He saw Henry’s eye; once ruined, but since replaced by something ancient he could not comprehend. He remembered stabbing the boy in a parting gesture, to speed up his demise. He had no time to wonder at all the things that had happened to Henry, or all the changes his body had been through, but there would be no parting gift this time for Henry. No wounding. Just something fatal and ultimate.
Lanner, without saying a word, without need for a final speech or farewell, readied his weapon for a headshot, to finish Dookie’s work. To witness the uncasing of the boy. The dehumanizing of him.
The beast leaped from a rooftop into the fracas, primed for Lanner, maxillaries bared, as those around him moved out the way and created a path directly to the king’s right-hand man.
Lanner moved closer to the boy, needing to see the ruin he was about to leave behind. His face wore a twisted grin, as Henry raised his head an inch from the ground and met his gaze.
Lanner was jubilant, “Stabbed you once. Now I get to blow your head off.”
Lanner was the victor, already enjoying the moment. But the boy looked away from him. Not scared, or defiant. Distracted. Lanner went to follow his gaze, but he was languid, unsure how the scene was changing before him, not registering the shift that others had seen. Panicked, he squeezed the trigger of the shotgun, but Lanner was already tumbling, knocked off his feet by the snow leopard, taking all the wind out of his chest as he fell hard on the ice.
The cocktail of drugs that Hepburn had administered coursed through Henry’s veins, doing all the things that Hepburn said they would and many things it hadn’t. Fueled by his natural adrenaline and the added stimulants in his blood, Henry crashed back to life as if his heart had been restarted and his body had been given weeks to heal. He let out a scream to the heavens above with his arms outstretched.
He saw Lanner, then Panthera. Then Panthera on Lanner. Henry was unarmed, but he realized this was his final chance. Not satisfied with seeing Needol fall, or finding Skindred’s corpse, or Dookie lying next to him, or Erasmus’ death at his own hands. Henry was yards from Lanner and a little further from the king. Those were the scalps he wanted. No other prize would suffice.
Then, as his senses came back to him, his focus realigned and the ache in his damaged arm disappeared, he knew it was time for all the hours he had trained to come to fruition. The grand finale. Henry’s final battle.
No shots rang out anywhere, although people held weapons still. The ammo was spent and all that was left were the adults versus Henry and the children who had come to his aid. He saw Felipe and Dibber. Q-Tip and Leaf. Cola and Yaxley.
Lanner was using his shotgun to keep Panthera away from his neck. It looked like he was lifting weights, bench-pressing a snow leopard. Henry rolled to his feet and whistled at Panthera, signaling the creature to fall back and leave Lanner be.
A muscular man stepped before Henry from the crowd, brave and unwittingly stupid. Months of Defendu, Sanshou, Taekwondo and Combat Sambo came back in an instant and Henry sent the man back into the crowd with a series of blows, with Panthera diving onto him to ensure he stayed down. A peacekeeper, standing close, unarmed and seemingly unwilling to attack Henry also hit the deck, beaten with ease by Henry’s intricate skill.
Then to Lanner, who used his shotgun as a staff to get to his feet. He seemed amazed that Henry stood before him. There was something in his expression that Henry couldn’t quite place, but later, he’d recognize that it was concession. Lanner knew his time was up.
And there were no words. No exchange. Henry descended upon him without remorse, absent mercy. Henry’s assault on him was unceasing and swift. Henry bent to take up the war-lance he’d dropped and he parted it in the middle so he could wield it in both hands. Two weapons once more.
Lanner swayed. His teeth had been knocked loose and his nose bent to one side. His jaw hung at an angle and his hands, no longer holding the shotgun, dangled at his sides.
“Don’t. Don’t do me, boy,” Lanner managed, his voice gargling on the blood in his mouth. The man in the patchwork clothes was never pitiable. But in that moment, he was sunk and lamentable and Henry was surprised by it. He’d expected much more from the demon clown. Curses, threats, tales to stall time. Anything to give him an opportunity to slit Henry’s throat. Yet the man was base. A coward.
