I ignored Jack. “Nilbog. It’s good to meet.”
Nilbog didn’t look impressed. “Sir Jack was more obsequious when he introduced himself.”
“That’s because he’s a two-bit thug, Nilbog.”
Jack chuckled at that.
“A two-bit thug? You’d insult my guests?”
“If those guests include Jack,” I said.
Nilbog narrowed his eyes. “I will not have fighting in my glorious kingdom. Jack has agreed to a ceasefire while we dine. You will do the same.”
“I already gave my weapons to your underlings. You should know that the black and white striped man is a living weapon, much like your creations.”
Nilbog glanced at the male Siberian. “I’m not concerned.”
“I imagine you aren’t,” I said. Where’s the real him?
I had to be careful in how I used my bugs. Sending them into buildings would only reduce the size of my swarm, but there was relatively little chance that Manton would simply be hanging out in one of the hollowed-out buildings.
“So,” Jack said. “Are you going to have a seat, or are you going to continue to be rude?”
“I’m waiting for our host to invite me to sit. Forgive me, Nilbog,” I said. I glanced at the fat man. The grease on his skin made it look like he’d oiled himself.
“Sit. But I’d like to hear who you think you are, whelp, if you won’t bow down to me.”
I approached the row of chairs opposite Jack and the Siberian, and one of the critters hopped down, scurrying under to join the festivities in the center of the tables. I took the vacated chair and sat. I might have removed my mask, but I was all too aware of the silverware in front of Jack.
“I’m your equal, Nilbog.”
Jack laughed again. Nilbog seemed to react, almost looking flustered, before turning to me. “You insult me.”
“Not at all. Ignore the thug that’s sitting over there. I’m a queen, a goddess of my own realm. Or I was.”
Jack was smiling, clearly amused. Then again, he was safe. He was untouchable with Siberian beside him, and he was only feigning weakness to get past Nilbog’s defenses.
“A queen?”
“A queen. With that in mind, provided you give your permission, I’d like to offer you a gift. A… peace offering, to make up for the fact that I entered your territory uninvited.”
“Of course, of course!” He was almost childlike, so easily moved by this promise of a gift, his mood changing so quickly. Guileless. He’d been surrounded by yes-men for more than a decade, with barely any human contact, his defenses were gone. “I forgave Jack the lack of an invitation, I’ll extend you the same courtesy. This gift?”
I called on the swarm I’d kept within the quarantine facility. “Resources are slim. An isolated kingdom like yours, providing for your subjects is hard. You do an admirable job despite this.”
“Of course, of course.”
He was eager, impatient.
“I’d feed your subjects,” I said. “Protein. You need it to make more. To keep the ones you currently have in good health.”
“Yes, yes” Nilbog said. My bugs were just now arriving in the area. “This will do.”
The full swarm arrived, the vast majority of the ones I’d kept in the Dragonfly, and the ones from the area beyond the Ellisburg walls. I gathered them on plates in piles. His minions devoured them, licking at the plates, picking with talons, or simply lifting the plates and tipping the insects into open mouths.
I wasn’t surprised when Nilbog turned his attention to his own plate. My eyes fell on Jack. He still had a slight smile on his face.
He held the cards up his sleeve. I’d played mine for a minor advantage, but he had Bonesaw. One virus or parasite in the midst of these creatures, and they could go berserk, roaming the countryside until they were put down. He had Siberian, which meant he was safe, meant he could kill me or Nilbog whenever he wanted.
But he wasn’t going to. This continued as long as the game was still on. He thrived on this interplay.
As more bugs continued to arrive, I used them to search the area. Nothing.
Below ground?
Earthworms, ants and pillbugs dug through the soil beneath the park, searching. Some of Nilbog’s creatures were beneath the earth, ready to spring up and attack. Others were beneath, eating whatever they could find.
In the midst of my search, I found something. Not Siberian’s creator, but nearly as good.
Nilbog himself.
