“Apparently, I do,” I observed.
“You’ll . . . bring me back,” he muttered.
“Of course,” I said. “You are my father, and I shall restore you. And next time, you will be better behaved.”
I had no intention of doing any such thing, and I briefly considered tormenting him with that knowledge, but better safe than sorry, I decided. If he thought he would be revived, he would be content to lie there and bleed. If he knew I would never return him from death, he might find a hidden pool of strength. My father ought not to be underestimated. And so, in the service of my survival, and so Lady Caroline’s survival, and indeed Mrs. Tyler’s survival, I swallowed my love of revenge. I like to think this demonstrates my moral growth.
Once the old monster was properly dead, I took Lady Caroline’s body, which was uncomfortably stiff, in my arms and carried her to another room. This was an awkward procedure, for a dead body is a heavy thing, and there may have been some unmanly dragging at certain points. She did not appear to mind. Once I had her in a guest room, away from the sight of my father’s corpse, I commenced once more to break the shackles of mortality, as only I know how, and used my remarkable skills to restore breath once more to those sweet lips.
In a moment, her eyes fluttered and she shot up from her bed. She looked at me, and she gasped, putting a hand to her now-milky throat in the memory of what that beast had done to her. And then, to my surprise, she flung her arms around me.
“You came back for me, Reginald!” she cried. “I knew you would!”
The warmth of her body against mine, the wet of her tears against my neck—how can I describe the joy of this moment? I held her close and told her I would always save her, always take any risk for her. I told her I loved her, and even death could not keep us apart.
“I am sorry I doubted you,” she said to me, still crying against my neck. “I know now you love me.”
I studied her. “Do you feel any different, Lady Caroline? More . . . evil, perhaps?”
She cocked her head as she considered the question. “I don’t believe so . . .”
That was good enough for me. “I have seen to everything,” I said. “Sir Albert is no more. He shall never trouble you again.”
She pulled away from me and looked at me, her moist eyes locking with my own. “You killed him?”
“You needn’t concern yourself with the details,” I told her. “When I met you, he was dead. The dead should remain dead.”
“Excepting me?” she asked.
“Excepting you,” I answered. “And me. I shall leave you the book in my will, and you shall do the same for me, and we may be immortal and together.”
She wrapped her arms around me again. I was not quite certain that I wished to be with her for all eternity. I loved her absolutely, but can a man ever love a woman that much? I supposed I would find out, and it was clearly what she wished to hear, so the plan would do for now.
I then excused myself, explaining to her that there was a bit of cleaning up to do, and that she might not wish to see what damage that necessity had wrought in her house. She told me she was content to remain closeted until I told her otherwise. Lady Caroline closed the door behind me, so she would not have to listen to the sound of me disposing of the bodies.
* * *
My man James was yet in my employ, and he proved useful in helping me to collect bodies, parts of bodies, and other detritus. I could think of no better place to deposit them all than in the Fleet Ditch itself. How fitting that so foul a pit should be the final resting place of the worst man I had ever known, along with one more who had proved surprisingly good competition for that title.
Since he had arrived on the scene and then disappeared so suddenly, Sir Albert’s return from the dead proved to be a short-lived sensation. Most people presumed he had wandered back to his grave, or what had appeared to be a corporeal Sir Albert had merely been a spirit. Those who had not seen him with their own eyes might have guessed that the entire story was a hoax. All of these theories were well with me, for Lady Caroline was never legally declared unwidowed and her property remained her own.
I should say that it continued to remain her own after we wed, for she arranged that her wealth should be held as separate property, but since I now had money of my own, I was in no way distressed. We wanted one another, not one another’s silver, and that is a much better foundation for a happy marriage. We did choose to vacate London, however, for it was uncomfortable encountering, upon a regular basis, those people from whom I had, by means of necromantic extortion, obtained my wealth. No matter. As it turned out, neither Lady Caroline nor I was particularly attached to London society. We removed ourselves to the north, from whence Lady Caroline’s family originated, and bought a beautiful house in York, in the shadow of the minster. It has proved to be a happy home for us.
As for the book, and its powers, I have set these aside. I want nothing more to do with them and I have vowed never again to use them unless financial distress or some other inclination should convince me otherwise. It is but a surety of my happiness with Lady Caroline, there to bring her back should some tragedy befall her, assuming we are still, at the time, living in a state of felicity.
Perhaps it was so that Lady Caroline was a bit darker after her resurrection. Perhaps it was this darkness that allowed her to forgive me my crimes and to marry a man who had blackmailed her friends and taken such liberties with the lives of others. I could not say. I do feel that a little bit of darkness might have made her even more compatible with me, and nothing that resulted from her death and revival harmed our love. As to whether or not it strengthened it, I shall leave that to better minds than mine.
