Beating Heart Cadavers (9 page)

Ch. 12

The headquarters for the Spöken were located in Avelinn, a walled city that was set in the heart of East Oneris. Though Avelinn resembled the capital in many ways, as though a biscuit cutter had come down and cut a large round section of cemented ground and tall, gray buildings away, it was far wetter than any other part of the state due to the way that the grade had been changed to dig out the area. Even though it hadn't rained in quite a while, the headquarters were an outright swamp, and even Fields' mountaineering boots had not been able to keep her feet dry as she crossed from building to building in search of Jasper.

She had only been walking for fifteen minutes or so when something caught her eye and made her halt in her place, and she didn't realize that she was clenching her jaw until the taste of blood came to her gums. She ran her tongue over the entirety of her mouth to swallow it away. Now, with her pants saturated to the knee in brackish water and skin covered in a film from pawing her way through the trees, her irritation had hit an all-time high.

Because she had found her brother, and Merdow had found him first.

The mannequin-like man was recognizable even in the low lighting, if not from his unnatural outline than his sheer presence in the room. He was walking about (though not with as much grace as he might have had had his vertebrae not been damaged) as he chatted to the Spöke, who in turn was recognizable from his stark white face floating above his silvery uniform. Fields felt her nose wrinkle. He looked like a boy in a play-costume.

As he continued to listen to Merdow's long rant, nodding his head every now and again in his obedient way, Fields narrowed her eyes at him. She was looking forward to yanking him out of Avelinn by his ear and dragging his ridiculous uniform through the swamp waters on the way.

As though he had heard the derisive thought running through her head, he turned and looked out the window at where she stood. For a moment he was quite still, watching her in horror as Merdow continued to prance around the room, blissfully unaware of anything but his own voice, and then he wrenched himself from the spot and moved to the door. Merdow looked over his shoulder as he left. When he caught Fields' eye, he smiled and gave her a mock-like bow.

“What are you doing here?”

If she hadn't known that he was coming, she would have started at his voice. The hiss felt like nothing more than the light breeze, and his white form looked like an apparition more than an actual person. Fields turned her head towards him and crossed her arms.

“I've come to get you,” she said. “We're going north.”

“We aren't going anywhere, Ladeline,” Jasper said, his voice still lower than a whisper. He glanced up at the structure beside them as though fearing that someone might see them from the window and then, seemingly deciding that it wasn't worth the risk, he pulled her out into the alders. Fields ducked as a branch threatened to cut against her face, but delighted as Jasper's shoes sank into the soft ground, ruining the hems of his uniform.

“You don't have a choice in this one, Jasper. You're coming.”

“In case you haven't noticed, I'm twenty-seven years old – I don't have to listen to my big sister anymore.”

“Spare me. You'll listen to anyone rather than make a decision on your own.”

“Not someone who killed my father.”

A large dollop of water fell from one of the overhanging leaves and landed on Fields' shoulder. She wiped it off unconcernedly.

“Andor wasn't your father, Jasper, he was the man who consented to adopt you after your real father abandoned you. And don't flatter
yourself: we were a last resort.”

Jasper straightened his chin.

“I've lived up to my father's ideals. I'm bringing honor to his name.”

“You're bringing paperwork to a man who wants nothing to do with you,” Fields replied. “Which is why he won't miss you when you're gone. Let's go.”

“You really think I'm coming with you? You really think – after everything – that there's even a chance I'd throw my life away because you asked?”

“I'm not asking, Jasper, and you don't have an option: you're ill. You need to get help.”

“I'm fine,” he said, though a hint of concern had come to his pale eyes. She knew as well as he did that he hadn't been to a doctor in decades. “And I'd know better than you if there was something wrong with me.”

“You don't know much about anything, Jasper – and certainly not this,” Fields said, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “But I've been up in Hasenkamp, and the doctors there –”

“They're not
real
doctors.”

“– said that your albinism isn't just a genetic defect. It's a sign that something's happened to your heart that needs to get fixed immediately –”

“
Don't
talk about my heart,” Jasper said scathingly. He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly frightful. “I'm fine.”

“Your heart is defective,” Fields responded. “It's poisoning you – it has been since it was developing in the womb. That's what's causing the issue with your skin pigmentation. You need to see a Mare-doctor and have it fixed before hyperkeratosis sets in –”

“I'm not seeing anyone! I'm staying here!”

“You'll die!” Fields said angrily. “And you've got weeks, maybe a month before you do judging from this!”

She grabbed his hand and brandished it at him, indicating to the hardened layer of skin that he had asked Mason about only a week or so before. Jasper halted momentarily, his face the same repulsed expression that he had been wearing since he had laid eyes on her even though he stared at his own flesh now, and his mouth quivered very slightly. When it closed and opened again, however, his voice was quite calm.

“Then I'll die here.”

“Don't be an idiot, Jasper,” Fields said. “For once in your life: don't be a fucking idiot.”

His white lips rimmed into a sneer.

“The only time I was ever an idiot was when I was stupid enough to listen to you.”

“Really? How about the time you decided to join an organization that kills Mare-people when you are one?” Fields snapped. “How's it going, by the way? Found a way to wipe us all out yet?”

“Fuck you, Ladeline. I'm not like you.”

“You have a metal heart, Jasper,” she told him. “Don't believe me? Why don't you go get it checked?”

He spat in her face. Flinching in surprise, Fields wiped the saliva from her skin before turning back to face him.

“You will die if you stay here,” she said, forcing her voice to be direct. “Either because your heart gives out, or because your little friends figure out what you are and kill you themselves.”

