by Matt King
“What is that?” he asked.
“That is a doorway to where your friend can be found. I would get you closer, but this is where they removed Meryn's mark. Without it, he's beyond my sight.”
The archway, as it looked when the image stopped expanding, showed a hazy view of a tall gate with brick walls on either side.
Paralos stepped to Bear’s side, looking at the rippling plane. “They took him deep into the trees. Five men. That’s all it took to bring him down.”
“He was probably hurt,” Bear replied. “I’m sure he would’ve gotten away if it weren’t for that.”
“Suppositions mean nothing at the moment, wouldn’t you agree? I’ve shown you where he is. Make sure he comes back alive. Even as weak as he is, I can’t have Amara gain his energy.”
Bear stood for a moment, watching the picture of the gate waver in the rippling air. “How will I get back?” he asked.
“I’ll keep the synapse open. You can use it to come back here when you’re done.”
“No,” Bear said.
Paralos stepped in front of him. “What did you say?”
“Not back here. I want it to take me to my father when we’re done. I can tell you where he is.”
“I know where he is. I watched the three of you arrive.”
“Then that’s where I want to come out. I need to get back to him.”
“Your head isn’t in this,” Paralos said. “You don’t have time to be worrying about a dying man.”
“That dying man is my father. He’s all that I have left and I will do whatever I have to do to protect him.”
Paralos opened his mouth to reply, but paused abruptly, his hand outstretched, holding his pipe. He lifted his stare to the sky.
“What is it?” Bear asked.
“Shh!”
Paralos replaced the pipe in his mouth, his eyes still searching, and slipped his hands into the pockets of his coat. “We have a deal,” he said. “I will create another synapse to take you back to your father, but you have to go. Now.”
Bear looked up and saw nothing but bleached blue sky.
“Now!” Paralos ordered. “Find him before those men do Amara’s work for her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Mr. Dillon, can you hear me?”
After his third death since returning to Building Z, August was in no hurry to regain consciousness. He spent his time in the ether dreaming up different ways to kill the white-haired son of a bitch who was trying to shake him awake. His first thought was to tie Coburn to a chair and then burn the place to the ground, but that wasn’t personal enough. He preferred something hands-on, like using his swords to turn the man into a human jigsaw puzzle. Seeing him in pieces might make up for the fact that in the last twenty-four hours, he’d been stabbed through the heart, poisoned, and shot point-blank in the head.
When he took his first breath, something coarse rubbed against his nose and lips. He opened his eyes. A rough-edged circle of light interrupted the darkness of the room.
“My apologies,” Coburn said. He loosened a rope around August’s neck and ripped off the hood. “There. Now we can speak to each other like the old friends we are.”
August turned away to shield his eyes from the bare fluorescent lights overhead. He could still see some of his blood from the gunshot wound scattered across the floor. There was a line of it leading back to the table, a plain slab of stainless steel resting on top of weathered four-by-four legs. A metal rope around his waist kept him seated in a chair across from Coburn.
Coburn looked at the spot on August’s forehead where the exit wound had been as though he were just noticing it for the first time. “Here, let me take care of that.” He took a handkerchief from his coat pocket and leaned over to wipe away the dried blood. “Not a scratch on you.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Is it?”
August tugged at the rope binding his wrists.
“Woven steel,” Coburn said as he took off his hat and laid it on the table. “I can’t have you breaking out of your restraints again.”
“I guess they don’t make duct tape like they used to.”
“Perhaps not. It seems you’ve gotten a good bit stronger since you deserted us.”
There was a mountain of raw feelings buried in his words, August knew, and he decided to leave it alone for the moment. “I spent some time in the gym. Maybe you should think about joining me. You look a whole lot skinnier than I remember. In fact, you look like shit.”
Coburn whipped a punch at August’s nose. The flow of blood was immediate and heavy, but the blow confirmed his suspicions: the old man was sick. He shook his head to get rid of the cobwebs, sending drops of blood splattering onto the table.
“I wish…,” he said. His words sounded far away.
“What do you wish, Mr. Dillon?”
“I wish you’d try that again.”
Coburn hit him quickly in the same spot.
“Ow! I meant after I get free!”
“Where did you get it?” Coburn asked.
The cartilage in August’s nose reset, stopping the flow of blood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do.” Coburn took a pack of Lucky Strikes out of his shirt pocket and shook out a cigarette. He lit the end, holding the base between his thumb and pointer finger. A ribbon of smoke rose from the embers.
“Where’s the boy band?” August asked. “I was just learning how to tell them apart. You know, one of them squints his left eye before he punches.”
“They’re gone,” Coburn said.
“Better plans?”
“You’ve spooked them.”
August looked to his left at the giant mirrored window. He couldn’t imagine the Horsemen on the other side being anything close to scared.
“There’s no one in that room, Mr. Dillon.” Coburn used the butt end of his cigarette like a pointer. “You see, when you survived the truck crash, they thought you were lucky. When they put a knife through your heart and you didn’t die, they started to wonder if maybe you were a sign. That perhaps a door to the heavens opened and out walked some godsend to lead them. I told them they were foolish. That you were just a man, a man deserving of the punishment he was given. To prove my point, I shot you in the back of the skull.”
