beak of his mask protruding from a cloud of thick incense smoke, caused her breath to hitch.
The plague eater strained at the leash by the doctor’s side, a low hissing growl causing its body to vibrate.
Frankie clutched the wages in her hand and held them out, but the doctor only glanced at her offering for a moment before pushing her aside.
“Wait.” Her voice sounded high-pitched and afraid. The doctor’s robes swept around him as he strode toward the center of their tiny shack. As on every other night, Cathy sat in her bath, knees drawn up to her chin and eyes wide. The tips of her hair floated around her, shielding her nakedness from view.
Frankie moved between the doctor and her sister and held out her hand again, but the beaked man ignored her. Instead he focused on her sister while the beast by his side lunged and struggled against its harness.
“She’s not sick,” Frankie insisted. “Neither of us is.” She watched in horror as the doctor gave slack to the plague eater’s leash and the creature ran once around her, merely hissing, before moving toward the tub. It rose on its hind legs, stretching its long body tall, but still it couldn’t reach over the lip of the basin.
“No,” Frankie cried out, attempting to grab the leash, but the doctor held out a thick walking stick, pressing her against the wall. This couldn’t be happening. Outside other beaked doctors milled. The boy with the censer swung it in ever larger arcs, filling the air with such acrid smoke that Frankie felt she couldn’t draw a proper breath.
She became frantic, tears blurring her eyes as the doctor pointed toward Cathy and ordered, “Out,” in a muffled voice. Frankie tried to stop him again, but he was stronger and kept her at bay.
He had the courtesy of turning his head away when Cathy rose from the water and shuffled toward her clothes, not even taking the time to dry herself before pulling them on. She looked so frail bent over herself as she dragged on her skirt.
Frankie wondered why the doctor bothered to show any courtesy at all before sending her to her death.
“Please,” Frankie whispered, but she wasn’t sure if the doctor could hear her through the layers of cloth and leather protecting him from the stench of the swamps.
Once Cathy was dressed, the doctor let loose the plague eater again, and the creature lunged hungrily forward. Frankie moaned, but Cathy was silent as the beast licked its tongue along the flesh of her leg, leaving a trail of saliva that glistened in the low light of the fire.
The thing’s nose twitched, and it pawed at Cathy’s foot, causing her to wince as sharp talons scratched her skin. It still hadn’t howled, and for a moment Frankie let her held breath seep from her lungs. Perhaps her sister was clean enough for the plague eater not to alert on her. Maybe the scent of the rose water would throw the beast off, and the beaked doctor would leave their house, and her older sister would be safe.
But before the dream could fully crystallize, the creature began to whuff, sucking and snorting, and then its lips pulled back from razor-sharp teeth, and it began to howl and growl. Before it could take a bite, the doctor yanked hard at the leash, causing the beast to twist and grapple as it toppled through the air. It landed with a hiss, its ears pinned back and body held low to the ground, growling.
Frankie’s eyes darted around the room, looking for a weapon. She was still desperately searching for a way out when the doctor reached for Cathy.
Another doctor swept through the door just then, pulling her away from his companion. The first doctor raised his walking stick, preparing to bring it across her back, but the new doctor raised a gloved hand, holding him off.
His other hand clamped around her bare arm, and she felt something off about the touch. When he pulled away, she looked down to find a trail of slickness smeared over her shoulder and oozing toward her elbow. Then the plague eater, which had been huddling on the ground, leaped to attention and struck toward her.
Frankie backed frantically into the corner. “I’m not sick!” she cried out. But the beast was more agile than she was. Already its talons bit into her as it climbed her body, tongue darting toward the slick on her arm.
She’d heard about the rumors—of doctors starting to take the healthy as well as the infected—but she hadn’t been willing to believe them. Now she had no choice. This new doctor had done something to her—wiped something that caused the plague eater to alert. Even more doctors streamed into the house, the lot of them indistinguishable in their midnight robes and beaked masks.
“You can’t!” Frankie shouted. “You can’t!”
Her brain wasn’t fast enough to come up with something else to say, something that would stop the men binding her wrists and stuffing a gag into her mouth. They tied a rope between the sisters and dragged them from their home.
Frankie was horrified and angry, so enraged she couldn’t think or react. She saw tears in her sister’s eyes, saw the way her body shook, and she wanted to tell Cathy that she was sorry, but her mouth was stuffed with cloth.
Out in the streets there were others bound and gagged, and most of them stood with blank stares, some of them with faint red trails down their cheeks, evidence that the fever had raged too close to death for recovery.
Frankie didn’t understand why they weren’t fighting. Why her neighbors were hiding behind curtains and doors and weren’t trying to stop the doctors from taking them away. But of course last night and the night before that for weeks, Frankie and Cathy had been the ones hiding, not taking the risk to defend the people who’d once been friends.
The boy with the censer led them through the streets, and the ranks of the bound sick grew, and Frankie still couldn’t figure out a way to escape. Beaked doctors surrounded them, their hidden eyes watching for any attempt to break free of the ranks. Soon they’d finish their rounds and they’d start the long walk to the hospital. That would be the end for Frankie and her sister.
They certainly didn’t have money to purchase a private or even a public room for treatment. They’d be shunted toward the basement where, rumor had it, fever victims were piled in old tunnels and left as food for the plague eaters.
Frankie worked one hand free enough to find her sister’s fingers and grip them tight. She didn’t want to think about what came next.
All too soon the doctors began to shuffle them toward the road along the coast that led to the hospital. They moved slowly, some of the sick unable to walk quickly, and everyone else unwilling to hasten their fate.
Frankie pulled her sister to the back of the group, hoping to find a chance to slip through, but they were too closely guarded. And then something that felt like a stick slapped against her shin, tripping her. Her arms were bound, and she couldn’t control her fall. Because Cathy was tied to her, she stumbled as well, and they collapsed together in a pile.
When Frankie looked up, one of the doctors hovered over her, the tip of his smoking beak mere inches from her face. She wanted to slap at him, but could only glare, which was small comfort.
The man reached for her, his grip painfully tight as he jerked her to standing. His treatment of Cathy was a little more gentle, for which Frankie was grateful, but not enough that she didn’t fight the moment he turned from her. Frankie felt her toe connect with something that felt weapon-like, and she saw the doctor’s walking stick rolling across the ground.
She knelt, pretending to be dizzy after the fall, and reached for the staff. The rest of the group had already traveled a distance away, leaving Frankie, Cathy, and the doctor to catch up.
When Frankie rose, she was already swinging, and the beaked doctor couldn’t have seen it coming because he did nothing to defend himself. The stick cracked loud against his head, causing him to stagger.
But he didn’t fall. Cathy and Frankie barely made it far before they heard the scrabble of talons chasing after them, and the horrible huffing and hissing of the plague eater as it closed in. The doctor had dropped the leash, either in the confusion of the scuffle or from being hit or just to track them down.
The creature was faster than either of the girls, and it caught them easily. Frankie still gripped the walking stick, and she beat at the thing, but it seemed immune to her efforts, coming after them again and again.
Then the doctor was there. A thin crack ran across his goggles, and the long, slender beak was broken open. Smoke poured out, wreathing his head in a cloud of incense that caused Frankie’s eyes to water and lungs to constrict.
