by Tonia Brown
I opened my eyes and looked at Mab through a haze of damp misery. “What are we going to do now?”
Unlike me, Mab had lost her air of sorrow. Instead, she smiled, wry and wise. “I’ll tell you exactly what we’re going to do. We are going to go and rescue your mentor.”
“We?” I said.
“We,” she said.
I wiped at my tears, feeling a bit silly for weeping when she seemed so calm about everything. “You’re serious? You’re going to take me with you?”
“Sure,” Mab said. “If I am going to go up against Dillon, I will need all of the hands I can get.” She glanced across the smoldering fire to Stretch. “And I mean all the hands.”
Stretch groaned. “Somehow I knew you were gonna say that.”
“Come on. It’ll be like old times.”
“Trouble with old times is I was much younger then. Now I am just old and time has gotten away from me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, hon. I think you’re like good wine.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You calling me a bunch of sour grapes?”
She laughed. “No, you old fool. I just meant you get better with age.”
The two of them laughed together, and exchanged a glance that suggested they knew one another far better than just a passing bounty hunter and outlaw who occasionally met up in a ruined world.
I left them to their mooning over one another and got to my feet. “We should go then. They can’t be far from here. Dillon had a huge attachment of men, and a wagon to boot. We are fewer and faster and—”
Mab grabbed my hand and yanked me down to my rump again. “Sit down.”
I fell with a huff as the wind billowed out of my excited sails. “But—”
“In the morning,” Mab said over me. “We will leave in the morning. Lilly is no good at night and one of you is liable to break your neck wandering around in the dark.”
“Of course. Sorry. I’m just excited.”
“Excited is good. You should be excited. You should also start your story over again and tell me everything.”
This was troublesome. She was right. I had left out a few details of my journey, and I didn’t like the idea of sharing them. I furrowed my brow at her. “I already told you everything.”
“You told me what you wanted me to know. If we are going to go after your mentor and up against Dillon, I need to know everything you know. About both of them.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
I considered this, as well as my options.
I told her everything.
Part Two
Our Darkest Hour
Theo
The wagon pulled away from the burning town in a slow, creaking amble. I clung to the back door, my face pressed between the iron bars as I watched Convergence go up in a blaze of orange and red. The sky filled with rolling clouds of black smoke and the screams of men burning alive. I strained against the bars, closing my eyes as I listened hard. Try as I might, I couldn’t distinguish her screams among the others. I didn’t want to hear that awful sound, but I deserved to hear it. The cries of Sam burning alive. The shriek of my own damnation.
“Come away from there,” Bowden said from somewhere behind me.
Under his words came the rasping breath of Robert and the steady snore of Chambers. One dying and the other collapsed from exhaustion. I ignored the others and continued my vigil at the back of the wagon, unwilling to tear myself away from the tragedy of the blazing town.
Bowden fussed under his breath about Robert’s wounds for a few more moments before he spoke again. “I said come away from there.”
“Leave me be,” I said.
“Don’t torture yourself.”
“I need to see it. Someone should see it.”
“Why? It won’t do you any good to witness it. It won’t bring anyone back from the dead.” Bowden paused a heartbeat before he added, “Won’t bring her back.”
I turned about and shot him a hateful and wasted glare, for Bowden didn’t look up from his task.
“How can you say that?” I said. “Those were your people. That was your town. They were your responsibility.”
“Which is why I won’t watch it burn to the ground,” Bowden said, still not looking up. “I lived with them, day to day. Got to know some better than others. I refuse to remember them like that. You shouldn’t either.” Bowden hissed as an arc of blood squirted across his shirt. “Now, for once listen to your doctor and come lay down and get some rest while you still can. I have a feeling your next few days are going to be busy.”
Distracted by the gore in front of me, I watched Bowden work on the wounded man. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No sir,” Bowden said. “He won’t make it.”
As if waiting for the words, Robert began to shudder violently. Bowden grabbed Robert’s hand and held it through this brief but violent seizure. All at once, Robert fell still and silent. His rasping breathing stopped.
“Told you so,” Bowden said, wiping his hands on a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket.
“But you tried anyways,” I said.
“Because I had too.”
“You’re a good man, Doc.”
“Much like you.” Bowden grinned at me in the low light of the wagon.
I shook my head. “I am nothing like you. You’re a good man. I’m…” I hesitated, unsure of how to describe myself now that I had condemned so many to their deaths.
Her.
Both of them.
I collapsed to the floor of the wagon and cradled my head in my bound hands. “What have I done? Sweet merciful Jesus, what have I done?”
“You did what you had to do,” Bowden said.
“I got her killed.”
“You set her free.”
“She’s going to burn alive.”
“She’s not your daughter.”
I started, shocked by his direct, and ugly sentiment. “Don’t you think I know that?”
As usual, Bowden was unmoved by my anger. “I do, but sometime I think you forget. Theo, she isn’t Darleen. Never will be. You have to get over that if you’re going to get through this.”
