The thought of her was beautiful, if painful. If only he could stay, if for no other reason than to know what they could have shared. Would it have ended in tragedy, like every other relationship he had ever had? Or would this one have been different? He would never know, and the thought of it brought an ache to his addled sensibilities. He felt the start of a laugh—a dry, mirthless laugh—but all he could manage was a low moan. He was broken, his body consumed, his mind crippled, and the only pain he could feel stemmed from a newly discovered and unrequited love. He wondered how long it had been there, dormant, needing only a harsh slap across the face to be brought to the forefront. He was an idiot, a coward. Surely this was the end. This time, there was no one left to save him, especially himself. He felt Karoline’s grip on his throat tighten, the surge of heat intensify. He would never have his answers, only the sharp stab of lights before she incinerated what was left of him…
The lights…
He had averted his eyes to Karoline’s fire, but it wasn’t the only source of light here. They were surrounded by light, endless points of light from horizon to horizon, but it was something new which caught his eye, from beneath him, as it pulsed just beyond his fingertips. He thought of Vickie again, and it flared briefly. He reached for it, and the dullness of his mind snapped back into focus as his fingers wrapped around something slim and sharp. He stared at it incredulously. It was a claw. It was his claw. What in the world…?
He drew in a sharp breath as a voice—Vickie’s voice!—rang through his head like a trumpet on a battlefield.
“Come back to me!”
And his mind flooded with images. No, not images. These were threads of the future, of the present, of dying pasts, all the threads of possibles that the Seraphym had shown him. Before, he had only focused on the ones where he and Bella were together. That had been all he had wanted to see. But now, now he saw all of them.
The ones where he had gone back to Vickie after reading her letter, gathered her into his arms, and that same spark had jumped between them that he’d felt when he’d rescued her.
And the ones where that spark had happened later, when she had brought Red Saviour and Bulwark to rescue him. Or when he’d done something out of character and gone to console her after Bruno’s death. Or at completely insignificant times, at the top of the Parkour course, or deciding to bring her Chinese food because he could tell from her voice over his freq that she was exhausted.
But whenever it happened, the changes it had made in his life—
—in both their lives, really. They lit up each other’s darkness; they held back each other’s despair. Lifetimes of shared memories. Sacrifices. Triumphs.
And he saw this thread too; saw how she had hidden every hint of her feelings for him as he and Karoline fell into their affair. And all so that he would be happy.
He also saw, with absolute clarity, that if he died here, driven by her promise to him, that geas, she would not falter and give up. She would step up. She would work herself to the bone, but she would step up, become the warrior she had once been. Realize that not only could she go on without him, she had to. For both their sakes. For his memory. He almost wept to see it. He had never believed he could be the catalyst for something so good, so right, but there it was. Even in death, especially in death, he mattered.
Again, he almost laughed. Moments before he was cursing magic, and here he was, helpless, and the only weapon he had was magic. He gripped the claw in wonder. It wasn’t just magic. It was empowered by Victoria’s love, all of it, and it was mighty. And this was what Karoline could not understand, what she could not see. This was the sort of love beside which her selfish, self-serving emotion revealed itself to be fool’s gold.
All that flooded him in an instant, in the blink of an eye, while Karoline reared back to deliver the finishing blow.
“Goodbye, Red,” Karoline said. “I loved you, and you wasted it. Take that with you to the next life.”
“Love,” Red croaked. “You know nothing of love. Let me show you what love is…”
Their eyes met, and Red felt the warmth and peace of serenity flow through him. His body had stopped twitching. Karoline’s eyes widened as she saw the claw in his hand. With a fierce cry, her hand flashed down, raining fire, just as he was raising his, the needle-sharp point of the claw aimed at her head. He saw her head jerk away, but not enough, and as her flames slammed into him, he watched the claw flash with incandescent light as it sank into her ear, up and deep into her brain.
Karoline screamed, but Red could not. The scorching blast tore through him, robbing him of his voice. He had come alight, as wildfire, a blazing inferno. Still, he felt nothing but peace and fulfillment, and with his last thought he said a small, simple prayer.
Come back, Vickie. With my love, come back…
* * *
Karoline awoke in the darkness, and wept.
* * *
There was pain, terrible, terrible pain. Anguish. Terror. It was Red. John could feel it, he knew it. And he knew where Red was, precisely where, the location bit into his brain and branded itself there.
And then there was a last wordless cry of despair, a flash of light—
And nothing.
John’s eyes flew open in time to see Vickie collapsing to the floor, one hand outstretched as if in a desperate attempt to catch something that had escaped her. John moved to her in an instant, with Sera mirroring him from her circle.
“Holy hell!” His hand went to her throat to feel for a pulse; he already knew she was alive from his heightened senses and telempathy, but after what they had all just gone through, he needed the extra assurance. “She’s still breathin’, but she’s out for good.” He looked up to stare into Sera’s eyes. “Darlin’—we know where he is. The spell worked.”
