Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2) (21 page)

“Unarmed,” Cavalo said.

Patrick nodded. He took the axe from behind him and tossed it away in the snow. Looked back up expectantly.

“All of it.”

“Such fire,” Patrick said. “I assure you that’s all.” He lifted his coat and spun in a slow circle.

Cavalo glanced at Lucas, who nodded tightly.
That’s all he carries.

Cavalo handed over his knife and pistol. His rifle was set against the wall. Lucas took them from him without question. He turned from the wall toward the ladder down to the interior. Before he’d stepped down the rungs, Lucas stopped him.

Be careful
, he said. Cavalo could see the anger spilling over.

“I know.”

Lucas shook his head.
You don’t.
He pursed his lips and blew between the two of them.
He’s not like us. He doesn’t have the bees. He
is
the bees.

This Cavalo knew.

He reached the bottom of the ladder where Hank stood. “You sure about this?” Hank asked him.

“Buys us more time. Anything?”

“Some movement in the trees. Binocs are helping but I can’t tell how many.”

“He won’t have brought them all. They need Dworshak guarded.”

“He didn’t need them all for Grangeville,” Hank reminded him.

Cavalo ignored him.

They raised the gate only a foot or so off the ground, giving Cavalo enough room to crawl under through the snow. He stood, and the gate closed behind him. He walked slowly toward Patrick. He wanted to glance up at Lucas, but he didn’t look away from Patrick.

And Patrick smiled as he approached. Up close, it was more and more like Lucas. The bees wanted him to lash out. Cavalo tried to hold them back.

He stopped just out of arm’s reach. He raised his coat and spun slowly to show he was unarmed.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Patrick asked when he faced him again.

“What’s that?”

“Being here. Now. You. I. This whole…
thing
.” He looked at Cavalo earnestly.

“How so?”

“You have something I want. You won’t give it to me. You think you’ll win. I know you won’t. This whole back and forth is just… it’s
funny
.”

“No,” Cavalo said. “I don’t think we’ll win.”

Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “No?”

“No.”

“You expect to die, then.”

“Yes.”

The showman’s smile faded off Patrick’s face. Lucas had been right. He was nothing but bees. Before Cavalo could blink, Patrick had snapped out an arm, wrapping his hand around Cavalo’s throat. Cavalo could hear shouts of surprise and anger coming from behind him, and he frantically waved them off. They couldn’t take the chance. Not yet.

“What game are you playing?” Patrick snarled at him.

“No game,” Cavalo managed to say. “We fight… because we have… nothing else… to lose.” His own bees screamed in his head, demanding he rip Patrick apart, that he start by breaking every bone in the hand and arm that held him. He pushed them away. It would do him no good.

“Nothing?” Patrick said. “You have
everything
to lose. All of those people. I will start with their children. We will eat their toes and fingers. You will watch while every single person you know is consumed, and then and
only
then will I start in on you. Your death will not be quick. It will not be painless. You will feel every little prick of your skin, and when you’re about to die, right before your eyes close for the last time, I will cut off your head.”

Cavalo laughed. It hurt, the fingers on his throat were really far too tight, but he laughed. He couldn’t stop himself even if he tried. It came out weak and crazed.

“Such fire,” Patrick said. “How different things could have been.” He dropped his hand from Cavalo’s throat. Cavalo coughed, lungs burning.

“What do you hope to have happen here?” Patrick asked him. “You’ve already said you’re prepared to die. Just what do you think you’ll achieve?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Cavalo said.

A sharp wind picked up, blowing between them, flurries of snow swirling around their heads, and Cavalo knew he was back in the snow globe again. Everything was shaking, and he’d
lost
something, Charlie, and he had to fight down the urge to laugh again, knowing he’d be lost to it if he gave in.

“You wear his mask,” Patrick said.

“Yes.”

“Dare I ask why?”

“Because he asked me to.”

