The Fifth Sacred Thing (83 page)

Ohnine dropped his gun and began to scream. The other soldiers watched impassively as Ohnine huddled in a tight knot around his own belly, puking on the paving stones and sobbing.

“Demons got him now,” Threetwo said. The others nodded. Bird thought he heard a drum beating a funereal march. The little girl was crying and only the dead lay silent, as a phalanx of ghosts bore Ohnine away.

32

I
n the moonlight, the Golden Gate Bridge cast a jagged shadow as the boat passed below. Empty sky gaped through missing sections, and no festive lights decked the cables. A warning, Madrone thought. The city of her stories, her fabulous tales of abundance and freedom and magic, now brooded on dark and ominous hills. Was it already destroyed?

Steady, she told herself. You’ll know soon enough. Isis had given her the tiller for the passage through the bay, and she steered them through the channels she knew so well, around the lee of Angel Island, past Alcatraz, around the curve of the peninsula into the open bay and south under the Bay Bridge, which gaped with twisted and jagged metal.

It’s like returning to a lover whose arms have been broken, she thought. The bridges were more than structures, they were symbols of the City itself, as much a feature of the landscape as Twin Peaks or Mount Tamalpais to the north.

“Here’s what I think we should do,” Madrone said. “We anchor a little ways out in the bay. Isis and I’ll take the dinghy in to shore, scout a bit, find out what’s happening. The rest of you will wait for us on board.”

The south waterfront had always been one of Madrone’s favorite places, with its docks built out over half a mile of reclaimed wetlands. Usually the docks were thriving with activity, day or night. Boats would be putting out to fish the bay for those varieties of sea creatures that did not concentrate toxins in their bodies. Crews would be working on the giant filter banks that extracted heavy metals and neutralized other chemicals, cleaning the incoming waters as they rose with the tide to fill the marshlands. The markets were always lively, full of shrimp and crab and oysters cultivated in the filtered water, and little eating places noisy with conversation and the hum of the grinders turning shells to diatomaceous earth for the gardens. During the day, children learned to sail small boats or practiced kayaking and windsurfing. Overhead, great flocks of gulls wheeled and turned, while graceful white egrets and great blue herons stalked the shadows.

The docks always brought back the excitement of her first year at the
university, before the epidemics, the thrill of living away from home and then coming home. She could have crossed the bay by train or bike but she always preferred, when possible, to sail. Arriving by water seemed like coming home from a long and mysterious voyage, another world. And now she
was
coming back from another world. Would anyone be left in her home to welcome her?

Madrone and Isis made fast the dinghy to a piling, climbed out onto the docks, and moved swiftly along them until they reached solid land. Cautiously, they headed out on the deserted walkways that wound their way west into the city. They were expert night stalkers, wary as cats, fading back into the shadows at any unanticipated noise. I am walking through my own city as if it were the abode of the enemy, Madrone thought, and so it is. The big collective houses and the small private cottages still stood surrounded by fruit trees and gardens held in a web of irrigation channels, but no water flowed in the streambeds. Madrone could see that the gardens were ragged, weeds growing unchecked, flowers and vines withered and dry.

They heard a far-off rumble, like thunder or an explosion. They walked on. With each step closer to her home, Madrone felt more and more afraid of what she would find.

Suddenly water came pouring down through the dry stream, foaming at the mouth. Like figures in a silent dance, people emerged from the houses and, without speaking, placed hoses in the flow, filled buckets and glass jars. Madrone hesitated for a moment.

“Water thieves,” Isis remarked. “You got them here too.”

“Never before,” Madrone replied. “Water has always been free here.” She was exhausted, near tears. Isis laid a hand on her shoulder.

“Steady,” she said. “Maybe it will be again.”

They walked on.

Black Dragon House still stood, its front garden as withered and shaggy as the others but otherwise looking the same. The windows were dark, and the front door did not open to Madrone’s careful nudge.

“It’s locked.”

“What you want to do? Knock on it, and let them know you’re here, or sneak in somehow?”

“It’s not an easy house for that,” Madrone said. The bottom story was the locked garage, and the door to the passageway beside it was locked, too. The front windows, above, were inaccessible. “Maybe around the back. Come on.”

It was a street of old Victorian town houses that stood jammed up against one another, enclosing their common back gardens from four sides. Madrone led Isis around the block, where a narrow driveway separated two of the buildings, leading to a garage in back. It was blocked by a high fence, but Isis lifted Madrone to the top and then leaped up herself, catching the edge of the
fence and pulling herself up and over. The back gardens, Madrone was glad to see, were in marginally better condition than the front—there were lettuces still moist and green, and a few dark globes hung from the tomato plants.

They made their way to the back of Black Dragon House. A low light burned in the back room, and the curtains were drawn. Madrone tried the handle on the back door; it was locked too. The potted aloe vera plant still stood on the back steps, and, yes, the key was still underneath it. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it cautiously. Silently, she took a step into the house.

“Who’s there?” a voice demanded. A bright light was shining in her eyes. Isis was gone, out the door, but Madrone thought the voice sounded familiar.

“Sam? Is that you? What are you doing here?”

“Who are you? What are
you
doing here?”

“I live here, Sam. Don’t you recognize me? It’s Madrone.”

“Madrone!”

“I’ve come home.”

