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

by Sam Sisavath

  “No? You knew that woman in the brig…”

  “That had nothing to do with this afternoon. I didn’t know she was going to be here. I would have been happy with letting you take me to Mercer. It would have saved me a lot of trouble.”

  She seemed to think about it for a moment before nodding. “I believe you.”

  “You should. It’s the truth.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t instantly believe everything that comes out of your mouth.”

  “That’s understandable. But now that I have the upper hand, we can both agree I don’t have any reasons to lie to you.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Then what do you want from me? All of this”—she looked around the room—“even Hart’s little interrogation, was clearly designed for you and I to have this conversation. You took me out of the brig on purpose so the others wouldn’t hear. So what do you want from me, Keo? I’m tired, it’s been a long day, so please get to the fucking point already.”

  He smiled and nodded. “I want you to finish what you started: Take me to Black Tide Island.”

  “You don’t need me for that. Hart could tell you where it is.”

  “I’ve been told that getting there is the easy part. I might even be able to land in one piece by myself. But all of this would go so much easier—increase my chances of success—if I had someone to help me with the locals. Basically, a guide that everyone knows and respects. One of Mercer’s trusted lieutenants, say. You know someone like that?”

  She smirked. “I guess you’re not as dumb as you look.”

  “I keep telling people that.” Then, “Are you in?”

  “You want me to help you kill Mercer. Is that the ‘in’ you’re talking about?”

  “That’s exactly it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he needs killing.”

  “No, not that. Why would I help you?”

  “Because you want to stop what’s happening out there and what will keep happening if he keeps his war going. More towns filled with more people whose only crime is that they can’t fight like us. And because you know that Mercer’s phase two is going to be much, much worse.” He paused to let his words sink in before continuing. “Tell me, Erin, how much sleep have you gotten since all of this started?”

  She didn’t answer him, but she didn’t have to. He’d had no trouble seeing the bags under her eyes when he first met her, and now, with the bright ceiling lights in the room, they were even more noticeable. If she had gotten more than a few hours sleep a day all this week, he would be very surprised.

  “Enough to get by,” she said.

  “Bullshit.”

  “You don’t know anything about me, Keo.”

  “I know what people have told me about you, and I know that keeping me alive after Lochlyn was a stupid decision, but you reasoned your way into it because you didn’t want more blood on your hands. I told a shitty lie and you went along with it, not because you believed me, but because you just didn’t want one more death on your ledger.”

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  “Maybe later,” Keo said. “Right now, you need to take me to Black Tide and get me on that island in one piece so I can do what you and Riley should have done but were too much of fucking cowards to do.”

  She clenched her teeth and stared defiantly back at him. If her hands weren’t bound and she had a gun, he wasn’t sure if he would still be alive right now.

  “This is your chance to fix your mistake,” he continued. “You won’t be able to bring back all the lives that’ve already been lost, but you can prevent new ones from being snuffed out. Get me on Black Tide Island, and I’ll do the rest.”

  Slowly, very slowly, her jaw relaxed, as did the rest of her body. “Can you do it?”

  “Yes,” he said without hesitation.

  “It won’t be easy.”

  “So everyone keeps telling me.”

  “And what happens if you succeed? You think it’ll stop all of this?”

  “Yes,” he answered, again without hesitation. “From everything I’ve heard about the man, he’s almost single-handedly driving this by the force of his personality. Without him, it would grind to a halt—at least temporarily. But that might be enough time for people like Riley, like James and Hart, to finally feel safe enough to speak up. As long as Mercer’s running the show, they’ll never speak up. It’s too dangerous, and it’s not just their necks on the line. Everyone has friends and loved ones to think about.”

  Shit, you almost convinced yourself that time, pal!

  Keo didn’t know if he actually believed what he had just told Erin, but he wasn’t going to voice that doubt, and he was hoping it didn’t show on his face.

  “He has loyalists,” Erin said. “They’ll keep fighting even after he’s gone.”

  “Commanders don’t keep a war going, Erin. Foot soldiers do. Civilians like the ones on the Ocean Star do. Without them, the machine can’t keep going.”

  Keo picked up another chair from a corner and walked over, then sat down in front of her. Only a few feet separated them, and he caught her eyes sneaking over to his holstered sidearm as he took out a knife and sliced the zip ties from her hands. When he put the knife away and looked up, her eyes had returned to his face while she rubbed her wrists.

  He leaned forward, and if she wanted to, she could have reached over and snatched his pistol out of its holster.

  Except she didn’t.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “I need a guide,” Keo said. “You know the place. I don’t. And I can’t afford to still be running around looking for Mercer when the sun comes up. So I need you, Erin. Are you in or out?”

  Her stare never wavered from his face. “You’re either insane or delusional if you think you can pull this off, even with my help.”

  “Are those my only two choices?”

  “Or suicidal.”

  “How about none of the above?”

  He smiled at her then leaned in even closer. She would have absolutely no trouble grabbing his gun now.

