by Brad Meltzer
She started to scream. No! Don’t scream! Don’t give them that!
A black shadow appeared over her—her attacker—moving like a blur, hovering over Nola as she continued to twist along the floor. Nola grabbed the back of her own knee. It was wet. Blood. She was bleeding.
Nola stared up at her attacker, who was backlit by the skylight, a muddy and hazy blur. But from the outline—from the weapon, the four blades coming out of her attacker’s fist, like a tiger’s claw—Nola knew who it was. The tall Native American woman with the ice blue eyes.
“Nola, I believe you’ve met The Curtain,” Royall said. “Teresa, this is my daughter. Nola.”
Raising the tiger’s claw into the air, The Curtain slashed down, aiming straight at Nola’s throat.
85
Nola still didn’t scream.
She should’ve, especially as The Curtain sliced at the stitches in Nola’s neck, reopening her collarbone wound. The pain was unbearable, a lightning shower of anguish that ran from her collarbone to her knee. But even then, Nola still didn’t make a sound.
Rolling on her side, she pinched the web of skin between her thumb and pointer finger. It was a trick she’d learned from her time with Royall. Squeeze that skin as hard as you want. It can swallow all pain.
“Y-You should’ve killed me,” Nola warned The Curtain, still on her side, a long spiderweb of drool dangling from her lips.
“You think she didn’t ask?” Royall said from across the room, slowly walking toward them. “I’m the one who deals with you. That’s my privilege.”
Nola tried to get up, tried looking for her gun. The world was still blurred, but— On the floor— Something gray. Was that her gun? She reached out…
The Curtain raised her foot, stomping down on Nola’s wrist and digging her heel into the wound that Nola got last night.
Nola wanted to howl. Her eyes flooded with tears. Her mouth was open wide, like she was in mid-yell, though nothing came out but a high-pitched hiss of air. Twisting from the knifelike agony, Nola pinched the web of skin so hard, she thought it’d tear in half.
“Nola, y’know what the saddest part of all this is?” Royall asked, his voice louder now. He was close. She could feel his fury from here. “This could’ve all been avoided.”
“Y-You never change— Y-You’re a monster—! A murderer!”
“That’s always been your problem. You can’t just let a good thing be, can you?” Royall asked, reaching down and picking something up. Nola’s gun. He gave it a look, noting its weight. “You always have to spoil it. Everything you touch turns to ash, to shit.”
Nola thought she told him to go screw himself, but she was just imagining it. Her nose was running. Her heartbeat was thumping in her forehead—and she couldn’t feel the fingers on her hand. Her body was in shock, and suddenly she was thinking of that folded-up greeting card she used to carry around with her in junior high. This will make you stronger. That card was a damn lie.
“What really amazes me, though,” Royall added, kneeling down next to her, “is just how fanatical you’ve become. How many years were you searching, Nola? How much of the Army’s resources did you waste looking for me? And for what? So you could track me down in some craphole army base in Alaska?”
Nola was on her back now, squirming in pain as Royall kneeled next to her. He was in that same pose, at that same angle from when she was little and he’d sit down on the edge of her bed—when he thought Nola was asleep.
“Who told you where I was, Nola?”
She looked away, refusing to face him. “Y-You’re what you’ve always been…a vampire.”
Lifting the gun, Royall pressed it into Nola’s cheek, her skin bunching toward her nose. Royall leaned so close, she could see, coming down from his lip, in the fleshy white scar she gave him all those years ago, a few stray black hairs that no razor would ever reach. He smelled of Brut aftershave and wet wood. Same as all those years ago.
“Who was it?” he asked, his finger now around the trigger. “It’s a very simple question, Nola. Did they tell you my new name, or just that I was in Alaska? Someone needs to pay for that.”
Nola took a deep breath, staring up at Royall. It didn’t matter how long they were out of each other’s lives. Even the most estranged father and daughter could have a whole conversation—an opera of emotion—with just the exchange of a single dark glance.
You’re a dead man.
Your skin is lighter. But you still look like a nigger.
