The Finisher

by David Baldacci

  “Any other Wug?” He shook his head. “Brilliant. Keep going, Delph.”

  “Them ar-arguing like that, sc-scared me. But … but may-maybe I c-could help, calm ’em down. L-like I’d do w-with the beasts with m-me dad. C-calm ’em down like.”

  “I would have thought the same thing, Delph. Calm them down. Trying to help.”

  He let out a little sob and I felt so guilty for making him remember all this, but there was no other way. He put his head in his hands and started sobbing, and I jerked him back straight so he had to look me in the eye.

  “You can’t stop now. You have to get this out. You have to.”

  “T-two doors d-down that way. Nothing b-b-behind the first one.”

  “And the second?” I said, my voice like fragile chips of ice in my throat.

  “When I saw …” His voice trailed off and he started to whimper. I thought I was going to lose him again. But I didn’t yell this time. I didn’t hit him.

  “You saw something that made you really afraid, didn’t you?”

  He nodded miserably. “They wa-was f-facing each uh-other.”

  “Was she mad at him? Was she angry? And he was trying to calm her?”

  His response stunned me. “’Twas the uh-uh-other way round, Ve-Vega Jane. ’Twas M-Morrigone, what l-l-looked scared. She s-s-seemed to be tr-tr-trying to calm him d-down.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “What was she saying to him?”

  Delph took deep shuddering breaths, his body twitching with each of them. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought he was trying to throw off some sick that had got hold of him. He finally stopped twitching, rubbed his face clear of tears and sat up. He looked directly at me. His expression was clear. There was no more pain there.

  “Not to go,” Delph said simply. “Please not to go.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “That he had to. He had to try. He just had to. He kept saying it over and over. So terrible-like. Hear him in me dreams …” His voice trailed off again.

  “Go? Go where?” I said more harshly than I intended.

  Delph glanced down at me, his face so pale it looked like the Noc close up.

  “Didn’t say. And then it happened.”

  “The red light?”

  The look on his face was so fearful, my heart went out to him. “’Twas fire. Fire the likes of which I ain’t never seen. It was fire that … that was alive. It … it flamed up all around Virgil, like a serpent swallowing him whole. And then … and then he floated up in the air. And then … and then … he was gone. Without making a sound.” Delph paused, staring ahead. “Not one sound,” he added in what was no more than a whisper.

  I could barely draw a breath. What Delph had just described was what had happened to my parents. My parents had suffered Events right in front of me. I had seen it! Only I hadn’t known that’s what it was.

  I must have been looking blankly off because I was roused only when Delph gripped my shoulder and shook me.

  “Vega Jane, are you all right?”

  I still couldn’t speak.

  “Vega Jane?” he said in a panicked voice.

  My mind drifted back to the memory. I could see the fire swallowing them whole. An Event. Holy Steeples, I had witnessed their Events.

  “Vega Jane?” He shook me so hard I nearly fell over.

  I finally focused on him. “I’m sorry, Delph. What happened then?” I asked in a hoarse voice, the terrible image of my parents in flames still firmly in my mind’s eye.

  He paused, licked his lips. “And then I run ’cause Morrigone saw me.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Like she would kill me if she could get to me. I run harder than I ever run in all my sessions. But she was faster. She was there, before I got out the door, she was. Then that’s when it happened.”

  “What happened?”

  “The red light.”

  “But I thought the red light happened with my grandfather. It was the flames.”

  “No. The red light … the red light happened to me, Vega Jane.”

  I thought back to when I had been in the past at Morrigone’s home. After seeing Delph run away. She had seen me, waved her hand and there had been a blue light.

  I looked at Delph. “Delph, are you sure the light wasn’t blue?”

  He shook his head. “’Twas red, Vega Jane. ’Twas red. Like the fire.”

  “And what happened after that?”

  “My head felt all funny-like. But I was running still. I kept running. And … and then that’s all. Just running.” He turned to me, looking drained by all he had recounted. “Why did you ask if the light was blue?”