“We felt him die,” Sera said bleakly, “and so did she.”
John swallowed hard, then shook his head. “I don’t care. Until I put eyes on him, I’m not acceptin’ it. Magic is goddamned weird,” he added, trying to convince himself as much as Sera. “I’m goin’. You should stay here, be here for her when she wakes up. She’s goin’ to need you. I’ve gotta try, if there’s any hope at all.” He leaned over Vickie’s unconscious form and kissed Sera hard. “Love you. I’ll be back.”
“You had better keep that promise,” she replied fiercely. And then he was gone.
* * *
When he came back through the window, Sera had somehow cleaned the living room, and Vickie was sitting on the couch, head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with silent sobbing. Sera had an arm and a wing around her, but it was obvious from the waves of anguished loss pulsing from her that there was no comfort to be found even in the embrace of an angel.
Sera looked up at him without much hope. He shook his head wearily. He had burned hard to get to where the searingly bright “compass” in his head had told him Red had been; another abandoned mental asylum out in the Georgia back country. It had been something out of a horror movie: torture implements that had been recently used, and too much blood. There had also been…traces of something magical. John had Eight recording everything through his Overwatch rig, and he had gathered the tools in a plastic bag he had found in the medical backpack. He had also taken several samples of the blood; he had no way of telling whether it was all from one person—he suspected it was—or from a number of people, so he wanted to be sure to not miss anything. He stashed the medical backpack out of sight in Vickie’s workroom; there would be time for them to get to it later, and take it all to ECHO for forensic analysis.
No Red, and no Doppelgaenger, love. There was a lot of blood and some nasty emotions soaked into that godforsaken place, though.
I have not felt so helpless except when you had forgotten me, came the heartbreaking response. I do not know what to do. Anything that I can say will be so hollow!
Don’t say anything, then. We’ll just be here for her. She’ll talk when she’s ready. Gettin’ her some rest is the best
thing we can do for her. She’ll be able to…deal with this a lot better once she’s slept some.
He felt just as helpless as Sera at this point. His legs felt wooden as he trod over to the kitchen. Red had been his friend, and while he could empathize with the broken little mage on the couch, he knew he could never comprehend how much she had just lost.
But he’d do his best for her. She was his friend as well, and between what she had shown him when his memory had been locked away, what he had come to feel through his connection with Sera, and how she had worked so hard to find his journal so that he was able to get his memory back…he owed her too much to just walk away and leave her to suffer alone.
There just were no words for such a terrible loss. A piece of her was dead, and there was nothing that could fill that horrible wound in her soul. It’s not goddamned fair! We had him, knew where he was! We were ready to get him, and kill that bastard that had been wearing Mel’s face. Despite all of the awful crap that had been going on in the war so far, it wasn’t until that very moment that John felt so weary that he thought he might entertain giving up. He was tired of losing people. Where’s the goddamned scotch? She must have moved it since the last time I had any here.
John had forgotten that the large cat was more than met the eye. He retrieved the bottle, and nodded his thanks to Grey as he made his way back to the couch. He sat down on the other side of Vickie from Sera, setting the bottle down on the table. Herb was already there, a shot glass held up in his stubby arms.
He uncorked the bottle and poured a shot, pulling one of Vickie’s hands away from her face and curling her fingers around it. “Here, Vic. Drink this.” She stared at it for a moment, as if she didn’t recognize what it was, then blinked, sending more tears down her face, and chugged the shot. Wordlessly she held out the glass, and he poured again. And again. And again.
Just as he was getting ready to pour the fifth shot, her eyes rolled up into her head and she passed out on Sera’s shoulder. With a nod to John, the angel picked her up as if she weighed nothing, and carried her into the bedroom, coming out a moment later.
“Stay or go?” she asked him.
“I figure we stay the night. I don’t want to leave her alone. If she gets any ideas ’bout not wantin’ to go on or anythin’ like that, we oughta be here.”
“I have reported everything to Belladonna,” Eight said. “She will send a messenger for the medical bag and the samples, and requests you to stay until she and Bulwark can take over.”
That seemed to cover everything. John leaned forward in his seat, picked up the bottle of scotch, and drained nearly half of what was left before setting it back down. Sera settled back on the couch next to him and put her arm and wing around him. “I would very much like a serving of that beverage,” she said, in a voice heavy with unshed tears. “I would like to drink to Red.” John nodded, and picked up the bottle again; there was more than enough left for the both of them.
“Y’know, this is the same brand that Red and I drank together.” John held the bottle up. “To Red.” After taking a long pull, he handed the bottle to Sera.
She took an equally healthy swig, seeming to take no effect from it, though he had never seen her drink liquor of any kind before. “To Red.”
