by T. J. Klune
His mask was wet around his eyes. He reached up toward Cavalo’s face with the blackened fingers.
Cavalo grabbed his wrist, stopping him. Lucas didn’t try to pull away.
“What is this?” he asked finally.
Lucas pointed first at Cavalo, then back at himself. He held up a single finger and shook his head. I know who you are, James. I know that now. But I can’t tell you who I am beyond what you see because I don’t know.
“You don’t know your surname?” he asked, sounding surprised.
Patrick never told me.
“What about your mother?”
I don’t know who she is. There was the shark’s grin again. Maybe I don’t have one.
Cavalo snorted. “Sounds right.” He looked at the black fingers. “Why?” he asked finally.
And Lucas gave the only answer that mattered: Because it’s all I have left to give.
Cavalo let his hand go.
Lucas started under his right eye. The paint had a faint medicinal tang mixed in with the scent of pine. It made his eyes water briefly. He blinked away the burn. Lucas’s face was close, his brow furrowed as he concentrated. They breathed the same air. Cavalo thought he was burning. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt like this. Elko, maybe. Before it burned. When she was alive and Jamie was alive, and even though the world was a dark and scary place, they had managed to make something for themselves. Cavalo had pulled himself out of the hole dug by his father with a shovel made of wasps and made a life. He burned brightly back then.
Like he burned now.
He knew what it was. He didn’t name it, but he knew.
He didn’t trust himself to speak.
Lucas finished, frowning as he sat back on his heels. Eventually, he nodded. He stood and stepped back, motioning for Cavalo to look in the mirror.
He did. His reflection was cracked, but that was okay. It made sense for him. When he finally met his own eyes staring back at him, all the shattered pieces of his life slid together in a way they hadn’t before. He couldn’t tell what new shape they’d made and he knew the pieces didn’t fit as they were supposed to, but it didn’t matter.
The man who stared back at him was not the man that had once been. The mask saw to that. It stretched out away from his eyes, streaks curling down around his cheeks and back toward his ears. Flecks of the paint stuck in the stubble on his chin. He reached up and wiped them away. And when he did, he focused on Lucas standing behind him, watching his reaction.
He turned then, that unnamed thing rearing its ugly head. He brought his hand up to the back of Lucas’s neck and brought their foreheads together.
“I’m going to kill him,” he said.
Lucas gave him a nasty smile. We both will.
“You stay with me. No matter what. At my side.”
Yes.
“We’re going to die.”
The smile only widened.
Cavalo kissed him. It was the only thing he could do.
CAVALO OPENED the door to the vacant house. Stepped out into the cold. He wasn’t surprised to see the town again gathered before him. Their eyes widened when they saw the masks. He knew he looked like one of them. The Dead Rabbits. The monsters. Those psycho fucking cannibals.
And he did not care. He bared his teeth.
The people took a step toward him, determined. He could almost hear their bees.
“It’s time!” he shouted for all to hear. “Before you fall, you take as many of them down with you as you can and send them back into the hell they crawled from. And when the last breath leaves your body, go knowing that today is the day we rose up against the dark. We fight together so we don’t have to die alone.”
The people of Cottonwood raised their weapons and screamed in return.
Cavalo began to smile. It was a good day to die.
the battle of cottonwood
THEY WAITED.
For all the bluster and noise he’d made, they waited.
And at first there was nothing.
Cavalo didn’t allow himself to hope that there was nothing coming. He knew it was only a matter of time.
Two o’clock approached on the day of the solstice. Only a few of the Patrol walked along the planks on the outer wall, Cavalo and Lucas among them. The rest were inside, waiting.
Lucas scowled down at the southern road, his eyes darting along the tree line. Bad Dog paced behind him.
“We good?” Cavalo asked them both.
Lucas shook his head but didn’t answer.
They’re coming, Bad Dog said.
“Can you smell them?”
He sniffed the air once, twice. No. Not yet. But I know.
“Together?”
Bad Dog bumped his knee. Together.
Cavalo watched the trees.
The bees in his head were surprisingly calm, but then they always were when he went to war. They’d be there after. Waiting for him.
And then it began.
Bad Dog noticed it first. He sniffed the air. Stopped. Sniffed again. Growled low in the back of his throat. The hairs on his haunches stood on end as his lips twitched over his teeth. Here, he said. They’re here. They’re here.
Lucas tensed.
Cavalo looked out toward the southern road. There was someone walking toward Cottonwood. Alone. A man. Cavalo couldn’t make out who it was, but somehow he knew.
“Patrick,” he said quietly.
The word spread quietly behind him. He heard gasps and muffled cries that were quickly silenced. The Patrol came up quickly, resting the barrels of their rifles between the wooden slats of the outer wall. All guns pointed at the approaching man.
They waited.
Patrick was dressed like a Dead Rabbit. Wrist braces made of deer hide painted black and red. Arm bands around his biceps. A black coat with dull spikes along the shoulders. Fur around his neck. A heavy-looking axe was secured on his back, the handle at an angle over his right shoulder. The blade was silver and clean. His boots crunched the snow as he stopped yards away from the gate. He was close enough that Cavalo could see his face clearly. He looked amused.
