Daughters of Forgotten Light Read online

  “You girls ready to do what we came here for?” Lena asked.

  “Yeah,” said Ava. “And let’s get out of this haunted house before any freakier shit happens.”

  “Come back and see me!” cried the caged dweller.

  Lena took off down the hall and the Daughters followed. Plenty of doors lined the hallway, but Lena passed them all until she got to the last one.

  “This is it,” Lena said. She paused with a hand to the glass, probably waiting to hear another cry for confirmation. But none came. She pushed the button to open the door and the gang pushed into the room.

  There had to be at least fifty dwellers in here. All of them held some kind of tool or blade and had been cutting meat from dead limbs or building a piece of furniture. They now stood, facing Sarah’s gang, all eyes on the Daughters.

  “Fuck,” Sarah said.

  Rory rested in the arms of a bald dweller on the other side of the room who screamed, “Protect the baby!”

  The dwellers raised their makeshift weapons and roared. Sterling and Hurley Girly shot their rangs as the nearest lunged for them.

  “Wait!” Lena shouted.

  Twin balls of light ripped through two dwellers and Hurley Girly’s shot found another in the throat before ricocheting back to her.

  “We can’t hit the baby,” Lena said. “Back into the hallway.”

  Ava cursed and was the last to back out of the room as two dwellers took swings at her with their hammer and laser cutters. She hit the door to close, but even Sarah knew it would only slow the dwellers for a second.

  “There’s a shitload more than I thought,” Ava said, breathing heavy.

  “We need Dipity,” said Hurley Girly.

  “No time,” Lena shouted. “V pattern. Now. High in back.”

  Sarah knew her place in the “V” but didn’t understand the rest of it. The dwellers poured from the room and stuffed the hallway like a mad river. Lena got on her stomach and the other three crouched at either side or behind. Sarah remained standing and kept her rang away from the other Daughters.

  “Light these bitches up,” Lena said.

  Their rangs fired like muffled cannons. Sarah flicked her wrist and watched the cluster of blue balls zip into the oncoming dwellers. When hers returned, she kept firing. The hall became a symphony of bright chaos and blood, bodies flopping to the floor to add wet percussion. The dwellers showed no fear, no chance of being scared off. Whatever the Amazons had done to them, a rang blast to the face was a welcome thing.

  The last dweller stood alone, looking down at her dead sisters. She kept her head down as she padded through the blood in a splat, splat of each step.

  Run, Sarah thought. Please, don’t make me do this.

  The dweller charged.

  Chapter 26

  Lena got up from the floor as the blood trickled toward her. Pao’s rang had blown off the final Amazon dweller’s head, and Lena was glad she’d gotten to teach their ass a thing or two.

  Staying in their formation, the Daughters stepped over the mounds of bodies and peeked into the room the horde had come from.

  The bald dweller stood by the closest wall, still holding the baby, but she also held one of the laser cutters near the child’s face. “This baby is an Amazon,” she whispered.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” Lena waved a hand behind her to tell Sarah and the rest to stay back. “Your gang will be pissed if anything happens to Rory.”

  “And to die an Amazon,” the dweller continued like she hadn’t heard a word Lena had said, “is better than to live as anything else.”

  Lena held her hands out, palms up. “Give her to me.”

  The dweller laughed, deep, right from the gut. The laser cutter buzzed and Rory cried. With a shaky arm, the dweller sent sparks over the soft, black tufts of the baby’s hair.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” Lena said.

  The dweller stopped laughing, her face losing any emotion. “Yes, it does.” Her arm moved toward Rory’s face.

  Lena yelped. Blue light sprang from her rang gun and hit the wall behind the dweller, bouncing off the glass and ripping through the dweller’s head. Lena dove. Rory fell into her arms, screaming even louder from the sudden drop. The dweller’s body landed beside Lena, who curled herself around Rory and began heaving in choking sobs. The laser cutter, still engaged, burned into Lena’s jacketed shoulder. Ava kicked it away before it could cut through the fabric.

  Sarah and the others gathered around Lena. The baby quit crying, too interested now in the woman wailing and petting her tiny head. After a minute, Sterling put a hand to Lena’s shoulder.

