Would you sacrifice everything for the child?
She screamed as the voice returned unbidden, throwing herself back and forth against the door, which only budged an inch. Through the gap she could see the flames lapping at Mare’s smoldering back, issuing thin wisps of deep black smoke.
“Jill,” Adam said from behind her.
She whirled and screamed into his face, pounding her fists against his chest before finally collapsing into his arms.
“It’s okay, Jill,” he whispered into her ear. “Everything is going to be all right.”
* * *
Missy slid past them against the wall and peered through the vertical opening. She already knew what she would see, but nothing could have ever prepared her for it. Random patches of fire burned from boiling puddles amidst the rubble, a trail leading to a crisp ebon corpse leaning over another, now little more than a skeleton still grasping the metal pole. Blazing red lava bubbled out of the top of the hollow pole, draining in ribbons down the sides and over the knobby fingers that fortunately had never felt its heat.
She started to sob uncontrollably, wanting to bury her face in her hands, but unable to look away from what had once been her baby brother. It had been her job to protect him, but instead, Mare had always been the one to protect her. From their father. From heartache. And now, from death. She mewled his name over and over, never again to hear his sarcastic and often embarrassing quips. Never again to see his crooked nose or the way the corners of his smile lifted when he was preparing to be mischievous.
Her baby brother was gone. The child who had held her hand when they buried her mother and who had been there every time she needed him, never would be again.
Her baby brother, her best friend in a world that had tried to beat the life out of them both, was dead.
She turned away and found Jill waiting, and together they embraced, both racked with tears, shoulders shuddering.
* * *
Adam couldn’t bear to watch. It hurt far too much. He felt as though his intestines had been ripped right out. He had loved Mare, too. And his sacrifice, especially the manner in which he had given his life, had been truly beautiful. He had forfeited everything for them. Everything he had and everything he would ever be. He had traded his life for theirs, and there was nothing they could ever do to repay such a gift. No way of satisfactorily honoring him. In the Reserves, he had watched so many people die such horrible deaths, but never with so much dignity or grace. Knowing he would never be able to see Mare again summoned the depths of sadness, but right now he needed to be strong. He had to step up and lead them before they all fell to pieces, himself included.
Sliding past the girls, their combined pain threatening to kill his resolve, he walked through the smoke and grabbed the door, rocking it back and forth until he was able to slide it away.
A gust of the charnel wind blew into his face as he stepped out and walked over to where he had left his motorcycle on its side. Tugging off the cord that restrained the cargo, he pulled out the bundled blanket and emptied its contents onto the ground. He spread the blanket as wide as he could and draped it over the charcoaled remains, smothering the smoke and dwindling flames.
“Thank you, Mare,” he said, struggling to hold back his tears. “We will always cherish your memory, and the gift you have given us.”
Evelyn’s hand slid into his. He turned, buried his face in her neck, and cried, squeezing her tightly until he was able to regain control.
“I love you,” he whispered into her ear. “I need you to know that. It can never be said enough.”
“I love you, too,” she said. “With all of my heart.”
* * *
Ray could only stand there, balancing precariously on the uneven piles of fractured concrete, holding Jake’s hand. He was unable to maintain the kind of concentration required to see, but he didn’t need to, didn’t want to. There was no denying Mare’s fate. He could clearly smell the burnt flesh. It was hard enough holding himself together as it was. Were he able to see the sorrow and pain on the faces of the others, he would surely have lost the façade of control he maintained over his emotions. He needed to be a rock for Jake, though it was tearing him up inside.
It probably would have worried him more to have seen the expression on Jake’s face. The boy was markedly detached, wearing a mask of stoicism. Granted, tears swelled from the corners of his eyes, but his affect was bland, his face washed of all but an uneasy understanding, as though the event had come as no surprise, as though he’d seen it before.
“We need to keep moving,” Ray said, thankful he couldn’t see the reactions to his harsh words. “Phoenix is still somewhere out there.”
There was no immediate reply, and he worried he had spoken too soon, but this was by no means the end of their journey. Mare had bought them a temporary stay of execution with his life. They still needed to face their adversary, against whom they might not be so lucky.
“He’s right,” Adam said, looking to each of the others in turn. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“We can’t just leave him,” Jill sobbed. “Not like this.”
Adam walked over to her and took her by the hands. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the contact. He held her burned hand up where he could see it. The skin was still swelling, ballooning with pus. Her fingertips were black and crusty, the seared nails beginning to peel away.
“Jesus,” he whispered. It reminded him of the little girl in Iran, whom Mûwth had been able to cure by touch, but he had ultimately been unable to save. The memory caught him off guard. That little girl was the only reason he was still alive, while his fellow soldiers had never made it out of the Ali Sadr caves. Kotter, Thanh, Keller. Christ, Keller had been transformed into War. What had happened to the others, what had they become? Were they still—?
