The Furies (16 page)

John shook his head. “Nah, I'm feeling great. Never better.”

The guard pulled an army-surplus canteen from his backpack and unscrewed the cap. “Tilt your head back. You need to drink.”

John wanted to refuse as a matter of principle, but he was too thirsty. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth, letting the guard pour the water onto his tongue. It tasted horrible, like moldy bread. John spat it out. “What the hell? You trying to poison me?”

“Nay, it's medicine,” said the guard on his right. This one had thick reddish eyebrows. “To ease the pain in your chest and the swelling in your nose.”

John eyed both of them warily. He remembered the herbal potion Ariel had made and how quickly it had healed her bullet wounds. But he was suspicious. “What's the point of giving me medicine if you're just gonna kill me once we get to Haven?”

The guards exchanged glances, and then the sharp-chinned one spoke. “We aren't brutes, sir. We take no pleasure in watching you suffer.”

“Well, that's good to know.” John grimaced, feeling another stab of pain in his rib cage. “All right, I'll drink it. Might as well be comfortable in my last hours.”

He opened his mouth again and forced himself to swallow the potion. When he was finished, the guard capped the canteen. “Now rest and conserve your strength, paramour. We still have miles to walk.”

The guards holstered their pistols but kept watching him carefully. Up close, they looked even younger, in their late teens or early twenties. John decided to start a conversation with the boys. They might tell him something useful. “By the way, you don't have to call me paramour. My name is John Rogers. I'd shake your hands, but mine are tied up at the moment.”

It was a bad joke, and neither of the guards smiled. But the sharp-chinned one tipped his straw hat. “Gower Fury is my name.” He pointed at the other guard. “And this fellow is Archibald.”

Gower? Archibald?
Although the men of Haven weren't eternally youthful like the women, their names and speech patterns seemed to come from a different century. “Excuse me if this sounds rude,” John said, “but you guys have a very old-fashioned way of talking.”

Gower shrugged. “This is the way we speak in Haven. We learned our grammar from our mothers and grandmothers, who spoke this way in England before they came to America. Only the Rangers speak as you do, and only when they're undertaking their assignments.”

“Rangers?”

“They're the ones who are allowed to venture outside Haven to perform the tasks assigned by the Council of Elders. Very few of us are granted this privilege. You must undergo years of training as a guardsman before the council will let you become a Ranger.” Gower pointed at himself, smiling proudly. “I'm in training now.”

John thought of Hal and Richard, the men who'd accompanied Ariel in New York. He wondered if anyone at Haven knew they were dead. “So the Rangers go with the women when they're meeting their paramours?”

Gower nodded. “That's one of the assignments, but there are many others. The Rangers gather information about the state of the world. They also participate in our scientific investigations and oversee our financial interests.”

“Financial interests?”

“Aye, our family has made many discreet investments in the outside world. The Rangers operate the holding companies, which buy and sell—”

“Hold, Gower.” The guard named Archibald, the one with the thick eyebrows, rested his hand on the other's shoulder. “You say too much.”

The look on his face was so serious, John had to laugh. “You're kidding, right? Once we get to Haven, I'm dead. Who am I gonna tell your secrets to?”

Archibald shook his head. “Our task is to guard you, not talk to you.”

“Just tell me one thing, okay? What's Ariel's task? What does she do for Haven?”

The guardsmen exchanged glances again. Then Gower stared at Ariel, who was drinking from a canteen on the other side of the clearing. “She's a Ranger, our very best. The Elders have sent her on many important assignments, starting more than three hundred years ago.” He gazed at her for a few more seconds, then blushed as he turned back to John. “I'm jealous of you, sir. Although your current situation is unfortunate, at least you had the chance to be her paramour. It must've been a great gift.”

The kid was smitten with her, no doubt about it. John wondered how many other men at Haven felt this way about Ariel. For all he knew, she might even have a husband there. “What does she do at Haven when she's not on assignment?”

“Oh, many things. But her greatest passion is for science. She oversees the experiments in our botanical and genetic laboratories. She's accumulated so much knowledge over the years that her contributions are indispensable.”

