Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (38 page)

The rest of Bill Gates’s people seemed equally perplexed. Terry glanced my way and looked down, clearing his throat. Kevin and Ida smoothed their faces.

Perplexed, but still loyal
. We weren’t going to get an explanation from those quarters.

“How did this happen?” one of the assistants said in Baasha. “We did not drink from the oasis.”

“The wells must be tainted,” the other said. “Macabi may have died here by chance. He may have been infected earlier.”

Mizzy looked at the scummy water. “Maybe he came here to try to wash the coating off.”

“Was he with a caravan?” Williams said.

“Yes,” the master said, his voice dull. “His caravan left before ours — four days earlier. We were to meet in Vignobles.”

The man had been aquariumed in six days.

We all looked at each other, horrified. Then, as one, we looked down at our bare hands. I rubbed mine together. Did they feel a little chalky? I thought they might.

“We must find the rest of Macabi’s caravan,” one of the assistants said. “We may be able to save the others.”

“No,” Williams said. “We’re going back to the ligature.”

For once, I agreed with him completely. If we’d been infected by the well in the ligature town, we’d already used up two and a half days. There was no time to spare. We had to get to a healer who could get those things out of our bodies. Maybe Hagut Kidron could do it. She healed the way Kara did. She wouldn’t be limited to what our immune systems could handle.

The assistant became increasingly agitated, shouting that he had friends in Macabi’s caravan, and we had to help them.

“They must have drunk the water, as Macabi did,” I said. “They are probably in the same condition. I am sorry.”

The man swore at me and called me heartless.

Williams looked to Mizzy, but she shook her head. “I can’t deal with him. I’m spent.”

He gave her a hard look. Then he clamped a hand on my shoulder and marched me back to the camels.

The message was clear:
Do as you please, but we’re leaving.

Within a few minutes, Williams and I, all of Bill Gates’s people, and five other travelers were on our camels and headed back down the road at a shambling pace that made me queasy.

The sound of the other caravaners’ arguing voices faded quickly. I concentrated on my camel’s ears and tried not to think of them and their misguided altruism. Surely they’d come to their senses.

“Drink, Beth.”

I looked up at the full waterskin Mizzy was holding out to me. It swayed back and forth in time to her camel’s movement. Watching it swing made my headache worse. I closed my eyes.

“Every time we drink, we’re dosing ourselves with algae,” I said.

Williams reined his camel back beside me. “Heat stroke’ll kill you faster than they will. Drink. Now.”

I took the waterskin and drank. It was hard to make myself swallow.

The sun had risen an hour ago, but we were still riding, albeit at a walk.

I hung the waterskin on my saddle and reached up to wipe the back of my neck. My sweat had a slightly pasty feel. Maybe it was just dust. Maybe not.

Mizzy was watching me. “We should stop.”

Kevin frowned. “The camels can keep going.”

“What if sweat is how the algae get out onto our skin?” Mizzy said. “The hotter it gets, the more we’ll sweat.”

Williams seemed to find that convincing — he called a halt for the day.

We set up a barebones camp — just a big pavilion tent, which would fit all our bedrolls. I lay down on mine, settled my waterskin beside me, and closed my eyes.

I thought of the dead man’s stony mask, imagined him desperately scraping away at the crust forming on his skin, struggling to walk as it immobilized his legs, fighting to take one last breath as it tightened around his chest. I turned over and pressed the images firmly out of my mind, but as soon as I stopped actively thinking of something else, they came back.

Damn
.

I looked over at Mizzy, who’d laid her bedroll near mine. “So, you can do some healing.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’d love to be able to do that, one day.”

“Yeah.”

She sounded vague, as though she weren’t really paying attention.

Remembering how tired she’d looked at the oasis, I propped myself up on an elbow. “Are you all right?”

When she turned to look at me, I was shocked by her wasted appearance.

“I’m fine. I just did too much back there.”

“I’ve seen people get drained before. You look way worse.”

“Thanks,” she said with a tired smirk.

“I don’t mean you look
bad
, just really, really tired. Almost …”

Aged. She looked aged.

I lowered my voice. “How old are you?”

“A little older than I look.” She waved a hand by her face. “Beauty-working, and all.”

Slowly, I propped myself up on an elbow. “You used almost all your capacity at the oasis … but you’re still spending power on green eyes and bigger boobs?”

A look came over her face. I recognized it. I’d seen it on Graham. It said,
I’m trapped
.

My thoughts jostled around chaotically for a moment, then took a leap.

“It’s not just a beauty-working. That’d be superficial, not that big a drain. It’s a youth-working.” My eyes strayed to the network of tiny lines around her lips. “But you don’t really have the juice for that, do you?”

She looked away. Her mouth started trembling, and she closed her eyes.

Powers could keep their bodies however they wanted, but people with less capacity couldn’t do that sort of thing. Mizzy had probably been maintaining a full working on her whole body for years. It’s a wonder she had anything to spare. She must’ve had to pull power away from that working to do what she did at the oasis. She looked aged because she
had
aged.

“How old are you?”

Mizzy took a shuddery breath. “I was born in 1908.”

I stared at her, floored.

