“Domas is part of the reason why Brooklyn isn’t here any more,” Rommond said. “I think I deserve this chance at vengeance.”
“You’re not the only one who lost,” Taberah cried. “Domas raped me, Rommond! The first year when they came. I didn’t even know they were demons at the time. Brogan is his child. Every time I look at him, every time I see the boy, I see Domas in his eyes. Don’t you dare tell me I don’t deserve this kill!”
Rommond bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not know.”
“I wanted to tell you,” she said, “so many times. But I didn’t want anyone to know.”
They heard a sound at the door, which was slightly ajar. Though they did not see who it was that had been eavesdropping, they knew from the fleeing shadow, short and thin, that it was Whistler.
25 – MONSTER
Whistler retreated to his room, and sat on his bed, clutching the small mirror Doctor Mudro had given him. He was supposed to check and replace his bandages regularly, but often he did this without looking in the mirror. He did not like what looked back.
He often rubbed his fingers across his face, to feel if he was growing any hair upon his upper lip. How he imagined proudly bearing a moustache like that ferocious one that Rommond bore, and how he then dreamed of stubble on his chin, like that chopped forest on Jacob’s face. And then he would be a man, and the whiskers might weigh down his lip and make him a quieter man, one less prone to say childish things, one less likely to speak of secret things.
A man.
But now he looked upon his smooth face, and instead of a first fuzz he saw the faded scars, and he wondered if any hair might ever grow there. Bandages were still taped to his cheeks, which were even now somewhat tender, and he feared to take them off. He trembled at the thought of what might be written in the blotches of his skin.
How could he ever be a man, when he was, at best, half-human? He feared that instead of growing up to be a man, he would grow into a monster. The blood of the Regime in him would take hold, and he would betray willingly those he betrayed accidentally before.
He cried, and he berated himself for crying, for proving to himself that he was still a boy, a child with childish hopes and fears.
He understood then why he could sense the demons, how he knew when some of them infiltrated the Order. It was not just some uncanny skill. They were his kin.
* * *
Jacob found Whistler in his room, staring at the small oval mirror, with half the bandages ripped off his face. In the mirror Jacob could see the scars and blotches that covered much of the right side of the boy’s face.
“I’m a monster,” Whistler whispered, as if he did not want to hear those condemning words. Undoubtedly they were louder in his mind.
“You’re not,” Jacob said.
“I’m a monster!”
“It’s just a few scars, kid. I’ve had worse. They’ll heal in time.”
Whistler stared at himself in the mirror. Perhaps he saw a monster staring back.
“It’s not just the scars,” Whistler said, though clearly they bothered him too. “It’s …”
Jacob was not surprised that he could not continue. He was there with Whistler at the door, listening in, and as he listened he knew he should have been keeping the boy away. It was too late for that now. The secret was out, and though Domas was likely to die that night, it was certain that his ghost would haunt them all.
“My … my father,” Whistler stuttered, “was a demon, so that … that means I must be part-demon too. How can I not be a monster then?”
Jacob sighed. “Look, kid. It doesn’t matter who your father was, or what were the circumstances of your birth. Your blood runs through your body, not your personality. You’re a good kid, Whistler. Good kids just can’t be monsters. It doesn’t work like that. Hell, there’s more monster in me, and both my parents were human.”
Whistler was not so easily consoled, and Jacob could not blame him. It would have taken the words of a higher being to reach through the darkness, and Jacob was no angel. Yet despite this, despite his almost certainty that he spoke in vain, that his words fell on deaf ears, that they touched a frozen heart, he continued.
“You know, kid, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m not sure they really are demons. They come from somewhere else, sure, and some of them, many of them, do some pretty evil things, but I’m not convinced they’re all like that. I think we call them demons because we want to justify our hate, and maybe hate just isn’t justifiable.”
Whistler paused mid-sob, as if now his tears had frozen. “I don’t want to hate them,” he said.
“Then don’t hate.”
“I don’t want to hate myself,” the boy continued.
Jacob placed his hand upon Whistler’s shoulder. “Then don’t hate.”
Whistler looked back at the mirror, where the monster hid behind a mask of bandages, and behind a human mask.
“It’ll heal,” Jacob promised. “Trust me.” He showed Whistler a faint scar that ran down his left forearm. “I usually tell people I got this in the trenches, but the truth is I slipped while climbing over a wall, and got caught on the barbed wire. Smuggling’s a dangerous business, after all. And look, you can barely notice it now.”
Whistler forced a smile.
“It’ll heal,” Jacob repeated. He patted Whistler on the back. “I’ll get the doctor to apply some fresh bandages,” he added before heading out of the room.
* * *
“You have to deal with Brogan,” Rommond told Taberah.
She shook her head violently. “First, I deal with this demon here.”
“You can’t ignore the boy forever, Tabs.”
This time she ignored Rommond’s words. She looked at Domas squirming on the ground, barely able to muster a smug smile, and yet looking like he was enjoying dying as much as he enjoyed living. In death, he got to do what he did in life: ruin the lives of others.
