“That’s right,” he agreed, hearing my thoughts. For the first time I took full advantage of that, thinking hard on images of the two of us together, until he shook his head like he was trying to clear it. “Mercy, woman! I have to fight alongside you tomorrow. Don’t drive me wild tonight.”
The glint in his eye said he meant none of it.
I wished we could have stayed like that forever, but as always responsibility weighed heavily on me. We broke apart and went to check on Driscoll. He hadn’t moved and neither had Zeta. I rifled through the pews and found a bag belonging to one of the toughs. Water and e-rats were more helpful than the knife or electronics, but I took them all. Roman combed the other side and found similar belongings in another small pack. We pulled Driscoll to his feet. He shook himself slightly, as if he was emerging from such deep thoughts that he required the shaking to remember where he was. None of us wanted to eat in the midst of all the death.
“Ayumi had someone clean the safe house. We could return to it,” he suggested. We nodded and followed his lead through public transport. It wasn’t far, but it was packed tight with people of every station and type. All of them had the same exhausted look. Refugees.
We stumbled through the security measures at the door and settled into one of the smaller sitting rooms on the main floor. It had a faux fire that heated the room, and we gathered around it with blankets and cushions stolen from the rest of the room. I wanted privacy with Roman, but Driscoll was a mess and I didn’t dare leave him. Especially with Zeta basically screaming ‘Nevermore’ over him. Twice I had tried to reabsorb her and had failed. At least he couldn’t hear her occasional threats and lack of compassion the way I could.
We’d found better provisions than just the e-rats and were eating what we could around the fire. The journey to the Killing Fields was short and I had until tomorrow afternoon. I wanted to eat and rest and be ready for what was coming. Even so, I barely managed to swallow more than a bite, and what I did eat I had to gulp down with water. Every taste made me want to gag, as if my body were rejecting my fate.
“Do you know what she wants?” Driscoll asked, gesturing at Zeta. He didn’t sound curious, though, and he’d barely eaten.
“I do, but something tells me that you do, too,” I said.
“They’re singing to me. They want to absorb me. Can they do that without your permission?” His face was drawn and his shoulders tight.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, swallowing a tiny trickle of water, the most I could manage. “I would have thought they couldn’t, but I also thought they couldn’t disobey me.”
“They aren’t listening to you?”
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked, leaping up to his feet and pacing before the fire.
“They want me to give them something before they’ll serve me again.”
“You can’t beat Nigel without an army!”
“I know that,” I said, my voice quavering. Roman leaned towards me instinctively, like he could defend me from myself.
“Then just give them what they want!” Driscoll roared, his voice echoing off the stone walls.
Yes. Give him to us. He was always meant to be ours!
I swallowed, and wrapped my arms around myself. Driscoll was my vassal. I owed him my loyalty. I couldn’t go back on that. He was my father, a link to where I had come from. Now, with all the rest of my family gone that mattered more than ever. It was impossible.
“Well what are you going to do then, when you meet Nigel tomorrow, Vera? What?” Driscoll said, “Are you counting on your Admiral? Because I’ve got news for you. While you were off making new pacts without me, I saw the news and Blackwatch is under attack. Her forces are busy keeping the People’s Freehold off of New Greenland. A battle for all our fates is taking place in that starry night, so down here there is nothing but Nigel and his VX-7 shadow army. If you don’t have one of your own you’re beaten.”
I clutched my water bottle in my hand, and tried not to feel what he was saying.
“Whatever she wants, you’d better give it to her, or this has all been for nothing. Everything I’ve ever done will have been for nothing!” he said.
“It’s that important to you that I win? Important enough that you would have me sacrifice everything?” I asked. My leg was bouncing up and down and I couldn’t get it to stop. Nervous energy is a terrible thing.
“Yes!” he said. He stormed back and forth with heavy feet. “Obviously. What did you think? I’ve been fighting Matsumotos and their governing all my life, and now I’ve finally found you and you’ve agreed to stop the excesses of your family and actually reign with justice. Do I want that? Yes! I would sacrifice anything,” here his eyes drifted to Roman... “or anyone to do it.”
