God's Junk Drawer, page 46
Then he was on the ground. Next to Sam. Sam was okay. He’d saved him. He’d been brave. Maybe it’d impress Monique?
Sam looked horrified, though. Not happy at all about being saved. Talk about being . . .
Being . . .
What was the word?
His head still hurt. Hurt so much. He needed . . . he needed headache pills.
The blond woman standing behind Sam looked scared too. What was her name? Why couldn’t he remember her . . .
He tried to roll over. Get back to his feet. His arm twitched on the ground. His foot kicked. Had he tried to move his foot?
Why couldn’t he . . .
Why was everything dim?
Was it night already?
. . . was the sun going out?
44
NOAH
The Empress leaned forward on her throne. The glass dagger wove back and forth between her fingers, like a pen spun absently during an exam. “Yes. That was your name for me, wasn’t it?” Her wicked, catlike smile never wavered. “Trying to hide how scared you were with silly titles.”
Noah’d always remembered her face with its Freddy Krueger scars and the gaping hole where half her nose had been torn away. Hell, he couldn’t remember ever seeing her without sweat grime on her face or leaves in her tangled hair. He’d never considered what she would’ve looked like under all that.
But once he pushed away all those childhood impressions, he could see her sitting there. The shape of her eyes and chin. The broad shoulders. Her widow’s peak hairline was virtually the same. Hell, her hair was longer, bigger, but still whitest at the temples, shot through with gray and dark brown everywhere else. Enough familiarity to spark his old memories without being enough for him to actually recognize her under the face paint.
Until now.
“You’re the Empress,” he said.
“I am.”
“How?”
“Because the valley is mine.”
Noah bit his lip. The initial rush of fear had washed through him, and now he felt . . . well, definitely not calm, but rational. Slightly braver. No more confusion about who he was dealing with. He wasn’t a little boy anymore. She wasn’t a monster. Just a woman.
A very muscular woman with a long knife in her hand.
“I meant, how did you become the ruler? How’d you go from bossing around four members of the Pakka to . . . ?” He gazed around the throne room.
“The Pakka were weak. Little more than children. I kept them alive here, but even among my people, they were limited in their aspirations.”
“And then you found the Klaa?”
“Then I brought the Klaa here. I wanted fighters. Warriors. And the valley gave them to me. Because I am the Empress.”
“Because you’re the Empress,” he echoed.
The amusement vanished from her face. The blade stopped spinning to point at him again. “Do not mock me, little Billy.”
Qiang’s warnings danced in his head, her stabbing him if she got annoyed. Noah felt a little nervous chill between his shoulders and realized the power dynamic between them hadn’t changed much after all.
They stared at each other for a few more moments and the dagger resumed its slow, irregular orbit around her fingers.
“I came here, to the Castle, because I thought you were Beau. Why did you . . . summon me?”
Her grip loosened on the knife. “You truly are the arrogant little boy from all those centuries ago. Not dead. Returned to the world outside and then brought back to my valley.”
None of it was questions, but he answered anyway. “Yep.”
“How did you return?”
Noah shrugged. “About twenty years of math.”
She was on her feet, her arm stretching out, and the glass dagger was a blur. It was already back at her side by the time he felt the pain in his face. Under his face. She’d scraped his cheekbone under his eye and the bridge of his nose so hard the bone ached. But how could her blade hit bone without—
The sting of pain burned across his face. The first drop of blood touched his tongue. Then the stream hit his lips and the line of pain caught fire. His nose was red and wet. His cheek was coated with it.
She settled back on her throne. “I warned you not to mock me. Now you can be Scarnose.”
“Christ!” He felt the stinging flap of his cheek. A thin, deep slash, like a gigantic paper cut. Hot blood ran across his mouth, down his chin. The childhood fear surged up with it, danced on the underside of his brain.
But the fear came with old assurances. How many times had the thought rang in his head over the past decades—if I was in the valley, this would barely slow me down. It wouldn’t even leave a scar.
Noah tried to ignore the stinging pain, spread his fingers wide and held his cheek and nose together. Blood still slid down his neck, soaked into his shirt. “I wasn’t mocking you. That’s how I got back here. Years of research and calculations to find the exact spot, right where and when I needed to be on Earth to get back here.”
All the old hatred simmered in her eyes. How had he ever thought she was Beau? The knife spun once on her palm and then the blade pointed at him. “Explain.”
He wondered how much information the Castaway had given her. Should he try to explain planetary rotation and orbital mechanics? Simplify or use specifics? “What do you know about the valley itself?”
“Everything. It is mine.”
He bit back a sigh. “Do you know this place isn’t really a valley?”
She said nothing.
He took it as a sign to continue. Also a sign she didn’t know what he was talking about, so he racked his brain for a metaphor. “Okay, you know how a log floats in the water, and then you can use the log to cross a lake or a river or—”
“I understand the concept of a starship. The Castaway put a great deal of knowledge in my mind.” She leaned back in her throne. “The valley is a secondary vessel he used to flee the destruction of his interdimensional craft, in the way mindless animals flee a forest fire.”
