The Last Twilight

by Marjorie M. Liu

  “Are you still naïve?” snapped his father. “Even if you explain, even if by some miracle those women understand and are not frightened, they cannot be trusted. Not in the long term. Not when the child becomes difficult. Inhuman.”

  “It is not just one life at stake, but all of the shifting kind,” Kaumau said. “I abhor the idea of stealing children from their mothers, but what choice do we have? It is not the same as having a mate who loves and protects your young. These women were forced, and even if they wish to keep them, they believe their babies will be human. Like them. Not … different.”

  “Oh, my God,” Rikki said. “You realize what you’re saying, don’t you?”

  Amiri could not speak. He kept thinking of the mother he had never known, his anger that he could not know her—his fear that even if he had, she would have rejected him.

  “They must be given the choice,” he forced himself to say, the words cutting him. With terror, with heartache, with the sudden piercing knowledge that he finally understood why his father had made his choice. Feeling inside himself the desire to do the same. Take the children, run and hide. Protect them from the world.

  “But if they choose yes,” hissed his father, “what will you do? Keep them prisoners so they do not betray their children, even by accident? Send them far away? And how will the children learn? Will they grow up thinking they are freaks? Monsters?”

  “There must be a way,” Blue said. “A better way.”

  The old man’s face twisted with disdain, and Rictor began to laugh, very quietly. “You poor fucks. Forget turning this shit over to the government. You need this facility, just like you need to step in where the Consortium left off. At least until you have a handle on all that supernatural spawn.”

  Max closed his eyes. “I’m going to go look for Elena and Artur. We need to call Roland and talk about this now.”

  “Talk all you want,” Rictor said, his smile fading into something dark, serious. “But there’s no right answer. You know that, don’t you? Someone is going to pay. You just have to decide if it will be the children or their mothers.”

  Blue balanced the box of ashes under his arm and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We’re forgetting that the Consortium may want this place back. We’ve got their scientists, their experiments. Do we prepare for a siege?”

  “No,” Aitan murmured. “That is one thing you need not concern yourself with. Except for the unborn, little of value was kept in this facility. Notes were electronically transmitted, and biological samples—sperm, genetic material, blood—were regularly flown out. Even the viral weapon was imported.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why they would just abandon this place,” Rikki said. “They put so much into it.”

  “And it was exposed. Tainted. The Consortium prefers to hide, to avoid direct confrontation, though it occasionally engages in it. Abandoning facilities is not new to them. The Russian lab was destroyed after my son escaped.”

  “We tried to go back there,” Blue said. “It had been filled in with concrete.”

  Aitan shrugged. “The Consortium has other facilities. Unfortunately, I do not know their locations.”

  “You know quite a bit,” Max said, carefully.

  Aitan tilted his head. “As Broker would say, I made it my business.”

  “And they will not want the women?” Amiri pressed. “Can you be certain?”

  His father hesitated. Max gave him a long hard look, then turned away, started walking. Francis stopped him, and glanced at Moochie. “We’ll go with you. We also have some insight into the running of this place.”

  “Aitan?” Max glanced over his shoulder. “We could use your help, as well.”

  Amiri watched his father hesitate. He expected the old man to say no, but found himself surprised once again. Aitan spared him a quick look—steady, without emotion—and followed Max and the others as they walked off. Kamau joined him, and there was a camaraderie, a friendship between the two shape-shifters that Amiri could not look away from until the men crossed out of sight. He had never seen the old man have a friend, or work with anyone—not until coming here.

  Fourteen years. So much had changed. In himself, as well. He was a different man. All the pain, all the hardship—worth it, for bringing him to this point, to be with these people.

  He brought Rikki’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. Savored her slow worried smile, her thoughts still clearly on women and babies and impossible questions.

  “Come,” he said quietly, his own heart knotted. “We have men to scatter.”