“Through this?” I snorted. “There is nothing to get through. I condemned your whole town to death. I killed my apprentice. I even got my goat…” my voice choked as I thought about poor Buck. I swallowed down the sorrow. “I am a dead man. Dillon only kept me alive to toy with me.”
“You’re not getting away with all of that,” Bowden said, simple and calm. “You might be responsible for a fair bit of things, but I condemned my town by challenging my nephew. I should’ve never set up a sanctuary so close to his territory. I was asking for his interference.”
I made to argue but Bowden held his hand up, asking for my silence.
“Let me bear that burden, Theo,” Bowden said. “You already have enough on you as it is. Sam is gone. There is nothing either of us can do about that. Poor Buck is prancing about in some summer land now, and there is also nothing that will change that. As for you, Dillon kept you alive and will continue to keep you alive because you’re a resource to him. Or at least your blood is, and you can’t make that if you’re dead, now can you?”
I smirked. So Bowden knew about the cure? Of course he did. Damned girl couldn’t keep her mouth shut. I should’ve known she would end up telling someone.
“Come here and I will untie you,” Bowden said.
I scooted to him, allowing him to pick at the rope knotted around my wrists. “She told you.”
Bowden smiled as he loosened my bonds. “She told me. Dillon might be a bastard but he isn’t stupid. He won’t destroy what he can profit from. Both of us have a little time on our side because of our value.”
“I might have some value
, but I am not unique.” I nodded to the woman still passed out beside of us. “She holds the cure in her blood, as does Dillon.”
“I am no longer unique either,” Bowden said, nodding to her as well. “You forget, she’s a doctor too and from what Dillon has told me, she knows more about this whole thing than either of us.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but I also knew she was even less similar to the doc than I was. Bowden cared for the sick and injured because he was compelled by his very nature. Chambers would let the sick die and the injured rot unless treating them profited her in some manner. She would never recreate the cure for Dillon. She had as much hatred for the man as the rest of us.
“All right, Vincent,” I said as I rubbed at my now free wrists. “I will bite. How are we to get through this?”
Bowden shook his head at me. “No, I said you will get through it. And you will do it the same way you get through every damnable thing that has happened in your cursed life, young man. You will suck it up and take it and when the time is right, you will overpower it and you will prevail.”
“You missed out on one thing, Doc. I can’t escape this time. I made a deal with him. I gave him my word.”
“So I heard,” Bowden said in a flat, emotionless voice. “Tell me, when you promised yourself to his service, did he keep up his end of the bargain?”
“Yes,” I said, flexing my fists at the thought of poor Sam left to burn alive. “Damn him, he did.”
“No. He didn’t. He cheated you. He met the minimum requirements of your so called deal, and he only did that to get you where he wanted you without a struggle. He is putting one over on you, son. Much like the devil trying to trick that savior you’re always going on about. Dillon couldn’t care less about your little deal. Your word means about as much to him as dried cow patty. Probably less, considering you can burn those for heat, if need be.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes, the rock of the wagon tipping us to and fro in a stuttered rhythm. I contemplated Bowden’s wise words while the doc closed his eyes and laid his head back against the wooden slats. He spoke true. I had been in far worse situations. My childhood alone was enough to break any man of the temptation of using his free will. I left that behind. I left the virus behind. I left my undead daughter behind. I would leave this behind too.
“What about you?” I said. “You don’t intend on fighting back?”
“Me?” Bowden said. “Not at all. I intend to relax and enjoy the hospitality my nephew has so kindly offered me.”
“You’re gonna make this impossible for him, aren’t you?”
“As hard as I can.” Bowden opened his eyes and gave me sly grin. “You know how ornery I can be, too.”
I chuckled. “I sure do.”
“How ornery is that?” Chambers said.
We both turned to look at her. I hadn’t realized she had stopped snoring.
“How long have you been awake?” I said.
“Long enough to know I am the odd man out here,” she said. “Or odd woman, as it were. It seems you two know each other well enough. I feel I know Theo to some extent.” She jutted her chin at Bowden. “I have heard of you, but you and I, dear sir, have never met. I might need some introduction.”
“No introductions needed,” Bowden all but spat. “I know enough about you to satisfy me for a lifetime.”
Surprised by his sudden change in tone, I looked to find his face had grown hard and cruel.
“Those monstrosities you turned out are your calling card,” he said. “I know just the kind of person you are. A fine doctor as skilled as you and you waste it on such deviances. You could’ve been helping us. Instead you’ve been parked up there in your castle playing God with the clay of men. This is your fault. All of it. You make me sick!”
A loud thump came from the top of the wagon, followed by a loud, “Keep it down in there!”
“Make me!” Bowden shouted in return.
Her hands still bound, Chambers scooted back to sit up against the wagon across from him. She stared down her swollen nose at the pair of us. Here she sat just as captured as we, and she was still so high and mighty.
