Scavenger of Souls

by Joshua David Bellin

  “ ‘Lover’ works,” I said.

  “Okay.” She nodded, sniffled. “I knew about Hadiyah, of course. His wife. Her milk had saved my baby’s life, but even that didn’t stop me. Mercy takes after her. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head.

  “Of course not.” She smiled in an embarrassed kind of way, making her look much younger for a fleeting moment. “For years, Hadiyah had been Athan’s principal collaborator in the secret experiments that paralleled the drone trials. As you’ve seen, he’d quickly grown dissatisfied with those stunted aberrations, creatures without mind or will. He wanted to create a legacy for himself: children who were human in body and mind, but Skaldi in their power to dominate. And to destroy.”

  “So Mercy is part-Skaldi too?” For some reason, that upset me more than knowing what I was myself.

  “Mercy is free of Skaldi genes,” she said. “The first trials were not successful, Querry. All resulted in miscarriages or . . . defects. Ardan represented a major breakthrough, but not a successful fusion of human and Skaldi. In his case, Athan speculated that the recessive gene for gigantism prevented the assimilation of the Kenos genome. Beryl, though physically capable of absorbing energy, was born with a profound intellectual disability. Mercy was too young to realize it, but her older sister was more a child than she.”

  “The staff,” I said. “It’s her, isn’t it? It’s what’s left of Beryl.”

  “It must be,” she said. “Infused with the energy her body absorbed from the drone years ago.”

  Her gaze retreated from mine, and she stared emptily at her own hand, her mouth turning down in bitterness or anger.

  “Then Mercy . . .” I prompted.

  She looked back up at me. “Athan suspended the trials for almost five years after Beryl’s birth. Mercy is the product of in vitro fertilization, using her parents’ genetic material exclusively. Meanwhile Athan spent those years searching for a new approach, and a new . . . subject.”

  “You.”

  She nodded. “A willing subject, honored to be chosen. In my case, he tried something unprecedented in the Kenos trials: inserting Skaldi DNA directly into my ova. He’d come to the conclusion that the male gamete created an imbalance, a weakening of the Kenos properties.” She smiled again. “I suspect he knew this from the time Beryl was born. But as you’ve learned, it can take years for the male members of the Genn family to admit they might be the source of a problem.”

  “Or never,” I said.

  “True enough,” she said with a short laugh. Then her face grew serious again. “I need you to understand something, Querry. I was not a dewy-eyed innocent, much less a victim. I understood what the experiments were intended to do, and I recognized the risks. I also knew they didn’t require us to—that Athan and I didn’t need to—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I get it.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. “But whatever misgivings I had were overcome by the power of his . . . persuasion. He convinced me we were building something beautiful, both in the laboratory and in the—the other places we went. Building it in my own body. I needed to feel that way, Querry. Not just the physical beauty, but that I had something to give to life. That I could strike back against the darkness. That instead of it overwhelming me, I could become the vehicle of ending its reign.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said.

  “Power is a tempting thing,” she agreed. “Especially when it comes in the guise of love. He gave me a ring, in secret. One of two rings he’d salvaged from the time before. Of course I couldn’t wear it publicly, but I kept it with me, close to my heart. I—”

  I fished in my pocket for the ring I’d nearly forgotten was there. My fingers closed on it, pulled it free. She stared in disbelief.

  “Where did you get that?” she stammered.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “I thought it was Korah’s.”

  She reached out to touch the ring, but when I tried to drop it in her palm, she gently pushed my hand away. “It is Korah’s,” she said. “I gave it to her when we joined Survival Colony Nine. She was ecstatic, because it nearly matched a ring Wali had found in the desert. She would never have asked me for it, but when I saw her face . . .” She shrugged awkwardly. “I decided I had carried it long enough, and it was time to let it go.”

