The Finisher

by David Baldacci

  I looked over my shoulder at the entrance to Stacks, my curiosity, always close to the surface, compelling me to ask a question. “Domitar, what did this place used to be?”

  He didn’t look at me, although I saw his body stiffen with the query.

  “It has always been Stacks,” he said.

  “Always?” I said skeptically.

  “Well, since I have been alive.”

  “But you haven’t been alive as long as this place has been here, Domitar. I bet it’s hundreds of sessions old, maybe more.”

  “Then what good would an answer to your query be?” he replied.

  The words seemed harsh, though truthfully his tone was one of resignation.

  “Do you think the Wall will hold the Outliers back?”

  Now he glanced up at me. “I am certain it will.”

  The way he said it troubled me greatly. Not because I didn’t think he believed his own words. It’s because I could tell he absolutely believed them to be true.

  “Mealtime is over,” he said, his normally harsh tone back in full force.

  I headed back to Stacks. But when I turned around, I saw Domitar was still squatting next to Harry Two and petting him. I saw him pull out a piece of bread and cheese and feed it to my canine. I even thought I saw Domitar smile.

  Times indeed were changing in Wormwood.

  WHEN I ARRIVED at the Loons with Harry Two, Cacus Loon met me at the door. He took one look at my canine, and his response was as coarse as it was predictable.

  “That ugly, foul beast is nae comin’ in these proper digs,” he cried out in a voice made hoarse by his smoke weed habit.

  I looked down at Harry Two, who was by far the most handsome creature of the three of us, his face far cleaner than Loon’s, his coat far more reputable than mine.

  I said, “He’s a canine and they are acceptable inside Wug homes. I’ll take care of him, and his food, water and cleanliness will be my responsibility.”

  “There ain’t a chance in Hel of that beast staying in me home.”

  “It’s not your home. It belongs to Roman Picus.” I knew this would provide me no help, but Loon made me mad just by breathing.

  He swelled up his chest. “Oh, so you think Roman Picus will allow that disreputable thing inside his digs, do you? Well, you clearly don’t know the Wug as I do.”

  “I can talk to Morrigone about it,” I ventured.

  “You can waggle to any Wug you want, and the bloody answer will be the same.”

  He slammed the door in my face. I looked down at Harry Two, who gazed up at me with complete adoration, unaffected by Loon’s brutish tirade. I stood there thinking for a few slivers and then decided that perhaps a silver lining had appeared unexpectedly from out of the darkness.

  I went inside, marched up the stairs to my kip, collected my few belongings and stamped back downstairs. Loon looked at me dumbfounded, while a puzzled Hestia gazed at me from the kitchen doorway, wiping her coarsened hands on her dirty apron.

  “Where you be going?” Loon asked when he saw the bundle representing all my posessions slung over my shoulder.

  “If my canine isn’t welcome here, I have to find other lodgings.”

  “’Tain’t none,” he barked. “Full up other digs, they are. Every Wug knows that. Stupid prat!”

  “I know of a place,” I shot back.

  “Not on the High Street, not a kip to be found.”

  “On the Low Road there is,” I countered.

  Loon gazed at me darkly. “Are you meaning what I think you’re meaning?”

  Hestia meekly came forward. “Vega, you can’t go back there. You’re too young to live on your own. You’re not yet fifteen sessions. That’s the law.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up my canine, so I don’t really have a choice,” I said. “And I’ll be fifteen sessions soon enough.” I aimed a warm smile solely at her. She was totally under her male’s rule, but she had always treated John and me decently. “I thank you for your hospitality over these last sessions.”

  Loon spat on the floor and Hestia turned and went back into the kitchen.

  He said, “We’ll see what Council says about this.”

  I stared him down. “Yes, we will.”

  I walked out and Harry Two obediently followed me down the cobblestones. Wugs here and there watched us go. I guess with a bundle holding all my possessions over my shoulder and a young canine playfully nipping at my heels, I made an unusual sight.

