Beating Heart Cadavers (20 page)

Ch. 27

The back of Caine's throat was so dry that it hurt to breathe. The rattled, choking noises escaped into the air to dissipate into the thick walls, and his head lulled backwards as he laid sprawled against the door. The air was heavy with the smell of sweat and decay, and though the latter came from the bag that Ratsel had left for him on the floor, he told himself that it was coming from him, instead. His flesh was rotting, and he was decomposing. His son was somewhere else – and anywhere else – but the room.

He hadn't moved from his spot in days. Or perhaps he had gotten up and run through the house, throwing himself against every wall in an attempt to escape from the agony that the place held within it, but he couldn't think clearly enough to discern which it was. Sometimes he would open his eyes and be back in the bedroom at his old house beside his wife, and other times the room would morph into the underground where he had frequently caught the train to work. He didn't really mind where he woke up to, though, so long as it wasn't where he actually was.

His head lulled sideways and smacked against the handle of the front door, jolting him awake. As he blinked to refocus his vision, he found two men standing in front of him. The first was Audamar Ratsel, the second was Matthew Caine, Sr.

“Tell us what you've done, Matthew,” the Spöke said in a low voice that bellowed over him. “Tell us and we'll wake your son up for you.”

The duffel bag was still lying on the floor, the brightly colored letters reading
Simon
glaring over at him more than the two men.

“Would you like that, Matthew? Would you like us to wake your son up for you?”

“What … are … you …?” He tried to form a sentence, but he was so parched that his mouth could not speak the words. He stared up at his father with a blank look in his eyes, wondering how the dead man could look at him with such an unmoved gaze.

“He had to go, Matthew,” Caine Sr. said solemnly. “He wasn't Onerian. I told you to marry an Onerian.”

Caine turned his head the other way, hoping to rid himself of the images that he was only half-certain weren't real. Maybe they could wake his son up, though: maybe Simon wasn't dead. And all that Caine had to do was tell them the truth …

“I … killed … Sawyer ...” he wheezed.

“Speak louder, son: we can't hear you.”

“I – killed – Sawyer,” Caine choked, his voice cracking as he attempted to raise it. “But it – was – an accident.”

The two men leaned towards one another and discussed something in garbled tones. Caine put his head back further, his mouth agape and eyes half-closed like a fish that had been thrown from deep waters. As they continued to speak without him, Caine shakily tried again.

“I … told … you ...” he said. “Please … my … son. Wake … my … son ...”

The former ambassador looked at the High Officer and gave him a nod, and Ratsel stepped forward to give a swift kick to the bag on the ground. It thumped against the force of his foot.

“Wake up, young Simon,” he said to the object. “Come now, don't keep us waiting: wake up.”

The bag remained still. Ratsel turned back to Caine unconcernedly.

“Well, I asked him,” he said. “It's not my fault that the boy doesn't listen – perhaps he learned it from his father?”

An odd noise sounded from Caine's throat as though he was choking on solidified air. The two men didn't seem to notice.

“Perhaps you should have told us sooner, Matthew,” the older Caine said. “Then I could have helped you out of this mess.”

“You're … dead ...” Caine murmured.

“And soon you will be, too,” his father replied.

Caine's head fell sideways again; his neck no longer had a desire to hold it upright. As his eyes closed on the imagined reprimanding, he felt one of his legs twitch uncontrollably as though he was having a fit and his bones seemed to disintegrate within his skin, but then his form became oddly still again. As he reawakened, a sense of youthfulness came over him, and he didn't hesitate before standing up. All hint of his previous exhaustion was gone.

“They're in the bottle cabinet.”

Fields brushed past him and made her way down the stairs to the kitchen of the Sawyers' house, seemingly unconcerned to see him there. Without thinking, Caine followed her, his steps solidly beneath him but not feeling like his own.

“Andor never checks in here,” Fields said, opening the door above the stove. “Bottles are no use to him once they're empty.”

She turned around to wave the pack of cigarettes at him, an apparent grin on her face and a mischievous look in her eyes. Her hair was tied back in a braid down her spine, and she looked younger and livelier than the last time that he had seen her. She couldn't have been older than seventeen, he decided. The idea was somehow hardly bothersome.

“Of course, I wouldn't have to hide them if you just bought and kept them,” she went on, sticking one into her mouth to light before offering the pack to him. “Considering you're actually old enough.”

“My father's more discerning than yours,” Caine replied, the words coming like an echo even though he hadn't thought to speak.

“Sure, but he's never home. We could be at your house right now and the only person who might catch us is the housekeeper.”

“– who would tell my father.”

“Who would have plenty of time to let his rage simmer out, considering he's hardly home,” Fields countered. “I vote we go over there now – your fridge is better stocked, too.”

“True,” Caine said, but barely had a moment to think about it further before a door slammed overhead. Frowning, Fields pulled the cigarette from her mouth and listened for a moment before tossing it in the sink.

“Is that Jasper?” Caine asked, following her lead and throwing his cigarette in the same direction as hers.

“No, he's too early.”

“Maybe he's cutting class.”

“I doubt it: he doesn't go against authority, even if it's just his literature teacher.”

She paused and listened to the footsteps above them.

“I think it's Andor,” she said. She turned on the sink to mask the smell of smoke, swearing under her breath as she went. “He only comes home early when he's in a mood.”

“Great.”

Caine stuck his hands in his pocket in an attempt to look more suitable, though he doubted that it would matter: Sawyer had never liked him very much.

“Where are you?”

