Father Klein knelt beside her. “Molly. It is never too late for us to forgive one another. Jesus teaches us that.”
“Will you listen?” Molly asked, clasping her hands together in front of her chest. “Will you be my confessor?”
“To the best of my ability, child. I am little without God, but we can do as we should have done in the old world.”
“Good,” Molly took a deep breath. “I’ve realized you’re right about that as well. I was trying to fight Satan with my own wit, but I’m only human. Of course I failed. The only way to fight him is the way God told us. But you know that. You tried to tell me that before, I just couldn’t listen.”
Father Klein nodded. “It is not an easy lesson to learn, for any of us. Our pride, it tells us that we can make the right decisions, but that’s the sin the Devil knows best. Yes, tell me about Cris, about that conversation.”
Tears began to flow down her cheeks. Not the tears Molly usually gave, which were cloaked in self pity and self interest, but actual tears. True tears. Tears of genuine sorrow.
“I loved him, Father,” she said between sniffles. “I loved him. You had all been so mean to me. I wanted to think that somehow it was you all who were wrong. That way it wouldn’t have been my problem. I must have known I was a terrible person, because I felt like . . . like if a single thing I had done had actually been my fault, then it would have been enough to make me worthless. I guess I forgot that we were all damned and sent to Hell. I guess I forgot that we were all terrible people, and by forgetting that, I forgot my personal responsibility. I forgot who I was. I wanted to go on f . . . having sex with men. I wanted to think it was okay. Most of all I wanted to think that the sex I’d had already wasn’t done in sin. Cris told me consensual sex was no vice. He told me that you were the ones who were evil. He told me I was worthwhile. He told me exactly what I wanted to hear.”
“He appealed to your pride. You should not hate yourself for falling into that trap. The Infidel Friend, they’re vile creatures. They know how to widen the cracks in a man’s faith.”
Molly gripped the hem of his robe. “But when I was out there, out there in the wilds, I was confronted by Satan. Not literally, but He’s out there, Father. I could feel him. I could feel his breath coming down the back of my neck. No human can withstand him. I was trying to use my own mind to fight Hell, but my own mind is worthless. The Devil got in there. I went astray, so far astray. But there was always this light leading me back. I started to wonder how could it be that all of you, all of you were in the wrong. I just couldn’t believe that all of Harpsborough, all of my brothers and sisters here, that an entire society, was in the wrong. It had to be me. But I buried that thought deep.
“Time passed. Satan was winning. I was sure of myself. I was sure my arms were long enough to box with the Devil . . . but I was a fool. Only God could fight Satan, and only he could give us the path to do so ourselves. I don’t want to be a demon, Father. I don’t. You all are my family, and I was mad at you. Children do that sometimes, don’t they, Father? They think they hate their parents.”
“They do.”
Molly’s blue eyes were red with sadness. “And the children, sometimes they don’t realize that they love their family. But I love you all. I do. I realized that out there. I remembered your teachings. I found my way back. It’s so funny. It was the sex that did it. I just wanted to believe it was okay. But it’s not okay to have sex like I was having. I had to think of what God would have said about it. I don’t know what God would say about everything I’ve done, I’d need to discuss that with you, but in my heart I knew He disapproved. I knew it. So I had to admit I was wrong.”
Father Klein stood up. “I hear you.”
She reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Don’t let them put me through the Golden Door. Don’t let them take me to trial.”
“It would fill me with joy to put in a good word for you, it really would,” Father Klein said. “But I know you, Molly. You’re a smart girl. You’re capable of deceiving me.”
“Father!” she choked, and her face suddenly turned red with anger. “You don’t trust me now? After I poured my heart out to you?” She stood up and shoved her finger into his chest. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
Father Klein took a cautious step back.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she repeated.
