“Where is he? Where’s Boytoy? You’ve... you’re about to be..." Jen's face grew pale as she witnessed the carnage surrounding her. "You already were...“
“Yes, we were attacked, Jen. You missed it.” Kurt’s tone was frigid, but Jen ignored the sharpness of his answer as she continued to scan the crowd.
“Damn it Boytoy! Where are you?!”
T.J. took a deep breath and shook his head, his eyes on the ground. Slowly, he moved into the gathered crowd. When he returned shortly after, he was carrying a blood-drenched and bullet-riddled leather coat. He tossed it at Jen’s feet with contempt.
“What the shit is this, Kiddo? Some goddamned souvenir of...“
Jen paused, noticing the silent horror on the crowd’s faces and feeling it herself as she finally recognized the garment. She did not need the answer T.J. gave her
“He was dusted, Jen. Ric’s been dusted.”
Mory forced herself back to her feet, pushing free from Kurt's grasp with all the strength she still had. She staggered over to where T.J. and Jen stood, her bloodless face slack. "What, no. T.J., no, he can't be. Take... take me to him."
Kurt held a hand toward his childhood friend. "Mor, please, if he's..."
"No. T.J., where is he? Where's Ric?"
The dusky younger teen slumped, motioning for Mory to follow him. He headed back into the camp, and the pale young woman staggered after him. They soon came to where Richard Lee rested upon the ground. His arms were still spread wide despite T.J.'s removal of his coat, and his face was frozen in his final moment of defiance. Blood pooled around his body, but Mory paid it no mind as she dashed over to him, falling to her knees beside him.
"Ric? Love, please...." She laid her own bloodstained hands to Ric's chest and lowered her head to let her ear hover above his cold lips. Her matted curls fell over both their faces. Mory whispered desperately to Ric, too quiet for anyone else to hear. "No. No, you're not gone... I can..."
Mory began focusing her power, preparing to pour all she had into her lover's body, but the growing sound of voices gave her pause. She did not need to look up to see the survivors of the attack to know they had begun gathering in a circle around their fallen leader. She could hear the fear and the doubt in their voices, and she knew their hope was hanging by a thread. No breath came from Ric's lips, and his chest was still beneath her hand. She knew he was dead. Her mind raced back to the first night after the group had sworn service to the Irishmen, when Jen had compared her to Christ. Her powers had brought Father Book back from the very brink after he had been assaulted by the Sixes, and they had grown immeasurably since that day.
"Ric, hold on... I'll... I'll..."
She kissed his blood-flecked lips, and once more began to let the power surge through her battered body. She would bring him back. She would give the people of the Zero back their champion. She had the power. She was preparing to let her energy flow into Ric's cold flesh when the thoughts came to her, the memory of how Jen's comparison that night had made her stomach clench, and the memory of what Ric had said about the responsibility that came with power. She could not be certain what she was about to try would work as she hoped, or that it would succeed at all. Could she bring back Ric's mind and soul, or would her power only return life to his empty body? Even if she could be certain of success there would be no convincing them that she was not some deity to be worshipped, and what depths of zealotry might the people of the Zero fall to if they believed they were beyond death?
"You... you would not have wanted that, would you?"
Mory fought down the tears as she let the growing charge of energy within her fade. She rose to her feet, brushing her blood-soaked curls away from her face as she turned to the gathering with a resolute expression.
"Our leader is gone. Come, gather the wounded in the central plaza and I will save those who yet can be saved. T.J., if you can bear it, see to Ric's memories?"
She did not wait for a response, moving stoically toward the plaza. The citizens of the Zero moved to obey her request, their broken resolve seeming bolstered by the strength of their Saint. None of them paid mind to T.J. as he knelt by Ric and laid a hand to his brow, nor to Jen as she fell to her own knees, sobbing and screaming her grief into the cold December sky.
32
Sunrise on Christmas morning was cold and bleak, the skies overcast. Snow fell down softly, its pure white innocence swiftly sullied by filth and the grime like everything else the city touched. At the Zero's gates, Jennifer Motosuwa leaned against her car, the stub of a hand-rolled cigarette between her lips.
“You’re sure you won’t stay, Dollface?”
Jen turned haggard eyes to the equally-worn form of Kurt Petrovich as he approached her.
“Just ‘Jen,’ Killer. Just Jen.”
“You’re sure you won’t stay, Jen?”
Jen let her gaze drift over to Kurt’s scarred face and its now-sightless left eye, then she took the last long draw from her smoke before casting it away.
“Nah. There’s no place for me here now, Killer.”
“No one’s saying that. No one I know is even thinking it.”
Jen smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “I’m sure you’ve seen everyone’s beliefs through your one great eye. Don’t pick at those scars by the way, sav?”
Kurt’s tone was serious, his cyclopean gaze pointed. “I don’t need two eyes to see you’re avoiding the subject.”
“Touché.” Jen took a long breath and held it for a moment, then breathed out in abject misery. “I abandoned him, Killer. I abandoned my best friend. Damn it, I abandoned my brother! I abandoned him, and now he’s dead. He’s going to be a martyr to these people, a goddamned hero and legend like he always wanted but to do it he ended up dead and goddamn it if I’d been there to watch his back like I always had been before."
