Broken Angel (6 page)

EIGHT

H
e’s gone,” Dr. Ross said to Pierce, in the apartment across the street from Billy. The doctor had just lifted the end of his stethoscope off Jordan’s chest.

“Gone.”

“Dead,” Dr. Ross said.

Pierce closed his eyes briefly. Mason Lee would pay for this.

“I’ll need a copy of the death certificate,” Pierce said.

“And the body?”

“Do what you need to do,” Pierce said. “Then take it away. I’ll keep the apartment for myself.”

Caitlyn’s wait didn’t take long. The boy passed below her, the skunk smell wafting to her nose.

She lowered herself from horizontal to vertical, landing on her good foot and wincing as she set the other one down.

The noise of impact was slight, but the boy whirled around at the sound and startled her.

Not nearly as much as the sight of her startled him. That was the effect she’d intended, of course, except she’d wanted to reach forward and surprise him, touch the back of his shoulders to really make him jump.

The boy shrieked and backed away from her.

He was a mess. Greasy dark hair sticking out in all directions. Welts across his arms, red bumps on his face. His right forearm was bound by a blood-crusted strip of cloth, obviously ripped from the bottom of his shirt. He had filthy hands, dirt under his fingernails. And, of course, the smell of skunk.

“Keep going,” Caitlyn told him. The boy had a round rock in his hand, and she guessed why. “I can surprise you like this whenever I want. Except next time, I’ll be the one with a rock big enough to knock you across the head. You won’t even know what hit you.”

The boy stopped moving, squinted at her. “How did you do that?”

“I want you to leave me alone,” she answered. She reached down and grabbed her walking stick, which she’d placed on the ground at the side of the path earlier.

He squinted again. “What are you?”

She was a freak. That’s what he meant. The reminder was like someone pushed a jagged piece of glass through her skin. She blinked at the intensity of the pain. But she wasn’t going to show that the insult affected her.

She jabbed him in his chest with the tip of her walking stick. “Whatever I am, I don’t stink like you. Now go away.”

“No, no, no,” he said. “I thought you were a man. But you sound a lot like a girl. Not that I’m trying to insult you.”

“You’re not listening. If you keep following me, I’ll have to ambush you again and whack your head.”

He was still squinting. “I wish I had better eyes. Then I could see if you were a girl.”

“What difference does that make?”

“I’d be more afraid that a man would whack me. You’re not someone from the Clan, right? You’re not going to barbecue me and hang me from a tree? The way you appeared out of nowhere…that was scary.”

“I don’t want you following me.”

“As long as you’re not Clan, I have to. Else I’m going to die of starvation.”

She jabbed him again. “Leave me be.”

She jabbed his shoulder. It was the most she could force herself to do to harm him physically. She hoped the bluff would work.

“There’s a bounty on my head,” he said. “I’m a factory runaway.”

“Then keep running.”

“Ha!” he said. “There’s only one reason you wouldn’t go to the Elders to collect that bounty. You must be on the run too.”

“I just want to be left alone.”

“Show me your vidpod,” he said. “Got an Elder’s verification that you were in church last Sunday?”

“Go away,” Caitlyn said.

“See!” Smug triumph. “I knew it. Fugitive. You can’t turn me in. Just like I can’t turn you in. Hey, where’s your backpack? Have anything I can eat?”

Her backpack was hidden a few yards ahead, off the trail. Caitlyn gritted her teeth. “Go. Away. Now.”

“Or else what?” Another grin from the smudged face.

She tried to think of an answer that would scare him. In the silence, he cocked his head, but the grin on his face disappeared.

“Trouble,” he said. “We’re not alone.”

She listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Men,” he said. “Talking.”

He pointed upward, at the branches three-quarters the way up the trees.

Caitlyn looked.

“Skunk boy,” she said, “those are leaves.”

“Beyond the leaves. I can hear them.”

He seemed so convinced that Caitlyn looked more intently. She looked in the angle he pointed and saw the rock of the far wall of the valley. The same sheer rock wall that Caitlyn dropped from when Papa pushed her into the chasm.

She saw movement on the distant rocks. Caitlyn limped past the boy and climbed upward on the deer path.

“I was right, wasn’t I,” the boy said. He stayed close to her.

She ignored him. She reached a place where the trees thinned. It gave her a better view across the valley.

The boy jumped on a nearby rock and became as tall as Caitlyn.

“Climbers,” he said. “I can’t see much close up, but I can see far just fine. Those are climbers.”

The boy was right. A half dozen men were lowering themselves on ropes and climbing down the sheer face of the rock, high above the waterfall.

“You can hear them?”