Molly was many things, but she was not stupid. “No, I—”
“And you know that I’ve been out there. That I’ve been in Hell facing these realities that I’m talking about. Do you think any intelligent person could experience those things and not realize that you’re right? Do you think that any person could have these ideas, and seriously consider them, and then think they should turn the other way?”
Molly had a strength in her he had not seen before. It was a strength that reminded him strangely of Cris, but it expressed itself in a completely different way. What a Christian Cris would have made! What an excellent tool for God. It was a shame he’d chosen the Devil’s path. But Molly, Molly was a different story. She had that strength, certainly, that will to be her own person, and that’s why her willingness to toss aside that personality, to humble herself before the will of the Lord, was even more powerful.
“I believe you,” he told her. And he meant it. He felt the truth in his heart. Molly had come back from the darkness. “Welcome home, child,” he said, tears in his eyes. “Welcome home.”
“Tsup Reg,” Martin greeted the bird depiction painted onto the front of his girlfriend’s door blanket.
“Is that you Martin?” Katie’s sweet voice came to him from beyond the bird.
“Sure is, ma’am.”
“Come on in, we’re decent!”
Martin slid the door blanket aside, dropped to his knees and crawled under the low archway into Katie’s hovel. Erica was there, too. Martin was glad to see her. At one point, when the famine was at its worst and before the Fore had agreed to the feast days, he’d feared she was dead.
“I was just headed out,” Erica said, smiling. She crawled by Martin, leaving them alone. Martin watched the door blanket as it waved back and forth for a moment. It stopped.
Katie looked beautiful in the soft light. There were still dark circles under her eyes, but they didn’t look so bad now.
“Hey, princess,” Martin said.
“Hey, Lead Hunter,” she giggled after the title had left her lips.
The giggle made Martin feel very warm. “That’s acting Lead Hunter, technically.”
“It’s all the same to me. But I miss when you were just Martin.”
Martin had to admit to himself that the fight with the Kyle-thing, hell, the whole incident with the corpsemen, had shaken him deeply. He couldn’t disagree with Katie. A part of him wished he was just Martin as well.
I need to have a long talk with ole Bense, he’ll help me sort this all out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Girl can see right through me.
“I got a bad assignment,” he said.
Katie frowned and wrinkles appeared on her forehead. She suddenly looked more tired. For a second she looked almost as bad as she had right before the feast, but then her frown lessened a little. “You can’t like, delegate it?” She tried a smile.
“No, no I can’t. Came straight from Michael.” He settled down on the blanket she used as a bed and put his head on her pack-turned-pillow. “And I don’t know that I would if I could.”
He raised his weak hand and looked at it. He could hardly tell that it had regrown, now. Hell did indeed heal all wounds. He made a fist with it. Light came in from a gap between the tarp they used to cover the hovel’s roof, illuminating the middle two knuckles of his fist.
All wounds.
“They’re treating you wrong, Martin,” she said. “I hate to see you treated wrong.”
“It’s fine, Katie. They’d have given Aaron the job if he was here.”
She leaned over and put her hands on
his raised fist, guiding it down to his belly. “But Aaron was a Citizen. He got rewarded for all the work that he did. He got to sit up there in the Fore and eat all that dyitzu and hound meat. He got to drink Mancini’s wine every night. He got to suckle on sweetened hound’s milk and sleep in an actual bed in an actual room.”
“I’m not the Lead Hunter. I’m the acting Lead Hunter. I’ll get those privileges if the Fore decides I’m capable. Then they can vote me in. Besides, being Lead Hunter is different now. They’ve got Graham doing some of the stuff Aaron used to do.”
“What more could they possibly have you do to earn it?” she asked, squeezing his fist.
Martin pulled his hand free. “I don’t know. I just need to do more, is all.”
“You already went out and fed all those people who were dying in the halls, and out of your own food. Then you fought the Kyle-thing, which no one else could kill. You led the attack on the corpse eater lepers. You deserve it already. They’re not going to give it to you, honey.”