Jen's usual cocky self-assurance was stripped away, leaving her emotionally naked and raw before the scarred and unready new Boss of the Zero. Kurt simply shook his head, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“Maybe he’d still have lived, maybe he’d have still died and the not knowing is something you’ll always have to live with."
Jen’s expression slackened, and Kurt quickly shook his head.
“I’m not guilt-tripping you Jen, I’m making a point. You have to live with it. I didn’t know Ric nearly as long as you did, but he, and you too let’s not forget? You two are the reason I’m here now, alive and, if not cozy, at least getting by without too much complaint. Not to cheapen it for you but Ric died for the sake of others, and you’re not the only one feeling that loss.”
Jen groaned, her look of self-disgust growing and her face growing a shade paler.
“Mory's still taking it hard, then.”
“Yeah. You lost a brother. The rest of us lost a leader and a damned loyal friend. Mory lost both of those, and her lover besides, though not all the same person in her case. And that was with the added bonus of having to turn on her godmother and fight her own father to save my sorry ass.”
“Shit,” Jen shook her head, “Fine. I’ll stay. For the funeral, at least.”
“And after that?”
“After that it’s time for greener pastures. Ones that I earn for myself.”
“You helped us make this place, you know.”
Jen sighed again, slouching down against the car with her head resting on its roof. “You know, this reminds me of a show that Ric loved. It had the same main actor as another one he was fond of.
She shook her head softly before reaching to pull another smoke from her hip pocket, letting it linger unlit between her fingers.
“Hell, it might have been what made him agree to the whole ‘let’s go to New York’ thing. Anyway, cops in New York, and their dead boss is being given his rites or something. The lead cop's words must've really stuck with Ric, seeing how he loved to shoot them back at me when I was doubting his latest plan to save the world.
“What words were those?”
“Noble sentiment.”
Jen smiled thinly as she brought the cigarette to her lips. She fished a box of matches from her pocket, then she struck one to light the smoke, taking a long draw from it.
“Yeah. Ric found his place, Killer. He found his place and you all stood beside him. And I didn’t. We always said it was the two of us, together from the beginning to the end. Cradle, or at least hospital room, to the grave. To the... to the grave..." Jen forced down the tears as they began to flow, burying them beneath her usual mask of cool aloofness. “But that's just it, Killer. When he made his stand, I didn’t stand beside him. That’s why I have no place here,” Jen shook her head and pushed off the car, heading into the camp’s interior, “That’s why I have to go.”
Kurt began to protest, but he let the words go unspoken. He simply shook his head and moved to follow her.
◆◆◆
Morgan Whitechapel sat alone upon a makeshift bed, a bed that until two days ago had held two bodies. Though she knew that she was surrounded by people who cared for her and desired her well-being, in that moment Mory felt truly alone. She had held in her grief on the day Ric died, hidden her tears and put on a brave face for the sake of those who now looked to her for support. She was no stranger to being strong for others' benefit. The others had to come first. They needed her. Mory sighed at the thought, falling back into the pillows and blankets in their haphazard piles. She closed her eyes, but she knew she would find no reprieve in slumber’s embrace. She had to face the cold world in which her brother had fled to join her father. The world from which the man she loved, her brave, foolish crusader from faraway California, was gone. He had been taken from her like so many things before, taken like her mother, like her loving father, like her dreams and her and hopes. Ric had given her the kind of hope she thought she would never dare to hold again, and now in the bed left cold by his absence, slowly losing his scent as air and time drew it away from their fabric, Mory felt truly forsaken. It was the bed's bitter emptiness that finally allowed her to let go of her strong front, the facade of gentle stoicism borne for the sake of the rest of the camp. As she had done in the quiet of the chapel what felt like a lifetime ago, Mory finally allowed herself her tears.
She wept, and wept bitterly.
33
“She’s been in to check on Shelly, at least?”
T.J. looked across the table over his half-eaten breakfast to nod to Jo, and the Preserve exile shook her head.
“Something’s on your mind, isn’t it? Something not involving the attack or our fallen hero and those who died with him.”
T.J. nodded again, reluctantly. “Yeah, I guess there is.”
Jo forced a smile, and she ran a hand through her thick curls. “What, then?”
“I just feel so out of place. Compared to Ric, or Kurt, or Mory. Or you.”
“Last I checked you were one of the PHEs around here, not me?”
T.J. shook his head. “Sure, I have… powers but for what? I read memories, can share them. Not going to save the world like that.”
“You’re sure, there?”
The teen looked to the exiled former Preserver in confusion, and Jo smiled to him reassuringly.
“I’d say that makes you the most important one of all, T. Someone has to tell the stories of those who no longer can tell them for themselves. Otherwise those stories will never be heard, right?”
“I guess I hadn’t thought about it that way. Maybe that’s true, I… I dunno honestly. But it’s somethin’ to think about?”
“Something to take your mind off the situation we’re in right at the time?”