Smoke rose from his fingers were he touched Jill’s hand. He gasped, unable to feel his digits, unable to pry them from her flesh. The blisters popped, the pasty contents spilling down the back of her hand. The thin epidermis peeled back and fell off like the outer layer of an onion. The coarse black skin turned to ash and crumbled away. It was the exact same miracle he had watched Mûwth perform.
Adam could only stare. There were no words for what he was feeling. His thoughts were an incomprehensible jumble.
Jill pulled her hands away and flexed her fingers.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please try Mare.”
“Jill…”
“Please, Adam. You have to try.”
Adam nodded and walked as though in a trance to where the blanket covered the bodies. What’s happening to me? he thought as he pulled back a corner and closed his hand over the parallel bones in Mare’s skeletal forearm. They were still hot.
He waited.
Nothing.
He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate all of his energy into his hand. When he opened them again, nothing had changed.
“I’m sorry, Jill,” he whispered. “I am so sorry.”
Finally, he removed his hand and covered Mare back up. There was nothing left to heal, if that was even what he was now capable of doing.
Jill turned away, her momentary hopes dashed, and began to sob anew.
VII
THEY HAD LEFT HIM THERE. HER LOVE. HER LIFE. THEY HAD LEFT HIM LYING on the scorched ground beneath a ratty old blanket. No burial. No rites. Only the hard earth to hold him. That and the body of the demon from which he had saved them all. It wasn’t fitting. It wasn’t fair. He had given them everything, and they had abandoned him.
“This isn’t where he should be buried,” Adam had said. “I promise you, Jill. I promise. We’ll make sure he stays with us. Right there on the beach where he can be remembered and honored.”
She trusted Adam, but there were so many variables outside of his control. They still had yet to face evil on its own ground and there were no guarantees they would be making the return trip. The prospect of the first gust of wind tossing t
he blanket aside and exposing Mare to the elements haunted her. His bones slowly deteriorating to dust and blowing away, his skull sinking into the dirt, his eye sockets packed with mud and insects.
Jill screamed in rage and pain, but no one could hear her over the roar of the engines and the buzz of tires.
Her vision distorted by tears, she watched the black skyscraper rising menacingly ahead. The sun blazed behind and through the shattered windows, making it appear to be on fire. The colors of morning diffused into the sky, staining the sparse clouds in reds and golds that bled into the fading blue of night.
Soon it would all be over. One way or another, at least it would end.
Right now, Jill didn’t care how. The guilt was unbearable, the sense of loss crippling. It was she who had sent Mare to his death. It was her fault. She had chosen her life over his. No…she had chosen the life of their unborn child over both, and now she felt dead inside.
Would you sacrifice everything for the child?
And she had. She had sacrificed her whole world. Maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.
She was lagging behind, but even that didn’t matter. Let them all speed away from her. She had given enough. What more could she possibly do? Everyone she loved died anyway. Her friends. Her family. Mare. She was cursed, and all she could bring them when it mattered was pain and misfortune. Death.
No, she thought. Not everyone was dead. There was still the child. Hers and Mare’s. And that baby girl needed her mother—dear God, she had never thought of herself in those terms—now more than she ever would in her whole life. Not just in her life, but for her life. She needed to be born, to draw her fist breath, and she needed her mother to survive to do so. That was the best way to honor Mare, to thank him for her life, by bringing his child into the world.
She wiped the tears from her eyes and accelerated. She’d be damned if she was going to allow his sacrifice to be in vain. They had a child on the way, and that was the only thing that mattered. Her feelings were a luxury. There was her daughter to think about, and she would move heaven and earth to see her live.
By the time she caught up with Evelyn, they were nearly downtown, at the juncture of major thoroughfares that had collapsed and fallen to disarray. Even Missy, who still rode in the lead, had to slow to navigate the steeply slanted segments of the demolished overpass.
The city had been more than destroyed, it had been obliterated. Buildings had been converted to mounds of bricks and crumbled concrete several stories high, leaning away from the epicenter of the blast. Twisted girders stood from the jumbled remnants of the professional stadiums; apartment buildings had been all but vaporized. The ground had collapsed beneath, the blast zone a crater, the earth blackened by the atomic detonation indistinguishable from that scored by fire. Dust and ash billowed in rooster tails from their rear tires. The air grew cooler by the minute, the frigid breath of the grave. A fitting place to end their journey.
Adam tried to stay close to Missy, but with Ray on the seat behind him, their amassed weight unwieldy, they were unable to maneuver with the same litheness with which she was able to veer around ruptured segments of asphalt and strewn debris. She was already across the river by the time they reached it, a woman possessed. No matter how hard he pressed, he knew he was fighting a losing battle. He couldn’t let her reach the tower alone. It was suicide, and her blood would be on his hands.
“Wait!” he shouted, but she didn’t even look back. She hit the level street and rocketed toward the massive dark structure. “Missy! Wait!”