Martin half sat up, pushing his torso up with his elbows. “That’s not true.”
Katie looked like she was going to cry. “It is true. I know it’s true. They’re not accepting any new Citizens. They’ve made you and Graham take on all this shit, and they aren’t paying you for it. It’s because they want to keep it all to themselves.”
Martin sat all the way up. “Maybe, but it doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t gluttonize anyway. It’s a good thing they don’t let me in the Fore, because I’d empty the whole damn store room and give it to the hungry people. The only thing I really wish I could do is . . .”
“Is what?”
Martin sat all the way up, leaned forward and kissed Katie. “I used to watch Alice and Aaron eat up there on the Fore’s balconies. I wish I could treat you like that. I want to be able to give you those things.”
She turned away from his next kiss. “You deserve that, Martin. They’re just keeping it from you. You need to go in there and tell Michael that you won’t let him mistreat you.”
“God damn it, Katie. They need me.”
Katie crossed her arms over her chest. “They need Aaron.”
Martin hung his head.
I need Aaron.
“Maybe they do,” Martin said.
A long, long, long talk with ole Bense.
Katie looked back at him, tears in her eyes. “They put you through all this, put me through all this. I can’t. I . . . I . . . I can’t just sit here while you go out and do the most dangerous things the Fore can find. I know you say that the Kyle-thing won’t happen again, and I know there won’t be wars every day, but it kills me inside. Every time someone speaks about danger in the wilds, every time I hear a rumor about something terrible coming, I get sick inside because I know that you are the one they’re going to make fight it. I can’t eat, Martin. Promise me, promise me that you won’t do anything dangerous for a long time. At least a month.”
“They need me.”
Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. “Promise me.”
“I can’t.”
“God damn it, Martin! I love you, but you have to do some things for me. I can’t take it.” A tear rolled down her face. “I can’t. I literally can’t eat. And I need to. When I get a chance at some food I have to take it, because I might not get another full meal until next Feast Day. But when I do, I just throw it back up.”
Martin swallowed. “I’ll get you more food, Katie.”
That means that I’ll lead an expedition into the Carrion on an empty stomach, but if that’s what I have to do.
“Just promise me!” she was almost shouting.
“The thing they have me doing, Katie, I’m . . .” Martin stopped.
Katie was furious now, and she wasn’t going to take the news well. He didn’t want to tell her.
“What?” she snapped. “Tell me.”
“I’m going into the Carrion, Katie.”
Her eyes widened. “Why?” She started shouting. “God damn it Martin, tell me why!”
“We’ve got to fill the hole, and they’re worried that—”
She grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking her head furiously. “They can’t make you do this. You can’t go in there.” She stopped.
Martin met her gaze. “Katie, I’m going.”
She picked up her pack and threw it into the wall beside her. A rock tumbled down from the side of her hovel, letting more light in from outside, but she didn’t seem to care.
“Katie, I—”
“Don’t talk to me.”
“Katie. I have to go. You don’t understand. I just—”
“I said don’t talk to me!” Her face was red. “Get out!”
Martin shook his head. “Princess, it’s got to be done. You have—”
“I said get out! I don’t want to talk to you right now! Get out!”
She started shoving him.
“Okay, b—”
“Don’t talk! Go!”
Martin left the tent.
He was greeted by the curious, annoyed, and occasionally sympathetic stares of roughly half of Harpsborough’s villagers. Up on the balcony he saw Copperfield and Herod the gunsmith—both of them staring right at him.
He felt empty inside. Now was the moment when he had to be at his best. He had to gather his men and go into the God damned Carrion. He had to be as alert as he had ever been. He had to be ready to fight harpies and an army of the undead, and it was entirely possible that he’d run into another Kyle-thing. Maybe several of them.
Now how the Hell am I supposed to do all this when all I want to do is go find a corner and die?
For some reason, not being able to see made time impossible to judge.
