“We want the same thing. I’m . . . a hazard.” I meet his eyes, try to show him the exhaustion that infests me to my core. “I don’t want to be, and I haven’t wanted to in a long time.” When he doesn’t answer, I ramble on, “You said it yourself: I should have died in the blue pulse. I wanted to. Part of me is glad Vee made it out okay, but I . . .”
I grimace at the wall, trying to find the words. “I deluded myself for a while there, thinking I could help, like I could do something good. But the moment the, the Director died, the moment you took over, everything went to shit. Including me. I fell apart, I’ll admit that. God, more than anything, I wish you’d destroyed me then, and saved everybody this hassle.”
“Now we are on the same page.”
I laugh, but it’s a pathetic sound, so I stop. “I want to honor her memory, not by sticking around eternally in some tank, but by removing myself from the equation altogether.”
He snorts softly. “As if she didn’t design the tanks.”
A dizzy little feeling spreads over the front of my brain. I am giddy, legs trembling, head vibrating. “I . . . am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“Didn’t say what? That she knew you’d eventually need to be contained?”
“You were the one pushing for containment, even before she died. Don’t think I don’t know.”
“Was I? Who told you so?”
The words form on my lips, and then I freeze.
“She told you I was pushing to have you contained,” he fills in, leaning back on his feet, watching my eyes. “Which is not a lie. But think, Eden. You’re so good at thinking. When we brought you back for containment, how did I already have three tanks ready, only hours after she was killed—”
“I WILL NOT LET YOU SMEAR HER NAME!” I scream, stepping up and shoving him in the chest with both hands. “SHUT THE FUCK UP! I WILL NOT LET YOU! CASANDRA UNDERSTOOD ME!” I shove him again, with little effect. “SHE TREATED ME LIKE A PERSON!”
“True. She was so much better at controlling you than I ever could have been.”
“FUCK YOU!” Despite all my instincts, I turn my back on him. He’s shattered me so easily. I fight for coherence, but how can there be any, when I know what’s about to happen? Everything in the universe — my terror, my burning thirst for water, my worry for Lucas, my gratitude to Vee, my hatred of Drews, and now this new betrayal—
Everything is about to become irrelevant.
“Give me the hammer,” I manage, glancing over my shoulder at him. “I’ll open it.”
He stares at me, mentally working his way down a list of the obvious questions, each of which has an obvious answer.
“If,” he says at last. “If you do this.”
“Yeah?”
At first, he doesn’t know how to say it, and can only stare at me. Finally, “When you gave me the orb, I went straight to the roof of the closest building that wasn’t on fire, and I stood there with it in my hand, ready to drop it.”
I smirk. “I had a bitch of a time distracting Vee. Toward the end, I started to wonder if you’d been killed.”
“I was hesitating.”
I stare at him. “Why?”
“Because, at the time, I thought you were a civilian. I thought the pulse would kill you. Only later did I begin to suspect you’re not human. That you never were. That you’re a weapon custom-designed to invade my planet.
“But a weapon would not destroy itself.” For maybe the first time ever, Drews looks uncertain, even threatened by this dawning realization. “If you do this . . . I’ll have been wrong.”
My mouth opens to point out to him that actually, if I were some kind of enemy agent sent by Mr. Condy’s Angels to help infect Earth and all its species, I would definitely sacrifice myself if it meant weakening his resolve to fight my fellow human-shaped spies, and then I close my mouth because holy shit my death might actually accomplish something.
A soft, white peace blankets my heart.
I hold out a hand, palm-up, fingers relaxed. “If this changes your opinion of aciculars, and inspires you to work with Vee, then . . . All the more reason.”
Slowly, he adjusts his grip and holds out the hammer to me, handle-first. I accept its weight with reluctant ease, and one last time, I admire its craftsmanship. “Kaumodaki,” I read from the inscription. “I guess I hoped it’d be Mjolnir.”
Drews’ hesitation has been replaced by suspicion and irritation. “Enough talk. Do it,” he orders.
I wince, then realize I’ve been holding out hope that he would completely break character and say something gentle, something reassuring that I could take with me into my final seconds. But, no. I’ll end my life as I’ve spent it: Being intimidated.
I suck in a deep breath, then hold the head of the hammer to my breast. The moment the shell opens and reveals the glowing orb, my chest and head will disintegrate. The hammer will then fall through my body, scattering its needles as it drops — and let out a little pulse as it hits the floor, just for good measure.
Say something. Final words. Something from the heart.
“I just wish I could’ve seen Vee one last time,” I blurt. The words surprise me, bring stinging tears to my eyes. “One more sunset.”
I put a finger to the switch and push.
Click.
“He and his are unworthy to wield the hammers of the gods,” Mr. Condy whispers in my ear.
And nothing happens. The hammer is still closed.