“So holier than thou,” she said. “You know nothing about me.”
“Then tell us,” I said.
“Don’t listen to her, Theo,” Bowden said. “Her tongue is as poisoned as her mind.”
I would’ve agreed, yet I knew things about her that Bowden did not. After all, I had sat with her through one of her confessional sessions. I knew things she never intended a man to learn and live with the knowledge. Chiefly, she was the source of Dillon’s resistance to the virus. I had to learn more about it, as well as Dillon’s access to the cure.
“Oh yes,” Chambers said. “Poisoned mind, poisoned soul, eh? Though, from what I understand I am not the only one out here for unusual practices.”
Bowden’s nostrils flared. Damn, but that was hitting close to home.
“Your nephew told me all about your self-imposed exile,” she said. “About your little experiments in Boston.” She laughed. “At least I work with the dead and dying. You were swapping out parts on perfectly alive folks. What a scandal.”
Turning his head, Bowden grunted. “That’s none of your business.”
“Exactly,” Chambers hissed. “And you know nothing of my work. Do not judge lest ye be judged. Right, Theo?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about judging folks,” I said. “It isn’t my place. It’s His.”
Chambers chuckled again. “You and your precious God. What do you think He makes of all of this?”
“I wouldn’t know that either. I can’t speak for Him.”
“Oh you do, but only when it suits you.”
I held my own anger in check. She was just baiting me. Baiting both of us. It was quite a talent she had, this disagreeable nature of hers. “And do you speak for your master when it suits you?”
She lifted her chin again. “No man is my master.”
“That’s awful mighty talk coming from a bound woman,” Bowden said.
I moved toward her and she flinched. “It’s all right. I just want to set you free.”
Chambers looked at me for a brief moment, then sighed as she held out her hands. “The only way you can free any of us is to cut our throats.”
As I pulled her bonds apart, Bowden asked, “Is that wise? You know she can’t be trusted.”
“I know,” I said. “But there is little harm she can do here like this.”
Her ropes dropped to the floor and Chambers rubbed at her wrists, far rawer than mine after being tied up for so much longer.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You can thank me by talking,” I said.
“What about?” she said with a perfect air of innocence.
“You know.”
“What?” Bowden said.
“She knows,” I said.
“I can’t imagine what you would want to know about,” she said. “I already told you all about my family and my work and—”
“You know,” I said.
“What is it?” Bowden said. “What has she done?”
This brought a wider grin to her face.
“Tell him the truth,” I said. “About Dillon.”
Chambers gave a soft, mock gasp of surprise. “Oh, that?”
“Yes, that.”
“What about my damnable nephew?” Bowden said.
She casually glanced to Bowden. “You were right when you said this was my fault. Dillon Thomas was my greatest success, and my biggest mistake.”
“I don’t quite getcha,” Bowden said.
“Dillon didn’t naturally survive,” I said, and pointed to Chambers. “She cured him.”
Chambers’s grin nearly split her face it was so wide. Bowden, on the other hand, sat with his mouth agape. Th
e unsteady creak and rock of the wagon filled the silence between us.
“Tell him,” I said.
“He’s correct,” Chambers said. “Our mutual friend was under my care when he was infected. I cured him and he repaid me by being a complete bastard.”
“You’re lying,” Bowden said.
“I’m lying?” Chambers said. “Compared to whose truth? Dillon’s? Yes. Of course you would believe him. He is so trustworthy, isn’t he?”
Bowden opened his mouth to snap out a retort, then thought better of it. He narrowed his eyes at her across the wagon bed. “Tell me how.”
“Your nephew was part of, oh, let’s say a collection of volunteers.”
I suspected this meant she captured him under some false pretense in that massive underground system of hers, but I didn’t interrupt.
“He took part in a controlled study of the F strain,” she said. “I had some mild success with the other strains, and was just about to give up on this particular one when lo and behold, Dillon reacted in a most unusual manner.”
“You cured him,” I said, trying to move the story along.
“Yes,” she said. “He was my first complete success. He came back from the brink of infection. He was nearly turned too. In fact, I had him lined up for dissection the next day, he was that far gone. Then voila, overnight he made a full recovery. It was the damndest thing.”
Without warning, the wagon lurched and jumped, tossing all of us to the middle of the bed. I scrambled to right myself as Bowden cursed under his breath.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “You’d think you wouldn’t be able to screw something up as simple as guiding a wagon.” He rapped on the roof. “Careful, there. We ain’t cattle, you nitwits!”
“Shut your trap!” someone yelled back.
“This F strain is what you used to cure yourself and the others?” I said, trying to steer our conversation back to the point before I lost Chambers’s interest.
“Others?” Bowden said. “There are others?”
“There were,” I said. “We had to dispatch them to get to her.”
“Ah,” Bowden said in an understanding voice.
