After Moses Prodigal, page 20
They were almost at that point.
The other kids had gotten into an argument, but Grace just tuned it out. She was tired. Tired of trying to keep the group together. Of keeping them fed. Of being away from her family.
And in that moment, disaster struck.
Something heavy dropped on her from above, pinning her to the ground. She cried out, trying to move under the weighted net. A second net dropped on her.
“Help!” she cried, but Raj had already jumped to her aid, his knife drawn. Several men poured into the alley, and suddenly, their base was filled with noise and confusion. If Grace could just get her arms raised, she could help the others. Maybe she could throw the net off with her bracelet. She struggled against the weight to raise her arm from her side. No good. She squirmed, trying to find a way free. There. She was almost—
“Oh no you don’t,” a voice said from behind her. Both her wrists were twisted behind her back and tied with a cord. “All you rats stop struggling, and we won’t hurt your little ringleader.”
Raj screamed something incoherent in Hindu and charged the man holding Grace with his pitiful little knife. He received a boot in the gut for his bravery and went down hard. Mishka scrambled to his side, tears already running down her face.
“I’ll be okay,” Grace lied, feeling suddenly very tired. She tried to twist her head to get a look at the man holding her. “Will you leave them alone?”
“Sure. They’re not worth anything to anyone.” He jerked her to her feet and pushed her toward the back exit to their alley. “This way, Miss. Someone wants to have a talk with you.”
“Jason and Eva are in charge,” she said over her shoulder. It was all she could do to keep her voice from trembling. “It’ll be okay.”
A chorus of shouts came from behind her. The others were back, maybe they could mount a rescue before—
The man scooped her up in his arms and ran with his three companions. Grace bit her lip in anger. Caught by common bounty hunters in the end and all over one bag of rice and a stupid bag of beans. They burst out of the alley.
Wait. What in—
A limo was waiting for them. Despite their street clothes, these couldn’t be your average bounty hunters. They were syndicate types. What could they possibly want from her? She was shoved through the open door. An older man in a suit regarded her curiously as she was placed in a seat and strapped in by her captor. She turned to look out the door and saw a group of people running down the alley toward her.
Her gang, led by Jason. And Davey and Matthew.
No way. They’d found her. She struggled against her restraint.
The door slammed. Horror settled in Grace’s stomach as the driver throttled the engine. They sped away, leaving all of her friends behind. For the first time in as long as she could remember, Grace cried.
DAVEY CHASED THE LIMO for as long as he could, chased until his vacuum-damaged lungs burned and a sharp pain stabbed in his side, causing him to bend in two.
Then he lost sight of it.
His mind was numb, unable to believe what had just happened. They hadn’t spent two weeks looking for Grace just to have her whisked away before his very eyes. It wasn’t possible. After everything they’d done...
He turned to see Matthew hot on his heels, along with half a dozen of Grace’s gang.
It had been so close. How many minuscule things had gone wrong to lead them to the worst ending? Why had they walked to Grace’s hideout with the kids instead of riding the bikes? Why had they taken that extra effort to pick up the other group a block out of the way?
He refused to give in. Maybe there was a way out of this. He tried to march past Matthew down the sidewalk, but the gaucho put out a hand to stop him. Davey growled at him. “Let’s go to the grocer. Maybe we can head them off and buy off the bounty ourselves or—”
“Those weren’t bounty hunters,” Matthew said softly.
“What are you talking about?”
Matthew sighed, and Davey saw the sag in his shoulders. “Bounty hunters don’t drive around in limos. That was one of the syndicates.”
“What would... What would they want with Grace?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This had to be some kind of joke.
“My guess is they saw the footage and realized what Grace had hidden on her.”
“The miracles,” Davey mumbled. The rest of the kids that had followed formed a cluster some distance from them, unsure what was going to happen. “What do we do now?”
Matthew turned and looked down the city street. He took off his campero and gave it a good shake before placing it back on his head. “We’re done here in Blight. Searching the streets won’t do us any more good.”
He stared at Matthew, dumbfounded. “So we’re just abandoning Grace? Like hell, we are! If you think I’m just going to give up and leave her—”
“Is that what I said? Because you know me better than that.” Matthew’s voice was low. “What we’ve been doing isn’t going to work any longer. We’ll have to figure out which syndicate took her and work from there.”
Davey cursed under his breath and turned away, anger coiling dangerously in his gut.
“What about us?” Jason asked from behind him. “Grace promised us a ride out of here when you caught up to us.”
“Then that’s what you’ll get,” Matthew said. “Head back to your home base and gather everyone. No more splitting up today. Davey. Let’s go.”
He stared after the long-disappeared limo. That was the last time he was going to see Grace.
Despair closed in on him as he nodded and turned to follow.
GRACE EYED THE MAN across from her, her cuffed hands making her miracles about as useful as a lump of lead. She sat between two of the street clothes enforcers.
“What do you want?” she asked, sullen. “Not a five-hundred-dollar bounty, I know that much.”
The man looked at her, a strange and sympathetic look in his eye. “No, nothing so trivial. Tell me, my dear. What is your name?”
Grace did her best to glare daggers at him and huffed.