  I watched her eyes as they drank in the ring, and though she was lined and gray, I thought I saw in those eyes the person she’d been, the young woman who’d given everything for love. I slipped the ring back in my pocket, and a look of pain crossed her face. But it gave way to the look I knew best, the stern intensity of her older, sadder, truer self.

  “For a long time,” she said, “I convinced myself Athan would leave Hadiyah and come to me. I told myself their relationship was only that of scientist and subject, while ours was so much more. As we got closer to the trial of the drone he’d prepared at his father’s bidding, I became certain he’d declare his love for me openly. Once the Skaldi threat had been eliminated, what reason could there be to keep it a secret?”

  She shook her head and sat brooding, staring at the floor a long time before she went on.

  “Of course, when I saw what happened in the desert that day, the accident that killed Beryl and Hadiyah and all the others, I woke from my illusions and realized what I had done. And afterward, when Athan returned to the compound so dangerous and unstable, ranting that the Scavenger of Souls would come to chastise me for my sins of the flesh, I knew I had to get away from him. I cut the tracker from my arm—I’d show you, but it’s the arm that’s gone”—she flapped her missing limb, the shoulder moving despite the absence beneath it—“and fled with Yov. I was carrying you at the time, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out. . . .”

  “Math,” I said.

  “. . . and yet I had no idea what I was carrying. For those last six months, I lived in fear of what might emerge from my body. I even considered terminating. . . .” She bit down on her lip and went on. “My fears were allayed by your birth. You developed normally, showed no signs of the Skaldi material you’d inherited. But then, when you were three . . .”

  I tensed. “What happened?”

  “You were attacked,” she said simply. “One of them infiltrated the colony that had adopted us and went straight for you. It happened in the impact zone, outside the canyon. The result was the rockslide where we were taken by Asunder.”

  I could barely ask the next question. “Did I kill anyone?”

  “No,” she said. “But there were severe injuries, as well as the damage you saw to the land. The reaction was so extreme I began to feel you must have acquired a heightened ability to absorb energy from the accident that occurred before your birth. I tried to convince our commander your power could be useful, but he wouldn’t listen. He feared the Skaldi were tracking you, and that others would soon follow. I was given a choice: end your life, or leave with you and Yov, never to return.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “It was never a question which option I’d choose.”

  I stared at her, not sure whether to be thankful or appalled. She’d saved my life—but at the expense of other lives, people who’d never known they were letting a ticking time bomb into their camp. After her commander’s ultimatum, she must have decided never to reveal my past to anyone else. The children of Survival Colony 27 had been destroyed by that secret. So many members of Survival Colony 9 had died for it too. And now . . . Tears burned my cheeks as I thought about the impossible choice she’d made, the impossible life she’d spared. I knew that I’d be haunted forever by her choice. She’d kept me alive only to bear the burden of what I was.

  “You should have chosen the first option,” I said.

  She reached out with her single hand to touch my face. Her eyes held me, wouldn’t let go.

  “Listen to me, Querry,” she said. “And listen well. Vengeance is not a program for living, any more than despair is. It’s no accident Athan produced a child outside the Kenos trials an
d named her Mercy. After all he’d lived through, all he’d done, he was seeking forgiveness—for his father, his people, and most of all for himself. But he never found it. He allowed himself to be consumed by guilt and grief and rage, and in the end all he found was death. You may be Athan Genn’s creation, but you’re also your own man. You don’t need to let the Skaldi win.”

  “Am I a man, though?” I said.

  “You’re the child of my body,” she said. “I’ve watched you grow for fifteen years. But only you can answer that question.”

  I tried. I thought about all the people I’d known, all the people I’d loved. Skaldi weren’t able to love, were they? I thought about my mother’s faith in me, the jobs she’d given me to do, the trust in her eyes when she’d told me to take over from her. Mercy, too. She might have thought of me as a mutant killing machine at first, but now she thought of me as much more, didn’t she? But then I remembered all the people I’d let down, all the people I’d hurt. All the people who’d died because of me, directly or not. Could I ever forgive myself for that? Were Skaldi capable of forgiving, and of being forgiven?

