The Horns of Avalon (Purge of Babylon, Book 8)

by Sam Sisavath

“I feel it. Every imaginary day of it.”

  She sucked in a deep, cool breath and looked over at the Trident nearby. It wasn’t late enough that everyone would be asleep already, so most of the crew were probably gathered in the galley over a late-night dinner and maybe a board game. In her wildest dreams (nightmares?) she would never imagine so many people putting their lives in her hands. And why should they? She was a twenty-something civilian with no military training. What the hell did she know about leading people?

  Nothing. Not a damn thing. That was always your job, Will.

  “If Danny’s gone, we’re going to need you even more,” she finally said. “I can’t keep doing this by myself. It’s too much.”

  “You seemed to be doing all right to me. Look, you’ve even adopted an oil rig.”

  “Just the people on it…”

  “You stuck your neck out for strangers.”

  “They had something I needed…”

  “Now who’s bullshitting who?”

  The girl’s voice on the radio flashed across her mind again, begging for her help…

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe I’m just trying to make up for some bad decisions. So what’s your excuse?”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “Tired of what?”

  “Tired of fucking everything up that I touch. I’m tired of trying, Lara.”

  “We’re all tired,” she said. “I’m tired. Carly’s tired. Danny, Gaby, Riley, Hart… We’re all tired, Keo. But we push on, because we don’t give up. You know who gives up?”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Assholes,” she said.

  He smiled. “Assholes, huh?”

  “Don’t be an asshole, Keo. If you won’t stay with us, if you won’t come back to the Trident with me, at least promise me you’re not going out there just to get yourself killed. Tell me you’ll at least try to make it back, and mean it.”

  “What if I can’t?”

  “You can. You just have to make the choice.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay, what?”

  “I’ll do my best. How’s that?”

  She nodded. “Good enough.”

  “Tough oil rig,” he said.

  She reached over and put her hand over his. He pursed his lips and stared off at the darkness and didn’t say anything.

  “I’m sorry about Jordan,” she said after a while.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said softly.

  21

  Keo

  A young blond twenty-something named James led Keo to the Ocean Star’s armory, which took them through the civilian area. Kids peeked out of open doors as they walked through the hallway, and Keo saw people packing up their belongings inside rooms.

  “Looks like everyone’s ready to go,” Keo said.

  “Never thought it’d happen,” James said. “When Riley asked us to join him, I was pretty sure we’d all end up dying out here.”

  “That’s the spirit, kid.”

  James grinned nervously at him. “You have no idea how crazy all of this is.”

  “Oh, I think I know a little bit.”

  “Maybe, but you weren’t there in the early days, back when it was just us and Mercer. He saved our lives. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here. And now we’re betraying him…” He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  I don’t need to understand, kid. I just need a clean shot.

  “So make me understand,” Keo said. “Why is everyone leaving if all of you owe Mercer so much?”

  “Because of Texas. What’s happening over there.” James actually winced. “I want to have kids one day. Even after everything that’s happened, I want to be a dad and raise a family, and I can’t do that if I’m a part of what’s going on out there.”

  Kinda late to be jumping ship, isn’t it, pal? he thought, but of course didn’t say it out loud. Whatever he thought of James or Hart or the rest of Riley’s people, Keo had to admit, it took some guts to go against Mercer.

  “Looks like you guys are going to make it out of here just fine,” Keo said.

  “I hope so,” James said, “because sooner or later someone’s going to figure out what’s really happening. No one wants what happened this afternoon to happen again.” James gave him a forced grin. “It’s kind of being a chicken shit, I know, just running away…”

  “Hey, nothing wrong with running. Done plenty of it myself.”

  “The thing is, it’s better than shooting it out with people we’ve been spending the last year of our lives with. A lot of them are still our friends. I get why they’re out there following Mercer. Most of them lost everything, and this is all they have.”

  “What about you? What did you lose?” Keo asked as they turned a corner.

  Apparently they had also left the civilian population behind, because the hallway was almost empty and the only sounds were their footsteps.

  “Friends and family, like everyone else,” James said. “But I was one of the lucky few; I found someone in all this mess. She’s the one who introduced me to Riley, got us here. Faith.”

  “Not a lot of that going around these days.”

  “No, I mean, her name’s Faith.”

  “Ah.” Then, “What changed her mind?”

  “I guess it was me. I was one of the people Mercer sent out there to scout the state. That’s how we mapped out the towns for attacks. We knew where they were, got a good idea of their sizes, and even the best attacking options. Me and a lot of other people spent a lot of time out there hiding and reconning.”

  “You saw the pregnant women.”

  James nodded. “They were one of the first things we noticed. We snapped a lot of pictures, and they were in a lot of them. And that was it.”

  “What was it?”

  “Faith saw them. The pictures. Everyone did. But it didn’t really register until we got closer to R-Day. When the teams started leaving Black Tide Island one by one, it got real real fast. We couldn’t avoid it anymore.”

  “So you joined Riley’s crew.”

