by K. C. Finn
“Well, I guess you caught me,” Angelica says from above him. He doesn’t feel all that sure that she’s telling the truth.
A gunshot rings out.
And Kendra drops to the floor beside him.
36.
When he finally makes it to his feet, Cae is relieved to see that Kendra’s wound is not instantly fatal. She is crouched and cradling her leg, her already-soaked fatigues now turning red all around her thigh. She grimaces up at Angelica, her face marked by red lines where the acid rain has graced her skin. Cae follows her venomous look to the blonde to find her holding the gun to his father’s head.
“This is the fun part, you see,” she whispers, her face as pretty and perfect as it ever was, “Now you get to see your father die. See the light leaving his eyes. The way I had to watch my Daddy go because of your bitch of a mother.”
Julius struggles at her words and Angelica grabs the back of his hair, ragging his head until he stops resisting. He is bound to the chair with the same electrical wiring that connects him to the wall, the final knot bundled thickly over his heart. Cae looks upon his father in that moment, helpless but still trying to struggle free, and his stoic exterior finally caves in.
There’s no point in telling Angelica that her father was a monster, no point in arguing that he deserved what he got. Deep down Cae knows that no matter what Julius has done in his life, all the orders he’s followed and criminal acts he’s committed, the detective would always have returned to this moment to defend his father’s life. If there is ever anyone who can forgive the things a wayward father does, it is their only child, the kid still waiting for their Daddy to come back home.
“It must have been awful to lose him,” Cae says, hardly able to hold his head straight to speak, “I’m sorry for what my mother did to you both.”
Angelica’s snarl fades, her top lip tight as the delicate hand holding the pistol twitches. She pulls Julius’s head closer to the barrel.
“When did you become such a counsellor Rex?” she spits.
The detective shakes his head.
“No games, Angelica,” he chokes, “I’m tired of playing.” He drops to his knees again. “Kill him.”
Kendra struggles to say something in protest.
“And her,” Cae adds, waving a weak arm at Kendra. “Kill us all. And then you can go on and live your life. That’s what you want isn’t it?”
Angelica huffs out a shocked breath.
“That’s what you want?” she demands, her voice suddenly full of air, “You want to die?”
He looks up again at Julius and Kendra, both shooting him horrified, pleading stares. Cae shrugs, feeling his wet clothes burn once more.
“I used to think I was all right on my own,” he breathes, his eyes meeting Angelica’s glassy stare, “but without these two, I’m nothing. If you’re going to kill them anyway, then what else is there for me to live for?” Her mouth drops open as she listens to his words. “There’s nothing worth living for after this moment.”
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Angelica lowers the gun from Julius’s head. She backs away, still clutching the weapon tightly, but watching Cae with a wild yet thoughtful look in her eyes. On the outside the detective keeps his expression filled with pain, remorse and the memory of a death-wish he once held onto like it was his only friend.
But on the inside, he is grinning so wide his mouth would tear from the strain.
“What will you do?” he asks, his voice deliberately frail, “After we’re all dead, I mean. What’s next for the great Angelica Forsyth?”
She can’t answer, because there is no answer. She has been so consumed by her will to destroy Caecilius Rex that there is literally nothing else in Angelica’s life anymore. Once her father was everything to her. Now Cae has become everything to her in his place. Once this game comes to an end, she will have nothing but the memory of the corpses that led her to become what she is right now, nothing but nightmares, grief and regrets.
“I know how you feel, you know,” Cae breathes, putting his head against the stone floor of the underground shore, “It’s awful to lose a parent. To have their body staring up at you, when it used to be so full of life. It looks so easy, like they could just step back into it, just wake up. But…”
“But they don’t,” Angelica answers.
He can hear the sobs in her voice as he lets one eye squint open, watching as Kendra slowly shifts her arm beneath her body, reaching for one of her guns. Her bleeding is extensive, but her physical enhancements ought to give her more time than the average person to survive their little affair. All Cae has to do is keep Angelica talking until she drops the gun.
Her heels click across the floor slowly and she takes hold of Cae by the back of his jumper, pulling him up so he’s kneeling in front of her bent form. Her eyes are flooded with tears as she looks at him, a picture of sorrow and understanding. She lets go of his neck and strokes his face just once. He feels the sting of his own acid burns under her touch, trying not to flinch. He has to stay in character, has to channel all that pain for just a while longer, just until Kendra can reach her gun.
“You’re right Caecilius,” Angelica whispers, “There’s nothing in this world for people like us.”
“I know,” he agrees, struggling to nod, desperately tempted to glance at Kendra and see how she’s doing.
“So there’s only one solution,” Angelica says simply.
Cae waits for the gun to drop from her grip, for the young woman to give in and collapse beside him in her grief. But Angelica smiles with all the serenity that madness can bring.
“Once you’re all dead, I’ll have to save the last bullet for myself.”
37.
After everything, they are back where they started, Angelica moving towards Julius again, clicking the safety off the pistol, her hands shaking three times as much as they were before. Tears drop in huge dollops from her shapely jaw as she takes her aim. Cae tenses, ready to make a lunge for her despite his broken body. Julius just closes his eyes.