“Did he? You’ll never see him again after today. I will get what I need from him and then throw him to my wolves. They’ll take him again and again and again. And when he’s dripping with come and blood, they’ll take him again.”

Cavalo’s jaw tightened, nothing more.

“I was a man, once,” Patrick said.

“Not anymore?”

He shook his head. “No. You can’t do what I’ve done, seen what I’ve seen, and still be a man.”

“You’re his father.” An accusation, a threat.

“I am. I know something of fathers. You could say I came from them.”

Cavalo knew he spoke of more. “The Forefathers.”

Patrick ignored him. “You will die. You know this?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t give me what I ask for?”

“No.”

“Grangeville is gone. No one is coming for you.”

“I know. I was there.”

Patrick nodded. “I thought you were. Did you see them? They burned prettily.”

Easy
, he told himself.
Easy
. “Did they hurt?”

“The burning? I would assume so, even—”

“The tattoos.”

Patrick took a step back. Recovered quickly. Smiled that showman smile. “The tattoos,” he repeated.

Cavalo said nothing. He’d heard what he needed to hear. Even if Lucas had told him that Patrick carried the rest of the schematics etched onto his skin, it helped to have confirmation. Though he didn’t know what he’d do with it.

“I
like
you,” Patrick breathed. “This will be a good day.”

“It may not be us,” Cavalo said, “and it may not be today, but one day, and one day soon, everything you know will come crashing down upon you. Someone, be it the Forefathers, St. Louis, or the UFSA. Someone will come, and you will be nothing but a bad dream.”

“I
am
the Forefathers,” Patrick snarled at him. “I
am
St. Louis. They are
nothing
without me, and once Dworshak is operational, I will launch an offensive unlike anything that this world has ever seen.”

“You shine,” Cavalo said. “Darkly.”

“Good-bye, Cavalo,” Patrick said. “Remember that I gave you a chance.”

He turned, picking his axe up from the snow. He dusted it off and slid it onto his back again, securing it. He started to walk away, then stopped.

Cavalo waited.

Patrick rocked his head back and howled. It echoed across the snowy fields before it died.

At first there was nothing.

And then from the forest came answering cries. It sounded like hundreds of voices mixing together for a single roar.

Cavalo knew then just how fucked they were.

Patrick walked back toward the trees without another word. Cavalo waited until he disappeared into the forest before he turned back toward Cottonwood. He didn’t run, though he wanted to. Instead, he kept his breathing even, feeling the sweat on his brow and his fingernails digging into the palm of his hand. The mask on his face was heavy and itchy. His eyes were locked onto Lucas, who glared down at him from the wall. The gate opened, and Cavalo dropped underneath it.

Hank was waiting for him. His face was pale.

“How many are there?” Cavalo demanded.

“Dozens,” he said. “More. I don’t….”

“Nothing changes,” Cavalo said, pushing past him.

Hank grabbed his arm. “We could still run. Head for the prison.”

Cavalo stopped. Took a deep breath. Loosened his shoulders. “No,” he said. “We can’t. This won’t end here. You know it won’t.” He pulled himself from Hank’s grasp. “Get everyone inside the inner wall and into place. They know what to do. Do it now. It’s time to end this.” He didn’t turn to see Hank’s reaction. It didn’t matter. Not anymore.

Cavalo pulled himself up the ladder, taking two rungs at a time. Lucas and Bad Dog waited for him at the top. The Dead Rabbit’s knife flashed in the low light. Cavalo didn’t stop himself. He hooked a hand around the back of his neck, pulling Lucas toward him. He kissed him fiercely, lips pushing back against his teeth. If this was their end, then so be it. But he was going to go out as he wanted to. And with who he wanted to.

Lucas gripped his sides. They panted as their lips pulled away. Forehead to forehead, the man and the monster breathed each other in, eyes wide and surrounded by black oil rubbed into the skin. Cavalo thought he could have been looking into a mirror.

Lucas reached up and motioned between the two of them.
This… this thing. Between us.