  “Because that’s the color it was when Morrigone waved her hand at me.”

  He looked nearly petrified by these words. “You were there?”

  “But I never remembered it, Delph. It was gone until I saw it again.”

  “But then why did I just remember pieces of it, then? Until now?”

  “Difference between blue and red light, I guess,” I said, feeling as drained as he looked. We both seemed to have run countless miles.

  But I was also thinking of something else. When I told Morrigone I had visited her home once before, she had seemed immediately tense and suspicious. Now I knew why. She had thought I remembered seeing her all those sessions ago, when she had run out all mad-looking and hit me with the blue light, erasing from my mind what I had seen.

  Then something else struck me. I stared hard at Delph.

  He finally said, “What is it, Vega Jane?”

  “Delph, you’re not stuttering anymore.”

  He looked shaken by this observation; his mouth dropped open and then a smile slowly spread over his features. “You’re right.” He smiled more broadly.

  “But why?” I asked.

  “The words ain’t jargoled no more, Vega Jane.” He touched his head. “In here.”

  I put a hand on his arm. “The weight has lifted from you, Delph. I don’t think you’ll ever stutter again. And I’m so sorry I had to put you through that. So very sorry, Delph, because you’re my friend. My only one.”

  He looked at me and then to the sky. In the Noc light he looked like a very young again, running alongside me through the woods with nary a care in his heart. And the same for me. I couldn’t even imagine what that would feel like anymore. Even though we weren’t old, we were old with all that we carried inside.

  He glanced at me, and the look on his face made me want to weep.

  He touched my hand with his. “You’re my friend too. And I’d take you over all other Wugs put together.”

  “I’m glad we got through that together, Delph.” I paused and then decided to just say it. “My parents had Events. I saw them. They’re not at the Care anymore. They’re gone.”

  He looked at me in horror. “What?”

  The tears slid down my cheeks as I continued. “The fire swallowed them up. It was just like you described, Delph. I had no idea what had happened to them, but now I do.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that, Vega Jane.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see what you saw too.”

  I looked down at the book I still held.

  “What about Outliers? Are they in the book?” I asked.

  He glanced at me and shook his head. “Outliers? Load-a rubbish.”

  I hiked my eyebrows. I had come to agree with him, but I had seen so much that he hadn’t. “Why?”

  “If Outliers are out there, what are they waiting for, then? For us Wugs to build this stonking Wall for them to have to get over? Barmy.”

  “But you’re helping to build the Wall,” I pointed out.

  “And what else can I do?” he said helplessly. “Probably chuck me in Valhall if I didn’t.”

  “That’s why they had to put the reward on Quentin’s head,” I said. The answer had just occurred to me, in fact.

  “Why?” asked Delph. “What do you mean?”

&n
bsp; “They couldn’t simply say he’d had an Event, or a garm had got him. Because that would not have laid the groundwork for the announcement of the Outliers.”

  Delph seamlessly picked up my line of thought. “And then to the building of the Wall. ’Cause the one made the other happen.”

  “Right,” I said, impressed by his logic. Gone was the mumbly-bumbly Delph with the big heart. He was now strong of both mind and body. And I was pretty sure he would need both. To survive.

  What I was about to say might sound to Delph like a spontaneous thought, but I believed part of my mind had been thinking this ever since John left me.

  “Delph,” I said slowly.

  “What?”

  “You asked me if you could come with me through the Quag?”

  He kept his gaze right on me. “That’s right. I did.”

  “But why would you want to leave Wormwood? It’s all you’ve ever known.”

  He scoffed. “What is there here, really, Vega Jane? Forty sessions from now, what will be different about here? And who’s to say there ain’t somethin’ out there, beyond the Quag? If there ain’t been no Wug to go there, how do they know there ain’t nothin’ else? Tell me that. And now they’re putting up this bleedin’ Wall? Har!”

  I was so proud of Delph at that sliver that I wanted to snog him.

