Speed of Light (40 page)

We felt all over it. Every crevice. Every cranny. “Bingo.”

A tiny door on the back of its hand was caught on the race flag it held. Tens used a knife to pry it open. Wires and USB plugs ran up the hollow arm.

I leaned closer to the statue’s head. “Tens?” A tiny green light blinked. “They’re watching.” I stood up, quaking and nauseous. Statues were positioned everywhere around town. All the streets, most of the corners, placed perfectly to see everyone and anything that happened here.
Perfect to spy on us. On everyone
. There probably wasn’t a square foot that wasn’t under surveillance.

“There are cameras in the eyes?” Tens looked up until I nodded, then used his knife to leverage all the wires until he could yank them lose. The green light faded.

“No wonder Ms. Asura knew when to corner Juliet.”

I shivered.

“He’ll know we know. If they’re not miced for sound, I’d be shocked.”

“Hello, Sergio. Did you know Ms. Asura is dead? We lit her up. Not sorry.” I leaned over a baby carriage and talked to the fake baby. I wanted a baseball bat to dismantle the surveillance art.
Soon enough
.

“Let’s get to Rumi,” Tens said.

We ran to the studio and found Rumi drinking whiskey. He looked so forlorn I blurted, “Did I miss it?”

“What, lass?”

“Faye?” I said, sitting down and hugging him.

“Ah, no, last I heard, she was unresponsive but clinging.” He shook his head. “Trying to make sense of my uncle’s childhood writing.” He pointed down toward the table where he’d taken apart the little journal piece by piece.

“Anything?” Tens asked.

“He spent a lot of time at one of the artesian wells, but I don’t know where it is yet, or which one.”

“Is it the same one the Woodsman warned us about?”

“There are numerous ones in this state. I do not know, lassy. I saw the parade scatter because of the tornado sirens. You have anything to do with that?” he asked.

“Yeah, that’s about the only part that’s gone right,” I said.

“There’s more bad news,” Tens said, holding up the wires.

“A
re you sure?”

I knelt by the old, hollowed tree. The light we saw came from within. The closer I got, the brighter it glowed. I saw strands of hair like mine but could not force myself to look deeper into the rotting tree.

“We can try to carry her out?” Tony held up plastic sheets. “Or we can report the location and have the police come. Have you given any thought as to what you want to do?”

I leaned over and vomited. I didn’t know what I
thought we’d find, but a skeleton to wrap in plastic and hike out of the forest wasn’t it.
I want my mother to hug me and hold me and make me okay
. Finding my mother was all I’d thought about. Not what to do if we did.

Mini wound around the tree and us, leaving scent marks with her chin and purring.

We’d never make it back to the car carrying anything. My heart broke into dust. To leave her here again seemed unthinkable. To stay here forever with her put my friends and thousands of innocent people in danger. I shook my head. “We can’t carry her.” I wasn’t sure I’d survive picking the pieces of her body up.
I’m not strong enough for that
.

“The police will investigate. Maybe catch any people involved,” Tony tried to reassure me.

“We trust the police in this country?” Fara asked, handing me a paper napkin and a bottle of juice to rinse out my mouth.

“Usually,” Tony answered. “In this case, I think we should.”

“Call the police,” I said, the words barely audible. “Will they tell me if she’s my mother?”
I know it’s my mom. I feel it
.

“We can clip a little hair and do a fancy test, right?” Fara asked. “Americans do them on TV all the time. Make sure on our own?”

“Yes, we can order a DNA test,” Tony answered.

I felt as if my skin were burrowing into the earth, rooting down like carrots so I would never leave my mother
again.
I can stay here with her. Crawl into the tree and wait until death opens my own window. Or just step through when someone else uses me. Everything Meridian taught me was to keep that from happening. But what if I willed it?

“What if the Nocti come while we’re gone? Are we still being followed?” I asked in a small voice.

Fara frowned. “I don’t think so. It was hard to tell with the storm.”

Tony sat next to me. “This is a long way out, Juliet. The Nocti can’t possibly know where to look anymore, and Ms. Asura is dead.”

Mini meowed.