He formed a gun with his fingers and aimed it at August’s forehead.
“Then you came back from that, too. I was forced to send them away before they got it in their heads that you were someone worth protecting. The Horsemen are a superstitious lot. If I were to let you go, they’d probably worship the ground you walk on.”
He flicked a tail of ashes to the floor.
“You may have the Horsemen fooled, Mr. Dillon, but you don’t fool me. I don’t believe in monsters and I don’t believe in people coming back from the dead. What I do believe in is science, and I want to know what you have inside you that makes you heal. I want to know who gave it to you.”
“If I tell you, will you let me go?”
“No.”
“Then you might as well keep shooting me in the back of the head, because we have nothing left to talk about.”
Coburn’s eyes narrowed as he took a final drag on his cigarette. He rose, dropping the butt on the floor, and walked around the table until he was behind August’s chair. August couldn’t see him. He only heard the sound of Coburn breathing as the air pushed through his nose.
The punch came swiftly and without warning. Coburn caught him squarely in the back of the head. He grabbed the chair and whipped August face-first into the wall. Warm blood soaked his hair, falling down his temple. Holding back his screams only made the pain worse.
Coburn took his time picking him up off the tiles. He steadied the chair and dragged it back to the table. The heels of his boots clapped against the floor as he walked back to settle in his seat. He lit another cigarette.
“You may remember that this interrogation room went unused while you were
here,” he said. “That’s because I don’t believe it gets results. I give people the opportunity to answer my questions. If they choose not to take that opportunity, then I feel they have taken advantage of my generous nature and I deal with them accordingly. Now, under normal circumstances, a person gets one chance to comply. However, as you are a former employee, I’m willing to give you a second chance. So I will ask you again: where did you get the ability to heal yourself?”
August’s head hung forward. Blood dripped into his lap. “You idiot,” he said. His words slurred. “We don’t have time for this. You don’t understand what you’re doing.”
“Enlighten me.”
“There’s a war coming. Bigger than you can imagine. I have to be there. I have to win it.”
“You. Alone.”
“Yes…No.” His confusion subsided the more he tried to speak. Anger settled in its place. “If you want to know who made me, just hang tight; you’re gonna meet them soon enough. They’ll find me and when they do, they’re going to tear this place apart, and you with it. Do yourself a favor and let me go. I’ll kill you quickly, I promise.”
“All the years you’ve known me, Mr. Dillon, I’m surprised you think I’d succumb to threats.”
“Call it fair warning.”
“I call it a bluff.” Coburn flicked the ashes from his cigarette onto the floor absently, his eyes boring into August. “Was it worth it?” he asked after a pause.
“What are you talking about?”
“Abandoning your family. I want to know if you consider it an even trade, your newfound powers in exchange for the desertion of your responsibilities.”
There it was. He knew Coburn couldn't avoid the topic for much longer. “You're not my family and you never were,” August said. He should've held his tongue—he knew he was walking through a minefield—but there was something about the look of entitlement in Coburn's eyes that drew him fighting back. “I never asked to be your protégé and I sure as hell never signed up to be your adopted son.”
If the jab hurt, Coburn didn't show it. “You must have known we would find you.”
“What was I supposed to do? Ask your permission to go? I remember your version of a severance package.”
“I think you owed me that much.”
“Right. After all you did for me.”
Veins pulsed on the side of Coburn's head. “You were a directionless boy when I found you. I gave you a purpose.”
“And what a purpose it was. You had us killing innocents. They didn't deserve what we did to them.”
“What you did. So is that what you think you're doing now, using your skills for the good of the people? That isn't you. You're no hero. You're a weapon, useless without someone to wield you.”
“You don't know the first thing about me.”
“Do the people who've hired you? Do they know the real August Dillon?” His eyes narrowed as he took a long drag of his cigarette. “I could have told them everything there is to know. That you are unreliable. That you lack courage. That you cannot be trusted to grow into your potential.”
“Fuck you.”
Coburn leaned forward until the stench of his smoky breath filled August's nose. “And most importantly, I would tell them what you've always known deep in your heart: You are a failure of a man, August, and that's something you can never heal from.”
Heat rushed to August's face. “You want what I have inside me?”
“You don't deserve it.”
“And what do I deserve? To die of cancer, like you?”
Coburn blinked. He shrank back in his seat.
“That's it, isn't it?” August asked, moving in for the kill. “Cancer? In that case, I'm glad you caught me. I want to watch you die. It won't be long, will it? How much time did they give you? A month? A week? Do me a favor. When you're lying there wondering which breath is going to be your last, I want you to remember something. I want you to remember that I had the means to cure you and you couldn't get it out of me. You couldn't take what you wanted because you're too old and weak!”
The sound of his voice echoed briefly in the room. Coburn let it die out before he stood slowly, grabbing his hat from the table and fixing it into place with a sweep of his hand across the brim. He started toward the door.
