the hands of one of the gangs that trade in offworld stuff.”
Lucas suddenly understood something and said, “They wanted what was growing inside him. The people who killed him.”
He told Ritchy about the shard that had hit Damian in the arm. How they’d pulled it out. How it had infected Damian.
“He had a kind of patch around the cut, under his skin. He said it was making him stronger.”
Lucas saw his friend again, wild-eyed in the dusk, under the apple tree.
“That’s what he thought. But that kind of thing, well, if he hadn’t been murdered he would most likely have died from it.”
“Do you know who did it?”
Ritchy shook his head. “The police are making what they like to call inquiries. They’ll probably want to talk to you soon enough.”
“Thank you. For telling me.”
“I remember the world before the Jackaroo came,” Ritchy said. “Them, and the others after them. It was in a bad way, but at least you knew where you were. If you happen to have any more of that stuff, lad, throw it in the Flood. And don’t mark the spot.”
Two detectives came to Gravesend to interview Lucas. He told them everything he knew. Julia said that he shouldn’t blame himself, said that Damian had made a choice and it had been a bad choice. But Lucas carried the guilt around with him anyway. He should have done more to help Damian. He should have thrown the shard away. Or found him after they’d had the stupid argument over that girl. Or refused to take him out to see the damn dragon in the first place.
A week passed. Two. There was no funeral because the police would not release Damian’s body. According to them, it was still undergoing forensic tests. Julia, who was tracking rumors about the murder and its investigation on the stealth nets, said it had probably been taken to some clandestine research lab, and she and Lucas had a falling out over it.
One day, returning home after checking the snares he’d set, Lucas climbed to the top of the levee and saw two men waiting beside his boat. Both were dressed in brand-new camo gear, one with a beard, the other with a shaven head and rings flashing in one ear. They started up the slope toward him, calling his name, and he turned tail and ran, cutting across a stretch of sour land gone to weeds and pioneer saplings, plunging into the stands of bracken at the edge of the woods, pausing, seeing the two men chasing toward him, turning and running on.
He knew every part of the woods, and quickly found a hiding place under the slanted trunk of a fallen sycamore grown over with moss and ferns, breathing quick and hard in the cold air. Rain pattered all around. Droplets of water spangled bare black twigs. The deep odor of wet wood and wet earth.
A magpie chattered, close by. Lucas set a ball bearing in the cup of his catapult and cut toward the sound, moving easily and quietly, freezing when he saw a twitch of movement between the wet tree trunks ahead. It was the bearded man, the camo circuit of his gear magicking him into a fairytale creature got up from wet bark and mud. He was talking into a phone headset in a language full of harsh vowels. Turning as Lucas stepped toward him, his smile white inside his beard, saying that there was no need to run away, he only wanted to talk.
“What is that you have, kid?”
“A catapult. I’ll use it if I have to.”
“What do you use it for? Hunting rabbits? I’m no rabbit.”
“Who are you?”
“Police. I have ID,” the man said, and before Lucas could say anything his hand went into the pocket of his camo trousers and came out with a pistol.
Lucas had made his catapult himself, from a yoke of springy poplar and a length of vatgrown rubber with the composition and tensile strength of the hinge inside a mussel shell. As the man brought up the pistol Lucas pulled back the band of rubber and let the ball bearing fly. He did it quickly and without thought, firing from the hip, and the ball bearing went exactly where he meant it to go. It smacked into the knuckles of the man’s hand with a hard pop and the man yelped and dropped the pistol, and then he sat down hard and clapped his good hand to his knee, because Lucas’s second shot had struck the soft part under the cap.
Lucas stepped up and kicked the pistol away and stepped back, a third ball bearing cupped in the catapult. The man glared at him, wincing with pain, and said something in his harsh language.
“Who sent you?” Lucas said.
His heart was racing, but his thoughts were cool and clear.
“Tell me where it is,” the man said, “and we leave you alone. Your mother too.”
“My mother doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
Lucas was watching the man and listening to someone moving through the wet wood, coming closer.
“She is in it, nevertheless,” the man said. He tried to push to his feet but his wounded knee gave way and he cried out and sat down again. He’d bitten his lip bloody and sweat beaded his forehead.
“Stay still, or the next one hits you between the eyes,” Lucas said. He heard a quaver in his voice and knew from the way the man looked at him that he’d heard it too.
“Go now, and fetch the stuff. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I mean. Fetch it and bring it here. That’s the only offer you get,” the man said. “And the only time I make it.”
A twig snapped softly and Lucas turned, ready to let the ball bearing fly, but it was Damian’s father who stepped around a dark green holly bush, saying, “You can leave this one to me.”
At once Lucas understood what had happened. Within his cool clear envelope he could see everything: how it all connected.
“You set me up,” he said.
“I needed to draw them out,” Jason Playne said. He was dressed in jeans and an old-fashioned woodland camo jacket, and he was cradling a cut-down double-
barreled shotgun.
“You let them know where I was. You told them I had more of the dragon stuff.”
The man sitting on the ground was looking at them. “This does not end here,” he said.
“I have you, and I have your friend. And you’re going to pay for what you did to my son,” Jason Playne said, and put a whistle to his lips and blew, two short notes. Off in the dark rainy woods another whistle answered.
The man said, “Idiot small time businessman. You don’t know us. What we can do. Hurt me and we hurt you back ten-fold.”
Jason Playne ignored him, and told Lucas that he could go.
“Why did you let them chase me? You could have caught them while they were waiting by my boat. Did you want them to hurt me?”
“I knew you’d lead them a good old chase. And you did. So, all’s well that ends well, eh?” Jason Playne said. “Think of it as payback. For what happened to Damian.”
Lucas felt a bubble of anger swelling in his chest. “You can’t forgive me for what I didn’t do.”
“It’s what you didn’t do that caused all the trouble.”
“It wasn’t me. It was you. It was you who made him run away. It wasn’t just the beatings. It was the thought that if he stayed here he’d become just like you.”
Jason Playne turned toward Lucas, his face congested. “Go. Right now.”
The bearded man drew a knife from his boot and flicked it open and pushed up with his good leg, throwing himself toward Jason Playne, and Lucas stretched the band of his catapult and let fly. The ball bearing struck the bearded man in the temple with a hollow sound and the man fell flat on his face. His temple was dented and blood came out of his nose and mouth and he thrashed and trembled and subsided.
Rain pattered down all around, like faint applause.
Then Jason Playne stepped toward the man and kicked him in the chin with the point of his boot. The man rolled over on the wet leaves, arms flopping wide.
“I reckon you killed him,” Jason Playne said.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Lucky for you there are two of them. The other will tell me what I need to know. You go now, boy. Go!”
Lucas turned and ran.
