by Scott Hale
From behind, an insect’s clicking: “My cue!”
Mr. Haemo emerged from the cabin, in all his grotesque glory.
Hex recoiled, screaming “What the fuck is that?” as the cabalists further back shouted and drew their swords.
The mosquito took great strides as he moved towards them, his million unblinking eyes boring through those blood bags called humans.
“That’s—” Hex’s eyes glowed again, “—that’s the thing that brought you back?”
One for dramatics, Mr. Haemo raised his claw up, as though he were commanding the minions of hell to rise, and said, “One and the same.”
“Hex,” Warren belted, sword drawn. “What the fuck is that shit, god damn it?”
“Hold,” she said, eyes wide in awe.
Mr. Haemo cocked his head, twitched his wings. “Interesting,” he said, staring at Hex intensely. “You’re gifted, too, aren’t you?” He laughed and turned to Atticus. “I do like meeting new people, but hell, let’s give them a break some.”
The giant mosquito took the edge of his hood and lowered it over his face. He grabbed the cloak and pulled it tight, until it seemed as though it were going to rip.
Chanting, “Bl’xhzhka ukul’qntk,” the cloak stretched beyond what seemed possible, down his arms and his legs, until the mosquito’s entire carapace was covered in old, stitched skin. Then, the flesh began to mold itself, give detail to itself. It pushed in on the mosquito’s head, and the mosquito’s head deflated until it was more skull-like. It grew heavy on the mosquito’s shoulders, and the mosquito’s body shrank, losing a foot every few seconds, until he was the same height as Atticus. His arms retracted, his claws became fingers; his feet and legs became meaty and human. His stomach sucked inward, while his chest rippled to give the appearance of ribs. A penis far larger than normal dropped from his still-forming pelvis, and he laughed when he looked at it, pleased. Two eyes with every possible color grew in his shallow sockets, until they were lidded and lighted. When he opened his mouth, teeth pushed through his gums. And the proboscis inside his maw retracted, flattened, until it was close enough to be mistaken for a tongue.
“Better? Or did I make it worse?” Mr. Haemo chuckled, his ashy, scarred skin a patchwork of the long-dead. “Woman’s got a point, At—” he smirked, “—woman’s got a point, Gravedigger.”
Carpenter Plantation drew its final breath, and went on to die a smoldering death, collapsing completely upon itself. A wave of heat exploded across the property, leaving those that stood before it drenched in sweat. Screams rode in on the searing wind. The smoke rising out of the rubble turned to fog and, for a moment, looked like a face.
Abel, Atticus thought. Now that there’s nothing he can do, I wonder if he’s relieved?
“I’ll come with you,” Mr. Haemo offered, his human suit in some ways more disturbing than his insect form. “Been with you this whole way already.”
Atticus took Blythe’s cloak and wiped himself down. The Membrane flashed before him. Huh. Died again. He rubbed his temples as a sudden headache cracked his forehead open. I’m losing my fucking mind.
Finally, voice hoarse, he said, “Why?”
“Blood well’s busted. They’re delicate things. We overdid it.” Mr. Haemo’s voice still buzzed when he spoke, as though he had a throat full of bugs. “A mosquito needs its blood well. I’m not much without it. I’ve been watching you since you left. You’ve been tearing across the country, leaving behind so much blood it makes me want to cry.” Mr. Haemo covered his crotch and winked at Hex. “Apologies, but not really. Got a dress I can borrow?”
“Don’t talk to her like that,” Atticus threatened. “So, what? You trail along and drain those we drop? Why? You can’t get me into the Membrane. You’d have done it already.”
“Gary’s got it right,” Mr. Haemo said. He snapped his fingers at the ghoul and gave him the thumbs up. “I’ve been around a long, long time. I remember when Archivist Amon was pillaging the continent for artifacts. He’s got plenty of things we could use to tear a way into the Membrane, or at least power a blood well to make it large enough to pass through. Hell, I know for a fact that the first ghoul, Deacon Wake, had a black chalice which is up there.”
Atticus shook his head. “How?”
“Seen it. Been to Ghostgrave a few times. Before I retired to the marsh.”
