by Bobby Adair
Through most of the town's enclosed area stood widely spaced towers, a dozen or so. All the towers were of a similar design, built of thick timbers with a huge, square, communal room at the base. The upper floors of each tower were successively smaller squares.
Probably the strangest thing about the city was what Jingo called the ships and boats. Most were so large that Oliver couldn't imagine them floating. Most were constructed of metal that was crusted red and orange with rust and flaking paint. All looked liked they'd been hauled from the water and shoved into a jumble along the beach. Some were broken open. All were damaged.
When Oliver thought about the power that had done that with all that steel, it made him shiver. It had to be Tech Magic.
Frightening.
But enthralling.
Oliver wanted so badly to find a magical, powerful device left over from the ancient world.
Chapter 6: William
William scooted away from Father Winthrop, feeling revulsion and fear. Every day of William's life since that moment when his mother had found the lump on the back of his neck had been defined by evading capture by Brighton's soldiers, men who had done the bidding of Blackthorn, Beck, and Winthrop.
And now he was at Winthrop's feet.
In William's mind, Winthrop was a deathly white angel, a murdering monster wearing the blood of William's brothers on his robe and the sins of Brighton on his cruel soul. William needed to get away.
William bumped into a wall of arms and knees. Hands pushed him back into the center of the circle.
Is Winthrop going to burn me?
Is he going to butcher me and feed me to his slovenly, yellow-toothed horde?
Alive or dead, William knew his body would be laid on the flames.
He spun, frantic for an escape. Frustration turned fear to rage and he lunged at his encircling captors. Some laughed and took exaggerated steps back. Others pushed him again into the center of the ring. No one let him out.
William wished every demon in the city, his demons, would gather their strength as one and attack these stinking buffoons. He wanted to see every one of them dead. He cocked his head and listened as the wind blew over the shattered roof of the ancient, oval building. He strained to hear the howls of his distant demon brothers.
He heard nothing but the night and a thousand voices of Brighton's dregs surrounding him.
Inevitability set in as William accepted the outcome. The moment that lump had appeared, he knew he'd follow his father to a future of ash. His only regret was that his mother had died trying to keep him safe.
With nowhere left to go, William quieted, stopped fighting the chanting mass surrounding him, and turned toward his fate, Father Winthrop.
Death, take me to my father, my mother, and my dying demon brothers, still bleeding and crying in the alley.
The chanting people stopped.
Silence fell, save for the crackle of burning logs and the sizzle of fat drizzling off a carcass on a nearby cook fire.
The moment was at hand. William stood tall and tried his best to look defiant.
"We found him among the twisted men," one of the blood-printed men explained to Winthrop.
"We thought he was fleeing," another man explained.
William listened to the men, thinking they were referring to someone else, instead of him.
"He's a devil!" someone screamed from the rear of the circle.
"He's an omen!"
Panic pecked at William's defiant resolve. He glanced at the faces around him, suddenly hoping, on no basis at all, that he might see someone familiar. But Melora, Ivory, and Jingo were gone. All he saw was one bloodstained face after another.
"Our god will decide what to do with him," the first man said.
As if he were a big ugly bug not wanting to slough off his bloody cocoon, Winthrop rose to his full height, clutching his stained robe around him. He raised his arms in the air, moving his lips soundlessly.
William shivered, suddenly certain that Winthrop knew of the lumps underneath his clothes. William had flashes of memory from standing on the dais in Brighton, waiting to be hauled off and burned. No words had ever helped the condemned. Even the dullest of children understood that. William kept his silence. Better to die a silent, brave boy than a begging coward.
Winthrop raised his arms to the sky. The crowd stepped back.
Silvery moonlight dripped through the girders of the enormous dome, mixing with the orange firelight and maddeningly frantic black shadows. William stared at the sky, wishing he could fly, or that Melora, Ivory, or even Bray had discovered an Ancient flying contraption in the ruins and was coming to rescue him.
Winthrop stepped toward him.
William recoiled. Suddenly, men's tight grips were on his arms, holding him in place.
Winthrop held out his hand. He planted his greasy palm on William's forehead.
"Are you a devil?" Winthrop asked.
William struggled for several seconds before he realized it was useless. Winthrop smelled like sweat, and acrid smoke. He leaned down, bringing his face close to William's, sharing his putrid breath.
"I asked you a question, boy. Are you a devil?"
William gulped back his fear. He opened his mouth, but couldn't find an answer.
Eyes bored into him from all sides. The people were swaying, waiting for a response.
William longed to be on the streets of the Ancient City with his demons, not here with these savages.
"Are you a devil?" Winthrop asked, louder, through teeth wet with red demon's blood.
William found the courage to answer, "No."
Winthrop tugged at the patchy stubble on his chin. He retracted his clammy hand and stood up straight.
"Were you walking among the demons?" Winthrop laid it out like an accusation for all to hear.
William wanted to shout out proudly that he had been among his brothers. But fear gripped him tight, and he had the tiniest hope that he might avoid the flame.
Behind the first row of spectators, people whispered. Others stared intently, their faces little more than shadows in the flickering firelight.