Henry crossed his blades, then, like a pair of scissors, parted them at Lanner’s neck, freeing the man’s head from his body. Lanner’s head bounced and span until it came to a stop at Henry’s feet. The clown was dead and nobody was laughing.
“For Mother,” Henry whispered, then moved his attention to the king.
Forty-One
A Fine Garment Made of Skin
The man in the knitted hat lay with Henry’s knife protruding from his heart. Dookie, lying with her knees tucked up, looked like she’d found peace in death that she’d never achieved in life. Lanner had no head, and the crowd had ceased fighting and had fallen utterly silent.
Hepburn 8 had been obliterated, but Henry could not bring himself to think about it at that point.
Little L lay crumpled on the snow. Iris stood above him, sorrowful, yet unable to take her eyes from the dead child. His brother, Big L, had been knocked unconscious; his tears had ceased for a time, though they would return.
A sea of faces, what was left of the fighting Favela, surrounded Henry. Henry thought fleetingly of the shards of mirrored glass that turned in the igloo, with his family sleeping as the hours of the clock. Henry was the dial.
The king bellowed across the silent square. His white suit set him apart from everyone in the Favela. An alien in their midst, but one that had been revered for a long time and had pulled every string imaginable to stay in his position.
“Olhe. Has the little boy returned looking for his eyeball? He knows I ate it,” the king mocked, then to Henry he added, “You know I ate it! You saw me do it.”
“You know why I’m here.” Henry was calm, unthreatening. Matter-of-fact. He held his weapons as if he still meant business. He caught his breath in the interval created and tried to work out if he could finish the king from where he stood, before the crowd enveloped him. He knew nothing in battle was certain and anything could change in a single moment.
“I suppose I should congratulate you on not being dead. It’s impressive. But damn your memory, lad. I recall telling you that should you return, I would make a fine garment for your sister out of your skin. The bitch will not get to wear it, but I suppose I should bury her in something new tomorrow.”
Henry felt his pulse quicken. Had the king murdered one of his sisters? Had he been too late? Some of the peacekeepers in the crowd sniggered, but only Henry responded, his voice carrying across the space between them.
“I think it is yourn skin that will be parted from yourn flesh, and no other. Come and stand before me. Lanner’s gone.” Henry turned the blades in his hands so the king could see Lanner’s blood upon them. “Now, I’ll show your people what a king looks like. From the inside.”
The King looked tempered. Henry suspected that no one had ever spoken to him the way Henry had before and so publicly. He knew that whatever response came from the king next, would be measured by his subjects.
The king addressed his people. “The first to bring me this boy’s skull gets them and theirs a room in the palace for life and a free ride in the Favela. No work, no dues. Just sweet drams and ass. Or prong. Same deal for whoever brings me the creature with him.”
Panthera bared his teeth at the king, as if the snow leopard understood the threat he’d made.
The square did not come alive. None moved. The king’s words did not ignite the Favela against Henry. The crowd simply stayed as they were. Neutral. Nonchalant. Even the peacekeepers. Henry had expected claw hammers and wrenches, but the people were waiting. To see and hear more. To understand how the challenge would be dealt with by the king in person, without peacekeepers bullying everyone into submission. It was a story to be told evermore.<
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“You’re a coward. You get everyone to do your work. But they hate you. All these people. It’s just fear. You’re nothing,” Henry surmised.
“Kill that fucking boy!” the king commanded one and all, but still no one moved.
“Don’t you sense it? How the mood has changed?” Henry said and for the first time, the king looked nervous. The crowd, no longer surrounding Henry, seemed to be with him.
The king looked at the faces of his people and must have seen their hatred, because now, so many of them, buoyant from Henry’s fight and his challenge to the king, had unmasked it. Then Henry saw a real sign of weakness in the king... The man’s own eyes, they too betrayed him and Henry realized the king could no longer meet the gaze of his own people.