  Except she still didn’t.

  “Help me end this madness,” Keo said. “Only one more person needs to die. You know deep down that I’m right, that this is the only course of action left. There’s no other way.”

  “On one condition…”

  “Name it.”

  “Promise me you’ll do everything possible to keep the body count to a minimum.”

  “I’ll do the best I can.”

  “Promise me.”

  “I’ll keep the body count to a minimum,” Keo nodded.

  She sat back in her chair and let out a long sigh, as if the weight of the world had just been lifted from her shoulders. “When do we leave?”

  He stood up. “Have you eaten yet?”

  “Not since this morning.”

  He picked the chair back up and returned it to the corner. “We’ll get something to eat first, then shove off at midnight. It’ll be a nice moonlit boat ride in the dark. Might even be romantic, if you play your cards right.”

  “You would like that, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m single, you’re single…”

  “In your dreams.”

  “Oh, trust me, we’ve done more than just a moonlit boat ride in my dreams.”

  She smirked. Then, as he turned to the door, “Hey.”

  Keo stopped and looked back.

  “On a scale of one to ten,” she said, “how certain were you I wasn’t going to take your gun and shoot you just now?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he drew the Sig Sauer and tossed it to her.

  She caught the gun easily, and by the startled look on her face, he guessed she figured it out pretty fast.

  “It’s not loaded,” Erin said, weighing the gun in one hand.

  “Not as dumb as I look, remember?”

  She sighed and tossed him back the gun. “Dick.”

  “Not the worst thing I�
�ve been called tonight,” Keo said as he holstered the gun.

  “You said you needed to get this done before morning.”

  He nodded.

  “So tell me you have a good plan to make that happen,” Erin said. “Tell me that this isn’t a spray-and-pray suicide run.”

  “I have a plan,” Keo said. “Whether it’s a good plan… Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

  22

  Gaby

  “Back at Starch,” Danny said. “It was the same one. I couldn’t put my finger on it before, but I always knew there was something different about that one. It just took me a little time to figure it out.”

  “Danny, its eyes look just like all the other blue eyes,” Gaby said. “How can you tell it apart from the ones that attacked us last night?”

  “Trust me on this, kid. It’s him.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “But what if?”

  Danny shook his head. “I’m not. And I need you to trust that I’m not.”

  She didn’t answer him, because she didn’t know how. She was afraid of what would come out if she opened her mouth. Instead, she stared at him across the semidarkness of the hallway and said nothing. Danny was bleeding from a number of cuts along his temple and arms, and despite the stink of smoke, sweat, and blood clinging to every inch of him—and her and Nate, and the entire building, for that matter—he was still in one piece.

  Danny was looking at her, but not at her. He was staring at—and through—the closed door behind her. On the other side was the creature that had literally fallen into their laps when the back section of the bank’s roof caved in from the blast. It had been some kind of bomb, and if it had detonated any closer they would all be dead right now instead of just dirty and smelly and bleeding from small cuts.

  “Torch it,” Benford had said into the radio. Whoever he had been talking to hadn’t managed to set the town on fire, which she was grateful for, but if the First Gallant Bank was any indication, the lone warplane had left plenty of wreckage behind outside their walls. Thank God there had just been the one plane. If there had been more, with extra munitions available to drop…

  She glanced out the hallway at Nate, just to make sure he was still there. He was crouched next to the counter in the lobby and only had eyes for the large pile of rubble that had inadvertently covered up the hole put in the front wall by Benford’s grenade launcher. Slabs of partially intact concrete jutted out of the chaos, the big and small pieces awash in the blue of the moonlight that pooled inside the bank through the large, jagged opening where that section of the roof used to be. Rooftop gravel carpeted almost the entire length of the lobby, with most of it concentrated near the front.

  Gaby was just glad she couldn’t see the street outside, because that meant whoever (whatever) was out there couldn’t see in, either. Not that she had any delusions a pile of brick and mortar and concrete was going to keep back the creatures if they wanted to come in. All it would take was a short climb and they would be inside.

  Except they didn’t climb over, or do anything to show themselves.

  But they were out there. She knew that without having to hear or see them, even if she thought she could smell their stench coming in through the multiple holes that pockmarked the bank’s ceiling. It was also a lot colder now, and she clutched her jacket to her chest while making sure her rifle remained within reach.

  She looked back at Danny still staring past her. “What are you going to do with it, Danny?”

  He shook his head and didn’t answer right away. She could tell by his expression it was a question he had been asking himself all night.

  “If it is Will—” Gaby said, but stopped herself short. Then, “If it was Will, then it would explain a lot.”

  “Why it told me to put on the uniform in Starch,” Danny said.

  She nodded. “I don’t suppose he told you how he knew that would work?”

  “No lips, remember?”

  “Right. No lips. You think he can grow them back? The black eyes never could. When they lose something, it seems to be gone for good.”

  “He’s not one of them.”

  The question is, what is he?

