Exodia (27 page)

* * *

Barrett heard her first in the Sessions
Room. He heard everything. The rustle of her dress, the clink of
the tray, Jamie’s faster breaths. He heard her hide a warning to
him in her innocent conversation, knew where they were going, and
waited around the corner as Jamie unlocked the archive door. Lucky
there, he thought. He carried lock picks in his backpack, but he
hadn’t brought them. Dalton had told them the door lock didn’t
work. Things change in three years. He would’ve had to kick the
door down. But not now. Now he had to sneak in, hide, wait, steal,
escape.

He put his fingers on the edge of the
door and eased it open an inch. He listened. Waited. Crept
in.

Lydia and Jamie had their backs to him.
They were looking at some kind of stringless puppet and talking
about Blue prophecies. Bear looked for a hiding place. Something
close. The desk. He crouched down and hid. Staying silent was
easy.

* * *

After introductions the next words out
of Jamie’s stepmother’s mouth were, “Where’s her chaperon? We can’t
go through the formalities without her chaperon.”

“
I’ll check the restroom.
Wait, here he comes.” Jamie waved Barrett over.

“
We want to do these things
properly,” Mrs. Truslow said. “Lovely dress, dear.”

“
Thank you.”

Jamie put his arm around
Lydia’s shoulder and squeezed her close. In her ear he whispered,
“I meant to ask upstairs–you
will
marry me, won’t you?”

Lydia eyed Barrett, caught the slight
nod and knew he had the ledgers. An easy lie now would make for a
smoother exit later. “Of course,” she said. Jamie planted a quick
kiss on her temple.

Mrs. Truslow beamed. “I need to make
some arrangements with your chaperon. We’ll have the wedding in
three days. The Executive President returns tomorrow.” She added
with a girlish giggle, “He’s promised to bring me some rare black
alabaster carvings.” She seemed particularly pleased with herself.
She looked Lydia over again. “We insist that you stay here
meanwhile. Both of you. We have everything prepared.”

Lydia blinked slowly. Barrett nodded.
Cool and calm. There was no reason to panic yet. He held out his
arm to escort Mrs. Truslow in to the dining room.

They knew they were playing with fire
when they came up with this plan, but they did not expect it to go
this far. An arranged marriage.

Chapter 14 The Last Plague

From the sixth page of the
first ledger:

On that day he will deal
differently with the land of Exodia. He will make a distinction
between Reds and Blues.

And promises will be
kept.

And promises will be
broken.

An arranged marriage will
mark the day they leave.

I STAND OUTSIDE the old
school-turned-residence and stare at the stars. If only I could
read them like Raul Luna. I shiver as I think of a certain priest
turned father-in-law. I’m almost twenty years old and I’m no longer
bound to a wife who never loved me.

Yet guilt and grief take turns
tormenting my soul. Did I ever love her?

I pace in the quiet darkness and allow
myself to think of my mistakes. I’ve murdered. I’ve divorced. I’ve
abandoned my son. I’ve failed Ronel. These aren’t simple forgivable
mistakes–mistake is too small a word–these are transgressions.
Unholy transgressions. And I can’t think of any way to make things
right again.

It’s after midnight. Barrett and Lydia
haven’t come by yet with the stolen treasure. I’ll give them
another hour before I wake my brother or go to Korzon.

I put my hand on the antiquated metal
flagpole. I quell my worries and instead wonder how long it’s been
since a real flag has hung here. There are women among the Reds who
secretly weave flags and banners to carry with us when we leave.
There’s still hope for escape. It would be a huge exodus and, no
doubt, a bloody one. Flags and banners will find other purposes on
that day.

Pounding footsteps alert me. I expect
Bear and Lydia to return in a car, but if there was trouble at the
capitol they’d climb the fence and run. I concentrate on the
cadence. One set of fast and agile feet. Barrett. Alone.

He slows when he spots me and jogs the
last darkening yards, pulling something from his belt sack as he
nears.

“
Got them,” he says,
thrusting four small books at me.

“
And Lydia?”

I can tell he has bad news. A few
raindrops splatter on my head and then the clouds that so suddenly
hid the stars release torrents of water that bite and stab. We race
for the doors. I hunch over the treasure, these ledgers, trying to
protect them. They are old and the moisture could ruin the
pages.

We stand in the lobby where an oil lamp
on the floor has been left burning to illuminate the hallway. Again
I ask about Lydia. The low light catches Barrett’s face. The angles
are all wrong and for a moment he seems nightmarish. I panic for an
instant–he looks tortured.

“
She’s still at the capitol.
There’s a problem. They gave her a room to stay in.” He rubs at his
face, leaving blotchy pale spots. “I need some water,” he says, “to
wash off this disguise.”

“
Why would they give her a
room?”

“
Well, that’s the
problem.”

I ball up my fist. I trusted him. Are
they using Lydia as a hostage? My lips are stuck together; no words
come out even though my head is hurtling thousands of words over my
tongue.

Barrett notices my agitation. “Relax,”
he says. “We’ll figure something out. Besides they can’t make the
announcement without me there.”

I might explode. I know what type of
announcement he’s referring to. My heart wants to pound its way out
of my chest.

And it will break if Lydia has to marry
Jamie.

I need to go to the capitol, but
Barrett pushes me down the hall. He says something about finding
better light to read the ledgers by. His words sound as if they’re
coming from underwater, muted somehow. Muffled and
garbled.

We reach my apartment and he says,
“Maybe there’s a prophecy about this. Maybe it’s a sign. And we
need to look in the ledgers for something with a ring around it. A
prophecy that’s circled. Remember Ronel’s message? We wait for a
rare ringed anagram and then we rise up.”