“Giving me time alone to sweat it out won’t help,” August called after him. “I'll never tell you.”
His words went ignored. Coburn walked out, leaving August slumped forward behind the table, his head still mired in dull pain.
He figured Coburn would be watching from behind the mirror. He made a conscious effort not to show he'd been hurt. Instead, he closed his eyes to enjoy the painless moments while he had them.
The door slammed opened. Coburn walked in carrying a sledgehammer by its neck. August didn’t get a chance to speak before Coburn cocked it with both hands and swung for his temple.
This time, death lingered.
When the Horsemen had killed him, he came back angry, stewing in his paralyzed body until the rest of his wounds caught up with his working mind. By Coburn’s hand, he had only a few seconds to enjoy the return of his heartbeat before he was slung back into the void, and each time he came back his mind grasped frantically for consciousness only to lose it again and again. He died in a panic and he awoke in one.
Then, finally, the cycle ended. He came back into the world riding a wave of motion sickness. As soon as he was able to think clearly again, he tried to move his arms and legs. Neither worked. One thing that did work was his sense of smell. Rank, moldy air filled his nose. He opened his eyes, blinking as the low-hanging sun flickered through gaps in trees. Strings of moss hung from their branches.
“Where am I?” he muttered.
He raised his head. Chains encased his body like a mummy. Only his head and feet were left exposed as he lay in the bottom of a skiff. Dull green metal sheeting surrounded him on both sides. Sitting at the far end of the boat was Coburn, the tip of his cigarette burning orange in the evening light and the sledgehammer resting at his side. The head of the hammer was wet with blood. Coburn looked straight ahead, keeping one hand on the outboard motor’s handle.
“What are you going to do to me?” August asked.
Coburn sat, silent.
“You thick-headed son of a bitch.” He tried to force his way out of the chains. The metal wouldn't budge.
Overhead, the tree cover grew thicker. His heart rate quickened once he recognized where they were going. He'd ridden this way before with Coburn. They came here when they needed to make a body disappear.
“This won’t change anything,” he said, hoping his voice would stay even despite the fear taking hold. “You know it can’t kill me. Just turn the boat around and take me back.”
Coburn cut the engine. The trailing wake rolled beneath the hull as they drifted to a halt. He took one of the oars at his feet and stuck it over the side of the boat, pushing it down into the water. It came back covered in brown sludge all the way up to the end of the paddle. He held it so August could see.
“You don’t need to do this,” August said. “We’ll work something out.”
Reaching into his coat pocket, Coburn brought out a hand-held GPS. He raised it to the sky, waiting for it to beep before he pressed something on screen. A green light flashed. He tucked it away and leaned forward to grab August’s chains.
“Coburn, listen to me…”
Coburn heaved him chest-first against the side of the boat. Beneath him, tea-colored water sloshed against the boat’s shell. The bog smelled of rotting vegetation, rancid and sour. His chains tightened as Coburn grabbed a handful of links to toss him overboard.
“Wait, god damn it!”
Coburn paused, holding August’s head an inch above the surface. August could see the man’s stoic reflection rise and fall in the waves.
“You better pray that cancer kills you first,” he said, “because I’m coming back for you. I’ll find you if you run. I’ll find you and
when I do, I’m gonna make you hurt.”
“I invite you to try.”
August was overboard and submerged in darkness before he thought to take a final breath.
The weight of the chains took him straight to the bottom. A cloud of silt and leaves billowed from the spot where his body came to rest. His chest started to burn after only a few seconds. He screamed toward the surface, releasing the last of his air as debris rushed in to take its place. He could only keep from inhaling for so long. The water rushed into his lungs as he writhed on the swamp floor, trying desperately to break free of the chains.
Eventually, the muscles in his arms and legs fell still as paralysis crept through him. He watched, helpless, while the last of his air bubbles trailed away toward the surface. His hearing dissolved into a single high-pitched whine. His eyesight narrowed. No. I can’t go back there. Not again. August held onto the dissolving fabric of his consciousness until he had nothing left to hold.
He slipped once more into the prison of darkness screaming Coburn’s name.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Meryn arrived at the Vemarian star system still questioning whether her trip would prove useful, let alone safe. Her journey took longer than she'd hoped. After using as much energy as she dared in making August and Bear her champions, she had precious little to power herself anymore. The synapses she created now were short leaps compared to the long strides across the universe she was used to. It was another sacrifice of war she hadn't prepared for.
Her final synapse brought her to the edge of the solar system, hundreds of thousands of steps away from the system’s habitable zone. To get any closer might startle Cerenus—if he was even in the vicinity—and the last thing she wanted was for him to see her as any more of a threat than he already did.
She made no attempt to disguise her presence as she moved past the planets in the outer rim. She was a trail of bluish-white light, like a comet hurtling toward the brown dwarf sun. It wasn’t until she was in sight of Vemaria and saw the corona of blue light surrounding the planet that she allowed her hopes to rise. He is here. She couldn’t believe her luck, but reminded herself that her task was far from over. While she slowed her speed, she sent him a message.