The two women looked a little like me, but one was bald and the other had darker skin. The teenage boy was white and, head down, ignored me. The last two were anomalies: a hulking giant of a man and a girl who couldn’t have been older than twelve. Together and yet apart, silent but for grunts or nods, we stepped around the mummified husks of dead dogs and the dried-out shit of some large mammal, and looked for treasures. Curiously, I had noticed the big man last, which made me wonder if he’d stepped out of the shadows just after I’d arrived.
I knew nothing of these people, except that as scavengers went they had some sense of honor or integrity, for they did not set upon me or drive me out, although I was competition. Most turned to look suspiciously at me and then went back to their searching, which meant my powers as a ghost must be fading. I gave them a hard nod and a lingering stare and hoped both came across in the dim light.
From long experience I knew that they would get around to the dead dogs and the shit, but taking either apart was messy and would come last. Investigating death and shit also would release foul smells into the air, long dormant and locked in place. You could tell a seasoned scavenger by how numb their nose was, and yet also how agile their hands.
The girl found a couple of dried-out alcohol minnows by their dull glint and shoved them in her satchel. A few drops of water might revive them, but first she’d have to decide if those drops were more valuable to drink.
The hulking man wasn’t nimble enough for this game and kept himself apart from the others. They picked the ground clean just as he began to bend over to examine those same surfaces. I wondered how he had survived this long, why he wasn’t gaunt. Perhaps the hulking man had been hoarding a store of supplies and they’d run out, forcing him to scavenge. Perhaps he’d run with some crew or cult and been cast out or driven out by Mord proxies. Refugees who came to the city for sanctuary had often become refugees again.
“We have a hideout,” the girl said, approaching me.
We have a hideout. It was a marvel to see a child not yet conscripted to the Magician’s army of mutants. She was slight but steady, and she held my gaze even as, revenant, I circled her.
“We have food, supplies, and we’re willing to trade.”
Perhaps something remaining from my ghostliness, or the competence in how I held myself, had sparked that offer. Or some other impulse.
“Are you inviting me as a trading partner or as meat?” I asked. Maybe I also sought something as simple as a fight.
The girl laughed. It was so clear and tinkling a sound in that place that it seemed as if it came from the city’s past, before Mord, before the Company. The kind of sound that could bring predators quick. None came, so she must have done a sweep of the perimeter.
“Neither,” one of the women said. “We’re not like that.”
“I might be willing,” I said.
The ghost felt a pull, an enticement. To become a vagabond, to descend to the street and stay there, to take my chances day-to-day, as I once had, and assure my safety by never having any expectation of it. Perhaps that was the best way to become a ghost.
“It’s not far,” the girl said.
I took it she was their leader. Perhaps because she was so rare, or because the Magician’s shock troops had elevated the value of the young all across the city.
“I’ll come if I can bring my partner.” I pointed to the hulking man.
The ghost had noticed a few disconcerting things about the hulking man, chief among them that although he kept his shape well enough, the shape still changed at times. Not enough to be noticed in those shadows if you weren’t looking for it.
“Him?” the girl said. “He’s with you? We thought he was alone. He’s always been alone before.” I sensed in the girl’s hesitation not just caution but miscalculation: Had she made an offer she thought I wouldn’t accept?
The hulking man stood, was staring at the ghost even though he was the ghost.
“He’s with me,” I said.
“Are you with her?” one of the women asked the hulking man.
The hulking man nodded.
He must have wondered why he should follow a ghost, why I was doing this.
*
Through old damage—the twisted metal of collapsed machinery and tunnels dug through maelstroms of upended shopping carts and other inventions empty of purpose—we reached their sanctuary: a courtyard with half a roof, exposed to the elements but not, exposed to Mord but not. Seen from above, it would have looked like a ragged triangle of open space. A sliver they must hope Mord would never spy, because even earthbound he towered over almost everything.
They had makeshift tents arranged under the awning and sentries set at the single entrance. I hoped they were smart enough to have a secret exit. I counted twelve in all, most of them kids, none of them altered by the Magician. All of them were slim and the darkness slid through them, did not attach itself.
The group had found an impressive sluglike piece of biotech with no discernible head or tail and set it on fire. The creature didn’t mind, let out a contented humming purr as it burned perpetual. The creature had a hypnotic allure, looked like a dancing, living skirt of flesh in the middle of that fire, a deep orange with ruffled lines of red and white running along the edges. It generated enough heat for them to cook food—and all it wanted in return was for them to set it on fire again and again.
I estimated from the ashes and the pile of fresh garbage that they had been in that spot for maybe three nights, and if they stayed three more they would become predictable and would all be dead. A Magician patrol might sweep them up; a Mord proxy would definitely sniff them out. But even the ghost had a fierce wish that they might survive.
Four huddled around the living fire, with the hulking man and me on the other side. The hulking man was sending quick glances my way, as if nervous. But what could he be nervous about?
“So what do you have for us?” the girl asked. I didn’t like her smile now, like she had an ace card.
“Depends on what you’re offering—are you offering that?” I pointed at the writhing fire creature.
The girl laughed and I couldn’t help loving the sound. She looked like a fairy peering over that fire at me and the biotech a fire elemental she’d tamed. The ghost felt tired and old, staring at her.
“We need that,” she said with an innocence I knew at her age must be false.
But I took pity on her, because she had to be nervous and I knew the other eight waited in the shadows to jump us if we turned out to be dangerous.
“I have this,” I said. I placed a battle beetle on my palm, close enough to the flames for her to see it.
My bulky friend bucked back on his haunches, but I put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s not for you.”
This battle beetle had seen better days. The iridescent carapace was cracked and the inner wings stuck out the back, couldn’t fold properly. But the beetle could still burrow into flesh, compromise the well-being of an intruder, an enemy. It just couldn’t fly very far.
“Good for close-in defense or combat,” I told the girl.
“How many can you get?” she asked.