The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9)

by Sam Sisavath

  You’re responsible for this. You sent them out there. Your friends, strangers, even the man you love.

  You did this. You did this.

  Rhett had the microphone and spoke into it: “How many are we talking about, Rolling Thunder?”

  “Don’t know; didn’t get the chance to take a roll call,” Peele said through the speakers. “I’ll get right on it as soon as they stop shooting at us.”

  “Small arms?”

  “Looks like a couple of LAWS—Shit!” Then, to someone else, presumably in the tank with him, “Jesus Christ, Larry, watch where you’re going! I don’t wanna be eating a rocket right about now!”

  “Laws what?” Carly said quietly next to her.

  “Light Anti-Armor Weapons System,” Lara said. “Shoulder-mounted single-shot anti-tank weapons, basically.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “Danny. He thought they’d have something like that.”

  They stood behind Jane, who was planted in front of all the communications gear in the room, while Riley and Rhett remained in front of the big map. The two men were constantly marking locations of where the forces were—theirs, the enemies, and a big circle in red marker around where the HC Dome was to the southwest of the city, away from Downtown area. She had stared at that spot so many times today that she thought she could remember every single parking lot and tenement building or highway around it.

  Anxiety radiated from Carly next to her, and Lara knew exactly what her friend was feeling. It wasn’t just that their loved ones and friends were out there in danger, but that they couldn’t do anything about it except to stand here and listen, helpless to affect what was happening in Houston right now because it was out of their hands.

  God, please, don’t die. Please, don’t die because of me.

  “Okay, okay,” Peele was saying through the speakers. Lara wasn’t sure who he was talking to, and neither was Rhett by the look on his face.

  “Peele, you okay?” Rhett asked.

  “Hell no,” Peele said. “They’re coming from everywhere. The only reason we’re still in one piece is because of the armor.” Then, shouting, “Back up, back up! Alex, for God’s sake, watch where you’re shooting!”

  Riley looked across the room at her. “I’m not sure how long Peele’s going to last out there. He sounds pretty rattled.”

  “They have to last a lot longer,” Lara said, and thought, Please don’t die, please don’t die. Then, as confidently as she could muster, “Without them, the collaborators are all going to converge on the HC Dome. We need to give Striker as much time as possible to get down there and assist Willie Boy with their mission.”

  “Willie Boy,” Carly said, shaking her head. “Let me guess: Danny came up with these code names?”

  Lara managed a smile. “Yeah.”

  “Well, at least Rolling Thunder and Eagle sound cool.”

  Lara leaned forward and put a hand on Jane’s shoulder. “Can you get the A-10s on the radio for me?”

  Jane nodded and flicked switches on the dashboard, then adjusted her headset’s mic and spoke into it: “Eagle One, Eagle Two, this is Black Tide. Eagle One, Eagle Two, can you read me?” She paused for a moment, then picked up a second microphone and handed it to Lara. “It’s Eagle One. Cole.”

  Lara took the mic while Jane hit another switch, and they heard Cole’s voice through the speakers.

  “—crazy down there,” Cole was saying. “There’s a swarm of technicals buzzing around Rolling Thunder. They look like ants trying to bite a lumbering elephant.”

  “Now that’s a sight,” Carly said.

  “Cole,” Lara said, “I need you to keep any collaborators that are breaking away from the roadblocks from converging on the Dome.”

  “I hear ya, and that’s what Eagle Two and me’ve been doing all day,” Cole said. “But not all the bad guys are getting the hint; some of them look pretty stubborn. We’re doing all we can to convince them otherwise, but there’s just two of us trying to cover an entire city.”

  “Do the best you can, Eagle One.”

  “Understood, Black Tide. We’ll do our best.”

  “Thank you, Cole.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cole said.

  “Now that’s a gentleman,” Carly said.

  “How are you for ammo?” Rhett said into the mic.

  “Not good,” Cole said. “I’m down to just the Avenger. I’m doing my best to conserve ammo, but it’s going to run dry sooner rather than later.”

  “What about Eagle Two?”

  “Wheeler’s in the same boat.”

  “Ask him if he saw anyone abandoning the fight,” Carly said. “You know, in case Lara’s plea worked.”

  Rhett relayed the question, and Cole answered: “A dozen or so vehicles took off when Rolling Thunder showed up. I was about to blast them, but they were obviously hightailing it so I held off.”

  “A dozen or so technicals,” Riley said, smiling slightly. “That’s something.”

  “That’s a dozen less assholes trying to kill my Danny,” Carly said. “That’s more than something.”

  “The true believers are staying behind,” Rhett said. “The ones slugging it out with Peele and the rest of Rolling Thunder right now. Only true believers would think you can go head-to-head with tanks. You gotta be pretty goddamn committed.”

  “Straight-jacket type of commitment?” Carly asked.

  “Not to them. There’s no turning back for them. It’s all-in or nothing.”

  Lara watched Rhett for a moment, wondering if he was talking about the collaborators out there fighting with Peele and the others, or if he was referring to people closer to home.