He sat directly beneath his ‘throne’, and was connected to the fat man by what seemed to be an umbilical cord. This cord gave him control of the body, fed him sustenance, let him stay safe while the decoy sat up here.
One card for me to play.
“I think the bug queen here should explain how she came to nobility,” Jack said.
Setting me up to say something incriminating, I thought. “As you did, Nilbog, I claimed a realm for myself.”
“And you left it, apparently. If you’re truly a queen, you’re a foolish one.”
“I did leave it,” I said, “Because I had to, to save it. I had to protect my subjects, to fight my people’s enemies. I have not been as fortunate as you.”
“No,” he said, uncaring. “Apparently not.”
“If it came down to it, would you step up to protect your creations? To protect this town you made?”
“You’re sounding a great deal like sir Jack,” Nilbog commented. He frowned.
“He’s trying to convince you to go to war,” I said.
“To take pre-emptive action,” Jack clarified.
“I’ll do neither. Not war, not pre-emptive action. I have what I need. I’m a content god, a happy king.”
You’re starved for real human contact, I thought. Or you wouldn’t have let us join you at the table.
My bugs continued to search, though the bastard creatures were coming out of the woodwork to catch and devour them.
Where in the hell was Manton?
Jack spoke, “It’s a question of whether you act now and preserve what you have for the future, or wait and let them come and kill you. They’ve been systematically seeking people like you, eliminating them. I could show you proof, given a chance.”
“I’ll make it simpler,” I said. “You don’t need to leave your kingdom, your garden. You don’t need to go to war with an outside party you don’t know or care about. You want to know what happened to my kingdom? That man, right over there, sir Jack, destroyed it.”
“Nonsense,” Jack said. “I’ve been sleeping these past few years. Naps are such an underrated pleasure.”
“They are,” Nilbog said. “All of my subjects nap every day.”
“Let me explain,” I said. “I had a kingdom that I ruled. I had a king that ruled with me, who kept me company. I had wealth, people I cared about, people who cared about me. Power. I was a god in my domain, and those who stood against me were driven off.”
Nilbog shook his head. “You need a heavier hand to rule. More loyal subjects, so you don’t have to bother with those who would stand in your way.”
“I was more powerful than you,” I told him.
He snapped his head around to stare at me. To glare at me.
I’d pricked his pride, apparently.
“I was more powerful than you, but Jack over there made a promise to people. He didn’t say it aloud, but it was still a big promise.”
“Now you’re making stuff up,” Bonesaw commented. She slid down off the flayed bear’s back and joined a group of creatures her size. She hugged one, abruptly.
But Nilbog wasn’t telling me to fuck off. His attention was on me.
He’d built a storybook kingdom, an impossible place, and populated it with monsters, both beautiful and ugly. He’d had some fixation on this stuff, some Freudian obsession. Not sexual, but still rooted in some primal part of his childhood that had been taken from him.
I’d play this by telling him a fairy tale.
&n
bsp; “No,” I said. “And I think Nilbog is clever enough to understand what I mean. Jack promised that he’d come back when his nap was done, and he’d destroy my kingdom. He said he’d destroy your kingdom, Nilbog, and every other kingdom. He said he’d kill all of my people, and he’d kill all of your creations.”
“All of this, from the man you describe as a mere thug?”
“Yes,” I said. “A woman with great powers told him he could do it, and now he’s going to try. It’s why he’s here.”
“To destroy my kingdom?”
“No. He wants you to go to war against your neighbors. To break down the walls that keep you safe and fight people who are leaving you alone. He’ll use you as a distraction, and then when everything is done, he’ll come back and destroy your kingdom. And he’ll do it in the cruelest, saddest ways you can imagine.”
Nilbog nodded slowly.
Jack was still waiting patiently. Too quiet. I felt a moment’s trepidation. I hadn’t found Siberian’s controller. I needed to defeat him before Jack was cornered. The second he decided he couldn’t salvage this situation, he’d order the attack.
