Liselle crouched down, wiping a hand over the sand and dust and ash that covered the face of the stone. A piece had broken off. What was left was chipped at the edges, cracked down the middle when some disaster had struck. It might have been fire, the old tree burning until a branch broke. Liselle could imagine how it would have happened, the crackle of flames and then louder crack as the wood broke. She found the broken piece of the headstone, lifting it. Examining it.
If she put it back like so, it would make a rough rectangle. She placed the broken piece back on the rest of the stone, balancing it. She didn’t know why she took such care with it. It was just a piece of stone.
“It’s not just a piece of stone,” said the young woman next to her. Liselle didn’t know when Adalia had arrived. “It’s a headstone.”
“I don’t care what it’s called,” said Liselle, standing up in a rush.
“No, probably not,” said Adalia.
“I don’t care who’s under it,” said Liselle, brushing her hands clean of ash. Not all of it would come free, and her hands stayed black and gray in places. Dirt remained in the lines of her palms.
“I wasn’t talking about who’s under it,” said Adalia.
“Good,” said Liselle. “It’s done now.”
“Yes,” said Adalia. Her green hair blew about her face in a rush of wind that smelled of smoke and burning flesh. “You did it.”
“Yes,” said Liselle. “I did it. It’s what I was made for.”
“Do you know what he was made for?” said Adalia. The woman with the green hair crouched down, started working at the grooves on the tombstone with the end of her sleeve. Getting the dirt and grime out of what was written there.
“I don’t care,” said Liselle.
“Then walk away,” said Adalia. “If you don’t care, walk away. When you leave here, it’ll all be over. I won’t be here. You’ll go back to wherever you came from. And he,” Adalia touching the top of the stone with a gentle hand here, “won’t mind. He’s dead. He’s where the dead go when they die.”
Liselle turned, started to walk away. Something stopped her. Something in her chest, a hollow feeling, except it was heavy, anchoring her. She’d felt something like this once, at Golgotha. But not this empty. Not this harsh. Not this big, or this heavy. “Why … what am I feeling?”
The woman with the green hair continued to clean the stone. “You know, he loved you. It was the light you saw inside him.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Liselle. “You can’t love something like me. I ended the world.”
“He loved you anyway,” said Adalia. “He loved you like birds love soaring on the wind. He loved you like the stars love the sky. He loved you like the sea loves the sound of waves.”
Liselle wiped something wet away from her face. There should be no rain here. Not anymore, Father’s Eden barren and dry and empty. “He was a fool.”
Adalia stepped away from the tombstone, and they both read what it said in silence. No date, because that wasn’t important when the world had ended. Just a name, and an epitaph.
JOHN FUCKING MILES
GAME OVER MAN
ALSO THIS REALLY SUCKS
“Yes,” said Adalia. “He was a fool. He was my friend, and you killed him first. I couldn’t stop you then, because I wasn’t strong enough. They gave me all this power, but it wasn’t enough.” She shrugged.
“Why are you here, Adalia Kendrick?” said Liselle. She wiped at her eyes again.
“Oh,” said Adalia. “Mary said I had to believe. I didn’t realize she wasn’t talking about me. I wanted to show you this. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late for what?” said Liselle. But she was talking to the wind. The woman with the green hair was gone.
Liselle turned to leave. The headstone’s broken piece wobbled, fell off to fall back on the black earth. She knew she’d done nothing wrong. She’d done what she was made for. She wasn’t made for love.
She didn’t know why her chest ached. She didn’t know what that noise was. She hadn’t heard it before.
She was crying, and she didn’t know how to make it stop. Because everyone was dead. And she had killed them all.
• • •
Adalia leaned away from Famine. Famine jerked back, like she’d been given about fifty thousand volts. Scourge fell from her hand to clang against the stone floor. Famine was crying, crystal tears falling from her eyes. Where they hit the ground they broke into tiny pieces of glass.
“What did you do to me?” said Famine. She raised her hand to strike Adalia.