Mr. Haemo strolled over to James and extended his hand. “Howdy, buddy. Long time, no taste.”
James stepped away and went shoulder to shoulder with Hex. “Fuck off, freak.”
“I need to sit down, lie down.” Atticus stared at the ground and disappeared into a reverie for a moment.
“Atticus,” Gary started. “I don’t like this son of a bitch, either, but I think this is the answer we were all looking for. I wish it hadn’t taken so long to get here.”
“I’m tired of waiting,” Atticus said, his voice cracking. “I’m tired of it! I just want them back. I’ve died so many god damn times that life is this fucking close to losing all meaning to me.” He curled his fists, told Clementine to shut up, even though she wasn’t talking. “I’ve endured all manner of mutilations. I’ve traveled I don’t even know how fucking far. And I can’t die. I can’t even give up. I’m too fucking stupid to do that, too unlucky.” He put his hands to his head. “I feel my mind tearing in two. And I guarantee you that I’ll take the worst of the parts when the time comes, because the worst is what’ll serve me best. Always have. I cannot let that happen. If I’m going to save them, I need to be what I always was to them.”
He covered his mouth, gave everything he had to hold back the tears. “You all are using me, and I don’t rightly believe you’ll come through with what you promise. But what else am I going to do?”
Atticus went quiet for a moment. He closed his eyes and saw his wife and son, sitting down at the table, eating the same old, same old and telling stories to pass the time. God, he wanted that back so bad. He’d never been happier than in those “insignificant” moments. He’d collected them, he had; like pretty, polished rocks too often overlooked in a creek bed. He’d get them out from time to time, to remember why they’d caught his eye. Dinner, farming, small picnics in fields. Bad jokes, stupid arguments. Will trying to ride a pig. Clementine trying to write a book.
He remembered when Clementine taught Will how to fight, and when Will went to practice on him after. Boy got lucky, and then knocked his daddy out cold. What was the name of the ship Will meant to build? So he could sail the Widening Gyre and see what sat at the center? They were supposed to do that one day. And Clementine was going to fight off the sea hags, because just between the two of them, Atticus had confessed to his son, Mom was the far better beater.
They were talking to him—Hex, James, Gary, Mr. Haemo—but he wasn’t listening. He was trying to remember what Clementine had told him the first time they had met, back at the abandoned swimming pool, a million years ago. She’d been so nervous, he knew that much, and he could never figure out why. She was popular enough. She’d even been the one to approach him. What had she said?
I knew before, but not anymore. Atticus looked at the people who claimed to be his friends and whom he’d once claimed as such.
I knew before, but not anymore. Atticus looked down at himself, at the body that was his but at this point could’ve been anyone’s.
I knew before, but not anymore. Atticus looked inward, at the things he’d done or sworn off, and was willing to do again.
I knew before, but not anymore. This, he realized, was what terrified him the most. That his mind would rot before his flesh would, and he would do everything he could, only to forget why he’d done it at all.
“Who’s your benefactor?” Atticus said, breaking his silence.
“I can’t say. But there’s a meeting,” Hex replied quickly.
“Where?”
“Cathedra. Two days.”
Atticus repeated again: “With who?”
Hex shook her head. �
��Gravedigger, I can’t.”
“You can, and you will.”
Hex sighed and stomped her feet, like a child who wasn’t about to get her way.
Finally, she said, “Geharra.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Beauty had been sorely lacking from Atticus’ life of late. He’d seen it here and there, on the road, in Hex, but it’d been brief, and quick to ugly. Now, as he sat on a bench on Cathedra’s streets, marveling at the buildings in the midnight moonlight, he knew he’d found it again. And for the next twelve hours, it was his to have.
Hex had patched him up as best she could, which was a thing of beauty in and of itself. But he’d tired of flesh and blood, of death and destruction, so when he was good to go, he had to go. Anywhere would do, he said, hurrying from the hideout they’d bought in Cathedra. Gary and James had tried to follow him, but when he started rolling up his sleeves, they went back to bed.
