Rogue Oracle Read online

  Cassie looked sidelong at him. “You’re saying you were fated to be there, destined to continue to be a Marshal?”

  “Yeah. I guess you could say that I believe in destiny. There are some things that are immutable, and just have to be accepted. Gordy was a bad guy, who was gonna cause collateral damage no matter what.” The Kahuna shrugged. “Doesn’t mean that I don’t feel bad about it. I figure I’m supposed to. That means I still have a conscience. But I realize my responsibility in the situation was limited.”

  Cassie stared out at the water. “I wish I could feel that way.”

  “You’re still operating under the illusion of free will in all situations. I didn’t have a choice when I tripped Gordy’s bomb. But I had a choice in deciding whether to throw in the towel. You think you had a choice, in shooting that burglar. But did you, really?”

  Cassie was silent.

  “Would you have let him attack you, hurt your dog and your cat? Lay in wait for others to come home and hurt them, too?”

  “No.”

  “Then there was no other rational decision. Accept it, and look to the future. Look for the things you can change, where you can do the most good.”

  Cassie felt a tug on her line, and her bobber disappeared.

  “Set your hook with a good, firm jerk,” the Kahuna said. “Then reel ’em in.”

  Cassie cranked the reel to draw the fish in. Her heart was hammering ridiculously fast at the excitement of catching a fish. She reeled the heavy weight at the end of the line in to the side of the boat. The Kahuna leaned over and caught up the line, hauling her prize up for her to see.

  The fish squirmed green and yellow in the sunlight, flapping, almost a foot long. Cassie blinked at it, while Maggie trotted over to sniff. “What is it?”

  “Could be dinner. Or you could throw it back. But it’s a nice perch.”

  Cassie reached out to catch the line and looked at the fish.

  The Kahuna beamed at her. “Life’s like the fish. We all have the illusion of choice, thinking we have the power of life and death, every minute of every day. But in all actuality, there’s only one answer. One path out of any given situation.”

  Cassie regarded the twisting fish. “You’re saying I don’t have a choice as to whether the fish becomes dinner or whether I throw him back?”

  “You think you do. But not really.” The Kahuna grinned.

  “That’s kind of a … helpless way to look at things.”

  “Not really. It doesn’t mean you don’t make an effort, that you don’t struggle. But Philosophy According to Steve means you don’t agonize over things you couldn’t foresee, that you can’t go back and change.”

  Cassie peered at the fish. “How do I get the hook out of him?”

  “Like this.” The Kahuna grabbed the fish, yanked the hook from the perch’s mouth. The perch seemed to gasp, and a chunk of red flesh was removed from its lip. He handed the slimy, flipping fish back to Cassie.

  Cassie leaned over the boat and tossed the fish back. It hit the water with a smack, then disappeared under the murky blue. Maggie put her paws up on the railing and stared over it, dejected.

  “So, I didn’t make a decision just then?”

  “I don’t think so.” The Kahuna rearranged himself on his plaid lawn chair and cast his line over the rail. “I think you are what you are. And there’s no changing that.”

  Cassie stared out at the water, where the fish had vanished. She wished she could vanish like the fish, disappear off the radar of destiny.

  The Cowboy clomped around the deck and began to fiddle with the rope that held the anchor.

  The Kahuna glanced at him. “You moving to a better fishing hole?”

  The Cowboy shook his head. “Just someplace less crowded.” He gestured with his chin to a sleek yacht bobbing along the horizon. “That boat’s been following us at a distance for the last two hours. Might be a coincidence. Might not be.”

  The Kahuna reeled back his pole and grabbed his binoculars. He peered through them. “They’re not fishing over there, whatever they’re doing.” He nodded at Cassie. “Take the animals and get below deck.”

  Cassie whistled for Maggie, and the dog bounded behind her below deck, to the world of shag carpet. Oscar was stretched out on the bar, giving himself a bath. He looked up at her with an expression of annoyance.

