A blur of feathers and shadow startled the child. It swooped over their heads and onto a unlit lamp post. In fact, no light shone anywhere in this grubby part of the city. The weird lady made them walk down the middle of the street. And though it was dark, the child felt horribly exposed. As though the jackal buzzard were not the only predator sizing them up. And as soon as she thought this shadows came out of the buildings and stood around them, shadows in the shape of men.
“Is it you?” one of them asked.
“Were it someone else,” the man with them answered.
“We were beginning to doubt you would make it. Come, the Captain is anxious to be on the move well before dawn.”
“A minute,” the man’s wife stopped her husband and handed him their dead child. Then she grabbed the weapon from one of the shadow men and pointed it at the lady.
“Laperte!” the husband yelled. All of the other shadowmen pointed their guns now but no one quite knew where to point them. The man stood between his wife and the lady. The lady did not move. She did not put down Ch’Byartha. “Laperte! Don’ do this!”
“Move.”
“Laperte, mon cher’, this is not our way! This is not what we do! It will not bring her back!” He stayed between the gun and the lady, still cradling his baby.
“Her people killed my child! She said so herself! I will do this, a life for a life!”
“You of all people! You are trained to save life, not take it! It solves nothing! They are under our care! The laws..”
“What laws? What laws? Laws didn’t save my daughter! What laws!”
Their voices echoed. The shadowmen shifted their feet. Someone whispered to the man. The child wanted to run but felt tied to Ch’Byartha. Would they shoot her? She knew names now, had seen faces. She had run the streets long enough to know the underworld killed to protect secrets.
“Laperte, lower your voice. Lower the gun. We must go. We must not do this now. We must not draw the attention. We must leave. Now.”
The gun did not waver. The voice did lower, to a menacing whisper, “She does not go.”
“Laperte..”
“She does not go!”
The shoulders slumped, “she does not go, oui.” The gun lowered, the woman, Laperte, took back the baby. He turned to the lady, “I am very sorry.”
“One understands.”
“The child and the wounded one stay as well,” Laperte said over her shoulder.
“Bon Dieu! Laperte, what?”
“They came together. They brought l’Vampire. They stay!”
One of the shadowmen said, “Les Consummateurs?” The shadowmen moved away. Their weapons focused on the lady, Ch’Byartha and the herself now.
The man sighed. “Again. I am sorry.” They began disappearing back into the shadows. Their weapons the last things to be seen. After a while, even the jackal buzzard lifted off and flew away. They stood alone in the dark until a small sound drew the child to the end of the street. They were on outer wall of the city, she hadn’t realized till just now. Between the iron pickets she could just make out a mule team pulling a sandboat away. She could see nothing more but she knew it was the smugglers’ boat. The man and the woman and her dead baby escaped on it. The last boat out. The last chance to go West. Before her lay the Sand Sea which could drink a body dry in a week, behind the things that drank babies dry in a night.
She screamed. She threw punches at the woman. “Y’coulda stopped dem! Ya lettem go!” The woman said nothing. After a while, the child collapsed against Ch’Byartha’s shrouded body. He groaned something which almost sounded like words. “He gunna die. We gunna die.”
The lady said nothing. She pulled one of the iron pickets loose and hurled it at the night sky. A Legion machine fell nearby, skewered like a kabob. The lady went over and looked at it. “Those who carry illicit cargos are not the only ones with the means to leave the city.”
