The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (20 page)

“Shut up!” Liz hissed angrily. “The Creature
said she was different…”

But she fell silent as something went through
the group. Some kind of shared sense traveled over their bodies
that even Dawn felt: like a cold chill on a damp morning.

Then the little boy with the murderous hand
crouched, his head click side to side, and his tiny shape flitted
across the hideout toward the door.

“Conan careful!” Liz hissed after him.
“They’re here.”

And Dawn’s breath went out as the kids
extinguished their matches and plunged the room into total
darkness. She took a terrified step backward, but stopped when a
small hand, Liz’s, grabbed onto her arm. She tried to speak—but
another hand cupped her mouth and pointed her head toward the
door.

A red glow had appeared in the hall outside,
tracing the door’s edges with sickly light. Dawn watched as a
brighter focus of light grew and searched at the lower edge of the
door, slid its febrile glow on the floorboards there. Then it drew
away, and plunged the room into darkness again.

The fingers gripping Dawn’s arm dug into the
flesh until she wanted to scream, but her fear silenced her.

Suddenly the door split up the middle and
splintered inward. Dawn was pulled against the wall as gunfire
erupted from the corners—sent a flashing hail of bullets at the
impossibly tall men who charged in.

They wore heavy armor, bulky over chest and
shoulders—their legs were hidden by hanging sheets of thick
material that seemed to sweep up from the ground to large collars
that hid their faces. Black-visored caps sat atop their
bullet-shaped heads. The first one in fell on his face—the bright
flashes apparently eating into his silhouette as he dropped. But
more of them entered, charging over his falling body.

Liz’s eyes were wild in the violent
flickering light. She held Dawn’s arm tightly in one hand and fired
a pistol with the other. She dragged the forever girl along the
wall away from the intruders. The air crackled around them, hissed
with hot gunfire and roared with pain and anger.

Dawn watched the little boy, Conan, rush at
the invaders’ legs, slashing and jabbing with his curious
weapon—chopping at the thick forest of legs around him. His little
black shape moved too quickly to see.

Then the tall men, screaming and crying in
pain, fell back—dropped into the hallway.

Liz’s fingers dug into her, seemed to have
reached bone as the room fell silent and dark. There was a muffled
thump, then blinding explosion.

Green lights jazzed her vision. She stumbled.
Her ears were ringing. She felt cold hands suddenly on her: biting
nails, rough skin ripping over her own. She opened her eyes to red
light. Strange men without faces loomed. And something panted near
her ear—stank of dogs and blood. Faraway she heard the sound of
gunfire—then there was only darkness.

27 – Reckoning

Cawood’s breath came in hot gulps—her heart
raced. …
deliver the souls in Purgatory, especially those for
whom we now pray
… She could barely stand; her legs trembled so.
Distantly she wondered if a person could die of shame. Her face and
head throbbed like sunstroke—and her shoulders hung from a brittle
spine. Cawood stood by the window in her Sunsight office. A still
photo from the movie was in her hand. Processed quickly, the black
and white image was unmistakable. The nun quickly saw that Raul had
chosen the most damning of frames. It wouldn’t matter if the rest
of the exchange were captured or not. The picture in her hand was
the end of her life here. It showed her in relative close up,
talking and smiling—it looked like she was talking. She had no idea
what she had said but on either side of her face, throbbing and
repulsive, was a male erection: one white, one black.

When she realized what she was looking at, it
had been enough; the sick guilt drove her to the heavy-paned
window—and since she had contemplated the worst… Was she prepared
for
Mortal
sin? It would make her an enemy of God for
eternity. No atonement. Was she ready to up the stakes of her
self-destruction? Make it permanent.

There were other offices that had balconies.
There were service hatches. The fall would kill her, and what came
out of Blacktime would be utter damnation.

Or had she developed an unquenchable thirst
for shame? It wasn’t self-preservation that stayed her had. Were
the masochistic possibilities of disclosure so attractive?
Punish me
!
Burn me at the stake
! It didn’t matter
what she was saying in the movie. Whatever profundity the blurred
eyes attempted to expound was lost by the abject obscenity of the
act. Her arms went slack, swung down, the picture staining the
constant black of her dress.

