Monsters (Page 69)

“Yes.” God, Finn did know all about him. “Genetic rescue in captive populations.”

“So, think of what I offer, Peter: protection, enough diversity to keep the population humming along, food.” He did Peter the favor of not smiling. “Think of me as providing genetic rescue.”

“But you’re not using all the Changed the way you have Davey and these girls. What about the ones in the prison house? I recognize a few. What are you going to do, Finn?”

“I might not have to do much at all. You know history, Peter. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it did fall in three. Rule’s like that. With the mine gone, no supplies, and everyone so old, the village will eat itself alive, like a cancer, inside and out. Remember, Chuckies return to the familiar. So just think what’s heading their way as we speak.”

The idea of even a few Changed actually making it back to the village sent a slow shudder up his spine. He knew Finn had kids from Rule; he’d recognized the doe-eyed Kate Landry and burly Lee Travers. And if Finn’s gathering Changed like Kate and Lee and the rest are his new army . . . It would be like the last emperor of Rome watching the Visigoths boil through the city’s Salarian Gate to storm the Seven Hills.

“I give it”—Finn tipped his wrist to check a phantom watch—“oh, another day or two. Or the prodigals might already be there, Peter. So what do you imagine will happen?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that the Council couldn’t fall and Chris would find a way. But Chris came in a vision. Forget the drug. Something’s happened to him and in Rule; I know it. Finn is too confident. The hurt—the idea that Chris really might be dead—was a barb of grief in his heart. Yet he grabbed hold, pulled it closer, deeper, wanting the pain, wishing for the hurt. If I know what grief is, there’s a chance I might come out the other side.

“Why do you hate Rule so much?” he asked. “Who are you, Finn?”

“I am what I am.” Finn spread his hands. “And mine is the way, boy-o.”

No, but you are the only way left. He closed his eyes not so much against Finn but the sudden icy tide that passed for his blood. In his brain, he could feel the winged thing’s claws hook a little more firmly. He almost wished for the bells again. Or Simon. Then he would be only insane and have an excuse.

“All right.” He opened his eyes. “But I want to be there. I need your word.”

“Scout’s honor. Now, whaddaya say we get you inside before you lose a foot?” Finn tipped him a wink. “Or something more vital that a healthy young buck like you would be sorry to see go? Oh, but wait.” Finn did his mock head-slap. “We forgot Lang. You still want him?”

“Yes.” Peter felt the winged thing shift. “You know what they say about revenge served cold.”

“No!” Lang reached for Finn like a bawling baby. “Boss, no, I’m your man!”

“Plenty more old farts where you came from, too.” There was a scrape of keen steel on leather as Finn unsheathed his parang. “Who’s hungry?”

PART FOUR:

TRIALS BY FIRE, AND ICE

55

“Think you can leave me?” His father’s voice was a roar that carried from the downstairs kitchen like a megaphone blast. There was a very loud bang of metal on wood, the chatter of dishes, and then a muffled shriek from Deidre, his father’s girlfriend of the moment. “Think I don’t got eyes?” his father raged.

I don’t hear this. Shivering under the dark dome of his blanket, Chris screwed his eyes tight, tight! He clapped his hands over his ears. This is just a bad dream—

But then, somehow, he was huddled on the stairs. Below, his father loomed. Bright red spatters of blood painted his father’s face and wifebeater. The hammer was clotted with a gory jam of blond hair and brain and blood.

“D-d-don’t,” Dee quavered—except now Chris saw that it wasn’t Deidre at all but Lena. Lena’s face was a pulpy, misshapen horror. The left half of her head was staved. A glistening slug of pink brain slicked her neck. “P-please.” Lena raised her hands but not to Chris’s father.

To him. Because, now, Chris wasn’t eight. He wasn’t in bed either, or crouched on a staircase, hugging his knees, wishing he were anywhere else. Instead, he stood in a swirl of icy wind and stinging snow, and his was the hand with the hammer now. He hefted it, felt its weight, the handle slick with Lena’s blood. Gore dribbled over his face, bathed his neck. He sucked wet, warm copper from his lips, and it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, and he wanted more.

“P-please, Chris,” Lena said. “H-help me.”

“I can’t help you.” His voice was older, rougher. He liked that, too. “No one can.”

“B-but . . .” Lena’s eyes dripped blood instead of tears. “I d-don’t

want to die.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you Changed. Someone has

to die.”

“Yes, someone must.” It was another voice, a person Chris also

knew well. Jess was suddenly there, silver hair lashed by wind into

a Gorgon’s curls, the snow spinning itself into a long white gown.

“Someone will,” Jess said.

“But not me!” Lena cried. “Why does it have to be—” “You’re already lost, girl.” Jess’s voice was wind. “But you are not,

Chris. Leave this place. This is a fight you will not win here. You don’t

belong in the Land of the Dead.”

“Hell you say,” said his father, who was now grinning down at

another body. This one was jittering and twitching in an enormous

lake of steaming gore. Chris looked and saw that it was Peter, splayed

on his back, his head as broken and misshapen as a Halloween pumpkin run over by a car. “That’s my boy you’re talking about,” his father

said to Jess, “and he belongs to me, with me, my blood.” “There’s a time you must kill, Chris, but also a time to heal.” Jess’s

eyes were black mirrors in which he saw himself doubled: Chris on

the right, Chris on the left, like the twin angels of his nature—his

father and Jess—but he couldn’t tell which was good. Maybe neither

was, entirely. “Leave the thing with a father’s face,” Jess said. “Go

back. It’s not yet your time.”

“The hell it’s not,” he said, and then Chris was swinging—both