  The motor rattled to life. Feeling the pitch and yaw of the boat as it turned, Cassie adjusted her footing. Oscar slid right off the top of the highly polished bar top and landed behind the bar with an aggrieved yowl. Maggie ran to check on him. Cassie didn’t get the impression that the Starry Night was a craft built for speed. If the boat on the horizon was really a pursuing craft, she didn’t hold out much hope the Starry Night would escape.

  Over the whine of the engine, Cassie could hear the Steves plotting in the wheelhouse cabin: “She still behind us?”

  “Yeah. She’s pulled anchor and is on our ass. She’s faster, and will catch us soon.”

  “I’ll get the guns.”

  Cassie scrambled for her backpack. She’d had enough of guns, enough of killing. She fished her cell phone out of one of the zippered pockets and dialed the number for the farmhouse.

  “Hello?” An unfamiliar voice answered. “Get me the Pythia.” Cassie was surprised at the amount of steel that reverberated in her voice, like a piano wire.

  “Just a moment.” There was the sound of steps retreating. Cassie imagined the kitchen phone set on the counter while one of Delphi’s Daughters interrupted the Pythia’s smoke break.

  “Hello.” The Pythia’s voice sounded thin over this long distance.

  “You promised not to come after me.” Cassie’s voice sounded cold, though she sat down on the floor to keep her knees from knocking.

  “I promised not to bring you back. I never promised not to watch over you.”

  “Is that what you’re doing—surveillance?”

  “It’s in your best interest for me to make sure you’re safe,” the Pythia continued, in a soothing purr. “With Tara out of the country, Delphi’s Daughters are simply watching—”

  “Stop it,” Cassie snapped. “You’ve done enough.”

  “I can’t. You’re the future of Delphi’s Daughters.” The Pythia sounded uncharacteristically helpless.

  “Leave me alone. Leave me alone, right now. Or I promise you that I will never come back to you. Delphi’s Daughters will be without a Pythia. And they will die out.”

  The threat hung in silence. Cassie’s fingers tightened on the phone. She had the trump card, and she’d use it.

  “Now, back off. Back off, unless you want more blood on your hands.”

  Cassie switched off the phone, hand shaking. She climbed up the steps to the wheelhouse. Footing was treacherous as the boat bumped along the waves. The Cowboy sat behind the wheel, while the Kahuna stood with what looked like one of the Pythia’s machine guns in his hands.

  “They’re dropping back,” the Cowboy said, glancing behind them.

  The Kahuna’s grip relaxed a fraction on the machine gun. His sunglass-covered gaze scraped at the sleek boat on the horizon that was falling farther and farther back beyond the waves.

  “Good thing,” the Kahuna said. “I wasn’t much in the mood to play pirate battles on the high seas.”

  Cassie cracked a wan smile, shaded her eyes with her hand, and stared at the horizon. She was safe for now. But she knew that she couldn’t keep running. Eventually, she’d have to confront the Pythia and her own curious destiny.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE TRAIN station at Korosten was little more than a platform on the outskirts of a small town surrounded by farmland. A cluster of low buildings stood outside the sparsely occupied train station, lit with yellow light from within at dusk. It was a curiously normal scene, one Tara expected could have been replicated anywhere in the midwestern U.S. near any smallish city taken root in agricultural land.

  As Tara stepped onto the platform fro
m the train station, she took a deep breath. The air here smelled like freshly mown hay, a welcome change from the cabin that smelled like cigarette smoke. The smell of smoke reminded her too much of the Pythia, and Tara had found it difficult to doze with her face pressed in a pillow that smelled like her. But the fresh air dispelled some of her sense of unease.

  Until she saw a vendor with a cart stand beside the train station. An old woman was selling beautiful red tomatoes. Chernobyl tomatoes. Tara could make out the Cyrillic word for “Chernobyl” on the sign. She stifled a shudder, imagining the witch in Snow White hawking her poisoned apples. To her amazement, a man walked by and purchased one.

  A woman in her late fifties, dressed simply in casual pants, farm boots, and a white cotton blouse approached them. She was petite, brown hair streaked with silver and cut in a chin-length bob. Her skin was kissed with the wholesome-seeming ruddiness of a sunburn.