  But in the end, all they did was dump the ashes of Broker and Jaaved over the edge of the ravine. Rictor spit on the ground. Blue sighed. Amiri watched Rikki watch the sky, and said nothing at all. Words were inadequate for the uneasiness he felt. The fear that none of this was over.

  Of course it is not over, whispered his father. Not until you die, cub.

  A disquieting thought. Amiri watched Rikki walk ahead with Blue. He caught snippets of conversation—Eddie’s name. Blue said, “He’s resting, but he’s still not well. He’s having trouble … controlling things.”

  “Eddie was changed,” Rictor rumbled, beside Amiri, too quietly for the others to hear. “Broker’s virus. It altered the boy. Not something I could fix.”

  “You did what you could,” Amiri said, concerned. He slowed his pace, deliberately putting distance between themselves and the others.

  “Ah,” Rictor said. “I sense a Deep Conversation coming on.”

  Amiri glanced at him. “You are not alone. You have … friends.”

  “Do I now?”

  He smiled faintly. “Do not push your luck.”

  Rictor also smiled, but it faded, fast. “About why …”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Why I came to help you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yes. Elena freed me from the Consortium. You know that.”

  “She spoke of a circle made of sand and light. She passed through it, and … something broke. You were free.”

  “Free,” Rictor rumbled, as though the word meant something different to him. “Not many could have done what she accomplished. Takes a certain kind of blood. Different from the Magi, from anything mortal. She doesn’t know.”

  Amiri felt cold. “And?”

  He looked down at his hands. “Her blood, the act of freeing me, created a bond. I don’t know how or why. I tried to get rid of it, but I never could. I … felt her with me all the time. Ever since that moment. It didn’t matter where I went, in this world or others. She was always with me. It was how I knew she was worried about you.” Rictor stopped, and looked at him. “You don’t know what it was like. How much it hurt. To love her and feel her and not … be able to touch her.”

  Amiri tried to keep his voice steady. “You speak of the past. What of now?”

  “Now,” Rictor whispered, and the pain that entered his gaze was livid, raw. “Now I feel nothing. She’s gone.”

  “She is your friend.”

  “She belongs to Artur.” Rictor closed his eyes. “I have nothing left of her. And for all the pain it caused me, that is what I miss, Amiri. Nothing else, not even the power. Just that. Just her. Inside of me.”

  Amiri tried to imagine loving and losing Rikki in such a way, and the thought was crippling. He would not be strong enough to bear such a burden. But Rictor …

  “You are still immortal,” he said. “You are still what you were, even if you are powerless.”

  “I suppose,” he said, and gave Amiri a hard look. “If you ever tell anyone what I told you—”

  “You will kill me. Yes, I am quite clear on that.”

  “And you owe me.”

  “We will argue about that some other time.”

  “Already scared?”

  “With you, always,” Amiri said—and found himself, several minutes later, living within an odd bitter irony when they entered the main hall and found Elena and Artur, pale and dressed in blue, heads
bowed close, talking without speaking. Memories surged: the four of them, together, in Russia, depending on each other for their lives.

  Elena waved when she saw them, but her smile widened only for Rictor. She smiled at him like there was a rainbow in the sky. Rictor, on the other hand, showed nothing. Heart of stone. Implacable. Dangerous. Master of lies.

  Elena hugged him. And Amiri watched Artur watch Rictor, and he knew there were no secrets between the men. Not when it came to her.

  “Rictor,” she said.

  “Elena,” he said.

  Amiri wandered away. He looked for Rikki. Found his father instead.

  A’sharia and Kimbareta were with him. He was teaching the children to track. Amiri felt some surprise that the old man was including the boy in the lesson, but his father looked at him and said, “I am not the man I used to be,” which was enough of a shock that Amiri found himself sitting down on a fallen tree, watching his father teach the children with a gentleness that Amiri had never been shown. It made him jealous, but only for a moment. Mostly, it made him sad.

  “I thought you would be with the others,” Amiri said.

  “I gave them the truth,” replied the old man. “What more is there?”

  “Much more,” he said.