The burning of Carpenter Plantation had brought a lot of the town running, which was how they’d slipped into Cathedra unnoticed. At this moment, many of the townspeople were still at the property, dousing the fires to prevent them from spreading further. While others were rummaging through the wreckage for the bodies of those unfortunate protestors who’d gotten, in some ways, just what they’d wanted.
So Cathedra was quiet, almost silent, and for mostly terrible reasons. Atticus didn’t pay that much mind, though. Instead, he sat with his legs crossed, his hands folded over his knees, while the cool air give to him a much needed baptism.
This was as close as he was going to get to Penance, Atticus figured. The white buildings, somehow grand in their minimalism, were not cold but comforting. They had a sophistication to their architecture, a happy marriage of aesthetic and function. Atticus always imagined himself being a builder. He’d even tried his hand at it for a while, after Will’s birth. It never went anywhere, all that practice and studying, but he did end up learning a few fancy words to impress the easily impressed at Gallows’ tavern.
Atticus uncrossed his legs and took a deep breath. Things were better when they didn’t smell like blood. He stood up, stretched, and crossed the road. First time he saw the road, he thought it was covered in snow, but the road was just white rocks cobbled together and cleaned on a constant basis. Did they still think they had a chance of Penance moving here? Cathedra struck him like the room an innkeeper keeps ready at all times, for that special guest who will almost certainly never arrive. The people of Cathedra probably knew this, too, but there was a discipline to be had in blind obedience. And that wasn’t bad at all, Atticus thought, leaning out of the shadows to touch the sculpture of the Holy Child on the corner. Not bad at all.
Since the plantation and the offers of Hex and Mr. Haemo, he’d slowed his mind to a crawl. He had to; otherwise, he would’ve gotten belligerent and said to hell with the lot of them.
Atticus moved past the sculpture, ducked past candlelit windows. Cathedra was a wide town, spacious, like heavenly places.
How do I get up there? he wondered, gazing at cathedral upon the hill. It was magnificent. The way the world seemed to bend around it made it look alive. The stained glass windows were huge, bright; they cast their multicolored stories across the town. He couldn’t make much sense of them, but he kind of wanted to.
“Go to Eldrus and kill the king?” he whispered to himself. “I could do that.”
Somehow, after all that fire at the plantation, he was cold. He pulled Blythe’s cloak tight and studied the cathedral some more.
“You’d like this place, Will,” he said. “Sure beats all that wood of Gallows.” He smiled, almost went to put his arm around his kid.
Is that her? He squinted at the cathedral and the tall, wrought iron fences that surrounded it. I’ll be damned. There was a statue where the street started up the hill. He couldn’t get too close. There were too many open windows nearby and not enough cover. But as he crept forward, hugging the edge of a seamstress’ building, his suspicions were confirmed.
The statue was of Justine, the Hydra of Penance, Mother Abbess, and High Priestess of the Holy Order; or at least that’s what the statue claimed on its weatherworn placard. The Hydra had developed a reputation over the years, where it was said that her appearance was always changing. Though it wasn’t illegal to reproduce her likeness, many superstitious subordinates assumed it should’ve been. That, in combination with the rumor she rarely looked the same, made images of her hard to find and even harder to trust. But this was Cathedra, Atticus figured, the would-be capitol of the Holy Order. If any place got it right, they probably did.
Justine. He’d only heard her called by her name once or twice in his life. It was pretty, like she was, or had been at the time of the statue’s carving. She was slender, elegant, with large eyes and a smile that was just as endearing as it was devious. He was certain the sculptor had taken some liberties, but even so, she didn’t strike him as the leader type. And how did she even get to be the head of the Order? It was strange standing there, in the dead of night, alone with the rare likeness of one of the most powerful people in the world. This was who he needed to see, he thought, because if anyone knew anything about otherworldly matters, it would be her.
“One at a time,” he said, slinking back into the shadows. “King Edgar first, and then you, Justine, if need be.” He collected the memory of Justine and put it somewhere safe in his mind.
“I wonder if they’ll carve a statue of me, Clementine,” he mumbled, heading back towards the hideout. “I bet Hex has her people working on it right now. We’ll be famous when you get back. Our friends back in Gallows will shit themselves.”
