Crisped + Sere (Immemorial Year Book 2)

  It was an illusion that did not last.

  The helicopter began to drift slightly back and forth, and Cavalo could see the pilot inside jerking the cyclic control back and forth, mouth open, shouting words that Cavalo could not hear. The machine creaked and groaned as it tilted toward its right side, nose sharply facing down. The propeller blades slowed more, spinning lazily as the helicopter began to fall.

  The Dead Rabbits stared into the sky in wonder.

  Patrick did not. Even as the machine plummeted toward the earth, he pulled out the axe from where it was strapped to his back.

  He said, “You did this,” eyes only on Cavalo.

  “The others,” Cavalo told SIRS, even as the robot’s exoskeleton began to crack and smoke, his insides breaking apart.

  SIRS didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look back. Didn’t protest. He moved even as Patrick came for Cavalo, spider-fingers reaching for a clever monster, a dog, and a boy who had followed them into the dark.

  The Dead Rabbits began to shout, pushing each other, trying to get away as chaos descended from above.

  Cavalo grabbed the handle of the axe with both hands before Patrick could lift it above his head and cleave his skull. He could feel Patrick’s breath on his face as Patrick tried to jerk the axe away.

  “You did this,” Patrick said again, voice low and concurrent with the rising screams of the Dead Rabbits amassing behind him.

  Over Patrick’s shoulder, Cavalo saw SIRS knock down the Dead Rabbits who held Lucas. Lucas struggled against his grip. The robot pulled, but Lucas jerked himself away and began moving toward Cavalo.

  The wind caused the helicopter to drift toward them, falling at a steep angle.

  The Dead Rabbits tried to push their way out of the growing shadow. One was knocked off the edge of Dworshak, screaming into nothing, disappearing into the snow. A second fell. Then a third.

  “I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Patrick said, and Cavalo kneed him in the stomach.

  SIRS had Bad Dog now, and Cavalo heard struggling—MasterBossLord, Tin Man, we have to get MasterBossLo—and the rest was lost when the robot leapt for the building on the end still standing along the opposite edge of the dam.

  Richie stood, unable to move with the Dead Rabbits surging around him. He raised his hands above his head to ward off the helicopter and opened his mouth to scream when—

  Cavalo thought, I’m sorry. For all the things I’ve done.

  He thought of Claire. And Jamie.

  Of a puppy in a bag.

  Of a robot in a prison.

  A town filled with lost hope.

  And of Lucas. That clever monster. That clever cannibal. Who was almost at his side, reaching for him, an expression of pure terror on his face.

  He thought he might lo—

  The helicopter slammed into the crowd of Dead Rabbits, Richie at their middle. It burst into flames, a dull fwump followed by flying shrapnel and black smoke. The helicopter slid down the surface of the dam, momentum building, knocking Dead Rabbits to the side and off of Dworshak, running them over, consuming them as if alive and crawling as it died.

  The helicopter fishtailed to the left, the tail section slamming into the first building, breaking off, causing the machine to whip around in circles. The first building, where SIRS had taken Bad Dog. The first building that collapsed as if it were nothing. The blades from the helicopter fractured and shot off, hunks of metal flying out. One piece caught a Dead Rabbit in the chest, pinning him to the ground.

  Cavalo let go of Patrick and the axe, leaning back as a part of the helicopter blade sliced between them. It nicked Cavalo’s face, the barest of scratches on his cheek, a small, burning flash of pain that quickly went numb.

  Lucas reached him.

  Cavalo grabbed his hand and ran.

  Arms and legs pumping, body groaning and aching, they ran.

  Toward the crack in Dworshak, the divide that was far too wide to cross.

  He felt someone behind them, next to them, running flat out, but he ignored whoever it was. There wasn’t enough time to worry about that now. All that mattered was Lucas and—

  The shriek of metal and concrete screamed behind him.

  They were almost there.

  They were almost there.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  The jump.

  It was too far, it was—

  He jumped as he felt heat from behind him. Lucas’s hand was wrenched from his own, nails scraping against his skin. Snow fell around him. Acrid smoke filled his lungs. Dworshak fell away below as he leapt across the divide.

