The Arrivals

Chapter 8

That night, Kitty looked after Chloe as the new woman worked through the fevers that accompanied arrival in the Wasteland. The unexpected benefit of this was that it gave her an excuse to avoid Edgar. He’d stopped outside her tent when he’d finished his shift, but he wouldn’t come inside without invitation, especially when she was tending a new Arrival.

Kitty had done this so often for so many people that it was almost routine. Unfortunately, being used to a thing didn’t make it any less wearying. She sat at the same bedside where Mary had once thrashed in the throes of her arrival fever; she dipped her cloth into the same white basin and watched over another woman who would wake in an unfamiliar world.

The first few days were hard on the body. By midday the next day, Chloe’s worst bout with the fever had passed, but she was still resting. She’d woken only briefly, which was fairly normal. The transition between the world the Arrivals had known and the Wasteland left every one of them exhausted. Now that the worst was past, Melody could watch Chloe for a couple hours. Francis would take over when he finished his shift. Usually Kitty would take the opportunity to catch up on the sleep she’d missed the first day—and the sleep she would miss again tomorrow. By the end of the third day, Kitty would be stuck in her tent waiting for Chloe to wake. It wasn’t a rule per se, but she preferred that the new Arrivals awoke to the sight of either her or Jack. Everyone else went along with her plan, even if they didn’t always understand. The others had never woken up alone, utterly lost and unsure of absolutely everything; they didn’t understand the shock of it all. Jack did.

When he and Kitty had arrived in the Wasteland, they knew nothing about the world around them, nothing about the people or creatures in it, and even less about how they ended up in this place. After twenty-six years, they knew plenty about the world, the people, and the creatures. They shared the knowledge with new Arrivals and helped their transition. It was the right thing to do.

Today, though, Kitty wanted to be somewhere else—not resting, not dealing with Mary’s death or Chloe’s arrival. The group had been living at this campsite for more than a week since the situation with the brethren. What Kitty needed was a break: time away from everyone’s watchful gaze, space away from the horrible anticipation that followed every death.

She changed into something less suited for work, and then after verifying that Edgar was nowhere in sight, she made her way to the gate, where she found Francis twisted into one of his contorted positions that seemed like they should be impossible. He was trying another of his plant-based creams, so his entire visage was tinted blue. Unlike most of them, Francis burned a bright red even with the sun protection the rest of them used. He’d developed it, and it worked well enough for everyone else. He just burned more easily. Kitty couldn’t help but smile at his blue face.

“I need to head into Gallows,” she said.

“Alone?” His gaze flickered over to her only briefly before returning to dutifully watching the expanse of desert.

Kitty sorted through a few of the weapons that were kept at the gate, buying herself time, trying to decide how much she had to admit. There was no way to pretend she wasn’t going to a tavern dressed as she now was. Her skirt was of a lightweight fabric and tied up in the front with a series of ribbons, giving her freedom of movement and exposing a lot of leg from the front. The back of it had no ties, so it brushed almost to the ground, and the degree of detail made abundantly clear that, despite the fabric, this wasn’t a dress for walking in the desert. Sand would collect at the hem, and unless she was careful, plants would snag it until it looked like a rag.

She dropped a few throwing knives into her bag and settled on, “Jack’s already out there, so we’ll catch up before I head into town.”

She wasn’t completely lying. She suspected that her brother would catch up with her; whether or not that would be before or after she reached town, she couldn’t say. It depended on when he found out she’d left.

“If Edgar asks, you know I have to tell him.” Francis didn’t look at her this time. “If Jack comes back without you—”

“You sound like you doubt me.”

“I smoked an awful lot of weed when I was back home, tripped a lot too, but that doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” Francis continued to scan the desert.

She sighed.

“Didn’t say I wouldn’t play along,” he said quietly. “You take the dying harder than the rest of us. Go out, and have fun. Don’t get killed, or Edgar and Jack will . . . honestly, I’m not sure what they’d do. They don’t like you going out alone.”

“They go alone.” Kitty tried not to sound angry, but her brother was out in the desert alone right now. Edgar undoubtedly had been earlier. They acted like she wasn’t capable of protecting herself, yet she was the only one of the group able to work Wastelander magic. She had been here just as long as Jack, longer than Edgar. Long before any of the others had arrived, she and Jack had fought and killed creatures that didn’t even exist in the world they’d once called home. “There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to go alone.”

