Renegade (10 page)

He took no notice.

“Father!”

He yanked open the doors of a large, floor-to-ceiling metal closet. For a brief moment he was mercifully still. Then he staggered back, hand pressed against his mouth. When he tripped and fell, he never once took his eyes away from the closet.

I ran over to him. So did the others. In the closet, hanging from a short piece of thick rope, was one of the pirates.

W
hat the hell is going on?” demanded Jerren. His hands were fists at his sides, but his voice cracked as he spoke.

The body was purple-red and bloated. Now that the doors had been opened, an overpowering stench filled the room.

Alice padded over to the window and scanned the street outside. “We need to get back to the ship,” she said. “Everything here is just . . .
wrong
.”

I pulled my tunic up so that it covered my mouth, and stepped forward until I was standing beside the body. I didn't recognize the pirate, but he had the look of one of Dare's men: malnourished and wiry; leathery, sunburned skin.

“He doesn't look like he has Plague,” said Ananias.

My father drew alongside me. He lifted the dead man's hands and inspected them, looking for signs of a struggle.

The man's hands appeared no different than his arms: dirty, but not especially scratched or scarred. There was no blood or skin under the fingernails. No broken knuckles, as far as I could tell. “He died without a fight,” I said.

“Unless he killed himself.” Alice sounded frustrated—angry, even. She punched her thigh as if the thought offended her. As if this was somehow
personal
. “We need to go. We'll talk back at the ship.”

It wasn't a suggestion anymore. There was panic in her voice. She
knew
something.

“Come on,” said Jerren, leading the way.

We left the clinic by the broken front door. The street was as quiet and desolate as the rest of the island. Alice looked around frantically.

“What do you see?” I asked her.

“Nothing,” she said. “That's the problem . . .
nothing
.”

We headed north along the main street, Ananias leading the way. I caught a glimpse of our ship through the gaps between buildings. Tarn and Marin had lowered the anchors and moored now, but neither of them was on deck. There was no other vessel on the water. Unless the pirates had already boarded the ship, which seemed impossible, everyone on board would be fine.

Without warning, Alice veered off and approached the battered building to our right. In the space where the window used to be, three more dead pirates swung from ropes attached to a wooden beam. But unlike the other body we'd found, these showed early signs of Plague.

“They didn't want to die of Plague,” said Alice. “So they took their own lives.”

“But how did they get Plague in the first place?” I asked. “One or two rats couldn't do this.”

“Maybe the pirates crossed to the mainland,” suggested Ananias.

“No way. They're not stupid. Anyway, why are the bodies hanging here? Someone should've buried them. Or released them to the water like the ones on the raft.”

“Maybe there's no one else left,” said Jerren.

My father approached the dead pirates. “Or maybe they just haven't had the chance to dispose of the bodies yet. I don't think these men have been dead for long.”

“What would've stopped someone from disposing of bodies?”

“Maybe us,” said Ananias. “Maybe we've been seen.”

Alice pointed to the northwest. “We're not the only new arrivals. There's the tip of a mast just above those trees over there.”

“I don't see anything,” said Ananias.

“Just trust me, all right? There's a mast. Judging by its height, I'd say the ship is a big one. At least as big as Dare's.”

“You're saying you can see something the rest of us can't?” Ananias had held his tongue earlier, but now he demanded answers. “Alice?”

In response, she raised her hand. I figured she was playing for time, still determined to keep her element a secret from everyone else. But as she sank to her knees and put her ear to the ground, it was clear that she was engaging her element again. Brows furrowed, she nodded slightly as she picked up a sound that resonated along the street.

She snapped her head up. Her eyes grew wide as she stared into the distance. I couldn't see anything but a shadow crossing the cracked surface of the street.

How could there be a shadow when the sky was cloudless?

“Run!” Alice screamed. “To the ship. Now!”

I felt frozen. So did everyone else, all of us transfixed by the shadow moving toward us, its color shifting from mottled gray to black.

There were rats on Roanoke Island after all. Thousands of them. And they were coming straight for us.

We ran back along the street, occasionally stumbling on the uneven ground. We were heading away from the ship, but we couldn't do anything about that. All that mattered was getting away and staying together.

We'd only gone a hundred yards when the familiar Skeleton Town intersection came into view. The water tower loomed ahead of us. The hurricane shelter would be just to our right. Turning left would take us toward the water. It was our only hope.

My heart was pounding against my chest. I gasped shallow breaths. With every stride I told myself there must be an explanation, and that we'd find it as soon as we returned to the ship.

I was wrong.

Alice skidded to a halt first, arms in front of her in case she fell. The rest of us stopped too, because sliding around the corner of the intersection like a vast black mist were thousands of rats. They moved quickly, never breaking formation. Moments earlier, they'd been silent. Now their relentless squeaking filled the air.

This wasn't improbable anymore. It was impossible.

I spun around. The first group of rats had made up ground on us. “What's happening?” I yelled.

“Combine,” my father shouted. “It'll frighten them away.”

At first, the word meant nothing to me. Even when I realized that he was talking about combining elements, I hesitated. My element was invasive, and with only Alice within arm's reach, I couldn't bring myself to make the connection. I'd stolen her element once, and injured her another time. She was better off without me.

“Combine, Thom!” she yelled, lunging for my hand.

It was a moment before I let my energy flow through her. The flame was weak, and hardly deterred the rats at all. So I increased the power until the fire shooting from Alice's right hand burned the ground before us in a two-yard arc. The size of the flame caught us both by surprise. The heat was so intense that I had to pull away. But it still didn't stop the rats. They surged forward again, crawling over cremated carcasses as if they were no obstacle at all.

