Tribe Read online

  TRIBE

  By Jeremy Robinson

  Description:

  For Henry, a seventeen-year-old who feels no fear, the day starts like any other—homeless and alone on the streets of Boston. For Sarah, a twenty-year-old college dropout, it’s an early morning serving donuts and coffee to commuters at North Station. Fate brings them together at the scene of a bank robbery, which they foil together, along with a mysterious and wealthy woman named Helen, who offers to reward them for their bravery.

  But before they can reach Helen’s penthouse, they are assaulted by men and women from all walks of life, including police officers. Helen displays impressive fighting skills, fending off the attacks, allowing Henry and Sarah to make their escape—but they are spotted and pursued by the violent cult, out for Helen’s blood…and now theirs.

  Racing through the streets of Boston, Sarah and Henry are propelled into a strange and ancient underworld where the impossible is real, where the old world still lives, and where the gods still walk among us. As the pair wages war against the killers hunting them, they discover the truth about who their deceased parents were, and that their lives could be far more exceptional than either believed possible…if they can survive the day.

  With TRIBE, New York Times bestselling author, Jeremy Robinson, brings mythology to the modern world, combining his trademarked fast-paced action and well developed characters, and taking them to new levels of craziness. It’s 300, John Wick, and Wonder Woman rolled into a new kind of literary insanity.

  TRIBE

  Jeremy Robinson

  Older e-reader? Click here.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ALSO by JEREMY ROBINSON

  For Boston

  I take it easy on you in this one...

  That’s not true. Get ready for another beating!

  Prologue

  He wondered how many of his flock would survive the next few days. When he looked out at the gathering that had no racial, social, or financial boundaries and saw only earnest eyes looking back, he felt no concern about the risks they would face. Only pride. If they died at Her hands, in service of the returning glory, their lives would have—perhaps for the first time—true value.

  “Blessed be the razor, kopis,” he said, voice monotone, echoing off the old brick walls. “May it cut clean and deep.”

  “Blessed be,” a chorus replied.

  “Blessed be the needle, dory. May it extend judgement to all the Earth.”

  “Blessed be.”

  “Blessed be the Forgotten One, beloved by all. May she be restored to her rightful throne.”

  “Blessed be.”

  The man, wearing a thousand-dollar business suit under his ruby red cloak, lifted his arms. The shadow cast by the flickering candlelight resembled twin snakes, writhing in anger. “This is our sacred bond. To not just witness the ascent, but to bring it about and bathe in the divination. No matter the cost. Blessed be.”

  “Blessed be.”

  “We have been numbered?” the leader asked, brown eyes hidden in shadow, pleased grin for all to see.

  “We have,” an elder replied from the ancient hall’s locked doorway. At sixty-five, he was the oldest among them. “Three hundred in total.”

  “Blessed be.”

  “Blessed be.”

  The leader reached into his robe and felt the blade. He removed it. The plastic wrapping that kept it sterile crinkled in his fingers. The sound threatened the reverent mood, but the scalpel was essential for what came next. In the days to come, every man and woman was needed. Infection would not do.

  He unwrapped the scalpel, sharp enough to cut without pain, and held it to his left palm.

  Then he recited:

  “We first, a crown of low-growing lotus,

  “Having woven will place it on a shady plane-tree.”

  The leader lifted a lotus flower—pink super-nova petals—woven into a crown of vines, and placed it atop a skeletal plane tree growing from the dirt floor. The tree, framed by grow lamps, lived a meager life, and yet clung to it.

  “First from a palm of stalwart dedication, blood,

  “Drawing we will let it drip beneath the shady plane-tree.”

  The leader pulled the scalpel over his palm. Precise pressure and a steady hand ensured that blood would be drawn, but no scar would remain. He pinched the flesh, drawing blood. The drop stretched down, reaching, desperate, and then—free. It fell to the soil, nutrition for the nearly dead plant.

  “Letters will be carved in the bark, so that someone passing by,

  “May read in Her tongue: ‘Reverence and remember me. I am the Forgotten’s tree.’”

  With a skilled hand, the leader reached out and carved a single word up the tree’s length, careful again to not cut too deeply. The others watched, so silent the hiss of candle flames could be heard.

  He rubbed his bloodied hand against fresh letters, smearing dark red into the grooves. A finishing touch.

  Then he leaned back.

  The word twisted up the trunk, the penmanship elegant, the letters perfectly crafted, but legible only to the man who had carved them.

  ξεχασμένος

  “It is done,” he said.

  “It is done,” they repeated.

  The reverberation of so many voices confined in stone shook his chest, and his heart. Emotion threatened to spill out, so he stepped aside, turning his shaded face, lest they see and assume weakness where there was only determination.

  “You may begin,” he said, watching as one by one, men and women stepped up, cut the flesh of their choosing and offered a single drop of blood to the Forgotten’s altar.

