All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [296]
Fiona asked Sarah, “You said before you wanted to make amends?”
Jeremy looked at his cousin, and his stupid drunken grin faded.
“Aye, I did,” Sarah whispered.
“You have a car?” Fiona asked. “We need you to drive us someplace.”
“Of course,” Sarah said. “Where?”
“Del Sombra.”
86
ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE
Fiona kicked through the sand and watched tumbleweeds roll by. She wasn’t sure she could find the place again among this suburb that had never been. There were cinder block walls, ribbons of faded asphalt, and the fragments of house foundations.
“What are we looking for again?” Sarah asked. She put on sunglasses and a baseball cap to protect her freckled skin from the raw sun.
“Manhole cover,” Fiona told her.
“Do I want to know why?” Sarah wrinkled her nose.
“Not really.” Eliot grunted as he carried all their equipment: a backpack picked up at their Pacific Heights house on the way out here—filled with flashlights, Fiona’s old shotgun, shells, and rubber waders. He also had his guitar slung on his back.
Fiona heard the resentment in her brother’s voice.
Yeah—she knew he wanted to be with Jezebel (she practically gagged thinking of them kissing)—but he had been just as curious about this . . . once he remembered.
Fiona glanced up. To the east was the Del Oro Recycling Plant, shuttered and closed. To the west was Del Sombra, at least what was left of it.
She felt a pang of grief as she saw dust devils spinning down what had been Midway Avenue, where their apartment building had been . . . and Ringo’s All-American Pizza Parlor . . . and the Pink Rabbit. A few skeletal building supports stood erect, but everything else had been burned down.
And while some agro-entrepreneur had planted fields of grapevine between here and there, the city had been left alone.
She asked Eliot, “A little help?”
Eliot sighed like she’d asked for six pints of blood, but relented and dropped the backpack and pulled his guitar around. He plunked the strings and the notes sounded like drops of water.
The sands shifted.
He plucked out more three chords that reminded her of running trickles and currents and something alive snaking through that water.
A line in the sand traced from Eliot, curved thirty paces straight ahead, until it spiraled to a stop.
Fiona strode toward the spot. She knelt, brushed aside the sand, and found the steel underneath. There was a tiny hole in the manhole cover, and she stuck her finger in it and tugged. No way. It weighed too much—and the thought of being stopped by such a trivial thing made her anger flare.
She ripped the thing out and tossed the solid metal disk like it was a Frisbee.
Eliot handed her a flashlight and a pair of rubber boots.
“What’s down there?” Sarah asked.
“Sewer,” Fiona replied, pulling on the too-tight boots.
“I can see that. But why are we going down there?”
“There’s no ‘we.’ You’re staying up here.” Fiona regretted the commanding tone she used. Sarah was trying to do right by them. “Look,” she added, “it’s going to be dangerous. There’s something . . . well, not evil, more . . .”
“Hungry,” Eliot finished for her.
Sarah arched an eyebrow. “I can take care of myself.”
She meant it. But why would anyone want to crawl into a sewer with them?
Then Fiona understood: Sarah wanted to prove she was their friend and would have followed them into danger . . . even into Hell, if she’d been given the chance.
But that was stupid. This could really be dangerous.
On the other hand, Fiona wanted her to come and prove her sincerity. She knew that was wrong: Friends didn’t do that to each other.
But had Sarah truly ever been her friend?
“Suit yourself,” Fiona told her. “But if you chicken out halfway there—you’re finding your own way back. Eliot and I have business to take care of.”
“Hey,” Eliot said. “That’s not right.”
“It’s okay,” Sarah said, casting an uncertain glance down the hole. “I’ll be fine.”
Fiona clambered