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

  Irony? Or was that tragedy?

  Not that it mattered, but it would come to him eventually.

  It always did…

  “Where are you?”

  He woke up to soothing darkness, the blue glow from his eyes the only thing keeping the narrow universe around him from being completely pitch black.

  “You’re running again.”

  The voice echoed inside his head, reaching out to him from the vastness of their connection with a calming hand. He had to resist the instinct to grab it, to beg for forgiveness, to give in and slip back into the hive like a good little boy.

  “I know what you’re planning.”

  No, that was a lie. A trick. The enemy didn’t know his plans.

  “It won’t work.”

  Are you sure about that? he wanted to ask, wanted to pull down his mental defenses—they were stronger now, with the extra day’s rest—and reveal his defiance. But he didn’t. Not yet. Not until the time was right.

  “You can still come home.”

  More lies. There was no home for him. There had never been. Not with them.

  His home was with her. Lara. It had always been. Even if she turned him away…

  Would she?

  Maybe. Maybe…

  “They’ll never accept you. But I will. What you are now, what she made you, this is the new world. Why won’t you accept it?”

  Lies. The blue eyes had tried to kill him in Gallant. They had lured him there, with Danny and Gaby (and the boy, what was his name again?) as bait. They hadn’t brought him there to be embraced as one of them. No, they had meant to destroy him. He still remembered their conversation, crowing about how pleased he would be.

  “Now you’re going to die.”

  “Again.”

  “But this time…”

  “…for good.”

  “And he’ll be pleased…”

  “…that we finally ended you.”

  “…so pleased...”

  He closed his eyes and let the movement of the vessel calm him. He resumed healing even as the voice continued. He couldn’t have silenced it if he wanted to, because the voice prowled the river of thoughts that flowed through the consciousness of the brood that they were all a part of. It was an intimate connection, only possible because they came (were born) from the same blood. His life force flowed through their veins. Through his at this very second. They were as much a part of him as he was of them, and it would always be so.

  Always…

  “Come home. This is where you belong. This is where you’ve always belonged. In another year, in ten years—a century—you won’t remember the old world. The old you. This is the way of things now. The new order. It’s fate.”

  I don’t believe in fate, he wanted to answer.

  “It’s destiny.”

  I don’t believe in destiny, either, he wanted to shout.

  But he kept quiet, because it was a trick. Once he reacted to the voice, he wouldn’t be able to stay hidden from it, and then all would be lost.

  “It’s her, isn’t it? You still long for her. Even now, after everything that’s happened. You hold onto the delusion you can be together again.”

  No. He hadn’t come here for that. He hadn’t…right?

  “Lara can be yours, and all you have to do is come back.”

  Lies. More lies.

  “Years, decades, generations from now. You’ll always be together, just the way you want it. You won’t have to worry about disease, or age, or death.”

  Ignore his lies. It was all a trick.

  “All you have to do is make the choice, and you’ll be reunited again. Just make the choice to come home.”

  The choice…

  “She’ll thank you for stripping away the pain. No more running, no more suffering. And you’ll be together again. Reunited. Isn’t that what you want? Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”

  Yes, he thought, Yes…

  “A priest, a rabbit, and a horse walk into a bar…”

  Medical ointment passed through the chest’s walls, and though Danny wasn’t talking very loudly, he had no trouble hearing him. He almost smiled, and maybe he did, but simple tasks like that were harder to accomplish these days.

  “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…”

  He didn’t stop him, even though he had heard it many times before. The exact number escaped him, but that was nothing new. Information he didn’t need to survive was buried deep down in his mental recesses. Maybe one of these days he would release the box and let them all out, or maybe he would fling the lid open only to discover there was nothing left, that they had all dissolved away.

  One day, he hoped to find out.

  But that day wasn’t here yet.

  “Ah, never mind. It’s just not the same when you can’t see the absolute joy in the other person’s face as I present the joke to end all jokes,” Danny was saying. “I’d open the lid, but I’m thinking you would have done it yourself if you wanted to. Surely those little strips of duct tape aren’t holding you back, are they?”

  No, they weren’t.

  “And that door… I bet you could breathe on it and bust it down, huh?”

  It wasn’t that easy, but Danny wasn’t wrong. He could take it down with little effort.

  “I would offer you something to eat, but I’m not sure if you even eat anymore. Or is it just a liquid diet these days? Food through a straw?”

  This time he was sure he must have smiled. Maybe.

  “She’ll be down here to talk to you soon. I don’t know when, so don’t ask. She just needs time. Can’t say as I blame her. The first time you dropped in on me… Well, you’re not exactly your old self anymore, are you?”

  No, he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how much of his “old self” was even still left after the transformation. He had done things that he wouldn’t have before, things that would have turned his stomach back when he was…still human.

  “Something’s come up, too. Our mutual buddy Mercer? He’s either dead or dead-ish. Or, at least, that’s the going theory.”