“I command you to kill this—”
A single voice, pitched high above all others, rose and was carried by the wind. Morose, sad, beautiful. Iris, the Canary. The girl sang the first line of an old song that none would have heard in their lives.
Henry had not heard his sister sing in such a way before and felt the hairs on his arms and neck rise as she sang to the crowd and to the king. Her voice was effortless. Some notes she resonated. And it was beautiful.
She came forward, one step at a time, slowly. Still singing. All were enrapt. All were in awe of everything she was to them. The words, they were aimed at him now, the king, and they were defiant. Her dress blew in the wind so it seemed like she floated beside them. The song pierced all who listened to the melody and the king, manifesting his indignation in front of the populace, reacted in the only way he knew how.
“Child, you venture far from your cage! You dare? You die!”
Henry watched with dread, as the king grabbed a fire axee from the belt of one of his peacekeepers and before anyone could stop him, tossed it in the direction of Henry’s youngest sister.
The blade missed. Iris, still singing and ever defiant, never flinched. It was all the catalyst the Favela needed at that point and the king became a target to all then. Surrounded by his people, angered, all open to betray him, for they no longer saw him as ruler and he was to be dethroned.
And it was Omeed, the obedient son, who made the first cut. Pushing a blade into the king’s back, underneath his dinner jacket. The king spun and looked at Omeed with hurt in his eyes.
“Son?” he asked, disgraced and forlorn. But Omeed backed away and turned his back on the king, not fearful of retaliation.
Then Sissel came forward, her hair drenched in someone’s blood. And she made a second cut, announcing to all that it was for Little L and then, looking at Henry, she added it was also for the boy, Martin.
The people of the Favela descended on their king like ravening shark catching a scent of his blood.
Henry moved forward, pushing others out of the way. The king, being spun into knives and cutters presented for him in the crowd, tumbled into Henry and he sent one of his blades deep into the king’s stomach.
“For Father. For Mother. For Martin and Penhaligon. For all that you’ve ever done!” Henry spoke through gritted teeth to the fallen king.
Then he flung the king back into the crowd; a whirling dervish in a sodden red wedding suit. Folded and unfolded into the sea of people, who served justice upon him with a thousand cuts, each telling him who they were doing it for; whose memory they cherished and sought vengeance over. And there were so many names and so many cuts, long after the king’s soul had left his body, yet the crowd each took their place to speak a name and partake in the end of the king’s tale.
Henry, triumphant, could only fall to his knees finally. The emotion took hold of him. Panthera found him and nuzzled close, mewling in his embrace. Iris was there, yet they had no words in that moment. Hilde also appeared, but came no closer upon seeing her brother’s scarred face and altered eye. She wasn’t scared of him, but Henry could tell that she was disgusted. He’d imagined that same reaction so many times, that it didn’t surprise him. Henry had no energy to call it out. To challenge his sister. He felt exhausted, like his mind had been so full up, that it had emptied itself.
The king was dead. It had been Henry’s only purpose, and suddenly, it was over. He spoke it out loud. “The king’s dead.” He realized it had not been by his hands alone, and somehow, that made it all the greater. The people had done it. The adults and the children. The old and young.
Henry supposed it was more their right than his to end the reign of the tyrant. He could only imagine what living under the rule of the king would have been like for the people of the Favela and it was evident in the people around him; scars and broken bones that had never healed as they should have.
He saw the same triumph in the faces of those around him. And the same loss. Another, deeper wave of emotion came to him then. He thought of Mother and Father. The bairn and Martin. Hepburn 8...
Hepburn was motionless; a scattered wreckage of camouflage-covered ultranium and what had once been complex serpentine circuitry. There would be no bringing him back. No fixing him, like the robot had fixed Henry, twice.
Could he grieve for a machine like he could a human? Was it the same?
It was.
Hepburn was his friend. His only friend. The only solace he’d known in his darkest times. The only voice he’d heard in such a long time. Henry thought of watching the moodlift with Hepburn and of the robot questioning him every third week on how he was feeling.