“Obviously,” Roman said, “since you had no problem abandoning her as a child.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Driscoll said, and his face flushed scarlet. “Do you think they would have let me anywhere near her? Besides, look at her. She’s grown just fine. She’s everything she should be and she’ll be Empress if she just takes hold of her ridiculous inhibitions, tamps down those emotions and does what has to be done!”
He had been yelling at the end of his speech, and now he stood stalk still huffing as he tried to catch his breath, passion flaring in his eyes and betraying its presence in the hunched tension of his shoulders. His fists clenched and unclenched like he wanted to throttle me with them. Roman stood halfway between us with a hand held up and all I could think of was Haverman.
Driscoll looked just like him, standing there, seeing me in the way of what he wanted. He was sweating and red like him, on the tipping point of violence, and ready to crush my guardian given a moment’s notice just like Haverman. I’d killed Haverman to save myself. It was the first thing I’d ever done as myself.
Someone was sobbing, sucking in ridiculous high pitched breaths between sobs. I hate people like that. Weak. Weak people can’t do anything to protect others. They can’t do what has to be done.
My arms wrapped around my knees and the room rocked back and forth. No, I was rocking back and forth. Ridiculous.
“Stop. Would you just stop? Don’t you see what you’re doing to her?” That was Roman. Always my protector.
“I’m doing what I must. You forge steel in fire!”
I could do it. It would be so easy. I probably wouldn’t even miss him. After all, I’d hardly known him at all.
Killing Haverman was my first selfish act. And I knew now that not killing Driscoll would be my second. I couldn’t do it. This time, I couldn’t kill to save myself. That kind of dark mark on your soul is just not worth it.
“Stop mewling like a child and just grow up,” Driscoll said, and it sounded like a curse.
I sprang up to my feet. I was a wet mess, my nose and eyes dripping onto the marble floor. My whole body shaking like a leaf in a high wind.
“I won’t,” I said. “I won’t and you can’t make me!”
“What do they want from you, Vera?” he asked, running a broad hand over his own eyes and forehead. “What means enough that you’d lose your life and empire?”
“They want you, you damn fool!” I said between teeth chattering with stress.
“Me?!”
He couldn’t have looked more shocked if the fire had said my answer instead of me.
“That’s what she’s been trying to tell you,” Roman said.
“Me,” he said, like saying it twice would change the answer. “Well, I guess I understand.”
I nodded weakly. So he understood. He would go along with it. We’d be defeated together. I should have felt relieved now that I’d made my decision but I just felt sick. Our defeat was certain. My own death, just as certain.
He smiled at me, slightly rueful and with a hint of something that looked like...fondness. I tried to smile back, but my smile was weak and tear-filled.
He took a step backwards, spun around and grabbed Zeta by the neck. I leapt towards him
, but Roman’s hand, lightning fast, prevented me. Zeta and Driscoll grappled, and Driscoll flickered in and out of shadow for a moment.
Mine at last, Zeta said.
“Since the moment I met you on Baldric, I’ve been proud of you, Vera,” Driscoll said, his voice tense with the effort of talking as he grappled with my mother, and then before my eyes Driscoll faded to shadow and the two of them snapped into my mind. I staggered from the reverberations, clinging to Roman.
My father was gone.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Waiting felt strange. I hadn’t done it in so long that I didn’t know what to do with myself.
By the time Roman got me calmed down we were both exhausted. We found a bedroom in the upstairs. Roman barricaded it and linked the house security to his implant and we fell asleep in each other’s arms. The whoosh of his breath pulled me into exhausted sleep in moments, tangled around his body as if I could suck his strength out to sustain me. When I awoke we only had a few hours left.
The moment my eyes snapped open adrenaline kicked into high gear. This was worse than exams or when I had been sent to Capricornia or Baldric. This time everything depended on my success, not just my survival, but the survival of everyone and everything I held dear.
