Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) (14 page)

“Another crab for the pot!” Holt announced, hoisting the child upward as if showing off a prize catch.  “It’s time we made an example of one
of these thieving little shits–”

“Wait!” Knile said as Holt headed toward the front door.  The boy ceased his wriggling and turned to look at Knile, a scowl on his face.

It was the boy from the cavity in the factory wall.

“I know this one,” Knile said, easing Holt’s arm downward until the boy’s feet touched the floor.  “Roman, right?”

The boy nodded sullenly.

“Where’s he from?” Holt said doubtfully.

“I’ve seen him around.”  Knile waved at the other man.  “Just leave him to me.”

Holt released his grip but held up a finger as he issued a warning.

“If I catch him sneaking around again, he won’t get off so light.”

The boy’s scowl deepened as Holt stalked away.  Talia moved around to get a better look at him, but the boy ignored her, his eyes remaining on the doorway through which Holt had departed.

“I don’t like him,” Roman said quietly.

“What’s going on here?” Talia said, glancing between Roman and Knile in confusion.

“Did you follow me all this way, Roman?”  The boy said nothing.  Knile leaned down to his eye level.  “Did you follow me half way across Link?”

“I was just walking around,” the boy said.  In this improved light he seemed even more grubby and dishevelled than before, and there was a pungent odour arising from his clothes.

“It’s okay,” Knile said.  “I’m not angry with you.”  He straightened.  “In fact, I’m pretty amazed.  Not many people can keep up with me.”

“They’re slow.  I’m fast.”

Talia gave Knile a curious smile, her animosity from before seemingly forgotten.  She got down on one knee.

“My name is Talia.  Where are you from, Roman?”

“The cave.”

She glanced up at Knile, who briefly recounted their encounter of a few hours before.

“But that was the other side of town,
” she said.  “Why did you come all this way, Roman?”

He lifted a plastic bag that was clutched in his hand and rummaged inside, then brought out the dinosaur toy that he and Knile had built together.

“You forgot Dinosaur Robot,” he said, holding it up to Knile.  “I was going to leave
it out the back for you, but that nasty man grabbed me.”

“Don’t worry about Holt,” Knile assured him.  “His bark is worse than his bite.”  He took
the toy and turned it over in his
hands.  “Thank you for bringing this to me, Roman.”

“He pulled my hair, too,
” Roman said grumpily.  “And he called me a little toad.”

Talia laughed.  Knile could see that she liked the boy already.  She was not generally one to take pity on every stray street kid that crossed her path, but there was something about Roman’s lonely plight and his plucky attitude that obviously tugged at her emotions, much as it had done with Knile.

“It’s getting late,” she said.  “Why don’t you stay here for the night, Roman?”

The boy shook his head.  “No.  This is not my home.”

She looked down at his bare feet.  They were black with filth and covered in scabs.

“How about this?” she offered.  “You hang around for a little while, and I’ll measure you up for some boots.  I can make them right here, tonight.  After that, you can take them and go on your way if that’s what you want.”

Roman shook his head.  “Boots aren’t good for me.”

“Why not?” she said.

“I don’t know how to tie the knots.”

“Leave that to me,” Knile said.  “I can teach you how to tie a hundred knots.”

“You can not,” Roman said dubiously.

“Yeah, I can.  Teach you how to untie them, too.”  He pointed at the bag.  “I’m sure we could make some more toys as well.”

The boy finally seemed to brighten at that prospect.

“Really?  I brought the glue.  Just in case.”

“Sure,” Knile said, gesturing to the nearby sofa.  “Come on over.  Let’s see what we can do.”

Roman shuffled across the floor and eased himself up onto the sofa, and Knile sat next to him.  Talia returned to her stool, picking up where she’d left off with her boot, a faint smile on her face.

“What are we gonna call this one?” Roman said enthusiastically.

“How about Dinosaur Robot Two?”

Knile turned onto Elk Parade, his destination now only a few seconds away.  He spotted number thirteen and cut straight across the avenue, taking the most direct route.  An Auto headed in the opposite direction came to a sudden halt, its tyres gripping and squealing on the burnished flooring, and the occupant yelled something incoherent in Knile’s direction.

Then Knile made it across to the other side.

He reached the door and thumped loudly, unable to restrain himself.  His cool facade had been dissolved by the panic that was gnawing at his insides.

“Mr. Rojas isn’t taking visitors,” someone said nearby.  Knile turned to see a large man in a dark suit sitting in an alcove that was built into the exterior of the dwelling.  The man was watching something on a terminal and had not even bothered to look in Knile’s direction.

“There’s a gas leak in there,” Knile said.  “We need to get–”

“I said get the hell out of here,” the man said.

Knile tried the handle on the door and, finding it locked, reached for his lock picks.  Before he could put them to use
, something struck him like a cannonball from the side and he went sprawling on the ground.

He looked up to see the man in the dark suit looming over him.

“Now we’ve got a problem,” the man said.