  She was still thinking about Rhett’s words when Cole shouted through the speakers, “No, goddammit, no!”

  “What happened?” Lara said into the mic. “Cole, what happened?”

  “Wheeler,” Cole said. “Shit!”

  “What happened to Wheeler?”

  “His Warthog just went down. Jesus Christ. They’ve been trying to tag us with shoulder-mounted launchers all day, but—Jesus! How the hell did they manage to get Wheeler? I warned that little punk not to make it too easy on them. Dammit!”

  “Without two Warthogs up there keeping them honest, those technicals are going to start converging on the Dome,” Riley said.

  Lara keyed her mic. “Eagle One, I need you to do a flyby of the Dome. I need an update on Striker.”

  “I’m almost there,” Cole said. He sounded calm again, but maybe that was just the transmission hiding his emotions. “Okay, I see… I see tangos in the open, but our boys are MIA.”

  “MIA? Explain.”

  “I don’t see any action down there. Either they’re all dead or they made it underground.”

  Lara looked back at Carly.

  “Dead or underground,” Carly sighed. “We’re hoping for the latter, right?”

  Lara nodded, as Rhett said into his own mic: “What else do you see, Cole?”

  “Wait, wait,” Cole said. “Okay, okay, I’m pretty sure Striker’s underground. I see tangos moving toward one of the manhole coverings. Give me a sec; I’m going to make sure no one follows them down.”

  Cole went silent for five seconds…

  Seven…

  Ten…

  Then he was back: “That’s it, guys, that’s my last bullet. I’ll stick around, buzz the area, and try to draw some of their fire. I don’t know how long until they figure out I’m running on fumes and start ignoring me, though.”

  “Be careful, Cole,” Rhett said.

  “Roger that, Black Tide. Eagle One out.”

  “Tough old coot,” Carly said. “Reminds me of my dad, if my dad was a former airman with suicidal tendencies.”

  Riley looked across the room at Lara. “That’s it. They’re in the tunnel. Nothing we can do now but wait.”

  She nodded, not quite sure what she was feeling. Maybe it was relief that Keo and Danny had made it to Will, or possibly
terror because she knew what was waiting for them down there.

  Please don’t die. God, please don’t die because of my decisions.

  The thought weighed her down and sapped the energy from her, and she was already so damn tired. All the days of not sleeping, the nights of worrying about Will and everyone onboard the Trident came back in a rush to punish her, and she had to sit down in a chair next to Jane or else she might have collapsed in a heap.

  When was the last time she had just sat down? She didn’t know the answer to that question and couldn’t even begin to come up with one. Her eyelids were suddenly heavy, and she could feel something out there, calling to her.

  What?

  She wanted to fight it, wanted to resist. There was too much work to do, too many lives out there hanging in the balance.

  Will. Gaby and Blaine and Danny.

  She couldn’t allow herself to close her eyes…

  Maybe just for one second.

  I’ll close my eyes for just one second…

  When she opened her eyes, she was standing on a beach. She had no shoes on and she was smiling as cool water gently lapped at her toes. The sand was very white—much whiter than she remembered Black Tide having—and there was a nice breeze. A perfect breeze, in fact. She had let her hair down and it lifted and swayed with the wind, and for some reason it seemed to be longer than it should have been.

  She looked around her.

  She wasn’t standing on Black Tide Island. She would remember this stretch of beach anywhere, but these days it usually only appeared in her dreams because she could no longer actually go there anymore. In her dreams, where things were perfect and she could live as a twenty-something woman without the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  There, the solar-powered lampposts that ringed the island. And there, the long cobblestone walkway where, once upon a time, armed men had attempted to rush only to be met at the other end by violence. The very same violence that she had orchestrated in a bid to keep the island.

  But there were no bodies there now. No blood and no bullet casings to mark one long, bad night. And there were no beached vessels loaded with killers trying to kill her and her friends.

  There was just…her, back on Song Island.

  This is a dream.

  It was in the way the wind caressed her cheeks, the warmth of the water against her feet. The sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky and it was all perfect, which was how she knew it wasn’t real. The closest she had ever come to perfection was here, on this place months ago, when she had someone to share it with.

  What am I doing here?

  She glimpsed a figure in the distance, walking toward her. He was so far (How is he so far?) that she couldn’t make out any details, but she knew it was a man by the shape of his shoulders. He was wearing slacks, the legs rolled up to his knees; a bright-colored Hawaiian shirt meshed perfectly with their surroundings.

  Perfectly. There’s that word again.

  She shielded her eyes to get a better look, but she already knew who it was before the man ever reached her. Even that didn’t make any sense because when she first saw him he appeared to be on the other side of the island, except now he was only twenty yards away.

  Then ten…

  Then stopping in front of her.

  “Will,” she said, whispering his name as if she were afraid he would evaporate into nothingness if she said it too loudly.

  He was the Will she remembered. A human Will. The one with the deep brown eyes that made her trust him back when they first met, even though she shouldn’t have trusted any man after what she had been through.

  It was Will.

  It was her Will.

