Last Mayor (Book 9): The Light

by Grist, Michael John

  I stop drumming and rest my hands on the skull top like it's a fortune-teller's crystal ball, seeking truths, but no answers come. I'm just going to have to wait and find out.

  He arrives at the bottom of my hill, and I look down at him for a long moment. There's a brief impasse as we look at each other, and the awkwardness of decorum settles. Should I go down to meet him, or will he come up to me? After a few moments I descend, because I did invite him here. On the ground of layered ocean bodies I stand before him, just at the edge of his invisible wall.

  "So you're Olan Harrison," I say. "Nice duds. Very trendy."

  "And you're the Last Mayor," he answers, studying me. I'm certainly not much to behold; ragged and scarred, with my humpish shoulder and partial limp. "I could say the same."

  I smile. There's a lot held in those few words. Worlds of meaning flitter back and forth. Even through the fog of his wall I can read his phenomenal power, full of bright trails reaching backward like a thousand leashes. They form a mantle around him like a halo, not a shield exactly but a layer of sedimented power like compressed carbon, crushing into diamond.

  He's no ordinary man, I suppose. He died then lived again. How many of us can say that?

  "You're an asshole," I say.

  He just looks at me. I'm a little surprised too, because I hadn't planned to say that. I know I must look crazy to him, out here on my own except for an army of the ocean. But that's my gig now, I suppose. Kind of a jester. Circus ringleader. Multiple massacre artist.

  "I said you're an asshole," I repeat, in case he mistook it. "And a real motherfucker."

  He persists in being silent.

  "But maybe that's the kind of thing you're into," I press on. "Crazy, cultish, Oedipal sex with your acolytes? Really, I can't imagine what other kind of bullshit you're up to in this massive, screwed up graveyard." I gesture around. "You killed the whole world just to have a Bond-villain lair on Skull Mountain. What kind of man does that?"

  He looks at me, making his own silent judgments. "It's good to finally meet you," he says at last.

  That sets me off cackling. Good to meet me? Good to meet me?!

  "Don't bullshit a bullshitter," I say. "This is the best goddamn day of your life."

  He almost cracks a smile at that.

  "They all say they're glad to meet me," I throw out, letting the memories buoy me on. There's just something about staring into his pearly white eyes that gets my engine hot. "Salle Coram in Maine said it, right before I blew her head off. She even read my comics, so go figure! General Marshall said it before I punched him to death. He'd followed my career with interest, though he wasn't a fan. Then there was James While, but you beat me to him, didn't you? He was waiting for a successor, and…" I spread my arms half-heartedly to take in the body piles around us, the general ridiculousness of our present situation. "Here we are."

  Olan Harrison gazes at me. It's hard to read his plasticine face. I see now that he's not really handsome. He looks more like someone melted a Hollywood star in the microwave then tried to push the various features back into position. It's an idea of handsome built by human hands, like the too-tight lips of a facelift patient. The white eyes just set it off and scream 'fake'.

  "Here we are," he agrees. I find I like his voice; there's something calm about it, its depths working in concert with the sheen of diamond rippling above his skin. "And you're right, I have been watching you, like the others. Your descent has been a thing to behold. It's brought you to me."

  I grin.

  "I'm here to kill you," I say casually, like I'm ordering a Big Mac through the drive-thru intercom. "Or maybe, to settle a peace accord."

  He narrows his white eyes slightly. I feel him probing toward me on the line. We're both tentative in this, sounding each other out. I firm up my own defenses; the black eye cocooned around me in a thick invisible fog.

  "A peace accord," he says, as his tendrils tap at the edge of the eye. "To what end?"

  That seems like an odd question to me. I suppose you never can tell, with someone who died then came back.

  "Peace," I say. "Between my peoples and yours." He still doesn't seem to get it, so I go on. "A guarantee we'll avoid hostilities. A treaty to divide the world up on equitable lines."

  He doesn't like that. He barely shows it, but I catch it; a slight crinkling of the lip, a distaste in the corners of the eyes. Interesting.

