The Arrivals

Chapter 30

Kitty looked to Garuda’s newly promoted bloedzuiger and then to Garuda himself. She wasn’t sure how she felt about the idea that there were consequences to her resistance to admitting that she reacted peculiarly to Verrot. It made her wonder what else she didn’t know because she didn’t understand the rules of different Wastelander cultures. The miners made sense to her because they reminded her of people she’d known in California, but she’d not made much effort to understand the bloedzuigers. In truth, she wasn’t entirely sure she even understood the human Wastelanders.

“Do you believe Ajani sent the brethren after us?” she asked.

Instead of replying, Garuda caught her gaze and in a voice that was both in her mind and audible to others, he asked, “Are you kin to my pack, Katherine?”

It felt like his words echoed, stretched out in tendrils to reach bloedzuigers throughout the Wasteland, and Kitty felt her mind tangling with those threads, connecting to them in an instant that could vanish or last forever. “I am.”

The threads of connection snapped into place, and she realized that Garuda was allowing her access to several hundred bloedzuigers. As long as she had Verrot in her system, she could reach out to all of those minds. In the complete clarity that Garuda allowed her, she understood too that this was a level of access that was granted only to the eldest of his kind.

“I cannot say for certain,” Garuda said in answer to her question about the brethren, but then he added to his answer privately in her mind: “I would speak to Governor Soanes. Listen to the pack; see what they have witnessed.”

And she did. No one could show her proof of Ajani consulting with the brethren, but there were snippets, brief flashes of images that flooded her mind quicker than she thought she could process them. Vaguely, she noticed that she’d dropped to her knees as the images began to resemble a linear narrative.

Ajani visited the governor. They stood speaking in the street, and then Ajani turned his gaze to the bloedzuiger who watched them. In the vision, she was and was not that bloedzuiger. Ajani’s gaze was fastened on her. On us, on the pack.

“Katherine?” Jack shook her.

The brethren came to the governor; four of them went into his office in a procession of gray robes.

“What did you do?” Jack had an arm around her, but it felt like she could and couldn’t feel it all at the same time. He wasn’t speaking to her—except he was: she was connected to the entire pack. She wasn’t hearing him beside her, but through Garuda.

“That’s why his arm feels weird,” she told Garuda.

“Focus on the knowledge” was all Garuda said.

Kitty pulled her gaze away from what she saw through his eyes and returned to the pack’s memories.

“Stay away from Miss Reed,” Ajani snarled, looking far more monstrous than she’d ever seen. A man knelt in front of him, held in place by two guards. She couldn’t see his face, only his back, but she had a sinking feeling that she knew him.

Ajani turned to a third guard. “Make him suffer, but I want him healed before we go to Gallows.”

As she watched, she tried to remind herself that it was a memory, that it wasn’t happening at that very moment, but she wished she could close her eyes as the guards beat the man. She heard the sizzle of burning flesh, the screams, the blows, and she watched him pass out from the pain. When they released him, he tumbled back, and she saw his face. Even through the blood and swelling, she knew him.

“Daniel,” she whispered aloud.

“He disobeyed his master,” Garuda said.

Kitty forced herself to search the other threads, to look for connections between Ajani and the brethren, but she found none. She saw the monks with the governor on one other occasion, but she didn’t see them with Ajani. There were brief flashes of Ajani, but they were rare. Finally, the connection with the whole of Garuda’s pack receded, and she understood that Ajani knew that the bloedzuigers watched him, that he only showed them what he wanted Garuda to know.

“I don’t understand why he . . . why me?”

“Because Ajani knows that you are as he is, Katherine.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Garuda said aloud. The connection was severed, not only to the pack but also to him, and she felt a wash of pain that was not hers.

Kitty realized that what had just happened was unprecedented—and had left him exhausted. Garuda was remaining upright only by sheer will.

From the ground where she knelt, she stared up at him, trying to find her voice. The transition to speech was oddly discomfitting. “I saw,” she said, “and I have a question for the governor.”

Jack glanced from her to Garuda. “Care to fill me in?”

“What Katherine shares with you is her choice. There are rules that allow me to speak to my kin, but not to you.” Garuda glanced at the wrist of the bloedzuiger beside him, and the creature held it up to his master’s lips without hesitation.