“And, uh, is she married? You do have marriages at Haven, right?”

Archibald laughed, slapping his hand against his thigh. “Look at him! Gower, I believe this man loves her almost as much as you do!”

Gower glared at him, and so did John. Archibald was a real jerk. “Stop being an asshole,” John warned. “I just asked a question.”

The asshole sneered. “And it's not our place to answer it. You should pose your question to milady. Assuming, that is, you get a final opportunity to talk with her.”

That put an end to the conversation. John stared at the ground for several minutes, refusing to look at either Ariel or the guards. Then Conroy said it was time to start moving again, and they resumed their march through the forest.

 

 

The next few miles on the trail were just as rugged as the ones before, but John found the going a little easier now. His chest didn't hurt as much, and his nose had stopped throbbing. The herbal potion was working as advertised.

He was still anxious, though. He kept thinking of the Council of Elders and the fate that awaited him. He needed to distract himself, to change the subject of his thoughts. If he was going to die a few hours from now, he wanted to think of only comforting things. So as he marched through the woods he focused on the only truly happy time in his life, the years when he worked with Father Murphy. He pictured the old priest striding down the forest trail, dressed in his usual outfit—jeans, flannel shirt, construction boots. The guy never wore his clerical collar. He said it made him look like a clown.

It was easy to imagine Father Murphy striding beside him, because that's how they'd spent most of their working hours, walking together down the streets of Kensington. Every evening they'd visit the busiest street corners and try to persuade the younger kids to go home to their mothers. Talking to the older boys—the fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds—was usually a waste of time because they'd already committed themselves to the drug business, but the younger ones still had a chance of getting out. Sometimes John would simply grab the boys and drag them to the youth center at St. Anne's Church. Because he'd worked the corners himself he knew how to argue with the kids. Father Murphy let him do most of the talking, and John got better and better at the job as time went on.

When he wasn't working for the Anti-Gang Project, he took classes at the community college, trying to make up for all the years he'd pissed away. That was where he met Carol, a pretty, studious accounting major from South Philly. She was suspicious of him at first—she could tell he was from the streets. But he invited her to a church supper at St. Anne's, and all her suspicions vanished once she saw him with Father Murphy and the kids. A few weeks later she left her parents' house and moved into John's apartment on Somerset Street. She got pregnant soon afterward, and John was ecstatic. Just before she started to show, they got married at St. Anne's, with Father Murphy performing the honors. Ivy was born six months later.

The next five years passed quickly. John saved some money, got his bachelor's degree in social work, and changed hundreds of diapers. Carol stayed home with the baby, but after a while she grew restless. She wanted to move to a better neighborhood before Ivy started kindergarten. John, though, hated the idea of leaving Kensington. The Anti-Gang Project had become a crusade for him, an all-consuming struggle. Salazar, John's old rival in the Disciples, had taken over all the drug crews in the area, and his boys harassed John whenever they could. The animosity between the two men was growing, and John felt that moving out of the neighborhood would be like backing down from the fight. His attitude made Carol furious; she said he cared more about a bunch of gangbangers than his own daughter. Even Father Murphy worried that John was becoming obsessed. “You're doing a lot of good, son,” he used to say. “And the Lord will surely reward you for your good deeds in heaven. But I have to warn you: In this world, no good deed goes unpunished.”

At the time, John thought this was one of the old priest's jokes. But it was true. The good get punished. The innocent get punished.

After the shooting Carol couldn't forgive him. As soon as Ivy's funeral was over, she moved out of their apartment and returned to South Philly. Meanwhile, John bought a gun on the street, an old SIG Sauer semiautomatic. He'd been fast asleep when the bastards had fired at the windows of his apartment, so he couldn't identify Ivy's murderers, couldn't testify against them in court. But he knew who did it. He knew
exactly
who they were. He went looking for Salazar and his boys, searching every corner in the neighborhood, ready to send them to hell.

He never got his revenge, though. Justice was done, but he didn't get any satisfaction from it. In the end, John was left with almost nothing. Just a child-size bed and an old wooden bureau, full of tiny pink clothes.