  "Peace," he repeats. "In the midst of war. You come fresh from battle with the bunkers of the SEAL."

  I wag a finger. "Not directly. I was cracking shields, that's true, then I got distracted." I don't need to go into all that, about Anna and all my shame. Best to let sleeping dogs lie. Instead I point my finger at him, which gives me a little thrill, because he plainly doesn't like that either. "I caught the whiff of your trail. Interference, we could say. I hear you're dropping bombs on the bunkers now."

  I haven't heard that, exactly. I've felt something like it, on the line, along with Anna's efforts to stand up fresh shields. The war certainly has taken a different tack since I left it.

  He smoothes out his displeasure and looks past my extended finger. "The SEAL signed their fate when they went against me fourteen years ago. Be careful not to do the same, Last Mayor."

  I chuckle at that. Yes, he's not enjoying this part at all. I quite like that. He may be on top of the leaderboard, but it's obvious he can't handle any kind of criticism. I suppose that's why he put himself at the top. I wonder, on a whim, what it'll be like to get him hot?

  "I wasn't doing much, fourteen years ago," I muse. "Drawing zombie comic books, trying to get laid more. The gulf between us couldn't have been wider." I pause, reading his face. Probably he thinks I'm talking about his money, his success, something like that. I'm not. "But you weren't getting laid at all, were you? What were you, ninety years old?"

  That tweaks him nicely.

  "Billionaire," I go on, "running the world, but no women." I make a tutting sound. "Pretty sad, Olan. Do you mind if I call you Olan?" I don't wait for an answer. "Everyone knows about that. Honestly, I've been wondering these past weeks why you even wanted to come back from the dead." I do the sucking up, swooping down motion again, with whistling sound effects. "For most old bastards having an end-of-life crisis, it's about younger women, but what was that to you?" I take a step closer, flashing back to the long days and nights of reading James While's meticulous research on Olan Harrison's early life. "As far as I can see you weren't living for anything. There were no women in your life, no kids, no connections at all. You were a mentor to some, like James While, but you betrayed him most of all. What was the point in killing everyone just to prolong a life you didn't even enjoy?" I pause, looking into his white eyes. "Tell me it was for more than just fear of death, because that would be a real disappointment."

  He looks at me with his plastic face impassive. I don't think any of that even touched him, and his steeliness gives me cause to reflect; did I really come all this way to get a peace deal, or did I come all this way just to kill him? There's no doubt I hate him more than anyone else I've ever met.

  People just shouldn't get to come back. They shouldn't get to wipe the line for their convenience. Drake had it right, in that. It's an existential rage, and I can channel that nicely. If I'm a good guy for anyone, then it's for the people who follow the rules.

  "You talk like you know me," he says, interrupting my reflection. "Like you know who I am. But I'm four times your age, Last Mayor; older than your parents, older than your dead grandparents. I was born with the end of World War Two, I grew up in the Cold War, I died with the apocalypse, and then I came back. I've learned things about human nature that you couldn't understand, so when I look at you, know that I see a child, barking loudly because he's afraid. There are so many things that scare you, so you curl up in your madness and you fling insults like a shield. But I see something more too. I see a man hurting for the things that he's done. I see a man looking for permission and absolution."r />
  I raise one eyebrow quizzically. What the hell is all that?

  "Call me Amo," I say. "Don't stand on ceremony. Only my people call me Last Mayor."

  Now he smiles. It's thin and suitably creepy. "And who are 'your people', Last Mayor? Tell me."

  I give a creepy smile to match. Yes, I really do hate this guy. This is going to be more fun than I thought. "Amo, please. And by my people, I'm talking first about New LA." I check that off on a finger. "But also Matthew Drake's brood." Another finger. "Any of my fighters or researchers left after the SEAL attack on Istanbul. And, of course, any one of the immunes in your compound who want to defect."

  I let my smile widen. I throw that last one in to really sting him. I hadn't thought of it until I met Rachel Heron, but she was giving me such Stockholm syndrome eyes that I can't ignore it now. The deep misery was coming off her in waves. She wanted out, and she's one of their leaders, so what does that say about the rest?