  “Ms. Sheridan, Mr. Lee?” she asked, in heavily accented English. When Tara nodded, the woman stuck out a hand. “I’m Irina. I will be your guide to the Exclusion Zone.”

  “Thank you.” Tara sized her up, wondering how deeply involved she was in Delphi’s Daughters. Was she another oracle, or merely one of the Pythia’s many flunkies? And how had she drawn babysitting duty? At least the Pythia had seen to it that they were given a handler who spoke English. Tara was relieved; her attempts to stumble through the phrase book the Pythia had sent were thoroughly pathetic.

  “This way.” She motioned for Tara and Harry to follow her to a crumbling parking lot outside the station. “I have a car.”

  Irina’s car was a small, subcompact car of undetermined vintage, caked in mud and speckled in rust spots. The interior smelled like mildew, and the windows didn’t crank up all the way. But Tara was grateful to have the opportunity to be able to communicate with someone who was familiar with the terrain. Harry scrambled into the back with his luggage, his knees jammed up against the back of Tara’s front seat. The car’s engine sounded like an overworked lawnmower when Irina started it up.

  “The Pythia said you are looking for a man,” Irina said, pulling out of the train station and onto a gravel two-lane road. “A man selling nuclear secrets.”

  Harry nodded. “Yes. We think he’s coming here. We think he’s from here.”

  Irina’s green eyes darkened. “Ah. Another Chernobylite has come home.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Irina shrugged. “Many people fled from the disaster, many years ago, and never came back. But many returned to their roots.”

  “Why?” Harry asked, leaning forward from the backseat.

  “It is home.” Irina gestured out the window at the houses dotting the beautiful landscape. Though many looked as if they’d been abandoned, there were clusters of houses that showed signs of life: cows, chickens, cats roaming the yards. “No one bothers us. Not the state, not the churches. In many ways, it is idyllic.” She shook her head. “No one brings their children back, of course, but for many of the older folk, and the folk who have nowhere else, it is something of a frontier. No law.”

  Tara sat forward in her seat, stymied. “But it can’t be safe.”

  Irina barked a harsh laugh. “‘Safe’ is a relative term. In the days of the war, people feared the Germans. Now, they fear the invisible. It is much more difficult to fear the invisible, the atom that cannot be seen.” She gestured to an old woman turning up soil for a garden. “They tell us that we can no longer eat the apples, the potatoes, drink the milk. We must bury the chicken eggs two feet deep. And people did that, I think, for a time, when the soldiers came and scraped all the topsoil away. But that’s no way to live.”

  “The woman with the tomatoes at the train station—” Harry began.

  Irina laughed. “Yes. They are sold and given as gifts to many a hated boss or mother-in-law.”

  Harry didn’t cover up his shock.

  Irina wagged her finger. “You will become accustomed to our sense of humor, young man.”

  Harry sat back in the backseat, muttering: “I hope not.”

  Irina pretended not to hear him. “It’s growing late. I will take you to my house, and then we will go to the Exclusion Zone in the morning. The Exclusion Zone is large—it extends for thirty kilometers around the site of the disaster. We will have much before us, if we are to find your dealer in secrets.”

  “We were hoping to start as soon as possible—” Harry began.

  Irina made a cutting gesture. “It’s not safe in the Exclusion Zone at night. There are wolves, looters. We wait until morning.” It was clear she would brook no argument.

  Irina asked Tara and Harry few questions about themselves, and Tara tried to be as respectful of her boundaries. Still, she was curious when the car stopped outside a small house built not far from the road with a ribbon of a disintegrating gravel driveway leading to it. A garden bloomed in the front yard, thick with the smell of manure. A cow chewed cud from behind a ramshackle fence, in a green field heavy with the tassels of grasses. A chicken darted out from in front of the car, clucking in annoyance. It was a bucolic scene, with dusky mist settling from the sky into the ground.

  Tara followed her up the creaking front porch. Tara noted that Irina didn’t lock her front door. “You live alone?” she asked, surprised.