  Sitting up, Lena wiped her wet eyes with the back of her jacket sleeve. “Let’s see if we can find some of that manna juice,” Lena said. “Then we really need to go.”

  They did a quick search of the room, but spare parts of glass and metal proved the only things to find. Without Lena having to say, they avoided any areas where the dwellers had been cutting meat. No juice or even any manna could be found and Lena had the sickening feeling they wouldn’t find any. It wasn’t long before they gave up and hurried back to the main room.

  The caged dweller was screaming gibberish as a laser cutter was finishing a dome-shaped cut on the other side of the front door.

  Chapter 27

  “Wow,” Lundgate said again. He’d been saying it for the last half hour.

  His repetition didn’t even annoy Dolfuse. She was thinking the same thing. It was phenomenal, despite the static and occasional skipping of the video feed. Only, Dolfuse’s mouth had stayed wide open in awe, and she couldn’t find the nerve to say anything. Oubliette was a marvel, a city made of ethereal glass that glowed dimly in the dark, matching, if not exceeding, the size of Manhattan.

  Martin’s files had painted a different picture in Dolfuse’s mind, with no help from the nearly-propaganda posters from Oubliette’s early days, decreeing it to be a hell for criminals.

  “My nephew,” Lundgate said. “He’s been playing this game with his friends at school. They pretend to be on Oubliette, formed a little utopian society, farming imaginary vegetables in the sandbox. I thought it was going to be bad enough explaining that nothing grows out there. But this… If this wasn’t classified, I wouldn’t know what to say to him.”

  Dolfuse had no advice, so she kept silent.

  Following its programming, the sperm-like drone detached from the shipping box and focused on a crowd that had developed around the shipment, hundreds of girls and women. And some had even come on motorcycles, strange machines on orange wheels of light.

  A single woman stood before the crowd, older than the typical shippee. They hadn’t opened the shipment yet, but they were arguing about something.

  “Why can’t we hear what they’re saying?” Dolfuse shifted in her seat. The blipping audio was beyond annoying.

  Lundgate shrugged. “Honestly, I’m amazed we have video.”

  Dolfuse could have popped him in the head.

  One of the women got off her motorcycle and pointed angrily at the one in front of the shipping box.

  The older woman raised her hand, seeming to try easing the heated situation.

  “What’s going on?” Dolfuse whispered.

  “I haven’t seen this show either,” Lundgate snorted. “How should I know?”

  The biker looked to the ground as if stuck in deep contemplation. The video skipped and she was pacing in front of the other bikers, flailing her arms violently.

  “They’re peeved about something,” Lundgate said.

  The video skipped again and all of the bikers stood in front of the box, right arms raised toward the older woman.

  “Is that some kind of threat?” Lundgate chewed on a Twizzler.

  The angry group descended on the woman, punching first, until she fell to the ground. Then they began kicking and stomping. A ripple swelled in the crowd behind them and the onlookers scattered, scrambling over each other to get away.


  “Oh, my God,” said Dolfuse.

  The drone began to fly away.

  “Where’s it going?” Dolfuse asked.

  Lundgate sighed, like he was bored. “The crowd is scattering. It’s following the most concentrated group.”

  The last choppy images Dolfuse saw of the shipping box were the door lowering, the shippees walking out, and orange balls of light flying from the angry women’s fists, tearing into them. The girls dropped in an instant, and then the murderous orbs returned to the bikers.

  Dolfuse leapt to her feet, covering her mouth to muffle a scream.

  “Oh, hell,” Lundgate said. “You don’t see that every day.”

  Chapter 28

  Lena handed Rory to Sterling. It hurt to hand her off after all it took to get her. “Go back through the hole,” she said.

  Hurley Girly wasted no time and jumped into the pit. Ava went next and took the baby from Sterling. On the other side of the Amazon’s garage door, one of the OC kicked out the piece they’d cut. It fell to the ground with a heavy thwam.

  “You next, Pao,” Lena whispered. This is what a leader does, she thought. It was my fucking plan anyway.

