by Godwin, Pam
Two short horn blasts vibrated the crate walls. A breathy mariner announced our arrival in Dover Strait. The scurrying of sailors confirmed the voyage was approaching its end.
Several hours later, the ship halted.
When the door cracked the next morning, Ian rushed me with a pent up fervor. His mouth and hands groped.
I swatted him away. “Ian, please. A bath? And a meal?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just…I missed you so much.”
“Just a little longer. Go.”
Ian distracted the same sloppy sentinel as I crept down the ramp and put two shaky feet on England’s shore. I rubbed my chest. Why wasn’t I feeling pulled in any one direction? Where was that goddamn tug when I needed it?
The harbor spread layers of parking lots to the white facade of the hovering cliffs. Redolent of brine, the crisp air nipped my nose and watered my eyes. Carbine at the ready, I ran through the pier, darting in and out of alcoves, toward the shadow of the closest bluff. One building to go, I rounded the corner.
A van approached from the other side. Fuck. I jumped out of its path and picked up my pace. Behind me, the van’s occupants rushed out in a melee of shouting and chambered rounds. I didn’t falter or look back. Until Ian’s scream cracked the frigid air.
I looked over my shoulder. The boozer from the ship pulled him out of the van, a blade under his chin. My feet stopped, pivoted.
“Ye were hiding a fit bird?” the guard said to Ian and shoved him to his knees. “I should jolly well think she was worth it.”
No, no no. My stomach rolled over in violent waves.
Ian beseeched me with his eyes, whimpering, “I’m sorry. I love y—”
The guard knifed his throat from ear to ear.
In the middle of the journey of our life
I came to myself within a dark wood
where the straight way was lost.
Dante Alighieri
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: FISH N CHIPS
Ian’s lifeless body buckled and fell to the side. I leveled the carbine and squeezed, the guard’s chest in my scope. Squeeze. Squeeze. Squeeze. When his body hit the pavement, I continued to squeeze. His jaw tore away. Half of his face lay open. Blood drained from the dozen pockmarks in his chest. The carbine went dry and I realized I squeezed the trigger more times than necessary.
A barrel pressed my temple. Boots thudded out of surrounding buildings.
“You will do exactly as I say. Twitch so much as an eyelash without my asking and you’re dead. Nod once if you understand.”
I nodded, muscles tensing to enact one of the many hand-to-hand techniques drilled into my mind.
“Good. And you’re probably realizing right now that we let you kill the drunk.” The man behind the shotgun scowled under matted hair and slid wild eyes over the mob. “If he would’ve been doing his job rather than getting sloshed, he would’ve caught her sneaking past him. Piece of shit had it coming.”
The mob nodded their heads and whooped.
He shoved the barrel harder against my head and sharpened his voice. “Now drop the rifle, the coat and whatever you’re hiding under it.” He threw my pack and kicked away my falling weapons. “On your back. Hands above your head.”
The memory of cold hands around my wrists crippled my courage. I could endure it so long as he didn’t tie me.
The concrete chilled my spine and scratched my knuckles as I lay down and raised my hands over my head. If I could get him in a Jujitsu closed guard position, I could overpower him and use his body as cover against his cohorts who crowded around spouting vulgarities.
He knelt above me and raised my chin with my own dagger. “God has destroyed our women and children. What are you? A demon disguised as a beauty to tempt us?” He spat in my face. “I will not be fooled so easily.”
A motorcycle rumbled in the distance. My shirt ripped under his hand. I pulled away. Too slow. He plunged my blade under my collar bone.
A fog of pain blotted my vision. I thrashed beneath the steel, pinned to the pavement. Blade still buried, he lanced my chest along my sternum. Skin peeled away from the carving edge. My chest erupted in fire. I fought to retain consciousness and clutched his arm. The echoed thump in my ears drowned out my screams.