“It’s time,” she said. She looked into Rommond’s eyes. He saw many years of buried pain there, too many to count. How many occasions had she said It’s time, only for Domas to once again slip through the net? Rommond knew the hurt, and the hatred. That was how he knew that this time, no matter what, Domas had to die.
Rommond took out his pistol and handed it to Taberah.
“Is it loaded?” she asked.
“Freshly.”
“Do you mind if I spend the lot?”
“Spend away.”
There were no smiles shared. The executioner does not revel in the job. What must be done is done. A life taken, for a life taken. Rommond knew as he watched Taberah raise the gun, that just like him, she was alive, but was not living. This war had claimed so many of their friends and comrades, and though they yet lived, it had claimed them too.
“So, you’ve come to say goodbye,” Domas said.
She said it with her gun.
* * *
Whistler did not budge from his seat for the entire time Jacob was gone, which was probably only fifteen or twenty minutes, but felt like a lifetime—a lifetime where Whistler never grew up, stayed at that halfway point between boy and man, and between human and demon.
He peeled off more of the bandages. Some came off with ease, but others clung to his tender skin, and he cringed and yelped as he pulled at the strips. Part of him did not want to see, but the other part had to see. He had heard of the mummified remains of the Treasury’s ancestors, buried with their vast kingdoms of gold, and tomb thieves were rampant then, and still active now, taking everything they could, even the brittle bones. Some said they were cursed, and that any who dared defile their tombs would know an evil fate. When the bandages were undone, they glared out at all, horrifying all, and beckoning all to join them in death. All of those images, those thoughts and teachings, flashed in Whistler’s head, until he almost felt that he unearthing his own tomb.
Then Whistler heard a noise in the room, like a footstep, and he feared that
he had summoned something from those ancient crypts, that dwelling on their memories had called them back to the land of the living where they could be remembered even more.
He was afraid to turn around, but he mustered the courage to do so. There was no one there.
“Jacob?” he asked, his voice wavering.
Silence seemed to be his only companion. Even the echoes fled.
“Is that you, Jacob?” Whistler asked again, when he heard the creak of the floorboards. He thought he saw a shadow pass by the door, and he suddenly felt like he was not alone. Though he had sobbed about his solitude, he would rather have that now.
Then he thought he heard a whisper, and though he could not make out the voice, he could make out the words: “Sometimes it’s more fun to be a monster.”
26 – THE BRIG
The battle with the Regime was over, and all of its submarines were destroyed or disabled. The Lifemaker limped through the waters, running at half power, and all but one of the air tanks were depleted. It should have been six months’ supply, but it was only three months in, and half of the supply was lost to tampering, which Rommond blamed on Karlsif, though the cook only claimed responsibility for damaging the ballast tanks.
There were few Regime soldiers left alive at the end of the fight, and Rommond interrogated them all, and shot most of them when they showed they had no useful information. At one time he believed in honouring the enemy’s surrender, in the unwritten rules of war. No longer. He kept a single prisoner alive, not as a point of honour, but because he was one of the planners behind the attack, and Rommond wanted to know how the Regime had found them.
The man, who refused to tell his name, and was known among the Resistance as Demon X, was locked in the Lifemaker’s brig, where he continued to defy Rommond, where he continued to remind Jacob of his childhood in the workhouse prisons, and of his later time in the Hold, and of Whistler’s longer stay. The man before him might have been a demon, but it was hard for Jacob not to feel something for him, to want to see him free.
“Do you have a man on board?” Rommond asked.
“We do now,” the captive replied with a grin.
Rommond gritted his teeth. “Did you have a man on board before the attack?”
He was greeted with silence, and a broad smile.
“Co-operate, and we will let you live.”
“We know all about you, Rommond,” the man responded. “If I co-operate, you will let me die.”
Rommond drew close to the bars. “Maybe you will think that is mercy soon enough.”
“You used to have honour,” the demon said.
“I used to do a lot of silly things,” Rommond replied. “I used to love. You, all of you, took that from me.”
“We used to talk about you in the trenches,” the prisoner mused aloud. “He ain’t half as bad as he’s cracked up to be. He ain’t the monster Domas makes ‘im out to be. What happened?”
“What happened?” Rommond shouted, grabbing the bars. “I’ll tell you what happened! I got a letter. Give up or Brooklyn dies, they threatened. We can’t give up, I said. We all said it. We even said Brooklyn would say it too. Then I got one of his fingers in a box. In a puzzle box. It took me hours just to get it open. It was harder to say anything then. So I said nothing, and we all said nothing, and maybe I kidded myself by thinking Brooklyn would say nothing too. Then I got his hand, his right hand, in another puzzle box, and I knew it was his hand. I recognised it, recognised the markings. How long I held that hand when he was living. How long I held it still when he was dead. But he wasn’t dead yet, and I prayed, prayed to his gods, to his spirits, to his ancestors, that the Regime would show him a little of the mercy I showed to so many soldiers. I got one more letter, threatening to send his head. What could I do? Even if I gave up, if I stopped fighting and handed myself in, chances were they’d kill him anyway.”
“Stop,” the prisoner objected. “I didn’t mean to bring all this up.”
