Day Boy

by Trent Jamieson

  So I’m back to the house, and onto the lawn and the push mower. Hard work and I’m breaking sweat by noon. Damn lawn.

  Go in for a cider, all wet and hot, and stop right in the doorway. The place smells. Even I can catch it over my own sweat. A death-stench in the air, and I up into the Master’s room and…

  There’s the Sun, and the roof half gone. And light. Everywhere light.

  I know he’s dead. He’s lying there half burnt up. But I run to him, and I grab the heaviest blanket I can find. And I throw it on him, and I swear he’s looking at me, through those dark eyes.

  The blanket hits his body, and then it just sinks, and I know he’s gone to dust.

  And it’s just me, in that light where it should be dark, in our ruined house. And I wipe at my eyes. But I don’t have any tears. Just me.

  I go all bitter, start looking out at the sky, marking the hours. Don’t have much time left.

  I open the door, expect to see five chalk Suns, but there’s nothing as yet. Come the night they’ll be hunting me. For the first time I am glad Grove is gone, and Thom too.

  They’ll hunt me down quick if I leave the town; they’ll smell me out quicker if I stay. I might make it, but I am full of doubt. Both choices are death as I see it. Fight, and I could make the world bleed a little.

  I daren’t hope for more. There’s a cold shard of a cruel and wild determination building in me. I go back inside and grab that stake that Thom made me.

  Day Boys don’t run.

  I’m not a Day Boy anymore, but I’m not running either.

  CHAPTER 45

  NOT MUCH TIME left to me, so it’s to Certain I go. On my bike, riding fast as I can.

  Ah, he knows something’s wrong soon as I show up, can see it in my eyes. He’s off for a steadier, a bottle of rum from up north, hands it to me straight. It burns on the way down and I’m doubting my steadiness.

  ‘Dead then?’ he says, and I blink at him knowing.

  ‘Deader than a stone. Just dust.’ And I should be bawling but there’s a coldness in me and it’s growing. Crying’s for later and as far as I see, there will be no later.

  ‘Shit,’ he says. He breathes a deep sort of breath. ‘Well, you’ve got some choice. Bolt or kill. You know how it goes.’

  I puff up my chest. ‘I’m not running.’

  Though it’s dawning on me that vengeance is hard unless you got a Master backing you up. Can’t see none too good in the dark.

  Certain nods. ‘Well, you haven’t got long, and there’s gonna be all hell. Sure you don’t want to run?’

  On the road I’m just as dead, and Certain knows it. Matter of time either way, the ones that did this won’t let a Day Boy stand. There’s too much fun to be had, not to mention paybacks. I’m thinking about the boys, thinking if any looked too smug, or avid at Grove’s funeral. None what I can remember.

  If they knew they’d won they buried it deep inside.

  Certain’s been talking, and I had hardly paid it notice.

  ‘…you start this, and all of them—’

  ‘I know.’

  I don’t know where Grainer is. I don’t bother asking, don’t want him part of this.

  Certain leaves the room, then comes back with a knife, one that means business, curved and meat-ready, and a bag of ash. I snatch them out of his hands before either us changes our determination. Got killing to do.

  Dougie’s sitting on his porch, yard immaculate, and he sees me coming, swinging to halt by the front fence, leaping it neatly.

  ‘Eh,’ he says, and I nod. He don’t seem fussed. And I don’t have time to be questioning his confidence.

  There’s a grin on his face, but he’s already rolling me a cig when I knife him quick in the neck and he looks at me knowing what I snatched, but you’ve got to take the head and start down, that’s tactic one I reckon, and I’m pulling him into the house with me. And I feel bad about it. He’s coughing, and light, and there’s blood trailing back to the porch. But we’re used to blood.

  ‘Sorry, Dougie.’ I’m in his ear. ‘Dain’s dead. See you soon enough I reckon.’

  ‘Do the same,’ is all he says. Then he’s still, and pooling on the living-room floor and the flies already buzzing and no living hand to brush them away. But I’ve no time for sorrow.

  I’m quick to Sobel’s cellar.

  The fella’s all whistley breath, time’s running out, but there’s two hours till night proper. He’s still upon his bed. You could slap him about the head, there’d be no waking. But I’m cautious yet, in case all I know is a lie. They’re canny buggers, yes. The room’s dark, even with the door open; I’m quick to start the downward stroke. Right into the neck, it’s rubbery and his eyes snap open, but I’m already cutting through all that sinew and tissue, and the head falls, its teeth a-chattering. Grab it by the hair and bring it to the porch, swing it out onto the road. It smoulders there. And I’ve got my first pair of deaths, and the bitterest taste in my mouth.

  You’re lucky to be a Day Boy. That’s driven in from the beginning. Privileged.

  Shit. Privileged to work your fingers to the bone, them first years all spent in terror. Cause your Master is death. Glorious, maybe, but death walking and brutish, for all the airs and graces. You can’t pretty that up.