“Not what they are saying. But enough to know they are talking. Impressed? You should be. Most people are. I can’t see good enough to count my own fingers, but I can hear stuff. It’s why I’m afraid at night. Too many things moving in the dark. I hear them all. All the time.”

Caitlyn let the boy prattle. In her head, she heard Papa’s words.
“You cannot be taken, dead or alive. You must not fall into their hands.”

Who were they? What was it they wanted so badly?

Caitlyn gave the irritating skunk boy her attention again. She’d have to escape him too. But not now. If her pursuers found him, he’d most certainly tell them about her and confirm that she was still alive. She would take him away from here, then abandon him.

“Do you want to go back to the factory?” Caitlyn asked.

“I’ve been eating worms and crawfish,” he said. “I even tried killing a skunk to eat it. That’s why I stink. I’m willing to go to the Clan just to get Outside, if I can find my way there. What does that tell you?”

“Stay with me, then,” Caitlyn said. She pointed ahead where the valley widened. “We’re going to Cumberland Gap. Then Outside. But you have to keep your mouth shut and do everything I tell you.”

“You can find the Clan? You’re not afraid of becoming a floater?”

“Already, you’re not listening. You’ll need to keep your mouth shut.”

“Sorry.”

Caitlyn turned back down the path, where the backpack was waiting. Her ankle was feeling a little better. The climbers wouldn’t be down for a while, but she’d have to do her best to stay ahead of them.

“My name is Theo,” the boy said. “Do you have any food?”

Caitlyn spoke without looking back. “That doesn’t sound like silence to me.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right. Sorry again. It’s just been a week all by myself. And I’m hungry.”

“Telling me why you’re talking, that’s talking too.”

“Right. Sorry. You know…again.”

She’d give him some cheese from the backpack. Maybe that would keep him quiet.

“How did you sneak up on me back there?” he said a couple steps later. “No one’s ever done that before. My hearing is too good.”

She ignored him.

“I can hear great, but I’ve got extreme hyperopia,” he continued. “Means I’m farsighted. I can barely even count my own fingers.”

“You said that already,” Caitlyn said. “Try to count to yourself. Please.”

“Up close, you’re a blur to me. At least tell me if you’re a girl. Or just a small man with a high voice. If you’re going to escape with someone, that’s important to know, right?”

“If I feed you,” she said, “will you finally give me some peace?”

Then, silence. Blessed silence.

But a second later, he grabbed her arm. With anger, she twisted away. She turned and was about to snap at him, but his head was cocked, and he was holding up a hand to stop her.

His smudged face showed concentration. Then fear.

“Hounds,” he said. “Between us and Cumberland Gap.”

NINE

B
illy felt miserable while handcuffing Mrs. Shelton’s wrists behind the spindle-back cane chair in her kitchen. He squatted behind her, afraid that with the slightest roughness he’d tear through the liver-spotted skin of her frail wrists. He just hoped Mrs. Shelton wouldn’t remind him that she’d changed his diapers when he was a baby. Billy had never wanted to be a deputy, but when the Elders gave orders, there was no choice.

Everything about her kitchen was as he remembered. The flowered wallpaper, the lace curtains, the china set out as decoration. She’d put cookies and milk on the table before he could find the courage to tell her why he had knocked on her door.

Billy rose from the floor.

“If it hurts,” Billy said, “let me know. Maybe I can put a dishrag or something under the cuffs.”

“It’s a shame you have to do this.” She’d been a widow for two decades, the type of woman who stayed busy in the town, helping out where needed with the energy and mannerisms of a sparrow.

“Ma’am,” Billy said. “No offense. Sheriff Carney advised me against any conversation with you.”

Billy stood in front of her now, not quite able to meet her eyes. He focused on her forehead instead. A couple of deep blue veins pulsed under the surface of her translucent skin.

“No conversation?” Her smile faltered, adding to Billy’s misery.

“He said you were dangerous.”

“Sheriff Carney is afraid of a seventy-two-year-old woman?”

“No. He said I should be.”

“There’s nobody in the county bigger and stronger than you, Billy Jasper. How could I be any danger?”

“You managed to keep me talking,” Billy said. “I shouldn’t say anything more.”

“You can at least tell me why you’re doing this,” she said.

Billy did have orders to cover that. He pulled a vidpod from the back pocket of his deputy uniform and held the small rectangular screen in front of Mrs. Shelton’s face.

“I’m not wearing my glasses,” she said. “They are on the counter.”

Billy found them folded, beside the sink. He unfolded them and placed the wire frame gently on Mrs. Shelton’s nose, tucking the arms onto her ears. A couple wisps of her gray hair had fallen from the bun piled high on her head. He pushed them out of the way.

“You’re a kind young man,” she said. “I always liked that about you.”

