Green Jack Read online

  Chapter 19

  Saffron

  Saffron had never been beyond the Wall.

  They said there were stars over the rest of the world, millions of them. She’d only ever seen the North star, it was the only one bright enough to struggle through the layers of pollution, weather controlling chemicals, and replacement ozone.

  She already missed Oona and Killian. It was a physical ache under the breastbone, like an infection. Only comfrey and honey tea wouldn’t cure the hollow empty grinding. She had nothing but her own stubbornness to comfort her. She’d see this through because Oona wanted her to. And because spiting the Directorate was as good a destiny as any she’d find in the Core.

  The artificial glow of the Rings was surprisingly pretty from a distance. She couldn’t see Killian, of course. But she knew that he was running home. They were both running, only this time in opposite directions. It felt wrong. They always did stupid things together. She didn’t know what to think, here on the other side without him.

  The Enclave was several hours walk from the City borders. To the west were the most affluent homes, and therefore more soldiers. The northern and eastern border gave way to the Badlands. It would take her at least three days to reach them, if she was lucky. And longer to reach the Spirit Forest. A week, maybe two. Assuming she didn’t get lost. Or tracked. Or killed.

  A lot of assumptions, actually.

  Never mind the long arm of the Directorate, she’d have to deal with the Ferals and folk more desperate than her. Still, she was Elysian. She could handle it. Probably better than she could handle the lingering taste of green on her tongue, courtesy of the leaf mask. It was alien, and only served to remind her that she was alien now too. She wasn’t even sure if she was still human. She was a Green Jill. She wasn’t Saffron anymore, not really.

  No. If nothing else, she would still be Saffron. She’d see to it. She’d given up everything else, given up Oona and Killian. Damned if she’d sacrifice that too. A tough promise from a girl with nothing but a pack on her back, a stolen Green Jack mask, and the rubble of the suburbs to the horizon.

  There was just enough moonlight to make out the hulking shadows of houses, identical even in their disrepair. Lawns had long since turned weedy. The suburbs might be abandoned but they were investigated on a regular basis by the Protectorate. The yard was a tangle of overgrown leggy rosebushes with silver thorns like daggers. There was an algae-thick pool sunk into the ground, left over from the last century. People used to paint them blue, and fill them with chemicals in order to float in them. The idea of wasting that much water was shocking, not to mention illegal.

  A shadow swooped down, interrupting her tangled thoughts. Her neck prickled, the tiny hairs like frozen needles. She reached for a knife but kept walking.

  Another shadow, circling.

  Never mind the Protectorate, she was going to be torn apart by bonebirds before she’d even walked an hour outside the City. Perfect. They’d been genetically manipulated out of vultures during the Lake Wars, to eat the dead. Fire was too dangerous to burn all of the bodies since water was too precious to put out the flames if they spread. So the bodies were dumped in the suburbs for the bonebirds. There were bones all around her, pushed against the curbs, crumbled to dust in the middle of the road.

  The bonebirds were huge, with a wingspan as tall as her, talons thick as branches and sharp curved beaks. Their bald heads gleamed, pink as raw flesh. Oona talked about thunderbirds sometimes, how they blinked lightning, brought thunder on their wings, and made sure humans kept their promises. Bonebirds might be as big, but otherwise they were nothing like that. They only new hunger. An appropriate totem for Elysians, come to think it. One of them shrieked at her. Her daggers wouldn’t do much good. She might stop one, but the others would tear her scalp from her skull before she had a chance to wipe the blood off her blade.

  The closest house only had half a front door swinging uselessly on rusted hinges, and it was the wrong half. She’d have to try for the crumbling church with the stained glass windows. As she launched into a run, there was a powerful slash of wings above her. A talon scraped her shoulder, slicing through the thick uniform to her skin. The smell of wet feathers, rotting meat and rancid breath filled her nostrils when she gasped for air.

  She hit the door hard, kicking it until it finally gave way. She slipped inside but a bonebird was already trying to force his way through one of the broken windows. Black downy feathers filled the air. Blood smeared on the brightly coloured glass.

  She lodged a broken chair against the window frame, the bonebird pecking at her fingers. Blood pooled between her knuckles. She backed into the main nave, the benches thick with dust. Mould furred the faded statues.

  She wedged a kerchief under the torn shoulder of her jacket, pressing down on the gash. She’d pack it with cobwebs later; she wasn’t likely to run out in this dusty place. She pulled the leaf mask from her pack, handling it as gingerly as a ferret that might turn on her without warning. It had been flat grape leaves and knobbly oak when she’d first found it but they were changing. Vines unfurled, clinging around her wrist. They were so thin and delicate she’d have had to use a fine-point marker to draw them. Paint was too wild, brushes too coarse.

  She knew nothing about Green Jacks, beyond the basics from countless public service announcement. Nothing reliable to say the least. Green Jacks were a mystery, and carefully kept that way.

  Only they were no longer “they”.

  That comforting distance was gone. She was one of them now.