14

Vincent Rojas knelt before the little shrine, where the photograph of his mother sat nestled between two small black candles.  As far as photographs went, it was not the best.  It was blurry and the shot poorly framed, the sunlight streaming over his mother’s shoulder, rendering her features indistinct on one side.  It had also become scuffed over the years and was starting to fade noticeably.

Still, it was the way he liked to remember her.  She was smiling, happy.  Young and pretty.  A girl who was blissfully unaware of the terrible future that awaited her.

Rojas looked up at the mirror above the shrine and saw his own face.  He was pleased at the calmness and serenity he projected.  The control.  He had his mother’s olive complexion, her dark blond
e
hair.  His eyes were green and hers had been blue, but despite that he felt that they were closer to twins than mother and son, two petals from the same flower that had been plucked twenty-two years apart.

“May the spirits guide me,” he said.  These were words he had spoken many times before.  It was the phrase with which he liked to conclude his ritual, a superstitious utterance, and even though the spirits had left him somewhat disillusioned of late, he wasn’t about to change things up now.

He clasped his hands together before his face, then slowly rose to his feet.

He left the alcove and proceeded out through the bedroom, taking a towel from the bureau and lightly mopping his brow.  Padding down the softly carpeted corridor, he paused at the edge of the living room to gather his thoughts.

He hadn’t always lived in such opulent surrounds.  He’d been born into a poor home and done it tough for many years, scratching together whatever he could, creating his own opportunities through hard work and diligence.  He was a self-made man, never asking others for help, and he knew that this was something his mother had always viewed with intense pride.

Until the day she had been beaten to death by his stepfather, Ciro.

How many times did I tell you to leave him, Mother?
he thought bitterly. 
How many times?

Rojas stepped across to the kitchen and plucked his gold watch from the counter, securing it to his wrist.  He pinched the face between thumb and forefinger and regarded it patiently, knowing that his pulse was thumping despite his attempts to remain calm.

Go forth now and confront him.

Rojas began to walk toward the room where he hoped the demon was waiting for him.

His palms were sweaty.  They always were when he was this close to the moment of truth, the moment when all would be revealed to him.  The anticipation was both awful and exhilarating, and no matter how many times he went through it, he could not get used to it.

“May the spirits guide me,” he said again, his voice shaky.  “Mother guide me.”

When Ciro had left his mother battered, bloody and lifeless in her own bed, Rojas had been little more than a pimply adolescent.  He had not possessed the physical strength, or the
confidence
to take down a monster like Ciro.  But Vincent Rojas had bided his time, drawing plans together to claim his revenge.  For three years he had waited for his chance, watching Ciro and learning his routines, his weaknesses, all the while devising a method of death that would draw out the pain for the longest time possible.

Ciro would come to regret the things he had done.

And then, suddenly, Ciro had been killed in the most unsatisfying way possible.  He had been involved in a simple bar room fight, his neck cut by jagged glass.  He had bled out on the ale-soaked floor, just as any number of drunk commoners had done before him.

Rojas had been devastated when
he’d found out.  It was such an
easy, meaningless death, and one that had deprived Rojas of his vengeance.

But Rojas knew that this was not the end.  As his mother had taught him, life was not simply a straight li
ne with a start and a finish
.  No, it was far more complex than that.  Life was more like a system of concentric circles, a network of existences that were loosely tethered by the gossamer strands of the spirits themselves.

Death was not the end, it was merely the means through which a soul transferred from one circle to the next.

When Ciro’s soul had left his body on that bar room floor, it had not dissolved into nothingness.  It had moved on.  Somewhere out there, at that very moment, a child had been born with Ciro’s life force within it.  It was the empty vessel for his corrupt being.

Now, after a decade and a half of hunting for him, Rojas felt that his long search was coming to an end.  He was getting closer to his target.  Closer to exacting his revenge on the monster who had robbed him of his happiness.

Of course, Rojas’ mother’s spirit was not coming back.  She had been a pure spirit, one very close to the centre of the circle.  When she’d died she had become one with the Greatness.

One day Rojas would see her again when he too reached that inner plane of existence.  That thought gave him some comfort, at least.

He stopped outside the door of the room and listened.  The one he’d tied up inside was quiet.  It wasn’t screaming like many of the others did.

Perhaps that was a good sign.  Perhaps this
was
the demon.  Finally, the one he sought.

He opened the door and went inside.  The raven-haired youth was lying silently on the bed, his arms and legs tied with ropes in the same position in which Rojas had left him several hours ago.

Rojas felt a moment of panic.  The boy was so still.  Rojas couldn’t even see his chest move, didn’t even know if he was still breathing.

You gave him the wrong dose
, he berated himself.

Rojas walked forward and pressed his fingers to the boy’s neck.  The pulse was still there, still strong.  He lifted his hand and pried open one of the boy’s eyelids.

There they are.  Those cruel blue eyes, just like Ciro’s.  Is it really you?

The pupils were fixed and dilated, showing no response to the increased light.  Rojas moved back to the table where he’d left the syringe, wondering where he’d gone wrong.

He should be awake by now.

The boy moaned, and Rojas returned to his side.  He pried the boy’s eyelids open, one at a time, then gave him a firm slap on the cheek.