  “No,” Sarah said.

  Shamika stepped through the opening. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Sarah didn’t move. Goddamn it, she was going to make this a shitload worse.

  “We were just leaving,” Lena said.

  “Without one of your girls?” Shamika waved her hand and the rest of the OC entered, holding Dipity at rang point.

  Sweat dripped from Dipity’s dark hair, down her face.

  “You alright, Dipity?” Lena asked.

  Dipity nodded.

  “She’s fine,” Shamika said. “I don’t want trouble, Horror. In fact, I’m willing to let all of you leave here like you came. You saved us a lot of wet work.”

  “Really?” Lena knew there was a catch. Just keep her talking.

  “For sure.” Shamika smiled, flicking a curl of hair from her eye. “I’ll trade you what I took, for what you took.”

  “Oh, ho, ho!” the dweller in the cage said. “This is too good. Lots to tell my ladies. Loads and loads. I’m watching all of you.”

  Shamika lifted her head. “What the fuck is that?”

  “Whatever do you mean?” Lena said, returning the grin.

  “Don’t play that shit with me. We ain’t got much time before the cannibals get back, and you’re going to need us to back you up when they see what you did.” Shamika looked around toward the hallway and the pile of dead dwellers. “Give me the baby, and we’ll give you back your girl.”

  Sarah breathed loudly, moving from one foot to the other.

  Shamika noticed, too. She laughed and smacked one of her gang against the arm. “Relax, kung fu. We don’t want you passing out. Horror might end up leaving you on the floor for the Amazons to snack on.”

  “We don’t leave our girls behind.” Lena looked at Dipity, staring her square in the eyes.

  They stayed still, not a quiver. She barely even blinked. Lena couldn’t sacrifice her third-in-command. No way in fuck. The baby would be well cared for with Shamika. But how could she abandon the child, after everything she’d done to bring her gang to this point. After she was so close to having what she never thought she could have again.

  You going to bend over and take this, Horror?

  She had only one choice.

  But Sarah made the decision before Lena could say or do anything. She shot her rang at the wire holding the cage above, and insane laughter came down as the dweller plummeted atop the OC. Lena grabbed Dipity as the others dodged the shattering glass.

  “Go!” Lena yelled.

  They jumped into the manhole. Lena had never moved that fast in such a small space, and Dipity stayed close on her heels. Out on the street, they ran for the alley where their cyclones waited. The others had gotten there quickly, every girl having to fend for herself at that point. They all knew where to meet up.

  Lena rounded the corner to see Ava and Hurley sat on their bikes while Sterling bounced the baby in her arms to soothe her whines.

  Huffing, Dipity bent over the front of her cyclone.

  Damn it, Pao! Lena turned around to smack Sarah in the head for royally fucking them over, but she was met with nothing but empty street.

  “Where’s Pao?” Ava asked.

  Lena could have ripped her hair out. “Ah, shit.”

  Chapter 29

  Sarah had fallen. When she lifted her head, the world was spinning and the leader of the all-black gang blasted a rang shot through the dweller inside the dropped cage. Before Sarah could get to her feet, hands grabbed and did it for her.

  Even dizzy, Sarah slipped from their grasp and kicked one in the gut. The other got the side of Sarah’s palm to the throat.

  Shamika – right, that was the head’s name – rushed over and grabbed Sarah by the hair. Sarah braced herself for a light ball to the face. It would have been fitting – karma. But the back of Shamika’s hand was what hit her, smacking her even dizzier, straining her neck when her head whipped back.

  “You got guts, sheila,” Shamika said. “I’ll give you that. But you just ruined any chance at peace between our gangs. What the fuck were you thinking?”

  Blood beaded at the corner of Sarah’s mouth. Fighting the urge to tongue the injury, she glared at Shamika. “I made Lena a promise.”

  Shamika snorted. “Well, I’ll make you a promise. If we don’t get that baby returned to us, where she belongs, then I’m going to put your head under my cyclone wheel until we can’t tell who you are anymore. Fair?”

  “Not really.”

  “Get this bitch out of here.” Shamika waved her hand.