Noah nodded and the cut across his cheek and nose flexed, burning sharp enough to make his eyes water. A reminder not to underestimate her. “The lifeboat stays at a certain fixed point, and that point is in Earth’s orbit. Once a year their paths intersect. But the nature of the Castaway’s ship means that intersection can also reach through history.”
Her eyebrow twitched.
“But wherever and whenever it ends up, things at the intersection point end up here. Inside the lifeboat. In the valley. It’s like . . . like a bug in the water that gets trapped on that log. The log doesn’t mean to grab it. It’s just random chance.”
“No. Nothing comes here unless I will it. I control everything. The lifeboat is mine. The valley is mine. The ground itself shakes in fear of my power.”
He shook his head and set off another surge of pain. “I’m sorry, Empress, but that’s how . . .”
A blink of light over her shoulder caught his eye. One of the random sparkles that ran through the walls of the Ice Castle. He’d never considered there could be meaning behind them.
“Why?”
Her grin vanished. Her brow furrowed as she studied him. Still a Neanderthal at heart.
“The Castaway. When they left, why did they give you control of all of this?”
Her eyes opened wide. The grin returned. She took in a breath, tilted her head back, and laughed up into the tyrannosaurus skull. “Still a silly little boy. Still so much you don’t know or understand. I am the Empress. I do not wait for things to be given to me. I take them.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Mind your tone, little Billy. The valley heals many things, which means I can cut you deep for days on end without fear of you dying on me.” She pointed the glass dagger at him again. “I had one man last for almost four weeks.”
The nervous fear nestled in his lungs again. He felt his pulse throb in the wound across his face, and a few more drops of blood fell from his cheek to his chest “I . . . I’m sorry. Please . . . what happened when the Castaway left?”
“The Castaway did not leave. I killed them.”
The air in the chamber felt cold on his skin. “That’s not possible.”
“I am the Empress. All things are possible for me.”
“How?”
She leaned back in the throne, vamping again. “It took time. Decades. Only part of them was ever here, after all. But all it takes to kill something is knowing where to put the knife. I only had to watch. And wait. And stab the right part.”
“You . . .” His mind raced back and forth between the horror of it and the sheer nonsense. “You killed a multidimensional alien? With a knife?”
The dagger of blue glass spun between her fingers again. “A knife made from their own home. I watched them die. And then I claimed their power as my own.”
He watched the blade. Looked at the walls behind her. The vaulted ceiling. The floor, splattered with a few small puddles of his blood. Another drop fell as he stared.
What color had the Castaway’s blood been?
She’d killed his friend.
“Why am I here?”
The dagger stopped spinning. The blade away from him this time. Her icy eyes burned. “I sent for you. And you obeyed.”
He felt like a cowboy facing down a gunslinger at high noon. “No. How did I get here? How did little Billy Gather come back to the valley with his friends if the Empress decides what enters?”
Just for an instant he saw something else in her eyes, something else he remembered from childhood. Whenever Dad had to confront the Pakka about something. Dad who’d been a giant in their eyes.
She was nervous. Angry, but nervous too. Maybe even scared.
But only for an instant.
The blade pointed at the floor. “Kneel before me. Kneel in your own blood.”
“Why?”
“Because your Empress told you to. Because you annoy me, little Billy-now-Noah. You are not part of my vision of the valley. You do not belong here.”
He debated kneeling. Doing what she wanted. Would it make things go better or worse?
She tapped the dagger against her knee. Stood up on the dais in front of the throne, putting her head above his. The blade whipped out again, slashing up. So fast. Slicing the other cheek from the corner of his mouth to the corner of his eye. Just missing his eye.
He screamed and staggered back, grabbed at his face, pressed the cut together. Another razor-cut into the meat. More of his blood hit the floor. Had she missed the bone this time or had he just missed it in all the pain? Holy fuck, so much pain.
So much for facing down the gunslinger.
“Go back to your little village, man-boy. Go back and take this message with you. This is what the Empress demands of the people of Roanoke.
“Tell them you are a liar. You are not Billy Gather, but you have reminded me of the past and so your very existence in the valley is an insult. You are to be executed. You and ten others from their village. Penance for insulting the Empress with your lies. Your bodies are to be hung in the forest by their fields.”
He took in a breath. Bit his tongue. Stared at her through the fingers holding his face together.
“Because I am a generous Empress, I will give the people of Roanoke one day to do this. Tomorrow I shall come to view the bodies. And to bury my dagger in each one to be sure they are dead.
“When I come, I shall bring the full might of the Klaa. And if I do not find your body strung up, and the fresh bodies of ten others of your kind, then I will give B’Kar free rein to do what he has wanted to do for so many years. The Klaa will kill everything within the walls of that little village. Every one of you. We wipe your stain from the valley, and this time I will make sure of it.”
She met his eyes. Pointed the dagger at his eyes. The tip of the blade blurred in his vision. “Do you understand what you have been told?”
He nodded clumsily, his hands holding his bloody face together.
