“What is it?” I ask, instantly alert.
“Do you hear that?” she asks.
I listen. And sure enough, there it is, a low rumbling buzz, like a freight train far away but inexorably heading your direction. Mósí stops humming, shifts to look over her shoulder, and raises her designer sunglasses to look east. “Well, child, it looks like you have a very angry swarm of locusts headed in your direction. I supposed that’s not your fault either. Even so, I’d suggest we make haste out of town before there is no more town.”
Without another word, Clive and I shift our packing to high gear. We’re done and ready in a matter of seconds. I slide onto my bike, Ben huddles in behind me. She wraps her arms around me, and I can feel her shaking. I try to think of something reassuring to say, but I’ve got nothing. I put my commlink on and motion for her to do the same. Strap on my goggles and pull the rag up over my nose.
“Which way?’ Clive asks, his voice a lie of calm.
“What about Rissa?” Ben asks.
“We can’t wait for her,” I say. And with the swarm on our tail, I wonder if Rissa is even coming. Maybe we overestimated the safety of sending her and Grace to Crystal. Clive must be thinking it, too, but if he is, he’s keeping it to himself. Doesn’t argue with me. Which tells me he’s scared too.
“Lead them out of town,” Mósí says. She’s not wearing a commlink, but I can hear her clearly.
“What?”
“The locusts will destroy any and everything they touch. They are devourers by nature. If they come through Tse Bonito, there will be no more Tse Bonito. Lead them out of town, Battle Child. And quickly!”
I realize even the Cat is scared.
Well, that makes all four of us.
I hit the gas and tear out of the parking lot, shouting for Ben to hang on. She clutches me tightly. We ride due south across open desert, hoping to turn the swarm. No roads here, but no town, either. The shops and trailers that mark the edges of Tse Bonito quickly disappear, and all that’s left is the wind whipping around us as we race for the Lupton. Driven by the surety that somewhere behind us there’s a monster following.
Chapter 17
We ride at full speed south across the open desert.
After half an hour, we hit a paved road and a sign pointing us to Lupton. The road is pockmarked by time and weather, but it’s better than the bare suggestion of a trail we’ve been on. Finally, the Wall comes into view.
The Tribal Council built the Wall. Protection from not just the natural disasters of the Big Water that rained down on the earth—the storms and earthquakes—but for all the man-made horrors too. The Energy Wars that gutted the Midwest, the fracking engines shaking the earth until she broke, the oil pumps bleeding her dry. But Dinétah was spared, safe behind the Wall.
And here I was about to leave willingly.
Clive’s voice comes through the speaker in my head. “Guardhouse on the left, coming up fast.”
“I see it,” I say, throttling down. I glance around the camp itself. “That’s strange.”
“What’s strange?” Ben says, her voice anxious in my ear. She hadn’t said anything the whole ride from Tse Bonito, but she stayed tight up against my back, her arms holding on to me like I was the last life preserver on a sinking ship.
Clive answers first. “There’s no one here.”
There’s a refugee camp here in Lupton, much like the one I remember from Rock Springs. Probably four dozen tents of various shapes and sizes, some nylon camping tents and some canvas, some just makeshift lean-tos held up by wooden poles. The tents spread out between the sparse piñon trees and brush along an open field in the shadow of the Wall. There’s a few more solid-looking buildings here and there. Something that looks like a meeting hall. Another building with a big red cross on the roof that marks it as a medical facility. A hogan for ceremony.
But just like Rock Springs, Lupton is empty. Back in Rock Springs it was because the people had fled the flesh-eating monsters and hid in smuggling tunnels. We never found them, but news came back that that’s where they’d been. The people had clearly left Lupton, too. But to where? Through the Wall into the Malpais? Somewhere else in Dinétah? And more important, why? What could have made them all abandon the hope of a new home?
A shiver runs down my back as I realize the most obvious answer. They followed the White Locust to whatever new home he promised them, swelling the numbers of the faithful, building his Swarm.
“Hand me my shotgun,” I mutter to Ben through the comm. Ben keeps one hand around my waist and pulls my shotgun free from the side rack with the other. We drive slowly through the ghost town, our engines the only noise. I maneuver around a metal tent pole that’s left abandoned in the road, like a windstorm had come through. Windstorms make me think of Kai. He could have done this, but why? He was so careful with his power, worried about hurting people. I can’t see him destroying a whole town even if it was within his ability. But if the White Locust made him? If somehow he has control of Kai and his powers?
“Gates are open,” Clive says. There, fifty feet in front of us, the road leads us to a gatehouse and, just past it, a massive gate. The gate is a heavy steel door set on a huge pulley system that would take at least three men to operate. I imagine it would close with crushing force if recklessly released. To get that door open and closed is no small task. But now the door is wide-open, listing dangerously off the single metal chain that it’s still attached to. Something, or someone powerful, ripped that door free from its hinges. Something with supernatural force. Someone with clan powers.
I swallow, uneasy. And then something above the gate catches my eye, and my unease turns to horror. Because high above the top of the gate, hammered into the turquoise rock itself, is a body.
“Up there,” I whisper. “Above the door.”
The body is slight, young. Too hard to tell the person’s gender so high up and half-hidden in the shadows of the Wall. They are nailed to the rock, their arms spread Christ-like, held by some sort of stakes through their shoulders that look like railroad spikes. The spikes hold all their weight, which isn’t much. But it’s enough to leave the legs hanging uselessly and their head lolling senselessly on a bent neck. It’s a terrible thing that’s been done, and my stomach threatens to bring back my hard-won lunch at the sight.
Then I realize who it is staked into the Wall, and my whole being shudders in revulsion.
“Oh God,” Clive moans, a strangled cry as he sees the same shock of red hair I do. Comes to the same inevitable conclusion.
“Caleb.”
Chapter 18
Clive is off his bike in seconds. He rushes forward, eyes riven to the scene above him. His hands clutch ineffectually at the Wall, searching for holds.
I turn off the engine and wait. Take a deep breath and try to ease the tightness in my chest. I’ve killed more people than I care to count, no doubt inadvertently caused pain to their friends and family. But whoever did this wanted to be deliberately cruel. Caleb was tortured, meant as a message for whoever found him. For us, most likely. I have no doubt that whoever did this is a monster.
Clive’s efforts to scale the Wall are getting more frantic, his hands turning bloody as his fingernails scratch uselessly at the hard turquoise. A fine sheen of blue dust rains to the earth around his feet, but he’s not making any progress unless he intends to tear down the Wall molecule by molecule with his bare hands. Which no doubt he would attempt if he thought it would help his little brother.
“Stay put,” I murmur to Ben. “Keep your eyes open for trouble.”
She swallows, her face scared, her back rigid.