Firewalker (27 page)

Lily looked around her. They'd been brought down the tracks to another abandoned station—but this one was full of people. She wondered briefly why this station was occupied when the other one wasn't, but kept her questions to herself.

It's like they're hostages. Why doesn't the city do something about this?

Because they all make money off it, Lily. Ranching is extremely lucrative. Ranchers donate money to the Council's election campaigns, and the city conveniently ignores the people who live down here.

What about the Covens? Didn't Lillian try to do something about this?

She could feel Rowan cringe inwardly. Just the mention of Lillian's name made something inside him recoil.

Yes, she did. The Covens used to have limited power. Remember, the Covens aren't elected—witches are born with their power, like aristocracy, but the Council is elected. They used to be the only branch of government that could write laws, but Lillian said that the Council was corrupted by the need to raise election funds, and she campaigned to make it possible for witches to write laws, too. At first she used that power to help the tunnel people and the Outlanders. But later, when she changed, she used it to draft legislation that allowed her to hang scientists.

Lily didn't ask any more questions. Somehow, the answers she got from Rowan always seemed to lead back to Lillian and her hangings. Her curiosity flared again. How could anyone go so quickly from being a hero of the people to a tyrant?

Lily heard Breakfast's voice take on a particularly jovial tone and picked up her head. He had begun conversing with three middle-aged women, and from the way the rest of the tunnel denizens seemed to defer to them, Lily supposed they were the leaders of this underground gang. The exchange had started out amicably enough, but their voices began to rise. A pale, blond woman with a stout body and thick, meaty hands stepped away from the group and marched toward Lily and Rowan.

“These two,” the woman said angrily, glancing back at Breakfast. “You can't tell me they're not Coven. No one with a willstone that active would have been left untrained. And her? The little witch? She even
smells
like magic. The whole lot of you are her claimed or I've never seen a coven in my life.”

“I don't belong to any of the Thirteen Covens, but I am a witch,” Lily snarled back at her. She felt Rowan put a hand on her upper arm, but she shook it off. Lily didn't like this woman, and being underground where she felt cut off and endangered, she didn't feel like playing nice. Something told her being nice wouldn't help anyway—not with this woman. “Now, who are you?”

“Queen of the Fairies,” the woman said sarcastically. “What do you want?”

“To trade and to get the hell out of here,” Lily replied.

The woman actually smiled. “That's all I wanted to hear, witch.” She looked Rowan up and down, her eyes rounding with worry when they regarded his willstone. Her own willstone was small and vaguely pinkish in hue, although Lily had noticed that people with little or no magic tended to have nearly colorless willstones that resembled white quartz or dull opals.

The woman spun on her heel and stormed away, shouting orders as she went. “Outfit them fairly, and show them where to jump a train out of town. Then make
damn
sure they get on it.”

“Hey!” Lily shouted after her. The woman stopped and turned, her lips pinched thin, showing she was at the end of her patience. “We'll get out and stay out on one condition,” Lily said.

“I'm listening,” the woman replied.

“If you tell anyone we were here, I'll come back for
you
.”

“Never laid eyes on you in my life,” the woman said, and then disappeared down the curving tracks.

Lily's coven was taken to what appeared to be one of the larger barrel fires. Some of the older teen lookouts brought food, and then they laid out an array of trade goods. Rowan sorted through the wearhyde clothes, blades, and bundles of wovensbane—an herb that smelled like citronella when burned that sometimes managed to repel the Woven.

“Some of these jackets look warm enough,” Tristan said, trying to make the best of it. “And I've noticed that even though everyone here wears leather pants and jackets, they still wear some sort of cotton or linen tops. We can use our own shirts at least.”

“It's not leather, it's wearhyde,” Lily corrected. “It's grown from a culture, not skinned from an animal, and I think it's even nicer than leather.”

“You would, Your Vegan-ness,” Una said, smiling.

“These are probably the best-quality supplies they have,” Rowan whispered to Breakfast. “I wouldn't haggle too much.”