  “If that is Will,” she said, “how do you think he did it? How did he save us at the hangar without actually being there?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that…”

  “And?”

  “Willie boy always thought the creatures had a kind of hive-like mind, always connected somehow. He thinks that’s how they know where to swarm when they discover survivors, or how the blue eyes control them.” He tapped his temple. “Think of it like a network of bloodsucking, well, bloodsuckers.”

  “Like what, the Internet?”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “Some kind of ESPN shit.”

  “You mean ESP.”

  “Uh huh. The Worldwide Leader in Bloodsucking.”

  Gaby managed a smile. There wasn’t an inch of her that wasn’t sore and dirty (and smelly, even if that part was harder to confirm), but the upside was that they were all alive. Still wearing bloody dead men’s clothes, yes, but alive nonetheless, and right now that was all that mattered and all she wanted to concentrate on.

  After a while, she said, “If it is Will, do you think he was the one the other blue eyes were trying to lure here? Were they using us to get to him?”

  Danny, she saw, was grinning stupidly at her.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked, annoyed.

  “You said he, not it.”

  “I did?”

  “Uh huh. More than once.”

  She sighed. “Give me a break. I’m doing my best to wrap my head around all of this, but it’s not easy. I feel like my head is spinning and I don’t know which direction is up or down.”

  Danny chuckled. “Now you know how I’ve been feeling since Starch.”

  * * *

  “What did Danny say?” Nate asked when she crouched next to him beside the island counter, about five feet from where the pool of moonlight ended in front of them.

  “He’s not sure yet,” she said, readying her M4 across her knees even though there was nothing to shoot at (Jinx!).

  She looked out at the opening where the wall used to meet the ceiling, but there was now just a gaping hole staring out at the moon above them. With so much bright moonlight, it was easy to make out the footprints plastered across the lobby floor, so many that they overlapped each other many times over. When they were retreating, the creatures had taken the bodies of Benford and the dead collaborators that had been assaulting the bank with them.

  Wouldn’t want to waste a single drop of that precious blood, right, boys?

  The silence inside and outside the bank hung over them like a physical thing, a blanket that could drop at any second and smother them underneath it. The thought made her nervous and Gaby clutched the rifle tighter, if just to give her hands something to do.

  “What about you? You really think it’s him?” Nate asked. He glanced briefly backward at the manager’s office.

  “Danny seems to think it is.”

  “He would know, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How long have they known one another? If anyone would recognize Will, even under all that, it would be Danny. Who knows him better?”

  She nodded. “Once you’ve been in combat with someone, survived the end of the world side-by-side with them… That kind of connection is hard to come by.”

  “Like us?”

  “We still have a long way to go.”

  “But we’ll get there.”

  “Maybe, if we can get out of this town alive first.”

  “Eh, I don’t know, it’s not that bad. Bullet holes and destroyed buildings notwithstanding, I think it’d make for a pretty good summer vacation spot.”

  She smirked. “You’re doing Danny now, is that it?”

  “You know what they say, ‘If you can’t beat ’em�
��’”

  “Become as annoying as them?” she finished for him.

  “How’d you know?”

  “I’ve been around Danny too long.” Her legs were tiring, and she finally gave in and sat down on the floor, but only after brushing small chunks of rooftop gravel away. “How’s your side?”

  “Hurts, just like everything else.”

  Pain lets you know you’re still alive. Right, Lara?

  “I was expecting fire,” Gaby said.

  “From the bombing?”

  She nodded.

  “I guess there isn’t anything left in Gallant that’s flammable,” Nate said. “Or, at least, not enough to start and maintain a fire. We’re lucky that Warthog only had two bombs to drop.”

  “Yeah, lucky,” she said quietly. Then, “We have to get back. The Trident. Whatever it takes, we have to get back.”

  “We will. Just a few more hours, and it’ll be sunup. Then we’ll go home.”

  He put an arm around her, and Gaby leaned against his shoulder, welcoming the warmth of his body to help fight back the cold that swamped the lobby. She wondered if she would ever be able to enjoy moments like these without guns within reach or undead things moving outside her walls. Were those things even possible anymore?

  “I was thinking…” Nate said quietly.

  “What?”

  “That thing in the office. If it really is Will…”

  “It’s a big if...”

  “I know, but if it really is Will, then it changes everything, doesn’t it?”

  “How?”

  “He saved our lives at Larkin, then again in Starch. He did that, Gaby. He didn’t have to, but he did. The question is: Why?”

  Why? I’ve been asking that question all night, and I’m no closer to the answer.

  “If he’s still Will, what else can he do?” Nate continued, though now Gaby wasn’t sure if he was even talking to her anymore or just speaking his thoughts out loud. “What does he know? How long has he been out here? What has he been doing?”

  “We think the blue eyes were trying to lure him here, using us as bait.”

  “There,” Nate said.

  “What?”

  “He knows something, Gaby,” he said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “Get it?”