Fratricide, Werewolf Wars, and the Many Lies of Andrea Paddington

  * * *

  Truman insisted on coming with them, being both a seasoned driver and marksman. Joel hadn’t seen anyone still out patrolling for wolves on their way to or from the Crypt, but having some firepower seemed like a good idea just in case. Soon Truman, Joel, and Paddington were in a jeep on their way – at a more sensible pace than Clarkson’s – toward the Tree.

  “When we reach the Tree,” Truman said, “we get a Fruit and go back to base. I want McGregor there when he eats it.”

  “You can drop the accent,” Paddington said. “We’re alone, and you sound like an idiot.” Before Joel could ask what he meant, Paddington said, “See, Truman here isn’t actually American. He put on the accent once and now he’d be too embarrassed to admit he was playing a joke on everyone.”

  Was there anyone Paddington knew who wasn’t bizarre in some way? Joel’s life had been so ordinary – and, yes, boring – before they’d met. “Why the accent?”

  “I lived there,” Truman said in an accent that was still part-American. Beneath it was a deep non-dialectical accent English accent just waiting for a career in radio. “When I came back to join the Team, they joked about how the Americans would finally obey British orders again so I good-naturedly put on a big Southern accent. Seems none of them ever read my file to discover I grew up in England.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Family business,” Truman snapped.

  “What business?” Joel asked, pretending not to notice the subtext. They all thought he was a small, useless man, and it seemed that playing to type was the best way to fit into the Team.

  Though, now that Joel thought about it, he wasn’t small or useless. Apparently he was the champion, on his way to fulfil a prophecy and save the world.

  Go him.

  “Conning,” Truman said. His gaze lingered on Joel in the rear-view mirror. “My parents amassed a small fortune and a large bounty. We used aliases to flee to America, where we changed names again and again. I forget what they’re calling themselves now.”

  Right. So much for light-hearted conversation as they travelled. Maybe he should just shut up.

  “What was your name originally?” Paddington asked.

  “Elias Truman,” he said. “Same as it is now. They never used me in their scams and I was still a minor at the time. When we went to America, I held on to my old passport without their knowing. Renewed it when necessary. As soon as I could, I joined the army under my real name. I had to do a lot of explaining before they trusted me – not sure they ever did – and they kept asking for my parents’ whereabouts. When I requested a transfer to England, I think they were glad to make me someone else’s problem.” He looked at Paddington in the passenger seat. “That’s why I was glad for the American cover; why I kept up the accent. It meant no one had read my file. All I had to do was stick with a phoney accent and I’d finally escape my parents’ shadows.”

  Paddington laughed, which caused Truman to glare.

  “Sorry, that’s not at you,” Paddington said. “It’s the situation. You’re in a car with twin brothers whose parents separated them at birth, raised them as only children, and who are destined to either save or destroy each other.” He smiled. “That’s what I was laughing at; we’re all trying to escape our parents’ shadows.”

  Truman smiled back. “Maybe so. We’re here.” He drove along the side of the town hall, which wasn’t actually a road, and parked on the lawn beside the Tree. If they needed a quick getaway, they were ready.

  The Tree was certainly old. So old. It wrapped and twisted around itself as if it had grown inward instead of out. The few Fruit on its branches looked sour and unappetising, even for lemons. A splatter of dried blood stained the bottom few feet of the Tree’s trunk.

  Truman treated every shadow to a sweep of his rifle and an intense glare. Paddington strolled over to the Tree, both hands in the pockets of his overcoat, as if he had no cares in the world. As if he hadn’t been stabbed in the shoulder, his friends murdered, his wife kidnapped. As if there were nowhere he’d rather be.

  Joel approached the Tree with caution. This little Fruit… this would bring life eternal?

  He reached up and plucked the closest lemon. It came easily, ripe and very soft to the touch, almost oozing.

  And there was more. The instant the Fruit was in his hand, he felt… something. Both good and bad. It was like potential. A promise of something more. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to eat the Fruit or hurl it far away.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  He passed the Fruit to Paddington and watched the thoughts roll through him one after the other, before Paddington passed it to Truman.

  “How can it be heavy and light all at once?” Truman asked, staring at it.

  “To be fair,” Joel said, “it is a magic Fruit.” He took it back.

  “Let’s go,” Truman said. In another minute they were in the car, and soon they were back among the werewolves and soldiers in the rumpus room of the safehouse. The lemon was passed around the group with all the care of a live grenade. McGregor muttered something about an etrog, but the rest confined their comments to their experience of it: some thought it was cool and warm, or sharp-smelling but silky to the touch, or soft but strangely resistant to pressure. The light of confusion that passed over their eyes as they held it indicated one thing, though: they were all Believers now. Even Mitchell looked changed by the contradictory Fruit. He held it a moment, nodded as if to say well-that’s-that-then, and handed it on.

  Finally it returned to Joel, who motioned to Truman’s vest. “Do you mind?”

  Truman removed the knife and passed it to Joel handle-first, who used the combat knife to cut the Fruit on the kitchen counter. Despite the skin’s wrinkles, the inside was unspoilt. Joel raised a segment like a toast and popped it in his mouth.

  And then… everything.

  It rushed at him. The whole of existence, of creation. Too fast to understand. Impossible to comprehend. He tried to catch glimpses of it, to focus on specific ideas or images. To make sense of it. He couldn’t. It went past, a blur.

  But he knew. He knew.

  And it hurt. He couldn’t hold it all in. Joel felt his body spasm as he tried to force the sensations away. Smells now. Sounds. Images. Heat and cold and light and darkness slamming into him like waves. Battering rams, knocking him down again and again. Too fast to avoid. Too hard to fight against. Nothing to do but ride the waves, but oh Gods it hurt!

  And he saw all the suffering. All the pain the world had known. All the joy, too, but so much. Too much. The birth of a child. The death of a parent. The ravages of sickness. The ecstasy of forgiveness. Boiling hatred. All-consuming love.

  Joel opened his eyes and blinked away a red filter over the world. Was that blood? Was it coming out of him?

  Yes. He knew that. He knew everything. Everything that was, is, and could be.

  And he saw the prophecies. Saw them as they were meant to be. Not as they had been written and translated so many years after, when context and language obscured them. In their original intention. He saw all.

  He saw Paddington, staring at him in horror.

  He tried to speak, but blood rising from his throat choked the words.

  Then everything went fuzzy, and dark, and he fell.