“They'll never find out,” he said. “And if they do – then at least I'll die Onerian.”

He turned to leave, but she grasped his arm to keep him there. His uniform had turned murky in the dark and no longer shone the way that the silver spoon in his mouth did. It occurred to her that the material was not metal at all, but rather reflective to keep people from seeing him clearly. But she saw him: the white face and the frightened eyes behind the facade, and she had come back to retrieve him, and she would lead him back to Hasenkamp by the point of her gun if need be.

“Jasper –” she started, but no sooner had the word left her lips than another entered the moistened air.

“There you are, Jasper.”

As Jasper turned in surprise, Fields let go of his arm. Her eyes darted through the darkness to see who was there despite knowing already from his voice alone.

“And Ladeline, too – it's a family reunion.”

Merdow stepped through the trees and came up behind Fields. Grasping her below the shoulders on either side, he dug his fingertips into her arms until she grimaced in pain. As her hands went slack, he reached into her pocket to retrieve her gun.

“First things first,” he said, moving around her and flourishing it for her to see. “I wouldn't want to repeat what happened last time.”

Fields rubbed at the skin that had bruised in his grip. Merdow moved to stand next to Jasper and made a show of looking between the two of them in an imitation of concern.

“Are things going well?”

“They were fine before you showed up,” Fields said through clenched teeth.

“Oh, now, now, Ladeline – let's not be bitter. And let's not forget who brought you two together, either.”

“Funny, I don't remember you helping me get in here at all,” Fields replied. “In fact, I seem to remember you telling me it would be impossible to gain entrance – though you've had no trouble, I see.”

“Well, perhaps I'm on friendlier terms with the Spöken than you are, Fields. But it's no matter – we're all together now.” He looked over at the Spöke. “Happy to see your sister, Jasper?”

Jasper glanced over at him, seeming not to know what to make of his presence.

“This is why you came over here?”

“I'll make a note of your appreciation,” Merdow said. “Now, as happy as I am to have been reunited with the two of you, I do wish you'd picked a better location – or at least given me enough time to change my shoes.” He looked down at his once-shined oxfords and frowned. “But we all make sacrifices for our family, I suppose.”

“I wasn't aware that we were family, Merdow,” Fields said. “Or have Onerian laws changed?”

“I simply like to think of Jasper as a brother,” Merdow replied, putting an arm around the albino's shoulders and laying the hand with Fields' gun across his chest. “And I like to think that I counsel him on his decisions the way any older sibling ought to do.”

“I'm sure you like to think a lot of things, Merdow,” Fields said. “Namely that you'll ever be accepted into the Spöken despite Andor being dead.”

“I like to think that my life won't be determined by decisions that you've made to ruin it, Fields.”

“For what it's worth, Merdow, I didn't mean to break your back,” she returned. “I meant to break your neck.”

Merdow's lips tightened and his arm slid off of Jasper's shoulders. As he straightened and turned towards her, though, he still maintained all of his usual veneer.

“Tell me, Ladeline, have you ever wondered why people dislike you so much?”

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“I know why people don't like me, Ladeline. You seem blissfully unaware.”

He smiled at her, his white teeth clicking off of one another as his lips stretched his face unnaturally, and then he turned back to the albino.

“Jasper, forgive me: I haven't been letting you speak,” he said. “Perhaps I've come at a bad time – were you hoping to go with Ladeline?”

Jasper gave a noise of disgust.

“Of course not,” he said. “I was just telling her off before you came –”

“Telling her off?” Merdow made an expression that was overly enacted given his plaster-like face. “Jasper, don't you remember the conversation we had?”

The younger man gave him a look, seemingly not understanding.
Merdow took Jasper's arm and slowly pressed the gun into his palm.

“The cat, the water – ringing a bell?” Merdow asked.
“You can't drown them in a bathtub, remember. They'll crawl back out and attack you again.”

“I ...”

Jasper was quivering so much that it seemed as though he was the one in danger of being shot. Fields, however, was far more comfortable seeing the weapon in his hand than Merdow's. Relaxing, she shook her head at them. Jasper's eyes were fixed on the gun.

“Still think you're good at making decisions, do you, Jasper?” she asked him.

“I … I don't ...”

“Don't let her taunt you, Jasper: you're just getting more palatable.”

Fields ignored Merdow and looked at her brother.

“You will die here, Jasper,” she told him softly, still hoping to change his mind. “Either way, you will die.”

Jasper raised the gun so that it was pointing at her heart, making his decision clear. Fields looked at him for a long moment, hoping that there might be the hint of the boy who had trusted her enough when she had pleaded with Mrs. Sawyer to adopt him along with her despite his strange appearance, but the pale irises were cloudy, and he had finally achieved what he had always wanted: he resembled Merdow far more than he did her.

She scoffed at his shaking hands.

“Shoot me in the back,” she said angrily, turning to walk away. “It wouldn't be such a change.”

Plucking her boots up from the sludgy earth, she stalked back through the trees in the direction that she had come. If she was quick enough, she could get back to Mason's before he left for class in the morning. And he would know what to say, Fields reconciled, her heart beating a bit more quickly at the thought. And maybe, for once, she wouldn't be so guarded, and she would let him talk her into saying the things that she always left unsaid, and maybe she would consent to change herself, as well, instead of always hoping to change everyone around her.

She was thirty feet away when the crack of the bullet hit the air, and it wasn't so much of a pain as a splintering pressure that came to her back and cut through the skin between her shoulder-blades. For a moment she remained standing, her breath hitching like a gulp of water getting into her lungs, but then her legs simply stopped working beneath her and she fell forward onto her knees before collapsing entirely into the ground.