Monsters & Empire, page 38
CHAPTER 38
ONE YEAR LATER
Lucky the truck pulled out of the gravel drive and headed north. Geoff was at the wheel. Owen and Ian waved from the cab, and Mop gave a yip. Chance barked from the covered back. Bayo returned the wave until they disappeared in the deepening twilight.
His hand fell. His heart ached. And he felt relieved.
He’d had them for a week. Normally, he only saw them for two days at a time, max.
Gravel crunched behind him. “You need a beer,” Perez said.
Bayo turned, his mouth open, prepared for a retort. The Vampire countered, “You need a meal, and then you need to sleep.”
Bayo exhaled. He picked at his shirt, damp with sweat and clingy in the Southern Illinois summer. “But the lights—”
Perez’s eyes glowed in the twilight. “You’ll do better if you’re fed and well rested. It’s a dangerous business. A mistake could set us back months we don’t have. And you don’t want to get buried alive. Neither do I.”
Perez was right about the danger of making a mistake. They couldn’t afford a setback. Much less a setback of months.
A half hour later, in a roadside tavern, chilled beers in front of them, orders for food placed, Bayo still wasn’t happy about it. They were so close—and yet the mission to retrieve Grendel had never been in more peril.
“Don’t beat yourself up over things you can’t help,” Perez said.
Bayo shot him a dirty look. Vampires had a nasty way of knowing what you were thinking and feeling.
“Don’t give me that look,” Perez said. “You know I’m right. I’m old. Seen it all.”
“Have to be condescending, don’t cha?” Bayo said.
Perez pointed a claw at Bayo. His mouth opened, about to be condescending again.
Bayo was saved by a feminine, “Are these seats taken?” from behind Perez.
“Not at all,” Perez said, turning around to the speaker. There was a group of three young women. The one that had spoken had Magick that tasted like … cookies? A talent for baking maybe?
Perez didn’t have a partner and wanted nothing long term since his wife of fifty years had passed ten years ago. The Magickal young woman couldn’t turn, and Perez wasn’t above a short-term arrangement. Bayo swore he could hear the Vampire’s fangs descending and rolled his eyes.
Two of the girls slipped onto the open stools beside Perez. The woman with Magick like cookies said, “Oh, you’re a Vampire.” With absolutely no surprise in the Ember.
“Chasers,” Bayo muttered under his breath.
“Don’t care,” Perez muttered back.
The third girl, who might have gotten the short end of the stick, walked over to Bayo’s side. Bayo knew he wasn’t bad looking in ordinary circumstances. Sitting next to a Vampire wasn’t ordinary, especially this close to the border.
“You with the Alliance forces, here?” the girl asked Bayo.
“Something like that,” Bayo said. He worked for the Storm King, Cherie, and other interested parties, but he slept in the officers’ quarters in the barracks. All the officers suspected he was a spy for the Alliance. He was something like that, too.
The girl put her fruity drink on the bar and slid onto the empty barstool beside him. She was wearing a tank top with thin straps that exposed an expanse of soft, tanned skin. Her hazel eyes were bright. She smelled like suntan oil and liquid courage. The Ember sang with hope and buzzed with desire. Bayo swallowed. It made him feel heady and a little drunk.
He looked to Perez for support. Focused on the girls, Perez shouted, “Councilman Jones is talking out of his ass!”
One girl rolled her eyes, but the other one leaned in. Bayo couldn’t quite hear what she was saying over the din.
The girl beside Bayo sighed, very close to his ear. “Miranda is such a weirdo. I tell her not to talk politics!”
Bayo blinked. He wasn’t good with small talk, either. Also… “I’m actually curious about what got Perez riled up. He’s not a riling up kind of guy.”
The girl beside him straightened on the barstool. She stared at him for a moment, the Ember flaring with indecision.
He leaned a little closer to be heard. “Really, I am curious.”
She rolled her eyes. “You know how Councilman Jones is saying we should invade the UMS before they recover from their defeat here?”
One of Bayo’s eyebrows lifted. He had heard of no plans for that, and he was in touch with people who would know. His contacts gave him a good idea of the state of things in the UMS. The Alliance might succeed if they did it.