  I reached the Low Road and we turned down it. It was so named because it was apt to flood when the hard rains came and it was also old and worn down. Its few shops were not as well perused and what they sold was inferior to what one could purchase on the High Street.

  The plain wood-fronted home was tiny, nondescript and weathered, but to me it would always be beautiful and warm and inviting. I knew it well. I used to live here with my mother and father and John. We only left and moved to the Loons when our parents were taken to the Care.

  I stopped and looked at the small front window. There was a crack from when John was a baby and threw his cup of milk against it. Glass was hard to come by in Wormwood, so we had never fixed it. I moved closer and looked through the window. Now I could see the table where I ate with my family. It was scuffed and covered in cobwebs. In a far corner was a chair I used to sit in. In another corner was a stack of family belongings that we never took with us because we had no room for them. Against another wall was a cot. The cot I used to sleep in.

  I tried the door. It was locked. I took out my pieces of slender metal, and the lock was quickly sorted out. I opened the door and Harry Two and I went inside. I was immediately cold, colder than I had been outside. This surprised me, but only for an instant.

  It was said that the spirits one leaves behind are always cold, because they are alone, with nothing to warm them. We had left much behind here. Here, we were a family. Here, we had something together that we would never have apart. That we would never have again, in fact.

  I shivered and pulled my cloak closer around me as I walked the space. I squatted down and picked up some things in the pile while Harry Two sniffed around his new home. In the stack were odd bits of clothes that would no longer fit my shrunken mother and father. They wouldn’t fit me for that matter, for I had grown much in the last two sessions. I passed over the clothes and turned to some drawings that I had done as a young. There was a drawing I did of my brother.

  Then I saw the self-portrait I had sketched. I could see my breath in the air as I looked down at the picture. I was maybe eight sessions old, which meant my grandfather had been gone for half my life at that point. I did not look happy. In fact I was frowning.

  I unpacked, found some wood out back and managed to build a decent fire using one of my two remaining matches. I opened my tin and had my meal at the small table. I shared my food with Harry Two, who gobbled his share down. Now that meals were my responsibility, I would have to work harder on collecting, bartering, selling and hoarding, especially with Harry Two and John —

  I stopped my thought. It was just my canine and me. There was no John in the equation.

  I ran some water into a bowl for Harry Two from the set of pipes out back. At first the water came out dark, but it quickly cleared. That was good because this was the water I would drink as well. After Harry Two gulped down nearly the entire bowl, I let him out to relieve himself in the dirt behind my new lodgings.

  I pulled a chair up close to the fire and stared into its flames as Harry Two settled next to me, his snout on his front paws. This place had belonged to Virgil Jane, and on his passing, it had gone to his son, my father. We had abandoned it when my parents went into the Care, but I felt I had more right to it than any other Wug.

  A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts. I turned to it with trepidation. Was I about to find out that our old home had been confiscated by Council? Or that because I was too young to live on my own, I would have to leave?

  I opened the do
or to see Roman Picus standing there.

  “Yes?” I said as casually as I could.

  “What’s got into ya, female?” he said as he rolled a lighted stick of smoke weed from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “What’s got into me about what?” I asked innocently.

  “Loons to here is what, o’course.”

  “Loon wouldn’t take my canine, so I had no other choice.”

  Roman looked down at Harry Two, who stood next to me. His hackles were up and his tiny fangs were bared. I could see he had excellent taste in Wugs.

  “Givin’ up good digs over that beast? What rubbish.”

  “Well, at least it’s my rubbish.”

  “You’re too young to live on your own.”

  “I’ve been living on my own ever since my parents went to the Care. Do you really think Cacus Loon looks after me? And John doesn’t live with me anymore. I can take care of myself. If Council doesn’t think so, they can take it up directly with me.”

  Roman appraised me with a cunning look. “Speaking of, ya heard ’bout your brother?”