  Mercer. The name hung like a sword over the hive and made the blue eyes frantic. Mercer was the human who had brought death and destruction to the food supply, and in doing so, introduced doubt about the future. Just a sliver, but it was there.

  “The food!” the ghouls shouted day and night. “Save the food!”

  “I’m of two minds on the guy myself,” Danny was saying. “While on the one hand he’s a murdering sociopath, but we might not have made it out of Gallant without that little Hog of his showing up. So there’s that.”

  Mercer’s warplane had saved them, though not on purpose. He was sure of it. It had come there to burn the town down, wasting its armament in what amounted to a revenge attack. Even if there were ten of them—or a hundred—it wouldn’t have mattered. The ghouls were endless, and there was only one way to defeat them…

  “You said we were going to need a hell of a lot of luck to make this plan of yours work. Maybe this little revelation can help with that. What do you think?”

  Yes. Yes, it could. He hadn’t considered it because it wasn’t something he had any control over, but if Mercer was gone, if there was an army out there…

  “The more the merrier, right?”

  Yes. The more the merrier. The more, the better the chances of success. He was ready to do with less, but if there was a choice...

  His mind churned, processing the new information.

  “Anyways, thought you’d want to know. Maybe you can do something with it.” A slight grunt and tired knee joints popped as Danny stood up. “I hate to chat and run, but the redhead’s expecting me topside. Nice talking to ya as usual, buddy. I don’t suppose I should call you Will anymore, huh? You got a new name you prefer?”

  Frank. Someone had once called him Frank.

  Who was it? It hadn’t been that long ago since he saw him, but the man’s face was starting to fade from his memory, pushed into the bac
kground to make room for the here and now.

  “Sit tight; I’ll be back when I can.”

  Footsteps, then a door opening and closing. The scent of two additional people outside, mingling with the oil and grease from the machines. A man and woman.

  Silence again, except for the sloshing of the ocean under him, the roar of the engines. Footsteps moving around above him, men and women and children talking, laughing. He listened for Lara, but she wasn’t among them.

  “What’d he say?” a voice asked in the hallway. Young, but familiar.

  “Is he still inside that thing?” another voice asked. This one was female and she spoke haltingly, quietly, as if afraid he would hear.

  “Nothing, and yes,” Danny said. “Eyes open, kids. No one goes in there that isn’t me or Lara, understand? When in doubt, buzz the radio. That’s what they’re for.”

  “But it’s him?” the young man asked. “For sure?”

  “It ain’t Santa Claus.”

  “Nate said it could bust through that door if it wants to,” the woman said. “So what are we doing down here exactly?”

  “What, you got something else better to do?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying…”

  “Stay frosty,” Danny said.

  Footsteps, as Danny left, leaving the boy and woman behind to shuffle their feet. Nerves, but steely resolve.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated, willing the bones to mend faster, for the muscle tissues to regrow. He needed to be at full strength for what was to come. And maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.

  “Something’s come up, too,” Danny had said. “Our mutual buddy Mercer? He’s either dead or dead-ish. Or, at least, that’s the going theory. You said we were going to need a hell of a lot of luck to make this plan of yours work. Maybe this little revelation can help with that. What do you think?”

  A new development that he continued processing, adding to what he already knew, what lay ahead for them. For him.

  The news was unexpected but not unwelcome, and he did what he did best—he adapted.

  But even as he shifted the plans around in his mind, he reached out with his senses, throwing them outward and beyond the lower deck, searching for the snippets of conversation, the hushed whispers.

  “Is he dead?” someone said. “Is he really dead?”

  “I don’t know,” someone else said. “Rhett’s in charge now…”

  It was dark outside the boat, and had been for a few hours. He knew without a doubt because he existed on two simple measurements of time—day and night.

  And right now, it was the latter. He didn’t need a watch to know. It was in the way the air changed, even inside the tight confines of the chest. The gradual drop of temperature in the room, digit by digit, and the dramatic plunge in degrees beyond the boat’s thick walls.

  His guards, who had been talking on and off, had gone quiet. The boy and the woman. Their names still escaped him, but he reasoned if he didn’t recall them then they probably weren’t important enough to his survival.

  His body responded to the shift from day to night by cranking up, the blood in his veins flowing faster and freer, the mutated cells coming even more alive as they targeted and closed the wounds and repaired his injuries. He always healed faster at night because darkness was where he belonged. If traveling with Danny in the day had been nauseating, he was in bliss now as—

  The boat. It had stopped moving.

  How did he miss that before? The vessel was adrift under him and would be still, except for the occasional swaying against the waves. Why had they stopped? They were far from land; he knew because he could taste nothing but salt water all around him. So much of it that he grew agitated and had to refocus on something else.

  There. Footsteps.

  So many footsteps above and around him. Men and women of all sizes, and children. They were on the upper decks moving around. And talking. The buzz of excitement he had picked up earlier was still there.

  “Is he really dead?” someone said.

  “Maybe,” someone answered.

  “What does it mean?” someone else said on another part of the boat.