No conversation,
he reminded himself. He’d already slipped.

Billy touched the screen to play the arrest and search warrant for Mrs. Shelton. To authenticate the authority of the warrant, a face on the screen appeared briefly: Bar Elohim. Then Sheriff Carney’s image, speaking the words recorded for this occasion.

Carney spoke in monotone.
“By the power vested in me through God and Bar Elohim, this arrest warrant is served on Gloria Shelton on charges of sedition against the state
.
A simultaneous search warrant of the Shelton residence and grounds has been issued to provide evidence for the arrest charge.”

“Who was it?” Mrs. Shelton said, sighing.

“Ma’am?”

“Who was it that turned me in?”

Billy had been hoping Mrs. Shelton would deny wrongdoing. When he was a boy, she’d always had a pitcher of lemonade ready for children in the neighborhood.

“You know I can’t answer that,” Billy said. Here he was, somehow engaged in conversation again.

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

Billy was a new deputy. Carney didn’t tell him who his informants were. He saw her vidpod on a desk on the far wall of the kitchen and took the opportunity to avoid her question. “I’ll need to transfer this warrant so you have a record of it. Is your infrared activated?”

Mrs. Shelton nodded. Billy beamed the information. It was required as part of any arrest.

“When I was a girl,” she said, “we didn’t have vidpods. Information was written down to be recorded.”

“With vidpods, you don’t need to write anything,” Billy answered after the small beep told him the transfer was complete. “This is easier and more efficient.”

Billy’s personal vidpod held everything he needed to know or reference. The filing system had folders with icons. When Bar Elohim needed to speak to all of Appalachia, the message was uploaded automatically on to every vidpod in every household. The vidpod was programmed to beep until the recipient listened to the directive. Billy hated letting the vidpod beep because it sounded to him like a little voice saying that he was sinning against God, so he always listened to his messages right after receiving them.

“Vidpods keep you from needing the ability to read,” Mrs. Shelton said.

There it was. In the open. She was almost admitting that she broke the law.

“Ma’am,” Billy said, “I have to search your house. For books. And your Bible.”

Then he realized he was talking to her again.

“Aren’t you curious,” she asked, “what it would be like to read books? What you might learn beyond what Bar Elohim permits?”

Carney had been right. She was dangerous. Like the snake, offering fruit from the Tree of Good and Evil.

“Ma’am, I’ve respected you since I was a boy. I wish I didn’t have to do this.”

He couldn’t stop himself from answering. Remaining silent seemed too cruel to Mrs. Shelton.

“Did the informer give Sheriff Carney a list of everyone?”

Everyone. Now Billy knew it was true. She’d also been secretly teaching people to read.

“No more conversation, Mrs. Shelton. I’m sorry.”

“If he doesn’t have a list, he’s going to make me give him names. You know that, don’t you? He’s going to hurt me.”

Billy didn’t want to think about it. But he knew that people shouldn’t break the law. “You want to tell me where to find the books? There’ll be less of a mess that way.”

Mrs. Shelton had always liked her house neat, Billy remembered.

She opened her mouth as if to respond, then leaned toward her middle, groaning. “My stomach!”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s my medication,” she said. “Every morning about now, it sends me running to the toilet. Please don’t make me dirty myself here in my kitchen.”

“Of course not,” Billy said. “You promise you won’t try to run?”

She managed to smile. “From a strong, handsome young man like you?”

Billy blushed.

She grimaced again, bending over. “Hurry!”

Billy unshackled her. He helped her from the chair to her feet. She leaned on his arm as he led her down the hallway, past the photos of her children and her grandchildren and her long-dead husband. She still smelled of peppermint and perfume.

“Thank you, Billy,” she said at the door to the bathroom. “You always were a nice young man.”

“You won’t try to leave through the window?”

“I’m seventy-two.”

“Yes ma’am,” Billy said. “I’ll wait in the kitchen.”

The kitchen jutted out from the house. From there, he’d still be able to see the door in the hallway. As well as the neat yard outside. If she actually did try to escape, he’d see that too.

“Don’t forget the cookies, then,” she said. “Not much sense letting them go to waste.”

She closed the door.

Halfway through the second cookie, Billy thought he smelled kerosene. Then smoke.

He frowned, glanced around him.

Black smoke curled from beneath the door down the hallway.

It only took a single punch against the door to force it open. He saw her on the floor. Limp. A small vial had fallen from her hand, and little pills were scattered on the floor. Flames were rising around her, already crackling and devouring a pile of books in the bathtub. The door to the cupboard under the sink was open and empty.

Billy faced a grim choice. Find a way to fight the flames. Or carry Mrs. Shelton away from danger.

He lifted her onto his shoulders and ran back down the hallway.