  The two holding Sarah walked her out the door and down the street. She didn’t understand their motive. If they wanted to kill her, they could have just done it right there in the Amazons’ ganghouse. It would have been quick, and may have even laid all the blame at the Daughters’ doorstep. Sarah’s throat tightened. Why the hell was she thinking of good ideas for the OC? She really wished her mind would shut off sometimes.

  “Where’s your cyclone?” one of the OC girls asked.

  “What?” The lump in Sarah’s throat wouldn’t go away no matter how many times she swallowed. “Why?”

  “You don’t think we’re stupid enough to have you ride with one of us, do you?” the other one said. She shook as if she’d overdosed on coffee.

  “You’re… not killing me?” The thought relieved Sarah, but at the same time a new terror tickled at the back of her mind.

  “Not yet,” the jittery one said.

  Lena and the rest had taken off, leaving Sarah’s cyclone by itself in the alley. The Daughters would come for her. Do whatever it took. Wouldn’t they?

  The OC girls walked behind her as she rode her cyclone slowly to where Shamika and the others waited. They’d told her that if she even thought about trying to escape, they’d have rang shots in her so quick she’d look like a smoking piece of Swiss cheese. When all of them had gotten on their bikes, they surrounded Sarah and sped from the Amazon ganghouse. Sarah had no chance of getting away.

  The OC wheels glowed black and purple, and were bigger than the other gangs’. Every so often the girl riding behind her would nudge the back of Sarah’s cyclone. She didn’t know if it was a warning to speed up or just because she didn’t like her.

  The gang crossed the Sludge River, and climbed a steep rise where there were fewer dweller buildings. Soon they came to the top of a glass mountain overlooking the Sludge. At the edge stood the Onyx Coalition ganghouse.

  It was modest in comparison to the Amazons’ headquarters, and more refined than Sarah’s own ganghouse. It could have been a doctor’s home nestled in the Californian hills – at least from what she’d seen on TV.

  They weaved through big glass barriers that made the front of the ganghouse look like a battlefield. The OC expected trouble. Lights flashed on from under the house�
�s eaves when the group rode a hundred or so feet from the front door. The house had no windows, at least not anymore. Some kind of metal covered them.

  Shamika got off her bike and knocked on a glass wall at the front. The wall split in the middle and a short black dweller nodded to the gang’s head. They rode into the ganghouse, but this area didn’t look like the main room, not like where the Daughters parked their cyclones. This was like a fancy hangar for a private jet. It was so clean it sparkled, and burn lines in the floor designated where each of them pulled in and shut down their bikes.

  “You can put yours over there,” Shamika said, pointing to the far wall.

  Sarah parked her cyclone and waited until one of them grabbed her and pushed her forward. Two more got behind her as they all entered the house. Sarah hurried along before they could sneak in a few punches.

  Inside the main room, a big window looked across the expanse of the city. Oubliette – it was truly stunning when you viewed it from a distance. Here sat the most exquisite furniture made from the city’s glass – chairs, tables, even a few useless bowls and plates. Sarah couldn’t keep her astounded sigh to herself.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Shamika said, with no intent to hide her pride. “We have Oubliette’s best glass cutters. Who do you think helped make your cyclone?”

  “I thought Grindy built them.”

  “With our girls doing all the work!” Shamika looked at Sarah as if she was gum on her boot. “Grindy designed them, yeah. Got them working.”

  “Your ganghouse is very nice,” Sarah said, trying to ease the mood, if only to save her hide for a moment more.

  “Don’t get too comfortable,” Shamika said. She beckoned Sarah with a curled finger and led her down the hall to a white door. “Inside.”

  “What’s in there?” Sarah asked.

  Shamika rolled her eyes and opened the door. “Not a damn thing.” She shoved Sarah inside and closed the door before Sarah could turn around.

  A lock clicked as Sarah felt around in the dark. Shamika had been telling the truth. The closet-sized room was empty, especially of light. Nothing but slick glass walls surrounded her, and all she could do was listen to the sound of her breath, and hope her gang hadn’t forgotten her.