Storm of Locusts

Chapter 38

“Is she dead?”

“No. With the right dosage of the counteragent, I should be able to . . . Will you move back, Ben? I need room to work.”

Someone grabs my eyelid and pries it open. I see bright lights, faces. I try to pull away, but Rissa’s thumb digs into my eyeball. “Let me the fuck go,” I mumble, my tongue thick as wool. I work my jaw, trying to draw moisture to my mouth, but all I produce is a groan of pain.

“She lives,” Rissa says, grinning and mercifully letting go of my eyelid.

“It’s already working,” Ben says excitedly.

“Of course it’s working,” Aaron says. “Gideon was never very good in the Reaping Room. No subtlety. The man would choose a cleaver when a scalpel would do. The dose he gave her must have been twice the recommended—”

“Water,” I croak, cutting Aaron off. I hear someone hurry away, probably Ben and hopefully to the kitchen. I manage to get both my eyes open on my own, eyelids scraping like sandpaper. “You came back,” I manage to wheeze out.

“We weren’t going to leave you to do this alone,” Rissa says. “Good thing, too, because clearly Gideon kicked your—”

Ben’s back. She holds a cup of water to my mouth. I gulp it down, grateful. Blink to try to clear the crust from my eyes. Rissa uses a white napkin to wipe blood from my head and then starts to work on loosening the metal wires still coiled around my chest. I wait until they fall to the floor around the chair in a puddle of steel loops. I shake my arms out to get the blood flow to return. Try to ignore the deep gashes in my arms where the metal dug through flesh, the hundreds of tiny stinging cuts all over my skin.

“I’m just glad you’re here,” I say, feeling something like a sob wanting to break free.

Rissa softens. “Friends, right? Just because you’re a solid bitch sometimes doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon you.”

“I’m sorry too,” Ben says, head down. “I know I promised not to argue with you, and a deal’s a deal, so . . .”

“I shouldn’t have treated you like a child, Ben. I was trying to do what was best for you, but all I did was deny you the right to make your own choices.”

Ben looks up, teary-eyed, and before I can tell her no, she rushes forward and throws her arms around me. Pain flares across my chest, and I whimper. Rissa laughs and pulls Ben away. “Leave her alone. She’s injured. Plus, I’ve heard she melts if you hug her too much.”

“What time is it?” I ask. “How long was I out?”

“It’s a few hours before dawn. Ben made it all the way back to Page before we caught up with her.” Rissa shoots her a look. “It took some time to get back. And then when we found the Amangiri empty, we thought you’d probably gone with them.”

“Wait, what? It’s empty?”

“Like a big concrete crypt,” Ben offers. “Furniture’s there. Everything looks lived in. But no people.”

“Where did they go?”

“Don’t know,” Rissa says. “But Ben still had a beat on you from Knifetown, and she tracked you here.” She sniffs the air. “Does it smell like apples in here to anyone else?”

“Gideon’s planning to flood Dinétah,” I say. “There were maps on Kai’s walls. And he had books, lots of books. Different versions of the end of the world.”

“Come again?” Rissa asks.

“Accounts of the Big Water, but also all kinds of apocalyptic stories. From different cultures and different times. He has Kai studying them.”

“So you did find Kai?” Rissa puts her hands on her hips, looks around. “But, funny, he’s not here with you.”

“It’s complicated.”

Rissa’s jaw sets in a hard line, and her hazel eyes darken to a swirl of deep green. “He’s helping him,” she says, her voice flat. An accusation.

I nod again, slower this time. I want to defend him, tell her that I believe he’s lying to Gideon, using his clan powers to trick all of them into thinking he’s on their side, but I don’t want to explain to Rissa what I saw—the blonde, him seated at Gideon’s side, the things he said about Gideon helping him get over the trauma of dying. And all I have for proof is my blind trust. Trust that’s been wrong about Kai before. So I just hold her gaze. Ask her to trust me if she can’t trust him.

“Why would he be reading those?” Ben asks, oblivious to the tension between Rissa and me. “And helping Gideon with what? I thought Kai was on our side.”

“He is,” I answer Ben, but I mean it for Rissa.

“Maybe your Kai has his own plans,” Aaron cuts in. “Rissa said he was an accomplished liar. Maybe he’s a spy on the inside.”

I have no idea where that came from, and I’m not sure if it’s meant as an insult or a compliment to Kai, but it’s close enough to what I was thinking that I’m grateful to Aaron for saying it.

“It’s good for a man to have his own agenda,” he says.