Even as she said it, she thought about Daniel’s warning, but he was no better than Jack or Edgar. Everyone acted like she was some sort of frail creature that needed sheltering—at least they did until they needed spellwork or bullets. They were fine with her fighting skills, but only when they were fighting along with her. It was maddening.

Francis held out a gun, which she accepted and slipped into a holster that she’d already fastened under her skirt, high on her leg where it was easy to access but hidden from view.

“They go out alone because they’ve been here the longest,” he said.

“I’ve been here as long as Jack and longer than Edgar,” she corrected.

“True point.” Francis’ voice was bland as he asked, “What years were they born?”

“Shut up, Francis.” She wasn’t going to say he was right, but she used his own phrase—“shut up”—which Mary had been fond of as well. She’d picked up the words and habits of later-born Arrivals over time, even though some of the things they said and did were still perplexing to her. She would admit, though, that Francis had a good point: Jack was a lot less willing to evolve; he clung to his old notions as if there was a chance they’d all be going back someday. Kitty had tried to move forward over the years, but both Jack and Edgar retained some of their more irritating attitudes from home when it came to her safety.

“Just be careful.” Francis uncoiled his lanky body from the barrel that he used as a chair of sorts and gave her a one-armed hug. “Seriously, Kitty: don’t get killed.”

“I’ll be fine,” she promised. “I just need a little fun.”

Several hours later, Kitty was trying to tell herself she was having fun, but reasoning with drunks with guns wasn’t the sort of evidence that was helpful in convincing herself to believe that lie. The tiny outpost town of Gallows was the best she could do this far into the desert, and all things considered, it wasn’t a bad little town. She’d had more than a few fun nights in Gallows. Mostly with Edgar, or . . . She stopped herself before she could think of the Arrivals she’d called friends over the years.

After pushing that thought away, she looked at the scrawny drunk beside her and started, “Be sensible, Lira. You don’t want to—”

A face full of wine interrupted her attempt at calming words.

Kitty swiped an arm across her face; the sickly-sweet scent of cheap wine was almost as irritating as the wet hair that now clung to her skin. She started counting in her head, willing herself not to lose her temper.

The bartender dropped behind the bar, and the drunk to her left started to raise her gun.

Kitty punched her.

“Thanks.” Lira grinned, as if she hadn’t just doused Kitty with wine.

For a moment, Kitty considered resuming her counting, but the moment was brief. She’d planned to spend one night pretending life was normal, and she was stinking of wine she hadn’t drunk, knuckles stinging, while the woman who’d started the argument smiled at her like they were friends. Admittedly, she’d known Lira for years—the quarrelsome woman was one of the shift managers—but a few conversations and arguments didn’t make them friends. More to the point, friends didn’t throw wine in a person’s face.

“Lord, save me from fools,” Kitty said, and then she punched Lira too.

Years ago, she’d have stepped out of their way and let the two drunk fools shoot each other to their hearts’ content, but Jack’s oft-quoted admonishment echoed even in his absence: It’s our calling.

“Calling, my ass,” Kitty muttered as she took in the sight of several skirmishes in the bar. Now that the manager was out and the bartender wasn’t trying to keep order, the patrons were behaving like naughty children. She could step in, but Jack wasn’t there to nag her, and she was feeling contrary. So she lifted her own drink in a toast and put her back to the bar to watch the show. Sometimes, being in a bar brawl made her almost feel like she was back home—if she could ignore the fact that this world was filled with magic and creatures that could step right into storybooks. People were people, even if they weren’t always human. Trouble was trouble, even if it was started by monsters. That was the truth of it.

She made a game of silently predicting the winners of various fights until the smell of smoke made her look around the room. The fire wasn’t coming from any of the empty barrels that stood as tables. The wall tapestries were all fine. The wafting smoke was drifting in from outside.

“Down!” she yelled.

Both of the front windows blasted inward, and red-tinted glass rained over all of them.

The chaos inside the pub stilled. Patrons who’d been ready enough to cosh each other over the head two minutes ago suddenly helped the folks they’d been fighting.

The bartender crouched behind the bar, so only his eyes and the top of his head were visible. “Aren’t you going to do something?”

One of the cooks crawled along the floor, shoving a bucket of unidentified bits of uncooked meat toward Kitty. “Here.”

She shot a frown over the crowd: they were watching her like she was all that stood between them and disaster. She wasn’t. Any one of them could step up, but they didn’t, and they wouldn’t.