As Garuda drank, he watched Kitty, and for the first time she saw something beautiful in the way the other bloedzuiger was replenishing Garuda’s energy. It seemed natural—and caring. As always, the magic had left her feeling shattered, but this time she also felt vaguely intoxicated. Her mind replayed the final moments of her connection with the pack, and she realized that Garuda had pushed some energy her way before he’d severed that connection. She smiled at him, realizing how wrong she’d been about him. He’d given her enough strength to return to Gallows.

Jack was unaware of what Garuda had done and offered his hand to help her up. She stood and leaned against her brother as she told him, “The monks worked for the governor, and Ajani visits the governor.” She paused, weighing the words yet unspoken. “He . . . Ajani knew that the bloedzuigers watched him, and he let them see that much.”

Telling Jack about Daniel’s torture was necessary, but she couldn’t unman him by sharing more details than were absolutely essential. She settled on saying, “Ajani tortured Danny because of me.”

“He what?” Jack asked.

“Tortured him. Burned, broken . . .” She tried to push the images away. “Danny was right to warn me, Jack. We don’t stay dead, but if Ajani had me, I’d find a way. I’d have to. I couldn’t . . . survive the kind of things he did to Danny. Things he did because of me.”

Garuda pulled his mouth away from the other bloedzuiger’s wrist. “No. Not because of you.” He dabbed his mouth with a cloth. “Ajani did that because he wants them to fear him. Your Daniel knew the cost of speaking to you.”

She glanced at Garuda and murmured, “Thank you . . . for everything.”

He dipped his head in a brief bow.

“I’m going to kill him,” Jack snarled.

“Ajani or the governor?”

“Both of them, all of them, I don’t know.” Jack made a sound of frustration. “If the monks are working for the governor and Soanes is meeting with Ajani . . . And as much as I don’t like Daniel, I’m not going to stand by while he gets tortured. Daniel was one of us. He might not be now, but no one should be tortured—especially for looking out for you.”

“Oh, I’m fine with killing Ajani,” Kitty said. “If we knew how, I’d have done it years ago, but we owe Governor Soanes a chance to explain before we go jumping to conclusions.”

The shocked expression on Jack’s face was almost amusing. “You’re recommending caution?” He looked at Garuda. “Is this your doing?”

“Katherine may be feeling the remnants of the calm I sent her way as I broke our connection,” Garuda admitted in what Kitty now understood to be an embarrassed tone.

“I can read bloedzuigers’ emotions,” she said softly, shocked by how very wrong she’d been. “I didn’t think you even had emotions.”

Garuda laughed, a sound that wasn’t any less odd because it was spoken aloud rather than in her head. “Why do you think newborns are so base? It takes time to learn to master emotions when they are so intense.”

“You and me? We’re going to have a long chat. I will get answers. A lot of them.” Kitty shook her head at him. “Bet on it.”

“If I hadn’t been trying to do just that for years, I might be appropriately intimidated,” Garuda joked.

He joked?

“I’m sorry,” Kitty said steadily, meeting his eyes as she spoke. “I’ve been a bitch to you for so long.”

“Fear makes us all do stupid things time and again.” Garuda gave her an affectionate smile.

Kitty shook her head again and told Jack, “Now that this bony bastard gave me answers and medicine for Francis, we should go tend to things.” At his surprised expression, she added, “If this calm isn’t faded by the time we reach the governor, you’ll have to be the difficult one for a change.”

Garuda bowed to Jack and then turned to Kitty. “I will have a gift for you should you decide to resolve the matter of Ajani’s obsession with you. I believe we may have finally found a toxin that could solve both of our troubles. Simply speak through Styrr.” He motioned to the bloedzuiger who had just nourished him.

She glanced at Styrr, and the bloedzuiger dipped his head in a slight bow.

Garuda continued, “He is assigned to the area now and will adhere to your commands, Katherine. Tell him if you need me or the pack, and we will come to your aid. Once the toxin is ready, he can tell me where you are so I can bring it to you.” He withdrew two vials. “This is the medicine you need to add to the Verrot and give to your injured packmate. Styrr knows the correct mixture.”

“Thank you.” Gratefully, Kitty took the vials. “I am sorry for not understanding for so long.”

“I know,” Garuda said, before glancing in turn at Styrr and at Jack. “Keep her safe.” Then he was gone, leaving the Reed siblings alone in the desert with the newly promoted bloedzuiger who was stationed in their region.

And for the first time since she’d woken up in the Wasteland, Kitty felt like she might truly belong in this weird world. She felt the echo of the connection to hundreds of bloedzuigers, the fury over Ajani’s actions, and the certainty that he did not deserve the ability to connect to the bloedzuiger pack.