  "That last won't be possible," he says. "I keep them on a very short leash."

  I chuckle. I bet you do, you bastard.

  "Maybe I can spread some comics?" I ask. "Let them take a peek at what they're missing. You're not really an Oedipal cult, are you, so maybe they'll be interested. I can't promise twenty-four hour sex or even much by way of debauchery, but there's plenty of good, normal shit going on." I let that hang for a second. "And let me be clear. Under 'my people' I include all immunes, whether you snatched them up before the Multicameral switch or after. I know you took hundreds before the super-Array sang its final tune." I look at him, and enjoy the sinking of his amused, polite smile. Sink that shit into the mud, you son of a bitch. "Then you snatched hundreds afterward, too, and maybe more have come down off the line since then? They're all my people. I want them given a choice. A comic in every hand. They come to me, if they want."

  Now his butter-smooth face shows regret. "I'm afraid not. Under no circumstances."

  "Change the circumstances," I say, perfectly reasonable. "Or I'll huff, and I'll puff..."

  I let that one hang too. I expect he knows what comes next. I have no real idea what kind of power he has, but likewise he doesn't know me. Sure, maybe he's watched from afar, but he doesn't really know, and I've got nothing to lose; not a thing. I'm already as wretched and broken-down as can be, long-separated from my family, emotionally depleted, a traitor to so many people that I loved, just shooting for some kind of redemption…

  It's a stark contrast between us; him in his sharp clothes and new body, so clean and fresh, standing here with his lair intact in back. I can feel him thinking about everything he has at stake, and that disparity makes me strong.

  His diamonds sharpen on the line.

  "Tell me," I go on, enjoying this role and acting like the air isn't already thick with violence, "why you bothered to come back to a world where nobody wants you? We all hate you down here. I'm pretty sure they all hate you up top. What are you looking for?"

  His white eyes blaze through the diamond tendrils like a hail of autocannon flak.

  "Do you think you see weakness in me, Last Mayor of America?" he asks. "Is that why you're playing this childish game? Do you see weakness, or do you see something new, something closer to a pure distillation of will and strength in physical form?"

  That's a tough one. I am seeing that, really, but I'm not about to tell him.

  "In my next comic I'll compare your wattage to an energy-saving light bulb," I say. "I'll give your eyes the color 'piss-yellow'. I believe that's the technical term for goddamn cowardice in the soul."

  His smile widens. It's a truly ugly thing, slitting his plastic face into halves. "I do like this side of you. The defiance. I'll enjoy your days in the box."

  My days in the box?

  "That sounds like a really good time," I say. "Yeah, I'll put it in my diary, but for now, answer the damn question. Why don't you just fuck off and die?"

  He gazes at me. This is the only question that remains, I suppose. It won't change anything to know it, but I'm a completionist, and this'll be the final screwed up motivation in my psychopath's collection.

  But he doesn't answer. He stands there in the twinkling nest of his diamond shield, and I become aware of how silent and still the foothills around us are. After so many years there should be soil settled into the toothy cracks, with weeds and trees growing up, and birds and ants rustling about, but there's nothing. Nothing moves or makes a sound.

  I feel the old anger getting hotter, as if the silence is a pressure cooker bubbling up into the black eye. The diamonds around him rise. There's a metallic taste in my mouth, and I see that of course, I'm going to kill him now. All the rest, the peace treaty and the façade of reasonableness, is flirtation. My fingers twitch at my sides like a pistoleer's in a fast draw.

  "Come on, Olan," I taunt. "Spit it out."

  His smile widens further, opening his face like a chest cracked apart. "I've answered you already, Last Mayor. You can see it for yourself, in my every word and deed."

  "Do better."

  "Look harder."

  Perhaps that is all I'll ever know. So be it. The black eye pumps around me like a heart, and it isn't hard to make the cold rage go hot. This man erased my parents and brother from existence. He scrubbed the line's loam of its rightful richness, and for that he has to pay.