For all Jack’s preaching at her, and despite all the straight-up weird shit she’d seen in the twenty-six years or so since she’d left the normal world and California far behind, she could count on humanity’s basic predictability in a situation. The moment real trouble started, most people hid. Now that they needed help, she was everyone’s best friend. If she were a softer soul, it would bother her. Okay, maybe it still did, but not so as she’d be mentioning it anytime soon.

Kitty sighed, but she twisted her damp hair into a knot and snatched up the bucket. “Stay inside.”

Without waiting to see if they listened, she clomped across the floor and pushed open the half doors that hung in front of her. She suspected that the lindwurm that had vanished from Cozy’s Ranch had found its way into Gallows.

Luckily, the beast that sprawled out in the street was a juvenile, more smoke than fire. It rested on its scaled belly with its legs splayed, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t move quickly if it was so inclined. Kitty hiked up the edge of her skirt and tied it off so it wouldn’t tangle around her legs when she had to run.

“Lookie here.” She eased to the side. The lindwurm’s head snaked to the left, keeping her in sight.

She tossed a slimy piece of meat onto the ground in front of it. In a whip-quick movement, it snatched the snack with a long thin tongue and then slithered toward her.

“That’s right. You just follow Miss Kitty,” she coaxed.

One big opal eye tracked her as she backed away from the building. It didn’t rush her or exhale fire in her direction—although a little plume of smoke drifted from its oversize nostrils.

She kept backing away, tossing handfuls of meat toward the lindwurm. After a few tense moments, it slithered forward a little more.

She wouldn’t want to try this with a full-grown lindwurm, but the young weren’t as agile or as surly. It was likely hungry, and once it’d had enough to eat, it’d nap. All she needed to do was lure it out away from buildings without getting herself cooked in the process. The sands that stretched around Gallows were the reason this was lindwurm-farming territory: farmlands like back home would’ve been reduced to nothing but prairie fires here.

A few more pieces lured the lindwurm farther from the buildings, but it wasn’t moving far or fast. She couldn’t tell it to wait while she fetched more meat, and a quick glance around made it obvious that no one was coming to bring her a backup bucket. Lindwurm herding was the sort of task that required help, and while she’d done it solo before, more often than not it had resulted in waking up after a few days dead.

“Any decent folks care to offer a little help?” Kitty called.

Not surprisingly, doors and shutters stayed closed.

The lindwurm was getting bored, and she was low on meat. It exhaled a small puff of flame, and she darted to the side.

“Seriously?” she grumbled. “Getting toasted was not my plan for the night!”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have gone out alone, Katherine.” Jack’s voice was uncommonly welcome just then. She didn’t need to look at him to know that his mouth was already pressed into a stern line that ruined what was an otherwise handsome face and that his pretty baby blues were ruined by a you-disappoint-me look.

Kitty hid her sigh of relief at seeing him by picking a fight with him. “I didn’t feel like dealing with you or Edgar, jackass. I wanted to relax.”

“Clearly,” Jack drawled, angling to the right of the increasingly restless lindwurm. “Upsetting lizards seems like a fine way to spend an evening.”

“Not my fault.”

“It never is,” Jack said. He paused only a moment before adding, “Reins and collar look intact. You could’ve—”

“I’m not a wrangler.”

“Yet another good reason not to go out alone.” He glanced her way, and once she met his gaze, he prompted, “Ready?”

“Go.” She tossed one of the remaining scraps of meat to the left.

As the lindwurm twisted its neck to snatch the treat, Jack hoisted himself atop the scaled beast. He wore the same grin he wore in a fight or anything remotely likely to get him injured. He was too dour most of the time, spewing rules the way she spit out cusses. In an adventure, though, he was all smiles.

“Hitch up your skirt and run,” he yelled.

The lindwurm’s tail lashed around at him, drawing blood, but it didn’t roast him. An older beast would’ve. All that this one did was buck and slash. So far, Jack was only getting the edge of its temper.

Kitty ran toward the butcher’s shop, shoved open the door, and tore down a fair-size bit of mutton. Slimy meat in hand, she raced back to the lindwurm.

It stilled again as it spotted her.

She held the mutton aloft—and away from her body—as she walked closer to the lindwurm. “I hate this part.”

“Be ready to bolt,” Jack reminded her.

