The Gates of Byzantium (The Babylon Series, Book 2)

by Sam Sisavath

  No one cuts grass anymore.

  Slowly, the sights became familiar, and he pieced together the evidence.

  There, a gazebo surrounded by hurricane fencing, with a sign across the entrance gate reading: “Gazebo Reservations Available.” Long piers extending out into a still lake, and men and women in shorts and hats casting fishing lines with night crawlers attached to hooks. Behind him, kids playing baseball on a big, well-manicured diamond as parents cheered them on from the stands. The sound of aluminum bats striking cowhide-covered baseballs.

  He was in Deussen Park, back in Houston.

  A hot day, and he was wearing cargo pants and T-shirt. He left the baseball diamond behind and walked across a large parking lot dotted with cars and trucks with empty boat trailers, though he couldn’t spot any boats on the lake at the moment. The water was unsettling in its stillness, except for the occasional ripple caused by a soft wind. Lake Houston never had much shelter from the winds, so this was another oddity his mind couldn’t quite explain.

  “You’re over-thinking it,” a soft, familiar voice said.

  Female. Very familiar.

  “Oh, come on, you’ve forgotten about me already, Will?”

  She stood in the distance along a two-meter-wide wooden walkway where the park ended and the water began. She wore a plain Sunday dress, but it looked radiant on her. He had forgotten how beautiful she was, how physically different from Lara. Taller, with a fuller chest, curves, and long, toned legs. She was at least thirty meters away, but for some reason he could make out every detail, which really shouldn’t have been possible.

  Kate.

  She smiled across the parking lot at him. “Come on, Will, you know this isn’t real, don’t you?”

  “What is this, then? A dream?”

  “In a way. Come closer.”

  Suddenly he was standing next to her on the wooden walkway, and when she walked, he walked alongside her. They crossed the park casually, passing elderly men in tan hats perched on overturned pails with fishing poles, but no one seemed to have caught anything.

  “This is Deussen Park,” he said.

  “Yes,” she nodded. “You like this place. So do I. We have that in common, though I don’t think we ever talked about it, did we?”

  “No.”

  “I used to come here with my father,” Kate said, “when I was younger. I had some of the best times of my life here. I was free then. But then again, what girls aren’t at that age?”

  “I can’t picture you as a little girl, Kate.”

  “We were all little once, Will. Then we grow up, and we accept the reality of being an adult. Making decisions. Life-and-death struggles.”

  Deussen Park was clean, wide open, and free to use. He remembered making a point to come here at least once a month, if just to toss a bait or two into the water. Not that he ever went home with a lot of fish. That was never the point, anyway.

  There wasn’t much of a wind today, and yet it wasn’t terribly hot.

  “Don’t take it so seriously,” Kate said. “It’s just a dream.”

  He looked closely at her. She hadn’t changed much since the last time he had seen her, over five months ago. He remembered shooting her, back at Harold Campbell’s underground facility, on the night the ghouls had laid siege to the place.

  “No,” she said.

  “No?” he repeated.

  “I didn’t die that night. Not really.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “You can read my thoughts…”

  She laughed. It was a beautiful laugh, full of life and energy and spirit. It was so unlike her. The Kate he knew was solemn and serious. He wondered if this Kate, the one he was walking with in this very strange dream that seemed at once real and so artificial, was in fact the real Kate, the one he never got to know.

  “Yes,” she said. “In a way. I’m sorry you never got to know me before…everything.”

  “You couldn’t have been that different.”

  “Oh, I was. Very different. Driven. Ambitious. Frankly, the type of girl who never would have given you the time of day if you asked me out in a bar. I guess you could say I was even a little stuck-up.”

  He smiled, and she laughed again.

  “But that’s the past,” she said. “We’re both beyond that now, aren’t we? There’s no use in clinging to the past. It’s time to move on. Don’t you want to move on, Will?”

  “Do I?”

  “Of course you do. And you should. I’m talking about the future, Will. And where we fit into that future.”

  “We?”

  “We. The ones you call ghouls.”

  “You’re one of them now. Lara said she saw you that night in the facility…”

  “She was right. I was there.”

  “But you’re…still you.”

  She gave him a pitying look, like a mother regarding an uncomprehending child. “This is just a dream, Will. Don’t take it too seriously. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Then I don’t have to take you seriously if this is all just a dream.”

  “You can ignore me if you want. But I’m real in the sense that this is me. Talking to you right now.”

  “I don’t believe in psychic powers. You should know that.”

  “Funny, coming from a guy who deduced ghouls had a hive-like mind that allowed them to communicate. Remember?”

  Will smirked. “So I was right.”

  “You’ve been amazingly prescient about a lot of things. The honest truth is, even he’s impressed with you.”

  “He?”

  “The one you call the blue-eyed ghoul. The first one you saw, outside the bank in Cleveland.”

  “Lara said you had blue eyes, too, when she saw you that night at Harold Campbell’s facility.”

  “I did.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. It just is. I haven’t asked him and he’s never told me.”

  “You don’t care?”

  She shrugged. “Eventually, maybe.”