“I wasn't going to haggle at all,” Breakfast said. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “In fact, I think they need our help more than they need to trade.” Breakfast waved one of the older teens closer. The grubby kid balked for a moment. He didn't want to come anywhere near Rowan.

“It's alright, Riley,” Una said, rolling her eyes. “He's not going to bite you. Tell him what you told us.”

“Are you really a witch?” Riley asked Lily cautiously.

“She is,” Rowan answered for her. Lily could tell his answering for her was a reflex. No one was allowed to speak directly to a witch unless she addressed them first, and now that Lily and Rowan were back in his world, some of his old habits with Lillian were seeping back into his behavior.

“Tell them about the babies being born strange,” said a high, piping voice from the shadows. A little boy, no older than five, stepped forward.

“Quiet, Pip.” Riley reached out and put his hand on the little boy's head and then turned back to Rowan. “It's not just the babies. A lot of women have fallen sick and the witches in the city say they can't help them.”

“They're lying to you,” Rowan snapped angrily. “There isn't much a witch can't cure. What are the symptoms and how did the sickness start?”

Riley and Pip shared a look, and then Riley finally decided to continue. “It started about two years back. A professor from Salem asked some of the tunnel women to smuggle metal containers filled with what looked like ordinary dust out of each of the cities. But when the women came back they had burns on their hands and faces, like sunburns only much worse. Then they started getting sick. A lot of them died, and those that didn't had babies that—” Riley suddenly broke off and grimaced like his stomach was turning. “Every woman who helped in the smuggling in every city ended up sick, dead, or with a baby that just wasn't right.”

“Where did the smugglers bring the dust?” Rowan asked.

“Outland.” Riley suddenly looked sheepishly at his feet to avoid Rowan's eyes. “The Salem professor who organized the whole thing was an Outlander.”

A chill rattled down Lily's spine. “Did you get a name?”

Riley nodded. “She was important, so I remembered her name. Professor Chenoa. And there were two others. They weren't real professors, but they were still awfully smart. Hawk and Kiwi? No, that's not right, but it's close.”

“Let me see the sick,” Lily ordered hollowly. “And I want to see the babies.”

Lily glanced at Rowan as she followed Riley down a dark passageway that led away from the main group of tunnel people.

Lily. You know Chenoa, don't you?

I know of her. She and the other two—Hakan and Keme—were the scientists that Lillian wanted. They were the scientists we fought Lillian to protect, Rowan.

Lily saw Rowan's brow furrow in thought. He didn't ask any more questions, not even to find out how Lily knew that. Before she could formulate a question for Rowan that didn't implicate her, the group arrived at a satellite camp for the sick.

“Holy shit,” Tristan cursed under his breath.

Rowan staggered forward, wading out into the huddled groups of skeletal woman and twisted, deformed children. Even though he was wearing a glamour, they could tell from his skin tone and from the beaded leather work of his pack that he was an Outlander. They scowled at him as he passed, their hatred palpable. Right or wrong, they apparently blamed him and all Outlanders for what Chenoa had done to them.

“No,” Rowan said in disbelief, ignoring their glares. “This isn't natural.”

Lily came forward and focused on one of the women. She was balding and had ulcerous sores around her mouth—like the people in the cinder world. Lily crouched down and looked the woman in the eye. She could see the chromosomal damage in the woman's cells. The woman's liver, kidneys, and immune system were all shutting down, unable to repair themselves.

“Why don't you take a step back, Rowan,” Tristan said. As Rowan moved away, Tristan crouched next to Lily and introduced himself to the woman kindly. Tristan remembered her humanity, even if Lily was too stunned to be polite.

It's her DNA. I can't find any cells in her that have undamaged genetic material, Lily. Can you?

No, Tristan. She's past saving.

What did this?

Lily heard Breakfast and then Una in her head.

Their cells can't repair themselves. It's horrible.