“Stop.”
Another gun is raised. When Cae first catches sight of the glinting metal, he thinks it must belong to Kendra, but as he shifts his head he finds that she is still struggling on the floor. Either her injuries are worse than he thought, or all that water has put her out of action for a while. The gun is in the hands of another man emerging from a hidden crevice in the rock. His face is gaunt like he hasn’t eaten all day, a tried greyness in his eyes that makes them look darker than his olive skin.
“Well,” Angelica says, keeping her gun at Julius’s temple, “I thought you’d be long gone by now, after taking such great pains to escape me.”
Redd Richmond’s lip curls into a bitter snarl as he holds his gun with both hands and trains it at her forehead. The burns on his wrist from the removal of his explosive shackle glisten under the floodlight’s beams.
“But would I have escaped?” he demands, his voice pitchy with desperation, “Because no-one really escapes The Face, do they? We’re always at the beck and call of the Forsyths. But what if we weren’t? What if someone was canny enough to set us all free?”
A huge sloshing noise echoes throughout the cavern as the lake behind them all ruptures. The water swells as a huge submarine surfaces within it. The acid rain sprinklers have long-since run out of juice, they drip hopelessly onto its impenetrable metal shell. The circular door in the top of the sub opens with a wrench and a man with a bandaged face steps out onto its deck.
“Howard?” Julius whispers in disbelief.
“You see,” Redd Richmond begins, “the trouble with letting someone else in on all your plans is, well, they start to get to know you rather well. And the thing I’ve learned about you, Angel, is you’ve made a lot of people angry.”
Behind Howard the tall, imposing figure of Bardot is climbing out of the sub, followed by other soldiers with matching looks of fury.
“I never knew you had it in you, Redd,” Angeli
ca says, starting to smile.
“I’m an opportunist, remember?” he chuckles.
“But not a survivalist anymore?” she asks, pouting with false sweetness, “Because you know where all the bombs were planted for this little demonstration. And you know there’s one right above our heads.”
The fear returns to Cae’s heart as he watches the exchange, hammering against his chest with every morsel of strength he has left. Redd is smiling, all charm and confidence as he keeps his gun steady.
“I’m banking on you not wanting to go down with the ship, sweetheart,” he says with a grin.
Cae swallows as Angelica turns to look at him, still smiling placidly.
“Funny that,” she says, her voice hollow, “You just missed my change of heart on the matter.”
The gun suddenly shifts from Julius’s head to the computer panel behind it. Angelica fires into the machinery, sending it up in a blaze of sparks. A rumble emanates somewhere high above the cavern, a rumble Cae recognises from only half a day ago. The kind of rumble that brings down a mountain.
Before he can even react to the explosion, guns are firing everywhere as Angelica makes a dash for it. A buzzing catches Cae’s ears and he turns to his father to find him going into spasm in his seat, the electric current starting to pass through the wires that restrain him. With all his might Cae throws himself to his feet and strides across the short distance between them, his gloved hands allowing him to rip the wires off as Julius writhes in agony beneath them. Soon he pulls his father’s weakened form from the restraints, turning to cry for help as he realises he can’t carry him alone.
The super-soldiers make short work of the lake, swimming only a few feet from the end of the submarine to reach the shore. Bardot and three others are already carrying Kendra away towards the hatch of the boat as a figure arrives to help Julius to his feet. When Cae turns to see Redd Richmond’s neck holding up his father’s shoulder, he has no words at all left in his mind. All he can do is pick Julius up from the other side and run to the shoreline to meet the soldiers coming to their rescue. When his father is lifted across the water in their arms, Cae looks back to the shore to find Angelica watching him.
And firing her gun.
The shot hits him square in the shoulder, barely an inch above his heart, blood seeping from the wound so slowly and precisely that he can feel its warm ooze on his frozen skin. He falls backwards into the water, the remaining acid having almost no effect on his burnt-out skin, a mouthful of salt water stinging his other wounds before he even has the chance to throw his arms out to swim. It would be a futile effort: he has no energy left for such heroics as the shock of the gunshot sinks in.
As he floats in the water the first rocks from the ceiling come tumbling down, great chunks crashing and splashing as the weight of the explosion above them takes its toll. Cae has one last moment to look back to Angelica before she is obscured by the fall of the ceiling above her too, then shock takes over his failing body and everything finally turns black.
38.
“I keep having these moments,” Cae whispers, “Where I think I’ve breathed my last breath. And then suddenly I realise I’m still breathing.”
“Perhaps you should consider a career change,” his father replies.
“Would you look at him?” Kendra chips in, “He’s a detective. He was clearly born to do this.”
Cae opens his eyes gently, the world finally making some sort of sense again. He has woken a few times and slowly been able to register that he is in Ward 16 of the military hospital, but this is the first real moment where the young detective has been able to reply to those trying to speak to him.
“I take it you’re feeling better?” Julius asks.