  “He’s living with Morrigone now.”

  “Old news. Talkin’ ’bout his promotion o’course,” he added triumphantly.

  “Promotion?”

  “Oh, ya mean you didn’t know?” he said gleefully.

  I wanted to know what Roman was talking about of course, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of begging for it. He ground his smoke weed stick with his boot heel into the cobblestones outside my door and made a show of pulling his pipe from his greasy coat. He packed it with more smoke weed and lit it, puffing contentedly on his stem until gray smoke curled into the night air.

  “So his promotion,” Roman began. He took two more puffs while he kept me waiting. If I had possessed a morta, there was no telling how many times I would have shot him. “His promotion to be special assistant to Council o’course.”

  I felt like someone had just struck me in the belly. But I swiftly regrouped. “He’s a young. He can’t hold a position with Council until he’s much older.”

  Roman replied in a condescending tone. “Well, now, Vega, that’s why they term it special. Parchment done and everything. Oh, it’s official all right. Thansius pushed it through with Morrigone’s blessing. Council had no choice, did they? Not with them two Wugs behind it. Up and down vote with all yeas, or so’s I heard. Even Krone went along, and that bloody Wug don’t agree with nothin’.”

  “And what does a ‘special assistant’ to Council do?” I asked, scowling. I did it because I knew he would keep talking and giving me details just so he could continue to see me upset.

  “Well, you musta seen John going over plans for the Wall with the both-a them.”

  “I haven’t really been involved in the Wall other than making straps.”

  “Oh, is that so?”

  “Yes, that’s so,” I retorted.

  Roman drew a bit closer but retreated slightly when Harry Two started to growl. “Right you are. Well, now they’ve enlisted him to oversee the whole blasted thing, haven’t they?” he said offhandedly.

  I looked askance at him. “I thought Thansius was doing that.”

  Roman shrugged. “Dunno. I hear it’s a right puzzle, lotta obstacles, so they say. My head’s too thick to quite unnerstand, but there you are.”

  “So what is John going to do about it?” I asked.

  He pointed his stick bowl at me. “Well, now, that’s the question, ain’t it? I hear he’s thinking ’bout the Wall and such. A great mind, so’s I’ve been told. Good thing one of the Janes ended up with something up here.” He tapped his forehead with his pipe.

  “You’re saying Virgil Jane didn’t have a strong mind?”

  “That’s in the past, Vega. Just down to you and John now. You make a honest living at Stacks, but no more’n that. Reached your limits, haven’t you? Now, John, well, he’s got possibilities, ain’t he? A future, you see. And after this special assistant job, with a bitta spiffin’ up, I could see him one light sitting on Council, I could.”

  “Why would he want to do that?”

  Now Roman looked stunned. “Sitting on Council? Why would he want to do that? Are ya out of your bleedin’ mind? And you and your brother, the last of the Janes. Sad business. Sad business indeed.”

  “My mother and father are still alive!” I said through clenched teeth.

  He dumped the dottle from his stick bowl onto the cobblestone and stamped out the spark and smoke with the heel of his garm-skin boots, then dipped a thumb into his belt and said, “Show me the difference ’twixt them and the dead. Corpses under sheets I call ’em.”

  I didn’t have to touch Destin to know that it felt like a flame. But it couldn’t be any hotter than I was. I could tell that Roman wanted me to take a swing. He had put his thumb in his belt because in doing so, he had drawn back his long coat to reveal a short morta in a leather holder riding on his belt.

  I decided not to take the bait. Well, that’s not entirely true.

  “You know, it might be a good idea for John to sit on Council,” I said abruptly.

  “Glad you seen the good sense in that. Mebbe you have a bitta brain after all, though I doubt it.” He laughed heartily until he very nearly choked.

  I continued, ignoring this. “He told me he thinks Council should run all lodging because there are some Wugs who take advantage and charge too much. I’m sure he’ll share that idea with Morrigone, and she with Thansius.”