  I didn’t know. All I knew was, I’d asked for the truth, and I’d gotten it at last.

  Aleka eyed me knowingly. It struck me that she’d been only a few years older than me when she lost her husband and gave birth to her first child. While that thought lasted in my mind, it seemed to close the distance between us. What had she known back then about life and love, choices that cling to you for a lifetime? What did she know now?

  “You okay?” she said.

  I took a deep breath. “I’ve been better.”

  “What are you going to tell Mercy?”

  I looked at her, at the smile on her lips. Everything was a secret with her, and nothing was. “I’m not sure, Mom,” I said. “I’m working on it.”

  “You should talk to her,” she said. “Sometimes people will surprise you.”

  I said nothing. I was dealing with enough surprises at the moment.

  My mother’s gray eyes flicked over my face. Whatever she saw, she didn’t push. But she nodded once, and then she was back to business.

  “We should check on the others,” she said. “Secure as this bunker is, it’s a temporary respite, not a long-term solution. And the matter of the missing drone still needs to be addressed. One way or another, we’ll have to come up with a plan.”

  “I’m with you,” I said, and gripped her hand as I stood.

  That was when the lights went out.

  16

  In the total darkness Aleka’s chair scraped against the concrete, then her hand squeezed mine with a strength like iron.

  “Querry.”

  “Mom.”

  “Listen to me,” she said in a whisper so low I could barely hear it over my thudding heart. “Keep your back to mine. When I move, you move. When I stop, you stop. Don’t let me lose you.”

  I pressed against the sharp bones of her back. She sidestepped, and I followed.

  “I’m going to try to get to the power,” she said. “It’s just across the room.”

  “But that’s where it’ll be.”

  “Unless it’s gone hunting.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Everything in the bunker responds to biometric signature. Mine. And Siva’s.”

  “But how . . . ?”

  “Someone must have been infected up above. And then it jumped to him. I was distracted, should have thought. . . . At this point it could be anyone.”

  “No one screamed.”

  “No one can see it coming.”

  Mercy had been closest to them at the gate. And she’d been the one who stayed behind to hold them off in the generator room. I prayed silently it wasn’t her, knowing my prayers didn’t matter, knowing that even if it hadn’t gotten her out there it might still come for her in here.

  We inched sideways, stepping so lightly we were like twin ghosts. I strained into the darkness. The room was deadly quiet.

  “Do we have flamethrowers?”

  “Not readily available.”

  “What about your rifle?”

  “It’s jammed. The creature knew what it was doing.”

  “We need light.”

  “Stay with me, Querry. We’ll get there.”

  Something rushed past us, close enough I felt the air shiver. Still I couldn’t hear anything except our constricted breathing and the slight rustle of our uniforms touching. My body itched to strike out at the thing, wherever it was. But I knew if I let the power loose with us standing back-to-back, I’d set her body on fire.

  “Almost there,” Aleka breathed.

  For a second I thought I saw a flash of light in the distance, so sudden I couldn’t be sure. It illuminated nothing, not the thing that had made it, not the darkness surrounding the thing. At first I thought it was the power trying to come back on, but it was too weak for that. It was almost as if some moving object had flared briefly then extinguished itself—or moved too fast to a new position for my eyes to follow.

  It was as if the flash itself had moved.

  “Aleka,” I said. “Mom. Look for a light. A quick pulse. If it gets close, warn me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s the Skaldi,” I said. “It’s giving off some of the energy it swallowed. It’s—there!”

  Another flash darted across my visual field, instantly folding into darkness.

  “I can’t see it,” she said.

  “I just did.”

  “Where is it? Is it getting closer?”

  “It’s— I think it’s closing in.”

  Her hand reached for mine, gripped so hard it hurt. “It can’t touch you.”

  “I’m not going to let it get you, either.”