  “Basically.”

  They turned another corner and walked in silence for a while. Keo was thinking the hallway was never going to end until it finally did.

  “Here we are,” James said.

  “Here?”

  “What, you expected Fort Knox?”

  “I guess not,” he said.

  Keo exchanged a brief nod with the two guys in tactical vests cradling rifles and standing guard in front of a door. There was nothing to indicate there was an armory behind them. The guards stepped aside, and James stuck a key into a padlock and pulled the door open. Keo followed the young man inside.

  The armory was a converted storage closet and wasn’t mind-blowingly impressive, but it had a decent selection and there was a lot of everything, more than enough to arm everyone on the rig (including the kids) five to six times over. He wasn’t too surprised by the surplus since guns were easy to find if you knew where to look, and Mercer struck him as the type who would know.

  A light bulb flickered on above him while Keo looked over his choices. Racks along the walls held automatic rifles and shotguns and shelves housed handguns and ammo while spare gun belts hung from hooks.

  “This everything?” Keo asked.

  “What, you want more?” James said.

  “I was hoping for a little variety.”

  “Like what?”

  “You don’t happen to have an MP5SD lying around, would you?”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “Heckler & Koch submachine gun.”

  “Uh, no. What you see is what you get. Sorry.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” Keo said, and grabbed a Sig Sauer P250 and an M4 off the rack. “Silver bullets?”

  “For what?”

  “Ghouls.”

  James shook his head. “Not here. Would be nice, though, right?”

  “But you know about t
hem?”

  “Of course we do. We found out even before Lara sent out her first broadcast. Mercer figured it out.”

  “So why don’t you have silver bullets?”

  “Dude, we’re in the middle of the ocean. What do we need silver bullets for all the way out here?”

  Because you might not always be in the middle of the ocean, Keo thought, but decided arguing with James was pointless and turned his attention back to the rifle instead. “This thing come with any accessories?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Maybe something that goes boom, for instance.”

  “Hold that thought.” James crouched next to one of the shelves and rummaged through the ammo cans and boxes before straightening up with something in his hand. “This do?”

  Keo took the M203, a grenade launcher that could be attached to the bottom of his carbine. “I need you to do something else for me…”

  “You want a bazooka, too?”

  “If you got it. If not, just tell Hart I need to speak to him.”

  “What about?”

  “Erin,” Keo said.

  * * *

  He showered in one of the unused crew quarters and didn’t bother to look at himself in the fogged-up mirror when he walked past it. The long scar along his cheek tingled after the hot spray, but his nose and most of his face felt better even though he was pretty sure he looked like a big red mess of bruises.

  At least you’re still alive, pal. That means you can still pop Mercer. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to do that with the M203 from a distance.

  Lucky, he thought, and couldn’t help but smile to himself. After all he had been through, just thinking that he might get lucky was almost worth a long laugh.

  He had black clothes laid out on the small bed, with the rifle he’d taken from the armory leaning against the wall nearby. Keo hadn’t loaded up on weapons because more guns and ammo weren’t going to help him get on Black Tide any easier. Once he accessed the island, he could always acquire more firepower if he needed it.

  He had put on the black cargo pants and was pulling on a T-shirt when someone knocked on his door.

  “Yeah?” he called.

  “It’s me,” a voice said.

  “Give me a minute.”

  “I’ll wait outside.”

  Keo grabbed the gun belt and slipped it on, then picked up the Sig Sauer P250 from the chair nearby and holstered it. He shoved his feet into fresh new socks and boots and left the rifle behind.

  At the door, he looked out at James, waiting outside. “Hart’s ready for you,” the younger man said.

  “What about Erin?”

  “She’s waiting, too.”

  Keo nodded and closed the door behind him, then followed James for the second time through the oil rig’s long hallways.

  “You think she’ll do it?” James asked.

  “I won’t know until I ask,” Keo said. “How well do you know her?”

  “There were a lot of people on Black Tide, and we never really crossed paths because of our jobs. Also, she’s higher up than me.”

  “I thought you guys don’t use ranks.”

  “You don’t need ranks to know who’s out of your league. The people Mercer trusts the most he puts in positions of leadership.”

  “Like Riley?”

  “I guess even Mercer makes mistakes.”

  I’m counting on that.

  They entered into the stairwell and made their way up, footsteps clanging against the metal steps.

  “You’re really going to do it, huh?” James asked. “Kill Mercer.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “Nothing ever is.”

  James pushed through another metal door and led Keo out of the stairwell and into another brightly lit hallway.

  “It’s going to be tough,” James said. “Getting on Black Tide is one thing, but getting to Mercer… That’s not going to be easy.”

  “That seems to be the going consensus.”

  “When I told Faith about what you were planning, she wanted to know if you were crazy.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “That I wasn’t sure.”

  Keo grinned.

  As they walked some more, he could sense the kid was holding something back, so he said, “What is it?”