  James Cavalo would not have made it across had the helicopter not slid into the large crack in Dworshak, the momentum knocking it down into the divide. He was airborne when the side of the helicopter slammed into his back, shoving him forward, head ringing, stars in his eyes.

  He landed wrong, on the other side of the divide. His bad arm—the right—was trapped between his body and the concrete. Something snapped in his forearm, and he shouted out hoarsely. His stomach rolled as his vision grayed, and through the crackle of fire, the creak of metal, the groan of cement, he heard people screaming. Dead Rabbits, his friends, he didn’t know. He heard them, but they were muted. Far away. He tried to roll onto his back, but his leg was stuck.

  It has been a very strange day, Cavalo thought, laying his cheek down into the snow.

  Everything was Wormwood now, Cavalo knew, and he thought maybe here would be a good place to sleep. He was tired. He was so fucking—

  “Hi, Daddy,” Jamie said.

  Cavalo lifted his head.

  He saw Mr. Fluff first, dangling from his son’s hand, little stuffed feet dragging in the snow. Mr. Fluff with his dead, knowing eyes that should have been at the bottom of a river hundreds of miles away from here.

  He couldn’t lift his head any higher, but that was okay because Jaime squatted down in front of him, knees almost bumping Cavalo’s face. He reached out with a finger and brushed it over Cavalo’s eyebrows. First the left. Then the right.

  He said, “I’m glad you tried.”

  “Yeah,” Cavalo croaked out. “Yeah.

  “You did good, Daddy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just a little bit further.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cavalo said. “For everything.”

  Jamie giggled, playing with Mr. Fluff’s ears. “That’s a lot to be sorry for. Why are you sorry?”

  “Because I failed you. I didn’t even—”

  Jamie said, “Do you remember what I told you?”

  “You told me many things.”

  “I know, Daddy. But this was the most important.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “You can’t sleep.”

  “Jamie.”

  “Daddy. You have to wake up.”

  “Let me go.”

  “Cavalo.”

  “Please.

  “Cavalo!”

  He opened his eyes.

  Snow fell on his face. He opened his mouth, and it melted on his tongue.

  Then:

  “Richie!”

  “Bill, you can’t go over there!

  “He’s my son!”

  “I know. I know. But he’s gone.”

  “Oh you fucking bastards. You fucking pricks! Oh. Ah God. Ah. Let me go, Hank!”

  Cavalo turned his head to the left. He lay a couple of feet from the lip of the dam. He reached out with his left arm and touched the edge of Dworshak. It was freeing, almost. Sort of sweet.

  He turned his head right.

  Here was the fire and chaos. Here was the pain and suffering.

  He wasn’t trapped under the helicopter (anymore?). It was tipped up, broken rear toward the sky, nose down into the break in the dam. Thick, black smoke poured heavily from the wreckage. Fire crackled, and metal groaned as the helicopter shifted slightly, sliding toward the river side of Dworshak and the long, long drop below.

  Bill stood near the wreckage
, fighting against Hank, who held him back. Both were bleeding from their heads, Bill more heavily than Hank. He couldn’t see Aubrey or Alma. He wondered if they were hurt. He wondered if they were alive.

  And Lucas.

  Lucas, who had run by his side.

  Lucas, who had not made the jump.

  Cavalo tried to push himself up, hands flat against the ground, lifting his head and back.

  Everything hurt.

  He groaned as his vision doubled. He took in a ragged breath. He thought he might have a busted rib or two. Or six. He tried to call out to Hank. Bill. Anyone who could hear him, but he couldn’t get his voice to work, couldn’t make sound. His throat was sore and dry. His back was cold. He didn’t think this day would ever end.

  He lay back down.

  Then, “You tried… to kill me.”

  A wet cough.

  Cavalo raised his head again.

  Patrick was pushing himself up off the ground from near Cavalo’s feet using his axe as leverage, partially hidden in the shadows of the ruined helicopter. Sparks shot out around him, hissing on the wet concrete. Smoke curled around his body, and Cavalo could see that showman’s smile in the dark, a twisted grimace that showed bloody teeth.