  Roman stopped coughing and his jaw fell nearly to his short morta.

  John had never said any of this. This was my idea, but since I was female, it never would be taken seriously.

  “You have a good night, Roman,” I said, closing the door in his face. I smiled for the first time in a long while. But that wouldn’t last. I could taste it in my spit, as they said in Wormwood.

  I put another small log on the fire and then gazed around my new, old home. My eyes went again to the stack of odds and ends in the corner. I ventured there. The fire lit the room poorly, so I grabbed a small lantern from my bundle, lit its wick using the fire flames and carried it over to the corner.

  Harry Two sat next to me on his haunches and watched as time went by while I methodically dug through what amounted to a history of my family. There were colored images of my grandparents, Virgil and his mate, Calliope. They were a handsome couple, I thought. My grandfather’s features were vividly distinctive. There was a lot going on behind those eyes. Calliope was kind and bright and seemed to take great pleasure in seeing her family happy. I was quite her pet. And I would do anything for her. Yet her time was to be cut short, as it turned out. Calliope had succumbed to the sick a session before Virgil suffered his Event.

  I finally put all of these things away and stared into the dying embers of my meager fire. I envisioned John, now firmly part of Council and, with it, the hierarchy of Wormwood, reading contentedly in front of a blazing fire in Morrigone’s beautiful library after having had a sumptuous meal.

  “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, Vega,” I said out loud, causing Harry Two to peak his ears. “Fancy meals and fancier titles do not really matter.”

  But for the first time, for the very first time, I was seriously contemplating leaving this place. No, escaping this place. It had been my home. Now I didn’t know what it was. Or what was keeping me here.

  Later, unable to sleep, I rose and put on my cloak. Harry Two rose obediently and stood beside me.

  I did have something left in Wormwood, something of great importance to me.

  I was going to see my parents.

  I STARED UP AT the hulking doors to the Care. It was long after visiting time, but I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be with the family I had left.

  I had already looked around for Non but hadn’t seen him anywhere. The git was probably off patrolling as part of the Carbineers. I drew my tools from my cloak pocket, inserted them in the lock of the huge door, and I was soon on my way
down the corridor.

  The light was dimmer in my parents’ room at night it seemed, though I could still make them out. Each of course was lying in their cot. They couldn’t move. They couldn’t speak. That was okay. I planned on doing the talking.

  I stood between the cots because I wanted to address them at the same time. I didn’t know where the words came from, I really didn’t. But I was soon pouring out my heart to them, complaining of wretched injustice, poor Quentin, fiendish jabbits, walls of blood, lost brothers, insufferable Council members like Jurik Krone, vile Outliers, and Wormwood simply going mad on me. I told them I wanted them back. No, I needed them to come back to me. I was all alone. Then I ran completely out of words and just stood there, tears running down my cheeks as I stared at the two Wugs who had brought me into Wormwood and who had not uttered a word or moved a muscle for over two sessions.

  A sliver later I was rubbing my eyes because I could not believe what I was seeing. My father’s cot was vibrating. No, my father was vibrating. In fact, he was shaking so hard that I was afraid he would simply fly apart. When I looked at my mother, the exact same thing was occurring to her. I rushed forward to seize them, to stop whatever was happening to them.

  I had to leap back to avoid being killed.

  Towers of fire had sprouted from both cots at the same time. They rose together to the ceiling and then started to swirl in a circular motion, like a fierce, fiery funnel of wind trying to escape the narrow confines of whatever was trapping it.

  I leapt farther back as the flames threatened to engulf the room, and slammed against the hard wall. My eyes were so wide I felt as if there was no space left on my face to contain them. I screamed. The flames leapt higher. I looked around the room for something to put out the fire. There was a pitcher of water on a stand against the wall. I grabbed it and hurled the liquid against the inferno. It splashed back in my face, repelled by the flames, though I couldn’t imagine how.