Now his vision blurred as he recalled the neat piles of shirts and pants. His foot slipped on a wet rock in the middle of the trail and he nearly fell on his face.
This was a mistake
, he thought as he struggled to stay on his feet.
I was supposed to focus on happy memories.
And here was the most embarrassing part, the revelation that made him cringe: he hadn't learned a damn thing from the tragedy. He was still doing good deeds and getting punished for it.

In this world, no good deed goes unpunished.

If he got the chance, he'd ask the Elders to put those words on his tombstone.

 

 

After another hour they finally emerged from the pine forest. The trail ran down a grassy slope to a broad plain of farmland. About a hundred yards ahead was a long chain-link fence that stretched at least a mile to the east and west. On the other side of the fence were fields of cornstalks, nearly ready for harvest, and wide pastures dotted with grazing cattle. Way off in the distance John spotted a large red barn, a gray silo, and half a dozen modest houses arranged in a circle. It looked like a small farming community, with room for thirty or forty people at the most.

This wasn't what he'd expected. He'd assumed Haven would be more densely populated. Curious, he stared at the guards, who turned their heads this way and that, on the lookout for strangers. Conroy's men had stowed their weapons in their backpacks, but they couldn't hide John or Ariel, neither of whom looked Amish. No one else was in sight, though, so Conroy waved the guardsmen forward. They marched down the trail to the fence, which was at least twelve feet high and topped with concertina wire. Just outside the fence was a deep drainage ditch that surrounded the farm like a moat.

They headed for a narrow wooden walkway that crossed the ditch. On the other side was a gate in the fence, locked with a heavy chain. Another bearded man in Amish garb stood behind the gate, waiting patiently. He called out, “How now, Conroy?” and unlocked the gate as they approached. Conroy, who still carried Ariel on his back, answered him with a nod. Then they marched through the gate and into the farm, following a path that ran between two cornfields.

The barn and the farmhouses were still half a mile away, but soon they came to an outbuilding, a simple shed with cinder-block walls and a rusty metal roof. The guard named Archibald stepped forward and used a key to unlock the shed's door. John grew nervous as they filed into the structure, which was the size of a two-car garage and completely dark inside.
What the hell are we doing here? Is this where they're going to kill me?
Then he saw Archibald touch a glowing keypad next to a door at the far end of the room. The guard pressed a sequence of numbers, and a moment later the door slid open. The space beyond the door was a brightly lit square, about six feet across. It was an elevator.

Archibald went in first, and then the other guards nudged John inside. Conroy pressed another sequence of numbers on a keypad inside the elevator, and the door slowly closed. The space was so crowded that Ariel, clinging to Conroy's back, was only a couple of feet from John. But she didn't look at him. She stared straight ahead. The elevator started to descend.

John couldn't tell how far down they went, but it was at least half a minute before the elevator stopped. As the door opened he heard a sudden blizzard of sounds, a chorus of footsteps and laughter and voices, both male and female, echoing off granite walls and a highly polished floor. To his astonishment, he saw a large room that looked like the lobby of a skyscraper. A marble fountain, carved in the shape of a tree, stood in the center of the room, spurting gouts of water that arced from the sculpture's trunk and splashed against the stone branches. About thirty men and women stood around the fountain, gathered in small groups, chatting like office workers on their lunch break. But their conversations sputtered to a halt as the guards exited the elevator. Everyone stopped to look at Ariel and John.

He stared back at them. All the men in the room, young and old, were dressed like the guards, in Amish-style clothing and beards. The women, in contrast, wore a bewildering variety of garments. Some wore dowdy, black, floor-length dresses, while others wore extravagant, brightly colored gowns. Still others were in modern dress: pantsuits, T-shirts, sweater sets, miniskirts. All the women were young, and all had red hair and green eyes, but they didn't look alike. Some were fat, some were thin, some were tall, some were short. Some were plain, and some were almost as beautiful as Ariel. The overall effect was bizarre. John felt like he'd just walked into a costume party.