She was over a hundred years old, and she’d been keeping herself fortysomething. That would take a huge amount of power. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to scare away all those dinosaurs back on the jungle road. She would have had to pull from the youth-working to do it.

But she had pulled from it with Macabi. She looked ten years older.

“You lost years last night. Can you push the working back, once you regain your strength?”

“I don’t know.”

Her voice was small and frightened.

I felt a surge of sympathy and reached for her hand. “You can —”

Something jerked me off my bedroll and out of the tent.

Williams. In a towering fury.

“She
will not
draw on you.”

He gave me a shake for emphasis. He was holding me off the ground. I bounced around like a ragdoll.

“It’s none of your business! Put me down!”

I struggled, kicking and punching at him. It did no good at all.

Behind him, the others were emerging from the tent, alarmed.

Kevin said, “What’d she do now?”

Terry said, “Dude. Chill.”

Ida said, “What’re you doing to that child? Have you lost your mind?”

Williams turned his head to the side, half-glancing at the people behind him.

Silence fell.

The message was clear. This was none of their business, and he overpowered them by a mile. No one was going to mess with him.

But he didn’t overpower me.

For the first time, I really wanted my gift. I wanted to hurt him.

Just a little
, I thought.
Just enough
.

But there was nothing. I hung there like a sack of potatoes, helpless.

After a few more seconds, he set me on my feet, keeping a good grip on my upper arm.

Mizzy was standing behind the others. She met my eyes for a moment, then looked away. I could see she was scared. And bitterly disappointed.

Williams got in her face. “Thought things were clear, but apparently not. You touch her, you die.”

She didn’t look up.

“Understand?”

She nodded.

He turned and stalked toward the camels, pulling me along.

When he’d put some distance between us and the others, he stopped. His fingers twitched. He was putting up a barrier. Probably a sound-proof one.

Then he focused on me. “Why did you do that?”

I backed away until I felt the strange sponginess of the barrier pressing against my back.

“She needs help.”

“And
you’re
going to help her? You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What’s the worst that could happen? If she drained me, you’d toss me over a camel, and I’d be fine in a few days.”

“She could use your strength to kill all of us.”

I gaped at him. “You’re crazy. She wouldn’t do that.”

“You know her so well, after three weeks?”

“I know she wouldn’t do that.”

“Don’t be a fool. You have no idea who she is, what she’s done, or what she wants.”

“Oh please! Pot, meet kettle.”

His eyes narrowed.

The sensible part of my brain started jumping up and down and shouting about how not-safe it was to make him angrier.

I took a deep breath. “Look. She just doesn’t want to get old and die.” I remembered the disappointment on her face. “So, yeah, she wants me to help her stay young. That’s not weird or evil. It’s normal.”

“Any of your friends at home ever ask you for eternal youth?”

“Well, no, but —”

“You’re a massive power source. Once you let her in, she can take whatever she wants. You give her a little, she’ll want more. Enough for a few extras. Then enough to get rid of the witnesses. You think she wants Gates coming after her? Or Cordus?”

The dark logic of it wormed its way into my mind.

“People here are not your friends,” Williams said. “Get it through your fucking head.”

I took a deep breath. “I’m not an idiot. Okay, maybe she’s been trying to manipulate me. But I don’t think she’s planning to hurt us. I want to help her.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“No, I’m not.” I struggled to find the right words. “People don’t have to be perfect to be worthwhile. I like her.”

Williams stared at me. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“What’s the alternative? Trust no one? Give nothing?”

“Yes,” he said furiously. “Power has costs.”

“I don’t want power,” I ground out.

“Tough luck. You have it. Deal with it.”

I didn’t say anything, but mentally, I dug my heels in. Even if I ended up strong, damned if I was going to become some kind of loner outcast. And until I got strong, I sure as hell needed friends.

He seemed to read my mind. “You can’t see reason? Fine. If she tries to draw on you, I’ll kill her. How’s that?”

His voice was quiet and even. He meant it.

I stared out at the shimmering heat, wrestling with my doubts.

Williams had marched me back to the tent and moved my bedroll to the edge. He’d put his own between mine and the others’, physically separating me from temptation.

Off on the other side of the tent, I could hear the five caravaners who’d come with us murmuring in Baasha. They were confused and alarmed by the strife in our party. You couldn’t blame them — conflict could slow us down, and slowing down could kill us.

I lay there, looking at the landscape, trying to decide if I was a naive fool or if Williams was a paranoid asshole.

I was sure Mizzy wouldn’t harm me in any significant way, but when I pressed myself on
why
I felt so sure, I couldn’t come up with anything concrete.

It could be wishful thinking. I had to admit that.

It could be, but it isn’t
, the stubborn part of my mind whispered.

I sighed and tried to get settled more comfortably on my bedroll. My right hip hurt. I really wanted to turn over, but then I’d be looking at Williams, and damned if I was going to do that.

My mind regurgitated what he’d said about power:
You have it. Deal with it.

I closed my eyes.

That had always been the terrifying flip-side of feeling like Cordus treated me differently from the others, valued me more. Why would someone like me get special treatment from someone like him? The only possible answer was that I was a more important asset.