Drews puts his good hand over his face and moans. “It’s definitely the old man’s voice! ‘You and yours . . .’ There must be a way to open it . . .”
I’m distracted from my numb distress. Drews also heard a whisper just now? “You heard ‘you and yours’?”
“Yeah. Why? Did you hear something?”
“‘He and his’. It’s centered on you. But why the hell would I be considered ‘yours’? Your prisoner, maybe?”
“It’s not like you would follow my orders even to save yourself.”
Orders.
“Oh, fuck me,” I whisper, looking up at him. “You ordered me to open it. You said, ‘do it’.”
He stares at me.
I smash him over the head with the closed hammer. He goes down like a sack of bricks.
“YOU FUCKING MORON!” I shriek, throwing the hammer at him hard enough to break a rib. It bounces off his side with a soft crunch and rolls away down the corridor.
Then I’m upon him, fingers hooked like claws. My mouth slavers, teeth lengthening into points. I want to sink them into his neck.
He grips me with his one good hand and tries to roll over, to pin me. Even in this rage, my strength can’t compare to his. So I elbow him hard in the spot where the hammer hit him, and he curls back in agony.
“ALL I WANT IS TO DIE!” I scream in his face, and ram my fist into his chest, making him cough and shudder. “HOW DO YOU FUCK UP KILLING SOMEONE THIS SUICIDAL? HOW? HOW HOW HOW HOW—” With each belted word, I rain a blow down on his body, crushing his ribcage and breaking his ‘good’ arm.
He gets his handgun loose and presses the muzzle to the spot between my breasts, where Lucas’ jacket has parted. A million miles away, I hear him fire once, twice, three times. I feel nothing except a sting between my shoulder blades. I knock the gun from his weakening grip with one hand and backhand him across the face with the other.
There is nothing around us, no light or darkness, no world at all except Drews’ battered body. He keeps fighting. Even from the edge of consciousness, he resists. He grapples with a hand that shakes, that can barely grip. Such strength. Such animal might. The needles shriek inside my head to infect him, to inflict a curse of my own upon him — but no, he is less than worthy, less than a man, nothing but trash to be torn and garbaged and—
And then I throw him into a wall. He drops to the floor and lies still, facing away. One arm hangs limp behind his back; the other is still caught in his sling. Blood. He’s not moving. I’ve never killed a human be
fore. So much blood.
I’m breathing hard. My throat is ragged from screaming. I look down and find three bleeding holes in my cleavage. I run a hand over my back and feel wet holes in my borrowed jacket. Fuck. How in the world will I get needle blood out of leather?
Now I’m laughing. I’m sitting on the floor laughing. It tastes like pennies. There’s commotion off down the corridor, probably monsters fighting each other. That is very funny. Everything tastes like pennies. Laugh laugh laugh.
I’ll take the hammer and find a portal, reunite with Lucas. I can’t explicitly order him to use the hammer on me, in case Drews’ curse is contagious beyond the first handshake. But maybe he doesn’t know the hammer will destroy me, so maybe I can trick him into opening it. And if he does know, I’ll pretend to have gone insane with bloodlust. I’ll make him destroy me in self-defense.
I’m having trouble moving. I look down at my chest and realize that Drews did more damage than I thought. I’m sitting in a dark red puddle, and it’s spreading.
Oh, well. I Iet my head fall back against the wall, and my eyes wander the ceiling.
Maybe they’ll put me back in the tank. The idea makes my heart thud, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m dehydrated, healing sluggishly.
Footsteps down the corridor, approaching. Maybe Lucas has come back for me — or maybe it’s a soldier. I close my eyes, bracing myself for the worst.
The steps come to a halt at my hand. “You alive?”
No.
I’m staring up at, no.
Kazuma kneels, not caring about my spreading blood. He’s already splashed head-to-toe in black ichor and gore. His raven hair is long, but otherwise, he looks the same as that last day in Gothic. His dark eyes are so big, so full of worry and fear. I’m shocked by his familiar stare, his calm innocence.
Fear explodes up and down my body. “No,” I croak, shaking my head weakly. “No, please, God. Not you.”
He makes a sad face. “I’m here to take you home.”
“No. No no no nononono!” He’s trying to get a hand under my shoulders so he can lift me up. “No! Don’t touch me!”
He pulls me to his chest and holds me for a moment, lips pressed to my forehead. “I’m so sorry I’ve scared you. If you won’t be able to control yourself, I’ll—”
“GET AWAY FROM ME!” I scream, struggling weakly against his grip. My throat is raw, my shout hoarse and pathetic. “DREWS! HELP ME!”
“You’ve killed him. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“PLEASE DON’T LET HIM—”
Pierce between my breasts, where Lucas’ jacket has parted to reveal my bleeding upper chest. Kazuma’s hand is there, and it spikes inside me, shredding what organs the bullets missed..
