Riot got up and ran to the fire. She wrapped a piece of cloth around the knife and removed it from the fire. Three inches of the blade glowed yellow-white. She hurried back to Chong and knelt in front of him.
“Okay,” she said, and Chong could see that she, too, was sweating heavily, “here’s the fun part. I got to pull this puppy out and then cauterize the wounds. Both sides. You’re bleeding, so we got to do it right quick. You ready?”
“Stop asking me that,” he mumbled around the leather strap. “Just do it!”
Riot did something else first.
She quickly bent forward and kissed Chong on the tip of his nose.
“For luck,” she said.
Then she took the arrow in her left hand, took a breath, and pulled.
It came out with a dreadful sucking sound that Chong knew he would never forget. Blood welled hot and red from the wound.
“Bite down,” she ordered, and then she moved in with the white-hot blade.
The pain went off the scale, but still Chong held on. He screamed into the strap and bit the leather so hard he tasted blood in his mouth, but he held on.
And then he caught the smell of his own burning flesh.
That was when he passed out.
50
BENNY CAME DOWN THE HILL AND WATCHED NIX CLIMB. THEN, WITH A sigh and a certain knowledge that this was a bad idea, he took hold of one of the rents in the plastic and began climbing too.
The plastic was strong, and though it swayed with their weight, the climb was easy, and there were enough holes to provide easy purchase for hands and feet. Nix scrambled up ahead of him, nimble as a monkey.
“Slow down,” Benny warned.
“Catch up,” she fired back, and gave him a second’s worth of a smile.
Almost like the old Nix.
Benny scrambled up after her, and they reached the open hatch shoulder-to-shoulder. Very carefully, as if they were peering in through the window of an old abandoned house from which ghosts might peer back, they raised their heads above the deck and looked inside.
There was a lot of debris. Broken fittings and equipment from the plane that must have torn loose during the crash, pieces of shattered pine branches, and last fall’s dried leaves. And bones. Lots of bones. Leg and arm bones, the slender curves of ribs, and part of a skull.
Benny heard Nix’s sharp intake of breath.
“No,” he said in a hushed voice, “I think it’s a monkey.”
“Are you sure?”
Benny climbed the rest of the way up and crouched inside the hatch. He lifted the skull fragment and examined it. “Monkey,” he said with relief, as much to himself as to her.
“Any, um, people bones?”
“No.”
But as Nix climbed in she froze. Benny followed the line of her gaze and saw that there were more bundles of dried flowers and incense bowls. And another sign, the writing small and feminine, painted in red on white wood.
THIS SHRINE SPEAKS TO THE FOLLY OF THE WORLD THAT WAS.
EVEN THEIR STEEL ANGELS FELL FROM GRACE.
TO DISTURB THIS PLACE IS TO INVITE DAMNATION.
They were both quiet for a moment.
Finally Benny said, “Well, that’s comforting.”
Nix said nothing.
They looked around. The hatch opened into a narrow compartment that seemed to divide the airplane into two parts: the cockpit to their left and a huge cargo bay to their right.
Both doors were closed, and there were painted warnings on each, and white wax had been poured over the door handles. Red ribbon had been pressed into the wax.
Nix used her palm to wipe away a film of grime that obscured the message on the cockpit door. It was a single word:
LIES
“That’s interesting,” she said. “Let’s see what’s on the other door.”
She crossed to the cargo bay door and tore away some creeper vines. Again the message was a single word.
DEATH
“Charming,” observed Benny. “Take your pick.”
Nix crossed back to the cockpit door. “This one first.”
“Sure.” Benny bent and examined the seal and found it untouched. “Looks like nobody has been here. Open these doors and that wax will crack right off.”
Nix touched the door to the cockpit. “Open it.”
“You sure this is such a smart idea?”