Michael said nothing, only looked around at the men watching him. Arielle was stone dead in his arms, head nestled against his chest as if she were not dead but deep in a drunken slumber. Beneath the sweatshirt Michael had draped over her, she wore a hospital gown soaked with blood.
Blake’s face tightened into a fearful expression. The soldiers murmured to each other at the sight of such savagery. Look what they had done to her. The bastards.
“They took our son,” Michael said, and his voice carried throughout the yard, rendering the men silent. He took a deep breath and continued. “We’re going to march into New Dallas and take control of the capitol. That’s the only way to get what we need. Then we’ll declare war on the People’s Republic and every single member of Harris Kole’s family, including his bastard children, will die.”
He fixed his gaze on Blake standing before him. “You’ll be my counselor, Louis. I’ll need your wisdom on this.”
“To hell with that,” Blake said with a wretched cough. Flecks of blood flew from his mouth and spattered his fist. “I’ll be no part of it. I’m done anyway. I won’t see you devote your life to vengeance.”
Michael’s face remained stern though a tiny flicker of emotion made his eyes appear to tremble. Was he upset? Saddened? Blake no longer cared. This had all been planned; Harris Kole had wanted it to end this way, and now he had what he needed to become more powerful than ever before.
“I need you,” Michael said. “If not for me, then do it for my mother. For Claudia.”
Blake spat on the ground, his mouth sour now with the metallic taste of blood. “You should go after your child, not start a new war.”
“It won’t be a war,” Michael said, scowling at him, probably wondering how Blake could be so short sighted. “Not yet, anyway. I’ll take New Dallas without spilling a drop of blood. You know I can do it. I need control over their army. As the new leader of those forces, I’ll be able to free the People’s Republic. Louis, I want you to be my counselor. You’ve been in war all your life. We can do this together.”
“Count me out.”
Blake bent over his knees and hacked out more blood and phlegm. It felt like pieces of his lungs were being ripped out by a monstrous set of claws. The soldiers watched him. Peter and Dominic approached to offer a steadying hand, but Blake waved them away. Ian was watching Michael, a fervent look in his eyes. Most of these men would follow Michael to the death, not because they loved him, but because they feared him.
“No more,” Blake said. “This is the end for me. You”—he pointed at a soldier with a canvas bag hanging from his shoulder—“hand me a charge. Now.”
The soldier glanced at Michael, who gave an almost imperceptible nod. Then he reached into the bag, pulled out a charge, and handed it to Blake.
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Michael said, still holding Arielle’s corpse. “I’m more powerful now than you can imagine. Join me. I’ll make sure you live longer, and better.”
Ignoring him, Blake turned the charge in his hands, inspected it to make sure it would work.
“I want one last thing from you, Mike,” he said in a rasping voice, the blood in his throat tasting rusty now.
“What is it?” Michael said, looking down at Arielle’s face.
“I want to see her once more. One last time. You can give me that.”
“Why should I?” Michael’s face flashed upward to glare at him. “You could have taught me the death whisper years ago, and none of this would have happened.”
“Because—because it’ll be the last good thing you do for me.”
“I owe you nothing, Louis.”
Blake gave him a hard, grimacing smile. “You owe me this.”
Michael was silent for a moment, his expression grim. Finally he closed his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice sounded distant.
“Fine,” he said. “But if you won’t join me, you might as well set that charge right now.”
Blake gave a single nod. Then he glanced at Peter, Dominic, and Ian. “My sons,” he said. “Goodbye.”
They each nodded once. There were tears in Peter’s eyes. Ian looked away.
“It’s been an honor,” Dominic said.
Blake gave him one last smile. “I’m glad you found a cause, something to fight for. I hope it’s worth it in the end.”
“It will be,” Dominic said. The bandages covering one half of his mutilated face trembled in the breeze, adding a monstrous quality to his stare.