  Patrick stood upright.

  Cavalo croaked out, “Hey,” but Hank and Bill didn’t hear him.

  Patrick said, “You did this.” He took a lurching step forward. The axe dragged along the ground behind him. He stepped out from the shadows. There was a large gash on his face, curving wickedly from his forehead down to his cheek and chin. The blood dripped into his mouth. Onto his chest. His shoulders and arms. His eyes were bright and wild.

  Cavalo tried to sit up again.

  The bees screamed at him to move, move, move.

  Patrick said, “Should have killed you. Long time ago.”

  The axe scraped against the ground.

  Cavalo gritted his teeth as he pushed himself back with his feet and left arm, his right curled uselessly against his chest. His left foot skittered into nothing off the edge of Dworshak. For a brief, shining moment, he considered just rolling right off the edge. If he had to go, at least it would be on his terms. At least it would be his decision. He wouldn’t give Patrick the satisfaction of his murder.

  Steeling his resolve, he started to move toward the edge and—

  Movement behind Patrick. On the other side of the divide.

  Through the smoke and snow, Lucas was standing fiercely, eyes blazing, knife clenched between his teeth, a thin metal pole in his hands. Cavalo didn’t know what Lucas planned to do with it. He couldn’t launch himself over. There wouldn’t be enough momentum. The snow would cause the broken pole to slide off the edge and into the crack in Dworshak.

  Patrick dragged the axe from behind him and rested the blade against Cavalo’s leg. “We could have been such friends,” Patrick said, blood dripping down onto Cavalo. “You have fire, James. Such fire.”

  “Fuck you,” Cavalo spat.

  “No,” Patrick said. “I think not. I think this might be the end of you. And then I’ll take Lucas, and for the rest of his short, miserable life, he will know what pain truly is. And when I am finished with him, I will go back to the people of Cottonwood. I will eat them. I will rape them. I will pillage and plunder, and when their blood soaks my skin, I will look to the east and rise from the ashes of a forgotten world. I will be reborn, and nothing, not you, not your people, not your tiny little dream will be able to stop me. There is power here. And it will be mine.”

  Cavalo laughed, harsh and broken. “You’re such a fucking cliché. No one cares. No one fucking cares.”

  Patrick’s eyes narrowed. “That’s where you’re wrong. You just won’t be around to see it.”

  Cavalo looked back at Lucas, trying to figure out how he was going to say good-bye. Or rather, see you soon, if the sounds of the Dead Rabbits were any indication. Some were screaming in pain, yes, and the sounds were less than they’d been before, but there was an undercurrent there. A pull of anger and rage, and Cavalo knew the helicopter hadn’t gotten them all. It hadn’t killed every single goddamn one of them.

  Lucas didn’t look frantic. He didn’t look as if he were accepting his inevitable fate. He didn’t look as if he were about to die.

  He gripped the broken metal pole in his hands.

  Making sure Cavalo was watching him, he looked pointedly over the edge of the dam. For a moment, Cavalo thought Lucas was going to do what Cavalo himself had been considering just seconds before.

  But Cavalo knew Lucas. The months they’d spent together with nothing but looks between them had not gone to waste. Cavalo didn’t know whether he could actually hear Lucas talk or not, understand him correctly or not. If he wasn’t just absolutely out of his goddamn mind. He didn’t know how he had ended up here. In this moment.

  Lucas bounced his feet once, twice and then took very measured steps away from the divide.

  And Cavalo knew.

  “Oh fuck,” he breathed.

  “Indeed,” Patrick said. “And now, my dear fellow, is where we have found your ending. Go, knowing you have failed and that everything you have ever loved will burn.”

  He raised the axe above his head.

  Cavalo grinned up at him and said, “I’ll see you in hell.”

  Then a voice came, a whip crack of anger. “Hey!”

  Patrick snapped his head over.

  Hank. No weapon. Looking furious. Staring straight at them.

  And Lucas ran.

  He was beaten. Bloody. His muscles had to be sore, his body battered and weak. But Cavalo had learned he couldn’t underestimate the clever monster.