Nilbog raised his hands. “Angel on one shoulder that tells me one story…”
A placenta-like blob swelled in his hand.
“A devil on the other, telling me another.”
Another blob appeared in the other hand.
Both burst, showering Nilbog in greasy slime. Two creatures gripped his forearms, looking more like flying monkeys than an angel and devil. They were roughly the size of babies, their faces feral, mouths filled with pirahna-like teeth. One had red hair, a red beard and gazelle-like horns, and the other had white hair and beard and a strange horn that formed an off-white halo above its head.
“I’ll take the angel, if you please,” Jack said.
Nilbog shrugged. Were the creatures more a demonstration than anything else? He lowered his hands, and nudged the white-haired thing in Jack’s direction. The other thing made its way to me. I reached out and took it into my hands, holding it close.
“Do you have a response to the Queen’s allegations, Jack?” Nilbog asked. He reached up to adjust his floppy cloth crown. Creatures were arriving to deposit the meal on the plates. It looked like purple vomit.
“I do,” Jack said, smiling. “But can we eat first? It’s rude to argue over a meal.”
Nilbog nodded, as if Jack had said something very sage. “I agree. We’ll eat.”
Bonesaw made her way to the table. “How did you make this?”
“The chef stores every ingredient we can find inside her, then regurgitates it in the form required. I asked for it to be hearty, and here we have it, chunky.”
I looked down at the plate. Droplets of rain made nearly-clear spots appear in the midst of the purple slop.
So it is vomit.
“It tastes like cupcakes,” Bonesaw said, around a mouthful.
I started to move my mask to eat and be polite, then noted how Jack was holding his knife. The blade swayed back and forth in the air, as he chewed, his eyes rolled back and looking up at the overcast sky above.
The blade was making criss-crosses in the direction of my throat.
He glanced down, meeting my eyes, and smiled.
“Our apparent rivalry aside, have you been well, bug queen?”
“Well enough.”
“Then you should be hungry. It’s been a busy few days, and it’ll only get more interesting. I notice your friends are sitting this one out. Did you break it off completely, or are you still in touch?”
“Still in touch,” I responded. I glanced at Siberian. The knife is a purely psychological thing. If he wanted to kill me, he could use Siberian to do it.
Besides, it was a butter knife.
I moved my mask, without breaking eye contact with Jack, and helped myself to a bite.
It did taste like cupcakes. I suspected it would have been less nauseating if it tasted like real vomit.
It was a tense few minutes of silence as we ate. I found out the devil-thing in my arms wanted to eat, so I let him help himself. An excuse not to eat, anyways.
The creatures in the center of the area finished their ‘show’, and Nilbog clapped enthusiastically. I joined him and the five or six creatures around the table who really had hands to clap with.
The second show began. A gladiatorial fight, apparently. One of the creatures had wings instead of arms, while the other had wicked barbs extending out from the elbows and knees. When even the tips made contact, they ripped out grapefruit-sized chunks of flesh.
I braced against the table to keep it from flipping as the pair crashed into it. Nilbog laughed, and the sound was more than a little unhinged.
“Is everyone done?” Jack asked.
“Yes,” Nilbog decided.
“Then let me explain. Weaver’s entirely right. Except for the part where you die at the end of it all.”
“Oh?” Nilbog asked. He leaned forward, placing fat elbows on the table’s surface. It dipped as his upper body weight rested on the wood.
“Living like this, you obviously dislike the system. You know how screwed up things are out there. People are vile, self-centered, and so caught up in their own routines and expectations that they’re barely people anymore. Your creations have more personality.”
Nilbog nodded, taking it all in. “They do. They’re wonderful, aren’t they?”
“Wonderful,” Bonesaw agreed, with the utmost enthusiasm.
He just believes whatever we tell him. He’s a sponge. How do you convince someone who’s so incapable of critical thought?