I slowly relax against his arm, eyes sliding up to meet his. “P . . . Please don’t hurt me,” I breathe as the last air leaves my lungs. “. . . so . . . tired . . . want . . . sleep . . .”
He withdraws his hand, wraps Lucas’ jacket shut around me, then hooks his wrist under my knees and lifts me up into his arms. “You will,” he promises, gazing down into my dying face. “And then you’ll wake up someplace beautiful.”
Dimly I feel myself carried like an unwilling bride toward a threshold.
The world goes dark.
Another fluorescent bulb flickers out. Drews realizes that he’s been staring up into the light for some time; his burning eyes scream with relief.
He’s lying on his back on a gurney. A medic treats his wounds, finding his broken ribs, murmuring about transport to surgery.
There are voices everywhere. Soldiers loudly recount the events of the evening. Somewhere in the distance, he still hears gunshots, but their sound is warped, and sometimes fades away.
A cold wave washes over him.
When Drews awakens, he’s being fitted for a blood transfusion. He’s also being strapped down, readied for transportation. His wounds hurt like a distant storm. His eyes wander the remaining lights above, trying to muster the strength to ask if the noon-its have been contained.
But death is so close. He first felt its brush long ago, in his debut firefight in Baghdad. It came for him again in Gothic, but took only his squadmates. Then it swept away from him in a burst of blue energy, and for a time, he thought himself immortal.
Now he hears death’s steps whisper closer. Between the arms of the attending medics awaits a darkness hungry for his soul.
A shameful way to die. His base overrun, his people helpless, his weapons stolen, his prisoners escaped, his mission failed. The blackness reaches for him, and he groans softly, too drained to fight back.
Rolling down the corridor. Not much longer now.
He drifts past a body lying against the wall, mostly covered with a blood-soaked sheet. The old man. Drews dimly remembers him going down under the sudden wave of monsters. A horrible way to die.
Leaned against the body’s limp arm is a backpack. Its main zipper is half-open, revealing the corner of a laptop.
And then Drews sees nothing more for a long time.
But let’s not end there.
I wake, though my body is still badly damaged. I’m lying on rough, sandy ground, under Fortuna’s strange sky. I’m too stiff to move.
There’s a black woman sitting at my side, and she glances down at my face. Then she notices my open eyes and freezes, staring.
I recognize the shape of her cheeks, the concern in her eyes. I see her underneath her skin, and my mouth makes a soft, sad sound.
With her help, I half-sit up. Then we embrace. She’s sobbing. I’m sucking in deep, shaky breaths, and my cheeks are wet. Her grip on my shoulders is tight, as if she’s just pulled me from a raging river. I cling to her, wondering how I could ever have let her go.
We say nothing. Words have only ever gotten in the way. Sure, we’ll eventually have to deal with words. But for now, we allow ourselves to just be friends.
At last, she pulls back, looking me up and down. For the first time, I notice how different she looks, how many adventures she must have had during my containment. My heart burns to hear it all.
Kazuma is trying to start a campfire. No reason — it’s the middle of the day, the air is warm, and this crater probably isn’t a good place to camp — he just feels like lighting a fire. Maybe he’s trying to make me feel safe.
We each look up at the sound of boot-steps in the dirt, just as they stop in their tracks. There stands the man who brought me out of the underworld. Lucas looks exhausted, and hot, and utterly out of place.
For a while, we three aciculars will be too exhausted and shellshocked to open a portal and send him home. By the time we can offer to, he’ll have decided that Earth may not be safe for him — at least, for a while.
But he is so out of place on this Hell-planet. We’re going to have to protect him.
At least, for a while.
You see, someday, he’s going to know more about this alien world than any other Homo sapiens sapiens. He will be one of us, but not of our blood. He will fight beside us for survival, and his reward will be a heart not of needles, but of steel.
Someday, he will be called the Man of Fortuna.
WHERE TO REVIEW
Amazon
Goodreads
TV Tropes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
OFFICIAL SITE — homework.never-ends.net
AUTHOR NEWSLETTER
AUTHOR TWITTER (@FekketCantenel)
Here we are at the end of another adventure. Thank you for seeing our heroes through, and I hope your dreams of their future are bright.
If you enjoy my work, please do me a generous favor and leave a review on one of the sites above, or your blog if you have one. Recommend me to a friend who also enjoys weird thrillers about needle people.
Feel free to tweet @FekketCantenel for a chat, and check that feed for news on my future projects. As I type this, I don’t know what that will be. But I’m going to have a great time finding out.
— Fiona
P.S. I still live and write in northwest Arkansas (in a peaceful alternate universe where Gothic is called Fayetteville). I gain inspiration while camping, picking up litter, enjoying psychedelics, and lazing around with my husband and three cats.
New Night (Gothic Book 2) Page 20