I reached for the shadow army, grateful that Driscoll had paid the price to give me what I needed...and gasped. I couldn’t access them.
Zeta! I cried.
Driscoll!
Nothing. I sat up, instantly soaked in cold sweat. Nothing? But the price had been paid!
“Vera? What’s wrong?” Roman came in the room, showered and carrying coffee. He looked so normal. I felt a pang of pain when I realized I was about to lose this life with him before I ever had it.
“The shadow army. I can’t reach them. After everything, we’re going in alone.”
He sat down beside me and handed me the coffee. I sipped it, miserable, but wanting to at least taste his offering.
“You were always meant to live as a pacifist,” he said and his face was twisted with pain.
I laughed bitterly. “It looks like I’ll die as one. I have no other options – nothing to fight with. I don’t want to die like a dog, hunted down and killed in an alley somewhere. If I’m going to die as a pacifist I’ll march right up to him and die looking in the eyes of my enemy.”
Roman nodded, looking at his feet.
“You shouldn’t come. You should find Ayumi and Ryu.”
“No,” he said, grabbing my hand and stealing my gaze with his red-rimmed eyes. “As long as we both shall live.”
“It doesn’t mean that you have to die with me,” I said gently. I couldn’t think of a way to keep him from coming with me. I’d had so many ideas, but now they were all mist and shadows.
He was quiet a long time.
“I’ll be there,” he said at last, and clasped my hand. I loved the way his thick callouses felt against my palm. I kissed him tenderly on the lips, a small thank you for the gift he was giving me.
“Thank you,” I said. Maybe Nigel would spare him. He’d never seemed to want Roman dead. Not really.
Our last hour in the house was quiet. I showered. We looked at the feeds for news. The battle that raged far out past our planet would determine all of our fates. Refugees clogged the city streets. Resources were dwindling. Good citizens of Blackwatch don’t question the Emperor, but on every face the same smouldering look played out in different sets of features. People were angry. Reports of a disease that sucked the life out of people were lashing through the feeds. Scientists and doctors were called upon for expert opinions, but there were none to be found. No cure, no prevention and no explanation. Commentators remarked on how strange it was that without exception the victims were enlisting in the military, but a pro-government talking head pointed out that people have always wanted to defend others when their own last days have arrived. I turned it off. There was only one way to save them all now.
The Killing Fields were within walking distance of our safe house. We chose to walk. In the crowded streets we would hardly be noticeable. It seemed anticlimactic after stealing a starship and traversing multiple planets to simply walk somewhere, but imminent death has a way of making you want to enjoy the simple things. One last quiet moment sitting thigh to thigh with Roman. One last stolen kiss. One last longing look into cinnamon eyes. And one last chance to take a walk and experience the frigid misery of a New Greenland winter.
We headed out in coats borrowed from the hall closet in the safehouse. Roman found something long and leather that made him look illegal. The only thing that fit me was a purple brocade coat with a deep hood. It suited my mood, at least. We found guns and ammunition and loaded up, keeping them under our clothing. Roman smiled and winked at me. I guess he liked well-armed girls.
“Going to take him on all by yourself?” he asked.
I laughed. “I like to keep my options open.”
Roman held my hand, his grip almost desperate as if holding it could keep me with him forever. There had been no sugar-sweet goodbye between us. It felt too awkward. I wanted better for him than that. I just kept hoping that somehow it wouldn’t be needed, although that was probably my denial talking. Most of me knew that this was a suicide walk. Why walk to your death? Why not run the other way? Because I was a Matsumoto. I’d stay the course even when there was no way I could succeed.
The air had warmed outside to a balmy -10 C and snow was falling in fat feather flakes that stuck to everything like they were fake. That kind of snow had always been my favorite, although it was hard to see very far in it.