  She will be restored, he thought. He hoped. Blood would be spilled. Life would be lost. But there was nothing he wouldn’t do to restore her, as his eternal queen.

  1

  “What do you want?” Sarah said, voice iced in impatience.

  The man didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.

  She didn’t have a preference. She’d repeat the interaction a hundred more times that day. Thousands in the next year.

  “Plain cruller,” the man said.

  Sarah raised an eyebrow. She didn’t care what her customers bought. Didn’t care if they liked it, threw it in the trash, or shoved it where the sun didn’t shine. But a plain cruller was an insult to donuts. They shelved just two plain crullers a day, and at the end of most days threw them in the trash.

  Her disapproval caught the man off guard and snapped him out of whatever mental track he’d been following. “What?”

  “A plain cruller?” she asked. “You wan
t a plain coffee with that?”

  “Milk, actually.”

  Her snort was so sudden that the man flinched.

  He raised his hands. “What?”

  She plucked a sheet of waxed paper from the box, turned to the donut display, and grasped a chocolate glazed donut. She held it up for the man to see. “You know what they say. Once you go black…” She gave her eyebrows a double-tap raise, and the man an undeserved smile. The cruller dropped in a Dunkin’ Donuts brown paper bag. She folded the top. Placed it on the counter.

  “That’s not what I asked for,” the man pointed out.

  “But it’s what you got,” she said. “Time to put on your big boy pants.” She pointed to the cooler. “But you can still grab a moo-juice. As long as you have chocolate, milk is acceptable.”

  The customer paused, blinking like a cyborg trying to work out a problem.

  Then he smiled.

  Aww, damnit, she thought. This happened every time her perfected Bostonian attitude faltered, and good humor seeped through.

  The customer was mid-twenties, at least five years her senior. He wore a nice suit, had a head of hair like a manicured suburban lawn, and since he got off the North Shore train, probably lived someplace affluent, like Manchester-by-the-Sea. Not a bad catch for a college drop-out with little hope for a future beyond customer service. But hell, the man ordered a plain cruller. There was no way in hell he was her type.

  He’d clearly put himself into a chocolate and milk metaphor, with him being the milk—obviously—and with her being the chocolate because of her dark black skin.

  “Four-fifty,” Sarah said, hoping the man’s confidence was short-lived.

  He put a five on the counter, still smiling. “Keep the change.”

  She rang up the order, put the five in the till, retrieved two quarters and put them on the counter with his receipt. “Can’t take tips.”

  “Really? They can’t be paying you enough,” he said, leaning on the counter, not going anywhere despite the queue forming behind him.

  “There’s a line,” she pointed out.

  “Maybe I want more chocolate donuts,” he said, feigning a look at the menu. “Donut holes.”

  She clenched her teeth and decided to let it pass. This was her fault. “They’re called Munchkins, and if you want some, you need to order them now.”

  At the back of the line, a young face leaned out, staring at the customer. He couldn’t be more than sixteen, but the look in his eyes said those sixteen years hadn’t been easy. The bruise on his cheek said the same.

  Sarah figured he’d slip back inside the line and squelch his anger like a New Englander, storing it up to use on the winter snow. Instead he stepped out of line and approached the customer.

  This will be fun, she thought.

  The young man ignored the customer and addressed her. “Are your double chocolates honey-dipped, or that plain shit?”

  “Honey-dipped,” she replied. “I’m not a Philistine. They have chocolate Jimmies, too.”

  A hint of a smile. “I’ll take—”

  “Kid,” the customer said. “We’re having a conversation.”

  “You were crashing and burning, dude.”

  “Hey,” the old man at the front of the remaining line said—a real Boston roughneck. “I’m next.”

  “If you had the balls to move me,” the kid said, “you’d have moved this asshole.” He hitched a thumb at the customer.

  The customer at the counter gripped the kid’s green Poison T-shirt. Sarah vaguely recognized the image and the logo as belong to an 80s hair band. It was just one of the many things about the kid that seemed off kilter…and kind of cool. “I’m about done with your—”

  Sarah reached out and clutched the customer’s wrist, the muscles in her forearm twitching with tension as the PSI increased. She didn’t put any thought into the action. She shouldn’t have done it. Would lose her job over it, if the man complained, and guys like this always complained. But it was too late now. She was committed.

  So she squeezed.

  The customer winced, but didn’t release the kid.

  “Let go,” the customer told her.

  “Let him go,” Sarah countered. He was trying to hide his discomfort, but she knew he was in pain. Knew where the pressure point in his wrist was hidden. And knew she could squeeze harder than he could take. It’s what had gotten her in trouble. What had cost her the scholarship.

  “Don’t worry about it,” the kid told her. When she didn’t let go, he added. “Seriously.”

  Abandoning someone in need didn’t sit well with her, but there was something in the kid’s unflinching and unafraid manner that made her trust him. She released the customer, revealing a red handprint where she’d been squeezing.

