Empire's End (15 page)

Her face grew serious. “There is one thing,
however, that you must do after falling, and I don’t think you have
done it. You must decide on a replacement.”

“I thought—wouldn’t God just... make
one?”

“That’s not how it works, no. Like I said,
you were
reborn
into this form. The stuff of your being was
changed, rearranged, and you entered into your role as Reaper with
no memory of what came before. But you were once human.”

Adam could only stare at the woman in white.
Human?
It wasn’t possible. How?

No, not how—why?

“I don’t know how to answer your question.”
The woman just shrugged. “The agents who watch over mankind are
culled from humanity itself. We rise—and then, some of us fall back
down. Seems to be our nature.”

“But I’m not human now. What am I?”

“If you live long enough, Adam, you might
come closer to reclaiming your humanity. You’ve already begun the
process.”

That was why she was so different from him.
So real... so human.

“How long has it taken you?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s different for each
of us.”

“Is there anything I can do that I haven’t
done?”

“Decide on your replacement, Adam—and
live
.”

He paced in the snow. “How do I know
who?”

“You’ll know when you know. And they’ll bee
ready and willing.”

He asked quietly, “So it was you, wasn’t
it... you picked me.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you gave me faith in Man,” she said,
and went into the house.

Voorhees walked into the hotel that served as
police department and P.O. housing. He had been thinking of going
upstairs and catching a few hours’ sleep, but he decided to spend
the afternoon in the squadroom.

There hadn’t been any leads in the Manning
case. They now knew beyond any doubt that someone was targeting
senators for assassination, including Jeff Cullen, who had been
moved to an undisclosed location. Murder by infection. It was the
cruelest M.O. Voorhees had ever heard of. It said something about
the killer and her agenda. Her targets may have been political, but
there was a personal edge.

He entered the squadroom.

In the aisle between desks, Casey’s
wheelchair lay on its side.

Voorhees drew his baton and made his way back
to the S.P.O.’s office. He peered inside: empty.

Heading out into the hall, Voorhees exited
the department and headed for Casey’s ground-level living quarters.
The building was deathly silent. He wondered if any of his
colleagues were upstairs. Dammit, he’d set his radio on his desk
before spying the wheelchair. No time to go back for it. For all he
knew, Casey was already dead.

It had to be her. He knew it in his gut.
First the senators, and now cops. Likely feared they were closing
in on her. But the killer had had the opportunity to kill three
cops at Cullen’s office, and didn’t...

The door to Casey’s place was barely ajar.
Voorhees eased it open and stuck his head through.

The killer’s back was to him. She had Casey
trussed up in a desk chair and was gagging him with a towel.

Voorhees took one slow step, then another,
across the room. The killer remained hunched over Casey, unaware,
tightening the ropes that bound him.

The bone knife flashed into view. She raised
it over her stockinged head.

Voorhees knocked it from her grip with a
sharp blow, then brought the baton down over her head to lock her
in a chokehold. She pushed off of Casey’s chair and drove Voorhees
back into the wall. He held firm, and heard her gasping for breath.
“It’s over,” he grunted in her ear.

She stomped on his foot. The pain knifed
through his leg, but he refused to let go. Instead, he tightened
his grip. She was going to go to sleep.

Casey toppled over in the chair, trying to
turn his head to see what was happening. The killer continued
stomping and thrashing, but already she was growing weaker; and
finally went limp in his arms.

Voorhees relaxed his grip.

She sprang to life.
Stupid!

She slammed an elbow into his sternum.
Suddenly his baton was in her hand and she cracked him across the
face. The world was red. He stumbled wildly, flailing his arms.
Another blow to the back of the head.

He caught the baton on the third strike and
seized her arms. “Stop! It’s over!
Give up!
”

They stumbled across the room together,
colliding with the overturned chair, and they went through the
window in a strained embrace.

Voorhees heard a noise like the world being
torn in half as glass shattered around his head. The curtain
whispered over his face. Then he was free falling, the killer
sailing away from him.

