make you feel as if you have control? As if you understand?"

"Does dissecting everyone's psyche make you feel like
you
know what's going on?"

"It's a start."

"You know they tried to kill us, right? Like all of us?"

"So I saw," she said. "When you strip away everything that's trying to mislead you, and look exclusively at the facts, the world looks much different than it does to those who let themselves be ruled by assumptions and emotions."

He folded his arms. "I just don't see what you're getting out of it. Is it worth helping them stay alive?"

"We may be mankind's last candle. If that gets blown out, it might never be lit again."

Walt laughed unhappily. "He's not going to play this straight, is he?"

For the first time, a tendril of worry flicked across her face. "What do you mean?"

"A cause above earthly morality led by a dude who encourages his people to worship him. He won't deal fair with me. Not even here, when it makes perfect sense. Because if he treats me as an equal, then he'll be diminished."

"He won't let you hurt me."

"If he doesn't give me those kids, he won't be able to stop me."

She went silent. So did he. A long time passed in silence. The sun drooped but the air stayed hot. He began to get drowsy and stood from the shade, walking around until his blood got pumping. He kept an eye on the eastern ridge at all times.

The sun inched beneath the western peaks. A hard shape formed in his belly. Then, on the eastern heights, a white sock waved back and forth.

Walt smiled. Five minutes later, a man walked into the mouth of the canyon, two small figures in tow.

"Come on," Walt said. "Time to learn what kind of man you're in love with."

28

The sound came first: the stamp of hooves on pavement. A rumble like the ground itself bearing down on the defenders. Next came the dust, curling spumes that climbed above the roofs and clouded the sky like a fire. Third was the vibration, the tremble of the earth, the rhythm in her soles.

Only then did the riders pour into view. They rode in loose columns, rifles held out to the side in one hand, white cloaks snapping behind them. And then the flow stopped. Sixty of the Sworn? No more than eighty. Seeing them, Mia's hopes rose. The enemy had a decided advantage in mobility, but not in numbers. Raina had rallied as many to the hasty defenses they'd assembled along the north road into the Dunemarket.

Then the infantry arrived.

Unlike the Sworn, they didn't wear cloaks or uniforms. They were at least a match in numbers, however, filing in behind and taking cover behind cars, tree trunks, dumpsters. One wing of cavalry stayed in the street while a second trotted into the parking lot of the Home Depot, staying out of easy rifle range.

Beside Mia, tucked behind the cover of the decorative boulders lining the walk into the park, the faces of the conscripts grew strained.

Henna snorted. "They brought so many we won't be able to miss."

The others laughed in a whoosh of held breath. From the lot of the Home Depot, a cluster of riders detached from the mass and trotted toward the defenders. Mia didn't need binoculars to recognize the erectness of Anson's posture. The group stopped a long bowshot away, Anson continuing another two steps closer.

"A beautiful morning!" His voice carried across the placid air. His horse sidestepped, tossing its head as if it had been trained to do so. "But I am sad to be here, and to see you. Because it means I have failed. I run a city of inclusion. It is my dream to live together in peace, working quietly and humbly toward a shared future of hope. One in which our children inherit something better, and will be inspired to pass on something better yet.

"So despite your intrusions—the fights—the murders of my people—I am here to make that offer anew. Not just to extend a branch of the olive tree, but to welcome you beneath its boughs. To share its fruit going forward. Can we do that? Can we forge two into one?"

Raina emerged from a chevron of cinderblocks. She moved slowly, deliberately, as if she were waking from a nap on the porch after a swim. "Why would we join with you?"

"I'll give you two reasons. The first is one of ideals. I look at you. At your beliefs. The paganism, the ritual. I wonder, Are you moving forward? Or retreating into the past?" He stared across the lines of Raina's people. "All these people at your barricades… are they there because they believe? Or because you provide them some measure of safety, so they're happy to play along?"

"And so you would convert them to your beliefs instead."

"Wrong. I offer the opposite: freedom. True freedom. To choose your work, where you live, what you believe."

"What of your second reason?"

"Freedom isn't enough?" He laughed, the noise dying in the open space. "The second is pragmatic. You can't win, Raina."

She watched him, waiting for more. Buying time. Mia smirked. Raina glanced northwest. "You mean because you have betrayed your species. Kneeled before the aliens. And kissed what they call feet."

He was too far away to read his expression, but the shift in his posture said it all. "Do you know how crazy you sound? Do you see any aliens here?" He flung out his arms, taking in the riders, the infantry. "It's just me, Raina. Me and my people. Because they believe."

"If you're not on the end of their leash, then why are you here? What do you need with our lands? You have more than enough. You are greedy, Anson. Like the dog who feasts on the table when your back is turned. If you want peace, why did you invite me to parlay, then try to take me prisoner?"

Anson laughed wryly. "Because you're beyond reason, aren't you? But maybe your people aren't. To them, I offer an invitation. Join me now, and join the renewed destiny of the human race."