“See, you’re quiet,” the girl said, poking his arm. “Talking about politics is a horrible way to flirt.” Her eyes went wide, and she put a hand to her mouth and giggled. She had a cute nose and nice eyes. When she giggled, parts of her bounced just a little bit. Bayo’s eyes dropped, almost of their own accord. He looked away fast, embarrassed more than guilty. Grendel had said something about, “Being in a relationship doesn’t mean you’re dead.” Or maybe that had been a dream.
The bartender slid his burger in front of him. He picked at it but didn’t eat.
“We can talk about the weather, if it’s more comfortable,” the girl said. She leaned closer; her arm brushed his. What she wanted slipped into his mind. It wasn’t even sex—or not just sex. She wanted love. The whole nine yards: family, children … Not necessarily with him. But he was here, and she was an optimist. He smiled wryly and looked away. Odd to think that Grendel would be the first to urge him to go after that if he wanted it. He didn’t want that. Or rather, he already had a fractured version of that. He loved his boys, but also felt bound by them, confined. Grendel didn’t want that either, not anymore. At least, he didn’t think she did.
“So, how’s the weather?” the girl nudged him with her elbow. It was very soft.
What was his relationship with Grendel? He felt more in love with her now than he had before … but how much of what he felt now was real?
Optimism fading, she asked him, “Are you in a relationship?”
“Something like that,” he said, carefully keeping his attention on his food.
Grendel was lying in Bayo’s arms, staring through a window with a fluttering white curtain.
Bayo was murmuring against her shoulder, “Tokala, you remember him, from the Mammoth Tribe. He wonders why I don’t give Owen my Magick … force it into a piece of jewelry or a tattoo or clothes …”
“You don’t sound enthusiastic,” Grendel said.
“It’s not that it would be draining for me,” Bayo said. He took a deep breath. “Owen’s on the Non-Magickal boys’ soccer league. He’s the star player … if he had Magickal assistance, he’d have to play on the other team. And I worry, he’d come to depend on it … He’s the better player now, without Magick. Not as fast as the Magick boys. Not as strong. But he’s more skilled. I just think …” He huffed. “And if I suggest it, wouldn’t that be saying he’s not enough? On the other hand, I’d like him not to die.” His voice became a mutter. “And he seems determined to do that. My talent is Life, and he has given me gray hair.”
Grendel laughed and patted his hand. “I didn’t notice the gray hairs. As to giving him your Magick … It seems like something that you should offer him later, when he’s older. Tell him why you haven’t and then let him decide.”
“You’re probably right,” Bayo said.
“I don’t know if I’m right,” Grendel said. “But I do know offering Magickal gifts to non-Magickals can have ill effects if the non-Magickal can’t give consent.” She swallowed. “A Magickal cat I know had a non-Magickal kitten. She gave the kitten a collar—a necklace she called it—that gave her kitten intellect and health. The necklace even charmed people into not perceiving its nature, to hide the fact the kitten wasn’t Magickal. The Magickal kitten didn’t take it well. She felt as though she weren’t really equal to her brothers and sisters in her mother’s eyes. She ran away from home. No one has heard from her since. If she’d been given the choice … but, of course, she wouldn’t have comprehended.”
Bayo hummed against her back. She blinked at the window. On the other side of the curtain stood Barcelona’s La Sagrada Familia. A brilliant blue sky framed the church’s romantic steeples. The moment was perfect.
And the perfection made her worry. There was something wrong out there.
Horrible realization struck her. “I cheated on you.”
Bayo huffed. “Grendel, if you mean the man you killed just before … Don’t worry about it.”
Before what? She didn’t remember. But she did remember his blood. “I can’t not think about it. I drank his blood. I know you don’t want me to drink from anyone but you.” Her stomach felt empty, hollow.
“Grendel, you didn’t cheat on me.”
She exhaled. And then another thought struck her. Why was she seeing the church in sunlight? She took deep breaths. She felt like she was trapped. Like she couldn’t move.
Bayo was suddenly above her. “Grendel, don’t wake up!” His Magick was thick with compulsion.
“What are you doing to me?” Grendel wailed.