Behind us, Ananias and my father were combining too, another fire that scorched the ground. They had more control over their elements than us, but somehow the flame was smaller. Rats circled around it, finding cool spots through which to launch an attack.

Jerren raised his hands in an attempt to redirect the hideous squeaking sound, but it was coming from everywhere at once. His concentration was shot, energy diffused, and he accidentally redirected the noise straight at us. It hit us with the force of a hurricane. Alice and I clapped our hands over our ears as the rats pressed their advantage.

Face twisted in agony, Alice ripped her hands away from her ears. “Again,” she screamed. “Combine.”

The sound moved beyond us as she grabbed my hand. But I was petrified now, and disoriented. Energy surged from me in uncontrollable bursts. When we cut down one swathe of rats, another took its place. It was like watching waves breaking on the shore, one after another, each larger and more threatening than the last.

“
More,
” cried Alice.

I threw all the power I could muster. This time the flame engulfed everything in a twenty-yard radius. If the other elementals had been in front of us instead of behind, they'd have been burned to death. The buildings to the right and left were bathed in flame.

Ananias and my father were close—no more than fifteen yards away—but rats were filling the gaps between us, forcing us farther apart. Jerren was drifting away too. We were three islands now, isolated and out of touch.

That's when the rats attacked.

It happened in a single moment, a surge so organized, it was as if they'd been waiting for an instruction to pounce. Now they clawed at us, scratching, biting. Alice and I combined again, but she was afraid of bringing the flames too close to me, and the fire did nothing to stop the rats behind us. I used my free hand to bat them away. When I caught a glimpse of my fingers, they were covered in blood.
My
blood.

I let out a cry. It wasn't about the pain—all I felt was a warm, wet heat spreading across my back and legs—but because I knew that we would die here. Maybe we'd be clawed to death, or die of Plague, but one thing was certain: There was no hope of escape.

I was still screaming when the rats fell away. Again, it happened in an instant. And not just to me, but to the others as well. The rats took up positions around us, our own private guards.

The rats fell silent. Once again, Skeleton Town was thrown into eerie quiet.

“Where are you?” Alice shouted. “Show yourself.”

“Who are you talking to?” I asked.

She didn't answer. She was staring at the burning buildings. Smoke had engulfed the street, and I couldn't see through it. But I could see something
in
it.

Two figures emerged: one tall, one short. A man and a boy. The boy was young, not much older than Dennis. He had an almost feral appearance, and cowed as the man bullied him along.

As they drew closer, something about the man seemed familiar. I'd seen him before, on the beach at Hatteras Island. Then it came to me: He was the young man who had attempted to murder Dare. But Dare had gotten the better of the upstart, and had cut off the young pirate's finger.

“Jossi,” I said.

Alice didn't reply. Maybe she'd already worked it out for herself. Or maybe, I realized, she was transfixed by the way the rats scurried alongside them—not attacking, or rounding up, or threatening in any way. It was like Jossi and the boy were immune to the rats . . . or worse, as if they were controlling them.

The boy was speaking to Jossi in whispers I couldn't hear. I read his body language just fine, though—he didn't want to be here. This was being done against his will.

“What's he saying?” I asked Alice.

“He's saying . . .
please don't make me hurt them
.” She let the words sink in. “We have to get to the ship, Thomas.”

Yes, we did. This wasn't a rescue mission for my mother anymore. We'd all been exposed to the Plague. We needed to warn the others what was going on.

As if they were responding to what Alice was thinking, the rats edged closer. But they weren't behaving like rats at all. They were clearly being controlled by the boy. He watched us from thirty yards away, read our body language, and predicted our next move. With thousands of rats at hand, he wielded a weapon more lethal than any I could comprehend—far more powerful than an element.

Alice raised a hand to cover her mouth. “There's a passage between the two buildings on the right,” she whispered. “On my command, run to the shore.”

What about Ananias and my father?
I wanted to ask.
What about Jerren?
But there was no way we could all escape. The important thing was to get word to the others on the ship that our mission had gone disastrously wrong.

As the rats crawled over her feet, Alice lowered her hand. I braced myself, even though I was sure we stood no chance of getting away.

“Now!” she shouted.

I sprinted to the right, crunching rats underfoot. Others surrounded me, but I just kept running. They bit and clawed, but I'd already been exposed to the Plague. The pain of the attack was nothing compared to what would await me as the disease took hold.

I slipped between the buildings and stumbled on the loose ground, but I didn't fall and I didn't slow down. The rats stayed with me at first, but with every step I left more of them behind. I glanced over my shoulder to check that Alice was still with me.

She was lying beside the entrance to the passageway. Rats covered her so completely that I could only recognize her by the occasional flashes of skin as she fought them off. Tears sprang to my eyes. I wanted to help her, but in my mind I heard her yelling at me to keep running, to warn the others about the new enemy we were facing.

The rats had caught up to me again, so I ran faster than ever. Beyond the buildings the route to the shoreline opened up, a landscape of wild grass and rubble. It presented more of an obstacle to the rats than to me. I could put some distance between myself and the rats out here.

The sound of someone shouting distracted me. It was coming from behind me, but above me too. As I looked back, I tripped and fell.

Just as well too, as a bullet struck the ground just ahead of me. Dare's men were still in Skeleton Town, all right. As our eyes met, the pirate lowered his rifle once more and took aim.