Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2) (20 page)

He was surprised when he heard the footsteps approach from behind him, further so when Lucas walked around him and stood above Cavalo between him and the fire. He was careful to keep his wet boots off the blankets spread out on the floor. Cavalo knew he was looking down at him. He waited.

And on the silence stretched.

It was Cavalo who broke first. He’d been scraped raw and for one of the first times in his long and painful life, he felt the need to touch. To be touched.

He reached out. He could not stop his hand from shaking. His fingers closed around Lucas’s pant leg. He felt the ankle underneath. He held it tight. The bone under his fingers was strong and unmoving. It anchored him. He took a breath. And another. And another.

Eventually, he let go.

Lucas waited until he pulled his hand back before stretching out next to him. He kicked off his boots. Cavalo lifted the blanket, and Lucas slid underneath. They lay on their sides, hands curled under their heads, faces inches apart.

It was Lucas who spoke first.
James Cavalo
, he said.

“Lucas.”

Tomorrow.

“Yes.”

Are you scared?

He thought of lying. “Yes.”

Oh
. A hesitation, eyes darting away and back again.
Me too.

“I know.”

I could….
He shook his head almost angrily.
I could go.

“Where?” Cavalo felt cold.

He raised his hand and mimed walking with his fingers.
Away. Back to them. To… Patrick.

Cavalo grabbed him by his coat. Shook him a little. “Don’t you fucking say that.”

Lucas looked pained.

“You can’t.”

He looked away.

“Promise me.”

Defiant eyes.

Cavalo shook him again, harder this time. “
Promise me.
”

Lucas held up a finger. Pointed at Cavalo.
James. Why did you tell me?

Cavalo thought to push him away. To lie again. It’d be easier. So much easier. Instead, he said, “Because it’s all I have left to give.”

Lucas kissed him. There. In the dark.

And later in the night, their bodies moved together as one day ended and another began. Except this day was unlike any that had come before it. A great and powerful man had once said there would come a day when someone would rise, rise and fight back against the dark.

One hundred years later, James Cavalo fell asleep held by a clever monster who pressed a knife into his side, unaware that his day had come at last.

a brief interlude before war

THEY WOKE
the next morning as weak light filtered in through the windows. The room was colder, the fire nothing but embers.

They didn’t speak much, the three of them. There didn’t seem to be any words needed. They’d said what they needed to the night before.

They dressed quickly and quietly.

Cavalo opened up the door to the vacant house to let Bad Dog out. He started to follow when Lucas stopped him. “What?”

Lucas tugged him back into the house. “Lucas, we don’t have time for—”

Lucas shot him a look.
Make time. This is important.

Cavalo sighed but didn’t try to pull his hand away.

Lucas pulled him to a small bathroom. The shower had rusted. The mirror was cracked and dirty. Lucas sat him on the lip of the bathtub and shut the door behind them. Cavalo didn’t know who he was trying to keep out, but he didn’t question it.

Nor did he question the little jar that Lucas pulled from his pocket. He turned the lid and set it down at the sink. Lucas looked at himself in the mirror. Cavalo wondered what he saw in his reflection but didn’t think it his place to ask. Lucas closed his eyes and took a breath before letting it out slowly. Cavalo couldn’t help but think this felt like a tradition.

And it did, especially when Lucas opened his eyes again. He reached down and dipped two fingers into the jar. They were black when he pulled them away. He watched as Lucas began to spread them around his eyes. He remembered then, the snowstorm he’d stumbled through after he’d been shot. The black mask on the door, covered in bees, the word
suffering
burned into the wood. And maybe he was. Maybe he was suffering now. But he didn’t regret his choice. That surprised him.

It didn’t take long for Lucas to finish. He looked as he did the first day he’d held a knife to Cavalo’s throat. Cavalo was amused at the nostalgia, but he didn’t say it out loud.

He thought they were finished until Lucas turned to him. He cocked his head at Cavalo, eyes searching for something on his face. He must have found what he needed because he reached for the jar again. He dipped his fingers in it and kicked Cavalo’s legs apart. Cavalo grunted but didn’t speak. Lucas dropped to his knees between Cavalo’s legs and looked up at him.

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 generals 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.