“Then run away, little Billy. Run away from me, like you always do. The next time I lay eyes on you, one way or another, you will finally be dead.”
45
PARKER
Parker stood in the main hall and listened to Qiang try to explain why Josh was dead. She knew why he was dead. She’d seen his . . . she’d seen the body. The head. She was just trying to find a bigger understanding past that.
The lamps and the simple chandelier had been lit, banishing the shadows up to the ceiling and the far corners. At least half of Roanoke had gathered to hear the news of the Empress’s identity, her threat, and Breaker attacking the group at the graveyard. A lot of them had heard the news already. It was a small village.
“We think Breaker was looking to hurt someone,” Qiang explained. “Between your encounter out in the valley and the Empress’s attitude toward you, well . . .”
“Breaker’s a pretty solid name for him,” said Warwick.
Parker watched the crowd. She didn’t know every name, but at this point she recognized all the faces. Some of them were angry. Some of them were scared. All whispering in pairs and trios.
Qiang sat at the head with Noah next to him. Some of the wardens—Warwick, Emerson, and Neith—gathered on the other side of the table. Marissa had tried to give her seat to Ross as they all wandered in, but the android had politely refused, preferring to lean on its walking stick near the head of the table.
Parker stood with Sam and Olivia, somewhat behind Noah. Sam had dragged one of the wooden chairs away from the table for Olivia, and now he and Parker stood on either side of her. Olivia hadn’t said a word since they’d come back from the cemetery. Sam hadn’t said much, either. Parker was pretty sure his little-kid enthusiasm for the valley had been shattered.
Noah wasn’t any better. The clotted gashes across his face made him look like he’d stepped out of a war movie. Or maybe a slasher. But it was more than that. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He barely met anybody’s eyes. Just sat slumped back in his chair.
“Again,” Qiang said, “I’m so very sorry for you. Death is frequent here, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
Parker searched the crowd again for Josh. Felt another sharp twinge. In her gut it still felt like Josh would wander into the meeting any moment now. Probably with food in his hands and a stupid sci-fi reference to make.
She looked at Monique, a few seats away. The doctor hadn’t said much since arriving, except to announce she’d set and splinted Shino’s arm. Her eyes had the watery look of someone who hadn’t quite figured out if she wanted to cry or not.
Parker wished she hadn’t always been so dismissive of Josh. It didn’t seem to bother him much, but it gnawed at her now. What was the last thing she’d said to him? He’d been around enough she hadn’t really thought about it. When did she become the mean girl again?
Qiang cleared his throat. “I also think we need to remember Joshua Redd’s death as we discuss the Empress’s threat.”
The whispers in the room surged into murmurs. Parker could guess what was coming next. She just didn’t know who it would come from.
“We should kill her.” Sam didn’t look at anyone as he spoke. Just stared into the space above the big table. “The Empress. Breaker. All of them.”
“Hell yeah,” said Emerson. “Seconded. We should’ve offed her years ago.”
A mutter of agreement fumbled its way through the main hall.
Qiang sighed. “We can’t kill her.”
“We can and we should,” said the old soldier.
“We have no idea how the Klaa will react.”
“Losing their leader will break their chain of command!”
Diedrich rapped his knuckles on the table. “Ja. But which way will it break?”
“What do you mean?”
“Fight or flight,” Diedrich said. “Their most common reactions, ja? So without the Empress, do they run away and scatter across the valley? Or do they fall in behind Breaker and try to kill us all anyway?”
“That’s the big question, ain’t it?” Warwick sat with his fingers laced before him on the table. “Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.”
Neith clapped twice. She spoke several sentences, looking at each of them as she did. She pointed at herself, then crossed her arms.
Ross took a shuffling step forward. “Neith has heard us use the Empress’s name several times and hopes we are in agreement to kill her. She believes it is the simplest solution and the right thing to do.”
Emerson looked over at the woman. Gave her a thumbs-up. She sent a sharp, military nod back at him.
Sam made one of his quick breath sounds. Parker glanced at him. He was studying the crowd too, with the distinct air of a student desperate to be called on so he could contribute to the discussion.
Qiang turned his attention to Warwick. “Is there any chance we can hold her off?”
“Not bloody likely.” He shook his head. “The walls are fine for basic defense, keeping things from sneaking into town, but they won’t stop anything really big that directly attacks us. The Klaa could goad a big dino right through the front gate. Hell, probably right through the wall in a few places.”
“And if what Noah says is true,” added Pyr, “if she’s bringing most of them, they could surround us and attack from all sides. We’d have to defend from every direction.”
“Or they could wait us out,” said one of the other villagers. Parker recognized the bulky man from the top of the wall the other night, but she’d forgotten his name.
Warwick nodded. “Yeah, we’d do lousy in a siege. Especially an extended one.”
Qiang’s gaze stretched down the length of the table, and Parker followed it to Marissa. The wavy-haired woman shook her head. “We just did the tribute. There’s not much food in the storehouse. The next big harvest is, what, six weeks away?”
Dak Ho nodded.