The voice cracked through the house as though shattering still air and resonated off of the walls before sinking down on the kitchen. Fields ducked a bit as it sounded as though fearing that the sheer force of it might strike her, and Caine pulled a face.

“He doesn't sound happy,” he muttered lowly. “What'd you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing that you know of, or nothing that you think he knows of?”

Fields rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off when the kitchen door banged open and Sawyer shot into the room.

“You little
rat
–”

He was still in his uniform, though the collar had been pulled open so harshly that the silver buttons had popped off of it, revealing the white hair covering his wrinkled chest. He threw down his briefcase, narrowly avoiding hitting Caine as he went, and it struck the floor with such a force that it broke open and dispelled its contents. As papers fluttered across the hardwood, a heavy silver book skidded over towards the table, and a small, sharp piece of metal followed it.

“You
disgusting
little
rat
!”

“I didn't do anything!” Fields said automatically, leaning all the way back over the stove to get her face away from his.

He approached her with a deranged expression on his face and his hands rose as though readying to grasp her around the neck and strangle her, and the only thing that seemed to stop him from doing so immediately was the thought of switching the stove on and pressing her face to it to burn her flesh off instead.

“Do you know what you've done?” he shouted, seizing her by the collar and shaking her with every word. “Do you know what this'll do to me?”

“I – didn't –”

She tried to respond, but he had pulled her up by the neck and was shaking her too violently to warrant her getting the words out. As she continued to choke against his grip, Caine wrenched himself from his stupor and hurried forward to pull Sawyer away.

“Get off of me!” Sawyer shouted, lashing out as Caine approached. “Are you in on it, too? Been hoarding her secret all this time?”

He flung around to face Caine more directly, dragging Fields with him like a rag doll, and Caine jumped back again.

“Well? Is he?” Sawyer demanded, giving Fields another violent shake. She had her hands on top of his, overlapping them in a desperate attempt to pull them free, but her eyes were bulging from their sockets and even the full amount of her strength couldn't get them to move.

“Don't –” she gasped, digging her nails into his skin as she spoke. “Don't – please –”

“Get off of her!” Caine hollered, throwing himself forward to seize Sawyer around the middle. He pulled against the man with all of his weight to drag him off of Fields, and as he managed to fling him sideways across the kitchen, the grip on Fields' neck finally faltered and she was thrown down into one of the kitchen chairs.

Sawyer landed on all fours on top of his briefcase, and as his crazed eyes scanned over the floor, he reached forward and seized the pointed metal object that had fallen there moments before. It flashed in his hand as he got back to his feet.

“No – wait –”

Fields was still curled on the floor where she had fallen, one hand at her neck as she struggled to regain her breathing and the other held out in a plea for him to stop. As he came descended upon her, Caine grabbed him by the arm and swung him back around to face him instead when –

“Ah!”

Sawyer swiped the knife-like object towards him, cutting him across the ear as he went. Caine wasn't aware so much of the pain as he was the warmth that came to his face as blood dripped down his skin and ran down his neck to mix with his hair. Clapping his hand to his head, he relinquished his grip on the Spöke, who threw himself back towards Fields, the weapon poised and ready –

Without thinking, Caine grabbed the cast-iron skillet from the stove-top and swung it with as much force as he could across Sawyer's head. The blow caught him at the base of the skull with a loud cracking sound, sending him crashing sideways away from Fields. As he hit the hardwood with wide-open eyes, a dark stain filtered out beneath him and stretched itself like a flood over the spilled contents of the briefcase. Fields scrambled up to distance herself from it, but Caine was frozen.

She looked at Caine with a quiet, intent stare.

“Matt – what'd you do?”

“I – I just hit him,” Caine said weakly, his eyes going from Sawyer's motionless body to her. “I didn't mean to knock him out –”

“I don't think he's knocked out,” Fields said. She bent down to take a closer look. “I think he's dead.”

“What? No.”

He dropped the cast-iron skillet from his hand and crouched down as well, staring at Sawyer with disbelief. He had only hit him – that wasn't enough to kill him.

“No, no, no – he's not dead,” Caine said assuredly, holding out his hands as though preparing for the moment when Sawyer would wake up and try to strangle him as well for making such a mess of his kitchen. The blood was still crawling across the floor, however, as though it was hoping to make an escape through the door that the man it was coming from could not achieve.

Fields slowly stretched out her hand to feel for a pulse, checking his wrist and neck in turn, before making a face and pulling away. She shook her head at him.

“Fuck.” Caine's hand shot up to his hair, raking blood from his ear through the curls as he tried to think of what to do to rewind the situation. He couldn't have killed someone – not so easily, and not without meaning to, and certainly not in such a blatant area where there would be no chance of pretending that it was a random crime. “Fuck – Lad, what do I do?”

“We could … say he fell,” she said feebly, leaning back against the counter to keep herself upright.

“Dammit, Lad – no one will believe that!”

Something sounded above them and they both startled, jumping back from the body as though it might keep them from incrimination.

“What's –?”

“Jasper's home,” Fields said, answering the question before it was asked. It seemed to take a moment for the statement to sink in, however, and a moment later she made a movement as though she was about to be sick. “Fuck: Jasper's home.”

“What do we do? What do we do?” Caine said hurriedly, waving his hands to further the solution that only she would form. “Quick, Lad – he's right upstairs!”

“Put him in the closet,” Fields said.

“Jasper?”

“Andor!”

She leaned forward and seized the dead man's arm, tugging it futilely as she tried to drag him up.

“Come on, Matt! Help me!”