Blake looked once more at Michael before tipping his head back to face the sky. The stars were out. The breeze was cool against his skin. This was how Claudia must have felt in her final moments, not afraid for her own safety, and glad to be released from it all. He took a deep breath. Michael’s last words were telepathic—calm and clear in Blake’s mind.
You didn’t fail. It’ll be a good death.
Blake almost smiled. I love you, he told him.
Michael kept silent.
You see? Blake sent. I failed after all.
Michael kept silent. The conversation was over. Blake clenched his teeth and tightened his grip on the charge. No turning back now. He had to move on. But there was someone he needed to see, one last time.
“Take me to her,” Blake told Michael. It came out sounding like an order. He had meant for it to sound that way.
A flash of dark eyes as Michael glanced at him.
A moment later, Blake was somewhere else.
The room was full of bodies.
Eyes open now, Blake breathed in air laced with the tang of death. He hadn’t seen corpses like this in decades. Faces frozen in expressions of utter fear and madness. Pale hands bent into claws as if these men had tried to dig their way out of their own pain before dying.
Equipment hummed overhead, cameras and sensors glinting in the low light, swiveling, taking in his presence. He removed a pistol from his shoulder holster and shot them out one by one. He wanted to be alone for this.
When the room was silent again, he heard a voice.
“Louis,” she said, her voice floating to his ears like mist made into sound.
Claudia appeared across the room, near the cot and the streak of blood that must have come from Arielle’s death. She shimmered like an apparition, a ghost.
The illusion became more solid until she was human, as beautiful as ever, young, vibrant, untouched by the bullet that had ended her life.
“Thank you,” Claudia said.
“For what?”
She inclined her head and blinked at him. Those eyes could put him in a dizzy spell, like they were doing now. “For helping him. You did the best you could.”
She reached up and touched his face. Blake bit back the desire to pull her into his arms. She might vanish like a dream if he so much as moved an inch. He couldn’t risk it.
“I could have done more,” he said.
She shushed him. “Come here. Kiss me.”
He gave in to a long, deep kiss during which he allowed himself to feel like the young, recently promoted army major he’d been upon first falling in love with her, doing special favors for a beautiful captive. It was a love that had been forbidden, and the old madness sank back into his mind.
“We’ll leave together,” he said. “Run away with me. Tonight, Claudia. We can go tonight.”
She nodded. “Tonight. We’ll leave as soon as the lights go out.”
“We’ll get married,” Blake said. “And we’ll raise Michael together. Our son.” Tears came to his eyes. “He’ll be beautiful, like you.”
He took her hand gently and pulled her toward the door. Escape, finally, and there was no one here to stop them. They would be free to love each other until death parted them. She tightened her grip on his hand, flashed him her charismatic smile.
“Claudia,” he said, gazing at her.
Red light filled the room as a gigantic set of numbers appeared above the door.
00:05.
A memory tugged at the corne
rs of his mind, something about an explosion.
“What’s wrong?” Claudia said, gripping his hand.
“I don’t know. I just—”
00:03.
The numbers were gigantic and red, bright as neon lamps.
“Let’s go together,” Blake told her, pressing his cold hand to the warmth of her cheek.
Claudia nodded, and Blake couldn’t believe she was smiling. This was all he had wanted for decades: to be able to tell her he loved her and to share this feeling with her, even for just a moment.
Because a lifetime was just that: a moment.
00:00.
Claudia took his hand and guided him through the door into darkness.
Into peace.
Chapter 22
Dominic looked out over Gulch from the good half of his face.
Peter found the man’s intensity disconcerting. When Dominic looked at him, it was with the cold eye of an assassin. The other eye was gone, sealed up behind a wall of bandages. He spoke little these days and had lost any sense of humor he might have had. Peter ached to be with Rocio, but this mission was among the most important Michael had ever assigned to them.
“No sign of anyone,” Peter said.
“They’re hiding,” Dominic said. “As well they should be. Come on.”