  Aitan sighed, and looked at the children. “Go and play. Stay close.”

  A’sharia smiled—sweet, breathtaking—and led Kimbareta deep into the bush. Leaving the two men alone.

  My sister, Amiri thought, staring after her. Still marveling. All of this, remarkable. And painful.

  “Life is painful,” said Aitan, again surprising Amiri. “And yes, I betrayed you. But not in my heart. I had to play a careful game with Broker. He murdered A’sharia’s mother, and then took the child as a way of controlling me.”

  Amiri had to struggle with that. “How did he find you?”

  Aitan closed his eyes. “When I killed Angelique and drove you away, I went back home to visit with Wambui, your nurse. I believed you kept in contact with her, even after you left.”

  “Of course,” Amiri replied. “She was the closest person I had to a mother. It grieved me greatly when she passed away.”

  Aitan sighed. “We were not on the best of terms, even at the end. I told her what had transpired between us, and she was so cross with me, so bitterly angry, she cursed me.”

  “Wambui?” Amiri frowned. “She was no witch.”

  “We kept it from you. She had gifts, powers. That is why I knew she could be trusted with rearing you. But I never expected her to turn on me.”

  Amiri grunted, not entirely sympathetic. “What did she do?”

  His father grimaced. “She put me inside your head as punishment. I experienced everything you did. All your thoughts and fears. Fourteen years inside your mind, cub.”

  “Impossible.

  “So naïve.” A bitter smile touched his mouth. “If it makes you feel better, I learned a great deal. You … raised me … to be a different man.”

  It was difficult to breathe. “You did not search me out.”

  “But I did. When you were captured by the Consortium, I went to find you, to rescue you.” His gaze turned distant, his voice dropping to a whisper. “They caught me, cub. And when I refused to cooperate, they took my woman, and they took my daughter.” He held out his leathery hands. “But now, freedom.”

  Amiri could not stand this. He could not bear to hear more. But he looked into his father’s eyes and said, “Do you hate me? For what you endured?”

  “No,” breathed Aitan. “You are my son, and I love you.”

  Amiri looked away, stricken. His father clapped him on his leg. “Those friends of yours are good people. I will work with them, for a time. And then, when I am done, I will take A’sharia back to Kenya. Perhaps the boy, too. Your sister is fond of him. He makes a good pet for her.”

  Amiri gave him a sharp look. His father laughed, standing. “Come home to Kenya, cub. When your heart can stand it again. There is no need to fear. Not with me, or that woman at your side.”

  “I know,” Amiri said. “I know what she is to me.” And what you are now, as well.

  Aitan sighed. “I am glad you never listened.”

  And that, combined with declarations of affection and mind-reading, was enough to leave Amiri quite rattled, as though the world had teetered and fallen, leaving him still floating in the sky, casting for an anchor.

  He went to hunt for Rikki.

  The odd thing was, Rikki felt safe—even here, where bullet holes still riddled the walls and blood smeared the floors. She could mark death in footsteps, track where lives had ended, but she felt no fear.

  No lingering desire to make it a summer vacation home, either, but still. No fear.

  She passed pregnant women standing in the doorways of their new rooms. Talking with each other, holding hands. Laughing. Sweeping away with their voices the miasma of all that was dark and wrong with this facility. As though pain had never existed here, and that something new was in its place. Possibilities.

  Rikki did not know what to make of that. Women stopped her in the hall, bellies round and large. They wanted to ask her questions about these new people. Whether they were truly safe. Rikki answered them as best she could, given that her French was rusty and she had little to give. Safe, yes. She was certain of that. But nothing else.

  And that felt wrong to her. She wanted to be in the thick of it. She was a doctor; but more, she was one of these women. They had been her future. Broker had promised that, more or less. Just another experiment. What affected them, would affect her. And their children.

  So what now? You give up your career? Everything you’ve worked for? To do what?