I slicked back my wet hair with such frustration that Fara moved behind me and started to rebraid it. The tug and strokes reminded me of Nicole. Of Bodie, who’d liked to brush it and hide in the cascade of it. I’d struggled too long without any family to give up on the ones I had now. I stood, ready to decide to return and leave my mother’s remains here.

“Hello?” a young voice called from the woods to our left. “I see lights, hurry! Hello?”

Two hikers stumbled toward us. Wet and muddy, they wore local university colors and held hands like they were out on a date. I think they might have been in their twenties, but the guy had a hat pulled low over his eyes, so it was hard to tell. Rain dripped off them like soaked sponges.

With a hiss, Mini dove into the brush around us.

“We are so happy to find you. Our flashlight died
and we got lost.” The girl smiled. “I’m so hungry I could eat a bear. What are you doing all the way out here? Are you okay? Have you been crying?” She prattled on, and even if I’d wanted to talk, her exuberance quickly overwhelmed me.

Fara stepped between us. “She’s fine.”

“Oh.” The girl took a step back. “Do you have a fire? What’s that glow? Can I warm up and dry off too?” She tried to maneuver around Fara.

I swallowed over a lump in my throat. Every cell in my body shrank back.
Listen to your gut, Juliet
.

“We don’t have a fire, just headlamps. Here, take mine. We can share.” I started to reach out and hand mine over.

“That can’t be what’s making that light. Where’s it coming from?” The girl again tried to step around Fara.

“Take the headlamp and leave,” Fara suggested. “Juliet, toss it on the ground.” I watched her wrap the chains around her hands and roll her weight forward on her feet.

“That’s not going to happen,” the guy said. “Thanks for finding the bitch for us.” He grinned, showing too many teeth like a cheap toothpaste ad. “Made it pretty easy, all in all.”

The girl giggled.

My mouth went dry.

“Isn’t it interesting how it takes a bunch of magic light to get rid of a Nocti but a itsy-bitsy bullet can do in a Fenestra?” He pulled a gun from behind his back.

I sensed Tony freeze.

Fara didn’t flinch as she asked, “Why is that?”

“Let me enlighten you—pun intended. We’re stronger. Creators like us better.” He shrugged.

“Or maybe Fenestra are more human; they haven’t lost their senses.”

“I like my answer better. Who needs love?”

“We all do,” I said quietly.

“Oh, I’ve heard all about you. Kirian had lots to say. Wherefore art thou Juliet?”

The girl laughed harder.

“You followed us here?” Fara asked.

“Of course. ‘Three hikers had a nasty accident when they went off trail and were hit by falling trees during a storm.’ Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“You were bait, Juliet. Your mother? She was too. And it didn’t work, so now we don’t need you anymore.”

“Bait for who?” Tony asked.

“Argy Ambrose. Name ring a bell?” the Nocti asked. The wind around us picked up, going from a breeze to gusts that lifted our clothes and ripped leaves off branches.

“Daddy dearest?” the girl inserted.

I tried to speak, but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth.

“We have no idea who you’re talking about,” Fara said.

“I don’t have all day to explain it to you. So come on, get close together.” He waved us toward each other, but none of us moved. “How are you going to die with a tree
falling on you if you’re all standing so far apart? We have things to do today. Time is awastin’.”

Above us, branches cracked and creaked violently. The morning sun backlit the silhouettes in menace. With every blink, a little more of the peach-blush first light reached through the forest.

“Say good night, Juliet.”

I saw Fara shift. I knew she was prepared to launch herself. I gripped the headlamp in my fist, ready to throw it. I hoped my aim from skipping rocks along the creek held true. I tried to remember how we vanquished Ms. Asura.
Good thoughts, good deeds
.

Movement to my right startled me.
Mini? Custos?

As the Nocti raised the gun, Fara moved. Her chains struck flesh as a gun cracked and the world exploded, blinding me.

A
fter throwing down food to refuel, we left Rumi in the company of a few Woodsmen to protect him and read the journal. I didn’t like the threat I felt in my gut. I didn’t know how to keep all the people in our family safe.
Bales’s death is proof that safety is an illusion
.

