The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) Read online

  “There’s nothing we lack that Black Tide can’t provide,” Lara said.

  “It won’t be easy,” Will had said, “and people will die.”

  People have already died, Will. Too many people. Good and bad, and everyone else in-between, too. And people will keep dying…unless we stop it.

  “It’s not an easy thing, what you’re asking,” Riley said.

  “Who says it was going to be easy?” Gaby said. “We’re talking about ending this once and for all. Even if it’s the hardest thing we ever do, shouldn’t we do it anyway? The entire human race is on the line.”

  “Not nearly dramatic enough, kid,” Danny said. “But Kid Ranger’s right. It’s now or possibly never. Maybe it’s just the old fart in me, but I don’t much like being at the bottom of the food chain. I like it better on top—and yes, that’s what she said.”

  Lara was doing her best to read Riley’s and Hart’s faces, and she thought she saw flares of agreement, especially from Hart. Riley appeared more reluctant, maybe the result of having so much gone wrong since his mutiny.

  She decided to help him along: “You left Mercer because you didn’t want to kill innocent people, but you can’t run forever. Sooner or later, you have to come face-to-face with the monster. The real monster. This is our best chance to do that, but we can’t do it alone. We need Black Tide.”

  Riley sighed. “All of this talk about saving the world will be a moot point if they open fire on us as soon as we show back up there.”

  “Which is why we’re not just going to show up out of the blue,” Lara said. “First, we have to make sure Mercer’s not in charge anymore. This whole thing doesn’t work if he’s still calling the shots over there.”

  “Agreed,” Riley nodded.

  “So how do we make sure?” Hart asked. “We can’t just call them up and ask, can we?”

  “Why not?” Lara said. “Why can’t we just radio Black Tide? They don’t know where we are right now, or that we intercepted their stand-down order. The only way to find out for sure what’s happened to Mercer without exposing ourselves—”

  “Is to ask for Mercer,” Hart finished.

  Lara nodded. “Give them any excuse. You just want to talk. You had a change of heart. Whatever it takes. Either Mercer will come to the radio or he won’t.”

  “You’re right,” Riley said. “We don’t actually have to be there to get what we need.” He nodded, though she thought it was more for his own benefit. “We just have to be careful.”

  “Very careful,” Lara said. “We don’t give away our position. As far as they know, we could be across the globe by now.”

  “Jesus, if Keo really did it,” Blaine said. “I always knew that guy was dangerous.”

  “I met him back at the Ocean Star when he was there,” Hart said. “He came across as more crazy than dangerous to me.”

  “You mean there’s a difference?” Danny asked.

  “That’s another thing,” Lara said to Riley. “Try to find out what happened to Keo, if he’s still alive.”

  “It’s been two days,” Riley said. “What are the chances of that?”

  “I’ve learned never to underestimate the man,” Lara said. “Keo’s been known to buck the odds once or twice.”

  “Or twenty,” Danny chimed in.

  “I have to leave.”

  “And go where?”

  “Texas.”

  “Why? Is it the water?”

  “No.”

  “Tell me why.”

  “I have too many miles to cover. I have to start now, or I won’t be ready.”

  “Why does it always have to be you?”

  “Because it has to be.”

  She shook her head, not that it did any good. Transformed or not, he was still Will, and once he made up his mind…

  “What if I can’t convince them?” she asked.

  “You will,” he said.

  “But what if I can’t?”

  “You will.”

  “Maybe you have more faith in me than I do. Than other people will.”

  “You’re wrong,” he said, and there was a tenderness in his voice that belied the hissing that accompanied every word, every sound he made. “I’ve always known you were stronger than you realized. Even now, as strong as you’ve become, you’re still capable of so much more. You were born to lead, Lara. So lead. Do whatever you have to to convince them. Mabry won’t be there forever. This is our chance. It might be our only chance.”

  She sat in the chair and stared across the semidarkness at him. If she still had any doubts that this Will wasn’t the same one who had left Song Island all those months ago, his tall, elongated form curled up into almost a ball in the corner of the room ended that. It was her Will, but it also wasn’t. Even so, the thought of him leaving her again so soon after coming back into her life was like a knife in the back.

  Not again. You can’t just leave me again, you bastard.

  She was angry with him, even though she knew things would never be the same between them—could never be the same. There had been a part of her that held out hope he wouldn’t abandon her once more, that he would stay and protect her this time, like he had promised. She wanted desperately to go back to being his girlfriend and marveling from the background as he led everyone to safety and always had the answers to all the problems.

  She wanted all those things badly, but she also knew she couldn’t have them. Not anymore. Because the Will she knew and loved and missed, and eventually accepted as being lost was, for all intents and purposes, gone. Kate had taken him from her.

  But she could still see enough of him left in the blue-eyed creature that looked out from the shadowed corner at her now that she found herself hating him for wanting to leave her all over again.