Henry felt the loss in the pit of his stomach and the center of his heart, and he was utterly desolate.
And Henry heard himself repeating the same words, not knowing if it was the king or Hepburn he spoke of. No one knew, but it was all he could say for a time, over and over again.
“He’s dead.”
Forty-Two
The Willow and the Wisp
The crowd mingled now, animated by the death of the king, each person trying to witness the truth of it and see the body for themselves. Much of him had already been severed. Meat is meat.
The wounded were tended to by those who knew anything of healing and by those who knew a little of being kind.
Henry and Iris remained in their embrace for some time and they became one in their sorrow.
“We did it. We killed him. We set them all free,” Iris spoke, watching the populace collect itself and take stock. Henry pulled back from his sister and moved her hair out of her eyes as he often used to.
“I’ve missed you, Iris. More than you could ever imagine.” Henry wiped his own eyes, then hers.
“And I you. Though you cut your hair, and…” Iris traced her fingers across the scar around her brother’s eye socket. “You’re odd enough already, but I can get used to this.” She laughed, so unlike their sister Hilde in every way.
“I forget how I look most of the time. Used to it now. But you,” Henry said, “your face. You’ve grown beautiful. You look a bit like Mother.”
Iris smiled. “Feels strange to smile.”
Hers was so genuine and natural. Henry knew it as the kind of smile that comes from family. She squeezed her brother once more, as if to check that he was really there.
Sissel, limping slightly, came over to greet Henry. In her hands was the pelt of a Big White.
“Thought you’d want this back,” she said, handing the fur to the altered boy, unable to take her eyes from the lens in Henry’s eye socket.
“Thank you, Sissel,” he said nervously, then to Iris, “you have this, Iris.”
“I can’t, Henry. It’s yours by right.”
“The cloth I wear is all mine. This fur will fit you well in time. Mother and Father would be so proud of your strength. What you did. Your song. You changed everything today.” He cast the fur around his sister’s tiny shoulders and let it rest there, proud. Henry turned to Sissel once more.
“Thank you, Sissel. The salvagers…” Henry began.
“I think we lost some. Bart and Keni. I can’t see Bethlen.” Sissel spoke softly in a changed voice, also exhausted. Henry c
ould tell she too was fighting to keep her emotions at bay. To remain strong for her Orfins.
“I’m here. But Q-Tip. He’s gone,” the girl called Bethlen spoke up, but Henry did not take his eyes from Sissel.
Q-Tip. It had been Q-Tip and Florrie that had guided Henry through the cold waters to where Martin had lain in his cavern. Henry felt the weight of responsibility for the deaths and was truly saddened to hear of Q-Tip’s passing.
“I’m so sorry. Last year, Q-Tip…he was with me, with Martin. If I hadn’t…”
“You did and we did. And it was right. We did it right. No use crying. We owe it to them to make this day count. All of them. Adultos and Orfins. Sort this place and make it work for everyone.” Sissel spoke like a true leader. Henry noticed the way the adults in the vicinity were watching her. Working out whether she had what it took to step in and lead in the absence of the fallen king. The children already knew she did.
“Q-Tip... He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I know it. But it starts now. The real work.”
Henry sensed Yaxley and Florrie arrive by his side.
“All them anteek weapons ain’t no use now. Spent all the bullets. Guns all history,” said Yaxley, pleased.
“That’ll change the whole damned world,” Florrie countered.
Henry noted how Sissel looked at Yaxley. Almost apologetic. It was linked to Henry somehow, and he understood when he saw how Yaxley looked upon her, for it was the same way that Henry did. He’d not seen it before. It hadn’t been there by the sieve when he’d first met the salvagers. It had obviously bloomed after he’d been left for dead. And on her arm was a fresh decoration she’d cut, to match the symbol emblazoned on Yaxley’s chest. A lover’s gesture, that time would weather, but not erase from the skin.
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