  Cavalo rolled to his left side, his good arm hanging off the edge of Dworshak, reaching toward Lucas. Cavalo felt everything slow around him, his breath roaring in his ears, his thunderous heart tripping in his chest.

  He thought, Please.

  Lucas reached the divide. The muscles in his legs coiled, and he jumped, not across the crack in Dworshak, but angling outward, toward Cavalo but into nothingness. The snow battered against his face, and there wouldn’t be a do-over here. There wouldn’t be a second chance.

  Lucas stretched out the metal pole.

  Cavalo reached for it with his good arm, fingers flexing reaching, reaching—

  It slapped against his palm, stinging his skin.

  He closed his fingers around it, tightening his grip.

  Lucas reached the height of his jump and began to fall.

  Cavalo held on as best he could, and as Lucas swung down, the pole slipped partway through his fist, the metal tearing against his skin. He looked down in time to see Lucas swing across the divide, grasping the pole with one hand, the other bearing the knife.

  The muscles in his left arm strained heavily as he swung it down, skimming along the side of Dworshak. Lucas’s feet found purchase against the dam, and he ran along the side, picking up momentum for the arc back up.

  They reached the midpoint, and only seconds had gone by since Lucas had leapt, and he was directly below Cavalo now, running perpendicular to him, counting on Cavalo’s strength to keep him from plummeting down Dworshak to his death hundreds of feet below.

  The upswing began, and Cavalo’s arm tensed angrily. He didn’t think it would be enough, he didn’t think it’d be enough to—

  Patrick said, “No,” but Cavalo could pay him no mind, there wasn’t time, and they were about to die—

  Somehow it worked. Lucas, using the momentum from jumping across from the other side of the dam, ran up the wall even as something in Cavalo’s left shoulder snapped when he swung the pole up and over the lip of the concrete.

  He and Lucas let go of the pole at the same time, Lucas spiraling gracefully over Cavalo, mouth bared in a silent snarl.

  Lucas landed between Cavalo and Patrick, stumbling a step and then another, blocking Cavalo’s view.

  Time snapped back into place.

  Patrick brought the axe down.
br />   Lucas stopped it with his hand, gripping Patrick’s wrists.

  Patrick’s eyes widened.

  “How,” he said.

  Lucas jerked his other arm forward at his father’s chest.

  Patrick said, “Oh.”

  Lucas took a breath. His arm jerked again.

  Patrick said, “Oh.”

  The axe slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground behind him.

  Lucas let go of his wrists.

  Lucas wrapped his arm around his father’s shoulders. Pulled him close. His other arm jerked again, and this time, Patrick said, “It hurts. More than I thought it would.”

  He lay his forehead against his son’s shoulder. His hands came up and gripped the back of Cavalo’s jacket that Lucas still wore. He fisted the material.

  He said, “Yes. It hurts more. Funny, that.”

  Lucas’s arm jerked again.

  Patrick lifted up his head. His eyes were glassy. He coughed. A burst of blood sprayed from his mouth, staining his teeth.

  He said, “You were just a boy when—”

  Lucas stabbed him again. And again. And again.

  Patrick smiled that showman’s smile, bloody and sharp…. It lasted a second. Maybe two. Then it broke, fractured into pieces.

  Lucas dropped his arms.

  Blood dripped from the knife, red dashing into the snow.

  Patrick held him for a moment longer, then his hands fell to his sides.

  Lucas stepped back.

  Patrick’s entire front was red, the blood soaked through, running down his chest and stomach. He coughed, and another bubble broke in his mouth. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out aside from the pained rush of air.

  He swayed.

  Took a step.

  Looked at Cavalo.

  His hands went to his chest, rubbing gently.

  Cavalo could hear the squelch of blood on Patrick’s hands and fingers.

  He held them out to Cavalo, the palms red.

  He opened his mouth and said, “We’re all Mr. Fluff, I guess.”

  Then he tipped over the side of Dworshak.

  Patrick, the great and the terrible, did not make a sound as he fell.

  It was as if he never was at all.