  “I don’t think the Wall is being built to keep Outliers out, Delph. I think it’s being built —”

  “To keep us in,” he finished for me.

  “Council has lied to us. Krone, Morrigone, even Thansius,” I said quietly.

  He nodded absently. “I’ll go with you through the Quag, Vega Jane. On the grave of me mum, I will go with you.”

  “Okay,” I said. “If we’re going to really do this, we have to have a plan.”

  He glanced at me. “What sort?”

  I touched Destin around my waist. “For starters, you’re going to have to learn how to fly too.”

  He looked terrified. “Fly? What, up there?” he said, pointing to the sky.

  “Well, that’s sort of the point of flying, Delph.”

  He put his huge hands up in protest. “I never. I couldn’t, Vega Jane. I’m … I’m too big.”

  I stood and motioned for him to stand too and then I turned my back to him. “Put your arms around me.”

  “What?”

  “Put your arms around me, Delph. And hold tight.”

  “Bloody Hel,” he exclaimed, but his arms encircled me. This close, it was surprising how truly big he was, though I had known him all my life.

  “Tighter, Delph, you don’t want to fall.”

  He squeezed me so tight around my middle that I could barely breathe. “Not that bloody tight!” I barked at him. His grip relaxed a bit. “Now together we’re going to jump, on the count of three. One … two … three.”

  We leapt at the same time, straight up. We shot skyward. I could feel Delph’s grip around me tighten. I slowly moved myself forward so that he was now on my back. We raced along only about thirty yards up. The wind whipped over us.

  “Bloody Hel!” Delph exclaimed again.

  I looked back and up and saw that his eyes were closed.

  “Delph, open your eyes. The view is amazing from up here.”

  He opened his eyes and looked ahead of us. His grip lessened and I felt his body, stiff as a rock before, grow relaxed. “’Tis beautiful,” he said in an awed voice.

  “Yes, it is. Just don’t look down yet. It takes some getting used to and —”

  That was a mistake. As soon as I said “don’t look down,” Delph of course looked down. His grip around my waist became iron, his body tensed and he screamed and rolled. That sent us into a dive. We were heading to the ground far faster than I ever had, but then I realized I had never before flown with a 250-pound Wug on my back.

  We were totally out of control. Delph screamed. I screamed. We were a few yards from the ground when I reached back and slapped Delph in the face. He immediately stopped thrashing. I regained control, zoomed upward and then back down in a controlled dive this time and we landed, not smoothly, but we landed. As we sprawled on the ground, I looked over at him.

  “You almost killed us,” I said hotly. Then my anger faded as I remembered how it had been on my first flight. And at least I had been in control. He was just along for the ride. I stood and helped him up. “That was my fault, Delph. It will be better the next time.”

  He looked at me like I was asking him to be best mates with Cletus Loon. “Next time?” he said incredulously. “’Tain’t going to be no next time, Vega Jane.”

  “Do you want to get through the Quag?” He sputtered but said nothing. I continued. “Because if we can fly over parts or all of the Quag, we won’t have to worry about what’s in it.” I stared at him expectantly, tapping my boot against the dirt.

  Delph blinked, slowly took this in and said, “Let’s give it another go, then, Vega Jane. Har!”

  THE NEXT TWO nights, we practiced our flying. Well, I practiced while Delph hung on for his life. Finally, I slipped Destin off and handed it to him. He turned to run like a frightened Wug facing an amaroc.

  “You have to try, Delph,” I said.

  He turned back. “Why? You can fly the thing. All’s I need is to hold on.”

  “We don’t know what might happen. You knowing how to do it by yourself is important.” He looked doubtful until I said, “You have to, Delph, if you want to come along with me.”

  He gingerly took Destin from me. I had uncoiled the chain so that it was longer. Delph was wider at the waist than I was. I helped get it around him and snapped closed a metal hook I had fashioned and added to the chain.