He rounded the blade under my breast. Realization of his intent smacked me. I reached through the blaze of pain and gathered my last shred of strength. I held his wrist, kept him from completing the mastectomy.
Something whistled through the air. With a jolt, he straightened his back. A gasp sputtered from his slack lips. His eyes went flat and he slumped to the side.
Screams and gun fire erupted around me. Pain seared through my chest, shutting down my senses. Blood gushed between my fingers to the march of my pulse. I fumbled for my weapons, vision wavering and recovered the dagger from the limp hand beside me.
Chills racked my body. I found my cloak, seeking its warmth as my vision cleared. That was when I saw it. An arrow projected from the butcher’s back.
The shouting and guns fell silent. I blinked away frozen tears. The parking lot littered with dead bodies, harpooned with black and red feathered arrows.
My protector ran toward me, copper eyes intensifying with each step. Several blocks away, a rout of stomping and yelling pursued. The remaining crew.
“They’re coming, Evie.” His southern drawl sharp. “I can hold ’em. You need to go.”
He followed me? He was on the ship? Darkness washed over me. I slapped the concrete to break my fall. Saliva thickened. I stammered, “Just need”—Ignore the pain. Deep breaths—“a minute.” Bile rose. I swallowed and counted to three in time with my inhales.
Daylight rushed back. Jesse bent over me, tried to open my cloak. “Evie? How bad?”
An upwelling of emotion took hold of me and the familiarity of his beautiful face filled my empty spaces with an overwhelming sense of peace. I wasn’t alone. “I missed you.”
He swallowed, reached a hand inside my cloak. “Let me see it, Evie.”
I pulled away and staggered to my feet. The fire spread through my insides. “I’m fine.”
He gestured to his motorcycle. “Can you ride?”
Dizziness warred with the throbbing throughout my chest. I nodded.
His eyes widened, flooded with warmth. Then they narrowed just as quick. “Go. Get the hell out of here.”
The pound of feet grew louder.
“Go now.”
I couldn’t leave him was my first thought, but his fierce expression sent me stumbling backward. The agony sloughing my chest decided it. I’d lost a lot of blood, but as I sped away, the loss had less to do with the wound and everything to do with the man I left behind.
For several days, I rode up and down the streets of Dover, seeking the man who had followed me. After I raided a pharmacy and acquired bacitracin, my search led me back to the pier. Dozens of bodies spackled the parking lot, polluting the air with decay. But no trace of Jesse. Not even his arrows. Was he eluding me? I couldn’t ignore my hunger pangs much longer. Or the green pus that crusted my injury. I had to find food, shelter.
That night, I stood in a desolate street in some small township halfway to London. The derelict building I monitored since sundown showed the first sign of human life since the harbor. Crumbling bricks supported two stories of boarded up windows. Thorny vines braided the structure on all sides. No one came or went for three hours, but candlelight shadows danced through the fluted glass panels in the door.
The stark wind was determined to rob another letter from the pub’s only advertisement.
FISH N CH PS SE VED 24/7
The gust dried out my eyes quicker than my tear ducts could crank out moisture to offset it. Sure didn’t feel like November. I wiped my nose on my sleeve and blinked again. My stomach rumbled. If I lost my nerve, it would be another hungry night.
I cleared my throat and practiced my masculine one word responses. A few squeaks confirmed that nonverbal communication was my on
ly option. The street remained barren in both directions. No more delaying. I swallowed hard and took a step toward the pub.
Stay Alive.
I readjusted the hood of my cloak, hiding my face in its shadow. Two more steps. I pushed my hands through opposing sleeves and rubbed my sheaths. The weight of the carbine, pistol and pack offered little to ease my nerves. Then I squared my shoulders and engaged my practiced man-walk to the pub.
With a shaky exhale, I jerked open the heavy door. The tables sat empty. Most were shoved to the side and piled with overturned chairs. A kitchen service window revealed a barred backdoor.
A shaggy thick-bodied bartender leaned against the cash register. The pub’s only patron sat at the far end of the bar in an ankle length trench coat.