I don’t need to open the door, find a
light, or wake my brother and sister to study the ledgers. I don’t
need to. I’ve already figured it out.

A rare ringed anagram.

An arranged
marriage.

* * *

The plan is in place by first light.
Harmon retrieves “Mateo” and carries the rod in sections under a
new robe. We all wear robes. Harmon, Mira, Barrett, Korzon, Teague,
recently released from lock-up, and every Red who dares to risk
joining us in another attempt to persuade the Executive President
to release our people. Under our robes are multiple belt sacks that
could have been filled with weapons, but are instead empty by
Teague’s order. He’s brought a better weapon–one of the cases that
Ronel entrusted to Harmon and which Teague’s men had hidden for us.
We silently assemble at the capitol gate, turn our backs to the
building and wait for Truslow’s arrival.

Bear and I detect the far off rumblings
first. We encourage everyone to chant. We stomp our feet in rhythm.
The early morning commotion is not well received by the guards, but
some of them are Reds and they add to the din by firing off rounds
over our heads.

A canon-like boom splits the
air above us and three armored vehicles break open a path through
our ranks. I recognize the second vehicle and see Truslow through a
side window. The chanting stops as the vehicle nears the gate. I
hear three faint syllables–my name, my
other
name–and I look back over my
shoulder at the capitol and spot Lydia at a dining room window, her
hand upon the glass. Her lips move and I cherish the four words
that bolster me and make me relax. The only other person able to
hear them tenses up beside me. Barrett is in his disguise; his robe
and hood conceal his identity. He’s ready to sneak back in as
Lydia’s chaperon if he needs to.

Three of Truslow’s Krona exit the third
vehicle and walk stiffly over mud puddles toward us. Soldiers come
out from the capitol, open the gates, and hurry to intercept their
leader as he boldly opens his door.

We don’t give him a chance to speak
first. Harmon yells a threat and pulls the rod parts from his robe,
mumbling what sounds like incantations. He snaps them together and
holds the long pole high and nods toward me. I hold my hand out to
Teague who puts a box in it the size of a robin’s nest. The Krona
stop walking. Truslow is now fully out in the open. All of our
people remain a respectful distance, heads down, arms hidden under
their robes as if they are putting large-knuckled fingers on
imaginary triggers or blades.

It is now that I should say
the words Harmon had me practice, but I hesitate and Truslow speaks
instead. “Dalton Battista
again
? Haven’t you gotten it through
your head yet? There’s nothing you can threaten me with that my
Krona won’t stop.”

Of course that’s not true. He blusters.
He shoves aside the lead Krona and demands something from him. The
man reaches into his belt sack and produces a paper. Truslow grabs
it and waves the single sheet.

“
The only reason you are
still alive is because of what is written on this page. I stole it
from your grandfather’s archive … before I let him die.”

I cringe at the word
grandfather
and begin to
sweat. I had stolen four pages when I was sixteen and Barrett had
stolen the rest of the ledgers last night. We pored over them all
night long, four of us, and were encouraged by the prophetic lines
in the first ledger’s opening page. The first page, that is, after
the torn away ones. A page that was numbered six.

My hands cause the box to tremble. I
know what Harmon told me it could do, but now I have my
doubts.

“
Cat got your tongue?”
Truslow waves his arms at his soldiers. “Move these vermin out of
here.”

“
Say it now,” Harmon prods
me.

“
Alabaster riches,” I say,
without conviction or authority in my voice. Truslow’s head jerks
back and he looks at each of the Krona in turn and then scowls at
me.

“
What is this? Some kind of
mind-reading trick? It’s not a very good one. It was no secret that
I went to the southern border to accept a treaty gift of black
alabaster for my wife. Very rare.”

My skin goes cold. Everything fits so
perfectly.

“
Bacterial rashes,” I
pronounce the syllables slowly, as if I’m arranging each letter as
it drops off my tongue. Harmon presses the bottom of the rod into
the top of the box and twists. The lid releases and the box opens
to reveal two compartments, one filled with a white powder and the
other with a fine black soot. I take a handful of the black ash and
throw it into the air. It floats like smoke and disperses on
invisible air currents.

The Krona are the first to react. Their
skin erupts in boils and abscesses. They stare at the backs of
their hands, watch the sores progress. One scratches at his neck,
another begins to weep, the third clutches at Truslow’s arm then
searches his belt sacks for a remedy.

The soldiers are next. The guards
groan, scratch, cry out. The capitol doors open and people stream
out. Some I know. A woman. Jamie. Lydia. Several secretaries.
Staff. The initial screams and cries change to whimpers and moans.
But Reds are not infected. Only Blues.

I look around at the crowd and spot the
Blue sympathizers. I see Reds among the capitol workers. It appears
that this plague is hitting randomly, when in fact it miraculously
spares my people. The Executive President is last to feel the
effects. The sores spread across his skin in a wave.

I expect him to yell
out
All
right! Stop
this madness. All the Reds can go
. But he
hardens his heart, withstands the agony. Even as he looks toward
his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law-to-be, he doesn’t
waver.

I can’t stand the suffering. The woman
next to Lydia, the one I so long believed was my mother, will not
endure the misery much longer. I scoop a handful of the white
powder and toss it to the breeze. I find my voice. “You are
stubborn, Mr. Executive President. You can make all the treaties
you want. South, west, east. But Ronel waits for us in the north
and you have underestimated his power. You still set yourself
against his people and will not let them go. In six hours there
will be an acid rain followed by a hailstorm the likes of which
this land has never known. Give an order for all to be inside or
those who do not seek shelter will die, whether they are Blues or
not.”

I’ve never spoken at such length. My
last words echo in my own ears and fade among the sobs.