Rissa glances at Aaron, probably wondering if a man having his own agenda applies to him, too. But Aaron’s turned away from us, drifting over to examine Gideon’s metal sculptures, which line the walls. He runs a hand over the curving wing of an angel, clearly admiring his brother’s work. Rissa’s gaze lingers, her lips pursed in thought, before she turns back to me. “You said Kai had maps on his walls. Maps of what?”

“The Glen Canyon Dam, for one.”

“Just the Glen Canyon?” Aaron asks, his attention coming back to us. “What about Hoover downstream? Grand Valley upstream? If that’s what he’s planning, then he’ll bring them all down.”

“Wait, wait, are we accepting that this is real?” Rissa asks. “He’s actually going to try to flood Dinétah? Is there even enough water for that?”

“Before the Big Water, Hoover held thirty-two million acre feet alone,” Aaron says, falling into his tour-guide demeanor a bit. “Glen Canyon another twenty-seven million. After the Big Water, that’s probably doubled.”

“What is an acre foot?” Ben asks.

“Enough water to cover an acre of land with a foot deep of water. So enough to cover twenty-seven million acres under a foot of water. Dinétah is only seventeen thousand acres. Lake Powell at capacity holds more than eight billion gallons, if it helps to think of it that way.”

“He’s going to create his own natural disaster,” I say.

Ben shivers. “Which could destroy Dinétah.”

“Even if he did release the water,” Rissa says. “Even if he did break those dams, wouldn’t it just return the water to where it is supposed to be naturally? Down the Colorado River?”

“It’s too late for that,” Aaron says. “Landscape’s been permanently changed. Add the destructive force of flowing water.” He pats at his shirt as if looking for a pen in a pocket. “I could calculate it quickly if—”

“No need,” I say. “We get the point.”

“That’s a lot of water,” Aaron says. “My brother can do many things, but he can’t just move billions of gallons of water to where he wants to on command.”

“Yes,” I say, “he can.”

“What do you mean?” Aaron asks.

“Oh shit,” Rissa says, dropping into the chair next to me. The whiskey bottle is still there. She takes a pull straight from the bottle.

“That could have been poisoned,” I observe as she swallows it down.

She lifts one shoulder in dismissal. “Does it matter if we’re all about to die?”

“What do you mean, Maggie?” Aaron asks again. “It’s physically impossible. Tankers, pipelines. Even if he had them all in place and ready to go, it still wouldn’t be sufficient.”

“He doesn’t need any of those things.”

He snorts. “The water’s not going to go somewhere just because he wants it to.”

“Want to bet?” Rissa quips.

Aaron wrinkles his forehead in confusion.

Rissa tips the bottle up again.

“I’m not following,” Aaron says.

“Me neither,” Ben adds.

Rissa looks at me. “It’s Kai,” Rissa says. “His power. I saw it myself. He can control the wind. Why not the water?”

I nod in agreement. “Kai’s going to redirect that water wherever Gideon needs it.”

“How?” asks Aaron.

“Why?” Ben demands.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say to both of them. “We have to stop him.”

“Uh, this is the guy who can heal himself, right?” Ben says. “How are you going to stop him?”

“You can shoot him again,” Rissa suggests. “That put him out of commission for a while last time.”

“I’m not shooting him,” I say, thinking of the way he looked at me, the haunted eyes, the unspoken accusations. “I don’t know why he’s doing this, but I’ll find a way to talk to him. Besides, the bigger problem is how to stop Gideon. Weapons don’t work against him.” I look at Aaron. “You could have mentioned that your brother has clan powers.”

Aaron’s breath hitches. “I . . . I didn’t know. He didn’t before. When I knew him.”

“Well, he does now. He can control metal. He plucked my knife out of my hand like it was nothing. Stopped the bullets from my gun in midair.”

Aaron blinks. “He . . .” He sighs, small and sad. “That makes sense.”

“What are you saying, Maggie?” Rissa asks. “That guns and knives don’t work on him? He’s just as invincible as Kai? If that’s the case, then we’re all going for a nice long swim.”

“Not invincible. I’ve just got to figure out how to get to him.”

“If you’re right, and you think he’s planning to blow those dams today, you better figure it out quick.”

I stand on shaky legs. Ben jumps forward, reaching for my elbow to catch me as I stumble, but I waive her off. I’m going to have to be able to stand on my own two feet if I’m going to do this. I give her as close to a smile as I can manage. “I’m fine. Maybe another glass of water?”

She nods and hurries off.

“Are you fine?” Rissa asks, concerned.

“I have to be.”

I collect my weapons, moving like a wounded turtle. The sword is still strapped to my back, and I unbuckle it and lay it on the table. Set it down with a kind of reverence that doesn’t seem to fade. It’s still sheathed in the scabbard Tah had made for it, but its presence seems to fill the room. Gingerly, I place a hand on the hilt. The air crackles around us, suddenly alive. Aaron wipes at his brow, sweating. Rissa whistles in awe, low and impressed.