The hideout was a literal hole in the wall of a hole in the wall tavern that the good people of Cathedra surprisingly never remodeled. There was a side entrance near the stables that didn’t see use anymore, and Atticus went through there. Where the stable checked the tavern, a few boards were loose. He pulled those up, knocked on the door behind them, and went through when Hex opened it.
“Feel better now?” Hex asked, sounding slightly annoyed. She shut and locked the door behind him and said, “Anyone see you?”
Atticus shook his head. The room in front of him was all they had. It was small, cramped; the three beds inside it took up most of the floor space. Elizabeth and Miranda were asleep together, while Warren was sitting at the edge of his bed, which he shared with Hex. James was high on painkillers for his hand. When Atticus eventually settled in beside him, the boy was probably going to try to snuggle up close. Gary and Mr. Haemo, being the creatures they were, slept under the beds, though Atticus was pretty sure the human-shaped mosquito was faking it.
He searched the room and said, “Where’s the rest of the Cabal?”
“Paid them and sent them on their way.” Warren swallowed hard. There was a glint in his eyes.
“Won’t they rat us out?”
“No, they’re too shaken to squeal. Plus, I don’t recruit squealers.”
The big man lay back down, his massive body causing the bed’s center to sink. His head disappeared behind his wide shoulder, into the pillow.
Hex shook her head and said, “Eat something, and then get some rest.”
Atticus lingered on Warren, noticing how he shook there, sorrow freezing him to the bone. “When you’ve done what needs to be done, be done,” he said, reciting what he’d told Atticus in the hidden stairwell.
Warren snickered, and said, “There’s always something that needs doing. Always some wrong that needs righted.” He wiped something off his face. “People like us, we’ll be done when we’re dead.”
“And what about the dead? When will we be done?”
Warren shrugged. “When god gets around to it.”
Like any self-respecting secret meeting, this one was held at the Black Hour. They’d spent the whole of that next day in the hideout, so when it was twenty minutes ‘til, Atticus and Hex almost blew the doors off the place trying to get out. To no one’s surprise, three g
rieving mercenaries, one pain-wracked prostitute, a festering ghoul, and a blood obsessed mosquito didn’t exactly make for good company in close quarters.
With Carpenter Plantation’s fire extinguished and everyone on alert, Cathedra was a much different town this night than it had been before. Candles burned on every sill and fires blazed in every shop. There were voices all around, at Atticus’s and Hex’s backs and to their sides. It was a neighborhood watch done right, the kind that could be felt but not seen, yet respected all the same.
Atticus and Hex leaned out of the stable, searching for a good street to start down. “No soldiers or patrol?”
Hex shook her head. “The tavern owner has had a few of his bar flies spread rumors about you, Gravedigger. We gave them our old camp in the woods to find as a distraction.”
Footsteps cut her short. A couple wandered past, hands all over each other. They disappeared into the dark.
“Everyone’s spooked, but curious, too. Cathedra has no love for Eldrus, either. If we mind our business tonight, most’ll turn a blind eye.”
“What’s the tavern owner been saying about me?”
Atticus threw the hood of Blythe’s cloak over his head. He followed Hex out of the stables and down the street that ran along the back of the businesses.
Hex tugged her braids apart. Quickly, she put them into a blue bun. “That you led the attack on Carpenter Plantation. That you can’t be killed. That you wait in the graveyards at night, looking for new recruits for your cause.”
Atticus grabbed her shoulders. “Did you leave my family out of it?”
“No.”
A few more buildings and they’d be in the open again.
“No names, of course, but a monster needs a heart if people are going to follow it.”
Atticus twitched. “That’s what I am to you now?”
“You saying you’re not a monster?” She smiled, took his hand off her. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this human business out together when it’s all over.”
If it were up to Atticus, he wouldn’t have held the secret meeting at the center of town, but as he’d come to realize over the last few months, not much was up to him anymore. Revenge had gotten him a little further than his front step, but everything after that was because of someone else. This was a personal matter, and yet it didn’t feel personal anymore. The fact that his loss had become entwined with fanciful thoughts of revolt made him want to spit.