As one last note, I should mention that business takes me, from time to time, to London to meet with bankers or lawyers or suchlike people, and while I am there, I always make it a habit to pay a visit to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. It is a wretched place, mostly full of the housed dying, but there are a few longer-term patients, paid for out of donations. There lies such a terrible case, a man who lacks feet and so cannot walk. He lacks hands, and so cannot write. He lacks a tongue, and so cannot speak. Some unknown benefactor pays for his upkeep, and I must say, I find it a touching experience to visit this unfortunate, whose eyes are wide and expressive, as if he has something to say to me. What could it be? No one knows. Perhaps he wishes to express gratitude to those who care for him. Perhaps he wishes to say that it was a mistake to cross a man so disposed to feed his inclination for vengeance. Perhaps he wishes to plea for death. I can offer no informed guess as to what this poor fellow wishes to communicate. I suppose it is a secret he will take with him to his grave.
Alive Day
JONATHAN MABERRY
Author’s Note
This story features Captain Joe Ledger, the lead character from my series of science/action thrillers. It is not necessary to have read any of Ledger’s previous adventures in order to read this story.
1
RATTLESNAKE TEAM
Ten Days Ago . . .
He lay there, crushed inside a fist of darkness.
Unable to move.
Barely able to breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he tried to say. “God . . . I’m so sorry.”
There was no answer from the darkness.
The Afghan desert that surrounded this abandoned town had been so hot before . . .
Now it was cold.
So cold.
Sergeant Michael O’Leary—combat call sign “Finn”—tried to move his legs, but they were dead and distant things. He could barely feel them. His toes were cold, though. Icy. He could feel that much.
He tried to move his arms.
Nothing from the left side except a dull and nonspecific ache.
Finn’s arm moved, though. Just a little. He tried to will it to respond with speed and strength and dexterity, but there was nothing like that. He couldn’t actually feel the limb as he raised it. Only its weight, where it pulled o
n his shoulder muscles.
His wrist bumped against something, and despite the overall numbness he could feel that. Some of it. Enough to know what it was.
Rock. Or maybe tumbled stone from when this cave was part of a market stall in some ancient time. Either way it was cold and unyielding.
In the shadows, Finn tried to remember the terrain of this place. Whoever lived here once had smoothed the floor and chipped back the walls, but it had all been abandoned long ago. Now the walls were cracked and debris lay scattered.
He’d been running through darkness; he remembered that easily enough. Running to get in position so his team could launch the ambush. All he had to do was reach the end of the tunnel, kneel behind a pile of old rough-cut sandstone blocks, and use his first shot to signal the attack. That was all. Simple. He’d done it so many times before, on battlefields around the world.
So easy a child could have done it. Something his experience and training should have guaranteed was smooth and without a hitch.
Except . . .
Except.
“God . . . I’m sorry. Please, please, please . . .”
Running. Stumbling. Tripping over obstacles that weren’t where he remembered them being. He should have used his night vision. Finn knew that now. Knew that it was his fault that he’d tripped and fallen.
And accidentally fired that shot.
It was so stupid a move that if they walked off this, his men would never trust him again. If any of his team got killed because of it . . . ? His best hope would be court martial and discharge. That thought was a ladder that climbed down into some very dark places.
When he’d tripped, he’d hit something and lay stunned, sprawled and groaning, while his men died.
The darkness around him still seemed to echo with that single fucking shot.
And the screams that followed as all hell broke loose outside.
When Finn closed his eyes, he could still hear it.
The deep bass of Bear’s voice strangled into a piercing shriek.
Jazzman’s voice, begging and pleading and crying.
Cheech Wizard’s unbroken, inarticulate gargle of wet agony.
Were they still screaming now? Was that real or was he going out of his mind?
Finn stopped moving and listened to the darkness.
All he heard was his own shallow breathing. He held his breath, listened harder.
Then he heard the screams again. All three of them. Bear, Jazzman, and Cheech Wizard. Screaming with raw misery.
But the screams were far away. Down the corridor, or outside, or somewhere else.
How could they still be real? How could his men still be screaming?
Finn had no way of knowing. He was sure that he’d badly hurt himself. This could all have been a dream. The product of shock and injury and blood loss.
His men couldn’t still be screaming.
Not after all this time. Not after all these hours.
No one could yell that loud for this long.
“I’m coming!” Finn cried.
Or thought he did.
But his throat felt dry and dusty. Had he managed to even make a sound?
The echoes of the screams faded. First a little, then more and more until the last warped and broken fragment rebounded from the wall and struck him like an accusing arrow.
After a long time, Finn realized that he was weeping, but even his tears were dry and cold against his cheeks. The sobs hurt his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and this time the words were dragged past the stricture in his throat. “Oh . . . God . . . I’m so sorry . . .”
There was a time of absolute silence, and then the echoes of the screams blasted him in the face. Finn could feel their breath as if each of his men crouched over him. He could feel the heat of their breath and the wet wrongness as their screams spackled him with spit.
Or blood.
The screams were of pain so big, so hideous, that words could not express them. These screams were shrieked in a language known only to the dead and dying, to the tortured and the damned.
But Finn, shivering in the dark cave, knew that language.
He could understand every accusation. Each derisive shout. Each curse.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.