“When did it start doing that?” Rissa asks.

“Tó showed me how to . . . talk to it.”

Her eyes get big, but she doesn’t say anything.

One deep breath and I pull the sword free in one smooth motion. Lightning curls around the blade, sending tiny sparks in the darkness. Lightning wraps around my hand where I grip the leather hilt and lightning dances up my wrist all the way to my elbow. It doesn’t burn. It just . . . waits. It feels like contained energy, eager for me to direct it. Just like Tó said it would. I straighten and breathe deep as the energy flows through my body. I can feel my wounds knitting closed, my headache clearing, Gideon’s drugs melting out of my bloodstream.

“Damn,” Rissa whispers, her voice full of awe.

“You’re glowing,” Aaron murmurs.

“Not just glowing,” Ben adds. “You’re on fire.”

“Your skin,” Rissa says. I raise an arm and see that my skin has in fact taken on a deep blue glow. “And all the cuts are gone. Even your head.”

I run a hand across the cut on my forehead. Smooth skin. “Holy shit.”

I sheathe the sword, and the glow immediately fades from both me and the weapon, leaving us all in the hazy lamplight of Gideon’s living room again.

“Now what?” Rissa asks.

“Now we do what we came here to do. Rescue Kai.”

“And kill Gideon,” Ben says. Aaron’s head cocks toward her and I think his eyes narrow, considering, but in the relative darkness, I can’t be sure. But I know we can’t put this conversation off any longer.

“We need to talk,” I say. “About you”—I motion toward Aaron—“and your brother.”

“Maggie,” Rissa says, a note of warning in her voice.

“No, we need to know the truth.”

“Know what truth?” Ben asks.

I hesitate, and Aaron says, “Gideon is my brother. My foster brother. We grew up together in a Mormon foster family in St. George.”

“What?” Ben takes a step back from him, hand over her heart. “Did you know, Maggie? Rissa?”

“We suspected,” I admit. “And the question, Aaron, is whether your loyalty lies with us or with him.”

Aaron shoulders rise on a prolonged shrug. “I got no love for my brother. He and I parted in the worst of ways. Me on my feet and him bearing a dozen cuts from my knife, bleeding him out.”

“Something you regret,” I say, pushing back.

“Something I regret,” he says, nodding. “A man shouldn’t knife his brother, no matter his offense. But me regretting ain’t going to change a thing. He needed to die then, and seems like he needs to die now.” His eyes bore into me, trying hard to convince. Too hard? I don’t know.

“And why was that, exactly, that your brother needed killing?” I ask. “What happened between the two of you?”

“Knifetown,” he says flatly. “Knifetown happened.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’s going to have to be.”

“You can’t expect us to trust you—”

“I don’t expect no trust. We have a deal and I’ll stick to my deal. I’m good for that.”

“I need to know whose side—”

“Maggie,” Rissa says. “He’s on our side. If he says he’s good to his word, I believe him.”

I don’t. But maybe I don’t have to. Maybe Rissa’s asking me to trust her, same way I asked her to trust me about Kai. And maybe I owe her the same courtesy, friend to friend.

“Aaron’s proven himself,” she says. “He helped us at Knifetown, and he found Ben in Page. He’s on our side.”

All those things could be self-serving. We were a means to an escape from a place he hated, and knowing that Ben was set on killing his brother one way or another, keeping her close would be a smart move. Nevertheless . . .

“Okay. He’s your responsibility,” I say. “Whatever he does, it’s on you.”

Rissa touches Aaron’s arm possessively. Nods once.

“Aaron,” Ben says, her voice no more than a whisper. “You could have told me.”

Aaron reaches for the hat he doesn’t have anymore, as if to tug it down. Instead he brushes an empty hand across his forehead, smoothing his hair. “Sorry, Ben,” he says, and he actually sounds sorry. “Sometimes a man is so used to keeping secrets, he doesn’t know how to stop keeping them. We get through this, I’ll do better by you. That’s a promise.”

She nods, but it’s clear that his confession is bothering her. Maybe it was easier to want Gideon dead when he was just a bad guy. Harder when he’s a real person, the brother of a friend.

“Ben, why don’t you come with me?” I say. “I want to go back and get another look at the maps in Kai’s room. Make sure I didn’t miss anything obvious.”

“Aaron and I will head for the Glen Canyon Dam,” Rissa offers. “Wait for you at the crossing.”

“What if you run into Gideon and the Swarm?”

“I know how to stay hidden,” Rissa reassures me. “Besides, we won’t engage. Just observe. As long as you two don’t linger, we’ll be fine.”