As the lindwurm tasted the air, scenting at the meat she held in front of her, she said in as flat a voice as she could muster, “He decides to cook his dinner, and I’m going to be crispy.”

“You’d get a few days off.”

Kitty tossed the mutton before the lindwurm got any closer to her, and it pounced on the meat as soon as it landed in the sand.

While it gnawed on the mutton, Jack took hold of the reins that were fastened around the creature’s back and steered it into the sand fields. Kitty followed on foot until they were far enough away that any belches or coughs or intentional flames would all be too short to ignite the pub or anything else. If she was able to get on its back, she could’ve done the same, but no one with half a brain would try to mount a lindwurm without having a partner to distract it first—or without being too bold for one’s britches.

Jack slid to the ground now that the lindwurm was out of range of the shops. Once he came to stand beside Kitty, she ripped the ruffle off her skirt and started to wrap it around the gash in his left bicep.

“You should’ve told me you were going out,” he chastised. He put his right hand on her shoulder as she bandaged his other arm. “Or told Edgar. You know better.”

She yanked on the two ends of the ruffle. “You’re welcome, Kit. Always glad to help, especially after I’ve been a jackass and pushed you away to let myself drown in guilt. Sorry I can’t let you be there for me. Really.” She knotted the bright red ruffle on his arm and lifted her gaze to meet his eyes. “Sorry your dress got trashed too, Kit. I’ll buy you a new one to replace it. I’m really glad you’re not hurt, and oh . . . thanks for finding the missing lizard.”

“Are you done?”

Kitty sighed. “You’ll feel better if you argue with me, Jack.”

“What’s to argue? You’re right, even if I’m not going to say any of that womanish stuff.” He plucked a dirt-and-wine-coated curl off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “I know you’re a grown woman, but you’re still my little sister.”

She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, counting silently to herself before she said something else she shouldn’t.

After a few moments, she stepped away. The riffraff in the pub had started to wander outside, and she wasn’t going to fight with Jack or get all sappy with him in front of strangers.

“That beast’s not going to get home by itself,” Betsy said from behind her. “And you can’t leave it here.”

Kitty rolled her eyes and started counting again. Dealing with the absentee proprietress wasn’t going to help her mood. The woman hired half-incompetent staff, and then treated the tavern like her own personal prowling grounds. It didn’t do a lot to inspire respect in Kitty.

In a blink, Jack stepped past her and smiled at Betsy.

You can take a gambler out of the saloon, but you can’t take the charm out of a gambler, Kitty thought. Once upon a time, she’d had to rely on her charm too, but since they’d ended up here, she’d grown to prefer bullets to smiles. Still, old habits were more useful than new ones sometimes. Kitty affixed the falsely guileless smile she resented wearing and turned so she was by Jack’s side. Family stood together. That truth had been a guiding force in her life since she was a child.

“Surely we can leave it here while we go on out to Cozy’s Ranch to see if this is one of his.” Jack gestured at the resting lindwurm and smiled.

Betsy laughed. “And hope that Cozy’s going to be quick about it? You’re pretty, Jackson, but I’m not young enough to be swayed by pretty.” She gave him a hungry look and added, “At least not just pretty.”

Jack ignored her invitation and flashed his grin. “Worth a try.”

“Not really.” Betsy shook her head, but she winked at Jack before she called out, “Lindwurm special until the beast is gone. Half-price pints.” Then she went back into the pub, calling for brooms and a glassmaker as she went.

In moments, most of the patrons had gone back inside—all but a small group of miners who had been an eager part of the fracas earlier. Like all of the native miners here, they were stocky, squat people with no whites around their pupils and large, batlike ears. The popular theory was that they’d developed their diminutive stature, overlarge ears, and solid black eyes as a result of countless generations working in the earth—a theory that made just enough sense to lessen the sense of unease Kitty felt when she looked at them.

“I don’t suppose you have any lindwurm-strength chain nearby?” Jack asked.

Two of the men stepped past their brethren. The first glared up at Jack and said, “Maybe.”

The second got to the heart of the matter: “Are you accusing us of something?”

Kitty walked toward him, using the fact that he was eye level with her hips to her advantage. With the way that her skirt was hitched up in the front, the miners were seeing a lot of leg. When she was close enough that the miner had to look up at her or admit that he was distracted by her bare skin, she stopped.

When he lifted his eyes to hers, she said, “We’re simply asking for chain. Do I look like I have a lindwurm chain hidden on me?”