  “You got this,” she told the kid.

  “Can I order?” the man in line asked, irritation growing and spreading through the rest of the line. “I got places to be.”

  “Pretty sure, I’ve already lost this job, so…” she pinched her fingers together and pursed her lips.

  Bolstered by the audience, the customer gripped the kid’s shirt with both hands. If he could remove the kid, and get the line moving again, he’d be a hero to those waiting, and he’d salvage his wounded ego. He was about to speak, but the kid beat him to it.

  “Do you know what an amygdala is?” the kid asked.

  The customer squinted.

  “It’s the fear center of the human brain.” The kid’s eyes remained locked onto the customer’s, unblinking.

  The man blinked. “So?”

  The kid smiled, Hannibal Lecter looking over a feast of human organs. “I don’t have one.”

  The customer’s face fell, growing pale with the realization that he might have met his match—twice—in the past minute.

  “I’m also impatient,” the kid said.

  Though the movement was slow, the kid’s hand slipping into his pants pocket was impossible to miss.

  While time progressed at its normal speed for Sarah, she could see the look of slow motion panic in the customer’s eyes, envisioning the myriad of paths his day could take and whether or not he wanted to consider any that ended with him in jail, or the hospital.

  He released the kid, took a step back, looked ready to get in a last word, and then thought better of it. In five steps, he was lost in the rush of North Station’s morning commuters.

  The kid took his hand out of his pocket, holding a one-dollar bill.

  “Well played,” the roughneck said, genuinely impressed by the kid’s bluff.

  Sarah didn’t think it was a bluff. The kid either had a big pen in his pocket, or a switchblade.

  The kid slapped the one on the counter. “All I got.”

  She quickly bagged two double-chocolate frosted donuts. She handed the bag to the kid, and motioned to the customer’s milk. “Have at it.”

  The kid took the milk, paused, and then took the bagged cruller as well. Then he spun on his heels, and without a word of thanks, strolled off toward the exit.

  Everyone’s got places to be, Sarah thought. Except me.

  She turned to the roughneck, about to reassert her practiced indifference and ask what he wanted. But there was a presence behind her in the kiosk, large and ominous. For a moment, she thought the customer had returned, but then she smelled tacos—the scent of aged human body odor—and she knew that her mountain of a boss was standing behind her.

  Sarah turned to face him.

  “I saw,” he said. “And heard.”

  Sarah frowned, untied her Dunkin’ Donuts apron, and hung it up. “Sorry.”

  “I don’t blame you,” he said. “I just can’t support you. Need the job.”

  “Makes two of us,” Sarah said.

  “Then today’s not your lucky day,” he said, holding up her enveloped paycheck. “I’ll mail you the final one, but it won’t be much. Just three days.”

  She took the envelope and exited the kiosk. “Thanks.”
/>
  “You’re a good kid,” he said. “Try to stay out of trouble and you’ll make it.”

  Make what? She thought, storming away, anger brewing. She had potential. Everyone told her. But then everyone bailed on her the moment she overstepped. Story of my life, she thought.

  Her parents died when she was ten. Thought it was a good idea to drink and drive their way into the Charles River. The city bailed on her, placing her into a series of foster homes until she was eighteen. Despite all that, she’d managed to score a scholarship to B.U., thanks to her prowess as a wrestler. They had Olympic hopes for her. But a few broken bones later—not hers—she was off the team, out of the school, and on the streets. A black kid in Boston with no family, no dreams, and now no job.

  And I didn’t even grab a donut on my way out, she thought, heading for the bank.

  2

  The blinking orange hand turned solid, the luminous countdown beside it disappearing after hitting zero. Henry’s right foot hit the curb, then his left stepped into the street, as traffic pushed into the intersection.

  In his ears, tearing through a bulbous pair of wireless headphones, was C.C. Deville’s high-pitched guitar solo in Talk Dirty to Me. Henry’s first foster-father was an idiot with poor taste in mistresses. The one good thing he did was introduce Henry to the band Poison. Henry wasn’t a child of the 80s—not even close—or a fan of Glam, long hair, or tight leather pants, but there was something about the music that made him happy when little else did.

  He bopped his head to the music streaming from his cellphone. The city around him didn’t exist. The street into which he had stepped was as far away as the moon. There was the music, the donuts in his hands, and his destination. And when the donuts were gone, he’d resume singing along with Bret Michaels, for all to hear.

  Henry stepped into traffic.

  No horns sounded. Because no one saw him. Not just because of his wiry build, but because who in their right mind would step into a busy Boston intersection? Beantown drivers maneuvered through the streets like they were in a race with every other driver on the road. And it wasn’t like a professional NASCAR event. More like a post-apocalyptic death-race where the prize was your life, and losing meant being fed to a mutated tiger.