doing it. Had his own symbol for everyone. He can draw out simple maps and things like that as well.”
“Huh. What’s Abe’s symbol, little bug?”
Mr. C turned to an empty spot in the salt, and drew a circle, then several triangles on top and bottom, like an open-toothed maw. A prickle ran up the back of my neck. “That’s not right. My symbol was three V’s on top of each other, like a sergeant’s stripes.”
The wooden spider retraced the image, and then tapped twice next to it, firmly.
Anne looked up at me. “Not anymore.”
I picked up Mr. Careful and put him into my shirt pocket, where he curled up into a tight flat oval. Then I rubbed the images out of the salt with my finger, feeling unsettled. It sounds crazy, but having Mr. C identify me differently was like looking into a mirror and seeing somebody else staring back at you. I didn’t like it.
We left the house through the shattered front door, reminded as we stepped into the deserted street that this house, this tragic site of desperation and loss, was only one of many created by Piotr. It was warfare on a personal level, fought house to house, family member against family member, all in fearful silence.
People held hostage for months at a time with nobody around them any wiser, forced to live with a monster who looked out at you from stolen eyes. What does that say about us, that we can live next door to someone and never be close enough to see what’s going on right under our noses? When did we start hiding in our tiny worlds behind closed doors, and relying entirely on our televisions and computers for companionship? Maybe the fact that something like this could go on unnoticed for so long was more frightening than the resulting devastation.
We piled back into the truck, and I dropped Mr. C onto the dashboard, where he promptly spun to face the same direction he had indicated in the kitchen. Seeing him there brought back memories of days and nights driving with him on the painted steel dash of a jeep, legs scrabbling for purchase as we flew over ruts and road debris.
I remember Shad using his battered Ka-Bar to punch knifepoint slits into the dashboards of every vehicle we ended up in, so that the little spider could get a secure foothold. The memory brought back smells of mud, bad feet, and cordite, all mixed up with the faces of my old squad.
Patty used to ride shotgun next to me, issuing warnings with a tap on the side of his nose, with Shad, Two- Penny, and the Professor crammed in the back with the guns and gear, taking turns complaining for hours on end about my driving and keeping count of every rut and pothole I hit.
Mr. C swayed with the truck during turns, his legs rolling in time with the dash to keep his body perfectly still. Henry had to have smuggled him into town when he was captured, which was typical of Henry’s foresight. We didn’t call him the smart one for nothing.
I wanted to jam the pedal to the floor mat and follow Mr. C’s directions to where Piotr was keeping Henry, but I held steady and wove through town towards the Nail Barrel instead. The people in town needed me first. Piotr had gone to all the trouble to kidnap Henry in order to make sure that I showed up on time and was cooperative when he called, so there was no doubt in my mind that he would be safe until Piotr felt some leverage was needed.
Until then, if I could save whoever was left in this hellhole, I’d do it.
50
We found the Nail Barrel inside a ring of empty cars that were full of bullet holes and shattered safety glass. I flicked off the headlights and put my trust in my inhumanly acute night vision and the faint green foxfire glow of the clouds overhead. Lights were on inside the store, but only in the rear of the building. The front of the store was dark, giving the shattered plate-glass windows in front a yawning, toothy look.
I nosed up against the closest wreck and killed the engine. Silence pressed in on us, disturbed only by random bursts of gusty wind in the street and the ticking of the cooling engine.
Anne’s head swayed left and right as she tried to peer across the street and into the store. “Looks deserted.”
“Still have to check.” I reached into my pocket and fished out the little lock-blade folder that I carried. I snapped it open and looked at Anne. “Give me your hand.”
She immediately balled up her fists and stuck them in her lap. “Why?”
“I want to introduce you to Mr. C, so he can find you if we get separated. A drop of blood is all I need.”
“Ugh, creepy.” She stuck her hand out and turned her head away. I nicked her palm as gently as I could, and then squeezed the little cut until a dark drop welled up. I dipped a finger in it, and then smeared it down Mr. C’s back while he sat on the dash. He remained perfectly still, but the shiny streak vanished into the dull wood of his back as though absorbed by a sponge.
“Now you,” I said to Chuck, turning towards the back seat.
“Here.” His hand was already out, palm up, with blood on it, a fancy stainless steel pocketknife in his other hand. I dabbed a different finger in it and repeated the process. That blood, too, sank out of sight.
“Okay, that should do it. Now he can find you wherever you go, no matter the distance.”
Chuck wiped his hand on his jeans. “You sure? How do we know if it works?”
I shrugged. “We don’t, really, but that’s all I know how to do, so if it doesn’t work, it’s not like I can fix it or anything. I only know what Henry told me about working with Mr. C, and that’s pretty much it for introducing him to new people. Now, let’s see what’s going on in that building.”
I picked up the little wooden spider, rolled down the window, and tossed him out into the darkness. I left the window down and leaned back in my seat to wait. The smell of damp and mud and vegetative rot swiftly filled up the cabin.
After ten long minutes, a
“Okay, show me.” Instantly, the spider dipped and sank his tiny steel fangs into the flesh at the base of my thumb. Impressions and images lunged and jostled for attention in my head. Bodies on the floor, a lot of them, seen from twenty or thirty feet up in the air. A towering, shadowy mountain of guns thrown into a corner seen from an inch off the floor, then a head-level view of people sitting on the floor, Mazie and Greg right in the front of the crowd. One of those big helmeted bags with a shotgun and a companion, a regular bag by the look of him, standing over the group. A portable CB on a desk, looming high. All of this was interspersed with rapid-fire flashes of hallways, doorframes, and window corners.
Mr. C stood up, pulling his fangs out of my hand, and then sprang to my shoulder. He stood stock still for a moment, then his legs snapped up around his abdomen, and he slid down my shirt to land neatly in my pocket. I took a deep breath and focused on settling my queasy stomach. There was no doubt about the usefulness of Mr. C’s scouting reports, but the dizzying succession of views and angles was nauseating to say the least.
“Looks like they made their last stand, and they lost. The weird part is that they’re still alive and being guarded by a couple of bags, two or three at the most, and one of those helmeted fuckers thrown in for good measure. They don’t seem to be out of their minds like the rest of them, no clue why.”
Anne raised an eyebrow. “Why take hostages?”
“Piotr’s not one for leaving things to chance. I imagine he has a good reason.”
“Like using them as bait to lure us in?”
“That would be my guess.”
Chuck leaned his head into the space between the front seats. “So, if those guys are bait, then all we have to do is to ignore it and go after Piotr himself. Problem solved.”
I looked back over my shoulder at him. “One question. What do you do with your leftover bait after you’re done fishing and you don’t need it any more?”
Chuck’s cheeks reddened. “Yeah, good point. What’s the plan?”
I started the Rover and backed away from the cars in front of us, lights still off. “The plan is we go in and rescue some hostages. We’ll figure out the rest after that’s done.”