The crowds were thick and agitated, and our progress was slow as we pushed through the shoals of pedestrians at every crossway and intersection. We had two kilometers to cover. It wasn’t far, but in this thick snow and dense foot traffic it was taking longer than we thought.
“Why do they call them the Killing Fields?” Roman asked me. “Seems like a self-fulfilling prophesy.”
“It’s where Neal Matsumoto slew his enemies to take the Empire for himself.”
“Nice guy that Neal. I think that if I’d known him he would have reminded me of someone.”
“My cousin?” I asked, pushing past a man trying to sell hot tea to the pedestrians.
“Your father.”
My face fell.
“I mean it. Stop worrying about him and the shadow army. If anyone can come back from the dead, he’s your man.”
If only.
The wind was picking up, whipping the snow up in little flurries. I pulled my hood down low over my face. Roman never let go of my hand, and through our channel all I felt was love, devotion and commitment. I tried to send back my gratitude and passion, but nothing I could give would equal what he was giving to me. If today was our last, I’d leave this world with a sweet taste in my mouth. Driscoll was wrong - it had all been worth it.
Driscoll was often wrong.
Roman never forgot. I hoped he would never be forgotten, either.
If I die I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt your cousin. Someone has to now that Zeta isn’t living up to her calling.
I almost laughed, but then my foot stepped off the cleared cobblestones and onto the slick ice of the Killing Fields. We stood on a rise at one end of the Fields, the city at our back, and looked out over a valley of snow and ice to the other side where another hill stood and the rest of the city was arrayed behind it. The sun was invisible, but my implant told me it was noon. We were exactly on time.
A gust of wind cleared the Field for a moment and I saw Nigel on the other hill, his guards around him, and an army of shadows arrayed at his back. I felt just a touch lonely.
Bow to your Emperor, my implant said - in Nigel’s voice.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
They call them the Killing Fields because Nigel Matsumoto killed the entire previous Dynasty one by one on this field before giving Blackwatch the Matsumoto Treaty and swearing to pacifism. I wonder if they laughed when he first told t
hem that he was done killing forever as the blood still stained his boots, or if they were all just too afraid to join the corpses on the field.
In typical Matsumoto fashion, we’d honored the moment of his victory in a bronze rendering at the center of the fields. It could be seen easily from anywhere in them and it was as imposing as it was grand. Neal Matsumoto stood in a dramatic pose holding out a tablet to show the treaty with a katana brandished in his other hand, like a subtle reminder that it really could have gone either way. Just like today.
A stream meandered through the fields, frozen now, and some small shrubs and gardens dotted the landscape, just mounds under a white blanket. Mostly, the fields were drift-packed with hard snow and ice. Fresh snow swirled around our feet and whipped up in the wind, and through the gusts I saw his army arrayed, shadow upon shadow upon shadow.
Icy fear froze my spine and filled my mind. Roman squeezed my hand, but it was an empty gesture – as empty as our corpses would be when this was over.
On either side of the fields, to our right and left, a line of statues was laid out, kneeling towards the center. They represented the losers in the original dynasty changes. None of them had heads.
“I see your family’s gone to the usual trouble decorating the place,” Roman said, indicating the headless statues. His prosthetic leg slipped a touch on the ice, and he gripped my hand more tightly.
“We really just have one theme.”
“I’ve noticed. Where do you think they’ll put our statues?”
“I’m hoping for a nice end location with a view. What about you?”
“Next to you will be alright.”
A lump formed in my throat.
All I ask from life, really, he said.
I had to clear my throat to keep from choking on the tears.
“Well, then. I guess we might as well get to it,” I said, staring ahead of me, and not daring to look at him lest emotion overcome me.
I took a step forward, and then fell to my knees, clutching my head in my hands. Pain. Hurt. So much. It felt like my head was a porcelain bowl that had fissured, split, and now had something pouring out of it. I screamed, my frantic eyes finding Roman’s. He was saying something, but I couldn’t hear because my scream was too loud.
The Matsumoto (The Matsumoto Trilogy Book 3) Page 24