Worse, Jack was touching on all of Nilbog’s pet issues. The man had been a loner before, a loser. He’d rejected the trappings of society long before he’d become this monster. He’d spent years simply going through the motions until the last parts of the system he’d clung to fell apart.
“I want to wipe the slate clean. Things have been going through the same motions for so long that there’s a rut in the ground. You erased everything that wasn’t worth keeping here, and replaced it with something better. With your garden.”
“Yes.”
“With that in mind, I’m reaching out to a like-minded soul. Someone who rejects the malignant, stagnant society and wants to grow something else in its place.”
“Jack has no interest in growth,” I said. “Only destruction.”
“Did I interrupt you when you were speaking?” Jack asked.
“Do it again and I’ll order your execution,” Nilbog said.
I pursed my lips behind my mask.
Where the fuck was Siberian’s creator? I’d scanned every area where he could be lurking. There were only monsters. I was nearly out of bugs. I had only a select few secreted away in my armor, and they weren’t ones I was willing to sacrifice.
I didn’t have much in the way of cards up my sleeve, but these bugs would have to serve in that department. Problem was, they wouldn’t fix anything now. Bonesaw could counter them too readily.
Where could Manton be hiding? My eyes passed over the crowd of creatures that had gathered around the edges of the area, enjoying their master’s presence.
Hiding in plain sight.
Plastic surgery, or even an outer suit, like the one Nilbog wore. He had to be dressed up in the skin of one of the monsters.
Shit. How was I even supposed to assassinate him if he was going that route? I touched him with a bug, only to find his flesh harder than steel. Unmovable, just from the way his foot touched the Siberian’s.
Jack licked his plate, then set it down on the table. “Where was I?”
“Replacing society,” Bonesaw volunteered.
“Replacing society,” Jack affirmed. “Imagine if your garden really did extend as far as the eye could reach. If you could walk in the direction of the sunset, only to find that your creations have already settled in each new place you travel to, decorated it, transformed it.”
“A romantic goal, one I might pursue i
f I were a younger man,” Nilbog said. “But even gods get older.”
“They do,” Jack agreed. “Well, we could give you that youth. Bonesaw could grant you immortality.”
“She could also enslave you to her will,” I commented.
“I’d never,” Bonesaw said. She shook her head, her curls flying, “No, I couldn’t! I love these beautiful things he makes! To control him would mean I’d take that creativity away.”
Nilbog nodded at that. “That’s a good argument. Besides, to enslave a god? Madness.”
Except they’re mad, I thought. All of you are lunatics, and I made the mistake of trying to talk sense.
“It’s a good argument,” Jack said. “Because we’re right. Would you like to live forever, as a god should? Would you like to see your garden grow to what it should be? What it deserves to be? Something fitting of a god?”
“It’s a tempting thought,” Nilbog said.
I reached for a rebuttal, telling myself I had to be just as grandiose, just as mad, but I couldn’t do that at the same time I was trying to convince him to go dormant again.
“If I may?”
It was another human voice, but it didn’t belong to any of us.
Golem.
He approached, taking off his helmet. He offered Nilbog a slight bow.
“One of yours, Jack?” Nilbog asked.
“No. Not in the sense you mean.”
“Yours, then?” Nilbog asked me.
Yes, I thought.
“No,” I said.
I saw Jack raise his eyebrows at that.
“Shenanigans!” Bonesaw cried out. “I call shenanigans!”
But Golem took my cue. “I’m a third party. I stand for myself.”
“Hardly worth a place at the table,” Jack commented.
“Then let me stand for the others. The innocents.”
“Innocents?” Jack asked. He snorted. “No such thing.”
“There’s always innocents.”
Jack smirked.
“I’ll allow it,” Nilbog said. “Excellent! Sit! We were just having a discussion.”
Golem approached and sat at the same table I was at, but he took the far end. “I’ve overheard some, so we can cut straight to the chase.”
“The dilemma,” Nilbog said. “The devil on one shoulder, the angel on the other.”
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