  You promised me. You promised me.

  “Do you remember…us?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said (hissed).

  “Everything?”

  “Most of it.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “It comes and goes, but if I focus… I remember that I love you. I remember that I would rather die than disappoint you. I remember…”

  The smile came to her lips easily, and with it too much wild emotion that she had to shove it all back because she wasn’t sure she could control it. And right here, right now, she didn’t want to break down in front of him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For everything. For not coming back…”

  “You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I tried…”

  “I know you did. I never doubted that you would.”

  Except for all those days and nights when I did have doubts. When I lay in bed and wondered if you had abandoned me.

  I was wrong.

  I was so, so wrong.

  “But you finally made your way back,” she said. “And now you want to leave again?”

  “I have to, or the plan doesn’t work.”

  “Is that the only reason?”

  His eyes shifted as he looked away, and the sudden absence of his pulsating blue eyes left her feeling strangely empty.

  “No,” he said.

  “What’s the other reason?”

  “I don’t belong here.”

  “With me…”

  “With people.”

  “Your friends…”

  “With people,” he said again.

  She leaned forward. “Will…”

  “Frank.”

  “No. You’re Will. You’ll always be Will.”

  He lifted his head back up, blue eyes reappearing in their fullness. They were soothing and calming, and nothing like the souls of mindless monsters that she envisioned the blue-eyed ghouls as being when she had heard the stories.

  “You’ll always be Will,” she said. “Maybe you’re not the man you once were, but you’ll always be the man I love.”

  “Man,” he said, and there might have been something th
at almost sounded like…amusement (?) in his voice. “I’m not even that anymore, Lara.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters.”

  “No…”

  “It matters,” he said, so softly she barely heard it. “I have to go. I have to go back.”

  “You’re going to leave me again,” she said, regretting the words as soon as they left her lips.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you?”

  “More than you’ll ever know.”

  “Then promise you’ll come back when this is over. Promise me, and this time you better goddamn keep it.”

  He nodded. “Yes…”

  “Say it.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good. We’ll figure the rest of it out later. Together.”

  “Yes,” he said, again so softly she had to strain to hear him. Then, “Lara…”

  “Yes, Will?”

  “Can I…”

  “What is it?”

  “…Touch you?”

  She stared at him for the longest time. His eyes pulsed in the shadows, watching her back. She couldn’t have begun to read his face even if she could see it. He barely moved in the corner, and whenever she heard anything at all coming from him, it was the unnatural clacking of joints.

  “I want to remember,” he said.

  “Remember?”

  “You. They’re fading. My memories of you. Each night, they fade a little more. I want to remember…”

  “Yes,” she answered before he could finish, surprising even herself.

  “Close your eyes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t…want you to see me like this.”

  “I’ve already seen you.”

  “Not…like this.”

  She didn’t move, but closed her eyes like he asked. The wait was excruciating, and she exerted every ounce of willpower she had to sit perfectly still on the chair and not get up and run away—

  His touch was cold against her left cheek, and she startled but didn’t pull away because she knew without a single shred of doubt that he wouldn’t hurt her. If he wanted to, he could have done it a dozen times now. Even the guards outside the engine room door were there just to keep people out. Nothing could hold him in here if he didn’t want to stay. Those two men Phil had sent down last night had found out just how dangerous he could be when—

  She sighed out loud, involuntarily, when warmth spread through his fingers and against her skin and chased away the coldness. His entire body must have been closer than she realized, because she could sense the strange aura of chill and heat that Danny and Gaby had told her about. It was an impossible balance of winter and summer radiating from every pore of his skin.

  She wanted to open her eyes, to look at him up close and see every inch of him the way he was doing to her, but she didn’t, because this wasn’t for her.

  A second hand touched her right cheek, and this one was also ice cold at first, but the sensation quickly faded and was replaced by warmth. He traced her face with his fingers, as if trying to remember every inch of her, every imperfection, like a blind man would in order to “see” what someone looked like.

  She expected her heartbeat to continue accelerating, but after the first ten or so seconds of contact, it plateaued and returned to a normal rhythm. Her breathing came out in even spurts, defying all logic. Her entire body seemed to almost slow down, her perception of time and space and senses moving in molasses, almost as if she, and not him, were trying to prolong this moment.

  “Lara,” he whispered, and his voice sounded almost human, almost like Will again. The Will she remembered, not this new Will that had come back to her changed. But that was impossible, and she was almost entirely certain it was her mind trying to deceive her in an attempt to keep her still as she allowed a blue-eyed ghoul to touch her—

  Will. She was letting Will touch her.

  “Lara,” he whispered again, as one of his fingers touched her lips and traced them from side to side, then up and down. The cold followed by the warmth, then back again, until there was that strange, impossible balance of heat and freeze that defied nature.