“I promise on my life that I will allow no harm to come to you.”
“The word of you gangster types is worth about two farts.” In spite of herself, she smiled. If her hands were free, she might have given him a rude gesture too.
“Hmm,” the man hummed. “The Morgensen family is good on their word. But perhaps I will share my name first. I’m Arthur Morgensen.”
Grace didn’t see any reason to disbelieve him. If it was a lie, it was a bold one to make. “So, you’re one of the jerks responsible for all the killing going on out there?”
“Indirectly, yes, I suppose I am. Our patriarch, Osvald Morgensen is my paternal uncle. So yes. I bear some responsibility in that. But my word is good. You won’t be harmed.”
“Where are we going?” Grace asked, still ignoring the question about her name.
“To my home in Port Jacobson.”
Well, maybe this wasn’t so bad after all. They were on Ceres to look for a Morgensen family heirloom. Maybe she could work this little detour to her advantage. “Fine, I’ll play your game. My name is Grace Anderson, but I don’t imagine that means much.”
“Maybe or maybe not,” he said, but he did frown at that.
“What do you want with me?” she asked.
“Cooperation.”
“Well, you’re not being very helpful to me.”
Arthur studied her and ran a hand through his salt and pepper goatee. “Do you know the cause of the current conflict between White Void and the Morgensen family, Ms. Anderson?”
“You’re both a bunch of greedy jerks that can’t just let each other own their half of Ceres?” Grace smiled again. Abigail was right about one thing. Insulting your enemies was fun.
“Besides that,” Arthur said, giving her a conspiratorial smile as if to acknowledge her point.
Grace shrugged.
“Nine years ago, White Void enforcers broke into a home in Port Jacobson. They killed my daughter and her husband, and they kidnapped my only grandchild. They have used the child as leverage for the last decade. Osvald has decided that the time has come for us to reclaim our own. This is the root cause of the war. You can imagine my hesitation at allowing more death to transpire because of my daughter’s family.”
“Oh.” Grace hadn’t expected the story to be so personal. “Sorry about that.”
He gave her a tired smile. “Let us just say that those are old wounds, long since closed.”
“What does this have to do with me?” she asked.
“Suppose I had a way to stop this conflict and that I needed someone for that. Would that be of any interest to you?”
“I’m not really interested in helping you win a syndicate war.”
Arthur shook his head. “I did not say win, that is what the Prodigal is for. I said stop the conflict.”
Grace didn’t like the way he said the word Prodigal. Something about that sent a shiver down her spine. “You’re still not answering the question of what any of this has to do with me.”
“When I saw the security footage a few days ago, I saw something... of interest. You may be able to help me, though I cannot say how just yet.”
The miracle. The security camera had caught her doing impossible things. The syndicates knew what she had on her. Miracles were probably the exact sort of things they kept tabs on. She’d been a fool to rob that grocer. It had been like flashing stacks of money to a beggar. Of course, she’d attracted attention.
“No promises,” she said. She glanced out the window as the limo plunged into one of the coreward tunnels, probably en route to Port Jacobson.
“Very well,” Arthur said. He seemed pleased with her answer. “It will take me a few days to prepare my plan. There are no guarantees that it will work, and if it falls through before your part comes into play, then you shall have your freedom, my apologies, and a ride to any city in Ceres.”
That wasn’t so bad a deal, actually. She would keep her eyes and ears open and learn as much about the Morgensens as she could. “I’m going to need a meal first thing.”
“I’ll have my housekeeper prepare something for you. It will be ready upon our arrival.”
“And a bath. And a change of clothes. Something long sleeved.”
Arthur smiled. “Demanding, I see.”
Grace shrugged. “Teenage girl.”
GETTING TWELVE KIDS out of Blight along with both bikes presented a problem that Matthew didn’t relish solving. He was closer of a mind to Davey than he was willing to let on, and simply walking away from the search took an enormous amount of effort. In the end, Davey drove all the way back to the surface by himself, towing Matthew’s bike behind his own.
Matthew rode a graffiti-covered public bus with the kids. They took up seven rows of seats. Intent to keep an eye on things, he sat in the farthest back row. A girl that couldn’t have even been ten yet sat beside him before he realized what was happening.
“I’m Mishka,”
He tipped his campero to her. “Matthew.”
“Are you Grace’s father?”
He raised an eyebrow. “No, but I am her guardian.”
“Oh,” she said, and by the tone of her voice, it was clear she had no idea what that meant. “From the way she talks about you, I would have thought you were her father.”
Mishka proceeded to pester him with awkward questions for the first half of the trip. About the time they reached the city of Delving, the oldest of the teens, Jason demanded she switch seats with him. She complained but ultimately relented. Matthew noticed that no one bothered to ask his opinion on the matter.
“So,” Jason began, “how are we going to get Grace back?”
“We aren’t going to do anything,” Matthew said. “I’m making sure all of you kids end up somewhere safe. Either back home where you belong or somewhere else.”
“Antioch?”
That caught him by surprise. “Probably. You’ve heard of it?”
The teen nodded. “Up in Raipur, it was all the street kids would talk about. They said the streets were paved with gold. But err... Grace kind of shot that rumor down.”