  "Come on then, you little bitch," I say. "Show me what you've got."

  I shake the bottle, pull out the cork, and fire the black eye right at his heart.

  12. BLACK EYE

  The blast hits his chest and sends him hurtling backward, his huge body ricocheting off the uneven floor of bodies like a pebble skipped across a lake, and I charge after him. The invisible wall tries to buck me off but this close and this hot it can't turn me round. Olan tries to get up as I charge up but the black eye hammers him down, thumping at his plastic head until I can jump astride his chest and put my fists to good use.

  As I throw the first punch at his jaw, the black eye wreathes around it, hardening at the last moment into a fritzing electric gauntlet that impacts his chin with a colossal CRACK, driving him inches deep into the raw stone of frozen bodies. Their shoulders and backs crumble to dust beneath the black eye's power.

  My second blow swings around in a massive haymaker, again gloved with the black eye so the strike point with his cheek goes off like a grenade blast, sending me flying backward through the air and him sideways, plowing a rutted line through the emerging forearms and thighs of the bodies that make up the ground.

  I bounce off my back, tumble onto my side, then roll onto my knees. I don't feel any pain, not with the raw rage of the line crackling up inside and the dampening crush of the wall from above.

  "You think you're better than us," I say, as I stalk toward him, where he lies at the end of his furrow like a landed comet. His body looks unharmed but his white eyes flash in a daze. "Like the rest, Julio and Drake, Coram and Don. Just a madman with too much power and a broken brain."

  I jump high over him and let the black eye hammer me down, forming a scythe-like blade along the line of my knee and shin that plunges into his chest and spikes right through his body.

  CRUNCH

  He cries out, then I'm pummeling him again, my gauntleted fists throbbing off his skull while my razor knee burrows deeper through his middle, wetting the frozen ocean with his blood. I'm ranting something outrageous along the lines of 'sic semper tyrannis' when the invisible wall finally knocks me back.

  I feel it like a coiled spring, the pressure winding tighter and tighter with every second I'm in its domain, until finally the trigger point hits and I'm flicked away like a speck of dust from the finger of a god.

  Whoooooooo!

  I hit the ground and roll again, scraping a partial furrow through stone bodies of my own, protected from instant death by the cocoon of the black eye. I've never used it like this before, but it feels second nature to me now. Of course it can take physical form and strike blows, form shields, shape
up as a battle-axe in my hands.

  I roll up to my feet with Olan Harrison running at me and a massive double-bladed axe winching back behind my head.

  He leaps and I swing the vast weapon even as he throws blurry waves of diamond power at me. They travel through the air in a split second, as fast as bullets, and hit like a nine-tailed lash across my face and chest.

  The axe blow falters as I scream with the pain, blood gushing up from deep gouges across my body, severing muscle and sinew and opening me up to the outside. He kicks me in the split gut and rises a knee into my face, whipping me back while the black eye gathers in like rain, working to seal up the nine slits in my skin.

  "You think I don't know your tricks?" Olan asks, as he brings his nine-tailed lash back down again, this time glancing off the parabola of the black eye's shield. "I know everything about you. I've seen the future, Last Mayor, and I know how this ends."

  I laugh in the middle of the pain. Oh yeah, I splutter to myself, this is the good stuff, this is what I came for. Atonement! I move the black eye so when the next set of lashes fall they'll tear my throat apart, and on a tide of that exquisite pain I'll rise higher than ever.

  Hell yes!

  The lash lands and the pain sears and I soar on it like I'm riding a goddamn rainbow. The black eye whips round Olan's head like a noose, round his wrists and legs like shackles, and I use the pain and the laughter of that to pull them all taut at once in a schlocky, horrible firecracker.

  His huge arms and legs rip away in wet, raggedy pieces, chased by skewers of blood. His torso and head blow an instant later, sending gushes of red out and his white eyes off spiraling like orbiting moons, jaw wide open and lips raked back, little bits of spit flying.