“It burns,” Cavalo said. “It hurts. I’m stung by it.”

Lucas nodded.
I didn’t mean for this to happen.

“I know.”

I am the dark.

“I know.”

But you stand by me.

“Yes,” he whispered.

Why?

That thing that could not be named flared inside of him. And for the first time in a very long time, Cavalo spoke the truth of it. “Because I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

James.

“Whatever happens,” Cavalo said roughly, “you stay with me. At my side. Follow me, and I’ll follow you. We’ll get through this.” The tone of his voice left no room for argument, even though his words rang false.

And Lucas smiled. It looked foreign on his face because it wasn’t that of the shark. There was something else buried in it. A tinge of sadness. Of longing.

And so many bees.

They were both covered in them.

Bad Dog barked worriedly.
They’re coming! They’re coming!

Cavalo turned.

Out past the southern road, through the fields of snow that led to the tree line, there was movement. Cavalo’s eyes were not what they once were. He knew that. He was older. His body wasn’t as strong as it’d been when he first started out on that horse so long ago. Age and a grenade exploding in his son’s hands had seen to that. The edges were duller than they’d been before, but he could still see.

They moved out from the trees. Men and women. They wore black fur and spikes. Their heads were shaved into strange designs. Tattoos curled up around their necks and scalps. Black armbands wrapped around biceps. Some were sick, the effects of radiation shown in tumors and distorted skin. But even those obviously ill did not stutter in their steps. They walked with purpose, and the line of people that stepped from the trees seemed to stretch on farther than Cavalo cared to look.

They stopped halfway across the field, close enough now that Cavalo could hear them shuffling through the snow. Lucas tensed at his side, and Cavalo reached down to grip his hand. Lucas’s fingers entwined with his own. He felt the strength there, in the long, thin fingers. The skin and bones that held him tight.

“Bad Dog,” he said quietly. “Down with BigHank. Now.”

But—

“Now.”

Bad Dog licked his hand once, then went to the edge of the platform. “I got you,” he heard Hank say as Bad Dog grumbled.

Patrick separated himself from the rest of the Dead Rabbits. He walked in front of them. Gone was the showman’s smile. Now it was just the bees. “Last chance,” he called out. “Think about what you’re doing, Cavalo. Those people trust you. Think about what you’re making them do.”

“You talk too much,” Cavalo said, his voice carrying across the field. “I’m done with you.”

The feral smile returned.

Cavalo had a bad feeling about this.

“Everyone inside?” he said quietly.

“Yes,” Hank said from below.

“Go. Now.”

Cavalo could hear Hank hurry away.

“I look forward to seeing what you’re made of,” Patrick said. “All spread out in the snow. Kuegler! Blower! Show these people how we say hello.”

Two men rushed to him, stopping on either side. They dropped to their knees. It was only then that Cavalo saw the RPGs brought up to their shoulders.

“Holy shit,” he breathed.

There was the blast of the weapons discharging, but Cavalo didn’t see the rockets fire toward them. Lucas had already pulled him away from the outer wall. Time slowed down around them, and through the storm of bees that roared in his head, Cavalo could hear the sharp whistling sound of objects slicing quickly through the air. He had time to think that he should have expected this given the black, scorched hole at Grangeville. He had time to wonder if he’d made a mistake, if he should have let them all run.

He had time to notice it’d started snowing again.

But then time ran out as Lucas pulled him off the edge of the platform. They jumped, and right before the wall exploded behind them, Lucas twisted in the air, pulling Cavalo to him, covering his body as if to shield him. Before Cavalo could even begin to process what he was doing, a wave of hot air slammed into their backs, knocking them apart. Cavalo landed on his side in the snow, curling up into a ball as burning wood rained down around him. Something heavy bounced off his legs, and he grunted. His ears felt cotton-stuffed. The snow had lessened the impact, but his arm was sore. Nothing felt broken. At least not physically.