“Madrone!” He dropped the light and grabbed her in a fierce hug that nevertheless seemed frail, as if he were clinging to her strength. “I can’t think of anyone on earth I’d rather have appear out of the night, just now.”

“Where’s Maya? Is she okay? And Bird and Nita and Sage and Holybear?”

“Maya’s up in the ritual room, and Nita’s catching some sleep upstairs. Sage and Holybear are upriver, should be getting back tomorrow or the next day. We’ve got a houseful of sick soldiers here, and none of us know quite what to do with them. Deserters. They’re starting to come over to us, they really are, but we can’t seem to keep them healthy.”

“Bird?”

“Sit down, Madrone.”

“Wait, let me call Isis back,” she said, feeling sick inside because she was sure he was going to tell her he was dead. She leaned out the door and whistled, and Isis stepped into the small back porch where Sam had apparently been sleeping on the cot they kept for overflow guests.

“Isis—Sam.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Sam said, extending his hand, looking at her curiously.

Isis regarded him with caution, ignoring his proffered handshake. “Same to you,” she said.

He closed the back door and shepherded them through the next room, which was lined with bodies, sleeping or moaning and turning. They went into the hallway and through into the front room, Maya’s old office. Isis stared at the bookshelves, running her fingers along the bindings. Madrone settled down on the couch.

“Okay, Sam, tell me the bad news,” Madrone said.

“He’s alive,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell you this. He was arrested when they first marched in, along with Marie and Rosa. You remember her?”

“Little Rosa?”

“Right, the pretty one.”

“Damn and hell!”

“Bird was locked away for a long while, and when he came out …”

“What, Sam? Just tell me.”

“He was wearing their uniform and working for them.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Neither do a lot of people. Some say he must be working on some plan of his own. Others—well, tempers are short and suspicions running high. There’ve been accusations. But we can go into that later.”

“What kind of accusations?”

“Bird was a strong voice in Council for nonviolent resistance. Some have speculated that he was in the pay of the enemy all along, that his job was to persuade us not to take up arms.”

Oh, Bird, poor Bird, Madrone thought. No wonder I cannot reach you.

“What do you think, Sam?” Madrone asked.

“I’ve seen him and talked to him. He comes to the Plaza most mornings, to hand out water ration cards. Nobody takes them.” “And?”

“I think they did something terrible to him. No one is superhuman, Madrone. We all have a breaking point.”

“That’s the truth,” Isis said.

When Madrone tried to reach for Bird all she could feel was a wall, barricading some pain she could not see. Bird, Bird, my love, secretly I imagined you here to greet me and love me; where are you now? What have they done to you?

“And how was it for you in the Southlands?” Sam asked.

“That’s a long, long story. I learned a lot. Mostly about myself. I don’t know if I accomplished much, but I tried.”

“Did you learn anything about the boosters?”

“Quite a bit. I’ve got a good guess as to what they are, and with the Monsters I developed a protocol for withdrawal.”

“Our best guess is that they function like synthetic cytokines,” Sam said.

“You got it. We’ve got a few samples stashed away on the boat, and some other information you can look at. Do we still have access to the data banks?”

“No, but the Stewards don’t either. The crystals went on strike—wouldn’t function for them. Smart, those rocks. But, Madrone, how are you? Are you okay, I mean? Not hurt, are you?”

“I’m fine, Sam. Exhausted at the moment, but a night of rest should fix me up.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it, because as soon as you’re up to it, we can put you to work.”

Madrone glanced around the room. “How safe is it here, Sam? This house, I mean? I’ve got three other women who came up on the boat with us, and one of them gave birth a few nights ago. Plus the baby and a sick little girl.”

“Nothing in this city is safe, love, but they could stay next door with the Sisters. And send your boat across the bay. We agreed in Council not to keep any water transport on this side, to help contain the invasion. So far that strategy has worked pretty well. We blew up the bridges before they arrived, they concentrated their troops here on the peninsula, and we’ve succeeded in isolating the infection.”

“You
blew the bridges? Not them?”

“So far there hasn’t been any aerial bombardment. Frankly, I don’t think they still have the functioning technology for it.”

Madrone sighed. It was a great relief to learn that the people of the city had blown up the bridges themselves. If we destroyed them, we can rebuild them someday.

“But what are you doing here, Sam? What happened to the hospital?”

“The soldiers commandeered it. And we couldn’t very well put deserters there. When all this started—well, to be truthful, Maya and I kind of shacked up together here, and I started bringing some of the sick ones home, and, well—”

“Sam, you old dog!”

“I love her, Madrone. Go up and see her, she’s been worried sick about you.”

The ritual room was another makeshift hospital ward. Madrone stepped cautiously over the sleeping bodies and made her way to the far end where Maya sat, looking out the window. The moon, just past its full, hung over Twin Peaks, and in its light Maya’s hair was pure silver, her face narcissus white.

“I can’t reach him,” she said. “He’s like a locked door. But I can feel his pain.”

“It’s me,
madrina
. Madrone. I’m home.”

Madrone knelt beside Maya and took her hands. They felt frail, trembling in hers as Maya turned slowly to look at her.

“Madrone!” Her eyes filled with tears and Madrone leaned forward to embrace her. They hugged tightly, and then Maya pulled back and stroked Madrone’s face. “What have they done to you? They’ve made an old woman of you, in those Southlands. You’ve got a scar!”