  “But you’re like him now.”

  “To a lesser extent, yes.”

  “You control them. The ghouls.”

  “I have control over them, yes.”

  “So what are you exactly?”

  “I don’t know how to put it into words.” She seemed to think about it, then smiled. “Maybe the assistant supervisor. I’m not the top dog, but when the boss is away, I get to play.”

  He smiled despite himself.

  “It’s the best analogy I could come up with,” she added.

  “You don’t sound like a bloodthirsty ghoul right now. You sound …”

  “Human?”

  “Human.”

  She laughed that same lyrical, poetic laugh that didn’t seem entirely real. “Because it’s easier if I come to you this way.”

  “How are you doing this? How did you get into my dream?”

  “Your mind is tired, Will. You’re exhausted. When was the last time you had a good night’s sleep that lasted more than a few hours? Hard to remember? That’s because it’s been a while. You’re tired, Will. Very, very tired. And you should be, because you’re right. We are hunting you.”

  “You’re hunting me.”

  “Yes. He put me in charge. He thought I would be able to track you better, because of our past relationship.”

  “Because we slept together that one time.”

  She laughed again. “I like to think it went beyond that.”

  “Maybe it did.”

  “But it was good, that one night, wasn’t it?”

  He ignored the question, and said instead, “So you know where I am right now.”

  “Of course.”

  “Then why haven’t you attacked?”

  “What’s the point? I don’t have enough ghouls with me for a full frontal assault. Five or 600 ghouls aren’t going to take the basement. Like you always do, you chose too well. Even i
f we could break through the doors, I would lose too many.”

  “You care about them?”

  “They’re like my children.”

  He looked at her again, trying to see if he could pierce through the artificial veil that was Kate and see into the real Kate, this new “Kate” that had taken over the woman he had once known and, for one night, had loved.

  But he couldn’t see anything beyond an attractive brunette smiling back at him.

  “What do you want from me?” he asked. “What’s the point of all this?”

  “I want you to give up, Will.”

  “Give up? That’s your big sell? Just give up?”

  “Giving up doesn’t mean the end. Giving up means to stop fighting, stop running, and accept. You have to know, in your heart of hearts, that you can’t win this. There are billions of us and there are thousands of you left. Barely thousands. You’re not a stupid man, Will. Crunch the numbers. You know full well you’re just delaying the inevitable.”

  Will smiled. “Then why are you so desperate to snuff us out if we’re so insignificant to you?”

  She sighed, sounding almost exasperated. “Because we have other things to do that don’t involve you. But your continued existence—well, let’s just say it bothers him. He would like to nip it in the bud.”

  “He sounds human.”

  “We were all humans, once. Like me. Like all the other children.”

  “Ghouls.”

  “That’s such a nasty word.”

  “It’s appropriate.”

  “Perhaps to you.”

  “If you’re really Kate, then you know I don’t give up easily. Even when the odds are against me.”

  “Of course I know, but I had to try anyway. I have to ask, though. Do you really think you can win this?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Be practical, Will,” she said, again with that air of motherly annoyance. “You’re not just fighting us, you’re fighting each other. Humans as a species are unworthy of survival. You’re dying, being hunted like dogs, and yet you still find time to indulge in petty violence against one another. Humanity is not worthy of this planet.”

  “So I should just give up?”

  “They depend on you. Danny. Lara. The others. If you let go, they’ll let go, too. There’s no point in fighting this. You know there’s no point in fighting this, Will.”

  “And if I don’t just…quit?”

  She stopped and looked at him, and Will felt a breeze and shivered slightly, only to realize it wasn’t from the air around him, but from the hard, piercing stare of her eyes.

  “Then we’ll keep hunting you. Wherever you go, wherever you think you’re safe, you won’t be. Never truly safe. We’ll always be there at your door. Every hour that ticks down to nightfall will feel like the end of the world. Give up and save yourself all the misery, all the sleepless nights, all the pain of seeing your friends and lovers be lost to you one by one. Because it will happen. You know it, deep down. You’re a soldier, Will, you’ve fought in wars. You know this is a war you can’t win.”

  Will looked around him, at the short grass, the still lake, the fishermen perched on their overturned pails. It all looked so real, but he knew it was all a lie. There was nothing real here, just a construct of his mind. Even Kate, standing next to him, beautiful in her dress, was not real.

  “You still don’t think I’m really here, do you?” she asked, slightly amused.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Oh, ye of little faith. It’s a miracle you’ve survived this long, Will.” She stepped closer to him, and he could feel her breath against his face, and it was cold and lifeless. “Give up, Will.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t win.”

  “That’s never stopped me before.”

  She looked like she was going to laugh, but instead she stepped away and turned around until her back was to him. “Have it your way. But don’t say I didn’t warn you when it starts going bad. Because it will. This world belongs to us now, Will. You’re the anomaly. The cockroach in the light.”

  “These cockroaches have silver bullets.”

  “You think you have enough silver bullets for a few billion foes?”

  “Attack, and find out.”

  She looked back and smiled. “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache. Besides, I’m a little busy at the moment. Can you hear it?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Listen closer. Can you hear it now?”