  Rikki was not sure. But she knew one thing—she could not go back to the way things had been. Not after everything she had seen and done. Moving backwards never did any good. There was no such thing as time travel, and clinging to the past just made the heart sore.

  So you help, she told herself. You make a difference. Same as always. That much won’t change.

  No. Not on her life.

  She found Jean-Claude in the cafeteria. He sat by the window. She thought Elena must have done something for him. Nothing major, but the swelling had disappeared, and his nose appeared less broken. Rikki kicked out a chair and plopped herself down. Stared, for a moment, at the plate of half-eaten rice and beans he had pushed aside. Her stomach growled. He nudged it toward her. Rikki grabbed his spoon and took a bite. It was good.

  “So,” she said, after several minutes of strained silence, “you did try to warn me.”

  “I had no idea it would be this,” he said, his eyes still bloodshot. “Just rumors. Doctors going missing. Corruption.”

  “And then they came for you.” Rikki put down the spoon. “Your family?”

  “Safe. They wanted only me.”

  “Jean-Claude—”

  “I know,” he said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know,” he said again, gently, reaching out take her hand. “But I am your friend, Rikki Kinn. I saved your life once, yes?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed his fingers, and a faint smile touched his mouth. He raised up his arm, and settled his hand more securely over hers. Dug his elbow into the table.

  “You will not beat me this time,” he said. “And if I win, you will tell me what this place is. All of it. I am so very confused. And if you win, you will do the same.”

  “A girl has to have some secrets, Jean-Claude.”

  He hesitated. “How good it is to see you smile.”

  Good to have a reason to smile, she thought, and slammed his hand—very gently—into the table. At which point he cried foul, laughing, and they gave up the arm wrestling for quieter talk, which was censored and careful and gave nothing away that could prove dangerous to her new acquaintances. She did not like lying to Jean-Claude, though. Not when he seemed to know she was doing just that.

  Rikki eventually excused herself. Her heart hurt. She w
ent to find Amiri.

  And she did. Soon after, walking fast down the hall. He smiled when he saw her—almost, she thought, with relief—and grabbed her hand, tugging her close for a hard long kiss that took away all her pain and confusion.

  “Come,” he whispered in her ear. “I want to run away.”

  “Where no one will find us?”

  “We will be ghosts,” he breathed, kissing her mouth. “We will feast on sunlight and the hearts of shadows.”

  He led her outside, and she felt like a kid again as he pulled her into the forest. The world was safe with Amiri; the danger, the horror melted away into something small and distant that could not touch her, that had never touched her.

  They ran until they were breathless, and leaned against the trunk of a fat tree, impossibly ancient and thick with bulging branches and twisting vines. Good climbing. A better place to hide from the world. Rikki kicked off her shoes, took a deep breath, and jumped, grabbing the low branch. It bent under her weight, but not much, and it was easy enough to swing up, just like the high bar. Markovic and his training. She missed the old man. Almost as much as her father. But the pain was easier now. The loneliness was gone.

  She looked down only once, and found Amiri chasing her. Graceful, easy. Fast. He passed her easily, but it was still a race, and she danced up the tree, scaling it like the colobus monkeys screaming at her, or the full-throated birds flashing wingtips in the corners of her eyes. Her body moved entirely by instinct, and when Amiri looked down and met her gaze she could not fight the fierce grin that spread across her face. Laughter bubbled up her throat.

  “You,” he said, smiling. “You are such a surprise, Rikki Kinn.”

  He reached down and pulled her up until they stood together in the canopy. Her bare feet dug into the smooth bark of a wide branch, thicker than the bumper of a jeep. Better than any balance beam.

  Amiri stood in front of her, perched with ease near the trunk, his face half-hidden in shadows and leaves so that when he looked at her it was, for a moment, like seeing the face of some golden-eyed apparition: too elegant, too wild, to be anything but magic. The heat of his gaze made her dizzy, and she had to glance down, away, so that she felt like she was flying, hovering, caught in a web of air and light. The view was incredible; lush, rolling.