“No. Luther and Bishop must meet. So much depends on it.”
“I don’t understand.” I feel lost all of a sudden, and I never feel that way around her. “I’ve got to do something. I just don’t have a clue what it is.”
Her grip tightens on my arm. “Come with me, then.”
“Where?”
“To the coast. You can stem the tide, before it’s too late.” She must be speaking in metaphor, because I seldom understand her when she does.
“I can’t leave them.”
“They will be fine. For now, the greatest danger lies on your western shore. Cain has committed a violent act against a member of the UW team. He has taken a life, and for this atrocity the UW will unleash its full vengeance upon the people of Cain’s Shipyard.”
I frown. “But…Cain is headed out here, to the Homeplace. Won’t he take his people with him?”
“Not all of them. He will take the strongest and leave the rest—the old, the weak, as well as his pregnant wives. They will be at the mercy of the UW when they land on shore.”
I back away from her. None of this sounds right. “He’s as protective of his people as Luther is—maybe even more so. There’s no way he would abandon—”
“Jackson has clouded his mind, Milton. Cain has become overwhelmed by evil.” She shakes her head at the limitations of human speech. “There is no other word for it that you would understand. His heart is consumed by darkness. Jackson will use him to destroy all of you!”
I back away another step. “I can’t go and help his people when I should be protecting my own—from him.”
Tears glisten in Julia’s eyes. “All of them are your people, Milton. Can’t you see that? You must protect them from themselves.”
“Why me?” I’m being pulled in three directions at once. I’m only one man—gifted with superhuman abilities, sure, but I’m limited to being in one place at a time. I can’t possibly protect Luther and his people, Margo and the UW team, as well as Cain’s abandoned followers. “Can’t you help those people? Why does it have to be me?”
“You have faced him before,” she says. “He cannot touch you. He has sworn it, and so it must be.”
“Jackson?”
“He manifests himself to Cain as Gaia, mother of the earth. But to you, he would appear as you remember him.”
Not a pleasant thought.
“Gaia, huh?” I frown at that. “Some kind of goddess?”
Jackson never was a drag queen, as far as I know. But I have to remember it’s not really Jackson, just as the woman before me isn’t really Julia. They’re spirits physically manifesting themselves so I can interact with them. As bizarre as that is.
She takes my hands in hers. “Will you come with me? We haven’t much time. But if we hurry, you can return to your people before Cain and his entourage arrive. He is not nearly as fleet of foot as the warriors he sent ahead.”
Everything about this is so sudden: her appearance after weeks of being absent, the news about Jackson/Gaia, and now this plea for me to intervene—to rescue Cain’s people from an impending onslaught of UW troops. Why do I have to be the one to save the day?
The truth is, no matter how heroic my deeds may seem to others, they never come close to changing the way I see myself. I can’t do anything to make up for the past. I’ll never find sweet redemption after what I did in the bunker so long ago.
I was a killer. Saving lives now won’t change that.
But looking into Julia’s eyes makes anything seem possible. She loves me, this strange spirit I can never hope to understand. She believes in me. And during these recurring moments of indecision and low self-esteem, her trust is all I need to make up my mind.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go.”
We take to the skies together, hand in hand, the golden aura of dawn’s approach warming our backs and casting the landscape before us in stark relief against storm clouds gathering over the brackish sea. The air, chilled by the night, rushes over us and whips Julia’s hair back from her brow like a glittering mane. She smiles at me, and I wink at her behind my dusty goggles. She doesn’t wear any, doesn’t need them, barely blinking in the cold that would have shivered my eyeballs in their sockets.
Without a word, she points out the mass of figures moving below, heading east. Cain and his people—it has to be. I bank left and hurl myself upward in a steeper trajectory. The last thing I need is a bullet in the gut from an overzealous member of Cain’s tribe. Julia matches my course and speed. Together we pass over the remaining kilometers of sand and ash until we reach rolling mounds and windswept dunes. Eventually they flatten to welcome the poisoned, frothing ocean waves that break onto shore.
Julia points again, this time at a lone figure standing on the seashore a couple hundred meters to the south of Cain’s Shipyard, beyond a hill of grey sand and scattered debris. I give her a thumbs-up to show I understand, and we make our descent, dropping to the sand within fifty meters of where the man stands, oddly out of place.
“Impressive,” Julia remarks after my landing. Of course she remembers my fledgling attempts that would send me flailing across the ground like a broken bird.
“Lots of practice.” Barely an extra step this time before I’ve regained my balance. I turn my attention to the figure before us, a man who appears to be reclining at an odd angle on a pair of iron poles sunk deep into the wet sand. Has he fallen asleep out here? “Who’s this?”
Her expression clouds. “Come and see.”
She leads me to the corpse—for that’s what it is, the body of a man staked into the ground, two rods crossing through his flesh to form a large X. Judging by his thermal bodysuit, he was a member of the UW team.
I can’t help wincing at the sight. I’ve seen more than my share of death—been the cause of a lot of it—but what happened to this man was brutal. It shows no respect for his dignity, much less his life.
“Did Jackson—?”
“He cannot harm your kind in this way.” She shakes her head. “He can only influence those he’s deceived to do such things for him.”