“Hello!” he called, as if he’d just stumbled upon them. “How are we today?” He didn’t seem perturbed that he had multiple firearms pointed at him.
Cavalo held his hand below the wall line, making a fist. He didn’t want anyone else speaking out.
“Lucas,” Patrick said. “How nice it is to see you again. It’s been some time, boy.”
Lucas’s hand tightened on his knife.
“Enough,” Cavalo growled. He couldn’t explain the rage he felt at Patrick speaking to Lucas. He had to stop himself from ordering the Patrol to fire everything they had right then. Cavalo knew they were going to die, but he also knew he would feel Patrick’s blood on his skin before day’s end. “Turn around. Go back where you came from while you still can.”
Patrick laughed. “How kind of you to offer. I’ll counter. Give me the boy, and no one will get hurt.”
“No.”
“No? No?” He laughed. “That’s… unfortunate. I expected more from you, Cavalo.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“Yes, yes. I’m sure you are.” He took a deep breath and blew it out. It became vapor and swirled around his face. “Brisk day! Should be perfect for what I have in mind.”
“He talks too much,” Frank snarled. “I have the shot.”
“Hold,” Aubrey said.
“Uh-oh,” Patrick said. “That sounded serious.”
“What do you want?” Cavalo asked him.
“You know what I want. I thought I was very clear about that. How are your fingers, by the way?”
“Healing.”
“Good! I felt just awful about that when I left. But what’s done is done, am I right?”
Cavalo said nothing.
Patrick didn’t seem to mind. “I must admit, Cavalo. It’s tiring calling out to you like this. Let’s talk face to face, you and I. Like the genera
ls of old before they went to war. It was much more civilized back then, I should think. Things such as this were more about the theatrics rather than the bloodshed.” He spread his arms and danced then, tapping his feet in the thin snow on the road, spinning in a circle before finishing with a shuffle of his right foot. He chuckled. “It’s all about the show, Cavalo.” He grinned up at them. He looked like his son then. Cavalo felt sick.
“Unarmed,” Cavalo said.
Patrick nodded. He took the axe from behind him and tossed it away in the snow. Looked back up expectantly.
“All of it.”
“Such fire,” Patrick said. “I assure you that’s all.” He lifted his coat and spun in a slow circle.
Cavalo glanced at Lucas, who nodded tightly. That’s all he carries.
Cavalo handed over his knife and pistol. His rifle was set against the wall. Lucas took them from him without question. He turned from the wall toward the ladder down to the interior. Before he’d stepped down the rungs, Lucas stopped him.
Be careful, he said. Cavalo could see the anger spilling over.
“I know.”
Lucas shook his head. You don’t. He pursed his lips and blew between the two of them. He’s not like us. He doesn’t have the bees. He is the bees.
This Cavalo knew.
He reached the bottom of the ladder where Hank stood. “You sure about this?” Hank asked him.
“Buys us more time. Anything?”
“Some movement in the trees. Binocs are helping but I can’t tell how many.”
“He won’t have brought them all. They need Dworshak guarded.”
“He didn’t need them all for Grangeville,” Hank reminded him.
Cavalo ignored him.
They raised the gate only a foot or so off the ground, giving Cavalo enough room to crawl under through the snow. He stood, and the gate closed behind him. He walked slowly toward Patrick. He wanted to glance up at Lucas, but he didn’t look away from Patrick.
And Patrick smiled as he approached. Up close, it was more and more like Lucas. The bees wanted him to lash out. Cavalo tried to hold them back.
He stopped just out of arm’s reach. He raised his coat and spun slowly to show he was unarmed.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Patrick asked when he faced him again.
“What’s that?”
“Being here. Now. You. I. This whole… thing.” He looked at Cavalo earnestly.
“How so?”
“You have something I want. You won’t give it to me. You think you’ll win. I know you won’t. This whole back and forth is just… it’s funny.”
“No,” Cavalo said. “I don’t think we’ll win.”
Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “No?”
“No.”
“You expect to die, then.”
“Yes.”
The showman’s smile faded off Patrick’s face. Lucas had been right. He was nothing but bees. Before Cavalo could blink, Patrick had snapped out an arm, wrapping his hand around Cavalo’s throat. Cavalo could hear shouts of surprise and anger coming from behind him, and he frantically waved them off. They couldn’t take the chance. Not yet.
“What game are you playing?” Patrick snarled at him.
“No game,” Cavalo managed to say. “We fight… because we have… nothing else… to lose.” His own bees screamed in his head, demanding he rip Patrick apart, that he start by breaking every bone in the hand and arm that held him. He pushed them away. It would do him no good.
“Nothing?” Patrick said. “You have everything to lose. All of those people. I will start with their children. We will eat their toes and fingers. You will watch while every single person you know is consumed, and then and only then will I start in on you. Your death will not be quick. It will not be painless. You will feel every little prick of your skin, and when you’re about to die, right before your eyes close for the last time, I will cut off your head.”
Cavalo laughed. It hurt, the fingers on his throat were really far too tight, but he laughed. He couldn’t stop himself even if he tried. It came out weak and crazed.