"Tell the truth!" someone shouted. "We caught you, devil!"
"Quiet!" Winthrop barked. He bent down again, examining William's face. "A boy who walks among demons might be a devil. Or he might be a miracle." Winthrop's voice turned soft and kind. "Which one are you?"
"He might be an omen, sent to alter our path," someone shouted.
"Or he's here to save the demons!"
People grunted agreement.
Winthrop waved at them to cease their yammering. "We already slaughtered the demons."
William swallowed, wishing he could figure out the right words to set himself free. But he feared a trap.
"I cast the devil out," Winthrop boomed. "I sent him to hell on a pile of demon corpses. Are you the devil, come back to life? Are you Blackthorn?"
Blackthorn?
William gulped as he connected thoughts in his head. Had Winthrop killed Blackthorn? That might explain why he'd seen the blue shirts.
Winthrop burned with anger as he stared at William, trying to make a decision. He was on the verge of another proclamation when a bearded man stepped into the circle.
"The little devil had a sword in his hand, Father. We brought it here. We didn't want him to harm you."
Winthrop scoffed. "Harm me? I'm immortal, you fool. Show me this sword."
The bearded man held out the sword to Winthrop, who took it and examined it. After a moment, he lowered it to his side.
"It's much too large for a boy his size," Winthrop remarked. "It bears the scars of all the death it has reaped. Maybe he is Blackthorn's ghost, after all."
"I'm not Blackthorn." The words sounded weak as they came out of William's mouth. Taking a chance, he added, "And I would never want to be."
Winthrop was taken aback. "Why not?"
William spoke the first thought that came to him. "He butchered the people in
Davenport."
The people stared at him with gaping mouths.
Winthrop studied William. His face twisted with a memory. "The people in Davenport were slaughtered without my knowledge. That is true. That was Blackthorn's doing."
"I know. I escaped." William stuck his chin in the air. "I outran Blackthorn's soldiers. I took one of their swords." William didn't know where the words were coming from, but suddenly, they were there.
"You escaped the hands of the devil?" Winthrop asked. Then, in a resolute voice, Winthrop announced, "You escaped so you could join us."
William stared at Winthrop. He didn't speak.
"What would you like us to do with him, Father?" the bearded man asked. Winthrop handed the bearded man back the sword.
"This boy ran all the way from Davenport to join us," Winthrop said. "He found us in the Ancient City. He's no devil. He is a miracle, come to help us battle the demons."
"But he was walking with them—" the bearded man started.
"He followed them here to find us." Winthrop nodded definitively, as if the answer had just come to him. "They cast a spell over him. But he has broken free long enough to get to us. Now he will feel the light of his god."
Winthrop gazed past the girders of the dome and waved his hands, as if he'd found the answers in the sky. William's eyes unwittingly roamed to one of the women in the front row of the circle, who picked at some gristle between her teeth.
"What should we do with him?" the bearded man asked.
Winthrop looked around him at the curious, hopeful eyes of his followers, who were waiting for an answer. He looked at William.
"Blood the boy."
Chapter 7: Bray
After dragging the body of the blood-printed man into an alley, Bray watched the remainder of the soldiers disappear with the dead demons into the Ancient Circle. He fought the urge to rush inside after them.
If William were going to be killed, Bray wouldn't be able to do anything quickly enough to prevent it. He needed to see what he was up against before he figured out a plan.
Bray got closer to the dome, surveying the area. The enormous building was surrounded on all sides by weed-covered ancient stone, most of which had been trampled by the army. He had never seen an area that large. It would make a stealthy approach difficult. Several small entrances where the walls had caved in provided access to the dome, but most were cluttered with people. On the fringes of the ancient stone, a few hundred feet away, were several tall towers that might give him a view of the gaping entrance and the people inside, if he could climb high enough.
That seemed like the best plan.
Sticking to the shadows, Bray snuck down the opposite side of the road, skirting rubble that had fallen from buildings and weeds that were as tall as his knees, some bent over from where men or demons had passed through. He no longer heard William's screaming.
It was as if the great dome had swallowed him whole.
Chapter 8: Oliver
Oliver walked past a pile of ash and black timber, the remains of one of the towers in which the people of the settlement had lived. At least six of the towers had been completely destroyed by fire. Most of the others showed fire damage. That had everyone confused. As far as anyone knew, demons didn't use fire, but it looked like someone had deliberately set the settlement ablaze.
Fire as a weapon in the hands of demons was a frightening thought.
The people who'd lived in the seaside town had guns, and they'd killed thousands and thousands of their attackers—many times their number, based on the count of human bodies found. But it was apparent to Oliver that they hadn't been able to fight the fire and the attacking demons at the same time. As a result, all of the townsfolk had been slaughtered.
It was confounding to think about. So many demons dead, and still, the people had lost the battle.
It didn't make sense.
The same thing had happened to the Ancients. They'd all died at the hands of the infected hordes. Even Blackthorn's army had been slaughtered by wave upon wave of demon rabble.
Why had Brighton survived so long?