“Cain.”
Julia’s silence is confirmation enough.
“What the hell is he thinking? Does he want all-out war?” I turn toward the sea where the Argonaus sits in the distance.
They will have already seen this man’s body. They’ve probably recorded images to send back to their superiors in Eurasia and are now awaiting orders. It doesn’t take much imagination to guess what those orders will be: terminate all hostiles with extreme prejudice.
But from what I’ve observed—hovering above the bridge of the Argonaus in the dead of night and listening in on conversations among the senior officers—Captain Mutegi is a far cry from the hot-headed, bloodthirsty military stereotype popularized by the Sector rebels decades ago. The same goes for the members of the UW team I’ve met. Either the United World military has grown softer and hopefully wiser over the years, or these people are exceptions to the rule. Regardless, Mutegi seems to have a level head on his shoulders, and he won’t act rashly at the sight of this heinous crime.
I hope.
“We should bury him. Now. We can’t leave him out here like this. The sun—” I move to pull the body down from the iron stakes. Lengths of rebar, by the looks of them. “Anytime you feel like lending a hand...” I grunt, hugging the body.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t be much help,” Julia apologizes. “I cannot interact with humans who can’t see me.”
“Because he’s dead.”
“Even if he were alive. He was not open to the spirit world as you and Daiyna are.”
“How would you know that?” I frown at the mention of Daiyna’s name. Just as Margo surmised, all is not well back at the Homeplace, and Daiyna has caused most of the discord, from what I can tell. “Were you with them—the crew, before Margo found them?”
Julia nods. “This one was full of anger and fear.” She holds an open hand toward the dead man. “There
was no way for me to reach him. He died acting rashly. If I didn’t know better, I would say Jackson had influenced him, too.”
I turn my attention to the iron rods planted into the sand. The body won’t be going anywhere until they’re dug up. I’m not about to desecrate the man’s remains in order to tear him free.
“What about the woman and the other men—their leader, Bishop?”
“The sergeant is the only one among them open to my presence.”
“You revealed yourself to him?” I feel a bitter surge of jealousy. I don’t like it, but I can’t help it. Gritting my teeth, I dig at the damp, hard-packed sand around the rebar with my hands. “How’d he take it?”
“He could not see. Something was wrong with his helmet. But he heard me, though he could not believe what he was hearing.” She sounds amused.
“What did you do? Show up as his girlfriend or something?”
“His daughter. And then his wife.”
I can feel her eyes on me as I busy myself with the sand.
“The man is motivated by love. He wishes only to see his family again.” She pauses. “The team was attacked by daemons. I had to intervene.”
“You must really think they’re important, these UW people.”
“The United World government does not own James Bishop. They are using him. If he were to become an ally—”
“Why are you so interested?” I stop digging and look up at her. My heart’s beating as fast as it does during flight. “Why the hell do you care about any of this—about us? What are we to you?”
She blinks at me as her brow creases. “Milton—”
I stand, abandoning the corpse. “Show me.” I advance on her. “Show me what you looked like to him.”
“Milton, it doesn’t work like that. You know—”
“I said show me.” I grip her by the forearms. She doesn’t struggle.
“Why are you—?”
“Do it now!”
“Or what?” Jackson’s voice behind me sends an oily chill up the back of my neck. “You’ll kill her all over again?”
I release Julia and whirl with fists clenched to face this specter from my past. But I have no words as I stare up at the large bearded man. So I return to the sand instead.
“What are you doing with that thing?” Jackson smirks at the corpse.
“Cleaning up after you,” Julia says.
“Hey, I didn’t do this. I gave Milton’s people my word. No more interfering.”
I remain silent, digging both hands with renewed vigor. Part of me almost believes if I ignore Jackson, he’ll go away. But most of me knows better.
“Where’s your dress?” I mutter without looking up.
Jackson chuckles drily. “You’ve been telling tales out of school, my dear.”
“Only the truth,” Julia replies.
“As you see it.”
“You have set yourself up as an object of their worship—”
“I’ve given them hope,” he counters.
“Like this?” I gesture at the dead body. “You know what it will bring.”
Jackson smiles coldly. “Your kind knows only destruction. If you remember, I gave you the choice to end their misery, once and for all. But you chose life.” He laughs, and there is no mirth in his tone—only malice. “Let’s see what your species does with it!”
“You want them to destroy themselves,” Julia says.
“I want them to do what comes naturally. They had their time on this earth, and they squandered it. They destroyed us all, everything we ever knew. They should have exterminated themselves in the process.” He folds his brawny arms and shrugs. “I’m just allowing them to fulfill their destiny.”
“Through deceit.” She’s never backed down from him, and she isn’t now. “You manipulate them and lie to them, pretending to have powers you’ve never possessed. If you manifested yourself in a form more in keeping with your goals—”
“You’d have me show up as what? A devil?”
“If the hoof fits.”
I’ve got the iron bars free of the hard-packed sand, and I give the skewered body a slight push, sending it over backward where it falls with a puff of dust. I tug out each of the bloodstained rods, pulling them free of the corpse and sending them skidding across the sand.