Raina glanced across her people, amusement dancing in her eyes. "Is anyone inspired to switch sides?"

Henna cackled. Several others joined her. A handful of warriors looked back and forth, a touch of doubt on their faces, but no one stepped forth.

"Do you have any other deals to offer us?" Raina called.

Anson gazed down at the asphalt, then lifted his head. "Just one: a Christian burial."

He wheeled his mount and cantered back to his people. There, he rode back and forth across their lines, shouting bold-sounding words, but with his back turned, Mia couldn't make them out.

Raina scrabbled up the side of her cinderblock defenses, as agile as a cat on a fence. "He spends words like he found them on the side of the road. They are already gone. In a few minutes, his people will be as well." She showed her teeth. "But you and me? We will give neither quarter nor quit. Because the blood we shed today will be ours forever."

Her people raised their fists and screamed. Mia joined them—not because she believed in every word, but because she believed in their speaker.

Raina climbed behind the cinderblocks. Down the street, Anson continued to talk, trotting from one end of his people to the other, gesticulating grandly. With each thrust of his arms, they shouted back at him, each cry louder than the last. Whatever Mia might think about him, one thing was clear: his people believed.

He gestured a final time and joined the Sworn at the side of the infantry, shielded by rows of parked cars. His foot soldiers jogged forward, grabbing every piece of cover they could find. Something slammed into the cinderblocks and whined away. The boom of a rifle came a moment later. A storm of shots followed.

Raina's people opened up in response, pouring fire into the distant parking lot. Bullets snapped through the air and cracked into rocks. The smell of powder and hot brass bloomed, spent shells tinkling to the pavement. Mia sighted down her scope and fired at a man whose head poked from behind the bumper of a sedan. The recoil jarred her vision. When she realigned her eye to her scope, the man was still there.

"Preserve your ammunition!" Raina said. "Choose your shots like dear friends."

The downpour of fire dwindled to a steady patter. Within seconds, the People of the Stars decreased their shots as well. So far, Mia hadn't seen a single casualty on either side. Years ago, before it all, when she'd had little but a part-time job to fill her time, she'd been a fiend for internet factoids. She had once read that, since the advent of modern warfare, a thousand shots had been fired for every battlefield death. At the time, the number had sounded absurd. As the two sides stayed put, slaying nothing but the air, it suddenly felt credible.

Raina barked the occasional order, but seemed content to hold her ground. Time was on their side: they were on home turf, hardly a mile from the Dunemarket. And not all their forces were in play.

A few minutes later and they'd suffered a single casualty; the boy's arm was already in a sling, but he was insisting he could fire one-handed. They had two confirmed hits on the enemy, status unknown. At times, a full second passed between gunshots. Mia's heart was racing, yet she was strangely bored.

Commotion in the back ranks of the Stars; Anson rode among them, dismounting and holding an animated conversation with other men in white cloaks. Soon, they mounted up and disappeared behind the Home Depot. The other horsemen fell in behind them.

"Ready for a charge!" Raina yelled. She carried a small-caliber rifle over her back, but hadn't yet used it.

A few of the scouts shifted their aim from the ineffective battle to scan the surroundings. A young man shouted, pointing. Well behind the Home Depot, the riders reemerged into the street, tails turned, trotting away from the firefight.

"Don't tell me they're already heading home," Jensen muttered.

"They're not retreating," Raina said. "They're flanking. Henna! Take your team and shadow them. Do not let them come in behind us!"

Henna withdrew from the boulder she'd been firing over and shouted orders to her team, which consisted largely of experienced scouts and warriors, Mia included. They pulled back from the front lines, put a gas station between themselves and the enemy, then ran down a residential street, headed for the hill a few blocks away. As they advanced, Henna dispatched two runners to cover the ground between themselves and potential incursions. Once they were on the hilltop, she sent Mia and a man named Don into a three-story house with a 180-degree view of the north and east. The interior was warm and smelled like animals. At the upstairs window, Mia tried to pull the curtain aside and the liner disintegrated in her hands, shedding flakes over the carpet.

Don leaned into the window, grunted, and shoved it open with a metal squeak. Mia tried not to look at any one thing, searching only for movement. Overgrown palms and magnolias shuffled in a breeze that didn't seem to exist beyond their leaves.

She and Don pointed at the same time: mounted figures crossing an intersection a half a mile northeast. Don called down to Henna, updating her as the riders continued south, disappearing behind a complex of grocery stores and restaurants. Henna sent two runners for a closer look. The next time the cavalry appeared, they turned east, marching back toward the battle, meaning to strike Raina's warriors from behind.

Henna beckoned her people down to the street. The runners were already back, reporting the same movements the others had observed from above.

Henna lifted her nose as if testing the air. "We move south. Get into the houses. Let them get right up on top of us, then open fire."