What is this? Can you see the air around them? It's filled with little specks of almost nothing that are whizzing around like crazy.

Lily reached out to all of her mechanics, sharing mindspeak with them.

They're radioactive, you guys. We can't stay with them for long. Rowan, do you have any idea how to help these people?

Those that haven't passed the tipping point? Yes. But the ritual will be very difficult for you, Lily. Tell the others to spread out and try to find people who still have some healthy life-helix material.

It took Lily a moment to understand, but when Rowan passed an image of what he needed to her, she instantly understood.

We call that DNA, Rowan.

Try to find healthy DNA. I'm afraid I'll have to stay here while you go scan them. These people don't want me near them. They hate Outlanders.

I'm sorry about that.

I've dealt with prejudice my whole life, Lily, but at least these people have a reason. An Outlander betrayed them and exposed them to some contaminant that did this to them, although I can't think of what it was.

Lily could guess what it was—enriched uranium, which had been made in the laboratories of Lillian's college. Chenoa used the tunnel women to pass the uranium from city to city and then into the Outlands where she and her two acolytes, Hakan and Keme, put it into the thirteen bombs. And she never told the women how dangerous it could be. All this time Lily had sided with Outlanders, wanting to believe that they were pure victims who were blameless and noble. There were no good guys anymore.

Lily felt Rowan put his hand on her arm, startling her out of her thoughts. She smiled at him warmly. At least Rowan was still pure and good. He had no idea about what Chenoa and Alaric had done to these women.

I know this is hard, but you have to be strong, Lily. They need help.

It's okay. I can handle it.

Lily passed on Rowan's instructions and then started approaching the contaminated women, trying to find even a scrap of undamaged DNA. She couldn't help but think of Lillian and she didn't want Rowan to know. Lillian had used the same words Rowan had. She'd said “tipping point” when she talked about her strange illness with Captain Leto, and now Lily knew for certain what that illness was—radiation poisoning. This was how Lillian was dying. Slowly. Painfully.

Lily and her mechanics walked through the medical camp, but very few of the women could be saved. The children were even worse. All of them were under the age of two, and all of them suffered from heart-wrenching birth defects. Lily tried to be respectful, but more than once she had to turn her face away or she knew she'd start crying.

“I can't think of a worse way to die,” Una said quietly when they had regrouped.

“I think I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life,” Breakfast said, agreeing with her.

“Did you find anyone with healthy cells?” Rowan asked. His expression was stormy with anger, but Lily knew it wasn't because these people rejected him. He needed to be angry. Rowan couldn't allow himself to be paralyzed by sadness right now or to get insulted by the prejudice that surrounded him. He had to stay focused and find a way to save these people.

“I got two, maybe three,” Breakfast said.

“Three,” Una said.

“One,” Lily said, looking down.

“I only saw one, too,” Tristan said, looking at Lily.

“I got two,” Rowan said. “Were any of them children?” Everyone shook his or her head. “I didn't think so. We need to collect clean tissue samples—no contamination or it will be a disaster,” Rowan said.

Tristan looked around at the filthy conditions of the med camp. “That's not going to be easy.”

Rowan turned to Breakfast. “See what you can get from Riley. We need nine, maybe ten, sterile metal rods that are slightly sharpened on one end and about that big.” Rowan held up his forefinger and thumb to indicate about two and a half inches. “Breakfast and Una are going to swipe the inside of their cheeks and collect some cells from the people who might be saved. Don't collect cells from an ulcer. If you have any problems finding undamaged skin inside their mouths, let me know and we'll take blood instead.”

“Got it,” Una said. Breakfast and Una left them to get what they needed from Riley.

“Tristan, you're with me,” Rowan said. “We'll set up for the ritual.”

“What do I do?” Lily asked.

“Gather your strength,” Rowan replied. He led her to one of the barrel fires and sat her down on a small stool beside it. He met her eyes and let his glamour drop for just a moment so she could see his true face. He looked worried. “You're going to need it.”