Scythe (Arc of a Scythe #1)(94)

“You can’t do that!” the scythe insisted.

But a few minutes later, he found out otherwise.

? ? ?

With her pursuers kicked off the train, Citra enjoyed a respite from the relentless cat-and-mouse game. Her cover blown, she pulled on street clothes that fit her from someone’s luggage. Jeans and a flowery blouse that wasn’t her style, but the clothes were adequate. The Tonists were disappointed, yet didn’t seem all that surprised that she wasn’t actually one of them. They left her with a pamphlet she promised she’d read, but suspected she wouldn’t.

“Whatever your destination,” Scythe Possuelo told her, “you’ll have to change trains at Amazonas Central Station. I suggest you meander through several different outbound trains before boarding the one you’re actually taking, so that the DNA detectors will send those chasing you every which way.”

Of course, the more she wandered the station, the more likely she’d be seen, but it was worth the risk to confound the DNA detectors and send her pursuers on a wild goose chase.

“I don’t know why they’re after you,” Scythe Possuelo said as the train pulled into the station, “but if your issues resolve and you do get your ring, you should come back to Amazonia. The rain forest stretches across the whole continent, as it did in its most ancient days, and we live in its canopy. You would find it marvelous.”

“I thought you didn’t like foreign scythes,” she told him with a smirk.

“There is a difference between those we invite, and those who intrude,” he told her.

Citra did her best to leave DNA traces on half a dozen trains before slipping onto the one bound for Caracas, on the north Amazonia coast. If there were agents out there looking for her, she didn’t spot them, but she wouldn’t be so cavalier as to think she was out of harm’s way.

From the city of Caracas, Scythe Curie had instructed her to follow the northern coastline east until coming to a town called Playa Pintada. She would have to avoid publicars or any other mode of transportation that would pinpoint her location, but she found the closer she got, the more her resolve hardened. She would get there and complete this troubled pilgrimage, even if she had to walk the rest of the way.

? ? ?

How does one face a murderer? Not a socially sanctioned killer, but an actual murderer. An individual who, without the blessing of society, or even its permission, permanently ends a human life?

Citra knew that in the world at large, the Thunderhead prevented such things. Certainly people get pushed in front of trains, or under trucks, or off rooftops in the heat of frustrated moments—but that which is broken is always repaired. Amends are made. An ordained scythe, however, who lives outside of the Thunderhead’s jurisdiction, has no such protection. To be revived is not automatic for a scythe; it must be requested. But who is there to advocate for a scythe felled by foul play?

Which means that although scythes may be the most powerful humans on Earth, they are also the most vulnerable.

Today, Citra vowed to be an advocate for the dead. She would deliver justice for her fallen mentor. Clearly, the Thunderhead would not stand in her way—it had given her the murderer’s name. So had Scythe Curie when she had sent her on this mission. The final phase of her training. Everything rested on the actions she would take today.

? ? ?

Playa Pintada. The painted beach. Today the coastline was strewn with large chunks of twisted, gnarled driftwood. In the dwindling sunset, they seemed like the arms and legs of terrible creatures slowly heaving themselves out of the sand.

Citra crouched behind a driftwood dragon, hiding within its shadow. A storm was moving in from the north, building over the sea and rolling inexorably toward shore. Distant lightning could already be seen playing deep within its darkness, and thunder rolled in counterpoint to the crashing surf.

She had only a handful of the weapons she had started with: a pistol, a switchblade, the hunting knife. The rest had been too hard to conceal, and so she had to cast them off before boarding the train in Buenos Aires. It was barely a day ago, yet it felt like a week.

The home she watched was a single-story box of a dwelling, like many of the homes on the beach. Most of it was hidden behind palms and blooming birds of paradise. There was a back patio that overlooked the beach on the other side of a low hedge. Lights were on inside. A shadow periodically moved behind the curtains.

Citra reviewed her options. Were she already a scythe, she would glean him, following Scythe Curie’s methods. A blade through the heart. Quick and decisive. This was one instance where she didn’t doubt her ability to do it. But she wasn’t a scythe.

Any lethal attack would merely render him deadish, and an ambudrone would arrive within minutes to take him to be revived. What she needed to do was incapacitate him. Take him down but not out, and then extract a confession. Was he working for another scythe or acting alone? Was he bribed like the witnesses? Was he motivated by a promise of immunity, or was it a personal vendetta against Faraday? Then, once she knew the truth, she could bring the man, and the confession, to Scythe Possuelo, or anyone in the Amazonia Scythedom. That way not even Xenocrates could squelch the truth. It would clear her of any wrongdoing, and the true culprit would receive whatever punishment awaits a scythe-killer. Perhaps Citra could stay here in Amazonia then, and never have to face the awful prospect of Winter Conclave.

At the last traces of twilight, she heard a sliding glass door whoosh open, and she peered over the rough edge of the driftwood to see him come onto the patio to look out at the approaching storm. He was perfectly silhouetted against the light inside, like a paper target at a shooting range. He couldn’t have made it easier for her. She pulled out her pistol. At first she leveled it right at his heart—force of habit from her training. Then she lowered it to his knee and fired.