“Three seconds, Nola. Who told you?” Royall pressed the gun harder into her face. “I need a name. Who told you I was in Alaska!?” His finger tightened around the trigger. “Two seconds. One…”
Nola’s eyes slid sideways. She looked away.
“Wait,” he asked. “Are you saying—? Noooo…” Royall started to laugh. “Jesus H! All this time, I thought— I figured someone ratted me out, but—” He laughed again, that rat-a-tat-tat laugh that told her trouble was coming. “When you showed up in Alaska, you weren’t even looking for me, were you? You were just painting, just doing your crappy job. But when you spotted me there…” His laugh was louder than ever. “Jesus H! And here I thought you’d been hunting me for years. What a narcissist I am, right?”
“Y-You’re not leaving here alive,” Nola insisted. She believed it, even as the heartbeat in her forehead reached a deafening level. Don’t pass out…! Her eyes flicked back and forth. She tried staying locked on Royall, but the world was now a circle that was shrinking at the edges. Don’t pass out…!
“Did I miss something? What the hell is going on?” The Curtain asked, standing just behind Nola’s head. “I thought you said she tracked you to Alaska.”
“I was wrong,” Royall said, never taking his eyes off Nola, still holding the gun to her face. “Oh, Nola, our little reunion… It wasn’t because you’re some great detective, was it? You finding me in Alaska…that was just your gift from the universe. A bolt of what you thought was dumb luck. But as always with you, it was just bad luck.”
Nola whispered a curse word, her eyes half closed. Her shirt was soaked. She’d lost too much blood. M-Mongol…Faber…Staedtler…
“It’s enough. Pull the trigger,” The Curtain said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Royall moved the gun to Nola’s head, directly at her temple, nudging her with the barrel to make sure she was awake. “I want you to know something, Nola,” he said as his finger tightened around the trigger. “Even when you were little, I always knew you were a—”
Pop.
A splatter of blood hit Royall’s face. The blood wasn’t Nola’s. It sprayed him from above. In the forehead. From where The Curtain was standing.
Still kneeling, Royall looked up, following the sound.
The Curtain was already stumbling backward, fighting for air and gripping the bullet hole that was now in her chest.
Pop. Pop.
One shot ricocheted off a metal rack with a spark. A miss. The other hit The Curtain above the collarbone. A burst of blood exploded at her neck. Her arms went flat as her body twirled awkwardly at the impact. The metal tiger’s claw fell to the floor.
“Hhhhhh,” The Curtain gasped, her blue eyes wide with shock as small flaps of her neck skin waved like a flag.
Nola was down on the ground, unconscious. She had no idea what was going on.
Pop.
Royall grabbed at his own shoulder, like he was swatting a mosquito. “What in the f—!” he roared. It wasn’t until he put his finger into the bullet hole in his shoulder that he realized he’d been shot. He looked up to see who was responsible.
Stepping out from behind a tower of rusted metal desks, Zig held out his gun, still aiming it at Royall.
“Drop your gun! Drop it, or I swear I’ll shoot you again!” Zig shouted, wishing he’d spent even more time with the base’s infantry guys when they taught everyone to shoot.
Royall dropped his gun, which skittered on the concrete.
As th
e two men locked eyes, a chill crawled up Zig’s ribcage. Zig knew that face, knew exactly who he was. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly two decades, not since that night in the ER. But even back then, these two men had nothing but hate for each other. Zig knew it all those years ago. No heart.
“You got old,” Royall said.
Zig didn’t take the bait. He was too focused on…
“Nola! You okay!?” he called out.
She didn’t move. Didn’t answer. Zig saw the blood, saw the way her leg was twisted so awkwardly.
“Step away! Get away from her!” Zig shouted, racing toward Nola, his gun still on Royall.
At Nola’s knee, her blood was dark, a deep maroon, and wasn’t pulsating. It oozed slowly from her wound. That was good. No active bleeding, Zig realized. Whatever The Curtain sliced open, it wasn’t an arterial injury. More likely, Nola was unconscious from the pain, not loss of blood.
“You better pray she’s okay,” Zig said, turning his attention back to— There was a noise. Footsteps. Someone running.