“Such fire,” Patrick said. “How different things could have been.” He dropped his hand from Cavalo’s throat. Cavalo coughed, lungs burning.
“What do you hope to have happen here?” Patrick asked him. “You’ve already said you’re prepared to die. Just what do you think you’ll achieve?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Cavalo said.
A sharp wind picked up, blowing between them, flurries of snow swirling around their heads, and Cavalo knew he was back in the snow globe again. Everything was shaking, and he’d lost something, Charlie, and he had to fight down the urge to laugh again, knowing he’d be lost to it if he gave in.
“You wear his mask,” Patrick said.
“Yes.”
“Dare I ask why?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“Did he? You’ll never see him again after today. I will get what I need from him and then throw him to my wolves. They’ll take him again and again and again. And when he’s dripping with come and blood, they’ll take him again.”
Cavalo’s jaw tightened, nothing more.
“I was a man, once,” Patrick said.
“Not anymore?”
He shook his head. “No. You can’t do what I’ve done, seen what I’ve seen, and still be a man.”
“You’re his father.” An accusation, a threat.
“I am. I know something of fathers. You could say I came from them.”
Cavalo knew he spoke of more. “The Forefathers.”
Patrick ignored him. “You will die. You know this?”
“Yes.”
“And you won’t give me what I ask for?”
“No.”
“Grangeville is gone. No one is coming for you.”
“I know. I was there.”
Patrick nodded. “I thought you were. Did you see them? They burned prettily.”
Easy, he told himself. Easy. “Did they hurt?”
“The burning? I would assume so, even—”
“The tattoos.”
Patrick took a step back. Recovered quickly. Smiled that showman smile. “The tattoos,” he repeated.
Cavalo said nothing. He’d heard what he needed to hear. Even if Lucas had told him that Patrick carried the rest of the schematics etched onto his skin, it helped to have confirmation. Though he didn’t know what he’d do with it.
“I like you,” Patrick breathed. “This will be a good day.”
“It may not be us,” Cavalo said, “and it may not be today, but one day, and one day soon, everything you know will come crashing down upon you. Someone, be it the Forefathers, St. Louis, or the UFSA. Someone will come, and you will be nothing but a bad dream.”
“I am the Forefathers,” Patrick snarled at him. “I am St. Louis. They are nothing without me, and once Dworshak is operational, I will launch an offensive unlike anything that this world has ever seen.”
“You shine,” Cavalo said. “Darkly.”
“Good-bye, Cavalo,” Patrick said. “Remember that I gave you a chance.”
He turned, picking his axe up from the snow. He dusted it off and slid it onto his back again, securing it. He started to walk away, then stopped.
Cavalo waited.
Patrick rocked his head back and howled. It echoed across the snowy fields before it died.
At first there was nothing.
And then from the forest came answering cries. It sounded like hundreds of voices mixing together for a single roar.
Cavalo knew then just how fucked they were.
Patrick walked back toward the trees without another word. Cavalo waited until he disappeared into the forest before he turned back toward Cottonwood. He didn’t run, though he wanted to. Instead, he kept his breathing even, feeling the sweat on his brow and his fingernails digging into the palm of his hand. The mask on his face was heavy and itchy. His eyes were locked onto Lucas, who glared down at him
from the wall. The gate opened, and Cavalo dropped underneath it.
Hank was waiting for him. His face was pale.
“How many are there?” Cavalo demanded.
“Dozens,” he said. “More. I don’t….”
“Nothing changes,” Cavalo said, pushing past him.
Hank grabbed his arm. “We could still run. Head for the prison.”
Cavalo stopped. Took a deep breath. Loosened his shoulders. “No,” he said. “We can’t. This won’t end here. You know it won’t.” He pulled himself from Hank’s grasp. “Get everyone inside the inner wall and into place. They know what to do. Do it now. It’s time to end this.” He didn’t turn to see Hank’s reaction. It didn’t matter. Not anymore.
Cavalo pulled himself up the ladder, taking two rungs at a time. Lucas and Bad Dog waited for him at the top. The Dead Rabbit’s knife flashed in the low light. Cavalo didn’t stop himself. He hooked a hand around the back of his neck, pulling Lucas toward him. He kissed him fiercely, lips pushing back against his teeth. If this was their end, then so be it. But he was going to go out as he wanted to. And with who he wanted to.
Lucas gripped his sides. They panted as their lips pulled away. Forehead to forehead, the man and the monster breathed each other in, eyes wide and surrounded by black oil rubbed into the skin. Cavalo thought he could have been looking into a mirror.
Lucas reached up and motioned between the two of them. This… this thing. Between us.
“It burns,” Cavalo said. “It hurts. I’m stung by it.”
Lucas nodded. I didn’t mean for this to happen.
“I know.”
I am the dark.
“I know.”
But you stand by me.
“Yes,” he whispered.
Why?
That thing that could not be named flared inside of him. And for the first time in a very long time, Cavalo spoke the truth of it. “Because I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
James.
“Whatever happens,” Cavalo said roughly, “you stay with me. At my side. Follow me, and I’ll follow you. We’ll get through this.” The tone of his voice left no room for argument, even though his words rang false.