“So nothing’s really changed.” I don’t look at either one of them. “After all we went through before, everything you put me through. We’re right back where we started. You want us to live.” I nod toward Julia as I dig with my hands, enlarging the pit to make room for the soldier’s body. “And you want us to die—only you’re not acting against us directly this time around.” I glance up at Jackson with contempt. “You’re pitting us against each other instead. So that in the end, none of us will survive.” I shake my head at the insanity of it.
Julia kneels beside me. “You have changed immensely, Milton. Just think back to the person you were a year ago, and compare that to the man you are now. You have earned Luther’s complete trust. He sends you to scout for your people, and he makes decisions that affect all of their lives based on your word alone. Just last night, you saved every member of that United World team—”
“A reprieve.” Jackson scoffs. “Their days are numbered.”
“If you have your way,” Julia allows. “But Milton has stopped you before. He will do it again.”
The weight of her expectations sits squarely on my shoulders.
“Maybe he doesn’t want to be your messiah. Have you ever considered that? It’s just as likely he’ll crumble under the pressure, and everything will go exactly as I’ve planned.” Jackson nods with complete confidence. “The humans used to play a game of strategy called chess. What you’re doing is planning your tactics around a single piece, pinning all your hopes for humankind on Milton, a fractured soul. But I’ve already looked ahead, three or four moves down the line, and there’s no chance you’re going to beat me. Because I’ve learned my lesson, and I don’t have my entire strategy based on a single man or woman. This time, I’m coming from all angles: Cain’s people, Eden, the dissention in Luther’s own camp.” He shakes his head. “You won’t be able to stop me.”
For once, he doesn’t sound arrogant. He’s merely stating the facts. Nothing Julia can say will change matters. It only makes sense that this time around, he would have planned for every contingency.
“You will be stopped,” she says without reservation. “They don’t want what you want. Cain’s people, Luther’s, the UW—even the daemons you made to feed on human flesh. Not one of them wants to die. They have the same survival instinct ingrained in them as we do.”
Jackson shrugs. “And blinded by their survival instincts, they will annihilate each other. It has happened before. It will happen again.”
The ash and sand at his feet suddenly open like a mouth ready to consume him. Laughing like a maniac, he drops into the earth as two slobbering daemons charge through the space where he stood just a moment ago. They seem to have appeared out of the air itself. Bulbous yellow eyes straining against lidless sockets, they fall upon me with daggers raised, knocking me over, all three of us tumbling with a cloud of ash into the pit I was digging.
Julia cries out in alarm, but there’s no reason she should be frightened for me. Even caught off guard, I’m too fast for these creatures.
In a split-second or two, I use the first daemon’s blade on the second, then return the favor, slitting their throats to release the thick, foul-smelling sludge that passes for their blood. I leave them twitching in the pit and climb out, wiping my hands on my dusty trousers.
“Well, that was unexpected.”
“Are you all right?” Julia says.
I hold out a hand to halt her advance. “Fine.”
“Milton—”
“You’re right. I’ve changed. I’ve had a lot of time to think about things while you’ve been gone, and I’ve realized something. We don’t need any spirits of the earth. Jackson—whatever he really is
—or you, either.” I shake my head, unable to meet her gaze. She looks too much like Julia, and right now she’s grief-stricken. “Thanks for the superhuman abilities and everything. They really do come in handy. But we can take it from here. We don’t need your guidance anymore.”
I drag the lifeless daemons out of the pit and kneel to resume digging. Another meter or so should be deep enough to bury the mutilated soldier.
“If this is what you want…” Julia already sounds distant.
As does the report of heavy artillery—after the dune beside me explodes on impact. I reel to look back at the Argonaus as another shell plows into the beach, sending sand and ash sky high. A sudden alarm wails from Cain’s compound on the north side of the dunes, and a ragged voice screams at me through the smoke.
“You there! Come inside. You don’t want to die alone!”
17 Tucker
18 Months After All-Clear
It’s no secret that Daiyna wants me dead—along with everybody else from Eden. And from the sound of things, she’s got more than a few supporters on her side of the fence. Luther did well assigning Samson the mighty cyborg as my personal bodyguard.
“Any chance I can get this stuff off me?” I gesture at my limbs protruding from the sand-colored tunic he gave me to wear. A filmy residue from the healing salve remains on my skin.
“Your chances of staying alive are better as long as I can see you,” Samson rumbles. He arrived at my bedside moments before to escort me to some meeting in the Homeplace’s great cavern. That’s how everybody refers to these caves, high up the side of a west-facing mountain ridge: the Homeplace. “Hurry up. Luther wants you there when the team arrives.”
I can’t help grimacing as I pull off the cloak from around my shoulders. The great cavern is close to the exterior, and this time of day, heat wafts in from the desert on dry winds. So I won’t need an extra layer. I take a moment to look over the scars healing along my abdomen and the gunshot I took to the chest, thanks to that trigger-happy sentry. Come to find out, the fellow is a card-carrying member of Daiyna’s Eden-hating faction. No surprise there.
Spirits of the Earth: The Complete Series: (A Post-Apocalyptic Series Box Set: Books 1-3) Page 63