“No,” Rommond said. “You asked, and now I’m answering. You wanted to know why. This is why. I sent them a letter back, asking for the head of the Iron Emperor instead. God, I wish I hadn’t sent that letter. But it probably wouldn’t have mattered. They sent another box, another puzzle box—a bigger box—and the letter accompanying it just said: You wanted to see him, face to face. I tried to open the box, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t see him like that! So I buried his dismembered parts in a patch of grassland near where his people lived, perhaps the only sacred ground left on this unholy earth.
“So, if you think I have no honour, ask what honour was in what they did to him. Ask how this invasion has any honour. Even if you were my fellow man, to me you will always be demons.”
“I wasn’t party to those acts,” the prisoned objected. “I didn’t kill Brooklyn.”
“And what were you planning to do here? If he were still alive, your actions, your plots and schemes, could have killed him now all the same. How many of our people have died from this attack? How many of our women, those few who can continue our race, have fallen to your gunfire? Don’t you dare berate me about honour! I knew honour in my heart and soul. You only know the word.”
Rommond withdrew and turned towards the door. “If he won’t talk,” he said, “then let him starve.”
“I thought they were supposed to be the demons,” Jacob said.
“This is war, Jacob, and it’s not a war over territory or principles. It’s a war for the survival of humanity. These demons parade about, pretending to be us. But they are nothing like us. They take. They consume. Our world is a giant feast to them, and, by all gods, this demon won’t take another crumb until he helps us first.”
“What if he doesn’t know anything?”
“And what if he knows something that could help us turn the tide? He planned this attack. He knows how they found us. And maybe if he knows our weaknesses, he can tell us his own.”
“Surely he would be more willing to talk,” Jacob said, “if he wasn’t starved.”
“You know my mind on this,” Rommond stated. “If no words will come out, then no food will go in.”
Rommond stormed out, slamming the door shut behind him, as if to lock Jacob in as well. The guards outside the door did not budge or flinch. They were the perfect statues that the general had carved them into.
Jacob looked around the room. He was alone with the prisoner. Somehow he felt more at home inside that small room, almost locked away. It was such an odd thing to yearn for freedom when imprisoned, but then to yearn for the comforts of the cage when freedom is granted. The wide, empty deserts of Altadas diminished the value of freedom, and yet Jacob felt that even if it were just a concept, he would still fight for it.
“I tried,” he told the prisoner.
“I saw.”
“This is his ship.”
“I know.”
Jacob sighed.
“We’re not monsters,” the man said. He looked even less monstrous behind those bars. Jacob imagined how a nightmare might have seemed defanged by being locked up, subdued and subjugated. He knew well that looks could be deceiving, however.
“Well, you didn’t exactly come from Heaven,” Jacob said.
“We didn’t come from Hell either.”
“Where did you come from, then?”
“A beautiful world, more beautiful than this one.”
“Then why did you come here?”
“We were stricken with famine,” the demon said. “Our world could no longer support us. It became an empty husk. It forced us out.”
“So you invaded ours?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be an invasion. That’s not what the Iron Emperor promised us.”
“What did he promise?” Jacob asked.
“Iron.”
“Well, you got that, along with human lives.”
“Iron is the bedrock of our civilisation. We need it to survive.”
“And now it’s the bedrock of mine, and the lining of ever
y wallet.”
“We didn’t mean to cause all this destruction.”
“I have a hard time believing that,” Jacob said. “And I doubt Rommond would buy it either.”
“I’m not surprised he hates us.”
“You do make it easy to hate.”
“Do you always talk to those you hate?”
“Well, I’m not entirely sure I hate you. I don’t like what the Regime has done. Then again, you’ve given me a job. Hell, you’ve given the entire Resistance a job.”
“A mission.”
“Well, you’re wiping us out,” Jacob noted.
“We didn’t intend to.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” the prisoner objected. “Because you do intend to wipe us out.”
* * *
When Jacob left the brig, he found it difficult to return. For one, Rommond put extra guards on duty, who were ordered to refuse all visitors. Jacob thought the general might have especially prohibited him from entering. He also was not sure if he really wanted to go back. It was easier to fight for “the cause” if the enemy was not in chains, and if the enemy did not share his own side of the story.
Several days passed where Jacob tried to keep himself busy. The prisoner’s only visitor was an interrogator, who always left more unhappy than he entered. Perhaps the prisoner was threatened. Perhaps he was even tortured. He certainly was not fed. Jacob found his own form of torture in thinking about these things, and feeling that he was somehow a silent accomplice. As each day passed, he felt a little more inhuman for having done nothing.
* * *
On the fifth day of the prisoner’s incarceration, Jacob went back to the brig during the night, making sure to stay out of anyone’s way. He tried to avoid mischief, while knowing well that Rommond would think his skulking activity was a mischief of its own. He smuggled a sandwich with him, a small act of compassion he felt he had to make for the starving prisoner, and, unlike the amulets, he did not intend to charge a fee.
Lifemaker: A Steampunk Dystopian Fantasy (The Great Iron War, Book 2) Page 15