Still falling.
But we’re on the bottom
floor.
Then, in a final thought, he remembered.

The road behind the hotel slanted sharply
downward, below ground level. Kids often played there. They were
safe there, in the shadow of the police department; it was into
that shadow that Voorhees fell, and just before he hit, something
clicked in his mind. It was a hunch, a half-formed idea. A collage
of memories that resolved into something brilliant, and though it
was only a hunch, in that split-second before impact Voorhees knew
he was right.
It’s a cop.

Then he hit.

* * *

“P.O. Voorhees? Can you hear me?”

It was dark. His head felt thick and heavy.
Drugged. But it was Dr. Zane’s voice, and that meant he was in the
hospital. “I thought you were the medical examiner,” he
croaked.

“I do a lot of things.” Zane’s hands prodded
his stomach. “Any pain there?”

“No.”

“All right, your nurse and I are going to
help you sit up. Your right wrist is broken, so don’t try to prop
yourself up. Let us do the work.”

Zane listened to Voorhees’ breathing. “What’s
your birthday, Officer?”

“August seventeenth, twenty fifty-two.”

“And what’s your full name?”

“Joseph Thomas Voorhees.”

“Good. In case you were wondering, by the
way, your eyes are bandaged. You busted your head pretty good in
that fall.”

“Fall?”

“Do you remember the fall, Officer?”

“The last thing I remember is... I was going
home. Where did I fall?”

There was low muttering, then Casey’s voice
spoke up. “Voorhees, you ran across the killer. She was getting
ready to stick me when you showed up.”

“I don’t remember that t all.”

“You both went out the window. She got
away.”

“Now,” Zane said, “we don’t yet know the
extent of the damage. You’re all put back together, but it’s very
possible that there was deeper trauma. Trauma we’d be able to scan
for if we had a facility like Chicago’s, but around here we’ve got
jack shit.”

“Can we send him there?” Casey asked.

“He’d be on a waiting list. Might as well
work with him here. Once you’re up and about, Officer, we can do
some basic tests and make sure you’re functioning all right.”

“The fact that I can’t remember...”

“Oh, I would’ve expected that. For now the
amnesia’s not a problem.”

It smelled so sterile and dry. He was
uncomfortable in this little bed. And he needed painkillers, lots
of painkillers. He really just wanted to go to sleep.

“The others will probably stop by later,”
Casey said. “You get some rest. You’re a hero.”

He heard Casey leave. Zane was messing with
something beside his head. “Think we can increase my morphine?”

“As soon as some gets here,” Zane replied.
“Right now you’re not on anything. I’m giving you something so you
can sleep through it. I guess there’ll be a guard posted outside,
so you can relax.”

It hadn’t occurred to Voorhees that he might
be a target now. Somehow he didn’t think so; the killer was... she
was...

Off to sleep.

* * *

Tow days later, the bandages came off his
eyes.

“They’ll likely be very sensitive,” Zane told
him. “Fuzzy too. Now, I’m not going to release you back to duty,
but so long as there aren’t any problems getting about we’ll
probably send you home.”

Voorhees felt the cool air reaching his eyes.
He blinked. They ached terribly, as did his entire head, but it was
tolerable. At least he’d no longer be an invalid.

He waited for the final layers of gauze to
come off. Zane paused. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“How’s your vision?”

“What do you mean?”

Fear seized Voorhees’ heart. He reached up to
his face. “Oh my God. Oh dear Christ.”

“What is it, Officer?”

“I can’t see. I can’t see anything.

“I’m blind.”

“Security’s extra tight because of the
assassination,” Logan told Tripper. “It’s all right though, you’ve
got some pretty girls down there already.”

The only way to get anything undead into
Gaylen was for it to be brought in by the military and delivered to
the lab beneath the hospital. Very rarely, a whole rotter was
requested. That was Logan fudging his copy of the requisition
forms. Then, when his team delivered the materials, Tripper would
be waiting, and the rotter would vanish—as if it had never
existed.