“Well,” Cae stammers, “I can’t see me running any marathons, but…”
He tries to move, which turns out to be a terrible idea as every inch of his skin feels as tight as if he were wrapped up in sellotape. Instead he sinks back onto his pillow, glancing to Kendra and her joyful face. She sits on the side of his bed, her thigh heavily bandaged, but otherwise content. Something is wrong with her appearance, but it takes Cae several moments to process what it is.
“Where are the acid burns?” he asks.
He feels his father put a hand to his face, pushing back his hair a little.
“Very minor skin graft,” Julius explains, “Easily done. Yours were a little more difficult.”
Cae slowly raises his hands to run them over his cheeks and nose.
“You fixed my face too?” he says, amazed.
“I fixed a little more than that,” Julius replies.
As his father speaks, Cae pulls his hands away from his face, realising his gloves are gone. He looks at his right hand, the back-street skin job he had paid for back at The Atomic Circus still makes that appendage look fairly normal. But now his left hand looks the same. His wrists and forearms are pink but smooth, new skin carefully placed and grafted on them. The work stops at his elbows, giving way to the crimson and purple burns once more that creep up his chest and down to his stomach.
“I can’t do any more until we can grow some more skin cultures,” Julius explains, “I hope you don’t mind.”
Care stares at his forearms again.
“Mind…” he begins, but he can’t finish the thought. Tears threaten to choke him and he sniffs them back, his chest aching.
“Where did you even grow them from?” Kendra asks him, clutching Cae’s right hand in her own tightly.
“From myself,” Julius replies, smiling, “I had a feeling I’d be a compatible donor.”
Their conversation doesn’t last much longer as Cae gives in to sleep, his weakened body begging for rest. When he wakes again his father is still at his side, asleep in a plastic chair with his heavy false leg resting on Cae’s bed. This time Cae manages to sit up a little straighter, fighting with tubes and wires plugged into his body before he can give the professor a shove to wake him. There is only one question left in the detective’s mind.
“What happened to Angelica?” Cae demands before his father can even fully open his eyes.
Julius lets out a long sigh, rubbing his forehead.
“The soldiers managed to get her out of the rubble, but she was badly crushed,” he says in a soft, low voice, “she’s here, actually, in the coma ward.”
Cae studies his father’s face carefully.
“She’s not going to wake up, is she?” he asks.
“It’s highly unlikely,” Julius answers, “She’s on life support and they’re running tests. The base will make a decision after that.”
It seems wrong somehow that she hasn’t gone out in a blaze of glory, that Angelica’s life could end simply by some unknown doctor switching it off. Cae sucks back tears again, deciding not to think of such things. He is safe now, after all, and with the only two people in the world that he’s ever truly loved.
“Where’s Kendra?” he says.
Julius smiles. “She’s talking to Howard,” he says, “They’ve got a lot to discuss. She wants to know everything about BiAndro.”
Cae frowns, hurting his face by doing so.
“I should be with her,” he stutters, “I wanted to help her.”
His father puts a hand over his chest to keep him in place.
“We’ll need you to, once you’re feeling better,” he assures him.
“And when will that be?” Cae asks.
Julius pulls a little white bottle from the pocket of his trousers, accompanied by a shining, silver teaspoon. He gives his son a wink with his cobalt blue eyes.
“In no time at all,” he promises.
Cae can only answer him with a grin.
39.
Three weeks later.
“I thought you ought to see it, since you came over by submarine last time,” Cae says, limping slowly up to the railing of the navy boat.
The older man looks up into the clear night sky, relishing in several deep breaths and spinning on the
spot so swiftly that it makes Cae seasick all over again. He too takes in the sea air. Julius says it will help him to continue healing.
“This is amazing,” Redd Richmond says, “I thought I was lucky when you took my handcuffs off to give my wrists a rest, but this…Thank you for this.” The conman leans on the railing beside the detective, looking out at the dark horizon. “It’s going to be a long time before I see the sky again.”
Cae just smiles.
“No it isn’t.”
Redd quirks a grey brow, his dapper suit flapping in the night breeze.
“Oh? Psychic now, are you?” he says glibly.
“More or less,” Cae chuckles, leaning in a little nearer to the conman’s ear, “I’ve been gathering testimony whilst we travel back.”
Redd rolls his eyes with great dramatization.
“You can’t just be a good little cripple and rest up, can you?” he asks, half-grinning, “No, you have to be such a detective all the time.” There’s a pause in which Cae just goes on smiling at him. Redd sucks in a breath. “Go on then. Tell me about this testimony.”
“Well,” the detective begins, “all the Brigade soldiers seem to think that you were Angelica’s prisoner, an innocent figure who escaped and informed them all about the submarine and how to track her down. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a hero.”
“Then why have I been in handcuffs all day?” Redd asks.
“Because you have a criminal record,” Cae answers, “and I couldn’t get you out of Lachrymosa without saying I was going to arrest you.”
The conman studies his words carefully. “So…”
Cae’s grin falls away, replaced by a serious look.
“So you saved my life Redd,” he says solemnly, “And Kendra’s and my father’s. And I can never, ever, thank you enough for that.”
Redd looks away, an awkward twitch in the corner of his mouth.