The bartender shot me a rankled glare from under wiry eyebrows.
I followed the unwelcome draft through the door. The patron kept his back to me and his head down. Given my all night surveillance and the empty Bushmills bottle that accompanied him, I knew he’d been there awhile.
The bartender’s eyes creased to slits. I focused on my gait and kept a slow pace to the counter. When my boot bumped the leg of the bar stool, I tucked my chin to remain in the shadow of my cowl.
“Wha’ ye have?” His skeptical voice exhausted.
I pointed to the chalkboard behind him. He studied my finger. Was he looking for green translucent skin? Formations of pincers? Would he notice the delicate nature of my female hands?
“So it’s the stew then. And to wash it down?”
I nodded to the tapped keg.
He grumbled something. “Den’ ye talk?”
I touched my throat and shook my head. Then, to avoid further inquiry, I headed to a table in the far corner. The raw gall on my chest flared. I winced and was glad for the concealment of my cloak. I slid out of my pack and carbine sling and settled into the chair with the best vantage of the front door and the backdoor. And of the patron yet to acknowledge my presence.
Thirty minutes later, I threw back my second pint. The bitter hops bounced on my tongue and refreshed my parched throat. Heaven. The bartender brought the stew with my third. He didn’t linger. Posing as mute worked better than I hoped.
Unidentifiable chunks floated in the broth. I slurped it down eagerly. Too eager. My tongue swiped the dribble on my lip, my hand catching the stream on my chin. I sucked my fingers clean like a starving thing and sopped up the remaining juice in the bowl with a stale heel of bread. Then I pushed the bowl aside, and considered another.
The patron at the bar raised his head. His honey-hued hair curled at his shoulders, twisting into dread locks and hooking behind his ears. His broad back and shoulders tested the seams of his coat. The nearby candlelight illuminated his full lips and wide jaw line.
He sensed my stare and eyed me sidelong while tracing the rim of his whiskey glass. When his eyes settled on mine, I looked away. Shit.
His bar stool slid back followed by the click of his boots across the floor. The pistol grew heavy on my thigh. Shit. Shit. Shit.
The boots stopped at my table. Malt whiskey wafted over me. I kept my eyes locked on my empty pint while I unsheathed a blade under my cloak.
He put his palms on the table and leaned into his arms. I tightened my grip on the knife. One swipe would slice off his sprawled fingers. I would use that moment of surprise, aim the knife up and bury it in his throat.
“May I sit?” he asked with a thick Irish accent.
I made no answer.
He leaned in closer. “Please den’ be afraid. I am only curious.” He paused. Waited.
The dagger’s hilt burned in my grip. I didn’t respond.
A few heartbeats later, he straightened his stance and opened his coat. Underneath, he donned a black button down cassock, a rosary and a white collar.
“May I sit?” His brogue softened the vowels.
I remained silent and paranoid.
He kept his post and tilted his head. “Are ye still peckish?”
If I ignored him long enough, would he go away?
He motioned to the bartender. “Em…Lloyd? Another boul of your insatiable stew.”
Lloyd’s shuffle faded into the kitchen.
The hovering presence held out his hand. Scars bubbled across his knuckles, some freshly pink. “I’m Father Roark Molony.”
He waited, allowing me to peruse him. I struggled to believe this man was a priest. His course dialect and bulky physique suggested a harder life. Yet, I’d wager his age was close to mine. I studied his eyes, his deep pools of jade. Behind them, I saw a disciplined constitution. And he smiled when he saw the woman behind mine.
I wasn’t sure if it was my Catholic upbringing that brought on my moment of weakness, but I surprised and frightened myself when I motioned across the table and said, “Please sit, Father.”
He lowered his hand and descended into the chair. The movement revealed a shoulder rig and a scabbard on his belt.
I flexed my fingers on the knife and used my other hand to slide my hood back a few inches. “What gave me away?”
