What Blood Leaves Behind (The Poison Rose) by Delany Beaumont Page A

from the bridge and again squealed to a stop — the square someone wanted me brought to. I couldn’t see much beyond the center of the open space where the bonfire was already roaring.
    The cage was taken from the truck and carried past the fire. The warmth of the flames intoxicated me and I wanted to crawl up close. I felt so weary, so lifeless. The cage was taken farther from the fire than I wanted and set on top of a piece of sculpture made to look like the base of a broken white column.
    A tarp was thrown over the top of the cage like I was a bird meant to go to sleep for the night. There were shouts, running footsteps, the crackle and hiss of the flames. Then the drumming started, ragged and uncertain at first but building in intensity. The boombox was switched on and someone ripped the tarp away.
    Dancers like black shadows, weaving their way through the pulsing glow of the firelight.
    Howling, wailing, maniacal laughter, as if the long-dead residents of an old lunatic asylum have come back to life.
    A dark silhouette presses itself against the bars of my cage and screams right in my face. I shut my eyes so I can’t see its features.
    I try to scrunch down into nothing. I would disappear if I could. Even though I’m shaking, trembling, unable to keep still, there’s a numbness creeping over me. My thoughts are slowing. It’s too much. Too much to see, too much to hear. I wonder if the purpose of all this is to drive me insane.
    The inky, limber shapes of the dancers throw themselves about, twirl apart and slam against each other, working themselves up into a convulsive frenzy. They aren’t really moving to the beat of the drums or the screech and thud of the electronica, they’re just shaking uncontrollably, like they’re having seizures.
    But the strangest thing I see, framed against the light of the bonfire, are two of these creatures slow dancing. Oblivious to all the others. Pressed tight together, like the dancing is just an excuse for them to grope each other.
    It’s the others, the normal-looking ones, the Jendras and Williams, who pound the drums, keep beating out a ragged rhythm, trying to compete with the blare of the boombox.
    I close my eyes and concentrate on the drumming, using it to drown out the shrieks of the wraiths. I slip back to the memory of a Native American ceremony I saw as a child on a school field trip. I can see myself as a little girl, sitting on a bench in a smoky longhouse while dancers in raven and salmon masks whirl by.
    Then, so abruptly it makes me jump, the noise of the boombox is cut. The sound of the drumming follows, dying away, a few erratic beats thumped out here and there until the drummers have all risen to their feet. Others from different parts of the square, from farther back in the dark, move forward to join them.
    The shadowy dancers have stopped dancing. They are right beside me, pacing like wolves around all sides of the cage.
    They press in closer. I can’t tell how many there are. When a gust of wind blows in my direction, I get a whiff of that strange smell I caught before while riding in the van, a mix of copper or burnt wiring with something spoiled, rotting. But the smell blends with smoke blown my way from the bonfire and I might just be imagining it.
    Some of the creatures carrying torches raise them up high, turning their faces away from the flames as if holding the flickering light so close hurt their eyes. I can’t see much of them, of their flesh. They all wear much the same costume, baggy black pants and black jackets with hoods, shiny black boots. Their faces are pale, their eyes dark.
    They’re not like us.
    The thought fills my mind.
    These are the Black Riders, the rulers of this city, now celebrating before the fire. They seem more like wraiths than ever—spirits, phantoms. I both want to and am terrified of seeing them up close but I’m certain of one thing— they’re not like me . I feel it in my bones that they don’t look, move,