  James hesitated, but finally said, “Truth is, I don’t know whether to wish you good luck or not. I mean, what we’re doing here, we’re betraying Mercer’s trust, I know, throwing everything he did for us right back in his face, but still…”

  “He saved your life,” Keo said.

  “Yeah, he did. Faith’s, too. Everyone’s. If it weren’t for him in the early days, we wouldn’t be here. We owe him everything. In a lot of ways, he’s a good man. Maybe even a great man.”

  “Those pregnant civilians he’s murdering out there would disagree with you.”

  “I know, I know. Believe me, I know. We all know, that’s why we’re here.” The young man shook his head. “Having said all that, I still don’t know whether to wish you good luck or not. Sorry.”

  “Don’t sweat it, kid.”

  “I’m twenty-three,” James said.

  “Good for you,” Keo said.

  * * *

  “I should have let Troy kill you,” Erin said.

  Keo smiled at her. “You said that already.”

  “It bears repeating.”

  “Why don’t you say it one more time so we can put it to bed?”

  “I should have let Troy kill you.”

  “Happy?”

  “No.”

  “It’ll have to do.” Keo looked over at Hart, standing on the other side of the open door. “Can we have some alone time?”

  “You sure?” the older man asked. He looked exhausted, and sweat matted his hair to his forehead.

  “I’m sure,” Keo nodded.

  Hart glanced at Erin, sitting on a chair in the middle of the room. Her hands were zip tied at the wrists, but her legs were free. She ignored Hart and concentrated on Keo, and he saw the curiosity in her eyes. She didn’t know what was happening, but she wasn’t afraid, either.

  “James will be outside,” Hart said before closing the door behind Keo.

  Keo leaned against the wall next to the door and didn’t say anything. Erin watched him back intently, maybe trying to read his face for clues.

  Finally, he said, “They told me you and Riley were part of Mercer’s original Four Horsemen.”

  “They said that, huh?”

  “You and Riley and some guys named Benford and Rhett. At the beginning, they said, there were just the four of you, and you built this army and helped Mercer collect everything he would need to launch this war of his.”

  “People here talk too much.”

  “James, the kid standing guard outside, said Mercer’s plans didn’t feel real until the day the teams started leaving the island. Then he couldn’t ignore it anymore. The people in the towns, the pregnant women…”

  Erin kept quiet.

  “Riley told Hart he considered trying to convince Rhett, but he didn’t because he couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure.”

  “Apparently, Riley’s one-hundred percent sure isn’t so sure after all,” Erin said.

  “You heard about the shooting, huh?”

  “Like I said, the people on this rig talk too much.”

  “But Riley was pretty sure he could convince you, but before he got the chance, you had already left for Texas.”

  “Is that what he said?”

  “That’s what he told Hart. Was he right?”

  “Riley hasn’t been right about a lot of things.”

  “I don’t think he was entirely wrong.”

  “No?”

  “You know why I think that?”

  “Do share.”

  “Because you didn’t let Troy kill me,” Keo said. “I think you’re done with it.”

  “With what?” />
  “Everything happening in Texas right now. You saw what’s happening out there up close, and you’re done with it. Men, women, and children being slaughtered just so Mercer could send a message to the collaborators. Maybe, once upon a time, you thought you could do it, go along with his plan. After all, he saved your life. Saved all of your lives, or so everyone keeps telling me. But when you saw the bodies, smelled the charred flesh… The battlefield is never the same in person. It changes you.”

  She didn’t say anything for the longest time, and Keo didn’t push her. He watched her instead, observing the way her shoulders tightened, the way she sat straighter as he talked, and could almost time to the exact second when her eyes drifted; he knew she was reliving what she had seen out there. Keo could always tell when the man next to him had lost his nerve; it usually happened long after the bullets stopped flying and they were beyond the battlefield.

  He saw the doubt in Erin’s eyes now. It was clear as day. Maybe it had always been there, but it had never clicked for him because he didn’t know to look for it.

  Better late than never.

  “It’s done,” she said, meeting his eyes again—except this time the hardness was gone. “I was a part of it. Maybe not the ones dropping the bombs or commanding the tanks, but I did my part. I can’t take any of it back. I can’t make it unhappen.”

  “What did you do, exactly?”

  “I was in charge of Support in one of the FOBs. After we abandoned it, I moved over to coordinating the kill teams outside of Lochlyn.”

  “You were heading back to Black Tide Island even before I showed up.”

  “The first phase of the operation is ending. By tomorrow morning there’ll be a lot more people moving through here on their way back to The Ranch.”

  “You told Hart this?”

  “I don’t have to. He already knows.” Then she narrowed her eyes at him. “So what am I doing here, Keo? What’s your deal?”

  “My deal is that I’m going to Black Tide Island to kill Mercer.”

  “Oh, is that all?” She half-rolled her eyes at him and sat back in the chair. “Hell, if that’s all you wanted, you should have just let me take you to him.”

  “That was the plan. I had nothing to do with what happened on the Ocean Star this afternoon.”