And when the bottle was empty, they held each other against the grief, the dark and the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
Hospital Beds
Veronica Giguere and Mercedes Lackey
Let’s not forget the real Mel. Mel Gautier—Reverie—the lady who commanded illusions and made them real. Or Penny, the girl who speaks to ghosts. They have their parts to play.
The ECHO infirmary had nearly every piece of Metisian medical technology scavenged from the ruined city. Paired with the group’s doctors and metahuman healers, the facility had the capacity to bring even the most battered and bloodied bodies back to life. At the moment, the machines sat idle in the mostly empty space. Only one patient remained, kept in isolation as much for her own safety as the safety of the medical team.
Gilead had read Mel Gautier’s files, both ECHO and Army, and she couldn’t begin to understand how to initiate the healing process. The kids rescued with her had provided enough information to construct a crude timeline. It painted a horrific picture. Bloodwork showed countless chemical dependencies, while scarring over much of her body provided evidence of sustained, almost ritual torture. One missing toe on each foot, deep gouges in her thighs and upper arms…
The bandages covering the stump of her left hand would need to be changed within the next few hours. Gilead scrolled through the list of injuries and the recommended treatments. Clinical detachment had its place in times like these, but she wasn’t made of stone.
The doctor closed the file, slumped down, and covered her face with her hands. Even the most conventional ECHO treatment involving a metahuman healing factor brought substantial risk to the healer. They couldn’t afford to lose the most critical members of their medical team, so Gilead had offered to review Mel’s files and provide a logical treatment plan.
And she had no idea where to start.
“Ma’am?” Yankee Pride knocked on the side of the office door. Her fingers slid down to show bloodshot eyes. He winced. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I can come back later if this is a bad time.”
“No, no. Come on in, have a seat.” She spun a metal stool over and waited for him to sit. “How’re you doing, sir?”
“Fine, but you don’t need to ‘sir’ me. This is just my version of a house call. Reverse house call, I suppose.” He inclined his head toward the occupied room. “Any updates on her?”
Gilead leaned back and rested her head against the wall. A long breath full of frustration escaped her lips, making her feel even more deflated than before. “Physically, she’s stable. All injuries documented, the worst treated as much as we can, and she’s on antibiotics to prevent infection. There’s head trauma, skull fractures, and extensive scarring. Given her history pre-ECHO, she’s been under heavy sedation since she arrived.”
Pride nodded. “Yeah, I’d read her file. Also read the other file that went with the fake one following her treatments after Five Points. You’re saying they both got shot in the head?”
“Affirmative.” Gilead swing around to her workstation and clicked through patient records. In a few minutes, she had two MRI images on the screen. Patches of color appeared in nearly identical regions. “This one,” she pointed to the left, “is our girl when she came in with the kids. And this one,” she pointed to the right, “is our imposter during the scans post-Peachtree. I’ve sent them down to one of my colleagues from back in the day to get his opinion on it. Let a real brain surgeon pick it apart.”
Pride frowned at the pictures. “They were the same, down to a neurological level?”
“Best as I can tell, but that’s why I sent them down to Frank to check.” Gilead minimized the windows and stood. Thick one-way glass let them observe their patient without the threat of meta-induced hallucinations, and a cocktail of heavy sedatives provided additional insurance. Unfortunately, every extra day that Mel passed under that medical haze increased the likelihood of permanent damage to her long-term memory as well as to her metahuman abilities. If she’s even got them anymore, Gilead thought.
All of these precautions could be for nothing. Mel’s impersonator had claimed an initial loss of ability due to the injury. Given Mel’s condition when she’d arrived and the potential ramifications of an out-of-control illusionist, they hadn’t considered any
kind of preliminary screening. The report from the Army psychologist detailed an extensive extraction operation where she had immobilized three Marines and the lead meta of the squad before being knocked out. Considering that she had been the only surviving prisoner of a six-person team, Gilead couldn’t imagine her not using her abilities to defend herself.
Pride stood at the window, somber in his observation of her patient. She realized that it had been barely a week since the memorial, and less than two weeks since his mother’s passing. They wouldn’t get the toxicology reports back for a while, since every available resource was dedicated to analysis of the agents that Dominic Verdigris had released in the stadium. She had her suspicions, but without scientific proof, that’s all they would be, and she didn’t see the need to make conversation out of speculation. “So, how are you and Willa Jean holding up?”
“We’re managing. She’s got more on her mind, but she’s tough.” He turned to Gilead. Shadows around his eyes spoke of too many nights with too little rest. “They’ve taken some blood and tissue samples to compare with the folks whose abilities faded or disappeared. When she’s not at the lab, she’s burning up a corner of the training course.”
Avalanche: Book Five in the Secret World Chronicle Page 46