His lips twisted. “Your dainty fingers and small stature.”
At least he didn’t blame my attempts to walk like a man. “I’m Eveline Delina. Evie.”
He widened his eyes and gasped. “Hallowed be thy name.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your name. Eve.” He stroked the cross hanging from his neck and stared at me.
I blinked, pretending ignorance to the obvious reference. “It’s Evie.”
“Right. Ye know the book of Genesis? Genesis 3:20, ‘The man named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.’“
I dropped my head as Lloyd slid another bowl of stew on the table. When he returned to the bar, I raised my eyes. “Of course I know it, Father. And to this woman, your god said ‘I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.’ Let us be clear. You will not preach your dogma to me. I served my time in the Catholic Church and I have no use for it.”
He bristled. “No offense intended.”
Damn my temper and cursed Catholic guilt trip. I forced a steady exhale. “Besides Father, given the current affairs, shouldn’t you be looking for someone from the book of Revelations?”
“Perhaps.” He smiled. A boyish smile I found comforting. But that strong chin made it sexy. I shoved the thought away.
“Please call me Roark.” He swallowed. “Are there others? Women?”
I tilted the bowl to my mouth and shook my head. “I’ve come a long way”—the stew was lukewarm sliding down my throat—“and I haven’t seen any. Human women, that is.”
He closed his eyes and steepled his fingers in front of his mouth. “How is it that you’re here? When no other women survived?”
I sat back and sheathed the blade. Did a day go by when I wasn’t asking myself that question? “Can’t find that answer in your bible?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. Was my disrespect amusing him?
Broth sloshed out of my bowl, quivering as it escaped. Was my hand shaking? Or was it the room? I set it down and rubbed the gooseflesh on my arms.
The temperature dropped and the air seemed to swirl and gather by the front door. A mist of smoke seeped from the keyhole and, within it, floated Annie. A grin lit her face and her feet found the floor, framed in tendrils of gray fog. The folds of her eyelet dress licked her legs as she skipped to the bar, curly pigtails bouncing.
I trembled, unable to meet Roark’s eyes, though I could feel them on me. He couldn’t see her, my delusion.
At the bar, she reached for the circle of sconces. I pressed myself into the chair when her fingers neared the candles. She brushed over one burning wick as she chanted.
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood
Her grin fell and her head jerked toward the doo
r.
And burbled as it came!
Her fingers melted into the flame. The skin on her arm, then her body, followed the liquidation. Why was she doing that? Was she trying to tell me something? Please stop, Annie. Oh God.
Exposed shreds of muscle pulsated in the candlelight, clinging to her tiny frame. Still, the front door held her attention.
The candles sizzled, vaporizing her transparent figure into the smoke. My stomach rolled under the miasma of burning flesh.
I grew wary of the front door. A sting bit through my guts. I knew that feeling. My muscles tensed, readied for attack.
“Evie? Evie?”
The flames consumed her and the candlelight extinguished with a pop.
Roark muttered through the dark, “Wha’ in under feck—”
“Shh.” I swooped up the carbine and pointed it at the door. His hand found my back.
“I hope you know how to use that pistol,” I whispered. “They’re coming.”
“Why? Wha’ are ye—”
The door swung open and smacked the wall. A chilling gust swept through the room and with it the hum of hunger.
One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Lewis Carroll, Jabberwocky
CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE GOSPEL BLADE
I discovered in Pomme de Terre the best way to kill an aphid was in or near the eyes and doing so required a fast hand or an accurate bullet. While I prided in both most of the time, I wavered when the luminous figures floated into the pub. Numbers in the teens, they stacked together to move through the crowded doorway. The way they hugged the walls and swept the room made it hard to believe they were blind and weaponless. Still, I kept my finger off the trigger, remaining silent, buying time.
Buzzing and vibrations bounced between them. The aphid at the front held up a claw. Another scurried to the back room.