And so a new girl appeared in the tenement
that many knew about but none spoke of.

It was part of Tripper’s “honor the living”
philosophy. A prostitution racket was very profitable, especially
when one dealt directly in bartered goods rather than imaginary
credits. But he refused to exploit human women or, worse, children.
That was Meyer’s game.

“So we’re out of luck for a while, eh?”
Tripper sighed. “Well, keep me posted. Couple of the girls are
starting to look pretty rough. I need some new faces.”

As Logan left the warehouse where Tripper ran
a soup kitchen, a young woman P.O. could be seen approaching.
“Shit,” Tripper muttered under his breath.

“My name’s Killian,” the cop said. She handed
him a piece of paper. “Have you seen anyone matching that
description?”

Tripper read it over. It was Lily.

“Nope. Sorry.” He handed the paper back.

“Who runs this place?” Killian peered over
his shoulder, hand on her hip all businesslike. Tripper quickly
said, “The church on West Avenue. This place was condemned ‘til we
fixed it up.”

Killian nodded slowly. “Mind if I ask around
about the missing girl?”

“Be my guest,” he said. As soon as she was
out of his face, he trudged out into the snow. It was really
starting to pile up alongside the buildings and curbs. The Army
wouldn’t be bothered to bring a plow truck through until after
Christmas.

A few blocks from the soup kitchen he
quickened his pace. Ducking into a nondescript office building, he
ran up the stairs to his and Cam’s place.

* * *

Lily was asleep in the back bedroom, and
dreaming...

She found herself in a dark cave, its length
seemingly infinite, with small black candles set into recesses in
the walls. Though each burned with a brilliant light, their glow
did not fill the tunnel; each cast only a small halo about itself.
Lily walked in an uncertain blackness.

The tunnel widened, and the walls smoothed,
leaving the candles behind; now an eerie phosphorescence emanated
from the blue stone surrounding her. The ceiling rose as the tunnel
expanded into a great hall lined with pillars. It was freezing; she
hugged her arms across her chest and proceeded forward despite a
growing sense of dread.

Shadows between the pillars resolved into
great bronze statues. She saw a horned, demonic thing with yawning
jaws and bat-like wings; an angelic form scarred with deep cuts
across its face and chest; a nude figure wrapped in chains, its
expression pure malevolence. She saw a bearded man with his hands
held out as if to embrace her. And finally, at the end, she saw the
last statue: the Reaper.

Robes billowing about his crouched form, he
clutched his scythe and peered out from under his hood with blank
eyes. Lily reached out to touch his face.

The bronze cracked loudly. She jumped back,
looked at her fingers; blood trickled down her palm. The fissure in
the Reaper’s cheek widened, and smaller cracks webbed out from it,
covering his face and spreading over his body and cloak. The statue
groaned. Lily stood rooted to the floor and watched.

The Reaper buckled, knees shattering, bronze
splinters flying out and making tiny cuts in Lily’s cheeks. The
scythe cracked and fell apart, crumbling to powder. The Reaper’s
eyes caved in, and then his head collapsed into his torso and then
the entire statue went.

It crashed to the floor with a horrific
sound. Lily spun away from the shower of jagged shards. They scored
her arms and legs and clattered like bits of glass on the stone
floor.

He was gone. Shattered.

Lily stumbled through the remains and stood
on the spot where he had been. She picked up a piece of his face.
Tears streamed down her cheeks.

A long shadow stretched down the great hall
and engulfed her. Lily turned, sobbing, hands trembling, and looked
into a hateful, rotting face, a face hauntingly familiar; and then
the shovel came down.

She awoke with a scream. Cam grabbed her,
saying “It’s all right, just a dream,” and cradling her, even
before Lily started to cry. “My friend...” she wept. “He’s in
trouble.”

“We’re all in trouble,” Tripper muttered from
the doorway. “The cops are looking for you, hon.”

“What should we do?” asked Cam.

“I’d say disappear, but we can’t. Thackeray
needs us here.”

“How do we know that his plan is even being
carried out?”