The closely packed, square brick buildings had new windows where they weren't simply closed by masonry. The west and south faces of many still showed burnt-black smudges, lingering evidence of the airbursts that had destroyed the city and the old air force base to the south.

They came to the district walking along the Missouri. The river rolled south past the city, redolent of silt and algae, with only a hint of the sewage that Valentine smelled from many of the old storm drains. In the distance, a rust-colored dredger worked between the pillars of the rail bridge, bringing up masses of mud. Just upriver from the dredger, a few barges rested against a wharf. There were overturned canoes and even a few small sailboats sharing the riverside with the trim barges, baby versions of the huge transports Valentine had seen from a distance on the Mississippi.

Ahn-Kha told him a little about the settlement. Though all of Omaha and its surroundings had been given to the Grogs, the Golden Ones and Gray Ones still needed to trade-especially for tools and weapons. They invited a few humans to set up house, giving them protection for activities that were outlawed elsewhere in the Kurian Zone, and a little patch of land next to the riverside fields and C-shaped lake. The black marketeers flourished, and as the Quisling society in Iowa and parts of Kansas grew, they became semilegitimate even in the eyes of the Kurians.

Old Omaha had no walls. Once past the reeking piles of trash and the masses of feral cats sleeping in the sunny blown-out doorways and windows north of the wharf, Ahn-Kha led him to clean cobblestone streets. Every windowsill and rooftop supported a garden. Goats and calves grazed in open lots. The animals were marked with splashes of dye.

"The traders here run 'houses.'" Ahn-Kha explained. "When I came here, there were three. I am told it has been that way for years. The three tolerate each other, but no more. They share the common land but mark their animals. The gardens on the land of the house are their own. They tell me there are groves across the river for apples and cherries and chestnuts, but I have not been there to see how they divide it."

Men, most of them armed with gun belts, lounged here and there on the corners. Some rose from benches and made a show of standing in the sidewalk so Ahn-Kha had to step into the street to pass.

"You just take that crap?" Valentine asked.

"It is easier to receive an insult than a bullet."

Valentine saw the wisdom in that, but it still irked.him.

"Which house do you wish to try?"

"House Holt. For the most part, they were good friends with the Golden Ones. It is run by the Big Man."

"What's he like?" Valentine wondered what to expect. He hoped it wasn't an Omaha version of the Duke in Chicago, alternately bluff and frightening.

"He was always evenhanded to me, though not friendly. He looked always to the future; I admired him for thinking, and speaking, in terms of decades rather than days."

"Not many can afford to do that."

"Here is his insignia. It hangs outside his house, and his men carry it as his token."

Valentine looked at the sign. He'd seen broken versions of it here and there; it was circular, green and white and black, featuring a serene long-haired woman surrounded by stars. Above the projecting sign on the second story, fans set in the window turned behind inch-thick iron bars.

"Electricity here?" Valentine asked.

"Yes. The three houses share the maintenance of a coal generator. Long ago I tried to get them to put one in for the Golden Ones. I failed."

As they approached the door under the sign, a man next to the door rose from his seat on a wooden locker and put his hand on his pistol. He had long hair and a longer stare.

"What's your business?"

"A meeting with your Executive," Ahn-Kha said.

"You let your Grog do your talking for you, kid?" the door warden asked Valentine. "Usually with you Black Flag types, the man's the mouth and the Grog's the muscle."

"I'm the bodyguard," Valentine said.

"That so. Put your weapons in this box, and I'll let you in. Whether you see the Big Man or not will be up to him."

Ahn-Kha gave Valentine a nod. The warden opened the box. Ahn-Kha leaned his captured rifle against the door-jamb; the gun was too long to fit inside. Valentine placed pistol, parang, sword, and claws within, and covered it with his bedroll and submachine gun.

The warden shook his head. "More iron doesn't make you more tough, kid. I've got to check your pockets and pat you down. Anything sticks me, we'll float you back to your General on crutches. Anything else?"

Valentine removed a short clasp knife and tossed it in with the rest. It wasn't much of a weapon anyway. "Clean now. Enjoy."

The warden searched both of them from head to foot. "Strangers call," he shouted into the door.

"Opening for strangers," came the response after a moment. An older man, white at the temples, wraparound sunglasses worn against the glare outside, lowered a shotgun when he saw Ahn-Kha.

"Ankle! It's been years."

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net