  He just stood there. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now what?” I said in amazement. “Delph, you’ve been flying with me for how long now? What do I do?”

  “You either run and take off or you just jump,” he replied promptly.

  “So don’t you reckon that’s what you want to do?”

  “Should I run or jump?” he asked tentatively.

  Males. You have to lead them to the water and then show them how to slurp it.

  “I don’t care. Pick one.”

  “And once I get up there, what then?”

  “I’ve shown you, Delph. You know how to steer. You know how to land. Just do it like I did it.”

  He backed up, got a running start and leapt. He flew straight and fast. Right into a large bush. I ran over and helped him out. He was coughing and his face was scratched from the prickly leaves.

  “I can’t do this, Vega Jane. I’m no good a’tall. Me feet belong on the ground.”

  “Yes, you can too do it,” I said firmly. “Now, when you run and leap, point your head and shoulders upward. Then you won’t hit the bush again. To turn, you point with whichever shoulder is in the direction you want to go. To head higher up, point your head that way. To come down, point your head and shoulders down. Right before you land, swing your feet down and you’ll land upright.”

  “I’ll bash my head in.”

  “You might,” I said. “But if you do, I’ll put it back together and you can try again.”

  He looked at me dubiously. “You cannae put no smashed head back together.”

  I took the Adder Stone out of my cloak pocket and waved it in front of his face and thought good things. The scratches there vanished. He backed away, looking fearful.

  “What is that thing?” he exclaimed.

  “It heals, Delph. Scratches and smashed heads. Pretty much anything.”

  “It can do that?”

  “Yes, it can,” I replied, though I had no actual experience with fixing smashed heads.

  On his fourth attempt, Delph soared into the air, flew for about a quarter mile, made a long, if ragged, bank, turned back toward me and landed. On his feet. He was so excited at his success that he snatched me off the ground and whirled me around at such a fast pace I thought I would be sick.

  “I did it, V
ega Jane. I’m like a bird, I am.”

  “A very big bird,” I replied. “And put me down before I vomit on you.”

  I decided to show Delph the Elemental. When I first pulled the tiny spear from my cloak pocket, wearing my glove, it was not very impressive to him. And considering it was barely three inches long, I could hardly blame him. But when I focused my thoughts and asked the Elemental to return to its normal state, it grew in my gloved hand to its proper length and assumed its dazzling golden color.

  Delph exclaimed, “How in the bloody Hel does it do that, Vega Jane?”

  “It doesn’t matter to me how it does it, Delph,” I said. “It’s only important that it does it when I need it to.”

  He reached out to take it, but I stayed his hand. “Only with this, Delph,” I said, holding up the glove.

  “If you touch it without the glove, what happens?” he asked.

  “Neither one of us wants to find out, do we?”

  He slipped on the glove and hefted the Elemental. I looked over at a tree about thirty feet distant. “Think in your mind that you want the Elemental to hit that tree. Then throw it that way, like a spear.”

  Delph looked doubtful, but he scrunched up his face — which was a bit comical, though I hid my smile — took aim and let fly.

  The Elemental traveled a few yards and then dove into the dirt. Delph looked over at me, smiling. “Cor blimey. Is that all it does? Har!”

  I took the glove from him, picked up the Elemental, thought about what I wanted it to do and let it fly. The tree disintegrated in a flash of light when the spear struck it. I held out my gloved hand, and the Elemental flew back to it, like the hunter hawks I had seen Duf training up.

  Delph had thrown himself to the dirt when the Elemental hit the tree. When he looked up, I gazed down at him with what I hoped was a sufficiently patronizing look.

  “No, that’s what it does, Delph. Har!”

  Soon, Delph could hit just about anything with the Elemental. I didn’t know if it would be necessary when we tried to pass through the Quag, but I didn’t know it wouldn’t be either.

  Late that night, Delph and I sat at my digs in front of a meager fire while Harry Two snoozed at our feet. Making up my mind, I stood and said, “Now you need to see something.”

  “What?”