  You’re there to make sure it works. And when it all goes to hell, you’re there to make sure it all burns. None knows as much about killing Masters as a Day Boy. We know all the tricks, shall we say. The Masters set us up that way. We’re not just limbs and eyes and ears, but insurance.

  I can hear the Parson twins squabbling, playing a game. I shouldn’t, but I get to the window and I stare right in. Monopoly. And it makes my heart ache, seeing them laughing and kidding. I block all the doors.

  There’s more tubs of oil around Kast’s place than I’d ever expected. Fuel for his burner. I roll a few under the house, quiet as, and split another, and one more, and I set a match to the slick.

  The whole place goes up faster than I could believe, faster than kindling. There’s screams, but I close my ears to ’em. One of those Parson twins bangs against the door, but I’ve blocked it good. And then those big tubs blow. And there’s naught but wreck and ruin.

  Kast got his premonition. Kast got his flames.

  And I’m back riding. There’s no point in stealth, just keep charging on as the Sun plays its way down into the west.

  Twitch is waiting at Tennyson’s. There’s no surprise after that fire. There’s people everywhere rushing towards it and me riding the other way. I slide off my bike, holding the blade. Twitch has got his knife out, and a scared, hurt look on his face.

  ‘Just you and me,’ I say, the Sun low behind me.

  ‘No, just me,’ Twitch says and he’s on me with the knife, and we’re rolling in the dirt, swinging and shielding and grabbing at each other’s throats. He’s smaller than me and wiry as all hell, and I’m tired. The knife draws a line of blood across my back, deep wound, but not deep enough, I’m already pulling away, then stabbing in. Cut him above the eye, and it’s spilling and he’s blinking, and I’m back in quick: I cut to k
ill.

  He tumbles, throat gaping. And I leave him there.

  Tennyson’s down in his hidey-hole, just beginning to stir. Calling Twitch’s name, and it’s Thom’s stake that I use to drive him to ruin. I run it straight through his heart and leave that taipan blue-eyed and burning in his chest.

  Just the knife and Certain’s bag of ash in my hands.

  CHAPTER 46

  I GET TO Egan’s. Left him last, because he’s alone. Purely strategic, even if he’s the one I want dead first. But I’m quick to finding that he isn’t there.

  And I realise that there’s only one place he could be. Back in my home, back hidden there. And I know for sure that he was the one that did the killing, of course he is. And I’m belting down those four streets to mine. Blood full in my head. That storm’s building in the west and I expect I’ll be dead before it hits. But if I’m fast enough—fast enough—I might just—

  And when I make it, he’s standing on the verandah, looking down. And for a moment I can almost imagine that it’s Dain. Not him.

  I let my bike drop. Knife gripped tight. Bag of ash held loose.

  ‘What are you doing, boy?’ And there I am standing and bleeding and sticky with my blood and the blood of the other Day Boys and the dust and smoke of those Masters dead by my hand. And there’s a crack of thunder, distant, but not that far. Storm’s filling the lands. Setting down its mighty legs, bellowing its great lungs out.

  ‘Making revenge,’ I say in the silence that comes after.

  ‘It’s to be expected. Could have saved you time if you’d looked in the cellar. Near killed myself, tearing open that roof. Had no time to do anything but hide. But it was worth it to kill the bastard.’ There’s a joy in his features now. He knows it’s done, and he wants to share his cleverness. He wants to play. The great battles have been fought, and now it’s just him and a boy. ‘To ruin him and you. I should have done it a decade past. I tried to have it done in the city of course, a little street assassination, but you were lucky, the both of you. And that would have been the end of it. I’d failed. I was ready to make peace, bringing you back from there. But then you killed my Grove. And so there’s no forgiveness that I can find, just hatred. And now,’ he flashes me a smile, and the verandah creaks beneath him, ‘here we are.’

  I can see the Sun’s marks on him. I can smell the rawness of his flesh; he isn’t quite the fullness of his kind.

  ‘You’re the last,’ I say.

  Egan slumps a little. Doesn’t bother hiding his surprise. ‘You killed them all? I thought you’d just come for me, thought you’d nut out my hiding place. Thought Dain would have taught you better.’

  He takes each step of that verandah with a little jump down.

  Jump.

  Jump.

  Playful, like a cat that knows he has the mouse, but he’s still not all awake. He opens his wide mouth and there’s those rows of teeth. Then the first breaths of that storm hit, wind chimes sing, and he’s got my scent, the raw death of it, and he shivers. That weakness is a little bit of hope. Course, even weakened, he can take me.

  Somewhere behind us, the sky flashes and rumbles. He blinks, scattered like that cloud-spread light.

  There’s nothing to do but charge, run fast as I can, arms out, knife swinging circle eights.

  He’s already stepped to one side. Like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

  ‘He’s dead,’ I say again, and I fling that bag of ash open and into his face.