  “No,” Irina responded curtly. “I have a cow, three cats, and seven chickens. That’s hardly ‘alone.’”

  The first floor of Irina’s house was a large room. It was filled with a jumble of brightly patterned furniture and quilts, old photographs, and a collection of painted eggs. The far side of the room held a small sink, a stove, and a refrigerator, all probably older than Tara. A pressure cooker sat on the counter with open canning jars, lids, and rims. A shelf held dozens of jars of tomatoes put away for the winter. A cat with one blind eye watched Tara and Harry with suspicion.

  “This way,” Irina said, leading them up a staircase that hugged one of the walls. Two bedrooms and a bathroom were at the top of the stairs. Irina showed them to a bed tucked under the eaves of the house, covered with a delicately embroidered coverlet. “You can sleep here.”

  “Thank you,” Tara said.

  Irina nodded. “As the Pythia commands.” Her eyes sparkled in humor, and she shut the door behind her as she left.

  Harry paced the length of the room, jingling the change in his pocket. Tara could tell he was impatient to get underway. But the light was falling, and there was nothing to be done for it. Irina was their guide, and they were wedded to her judgment.

  Tara dug out the GPS device that the Cowboy had given her. She booted it up, hoping that it would get a signal this far out. According to the device, they were a scant five kilometers from the border of the Exclusion Zone. Close enough to reach out and touch it.

  She showed it to Harry, and he emitted a low whistle. “I wonder if those chickens glow in the dark.”

  Tara dug the dosimeter out of her pocket, switched it on. It chirped like a canary. Harry peered over her shoulder. “That’s not good. It says that the background level is thirty-two microroentgens per hour. That’s four times the amount of background radiation in a normal environment. And we’re not in the Exclusion Zone yet.”

  Tara suppressed a shudder, switched it off.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  She had trouble articulating it to him. She was so accustomed to dealing with the unseen world and measuring it in her own way that the machine was unsettling. “I don’t really want to know. We don’t have any choice in this mission. This”—she pointed to the machine—“is just a distraction. I don’t want to think of how I’ve dragged you along after me and exposed you to glow-in-the-dark chickens.”

  Harry wrapped his arms around her. “Hey. I go where I want, remember? The Pythia can’t make me do shit. I didn’t come out here out of duty to her.”

  “You came here to catch the Chimera, I know.”

  “Partly. But I also came here because of my duty to you.” Harry
kissed her temple. “I can’t let you face the glow-in-the-dark chickens alone.”

  She sighed, resting her forehead on his shoulder. The Pythia had been right.

  She did need him here. But at what cost?

  THE COST HAD BEEN IMMENSE, BUT GALEN HAD RETURNED home. He had no desire to escape his roots. Rather, he wished to lie down in them and allow them to wrap around him, digesting him wholly.

  His fingers brushed the tall, green grasses splitting bits of pavement. In the ruddy sunset, the land had been painted in washes of gold and red. He stood before the looming Sarcophagus, its shadow driven long by the sun before him. This was the place that had been built to contain the radiation from the failed reactor, a black structure lined with lead and steel. But it was disintegrating; bits of rust showed at the seams that leaked bits of straw from birds’ nests. Warped pine trees grew around it, digging their roots into the foundations. It had cost thousands of lives to build this thing, and it was failing. Split seams and popped rivets were visible even from this distance, leaking that prickling radiation into the land.

  Galen could hear none of the ghosts that had been sacrificed to build it. He could barely hear the ghosts of the people he’d consumed, and loneliness began to infest his thoughts. But he could feel the malignant power of this place, that splinter of poison in this beautiful land.

  And he would begin to dig it out.

  His cell phone rang at his hip, and he answered. “Yes.”

  “The materiel you promised us … is it on schedule?”

  “Yes. It will be ready on time.”

  “And is it … as potent as you promised?”

  Galen inhaled, feeling the metallic buzz of the radiation on his skin and prickling in his lungs. He wore no protective suit here. There was no point. He was dying, and he wanted to take this last opportunity to feel the pulse of his motherland, the force that made him.