  Mercer. They were still talking about Mercer.

  The new development, and the reason he’d had to restructure the plan.

  “Adapt or perish,” someone had once said.

  Had it been him? Lara? Or Danny—

  A very distinct pair of footsteps intruded on the hushed conversations around the boat.

  Heavy. Male. With purpose.

  They were moving through the now-silent engine room toward the back. Toward him.

  He shut out the rest and zeroed in on the new arrivals.

  “What are they doing down here?” one of his guards said. The boy whose name he couldn’t remember.

  “You know them?” the woman asked.

  “Riley’s men. I don’t know their names, but I know they’re not supposed to be down here.”

  “We should radio Danny…”

  “Wait, let me talk to them first,” the boy said, even as his heartbeat accelerated slightly.

  The woman was calmer, but not by much. “You sure?”

  “Yeah,” the boy said. Then, “You guys aren’t supposed to be down here.”

  “Hey, Benny,” a new voice said. Male. Older.

  “You’re not supposed to be down here,” the boy named Benny said again.

  “Lara sent us.”

  “No one told us,” the female guard said.

  “Radio her yourself,” a third male voice said. He was softer spoken than the first. Easygoing.

  “Why’d she send you down here?” Benny asked.

  “Backup, I guess.”

  “We don’t need backup.”

  “You’ll have to take it up with the bosses. We’re just following orders.”

  “Is it in there?” the first newcomer asked.

  “Hey, get away from the door,” the woman said.

  “I’ve never seen one in person before.”

  “I said get away from the door.”

  “Okay, okay…”

  “Stay right there while I radio Lara.”

  “Be our guest,” the second new arrival said.

  The sea clung to their skin, and fresh fish expelled from their breaths. They were breathing heavily even though they were doing everything possible not to show it. Their heartbeats were erratic, and one of them was on the verge of hyperventilating. Adrenaline coursed through their veins like sledgehammers against his eardrums.

  They’re lying.

  The click of a radio, then the woman saying, “Lara, this is Carrie. Come in.”

  His nostrils suddenly filled with the smell of oil rubbing against leather, followed by the boy shouting, “Don’t—,” but he never got the rest of it out before two gunshots boomed in the narrow confines of the hallway outside his door.

  Bodies falling to the hard floor, the clatter of weapons. Racing heartbeats and sweat flitted into the air as the deadbolt was pulled aside.

  The door opening and a voice—one of the two new arrivals—saying, “Is that it? Is it inside the chest?”

  “I think so,” the other man said. The one with the softer voice. “Should we open it?”

  “Fuck opening it,” the first one said.

  The air shifted as a long object was raised and a single finger moved. The smell of discharging gunpowder overwhelmed his senses, even as the bitter taste of silver licked at his lips and tried to force their way down his throat.

  He bit back the bile and pushed through the discomfort as the impossibly loud crashing of automatic gunfire filled the room.

  3

  Gaby

  She blamed it on the meds, because there was really no reason why she should be so tired or drowsy, or had no incentive to get out of bed when she finally woke up from what seemed like a year’s worth of sleep. It wasn’t nearly cold enough inside the infirmary for her to need a blanket, but she just couldn’t find the inclina
tion to whip it off. The room was noticeably darker than the last time she had her eyes open, though she didn’t have a prayer of telling time at the moment.

  Conclusion: Getting shot was a real pain in the ass, and it was something she would definitely say no to if given the choice in the future. Of course, no one had given her the choice back in Gallant. Mason certainly hadn’t.

  I hope you get yours soon, Mason, you prick.

  She didn’t recall when Lara had left, because there was just her and the doc, who looked busy with a tablet across the room. Gaby didn’t feel any pain, just that annoying fog rolling around in her head, making everything difficult to grasp. She’d only been asleep for a day, right?

  And what had she and Lara been talking about? Oh, right.

  Will.

  He was alive, despite all the odds. There was a time when Gaby thought he was indestructible, that even if you could knock him down, nothing could keep him from leaping right back up to his feet. If all else failed, his love for Lara would bring him home. Naively, she had always believed that.

  Until now.

  She was thinking about Will, trying to remember the last time she saw his face (his real face), when Zoe was suddenly replaced by Nate. Gaby blinked, trying to understand how that had happened as Nate walked over and sat down (gingerly, she noticed) on a chair next to her bed.

  “Hey there,” she said.

  “You look good,” he said.

  “Do I?”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Not what I wanted to hear.”

  “You still look better than every girl on this boat.”

  She smiled. “That’s the one.”

  “Glad to be of service. Anyway, I got good news and bad news.”

  “Tell me the good news first.”

  “We got a whole lot of new chumps to whip at the next game night.”

  “Sweet. So what’s the bad news?”

  “There are way too many chumps onboard, and they’re taking up a lot of space. And you know about…” He nodded toward the floor.

  She almost laughed, because she had done the same thing when Lara was here.

  “Are you afraid to say his name?” she asked.