“Nothing,” said Adalia. “I didn’t do anything.”
“What did I do?” said Famine.
“Nothing,” said Adalia. “Not yet. But you will. In just a second, everything will go back to normal. And you’ll have to decide who you want to be.”
“Who … I want to be?” said Famine.
“Sure,” said Adalia.
“Who is that?” said Famine.
Adalia held her hand against Famine’s chest, where all the hurt was. “That’s your choice, Liselle.”
“I am Famine. Liselle is a lie.”
Adalia frowned, feeling a different kind of sad. “That could be. Or it could be that Famine is a lie. You’ve played around with this for a while. Two thousand years, right? Two thousand years ago you said that you wouldn’t end the world, but you’ve still got your sword. Like a backup plan, in case you didn’t like what happened. That’s not a choice, Liselle.”
“Stop calling me that,” said Famine.
“Okay,” said Adalia. “I want it to be over too, you know? My friend … Melissa, she’s my friend. She was brave, and strong, and she died for me. For me. Val is dying right now, and I can’t stop that. There are rules.”
“There are rules,” agreed Famine.
“What makes me sad,” said Adalia, “is that all he wanted to do was to ask my mom to marry him. And he didn’t, because he was fighting a war that you started.”
“Kaylan started it,” said Famine. “Kaylan made the vampires.”
“You’ve got a sword,” said Adalia. “What stopped you and Josef? You didn’t join her, but you stood the fuck on the sidelines. And now, here we are. You’re about to kill John Miles.”
“I—”
“No,” said Adalia. “The time has come for choices. I’m with these guys.” She took a breath, and then another. “What about you?” And she let go, and time started again.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-EIGHT
Liselle looked at the sword in her hand. Her partner, through all the long years of this world. It had never let her down, its blade always sharp, ready. It was her that had faltered, her hand that was weak, her hand that wouldn’t do what was necessary. She looked down the black blade at John Miles, and said, “This can’t … be. It can’t … be like this.”
She saw his face, the imperfect lines of his bare humanity. The rough clay that he was made from, bitter elements of the universe. Saw that beautiful light coming from him when he looked at her. The light she’d seen from no one else because they feared her, or hated her. And who wouldn’t? A smile was on her face, but it was full of the bitterness of life.
He sighed. “I know, baby.” But the light didn’t dim, and he didn’t move.
Kaylan looked at them both, then said, “I will make it easier for you.” Her pale sword drew back, swept towards John Miles. John Miles, who closed his eyes and waited for it.
Why is he doing that?
Oh, said Adalia through the Other Place. You don’t know?
No.
It’s because he knows that being alive is hard for you. That it hurts you. When you love someone, you do things that aren’t very smart.
The crash when Scourge and Ending clashed shook the room. Kaylan’s eyes widened in disbelief as she looked at Liselle. Liselle, who was holding Scourge. Who had blocked that deadly strike.
By the Father. I make my choice. She drew back Scourge and swung at Kaylan.
Sister against sister. Famine against Death. Their swords rang as they hit, each blow enough to crush stone and rock and the soul of the world. My sister would take my love from me. She would end the world, and with it end John Miles. Liselle slashed and hewed with Scourge, that black blade that had never failed her.
It didn’t now.
Kaylan was beaten back, took to the air on those almost invisible wings. Liselle grabbed at her foot, dragged her back down to the Father’s Eden. Where they would fight, for the fate of the world.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE
Rex looked at his hands. They’d always seemed to be such strong hands. Could tear a coin in half, something John Miles — with all his fitness and weight training and protein shakes and compression clothes — couldn’t do. And yet Rex had failed to arm-wrestle a weedy kid who looked like he’d stepped off the back of a milk carton, and because he’d failed to do that simple thing, Melissa was dead, and Val was down and probably going to die. It seemed a strange thing to be thinking of, all these dead or dying people, what with two powers of the timeless universe slugging it out like a couple of drunks at a bar right next to them.