  He howls a bit, but he is quick; most of it misses him. What doesn’t burns and slides down his face, a ruinous sort of thing, all that beauty broken, but he can take it. He’s had worse hurts, and all I’ve done is put the rod upon the beast.

  ‘Seen one world’s ending, I did,’ he says. ‘Been low and scrambling, chasing after the moon.’ He raises his hand east, where the moon will rise but hasn’t yet. His finger traces a spiral in the air, but I turn my head before it’s done. ‘Been high and mighty too. You think a little ash will worry me? Let the world fear my scarred old face forever.’

  I slash out at him, and he knocks away my blade. I scramble at it. Scurrying away. And he slips through the dark and in front of me. So easy, and he’s still just half awake.

  Egan’s blinking, standing there, one foot on the knife. But I have my other cutter, the little one, and I pull it free of my belt. Egan grins, and his seared lips crack, and I know it hurts but he doesn’t show it.

  ‘Wouldn’t have thought you had it in you. But then Death is your shadow, isn’t it? You killed my Grove with your stupidity, and you shall pay for it. Just like your Master. Him with all the apologies, the empty empty words. You killed him, and such a low death is what you deserve, a drowning, a throttling. You’ll get no teeth from me.’

  That’s true, and maybe I do deserve it. Maybe that’s what slows my swing, though I never thought I’d had the speed for it. Frankly, I’m through with life after all the killing I’ve just done. I don’t even see him move, but I feel it.

  He grabs my throat casually, then my back, and he lifts me up, and twists. Something tears inside, oh, but it is pain, and for the first time I’m crying. He shakes me, more pain, and I’m dropping my little knife, and he’s bringing me down to get a good look at me.

  ‘Should have done this years ago.’

  Then there’s a noise, a burning keening in my ears, and I’m on the ground and his body’s on the ground, thrashing and flaming, and Certain’s holding Egan’s head, like he’d cut it right off his shoulders. The eyes are rolling, the teeth a-snapping. Certain sets a light to it with unsteady hands, and it’s quick to go up. He drops it all in a hurry. The mouth moving till there’s nothing but bone that comes loose at the jaw. And that keeps burning.

  Certain gives it a kick and it shatters in a dandelion burst of ash.

  ‘Damn fella goes on, don’t he? Saw you riding for here, knew there must have been one hiding. Killing their own kind, who’d have thought to see a Master stoop so low.’

  I’m just lying there, curled in on myself.

  ‘You hurt?’ Certain asks; knows I am, but some silences you gotta fill.

  Grainer runs up beside him, all I can see are his feet.

  ‘Is he hurt?’

  I can’t even nod my head, raise one hand a little, and Certain crouches down. ‘What do you think?’ I say and cough so brutal that I’m crying again, and tasting blood.

  ‘Jeez, Mark, you made a go of it. A serious go.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I smile a bit, even smiling is a hurt. ‘None of ’em expected me, not a single one. It was all Egan’s doing.’

  ‘Expected or not,’ Certain says. ‘They would have come for you tonight. It’s how the world works. Maybe some day it won’t, but that’s not this one.’

  ‘I’m dying,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He picks me up. ‘Taking you to Mary’s, she’s waiting.’

  He says stuff after that, all the way into town, but I’m not listening. Rain’s coming in, and the dark is silent but for the rain’s whisperings. There’s no screaming, no beasts moaning in the streets. Things will come creeping back in, but not tonigh
t.

  When I dream, I dream of his hand. Cold, closed around my fingers. He could never give me warmth. He could never give me love. But he kept me from the cold, even the ice in his heart. That was a strength of will. That was love. I don’t know if I really appreciated it until later.

  But that’s love too. It don’t matter that you understand it.

  CHAPTER 47

  THERE’S A WIND blowing in from the west. Hot, hotter even than the Sun it feels like, dry and strong, the sort of wind that sends paint to curling, and burns the grass to powder. Dry and dusty, like it’s torched its way through the land. Winds blowing in from the west worry me. Been too many changes come with them and I’ve had my share of them, surely. Can’t have no more.

  Except that’s not the way the world works.

  I’ve been a while getting better, don’t know if I ever will. I’ve been wounded, and the wounding I’ve done is a deeper sort of hurt. I still have the run of the town. But Midfield’s shrunk. All it has is boys and folks unbled, and people that whisper behind my back. I figure there’s been debate about what to do to me. String me up? Cast me out? But I’m still here.

  I went back home for a short while. Couldn’t stay there, it felt too damn horrible, empty of everything that made it welcome. But I managed to stay long enough to get some clothes, and even look at Dain’s given-up-on book.

  It was a lifeless thing, not a single breath to it, and I could see why he’d discarded it. I don’t know what was wrong with it, but something was missing, something wasn’t there. Some things are better left to die. Not so much a cruelty but a kindness. Still I couldn’t bear to see his papers ruined. I gathered them up, and gave them to Mary.