What was she saying?
Hurt me
? Whatever
the words were, she knew that the gist was: look at me. Hate me.
Despise the whore. I am not worthy of the office I hold. Kill me!
Let me go
! Her stomach lurched. It was clear to her that
regardless of the movie’s length, her life ended with the frame in
her hand. Anything else was just dirt on her grave.

Was this proof of a split personality? She’d
contemplated it before.
Insane
. She must be insane. She
couldn’t be possessed. She didn’t share Able’s craving for action
heroes. Her behavior suggested two personalities and that was
mental illness. But could she claim such separation, for hadn’t she
taken great pleasure from the lust in men’s eyes as they coveted
her? When she thought of Juanita earlier—did she not wish to take
the Mormon’s clothes off and lavish her body with kisses? It was
too easy to blame a separate part of herself for sinning. As though
someone else had enjoyed the night.

For her memories of the men, despite the
depravity, gave her hot and carnal sensations—
even now
?
Those men might have put something in her drink, but why was she
there? Was she hoping someone would?

It was true she had left the church
spiritually—but last night, the movie, that was something wrong.
That was a sickness and the drugs. And if it was not drugs, then
the film was not pornography so much as it was confession. Could it
be that even in her sickest state, she had recognized her illness,
and this movie was a cry for help?
Run from sin
!

That’s too easy! She wanted to rage. Her
immortal soul was not something out of a psychology textbook! Her
sins were not the cry for help that fit so comfortably in a
sociological viewpoint. She had sinned! Damn it! And now, she had
destroyed her life! Cawood looked at the sky—pellucid blue and
promising. She raised a fist and hissed, “Why did you do this to
me?” As the words left her, tears welled up in her eyes and she
sank against the glass.

“Why did you leave me?” She mumbled, sliding
down to gather in a heap beside the window. “I loved you…” And
tears dripped from her eyes. “I gave my life to you.”

And the note with the picture said what? The
men she’d sinned with knew she was
the
Sister—the other
Tower Builder. She and Able had been minor celebrities near the end
of its construction. She must have made that clear to them or they
had recognized her. They wanted money for silence. The mere notion
made her want to vomit again. Money? But she knew that whatever was
paid would never be enough. It would start with the amount they
quoted then increase. And she knew that ultimately, the movie would
surface. It would be worth more to the newspapers and the media.
And the kind of betrayal in it provoked revulsion even in the
meanest of criminals. Such powerful hypocrisy would be hard to
contain. That was the depth of her sin. Even criminal minds would
find her abhorrent.

She and Able occasionally dealt with the
press. They were called upon to attend charity functions, and speak
at gatherings—they continued to raise money for the Tower, for the
great works it underwrote. When would Sister Karen Cawood be
brought down?

She began to wonder whether suicide was truly
the greater sin. Her life was over anyway. How could she minimize
the damage? She would have to leave. Maybe that was it. There was
the mission at the New Mexican crater. She could talk to her
superiors before this became public. That way it would diminish the
impact. It wouldn’t hurt so many at the Tower if she were gone. She
got to her feet.

With your bright and open heart forgive me
for showing darkness to the light
.

Cawood took two steps and froze. It was over,
and somewhere inside her; she felt sadness but resolution. At least
she wouldn’t hurt her friends anymore. Not after this last great
convulsion she’d cause them. Then there’d be no more. She moved to
her desk, opened the top drawer, put the picture in and shut it
away. She didn’t bother with the key. Her hypocrisy needed stronger
locks than that. It was too late.

