Green Jack Read online

  Chapter 3

  Saffron

  As the darkness fell, Saffron didn’t reach for her flashlight. Batteries were too precious to waste watching desperate idiots fry. It was the same every time. The City went dark, and people hurled themselves at the Wall. There were always guards, and their rifles had lights. And they were always on the other side of the darkness, no matter where the darkness ended.

  And Saffron and the other Elysians were always here.

  It would take a few moments for the guards on the Wall to switch on the solar lamps and from the sound of the Taggers’ voices, they were across the street now. Saffron edged out, relief and adrenaline making her skin prickle. Until the Protectorate soldiers came around the corner, sitting straight in their saddles, uniforms and weapons gleaming. There were four of them, with a man riding in the centre. Leaves wound through his hair and over his forehead.

  A Green Jack.

  Saffron stepped backwards into a splintered storefront window. Glass crunched loudly under her boots but the Taggers had forgotten her as every green thing around the Green Jack grew lush in his wake. Vines stretched out, dandelions flowered, lichen seemed to glow. The grass thickened so quickly the cement shifted apart like a series of miniature earthquakes. The trees grew tiny green buds.

  Saffron grabbed at dandelions and stuffed them in her pockets. The smart thing to do was to run as far and as fast as she could. You couldn’t go three feet without running into a Green Jack shrine, all painted oak leaves and gilded tin; but while actual Green Jacks were paraded around on feast days, they were otherwise kept hidden away. They must be bringing him in to be tested in the laboratories. The Directorate was always trying to find more effective ways to harness a Jack’s power.

  Back when the temperatures first rose and the crops started to fail, a Green Jack walked out of a forest and everything he touched grew. For a few years, everything seemed hopeful. Until the Cataclysms and the Lake Wars, and the closing of the cities. The Directorate was formed, and now Jacks spent most of their time on the farms, walking the fields, and sleeping under the glass domes to helps the crops grow that fed the City.

  But the Directorate still hadn't figured out how their magic worked, not really. No one had, not even the Collegium, which was created for that very purpose. They might train the Numina to work plant numen and predict crops, but they couldn't explain it either. It was just mysterious enough, and necessary enough, that a kind of religion had formed around the Green Jacks. And as long as the Directorate came first, they didn't much care what the Elysians believed in, old gods or new ones. Still, the Order of the Green Gods had Woodwives praying in their leaf-cloaks in every cella and all over the City. If the Green Jacks had originally been prayed out of the forest as was believed, then even the Directorate couldn't be too safe.

  This Green Jack was still half-wild. He was the colour of rich earth and holly leaf. They got as much water to drink and food to eat---real food, not the stuff the Core got. The tomatoes in the Core had more mouse DNA than actual tomato. All the new food sciences were tested in the Core first and usually they were so hungry, they didn’t care.

  A beam of light swung wide and gunshot splintered the air. The beam swung again, harsh blue light falling relentlessly over the bodies. There was already half a dozen of them sprawled out with dead eyes and bloody holes in their chests. Some people spent their entire lives lurking by the Wall, just waiting for the rain to do its work.

  The Green Jack leapt off his horse as if he could fly. The Protectorate flashlights tried to pin him down. Saffron already knew he wouldn’t make it. The Wall was lined with an electric fence, but it wasn’t the only safeguard. Saffron heard snarling. There were flashes of acid-green eyes.

  Cerberus.

  Genetic mutation and experimental science had combined the ferocity of wild boar, the strength of bull, and the viciousness of a cornered badger with wild dogs. They were only released when the power went out. They killed anything they found, whether or not they were even attempting to scale the Wall.

  Protectorate guns shattered the air above the Wall. They didn’t know what to do. Green Jacks were too precious to kill. The Wall flung him away like a rag doll. He landed in the street and was almost immediately cradled in leaves, moss, and weeds. He was close enough that Saffron could see his teeth when he made a sound of pain. She could sense the Otherness of him. It was disconcerting. There was a smell of cedar under the mud and blood. The beams of light stabbed at the darkness.

  And then he was gone.

  The leaves started to wilt. That kind of growth didn’t last long when there was no Jack to sustain it, especially this far into the flood season. The Cerberus growled. Someone screamed.

  Saffron was wondering if she could reach the rusted yellow school bus and leap onto the nearest balcony when she saw the leaf mask. They said a Jack weakened without it, but this one was long gone anyway. And with a leaf mask she could finally pay back Argent. Never mind him---Oona would never go hungry again. Saffron grabbed it as she swung herself up onto the metal carcass of the bus. It creaked under her weight.

  A Cerberus spotted her and the growls turned to barks. She jumped, her fingers clamped around the rusty metal, slick with rain. She dangled precariously as the beast below spat out a mouthful of tulle torn off her hem.

  Saffron couldn’t help but think stupid reckless thoughts about climbing the Wall, just there where the mortar was crumbling, and then under the barbed wire.

  It wasn’t the blood running out of the people scattered below that stopped her. It was the thought of her Oona, alone in this world. Killian would look after her, but he was barely getting by as it is.

  So she turned away from the stupid temptation, a mask of leaves wrapped around her wrist as she ran the bridges of rotting ropes that connected the Core.