Ian and Peter followed, Ian running a hand over his head. He’d allowed his hair to grow out and was even sporting a goatee. The earring had come out weeks earlier, after the battle of Gadlin. He looked tougher now, his face a light brown from all the sun they’d been getting.
“I can sense her presence,” Ian said. “William must be asleep.”
“Then we move now,” Dominic said.
They began to run, keeping their senses alert for snipers. There were none. The town was completely unguarded, the people squatting within its limits at the complete mercy of anyone who decided to come in. Stupid of them to stay behind like this. Stupid of Midas Ford to let them.
And equally stupid of Dominic, Peter, and Ian to come back here—but it was what Michael wanted. Word had gotten out that Charlotte had given birth to the child, and that it was a boy. Michael wouldn’t allow her to throw the kid’s life away by staying out here, in the mountains, open to attack by his enemies. It was only a matter of time before Kole’s men came looking for the child.
With Dominic in the lead, they followed their senses until they reached the gas station where Midas had set up a new medical clinic. William must have been asleep inside or there was no way they would have been able to sense Midas and Charlotte within. This whole operation was contingent on the boy not waking up.
There was someone else inside, too.
“I sense a fourth,” Dominic said. “The infant.”
“There’s no way,” Ian said.
“Be on your guard,” Dominic said. “Let’s go.”
The boys readied their pistols. Ian narrowed his eyes as he inspected the front door and windows of the gas station. An old sign creaked in the wind. There was a paper advertisement, half torn, in one of the windows that read: “FREE COFFEE WITH PUR” and beneath that, “TODAY ONL”.
Dominic nodded. Ian and Peter ran toward opposite sides of the building and took cover. It was warm out, a perfect summer day, the only sound the shuffling of dry weeds in the wind. Dominic, taking cover behind the old gas pumps, tossed a stone at the front door.
“Who is it?” came Midas Ford’s voice.
“Dominic. Let me in.”
“Like hell. You get away from here. I mean it, Dom. You ain’t comin’ in.”
“I’m not here to kill the girl. We’re going to take her to a safe place.”
Charlotte’s voice entered their minds.
Tell Michael he’s a rotten bastard, and he isn’t getting my child.
Dominic’s face broke into a snarling expression. Peter watched from around the corner of the building.
“We’re coming in whether you like it or not,” Dominic shouted. “This is no place for a mother and a baby. You’ll die out here without protection. It’s just a matter of time.”
The door opened and Midas Ford walked out, calm despite the sudden movement of pistols aiming in his direction. He held a single-barreled shotgun down by his side, but wasn’t aiming it at anyone.
“Put your guns away,” he said, his leathery brown face hanging in a sober expression. His white beard moved in the wind with the same stiffness as the weeds by his boots.
Dominic nodded at Peter and Ian. They relaxed. And yet Dominic stayed behind the pumps like he thought Midas might shoot him after all.
“We’ve come for the baby. Charlotte can stay. We have no use for her, and besides, she murdered Eli.”
“It’s a boy,” Midas said. “Sebastian Casmas. That’s the name she gave him. He’ll never be Sebastian Cairne because he’ll never know that monster was his father.”
Dominic narrowed his good eye. “That’s for Michael to decide.”
“You go back there and tell him I’m not gonna let him make the same mistake as Louis. This boy won’t know anything about where he came from. I’ll make sure of that. I won’t let him grow up to be a killer.”
“You decided this?” Dominic said. “Or did she decide it?”
“She’s his mother,” Midas said. “It’s her choice.”
Dominic nodded once. “Doesn’t change the fact that I have orders to follow. I’m to shoot through you if I have to.”
“Monsters,” Midas said, raising the shotgun. “Just as bad as Meacham and Harris Kole and all the others. You can tell Michael I said that.”
“Sticks and stones,” Ian said, coming around the side of the building and holding a pistol aimed directly at Midas Ford.