Oliver decided he'd need to have some long conversations with Jingo about that.
At the moment, Oliver's eye was on something mounted high up on one of the towers' tallest platforms. From where he was standing, he was able to see through the gap between the platform's waist-high rail and roof, just at the corner. From five steps to the right or left, forward or back, he'd not see it. He'd only just lucked in to spotting it because movement near the top of the tower caught his eye.
The movement came from black birds, roosting at the top of the tower.
The angular object that had Oliver's attention was silhouetted black against the moonlit sky, its edges perfectly straight. Out of the end, a thin metal tube stabbed the night. The perfection of its straight lines made it look ancient, and though Oliver couldn't tell from where he stood seventy feet below, he guessed it was metal. It had to be a gun.
Taking careful strides to avoid bodies and keep quiet, Oliver made his way across the compound toward the tower on the far side that held what he hoped was a gun. Having stepped away from the spot where he could see it, he focused on the blackened tower. Of the dozens of towers scattered through the grounds, he didn't want to lose track of the one that was his target.
Once he was close enough, Oliver saw that the tower, like many of the others, had suffered from fire damage. This one hadn't collapsed. It looked sturdy, even though it was blackened with smoke and crusted with charred wood.
Oliver made his way around to the entrance—one wide, solid door leading through the thick timbers. All the towers were similar in design, and they all had the single door entrance.
The door for this tower was open, burned black inside and out, and frozen in place on metal hinges layered in soot and new orange rust.
Taking a moment to listen, Oliver heard no noise from inside.
He stepped through the door and looked around in the near blackness. The interior stank of burned wood and flesh so strong it reminded Oliver of standing near the pyres on Cleansing day back in Brighton. Looking up, he saw beams of moonlight shining through the upper windows, lancing the darkness all the way up. The floors inside had mostly burned away, leaving only the supporting framework. The stairs and ladders that led from one floor to the next had been reduced to ash, and were mixed with the debris and stinking gore that covered the bottom floor.
Oliver turned and hurried back outside to gulp fresh, cold air.
Looking up at the tower, knowing his prize was up on that highest platform, Oliver knew there was only one way he'd get to the top. He was going to have to scale the tower from the outside.
Oliver walked the circumference of the tower's base, found what looked like a good spot, and started to climb. The fat logs were laid one on top of another, and at first they seemed easy to scale, but they weren't. Oliver's hands slid over the charred curves. It seemed impossible to grip the wood. He had to wedge his fingers into gaps where the mortar had cracked away between them. Even then, the diameter of the logs made climbing difficult.
Thankfully, the thickest of the logs, the hardest to scale, had been used on the first floor. The second and third-floor logs were smaller in diameter and easier to work around. Above the fourth floor, Oliver was able to grip the open framework supporting the tower's high observation platform, and he was able to get his hands on the braces and plant his feet in spots from which he wasn't in constant fear that they'd slip.
Being so close to his goal, Oliver made quick work of the last of the support beams and heaved himself over the parapet and onto the tower's high platform. Scores of big blackbirds squawked and flapped their wings, startling Oliver as they took flight to get away from what they thought was a predator come to kill them in their sleep.
Before Oliver even caught his breath, the dark, squawking flock disappeared into the night, anger in their caws.
The platform smelled of bird dropping
s, rotting flesh, and smoke. All around Oliver were the bodies that the birds had been feeding on, carrion in shredded clothing, several adults, and nine children of various ages, their eyes plucked away and their faces in tatters from birds' claws and sharp beaks.
On the floor among the bodies lay brass casings by the hundreds, each bigger than one of Oliver's fingers. On a belt feeding into the big gun lay a long row of bullets, gray and fierce, each attached to the end of a brass casing.
On the floor beside the gun, a rectangular metal box held one end of the belt that led into the gun. Against a wall were stacked dozens of similar boxes. Oliver guessed they each contained a belt of bullets for the gun.
Taking a long evaluative look at the bodies, he understood it wasn't demons that had killed these people—it had been smoke and heat from the fire. Often the smoke did its work long before flames crisped flesh. The smoke must've killed the people before they could shoot all the demons.
Ignoring the bodies, Oliver stood up and crossed the platform, careful to avoid putting a foot on any of the dead, but unable to avoid the bird droppings that slicked the floor.
Once beside the gun, he couldn't help but reach out to touch the cold metal. He turned it on its mounting swivel, taking great care not to move any of the small metal pieces attached. He didn't want to set the gun off accidentally. He figured out pretty quickly that the gun weighed nearly as much as he did. There was no way he was carrying it back down with him.
That was a disappointment, but at least he'd found a gun.
Tech Magic.
Power.
Oliver couldn't help the surge of excitement that ran through him. In Brighton, the big gun would be priceless.
Oliver looked around at the top platforms on the surrounding towers, and he spotted four more such guns mounted along the parapets. One was the same size as the one he had a hand on, two looked smaller. All four were atop burned out towers like the one he stood upon. None of the intact towers had guns mounted on their high platforms.
That was odd. Oliver tried speculating, but he had no idea why a gun would or wouldn't be mounted in each tower.