Johnny sat in the darkness, close enough to Dakota that he could feel the wounded soldier’s body heat and the gentle tickle of his slow, even breath. Johnny was afraid to leave Dakota’s side. Galen had nearly killed the man, and in those brief moments when he was conscious, Dakota had trouble seeing straight or remembering things that had happened even a few moments ago.
It had been too dangerous to keep the wounded soldier in the service corridor near the Erebus, where his somnolent nightmares might end his own life—so they’d carried him gently back to the aqueduct proper.
In the beginning, Dakota had awakened every few hours, and each time thought himself blind. Galen said that he’d probably survive if they kept him from moving too much. Of course, he’d said that after they’d dragged him out of the service corridor. There could still be bleeding in the brain, but Hell was different, Galen had explained to him. In the old world, the brain damage could have been permanent. Here, whatever Dakota lost would be restored.
Which is a fucking shame. Sooner or later he’s going to remember that it was Galen who did this to him, and he’s not going to be very happy.
Avery was also nearby. At first he had tried to join Galen and the others while they frantically searched for Tamara, but the man’s pain had ended up being too much. Now Avery was just resting. Johnny wasn’t wounded, but someone had to watch Dakota, and Avery was as likely to kill the man as help him. That, and during those times when the injured man did wake up, Johnny found he was able to calm the man faster than the others. For some reason Dakota trusted him.
Which is fucking amazing considering that he hated my guts just two days ago.
It had stung Johnny when the man had called him a chink. It hurt him deeply still—but somehow being next to Dakota when the Carrion man was near death had softened his feelings. The trust Dakota showed him was endearing, too. It was hard to hate someone, Johnny found, who needed him so badly.
But when he’s healthy again, will we still be friends?
Johnny didn’t know.
If he calls me a chink again, I’ll just let Avery be his nurse.
“Did you hear that?” Avery’s whispering voice came in from the dark, featureless space to Johnny’s right, interrupting his thoughts.
“Galen coming bac
k?” Johnny asked.
“No, something else.”
Johnny stood up into the blackness and listened.
Nothing. “I don’t hear a thing, man.”
“I swear I’m not imagining this. I heard something.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine noises, or to turn benign ones into horrors, when one could not see. Johnny had freaked himself out a couple times today already.
“Maybe,” Johnny said softly. “Maybe you heard something from outside of the aqueduct.”
“Maybe.” Avery did not sound convinced.
Johnny stood in silence for a moment longer. “You’re getting fucking paranoid, Avery.”
He sat back down next to where he knew Dakota must be. Then he heard it. The sound of a distant hoof clopping against stone echoed down the aqueduct. Johnny shot back up.
“I hear it,” he whispered.
Avery said nothing, but Johnny could hear his breathing.
“It’s got to be above us,” Johnny said.
The sound continued, slow, rhythmic, as steady and as even as a metronome.
“I think it’s inside,” Avery’s voice cracked as he spoke.
Johnny fished around his pack and drew out his torch. After a little more searching, he produced the firerock Galen had left him. Johnny slammed the rock against the stone wall, lighting up the area with a shower of sparks. For a brief moment he caught sight of Dakota’s peaceful, sleeping visage, but the torch didn’t catch, so the soldier’s face faded away. Johnny tried again, and again.
Then one spark caught and the torch flared into life.
Johnny looked down the aqueduct in the direction where the sound had come from. He saw nothing, and at first he couldn’t hear the hoofsteps over the fire of the torch, but then one came through clearly.
“It’s got to be above us,” Avery said.
Johnny stepped over Dakota’s unconscious body. “It could also be on the other side.”
He took a few running steps down the aqueduct and tossed the lit torch as far as he could down the tunnel. The quick movement of the torch through the air caused its flame to die down to embers. Sparks flew as it clattered across the stone. For a moment, all was black again except for the barest hints of red where the torch smoldered. Then the fire lit back up.
March till Death (Hellsong Book 3) Page 3