Although it might have been just the right thing, because thinking about dead and dying people was a motivator, and they needed to motivate themselves right out of here. Death and Famine’s fighting had punched a massive hole in a wall, and sound and light and heat were coming out of it. From where they fought, sister against sister.
God knows where Danny was, but if she wasn’t here, she was probably dead too.
“Old man,” said Jessie. “We have to leave.” She had her Light Fifty held loose and ready by her side.
“Yeah,” said Rex. He stopped looking at his hands and started looking at Melissa. Spared a glance for Adalia, who had tears running down her face like they’d never stop falling. Not like you were any different when your wife died. Wife, friend, brother or sister, doesn’t matter. All feels the same. All feels wrong. His hands might not be able to wrestle a skinny vampire kid, but they were good enough to carry a dead friend out from under the earth and back into the sun. He grabbed Melissa, threw her over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. The motion was like a memory of a memory, so natural it was like he’d always known how to do it. Maybe he had. Pulling people from burning buildings had felt like a thing that needed doing. Pulling Melissa’s body from here also needed doing. He shrugged her weight — so light, so empty — and looked at Jessie. “Jess. She makes it out.”
“She makes it out,” agreed Jessie with a slow nod. “We all make it out.”
“But not alive,” said Adalia. She made a noise that broke Rex’s heart, the start of a wail that she cut off before it could get started. “Not alive. Can I … I need to carry her.”
Rex nodded. Showed Adalia how to lift her, like Melissa were still alive, how you needed to be gentle. The woman with the green hair lifted her friend’s body, face set, eyes sad and hard at the same time. Rex gave her a nod, reached out a thumb and wiped a tear away from her face. “I’m sorry. I … I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” she said.
There wasn’t more that could be said. Not with two Horsepersons of the Apocalypse swinging iron at each other. Rex hauled Val up — good goddamn this boy weighs a ton, first thing we do outside is put him on a diet — and started skirting the edge of the room. He was careful not to brush anything made of silver, none of the swords or knives or goddamn forks or whatever they had in this crazy place. Out, and up. Not through the sewers, which would have been easy, but up those stairs. Where Jeremy, damn him, had come from. Where Danny might be. Where help might be.
He stepped around that crazy Russian’s body. Rex didn’t understand what that was all about, except he seemed to have history with the rest of them. History would be put in scare quotes, but it didn’t matter because no one would tell him anything like always. Adalia paused, looked at the crazy Russian’s body, and her face went hard, but her eyes stayed soft. Rex cleared his throat. “Do we need him too?”
“No,” said Adalia.
“I got him,” said Jessie. She hauled the Russian’s body up, slung him over a shoulder. Like whatever he weighed wasn’t a problem, not today. “You realize that I can’t shoot like this?”
“Still got ol’ faithful,” said Rex, waving the grenade launcher in the air.
“Move,” was all she said in response.
She was right, of course. It wasn’t the time for snappy lines. Rex looked across the room at Miles. “Son! Move it!”
Miles looked at him, and then at the hole in the wall, and then at the gun in his hand. Melissa’s gun. “I’ll stay, I think.”
“Son,” said Rex, hefting Val’s weight. “Son, your friend isn’t getting lighter. We need you, John. Do you hear me? For the first time ever, someone actually needs you. We got hurt people. We’ve got—”
“Dead people,” said Adalia.
“We’ve got … we’ve got people,” said Rex. “We’ve got to get them out. We’ve got to find them all, and get them out.”
Miles looked at the gun in his hand again. “I was … I was thinking that someone needs to stay. To see … just to see.”
“No, son,” said Rex. “No one needs to see.”
Miles sighed. “Okay. Okay. We need to get out?”
“Son, that’s what I’ve been trying to say. We need to get out.”
“No problem,” said Miles. “We go that way.” He pointed Melissa’s gun at the stairs leading up. Looked at Rex, holding Val, and then at Adalia, holding Melissa, and Jessie, holding the crazy Russian. “You want me to go first, huh.”