  “Will,” she whispered back.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Don’t be sorry.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

  Then he was gone.

  His touch faded, and so did the cold and heat that came from him.

  When she opened her eyes, he was back in the shadows, huddled in the corner, and his head was downcast so she couldn’t lose herself in his blue eyes.

  “Will,” she said.

  “I have to go,” he said.

  “Will…”

  “I have too many miles to cover.”

  “Will, please look at me.”

  “…And you have too much work ahead of you.”

  “Will, please…”

  “We have to succeed, because we won’t get another chance,” he said quietly. “We won’t get another chance…”

  “Will,” she said again, pleading with everything she had in that one word.

  “I have to go back,” he said, still not looking up at her. “I have to go back…”

  She left the cabin, but she didn’t leave the engine room. Instead, she leaned against the wall and let the loud grind of machinery camouflage her tears. There were a lot of them. She didn’t know where they came from, but maybe they were always there, waiting for the dam to finally burst.

  And they did, now.

  She was just glad she was alone, with only the engine to bear witness to this weakness she had spent so much time and effort to hide from the others. She didn’t know if she was actually crying too, because the noise around her was so loud she could have been screaming at the top of her lungs and never heard a single sound.

  But she could be absolutely certain of the tears. They rolled down her cheeks and dripped from her chin to the floor and there was nothing she could do to stop them—not that she wanted to. She slid down and put her arms over her knees and closed her eyes, remembering what it felt like to be young and afraid and helpless for the first time in such a long time.

  Her body ached—every inch of her. Her chest was tighter than it should have been, and just breathing hurt. It was as if her entire being were being ripped apart from the inside out, as if her soul were being crushed inch by inch by inch.

  All those times she pushed through the emotional and physical pain so the others wouldn’t see, so they’d have at least one person to look to with Will gone.

  But not anymore. Not anymore.

  She looked down the hallway, toward the cabin.

  He was in there.

  Will. Her Will.

  But not really.

  No one could possibly understand that concept except for her and Gaby and Danny, and just a small handful of others. To everyone else, he would be just another blue-eyed ghoul. Phil and the others had proven that.

  Eventually, she found the strength to stand up and wipe away the tears with her sleeves and used the shiny machines to make sure her eyes weren’t still red and puffy. She hadn’t worn makeup in so long she didn’t have to worry about smearing it across her face.

  Only when she was certain no one would know what had happened by looking at her face did she finally go back topside.

  Bonnie was standing guard on the other side of the door when she came out. “How’d it go?”

  “It went,” Lara said, hoping her voice didn’t crack, but it was probably not as strong—or steady—as she had hoped, because Bonnie gave her a questioning look.

  “Lara,” Bonnie started to say, but Lara turned around and started walking away. “Lara,” Bonnie called after her.

  Lara ignored her and kept walking, then faster, and faster still.

  Book Two

  9-8 Suited

  9

  Keo

  Rhett hadn’t returned. Of course, it had only been a f
ew hours and it wasn’t as if Rhett were in any hurry to take Keo’s offer to the higher-ups. That is, if there were higher-ups now that Mercer was gone. It was hard to figure out who was in charge at the moment, if anyone at all. It would have been nice if Erin were still around to fill him in on the island’s hierarchy.

  But of course Erin was dead, and he should have been, too. The only reason he was still breathing was because Rhett and the others didn’t know what to do with him. That, and the fact that apparently more than just Riley had thought about rebelling against Mercer’s rule, but just hadn’t had the balls to go through with it. Keo had never actually met Riley—he didn’t consider seeing some guy lying in bed on an oil rig’s sickbay as “meeting”—but he had to admit, knowing what he knew now, he had new respect for the guy. Riley had done what so many others wanted to, but hadn’t. That took some brass ones right there.

  At least Rhett had done him a solid and opened the high window to the left of the holding room so Keo could, once again, enjoy the natural and very airy upside to being held prisoner on an island. So if nothing else, there was that.

  That’s it, pal; look on the bright side.

  He sat on the floor with his back against the wall so he could face the window on the other side of his cell bars. After three days of soaking in his own BO, it was as close to paradise as he was liable to get. Now if only he could get them to give him something to eat that wasn’t mush or tasted like something someone gurgled out—

  Clank! as the door across the room opened.

  Keo looked over as two men stepped inside, while a third stood back holding the door with one hand. Keo only recognized the third guy—his afternoon jailer, who swapped places with two others in eight-hour shifts.

  He had never seen the other two newcomers before.

  “Visiting hours?” Keo asked.

  The men didn’t bother answering him, and while the first two walked over to Keo’s cell in the back, the third guy remained standing in the hallway looking in. Keo had never actually seen his jailer’s face before today, and in fact this was the most the man had ever exposed himself: Keo glimpsed his name tag and the word Donovan.