I hit nothing but concrete, breaking off the metal tip. The splintered wood and metal end flipped up and over my shoulder—too high to hit me, but I ducked away from it just as something struck the outside edge of my ear.
I snapped my head to the side; it felt like my ear had been torn off. I didn’t pause to check it, though. I swung the broken handle, and it moved much faster now that it was shorter. I struck something and heard Fidel grunt in pain.
Then something dull scraped against my shoulder blade.
I stabbed backward with the splintered end of the wood, but I missed whoever it was behind me—Summer? Which was a good thing, since we weren’t even close to the red circle yet.
I sidestepped, swinging the handle low in a full circle. Summer hissed when I hit her shin. Contact. I charged at her, my arms wide to make sure I caught her.
I did, by her hair. She yelped in pain and I felt a sudden rush of shame. I had to kill her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. Was this how Wally felt?
Whatever. I caught her around the neck and knocked her to the floor. I couldn’t see her, but I could feel that she was facing away from me. I guessed she had the screwdriver in her right hand and grappled for it blindly. It clattered to the floor.
Scuffling footsteps approached from behind. I wrenched Summer off the floor and spun to put her between me and whoever was getting close. Nothing bashed my skull open.
Sweat stung my eyes as I backed toward the red circle. If I could get her inside, I could use my ghost knife on her. The drape would kill her, quickly, and that would be that. It would almost be like mercy.
But she was struggling furiously, and even though I was stronger and heavier, I couldn’t contain her. She was fighting for her life, and in my heart I wanted her to win.
Ty became visible in the middle of the room; his expression had so much sorrow in it that it stole my energy away and I stopped fighting.
Summer tore free of my grip. “Fuck!” she shouted, letting herself become visible. “This is bullshit.”
“Yeah,” Fidel said from just behind her. He became visible, too. “Let’s try shooting some more.”
Summer moved her hand toward her lower back. I grabbed her and half lifted, half shoved her into Fidel. We were too far from the red circle for me to try to wrestle her inside, not if people were drawing guns.
I sprinted toward the open door. The Hummer was right there, but there was no time to get in, start the engine, and pull away.
A barrel beside the door suddenly toppled on its side, and a wash of dirty black oil flowed toward me. I jumped, clearing it before it spread too far, and landed in the doorway.
I went through the doorway and turned the corner out of sight. A gunshot went off, but I didn’t feel any sudden, crippling pain, and I didn’t fall over dead.
At the corner of the building, I crouched behind the digger. No one came out of the building—not that I could see, anyway—but if someone did, the machine would give me some cover.
Who had tipped over that barrel? I hadn’t seen anyone, but Ty had been at the other end of the room, by the toolbench, and I’d just left Summer and Fidel behind me.
It had to be Arne. If it wasn’t, there was another person running around with a drape, and I didn’t want to think about that. Had he turned off the radio, too?
Was he helping me?
I still couldn’t see anyone leaving the building, and I thought I would at least see a smear of oil or loose dirt stirred up by their footsteps, even if they were invisible.
There. A smear of black appeared on the concrete lip of the building foundation, then a scuff of dirt.
The footsteps headed toward the gate, away from me. I scrabbled toward the back of the building.
The ground was packed hard with a fine layer of dirt on top. I sprinted across the open area in back of the building, my feet scraping through the faint tracks Francois’s Hummer had laid down. Would they be able to find me with those footprints? They looked pretty faint, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving a trail. Not that I had a choice.
I scrambled over the top of the berm and slid down the other side. This dirt was loose, as though it had been moved recently, but it was the nearest cover. I left huge footprints, but the dirt would stop a bullet.
There was a deep, broad hole in front of me. I hopped over it, but the dirt crumbled. I tipped into the hole, landing on my hands and knees.
I heard flies buzzing, and that smell … The hole was just a bit over five feet long, and right beside me was someone stretched out, lying in wait.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
My throat was too tight to let me scream; instead I hissed like a leaky bicycle tire. I panicked for a moment, convinced that Ty or Summer had gotten here before me and was stretched out with a gun trained on me.
But they weren’t. The figure beside me wasn’t moving at all. I leaned closer to it, to the smell and the flies, and I saw that it was Francois. He had been shot once in the head.
“You’re lucky,” Arne said from somewhere nearby. I spun and saw him crouching in the open space above me. “Some of the older holes have rattlesnakes in them.”
He extended his hand. I clasped it, letting him lift me out of the hole. He stood upright, visible above the top of the berm beside us. I stood upright, too.
He slapped a .38 revolver into my hand. “Don’t get busted with this.”
I opened the cylinder. One round had been fired—and I was pretty sure I knew where that bullet was—leaving five shots. For all the good it would do me.
“I can’t use this.”
“Oh no?” Arne gave me a look that was difficult to read. “I thought that was what you did now.”
“It is,” I said, hating the words as they came out of my mouth. I had never admitted it aloud before. Arne was still giving me that look. “But I can’t kill them unless I can get them in the circle first. Otherwise—”
“No need to explain. I know. I was in the building, too.” He scratched at his neck, then lowered his hand with a visible exertion of will. “I saw.”
“You can see them when they’re invisible?” It was hard to believe he was really on my side. It seemed impossible that he’d help me, knowing that I would have to kill him, too.
He broke eye contact, looking toward the building as though scanning for the others. “Yeah, if I really concentrate.” If he saw something, he didn’t say. “Well, I said I would help you with your thing when I was done with mine, didn’t I?” He waved toward Francois’s corpse. “I have one more problem to bury, but I guess I won’t have time for that.”
I looked away, determined not to think about patches of disturbed dirt behind me. “I didn’t know,” I said.
“I didn’t want you to know. There are some problems that can only be solved by a grave in the desert, but I couldn’t trust you with that. Don’t take that hard; I couldn’t trust anyone.”
Graves. And I had thought that disturbed dirt had come from digging for treasure.
We heard the sound of an engine, a low-horsepower motorbike approaching. I grabbed Arne’s elbow and pulled him low, so we were just peeking over the berm. The bike came into view and passed through the gate. It was a small thing, baby blue, with the minimum cc’s necessary for highway travel.
Wally was riding it. His green sweats had been replaced by a pair of huge purple M. C. Hammer pants and a gigantic dashiki. His left hand was encased in a mitten, and he had a pair of expensive mountain-climbing shades on.
I pulled Arne all the way down out of sight. He resisted at first, then turned invisible. I caught his elbow and looked at him, shaking my head at where I hoped his face was. I can see with more than just light.
I sat with my back against the dirt, silently cursing at myself. I’d known Wally wasn’t dead—yeah, his injuries would have killed most people, including me, but I had learned to expect a certain toughness from the people the society went after.