“Trying to save you! Please, don’t wake up … don’t wake up!”
Bayo woke with a start, skin cold, although the night was warm. He sat up, and the cheap military cot beneath him creaked.
Once, he would have been jealous of the man Grendel had killed. That was before he understood death could be a kindness, and that sometimes it was unethical to deprive someone of it. His jealousy had come back to haunt him a lot in the past year. Her guilt awoke her. He exhaled … the dream of Barcelona, and the church that looked like a castle of dribbled sand had been … exquisite. They always wound up in different places in her dreams. No, their dreams.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he looked out the window and saw no hint of dawn. But he wasn’t going back to sleep. Rising, he padded to his closet and grabbed some civvies: blue jeans stained beyond recognition, a gray tee shirt, and work boots. He slipped a heavy Magickal key into his pocket.
He set out across the base. Passing the commissary, he bumped into Perez. The Vampire said, “Heading out?”
“Can’t sleep.”
“I’ll come with you,” Perez said, falling into step with him.
They flashed IDs to the guard owl on duty and padded from the fort down to the Saline and Bayo’s canoe, a gift from the Mammoth Tribe, hidden at the water’s edge. They righted it, revealing a small red rubber ball Bayo’s boys had left behind. He felt a pang in his gut. He missed them. He was relieved they weren’t here.
Bayo set the ball beside the burrow of Mike and Beth Muskrat. Their kits enjoyed playing with it when his boys were here.
Minutes later, the craft skimmed from the mouth of the Saline into the Ohio. A new island, the only part of Quake and Richter’s dam that hadn’t collapsed, stood near the UMS bank. A single lighthouse stood there, surrounded by walls of sandbags.
Despite its proximity to the UMS, the lighthouse and the island belonged to the Alliance. For now. The UMS’s defeat during the War of the Undead had set Theo back politically. For now.
The lighthouse was haloed by bright lights that shone from about fifty meters within the UMS border. Bayo’s paddle sagged in the water.
“They can’t dig fast. They want to preserve the remains,” Perez said, digging his own paddle in deep.
Shaking himself, Bayo resumed paddling. But was the UMS working all night?
Perez looked back at him and said, “We’re working all night, too,” as though he’d guessed Bayo’s thoughts.
A few minutes later, they pulled the canoe up onto the island. Mosquitos hummed in Bayo’s ears. The owl on duty hooted in recognition. Sensing activity, soldiers on the UMS side flashed more lights overhead. The UMS side was thick with security. They weren’t Revived, and Bayo couldn’t yank their souls out.
Bayo opened the lighthouse with the key and entered an impersonal foyer with no windows, and a heavy, metal Magickal door. Living quarters for the Alliance forces posted here were beyond. Bayo had requested this posting, but only creatures with Farsight received it, and he wasn’t here to be on watch.
Ignoring the door, they lifted a hatch in the floor, revealing a descending spiral staircase. The rumble of a motor echoed from below. Flicking some spark lights into the air, Bayo headed down, and Perez followed. A long rubber tube, wide as Bayo’s calf, snaked down the steps beside them.
Less than two years ago, Bayo would never have allowed a Vampire to walk behind him. A year and a half ago, he might only have been comfortable with Grendel.
They reached the bottom of the staircase, a loud, dirty room with a gravel floor. The source of the rumble was an Ember powered air pump. As their feet touched the gravel, a screech rose from a winch. A badger mechanic looked up from the winch, briefly rose to its hind paws in greeting, and then scuttled over to the opening in the wall that the winch’s line disappeared into. Bayo grabbed a pickaxe from the wall. Perez grabbed a shovel.
The winch screeched to a stop, and a small sledge filled with dirt and rocks popped out of the tunnel. Perez shoveled the contents of the sledge over to a pile in the corner, and the badger packed it down tight.
Bayo hooked a rope to the sledge and the other end to his belt and crawled into the tunnel. The first part of the tunnel was interlocking tubes of concrete, shoved into the soft, wet soil beneath the Ohio River by a Cyclops construction crew. They’d done it when the lighthouse was built. The concrete tubes weren’t on any official budget. Geoff, the Storm King and Cherie, and Vampires had funded them. The Alliance had spies in the UMS. The UMS had likewise. It was imperative the UMS not know about this mission.