Tens and I arrived at the intersection of Georgetown and Sixteenth Streets, the main gate of the track, and followed the thumping base, bonfires, and traffic. The gigantic party, comprised of many parties like a super organism, began before dusk. We were late.
Very, very late
.

“Rumi will call if they figure anything out, right? Should we have stayed to help?”

“I wouldn’t count on him to think clearly, Meridian,” Tens advised. “Grief makes people dumb. You and I can’t wallow. There’s no time.”

Plastic signs splashed beverage brand names everywhere. Line after line of canopies and tents were erected next to campers and trucks. Quads zoomed through the crowds, their drivers shouting unintelligible excitement. Tiki torches flickered, and a few brainiacs used their headlights to illuminate their camping spaces. Of course they wouldn’t be able to leave in the morning, but that would give them time to sober up.

I gripped Tens’s hand as we tried to finagle our way between tents and RVs. Car-camping partiers weren’t even trying to make it appear as if they planned to sleep tonight.

Earlier rains turned the fields to muddy pits. We sank with each step. But that didn’t stop a group from setting up a full bar and living room—I gaped at couches, recliners, tables, and barstools.
In the middle of the mud?

Garbage barrels were used as makeshift fire pits. Bottles, plastic cups, and aluminum cans lay wherever they were dropped. Bug zappers filled the air with blue lightning and the singed smell of moth wings. One guy dropped trou and took a leak into the drainage ditch.

“Good aim,” Tens commented, making me laugh.

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” I knew my eyes were wide, and my sixteen years of cloistered freakdom showed.

“Timothy said it’s like this every year.”

“Seriously?” I blinked as someone pet a monkey sitting on the shoulder of a fellow partier.

We walked around, continuously on guard for Nocti.
Nothing. Nada. Where are they all?

The festivities deteriorated until it seemed as though they took on a life of their own. The music thumped bass, rocking the ground.

“Don’t eat or drink anything,” Tens said as a policeman arrested a man who was groping a passed out girl who was missing the important parts of her bikini.

Poison? There’s a happy thought
. “You think that’s how they’re going to do it?”

“Easy to get drunk people to down spiked drinks when you make ’em free and easy to get to.”

We waited until EMTs loaded Ms. Topless Bikini into an ambulance and then moved on.

Garbage already littered the grass and the mud slopped up until it seemed as though people were actually trying to make an area devoted to mud wrestling. One man said he’d give me twenty bucks to strip and slide down a mud runway. Tens answered for me.

We checked in with the Woodsmen twice an hour and spent more time trying not to get covered in beer or puke than looking for Nocti. The temperature never dipped below seventy.

An artillery blast was greeted with cheers and whoops. The sky was navy with violet streaks as the sun began to rise.

“What was that?” I jumped.

“The gates are open. Time to wake up.” Tens smiled down at me.

All around us, men, boys, were passed out in camp chairs, their heads lolled back, beer cans littering the ground. I pointed. “I don’t think they’re going to see the race.”

“They’ve got a few hours.” He snorted.

Camera crews were present in force, interviewing ticket holders who carried in coolers and backpacks. Local roads were bumper to bumper with traffic trying to get into the infield. Tailgating took on a whole new meaning when it started before sunrise. Long lines of tour buses stretched as far as I could see.
Where do all these people come from?

We headed toward the gates around the track. I’d thought there were tons of people at qualifying, but that was nothing compared to this. Elbow to elbow, shoulder to shoulder, we invaded the personal space of people from all over the world. The outfits ranged from matching color-blocked shirts worn by entire families to black-and-white ensembles to tanks and shorts to festive sweaters.
Definitely international visitors
. Most of the jeans were utility and meant for farm work, and boots carried field scuffs or manure. The majority of male heads were covered in hats advertising companies that sold tractors.

Once inside, though, shirts and shoes seemed voluntary for those under the age of twenty-five. Tattoo conventions must show less skin.

We bought funnel cakes and elephant ears for breakfast
and washed them down with lemonade as we watched people hurry in.

“Did we bring sunblock?” I asked, seeing an already sunburned, shirtless guy weaving his way toward the bathrooms. The sun wasn’t quite awake yet.
He’s going to layer the damage
.

“No, don’t burn,” Tens grunted.