  She leaped into his arms and he grabbed her in a tight embrace. Then he was laughing when she pulled back and began kissing him on the forehead, on the nose, on the cheeks, on the lips. He kissed her back urgently, hands gripping her tightly. She ran her fingers through his hair—short, perfectly cut, as if he’d just come from the barber—and refused to let him go, too afraid he would leave her again if she did.

  She didn’t know how long they stayed that way—hugging, kissing, laughing on the sand—but it had to be minutes. Maybe longer than that. She wasn’t sure because time felt slippery, as if days could go by and she’d never notice, or ever need to stop to eat and drink and sleep. Not while she had him back.

  Which was how she knew it was a dream.

  She pulled away but refused to let him go. Dream or not, he looked and felt and tasted so real that a part of her wanted desperately not to care, to just go with it; take everything she could get before it slipped away again.

  But she didn’t listen to the voice because she wasn’t the same person she was when they first met. She had changed over the months since meeting him, since losing him, since…

  …losing him…

  “Will,” she said softly. “This is a dream.”

  He smiled at her. “I just wanted to see you again as the man you remembered.”

  “I don’t think I ever remembered you in a Hawaiian shirt.”

  He laughed. It was loud and hearty and her heart filled up hearing it, because the Will she knew was reserved and thoughtful and he rarely just let it out like he was doing now. And she beamed, because his laughter was so wonderful and she couldn’t get enough.

  “No,” he said, “but I thought it would be a nice touch.”

  “It is,” she said. “It is.”

  She kissed him on the lips again. Softly, gently, afraid of breaking him.

  “Will,” she said, the sound of his name like music to her ears. “How are you doing this?”

  “We’re connected. We’ve always been connected.”

  “Always?”

  “Always.”

  “So why didn’t you do this before?”

  “Because once I make the first connection, I won’t be able to sever it. I’ll always be there at the back of your mind. It can be…uncomfortable for some people.”

  “Like you and Kate.”

  He nodded. “But it was never this powerful with her. What you and I have…” He was glowing in the sunlight, the smile frozen on his lips, contagious. “It’s stronger than with anyone else.”

  “So what does this mean?”

  His smile faded.

  “Will,” she said, the joy draining from her until there was just that empty hole in her soul again. “What does this mean for us? For you, out there in the real world?”

  “I lied to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Mabry. I lied when I said killing him would reverse the infection. There is no reversal, Lara. What’s done can’t be undone.”

  Her arms came loose and she pulled away from him, taking one, then two steps back in the sand. The water continued to lap at her feet but she barely noticed it now, too consumed by the whirlwind of emotions ripping through.

  “You lied to me,” she said. “You lied to me…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What else did you lie about?”

  “Not everything. I can end this nightmare by killing Mabry. I can give you and humanity a second chance. A real, fighting chance.”

  “How?”

  “I told you about him. How Mabry’s the beginning and the end. The everything and the nothing. The nowhere and the everywhere. He exists in here.” Will tapped his temple. “Even when he’s not there, he’s there. We come from him, Lara. All of us.”

  “The ghouls…”

  “Yes.”

  She saw the sadness in his eyes, but there was also something else there that hadn’t been before: Acceptance.

  “Every ghoul comes from him,” Will continued. “His blood flows through our veins. In so many ways, he gave birth to us. He’s our father.”

  “Your father?”

  “It’s how they look at it. The brood. They are his children. They obey him without question. They go to sleep with his voice in their heads, and wake up with it comforting them. He is the ever
ything, and the nothing. Everywhere, and nowhere. The beginning…and the end.”

  “What’s happening at the Dome right now, Will? Where are you?”

  “Still there. Danny’s with me. He’s helping me to finish it.”

  “How can you be there and here at the same time?”

  “This is just a dream, Lara. You were right. It’s a shared connection between the two of us. A bubble that exists outside of time.”

  She shook her head. She didn’t understand any of it and she didn’t care to try, because he had lied to her. He told her he could save them and himself, and he had lied to her.

  But slowly, very slowly, the anger slipped away, because she knew why he had done it. Because she would never have agreed to the plan if it meant he wouldn’t return, wouldn’t come back to her even if it wasn’t as the man she loved.

  He did it for you. Everything he’s done, it’s been for you, you stupid girl.

  She walked back to him. She put her hand on his cheek, and he closed his eyes and leaned into it. She smiled and held him there, enjoying the warmth of his skin. It was so unlike the last time they had made contact, below deck on the Trident. He wasn’t the Will he once was then—or the Will he was now.

  “Will I remember any of this when I wake up?” she asked.

  “Do you want to?”

  “Yes. Very much.”

  “Then you will. The same way I remembered my dreams with Kate. It lingers. Always. That’s why I never joined with you before. It can be disturbing always having another consciousness at the back of your mind. And our bond is so much stronger…”

  “Then why now?”

  He smiled at her, and it was genuine and touching, and the sadness had left his eyes, replaced by happiness. “I wanted to see you again. I wanted to explain why I lied, why I did what I did. But most of all, I wanted to tell you that I love you.”