They couldn’t afford to race in heedlessly. They needed to be cautious. Carelessness would get them all killed. They would need their combined strength and courage. Together they might be able to stand, but apart they would be butchered. He glanced back before fording the bridge that had buckled down into the river. Evelyn wasn’t far behind, Jake’s wild hair flapping over her right shoulder. Jill had closed rank behind. He either needed to wait for them or try to catch Missy, and he was running out of time to decide.
Again he looked ahead to the skyscraper, which dominated the land like a nail driven into flesh. A shiver rippled down his spine and it was suddenly hard to breathe.
“Missy!” he screamed as she sped between two enormous mounds that had once been buildings, disappearing from sight.
He pounded the handlebars in frustration, but drove no farther.
“She’ll be okay,” Ray said into his ear, but his words were only for Adam’s benefit. He could have focused and tried to see what he could feel causing Adam to tense, but he didn’t want to. The air had chilled and it felt like night to him, though he knew the day was barely passing dawn. He didn’t need to see anything to know what was coming.
Adam could only shake his head. She wasn’t going to be okay. He had consigned her to her fate.
A fate he now feared they would all share.
VIII
MISSY FELT SMOTHERED, UNABLE TO DRAW A SINGLE DECENT BREATH. SHE tried desperately to deny the awful truth she could feel radiating from her marrow. Phoenix was dead. She just couldn’t bring herself to believe it, not without seeing it with her own eyes, not after already having to watch her baby brother die. There was no pain like that which she felt right now. She had been stripped of everything that mattered, everything on this earth that had meant anything.
She didn’t look back as she opened the throttle and sped down the street, weaving around gaping maws in the pavement and dodging stray bricks, the shadow of the tower now falling over her. The coldness intensified, but she was immune now, her face flushed with anger and despair, every muscle tensed. It didn’t matter if she left the others behind. Being with her was a death sentence. The farther she could get from them the better. At least maybe then they would have a slim chance of survival.
Tears dampened her cheeks and her chest heaved with the sobs she could no longer even try to contain. She screamed at random, cursing God, cursing life, cursing herself. Everything she loved. Gone. Everything. The only thought in her head was of finding Phoenix, refusing to admit that it would only be his physical remains. She needed to see him, knowing that once she did her journey would be at an end. Let the evil waiting for her do whatever it may from there.
Side streets flashed by, uneven trenches of rubble, without even drawing her eye. The foreboding building directly ahead was her only focus. That was where she would find Phoenix.
The hum of the motor echoed back at her from the ruins. Powdered debris blew across the asphalt. Nothing moved; not even the shadows shifted.
She finally reached a point where she had to slow, the larger toppled structures blocking more and more of the road. The rising sun glinted from the contorted metal and fused glass all around, highlighting the cloud of dust filling the streets.
The tower now dwarfed her, rising angrily into the sky, the road opening up before her. She gunned the bike with a squeal of rubber and raced heedlessly toward it.
Were she not so preoccupied with her pain, and had she not chosen that precise moment to push the engine, she would have heard the clamor of galloping hooves charging toward her, stampeding beneath drapes of human flesh, with shrouded riders clutching the obscene reigns on their backs. But she was oblivious, for atop a mound of ragged cement chunks and cracked bricks, a slant of light shone through the vacant windows of the skyscraper down onto a giant cross, upon which was draped a shadowed human form. Limp hair dangling against its chest. Unmoving body straining against its bonds, trying to slough free to the ground.
“Phoenix!” she cried as the nightmare riders closed off the street behind her, their steeds rising to their hind legs to strike at the sky.
Chapter 9
I
The Ruins of Denver, Colorado
THE DETERIORATING ROAD HAD FORCED MISSY TO SLOW, ALLOWING Adam the briefest of opportunities to gain ground on her, but now that he had reached the same haphazard bottleneck, he was losing what precious little distance he had closed. All he could see of
her now was a dark shock of hair appearing and disappearing through the uneven ruins as he wound through the wreckage, praying that he might catch her before she reached the black domicile. They couldn’t afford to speed carelessly into what was undoubtedly a trap. They needed to slow down and coordinate their approach. None of them knew what lie in wait for them, only that perhaps they would stand a chance with a measure of preparedness. Racing headlong into the enemy’s open arms was surely suicide.
The building’s shadow fell over him like a splash of frigid water. Every hair on his body tingled and stood erect. The time for planning was through. They had no choice now but to let the chips fall where they may. The battle was at hand.
Adam veered around a landslide of rubble and the final straightaway opened before him. Missy was now only a hundred yards ahead, hurtling toward the wide courtyard at the foot of the tower where he could see a tall cross staked into a large mound of rubble. If he had any hope of catching her, it was now or never.
The rear tire kicked as he pinned the gas, the scream of the engine echoing all around, the cycle darting forward—
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