Matthew wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. He’d wanted people to believe in the idea of Antioch, not conflate it with Heaven itself.
“Has she been with your crew long?” Jason asked. “Grace, I mean.”
He half-turned his head to get a look at the teen. “Over a year. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
Oh no. No, no, no. This was not something he was going to deal with right now.
“So, are you going to send us to Antioch before you rescue Grace or after?”
“Before.”
“Can I stay and help?”
“Can you shoot a gun?”
“No, at least, I don’t think that—”
“Is there anything useful you can offer me at all?”
Jason opened his mouth and then closed it.
“Then it will be safest for everyone, Grace included, if I send you on to Antioch.”
The teen tried bargaining and reasoning, but Matthew’s mind was set. He wasn’t going to let some lovestruck boy be a liability when Grace’s life was in danger. Eventually, Jason got the message and moved to a different seat, leaving Matthew blessedly alone for the remainder of the journey.
“AND HERE WE ARE IN Port Jacobson,” Arthur said. “Have you ever been to this most beautiful of cities, Grace?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Grace said as she leaned forward and tried to get a look out the tinted glass of the limo. The near city seemed ordinary enough, nothing she would call beautiful, but her eyes drifted up to the skyline...
Okay, she had to admit it was impressive. Across a man-made lake stood a collection of gleaming towers, all glass and steel and lit with light. Not even Flagstaff looked that fancy, and above the towers on the roof of the cavern was a great portal, lit from within by brilliant lights. “Is that the Well of Ceres?” she asked.
“Indeed. That tunnel gives Port Jacobson its name. It leads from here in the very depths of Ceres all the way to the surface. It’s large enough to allow some cargo ships and all but the largest passenger ships entrance to the city, bringing commerce and wealth to the core. It has allowed Port Jacobson a certain level of affluence and prosperity that the rest of Ceres and even most the rest of the colonies have been denied.”
“And that’s why jerks like you choose to live here?” Grace asked. She was going to take every opportunity she could to call Arthur a jerk.
“It is a comfortable place to live and raise a family,” he said. “My own daughter and her family lived here as well.”
The lights of the city reflected off the lake in a dizzying display of color. Grace wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a body of water or a reflection that big before. There was definitely money down here in Port Jacobson, and she would bet that most of it was dirty. Morgensen, for sure, but she wondered if White Void was also in on it.
They crossed the water on a long bridge lit with a shifting rainbow of spotlights. Then they were among the towers. Grace couldn’t see the tops of them anymore from her window. Suddenly the limo turned into a dark parking deck. She was escorted out of the vehicle to an elevator. After a short ride, the door opened on the thirty-seventh floor. A short hallway later and Arthur ushered her through a large double door.
“Grace Anderson, welcome to my home.”
Grace wasn’t sure what she had been expecting to find as the dwelling of a member of a notorious crime family, but it wasn’t the elegant living area she found herself in. It was large, but it wasn’t nearly as fancy as she had been expecting. Tasteful was a better word for it. A large sitting area combined with a library took up most of the space she could see. Matthew would love all the books, that was for sure. An entire wall of glass looked out over the city below. Soft golden light made it look like a good place to take a nap.
“Cozy,” she said. That was as much a compliment as she was willing to give him. She suddenly turned and realized that the enforcers that had captured her hadn’t followed them into the room. “Hey, I think you left your pets behind.”
“They live on the floor with me, but not in my quarters,” Arthur said, amused. “They will come if the need arises.” He led her to a dining area, a small round table at the corner of the apartment, glassed walls on two sides. The table was set for four, and a man with tiny glasses and a woman with neatly pinned hair stood nearby. “Grace, this is Peter and Jenn Rogers, my staff. Peter is my secretary, and Jenn takes care of household duties. After my wife died, we all decided it was easier to have them live with me.”
Grace frowned at the two. Okay. Not what she was expecting. “I’d offer to shake your hands, but... you know...” She shrugged to emphasize her hands still bound behind her back.
“If I release you,” Arthur asked, “can I trust that you won’t make a mess of things? At least until I see if my plan will work. I’ll even leave you those miracles of yours as a show of good faith.”
So he did know about them. She’d suspected as much. “Can I try to get a message to my friends?”
He paused. “I’ll have to take that into consideration. It may depend on just who these friends are.”
She could always go back on her word in an emergency. “Release me then,” she said. “I’ll behave until I know what you want from me. Just don’t keep me waiting.”
Arthur stepped behind her and untied the cord, holding her wrists together. Despite her promise, she was tempted to immediately knock the old man right through the window. She had a suspicion that it was very strong glass and that she’d need to really hit him to break through it.
Her stomach growled and her better instincts took over. “I think you promised me a meal.”
Arthur stepped behind a chair and pulled it out for her. “Of course. Jenn is a fabulous chef and has prepared duck with pomegranate and mint.”
Aside from having heard of duck, which she was pretty sure was some kind of edible rodent, Grace didn’t know what any of that meant. She would have preferred to be eating on the Sparrow with Davey and the rest, but a gourmet meal was an acceptable alternative after what she’d been eating lately.