  “Querry.” Her whisper had no breath in it. “You have to fight it off. Otherwise it’ll take everyone in the room.”

  “I can’t.” Visions of children’s bodies coming apart filled my mind. She’d seen it happen. She knew what she was asking. “Mom, I can’t.”

  “You have to.”

  “You’re all I have left.”

  “This is about more than me and you.”

  “Mom . . .”

  “Do as I say!” she snapped, louder and more angrily than I expected. She shoved with her one hand, and in the dark separation between us I sensed the thing moving in for the kill.

  “Mom!”

  A spark.

  A moving flare.

  The fire caught.

  A pulse, bright as the sun, filled the room.

  In its glare I saw the Skaldi attached to her, its scar split wide, preparing to suck her in. Then its body caught fire and sloughed to the floor. The light died almost the instant it appeared, only to be replaced by the dance of flames across my mother’s body. I saw her mouth widen in a scream.

  “Mom!”

  I leaped at her and threw her to the floor, dousing the flame with my body. Darkness fell again, and I felt her chest heave, heard her ragged breathing. Footsteps and shouts sounded from across the room. My hands burned, and the air I drew into my lungs stank with the odor of charred flesh.

  “Querry.” Her fingers touched my face. I could feel the rough skin where she’d been burned. “Find Mercy. She knows how to reset the signature.”

  “Mom, no. No. Please, no.”

  “Find her.” Her hand traced my cheek before falling to the floor.

  I stepped clear of her and searched the darkness until I heard a sharp scratch and caught sight of a red flare. The footsteps resumed, and in seconds Mercy, Nessa, and Ardan appeared in the ruddy glow. I tried not to falter at the sight of my mother’s body stretched on the floor, angry burns covering her, the black remains of the creature enclosing her in a ring of ash. The wrist cuff lay open near what was left of her leg, its cold curve like a cruel smile.

  Mercy dropped to a knee beside her. Aleka touched her face, whispered things I couldn’t hear. Mercy scooped up the wrist cuff and stood, gesturing for Ardan to p
ick my mother up, then headed toward the control panel. Nessa held the flare, lighting the way. When we arrived at the panel, Aleka reached up with trembling fingers and swiped the touch pad, and the room filled with light. I blinked, willed my eyes to adjust. The burns I’d thought were bad in the flare’s wavering glow revealed themselves fully: the shriveled creature Ardan held in his arms, its hair and clothes nearly gone and its flesh the red of a body turned inside out, bore no resemblance to the woman who’d been my mother.

  With Aleka’s bright eyes following her every movement, Mercy entered the code to reprogram the control panel. I thought she’d substitute her own signature, but she nodded at me, and I reached out numbly to press my index finger against the touch pad. When the panel whirred and an image of my own print appeared briefly on its surface before being pulled into the metal’s depths, I knew I was now in control of the compound.

  Ardan carried my mother to the bunker’s medical wing, where Tyris and Adem watched the giant lay her on one of the beds. Neither of them made a move to tend to her, though. Even if Doctor Siva had still been alive, everyone could see she was beyond their help.

  I stood beside her, leaned over to kiss her cheek, burned and reddened as it was. I thought about the woman I’d known, pale-skinned, gray-eyed, severe and serene. The woman who’d led two colonies, fought monsters and insurrections and her own lasting grief. I thought about the long road she’d traveled from the young woman she’d been, the expectant mother I’d glimpsed in the protograph the first time I’d visited Udain’s compound. The years that followed had whittled her body down to nearly nothing, but somehow her spirit had remained strong. Now she stood at the road’s end, and I could do nothing but hold her hand as she took the final step into the darkness.

  Her eyes shone, her lips moved. “Mercy,” she said, and Ardan’s sister moved to the bed beside me.

  But Aleka wasn’t talking to her. “Mercy,” she said again, her eyes fixed on me.

  I nodded. Her face relaxed. I hoped that, when she made it to the other side, she’d arrive like that. At peace. Whole.

  Healed.