The miners stared at her intently with their unsettling eyes, and after a few moments, they conceded that she was in need of some chain. Neither Kitty nor Jack commented on the chain they’d retrieved, which matched the links still fastened around the lindwurm’s neck. Kitty and Jack had agreed a few years ago that those who had been so adversely affected by Ajani’s enterprises merited a bit of selective blindness. The miners topped that list.

“I don’t suppose you could handle taking it out of here?” Kitty asked, directing her offer to all of them rather than any one specific miner. “If it took a day or so to reach Cozy, I’m sure he’d overlook the delay in exchange for not having to fetch it home.”

The answering rumble of assents was all she needed. Cozy was a surly bastard, and he was all too willing to ignore centuries of traditions to line his pockets with Ajani’s money. Like a lot of the lindwurm farmers, he’d raised his prices so high that miners couldn’t afford to rent, much less buy, lindwurms. Ajani levied steep taxes on the farmers if they did business with anyone other than those he authorized—and that didn’t include miners. Years ago, the miners had refused to sell their family mines to Ajani, but he’d retaliated by systematically denying them the tools to ply their trade. The resulting conditions meant that the people who’d made their living in the mines for generations, who’d been the only ones to do so and had physically evolved for that work, were now starving. It also meant that they occasionally liberated a few lindwurms that they couldn’t legally rent.

Kitty smiled at the miners, happy to have found a solution that benefited them. Wrestling with the beast hadn’t been fun, but she couldn’t blame them for not stepping in. What mattered now was that no one was hurt, Ajani would lose a little profit, and the miners would remember that she had lent them the lindwurm—even though it was one they’d already stolen.

Situation resolved, Kitty linked her arm through Jack’s as they strolled toward camp. The dirt and dust that were inevitable in the Wasteland seemed thicker than usual—or maybe it was just that they clung to her more because of the wine.

They were a little over a mile away before Jack spoke. “I’m sorry about Mary . . . and about keeping you out while she . . . while I waited.”

“Her death wasn’t your fault, but next time, tell me that you’re kicking me out instead of making Edgar do your dirty work.” Kitty knew that Mary had been important to her brother too, but he wasn’t weeping. He’d taught her years ago that tears were for the weak. Maybe that was why he didn’t want her in the tent. She knew Mary had been in love with him, but she had been pretty sure he hadn’t reciprocated those feelings. If he had, he hadn’t told Mary—and he still wasn’t telling Kitty.

Jack didn’t reply to her, so Kitty tried to lighten her tone and added, “Now, if you’re looking to apologize, we can talk about you ruining my evening. That was your fault.”

“After wine bathing and lindwurm dancing, I can see how you’d be disappointed to leave,” Jack drawled. “Out of curiosity, what number did you make it to before you decided not to hit me?”

She didn’t bother telling him that she was glad that he’d shown up to help. She didn’t even admit that if she could’ve invited him to go out rabble-rousing, she would’ve because she knew he needed to let off steam more than any of the rest of them. Instead, she rolled her eyes and answered, “I’ll let you know when I get to it.”

Jack laughed, and they headed back toward camp in a more comfortable silence.

When they were almost at the gate, Jack suggested, “I could be there when the woman wakes.”

Kitty smiled. “Because you’re so good at dealing with weeping women?”

“Don’t know that this one’s a crier,” Jack mused.

“Chloe. Not ‘this one,’ Jackson. Her name is Chloe.” Kitty didn’t admit that she’d done the same thing in her mind, tried to not-name the new arrival. Names made people real. Sometimes, that was the part Kitty wanted to avoid: them being real. If they weren’t real, maybe their eventual deaths would hurt less.

“Right.” Jack nodded. “I don’t think Chloe will be a crier.”

“Let’s just hope she’s not the sort to side with Ajani.”

Jack grimaced, but he didn’t comment. They both knew that the possibility of Ajani wooing Chloe away was a very real one. Sooner or later, he’d come around. Until he did, they’d just do what they could to help Chloe get settled. It was all they could do—well, that, and worry.

They’d been in this exact same situation well over a dozen times since they’d arrived in the Wasteland. If Kitty were truly honest with herself, she’d admit that this was what she needed—not losing herself in drink or in the company of a Wastelander. What she needed was this togetherness with the only person who could possibly feel the same worries, think of the same deaths, remember the same long-gone faces. She needed her only remaining family.