She walked toward her office door, paused
there a moment. Her nausea was gone. She no longer felt dizzy. The
nun had been schooled in resignation if nothing else. The church
had taught her how to take a beating. She would tell Able after she
had contacted her superiors. She wouldn’t bother showing them the
picture. There was no point to that. That would just be masochism,
forcing herself to squirm while some church Father or Mother
Superior viewed her sins. Then she relented. They’d have to see it.
Better by her own hand. By now, she had traveled so far away from
self-preservation that she didn’t care about the thoughts of peers
she’d leave behind.
I have sinned against you
…

Worst was the problem with Able. How could
she tell him? Cawood glanced at her watch. The day had slipped by
as she faded in and out of her cloud of guilt. Able would still be
in the Tower. He’d have to wait. She’d be better prepared for him
later, after she had talked to her superiors. But tonight, at the
latest, so she could avoid his ridiculous mission. She had to tell
him the truth.

28 – The Hunt

Felon sat in a rental car up the street from
232 Towerview Terrace, Level Four. The car was a wreck. He had paid
a large cash deposit and used forged driver’s license and
identification to drive it off the Level One lot. It was an old
Ford, a rusty Pinto from a pre-Change seventies fad that had struck
the City in the post-Change sixties. Felon knew that it was worth
considerably less than the down payment but with the extra green,
the dealership would be less inclined to miss it and might not even
look for the heap if it didn’t return. And he’d always found that
if you paid well people rarely asked probing questions. He didn’t
quibble about the money, it was the cost of doing business, and
this job was going to make him wealthy.

The afternoon was dark—it was always dark in
the City. He wanted to get a feel for the neighborhood, get a
glimpse of his prey.

From his hunter’s blind he had watched people
come and go. It had rained off and on all day, beyond the layers of
concrete, asphalt and steel that made up the levels above. At its
highest point, the City was six layers thick and was well into
adding its seventh. There didn’t seem to be any plan to
construction. The City just added neighborhoods when they were
needed. There was still a constant influx of refugees from the
failing inland cities and states, and the wealthy from around the
world had begun to make the trip, paying enormous sums of money for
Sunsight apartments in the upper reaches. It wasn’t progress. Felon
knew it was decay. The City was an expensive refugee camp for the
survivors of all that was left of North America. There were similar
cities on the other continents—fancy catch basins. They didn’t know
they were fucked.

The assassin sneered and looked out at a fine
mist that hung in the air. Runoff and any rain that got through the
Carapace poured down road, building and Skyway gutters to collect
in vastly inadequate and aging sewer systems on successive levels.
These were originally designed to channel the descending torrents
of water to the sewers that ran beneath the City—from there out to
the sea. But, the sewers weren’t designed for such growth, and were
incapable of keeping up with the vast quantities of precipitation
that fell. So the water seeped through cracks and holes in this
overtaxed system to form a dirtier and rustier rain that fell on
the level below where the process was repeated.

It added a steely gray dampness to the cold
air and darkened the street in puddles. The chill leached up
through the tires, the car frame and into Felon’s bones. He
resisted the urge to run the heater—exhaust was like a smoke
signal—and he was already running a risk with a cigarette. His prey
was partly omniscient so any activity was dangerous. 232 Towerview
Terrace was about one hundred feet up the block from him. This
Level Four neighborhood would consider itself upscale. He imagined
there was a time that you could see the Tower from the street. Now
it was completely obscured by buildings and massive supports for
Level Five. The monolith punched through Level Five about thirty
blocks to the south. The view was gone now but must have been
impressive before the upper level was clamped into place.

People trudged past through sporadic drizzle.
It was rare to see anyone hurry through the perpetual wet anymore.
It was going to get you sometime. Umbrellas and hat brims sagged
against the onslaught. Raincoats glistened like polished steel.

The assassin hated the people who passed. He
took grim pleasure wishing each one dead. They were losers, every
one—unredeemable. Divine and Infernal creatures were right to view
them with contempt. The human race had been was destroying the
planet before the Change came, gearing up for a manmade apocalypse.
The assassin hated that part of the Change; by robbing humanity of
the responsibility for its own destruction it let the hypocrites
off the hook. He shrugged his hatred away,
useless hate
. If
the situation developed fast, he’d have to be free of emotion.
Hating people was like a shunt for his passions. He had to be clean
of feeling—sometimes if he hated hard enough, he needed a cigarette
after.