At the far end, beneath the UMS bank, concrete gave way to dirt. The space narrowed, and the ceiling dropped. Bayo took a deep breath as he entered. The walls pressed in on his shoulders on either side. His head and back rubbed against the ceiling, dislodging dirt and stones. Hoses pressed against his belly. One hose drained water and was silent. The other pumped in oxygen and hummed and whooshed.
Bayo focused on putting one elbow and one knee forward at a time. He did not think about the ceiling caving in, the tunnel flooding, or the hose pumping oxygen dying.
He tried not to think about the excavation going on in the sinkhole Quake and Richter had created … And failed. The Alliance had realized what had happened to Grendel through Bayo and Mizuki’s dreams, Penelope’s weavings, and Chance the retriever’s tracking skills. Financing and implementing Grendel’s retrieval had begun almost immediately.
For almost a year, his brother had been distracted by politics … but also a lie. Under torture, one of Richter and Quake’s cousins had “confessed” that the two had fled to Mexico via the Eastern seaboard. Lie detectors hadn’t worked. Theo had forgotten that to escape torture, a victim might start to believe what their interrogators expected to hear. The Dragon King had kept seers hopelessly focused on the Eastern seaboard and Mexico.
They knew all this because their spy had finally worked their way into Theo’s Palace. Stan still kept Bayo abreast of updates.
If Quake or Richter had been well loved by someone with a gift for sight, they might have been found sooner. They weren’t well loved. Theo’s attention had recently returned to the sinkhole the siblings had created, mostly because family members of the other dead wanted their remains. But Quake and Richter would be found, and Grendel would be too.
The UMS was carefully and methodically digging up the remains of their fallen. That meant slowly. But the Alliance was digging slowly, too, and the Alliance had to dig farther. The Alliance also had to or risk their tunnels collapsing, or Grendel being crushed by the boulder that had collapsed on top of her and the man she held in her arms.
The whoosh of air stopped.
Bayo froze. He waited, telling himself he just imagined the air getting thinner. The pump hadn’t been dead for that long.
There was a sputter, another, and then a whoosh. The hum resumed. A little hole in the hose hissed ahead of him, and he took deep gulps and kept crawling.
It took nearly twenty minutes to reach his destination, a small chamber, not quite large enough for him to sit up in, but wide enough to stretch his arms and legs wide. It smelled of dirt and badger. A pile of earth lay to one side. A second sledge leaned against the other. The far side of the tunnel continued upward. From the tunnel came cheerful humming.
Using the pickaxe, Bayo scraped the piled dirt into the sledge he’d pulled along with him.
The cheerful hum stopped. There was a snuffling, and then a deep voice growled, “Heyo, Bayo!”
“Hey, Bart,” Bayo said.
“It’s not morning already, is it?” Bart asked.
“Nope,” Bayo said. He gave the rope attached to the end of the sledge a yank. From the tunnel came a screech as the winch fired up, and then the sledge slithered into the darkness. He set about filling the second sledge with as much dirt as Bart could push and maneuvered it into the tunnel back to the Alliance.
A few seconds later, Bart ambled out of the ascending tunnel. “Was due for a break.” With a few badgerish whistles, he put his forepaws on the sledge and pushed it into darkness.
Bayo slid up into the ascending tunnel. It was even more cramped than the last, and the hose didn’t reach far enough. He began picking at the hard Earth.
Two years ago, he would have sneered at Magickal badgers. Now he practically was one.
“Bayo! Bayo!”
A sharp scratch on his ankle made Bayo kick. He opened his eyes and saw only darkness. For a moment, he was in the mining cave with the corpses.
A muffled shout from Bart wiggled its way into his brain. “Bayo! Lad! Wake up! The air hose is off!”
Bayo scrambled backward into the small chamber in a rush of pebbles. The air smelled unusually stale. “How long?” Bayo gasped.
“A few minutes,” said Bart, turning to the way back. “We better wait until—” The badger’s ears perked to the ascending tunnel.
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