He nodded, quietly. “Yeah, that too.”
Jo gave T.J. a self-satisfied smile as she nodded to him. “We’ll get by, one way or another T.”
“How can you be so sure?”
The young woman leaned over the table to give T.J. a quick kiss on the lips. “I have faith in you. And in the others.”
T.J. stammered and blushed, but finally managed to nod. "I... yeah...I do too."
◆◆◆
Benny stood at Mory's door, hesitation plain upon his face. He carefully balanced a crude tray holding with a steaming bowl of the morning’s breakfast mash in his arms.
“Miss Whitechapel?”
There was no response, and Benny repeated himself twice more before finally shaking his head. He gently placed the tray down gently on the small table that stood beside the entrance.
“I left you breakfast, Miss Whitechapel. It’s here by breakfast and dinner from yesterday.”
Benny shook his head again and prepared to head back toward the center of camp. He stopped when he heard Mory's soft, strained voice of call to him.
“You can bring it in, if you want, Benny. Come in out of the snow for a bit?”
The former Six found himself weighing options again. He doubted it was very appropriate for him to be in the Boss’ quarters, talking alone to the Boss’ moll, when the Boss’ body was not yet laid to proper rest. On the other hand, said ‘moll’ had barely left those quarters since the morning after the attack. Mory had retreated there upon finishing rounds of tending the survivors, providing miracles which had left her barely more alive than her late beloved Ric by the time she had finished. Benny worried that Mory's efforts had been a failed attempt on her part to make her way to Ric's side, and it was that worry that finally led him to take up the tray and slip though the door.
Mory knelt down on her knees upon the cold ground, with Ric's ruined leather coat wrapped about her slim shoulders. She desperately clutched a worn rosary in her hand, and her head was bowed. Though her eyes were closed it was plain she had been weeping. She looked up as Benny entered, and when she spoke her voice was tired and apologetic.
“I’m sorry if...“
The penitent man shook his head, holding up a hand up to halt her apology mid-sentence. He laid the cooling tray of food on the table beside her bed. “Nothing for you to be apologizing for, Miss Whitechapel.”
“I guess that we have different ideas about ‘nothing’, Benny. I wasn’t there for him, for either of them and now one’s in the arms of the Father I attacked and the other’s waiting burial soon as the ground’s able to be dug.”
“And neither of those is any fault of yours, Miss Whitechapel.”
“Just call me 'Morgan', Benny. I know you won’t just use Mory, but at least 'Morgan'?”
“If you would rather I did, Morgan. But that still doesn’t change the truth of it. Your hands aren’t to be held in account for none of this that happened.”
“I told him to watch out for Ronnie.”
“Because you’re a better sister than that brat ever had a right to ask for. One that he never appreciated having.”
Mory clumsily rose, slumping down into a rickety chair by the table. She shook her head softly.
“Maybe I should have just let him go. T.J. saw Ric's memories, and he told me... he saw that he... that Ronnie was the one who...“
The pale woman seemed unable to finish the thought, to put the painful and wretched truth to words in her own voice. Benny shook his head quietly and offered her his hand. She reached out hesitantly and took it in her own, holding to him weakly.
“In trying to save one, I doomed another.”
Benny gave her hand a squeeze, shaking his head. “Ric wouldn’t think that, Morgan. He could have just as easily put a gun to my head and killed me that day in the truck. I’m not as stupid as my past association might suggest, you know. It didn’t take me long to figure out it was him speaking, not God.”
Mory blinked, looking up at Benny. “Then why? I mean, during the attack
you could have...“
Benny sighed, ruefully. “Because the more I thought on it, the more I realized how easily he could have just killed me. How easily he could have blown the Irishmen away when they came to take the guns, or countless other things like that.
The penitent man shook his head.
"I realized that was something the Reverend and his followers would never have done. They would never show such mercy. Some might call that foolish. I won’t defend them, or what they’ve done, or what they would do given the chance. But so many of us... we needed something, something that...“
“Something that you could believe in.”
Mory smiled softly as she said it. It was a ghost of a smile, one that faded swiftly, but it was enough to give Benny a bit of hope.
“Yeah… that, and being honest? Something to blame, something besides ourselves to hold in account for the world we’re in.”
Mory shook her head at that, giving Benny's hand a gentle squeeze. “It’s so much easier, isn’t it? To find something to blame?”
“Something like yourself?”
The pale woman’s jaw went slack, and her eyes looked away as she struggled for a response. Failing to find one, Mory finally leaned back in the chair with her eyes closed.
“I’m Catholic, Benny. Self-blame and guilt come standard,” her lips twitched upward in a thin smile, "But you know, for a Protestant you talk some decent sense.”
Benny chuckled, shaking his head. “Papists.”
Both of them shared a much-needed, if somewhat half-hearted, laugh.
34
Mory sat quietly at one of the central plaza's tables, idly poking at her midday meal. Noticing her, Kurt moved to take a seat across from the pale woman.
“Back to the land of the living, then?”
Mory looked up, smiling weakly. “Seems like we have enough of our number who aren’t any longer.”
Outlaws of Babylon Page 15