No, Peter sent. Don’t shoot him.
Ian’s aim didn’t waiver. He was squinting one eye, sighting along the barrel, ready to blow off the old doctor’s head if necessary.
“Boy,” Midas Ford said, aiming the shotgun at Ian. “Don’t be just like your father.”
“I never had a father,” Ian said. “Bring out the child. The whore can stay with you.”
Midas didn’t budge from the doorway. “I’m not giving you that baby. You’ll have to shoot me.”
“Fine by me,” Ian said.
Dominic put up his right hand. Ian flinched and the gun slipped from his fingers and landed in a patch of weeds.
“No one gets shot today,” Dominic said before turning his attention to Midas. “Either you bring out that child, or I’ll render you incapable of standing in our way. Charlotte’s got a gun in there, and I know she’s ready to shoot anyone who tries to get in, so unless you want her to die in front of her baby, do as I say.”
Midas’s nostrils flared. He looked ready to shoot Dominic, and probably would have done so had a pistol not gone off three times inside the building. Midas lurched forward, the shotgun slipping from his hand, and landed on his knees. He released an agonized moan before collapsing.
“No!” Peter cried out, running to him.
The next bullet almost got Peter in the head. He grabbed Midas and dragged him away from the doorway. Ian scooped up the pistol he had dropped earlier and began firing into the building.
“Cease fire,” Dominic roared at him. “The children are in there!”
Ian let out a groan of anger and took cover behind one of the old pumps. Peter hoped the gas had dried out by now, and there was no chance of an explosion.
The gunfire from inside the building ceased. A moment of silence followed during which Peter tried to see past the doorway and make out what was inside. He thought he saw something rustle in the dark.
He’s waking up, came Dominic’s voice.
Something streaked through Peter’s field of vision, causing the door to slam open and bounce back. Muffled gunshots went off inside. Peter looked over his shoulder at Dominic, but Dominic was gone.
“Let’s go,” Ian shouted.
They moved to the front door. Peter kicked it open, and he and Ia
n aimed their pistols inside, coughing from the dust all of their movements had lifted into the air.
He’ll regret this someday, Charlotte’s voice hissed in the core of their minds. You all will.
Then all telepathy was cut off. Peter clenched his teeth. It felt like being blinded.
“William,” he whispered, mostly to himself. The boy had come awake. It took a moment for his ability to manifest, and now Peter felt like everything he’d ever learned during his training had disappeared from his mind. It was like trying to fire a gun with no hands.
Dominic stood in the center of what had once been the gas station’s convenience store, holding something carefully in his right arm, his left supporting a pistol aimed at an open door across the store. Sunlight entered from that door. Behind the building, a car engine came to life with a rumble. They were escaping.
“Let’s go after her,” Ian said, starting toward the back door.
“No,” Dominic said. Ian immediately came to a stop and closed his eyes in frustration. “Let her go.”
The three of them listened to what sounded like a truck roaring away from the station.
“Midas,” Peter said.
He ran back outside. Midas Ford lay where he’d fallen, belly up, his lips coated in blood. He’d flipped himself over. The pain must have been incomprehensible.
“I wanted—to give them a new life,” he said.
Peter nodded his understanding and placed a hand on the old doctor’s chest. Midas gave one final sigh—much like all the cynical sighs he’d given before now—and then his head turned to one side, his face completely slack.
Peter made sure Midas’s eyes were closed. Then he stood, looked around—the power plant still stood atop its cliff in the distance—and said a silent goodbye to this place. He’d go to Hell before he’d ever come back here again.
“Time to go,” Ian said, coming up behind him.
Their telepathy had been restored, which meant William was far away by now. Who knew where Charlotte would take him, or what kind of life they would have out there in the ruins?
Dominic joined them, carrying an infant in his arms. Peter was surprised to see a smile on Dominic’s face. It made his burn scars seem less intimidating.
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