  Will listened, but he didn’t hear anything except the water lapping softly behind him, a child squealing with delight as she reeled in a catfish, and an old man grumbling as he packed up for the day.

  Then he heard a slight, but very distinctive sound. Drifting to him from afar.

  Pop-pop-pop.

  It was the sound of gunfire. So light, so far away, that the noise was surreal, like faint echoes from history. He looked around him, but couldn’t trace the origins.

  “I found him, Will,” Kate said. “I found Blaine.”

  CHAPTER 14

  BLAINE

  “HERE?” SANDRA SAID, stopping the Toyota in the middle of the road.

  Blaine leaned forward a bit to look past her at the two-story house, like some ancient relic from the past towering behind a sea of tall grass that hadn’t been mowed in eight months. It looked the same as the first time he had passed it a few hours ago.

  “That’s it,” Blaine said. He glanced at his watch: 6:57 P.M.

  They could have easily reached Lancing before nightfall, but the more Blaine had thought about it, the more he wasn’t sure he could find Will and the others if they had moved away from the courthouse, which they had already been planning to do when he left them. If they went all the way to Lancing and couldn’t find the others, then what? They would have to find someplace to stay the night. That would take time and effort, neither of which he had very much of at the moment.

  “You guys stayed here for the whole night?” Sandra asked.

  “The windows and back doors are already reinforced. We can do the same to the front door.”

  “No basement?”

  “None that I saw.”

  “Risky,” she said, clearly not sold on the idea.

  “It’s probably the least risky choice.”

  She turned the truck into the driveway. With the grass grown on both sides of them, it felt like driving through a forest, albeit one with a smoothly paved road. The Labrador statue with its missing head still sat in the front lawn, while its companion guarded the front door.

  Sandra put the truck in park and reached for the lever when he stopped her. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Just in case.” He reached into the ammo bag on the floor and grabbed a handful of shotgun shells with a white “X” marked across them.

  “What’s the ‘X’ for?” Sandra asked.

  “They’re filled with silver buckshot. You know how when we shoot the ghouls, they just keep coming?”

  “They’re impossible to kill.”

  “Not with silver.”

  “Silver?” She gave him another doubtful look. “Where did you learn that?”

  “Will and the others have been using it since day one.”

  “And it works?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t used it before. They say it works, and I believe them. Why bullshit about this?”

  She nodded. “They wouldn’t.”

  Blaine ejected shells from the Remington shotgun and shoved in new ones with silver loads. “What are you carrying?”

  She took a Glock out from behind her back. “I grabbed it last night.”

  “I have some ammo for that.” He dug into the bag and came out with a magazine with an “X” across the side. “This should fit the Glock.”

  She reloaded the Glock, then gave him an amused look. “First duct tape and now silver bullets. Who are these people, the Lone Ranger and Tonto?”

  *

  THE INSIDE OF the house loo
ked the same as it had this morning, with a repurposed door leaning against the wall next to the front door. The door still had long nails driven through it, ready to be re-used. Blaine wondered if Will and Danny did that on purpose, leaving a convenient way for someone else to seal the place later.

  “We’ll need a hammer or something to nail them back in place,” Blaine said.

  “I’ll check the kitchen.” Sandra walked off with her Glock at her side.

  Blaine took the opportunity to struggle over to the foyer, where he sat down on a comfortable wooden chair. He made sure he could hear Sandra in the kitchen behind him, sifting through the drawers, before he took out the bottle of Tramadol and shook out two more.

  As Blaine swallowed down the pills, he remembered Lara telling him jokingly, “At this point I’m supposed to tell you not to take more than three a day or you’ll run the risk of addiction, but I doubt you’ll listen anyway.”

  Smart girl, he thought, squirreling the bottle away.

  Sandra came back with a rubber mallet. “Will this do?”

  “Probably.”

  “You all right?” she asked, looking at him with one hand on her hip.

  He smiled. That pose never failed to get his blood pumping. “I’m fine. Why?”

  “You look pale.”

  “It’s hot in here.”

  “I’ll open a window.” She smiled. “Just kidding.”

  He waited a few more seconds until he was sure the pills were kicking in. When he stood up and didn’t feel any pain—or at least, not as much pain—he knew they were (mostly) working.

  He and Sandra didn’t have any trouble putting the door back in place. The nails were straight enough, and he banged the ones that were slightly crooked back into the correct angles. While Sandra held the door at a slight angle—so the length covered as much of the doorway as possible—he hammered the nails into the walls on both sides.

  That done, they stepped back and gave it an appraising look.

  “It looks decent,” Sandra said. “We’ll have to thank your friends for making it so easy.”

  “At this rate, I’ll spend the rest of my life thanking them,” Blaine said.

  *

  WITH AN HOUR until nightfall, they ended up in one of the rooms upstairs. It was clearly a girl’s room, decorated with pink dressers, pink bedsheets and of course, pink blankets. The idea of staying in the same room from this morning, when he lay half-dead, didn’t appeal to him at all. They considered the master bedroom, but it was too far away from the stairs.