Mothertrucker.
Zig looked to his right, toward the back of the warehouse.
The Curtain was dead. Nola was exactly where he’d left her.
But Royall—along with his gun—were gone.
He wouldn’t get far.
86
Zig moved slowly, taking small side steps down the dark aisle. His breathing was heavy the entire way.
Passing a row of stacked metal bedframes, Zig had his gun out in front of him, following the blood.
There were drops along the ground. Royall had run this way, deeper into the warehouse. There was no back door. No back exit. No way out, Zig thought, picking up the pace.
He was careful about his speed. Move too fast and he wouldn’t see what was coming; move too slow and Royall would get away.
“I didn’t come here alone!” Zig shouted. “Security’s on their way right now!”
It was a lie. Zig came here straight from the plane. He tried calling Master Guns. Hsu as well. But with the base on lockdown, it would take hours before anyone made their way back here. Still, by saying people were coming, maybe it would get Royall to run.
The warehouse was silent. No reaction.
Rounding the corner past stalagmites of stacked rusted trash cans, Zig searched the floor for the trail of blood. There wasn’t any. Maybe Royall didn’t come this way. Or maybe he put pressure on the wound, and the bleeding finally stopped.
Sticking to the edges of the aisle and gripping the gun tighter than ever, Zig closed his eyes, trying to listen. No heating system. No hum from fluorescent lights. No water running through pipes. For a moment, he held his breath, searching for footsteps, for movement, for anything. The only sound was the high-pitched flow of blood through his own ears, reminding Zig of the familiar quiet that greeted him every day in the…
Morgue. That’s why this place seemed so familiar. That’s what this warehouse was. The whole building—filled with stacks of outdated gurneys, rusted casket carriages, 1960s coffin racks, even all the ancient file cabinets, furniture, and old red buzz saws—everything here came from the morgue where Zig used to work.
The embalming tables on his left—the porcelain tops of them standing up and leaning one against the other like surfboards—were the exact tables Zig worked on when he first came to Dover.
As his shoulder slowly brushed against them, he saw chips in the old porcelain, stained pale green from decades of chemicals and use—and now Zig was thinking of the very first fallen soldier he ever worked on years ago: a thirty-two-year-old pilot whose legs were crushed in a helicopter crash, and whose wife asked that a roll of quarters be put into his casket since he loved to play the slots. Darren Lee Abramson. Fallen #1.
Reaching the next aisle, Zig peered around the corner, his finger tight on the trigger. Like every other aisle, this one was dark. He couldn’t see far, but he could see it was narrow. On both sides were fifty-gallon drums, set like massive bowling pins, all of them marked:
Danger
Formaldehyde
Avoid Inhalation and Skin Contact
Beyond that, the aisle was empty. No one there.
C’mon, Royall. You gotta be somewhere.
Moving to the next aisle and turning the corner, Zig noticed half a dozen ashtray stands, all without their tops. Tucked into one of them were umbrellas, in another were tall wooden rulers, and in a third were long metal rods.
Huh.
Zig grabbed one of the rods, pulling it out like the sword from the stone. It was an old trocar—a mortician’s tool to aspirate fluid from the body. After embalming was finished, Zig would take its sharp steel tip, insert it under the ribcage, and use the trocar to remove all the blood from the abdomen, chest cavity, heart, and everywhere else. Zig wasn’t sure why he grabbed it. Maybe as a weapon—maybe to make sure Royall didn’t grab it instead.
Today’s trocars were light and nimble. This one was heavy, substantial—like a hollow baseball bat with a pointy metal tip. It felt familiar in Zig’s hands, another totem from years past. But as he slowly continued down the aisle, craning his neck and searching every nearby shadow, what brought back even more memories was a strangely familiar smell.
Rubbing alcohol, mixed with chemicals and…formaldehyde.
Zig smelled it before he saw it—and then, there it was—a puddle growing along the floor. Moving like a leak. It seeped out from below a black particleboard bookshelf filled with faded file boxes.
That smell. Zig knew that smell from his first days as a mortician. And every day since. Only one thing in the world reeked like that.