“If it wouldn’t be a bother,” said Rex.
Miles winked at him. There was something false behind it, like he was a recording of another man, but it’d do for now. “Don’t get your pacemaker overloaded,” he said. “John Fucking Miles is on it.”
• • •
Rex spent the next few minutes watching John Miles’ back. The man was acting like a cop from a movie set, holding Melissa’s gun in front of him, turning fast around corners, crouching low. He cleared his throat. “Son? It’s going to take us a while to make it up here if you’re acting like a damn G.I. Joe.”
“More of a Transformers man myself,” said Miles. But he straightened up, walked as normal as any overgrown boy-child could, and lead the way at a faster pace.
They came to a door, top of the stairs, ajar an inch or two. A dim light was coming from the gap. Miles put a hand on it.
“Wait,” said Rex. “What if there’s bad guys?”
“‘Bad guys,’” said Miles. “Seriously?”
“You know,” said Rex. “Vampires ‘n’ shit.”
“Pretty sure the vampire situation has resolved itself,” said Miles.
“What’s going on?” said Jessie, from the back of the line.
“We’re going through this door,” said Miles, and opened the door. Led the way through.
Rex was close on his heels and saw three people he knew. There was Danny — alive, thank God, don’t think my heart could take another one today — on the ground, awake but pale. The giant, Ginger, was on his feet. And the one with the weird name, Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer — Sawyer Diego, that was it — right next to him. Two other men Rex didn’t know were there, guns pointed at the three he did know.
There was a collection of bodies in uniforms similar to the ones worn by the men pointing guns. The bodies were by a door leading out, and out meant up, which meant an end to these tunnels, and which by Rex’s inference meant a path of escape. The fact that the bodies were there in uniforms implied they were what Jessie would have called PMC assholes. Brought in to shore up the line.
One of the men with the guns said, “Freeze.”
John Miles still had Melissa’s gun. He looked at it, looked at the two men, and then raised the weapon and fired twice. Headshots, each time, both of the men with guns falling to the ground like marionettes with their strings cut. The giant man, Ginger, look
ed surprised. He looked at the fallen men, then at John Miles. “Took you for an imbecile, genuine football bat guy. You know, the kind who wouldn’t know which end of a gun to point,” he said. “My apologies.”
“No harm no foul,” said Miles. He cast a glance at Adalia and the terrible burden she carried. “I had … uh. A good friend taught me a few things. Speaking of imbeciles though, how’d a couple of hard motherfuckers like yourselves let a couple of rent-a-clowns like these get guns in your face?”
“Ran out of bullets,” said Sawyer Diego, nudging a fallen machine gun with his toe. “We had a lot going on. Before, you know?”
“I get you,” said Miles. He was leaning down next to Danny. Her eyes kept going to Val’s body. “Hey,” he said. “Hey. He’s still alive.”
She was looking at the red wetness on Rex’s jacket. “But not for long.”
Miles sighed. “Not really my area. What is my area? Doing dumb shit. So I’m going to do more of that by leading the way out.” He stood back up, offered her a hand. “Can you stand?”
Danny got a hand under herself, tried to get up, fell back. Rex watched as Miles took her arm, lifting her up, steadying her. Danny nodded her thanks.
Miles was looking at Ginger and Sawyer Diego. “You guys good? Need a rest stop or anything?”
Ginger was rooting among the fallen. He hauled out a short ugly weapon that looked like a cross between a rifle and a pistol. The big man grinned. “I’m done resting. Time for some air up top, no?”
• • •
The next five minutes felt like an hour.
“Firing!” Hard hammer of automatic weapons. Then, “Reloading!”
“On it.” A shot, the Eagle’s angry roar. Again. “One down.”
Staccato of bullets ricocheting from around Rex’s head. He ducked down. More time in the squat rack after this, old man. Val was heavy, like carrying two or three men heavy. He wasn’t getting lighter either, no matter how much he bled.
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 108