Then there was another sound.
Distant, small, rhythmic.
The screams faded for a moment.
No, that was wrong. They paused. The echoes of the screams paused as if they were listening to the new sound.
Into the silence, Finn said, “I’m sorry.”
In his despair he thought he saw a figure in the cave, even though there was no light to see anything. A slender figure in loose clothes. A boy, or maybe a small woman. Moving without sound, turning first to look at him and then away as if realizing that he could see her and not wanting to be seen. Then he blinked and there was nothing there. Nothing to see. No way to see anything even if it was there.
I’m losing it, he thought. Christ, I’m going to go out of my mind in the dark . . .
The sound in the distance was growing stronger, becoming distinctly what it was. A sound that seemed to be as old as these mountains even though it belonged only to the last century.
Whup-whup-whup.
“God,” breathed Finn.
The echoes were still there, but faint. They bounced around through the dark air the way echoes will, but they didn’t fade the way echoes should.
Whup-whup-whup.
Finn raised his hand, feeling its solid deadness as a weight supported by the muscles in his shoulder. He tried to raise his hand, as if signaling would matter with him lost inside a cave, wrapped in shadows and blood.
Finn felt something brush past his fingertips.
Something that was colder than his dying flesh.
Something that, at first, shied away from his touch.
Something that came back, though.
As the echoes came back.
Whup-whup-whup.
The helicopter was coming.
“Please,” whispered Finn. He said it to the darkness and to the pain. He said it to the illusion of the furtive woman that his madness had conjured. He said it to the awful possibility of the helicopter drawing near and then going past him and away. He said it to the shadows.
“Please . . .”
Finn suddenly felt something near his ear. A bug?
No.
Breath.
The soft, warm exhalation as someone crouched behind him, out of sight, out of reach.
“Who’s there? Cheech? Jazz? Is that you? C’mon, Christ, I’m hurt and—”
Another breath exhaled against the side of his face. God, it stank. Like meat left out in the sun.
Was it an animal? Something living in this fucking cave?
“Get away!” yelled Finn.
But with the next breath he heard a voice.
Soft. So soft, like sands blowing over the desert in the deep of night. A whisper of a woman’s voice.
“You come to my town speaking a foreign tongue. Are you a heretic and defiler?”
The woman seemed to speak in a language he didn’t know or recognize, and yet he understood every word.
I’m really losing my shit here. Oh God . . .
It was so strange a question under the circumstances that it took Finn a moment to organize an answer. Was this one of the Taliban, lost in the dark? If so, then the question was framed in an awkward and old-fashioned way.
In Pashto, Finn said, “No . . . I’m a friend.”
“You are no friend of mine,” spat the woman. “No friend of ours. You are a foreigner. You come to my town and take what is mine. You take what is sacred—”
“No,” Finn said quickly, defensively.
“I want back what was stolen,” whispered the woman. “You damn yourself by taking it.”
That’s when he felt her presence. Actually felt it. Not a touch, not the breath. A presence.
It
was aware, intelligent; somehow Finn knew that. Sensed it. Finn’s mind resisted as he tried to define what this was. Even though he knew this was a person, somehow it didn’t feel like that. Not anything like that. Even if he could have seen who spoke to him, even if everything had looked totally normal, he knew that it wasn’t. That it couldn’t be. With everything Finn was, he was certain of that. This was—different. In the way that blood is different from paint, even if not to the eye. In the way a dead child is different from a sleeping one, even at a glance through the open bedroom door. This was that kind of difference. Not really human. Something else. This was like—sickness. As if the woman who crouched breathing at his ear was sickness. Not a sick person, but a person who was sickness itself. It was the worst thing Finn had ever felt.
“You can have the opium,” Finn said quickly. “We don’t want it.”
In the darkness, the woman spat and Finn felt a searing pain on his cheek.
“You have taken what is mine.”
“No, we haven’t,” Finn said insistently, desperate now to make some kind of deal, a bargain that might give him a lifeline. “Look . . . all I want is to get my guys and get out of here. We don’t want anything. Nothing, okay? I just want to get my guys and then the four of us are gone. We’ll leave you alone and you can do what you want with the—”
“There are four of you?”
“Yes . . .”
The next sound he heard was so strange that it took him a long time to make any kind of sense of it. A series of soft, abrupt moist sounds.
Was this woman . . . sniffing him?
Yes.
The sniffing stopped and there was silence for a while.
Then he heard a small and ugly laugh. He had never heard a woman utter a laugh like that before. It was the way an animal might laugh.
“You are telling me the truth,” said the woman. “You have not defiled the shrines of the lilitu?”
“The what . . . ?”
Another pause, more chuckling.
“Then we are at a place,” said the voice, and suddenly it sounded less alien and more human. Even the feel of it changed. Now it seemed as if it truly was a person squatting over him. The nightmarish delusion that it was a monster began to recede. Not all the way, but enough to keep the terror just beyond reach. “It seems I have taken something from you.”
Four Summoner’s Tales Page 23
