Page 13 of Fable for the End of the World

“My sponsor,” I say, my voice a weak croak. “Who is it?”

But I already know.

“Account number 8148775617, Janina Soulis.”

The words should hit me like a blow to the head. Instead I just stand there behind the counter, staring blankly at the Mask. My brain is sparking like a cut wire. My throat is dry.

And then the Mask steps forward. All it takes is one swift movement and their fingers close around my upper arm. I don’t have the time, or the reflexes, to react. The Mask jerks me forward until I’m bent over the counter, knocking the breath out of me.

“Please,” I gasp. “Don’t—”

In the Mask’s other hand is something that looks like a syringe,only appallingly large, as wide around as my two fingers. Three needles protrude from its end, each one shiny and solid-looking and terrifying. The syringe is made of sleek metal, opaque, so I can’t even tell what’s inside.

“Your tracker will be inserted now,” the Mask says. “Hold still.”

All I can do is choke out a wordless protest, tears blurring my vision.

The Mask plunges the syringe into my throat and immediately the counter flies up at me. I hear the crack of my head against the wood, and then everything goes black.

Four

Melinoë

“Full name: Inesa Yael Soulis. Account number: 6415506781.Age: seventeen. Legal residence: Eighteen Little Schoharie Lane, Esopus Creek, Catskill County. Is there anything else?”

I stare at the girl’s picture on the holoscreen. It’s an older photo, probably self-taken, since the camera is angled slightly downward and the poor lighting makes everything look grainy. Still, I can make out a ripple of dark brown hair, wavy and casually messy. Full lips and thick brows. A mole under her left eye. The eyes are peculiar, requiring an extra moment’s attention. They’re a deep, murky color, and I can’t quite decide if they’re brown or green.

But it’s not worth mentioning. She looks nothing like my last target, and that’s what’s most important.

“Occupation?” I ask.

“She runs a taxidermy shop in Esopus Creek with her younger brother. Luka Elian Soulis, account number 43678812131.” Azrael puts another picture up on the holoscreen. Side by side, the siblings look like twins, with the same brown-green eyes and olive skin. ButLuka has a defiant slant to his gaze. Inesa looks cheerful, innocent.

I can’t stop the next thought that flashes through my mind:Just like a Lamb should.

“The brother,” I say. “He hunts?”

Azrael taps something else onto the screen. Photo after photo of Luka beside dead deer, dead rabbits, their bodies hung from tree branches in lifeless suspension, letting the blood from his kills drain out. But he doesn’t wear the kind of gloating smile that most hunters do when they pose with their prey—the ones who hunt for sport. I’ve seen enough already to know that for the Soulises, every dead deer is another day of food, hot water, electricity.

“By all accounts, the Soulis children are hardworking and well-respected in their community,” Azrael says. His tone is careful. He’s worried that if he humanizes the Lamb too much, I’ll get weak again. That I’ll balk at killing her. He taps to the next screen almost hesitantly.

There are pictures of Inesa standing at a worktable in a too-long apron, medical-grade gloves, and plastic goggles. Even under the goggles I can see the furrow of concentration in her brow. Clearly she’s not the indolent, surrendering type who usually ends up five hundred thousand credits in debt. The ones who are addicted to television or alcohol or sour green soda or greasy delivery food. There’s another story here, lurking under these photos and statistics. She must have a sponsor.

“The mother,” I say. “What does she do?”

Azrael doesn’t reply. Instead he taps through to another screen, which shows Janina Soulis’s account history. Her chargesfly past me: two hundred thirteen credits for an appointment with a neurologist. Another three hundred for a surgery consult. A monthlong prescription for pain pills that cost forty credits apiece. The doctor’s note reads that the pills are prescribed for patients who live withsevere and life-inhibiting levels of pain.

If Azrael wants me to be strong and heartless, I don’t know why he’s showing me this. “She’s sick?”

Peppered among the medical debts are the small, idiosyncratic indulgences I’ve come to expect. Eighty credits for top-of-the-line hair dye, jet-black. Peach-flavored detox tea. Boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts. Chenille slippers.

“Sick in the head,” Azrael says, tapping his own temple. “Convinced she has every disease and ailment under the sun.”

I wonder why none of the many doctors she’s seen have told her that. Maybe she’s gotten adept at tricking them. Or maybe they have no incentive to tell her the truth. It’s more profitable to treat someone for a disease they think they have than to cure them of an illness that never existed.

But there’s really no cure for her kind of sickness, anyway. The brain isn’t like other organs. You can’t suture its wounds and wait for new skin to grow. Even the scientists at Caerus don’t fully understand it. If they did, I wouldn’t feel my fingers start to shake when I look at the Lamb’s picture on the holoscreen. Inesa Yael Soulis.

She’s nothing to me. Nothing except a heat flash in the scope of my rifle. The hum of a tracker in my ear. The promise that I’ll go another cycle without being decommissioned.

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