Embalming fluid.
The metal drums a few aisles back. Royall must’ve opened one of them.
Further up the aisle, another puddle appeared, engulfing the floor. These days, embalming fluid was a gel. Easier to work with; less splash. The wet puddles here… This was the old kind, liquid, from back in the day, when embalming fluid was more corrosive and— Flammable.
Oh, crap.
“Nola, get up! GetupGetupGetup!” Zig shouted, sprinting back the way he came. “He wants to— He’s gonna blow it up!”
Tearing around the corner, Zig was moving full speed, gun in one hand, trocar in the other. “Nola, you hear what I sai—?”
The fist pummeled Zig’s face, crashing into his jaw and cutting him off mid-syllable.
Zig stumbled sideways, off-balance. He tried standing up, tried lifting his gun, but momentum had him as he turned to face—
Royall towered over him, a human freight train barreling at top speed.
The next thing Zig saw was Royall’s fist hammering down with another brutal punch.
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Zig went to squeeze the trigger. The gun was no longer there.
There was a clatter along the concrete. Then a metal clang. The gun and the metal trocar, both knocked from his hands.
Stupid old man, Zig cursed himself, seeing the gun slide up the aisle, through the puddle of embalming fluid. The trocar was closer. If he could get to that—
“What’d she promise you!?” Royall growled, unleashing another violent punch. Then another, deep into Zig’s face. Royall’s opposite shoulder was soaked with blood from where he was shot. If he was in pain, he wasn’t showing it. “What lie did she tell to get you to come here!?”
Zig crashed back on his ass, smashing into a forest of tall, outdated halogen lamps. Make a plan. Find a distraction.
Zig kicked at the lamps, sending them flying toward Royall. It didn’t slow Royall down. Swatting them away, Royall plowed toward him, his face red with rage, angrier than ever.
“You trust that little nigger over one of us?” Royall asked.
From what Zig could tell, Royall wasn’t military trained. He was a brawler, nothing more. Fought with no plan, no art. All Zig had to do was take a few hits. Take the pain, Zig told himself. Lure him in.
Zig crabwalked backward, halogen lights tumbling in all directions.
Royall stormed toward him without hesitation, fist raised.
That’s it, meathead, come closer, Zig muttered, still on the floor. He eyed Royall’s ankles and knees. Joints. Easiest way to do maximum damage.
Zig unleashed a sharp kick at Royall’s left knee. To Zig’s surprise, he missed. Royall spun in a side step. He was fast, like he knew it was coming.
“Cheap shots!? You think that’ll save you!?” Royall roared.
Zig was still in mid-kick as Royall grabbed him by the ankle.
Zig thrashed wildly, fighting to pull his leg free. Royall wouldn’t let go. He was flushed with adrenaline.
Yanking Zig closer with one hand, Royall pounded Zig with the other, landing a blow to Zig’s thigh, then his stomach, then—whap—a low blow right between Zig’s legs, hitting him square in the testicles.
“Ruuuuh!” Zig screamed. The pain was a flash fire, short-circuiting his insides. Squirming in pain, Zig lashed out, kicking even more wildly, over and over.
“Enough!” Royall shouted, still holding tight to Zig’s ankle. Tugging hard on Zig’s leg, he dragged Zig out of the pile of lamps, tossing him back into the aisle. Back toward— There. Behind Royall.
The trocar!
There it was. Across the aisle—just shy of the still-growing pool of embalming fluid. It was tucked under the bottom lip of one of the bookcases.
Royall couldn’t have seen it yet.
As Royall whipped him around, Zig knew this was his chance. Using his momentum, Zig rolled to the side, reaching out. In one fluid movement, he grabbed the trocar, twisted around, and swung it like a bat toward—
Fap.
Royall caught the trocar in midair, tearing it out of Zig’s grip. “You think a weapon will help you?” Royall asked.
He raised the trocar like a police baton. Zig tried to spin out of the way.
Royall swung down with full fury. Zig rolled, taking most of the punch out of it, but the metal club still clipped Zig in the side of the head.
Zig’s world went pitch black. No stars. No nothing.
