Blood Day (39 page)

Viv did as he commanded, but she could feel her body changing. Her face was shifting, her torso grinding into herself, her hands shot through with pain.

“Don’t panic,” said Conrad, now in front of her, gripping her face tenderly. “It’s only your body moving into its human state. There, see? Do you feel better?”

Viv nodded, stepping away from him.

“Are you afraid of me, Genevieve?” said Conrad.

“Yes.”

Conrad smiled. “Good. Let’s go. We have work to do.”

Viv followed him through the forest. It was pitch black, but she could see every detail, every molecule. She could feel them moving through the forest, the Revs who she now knew were not Revs. They were an abomination to the race. Her race. Viv gasped at the thought. She was now a Revenant. She searched for the panic that should have been there, the panic that had kept her company since the lights had gone out so long ago. It was gone. Even when she thought of that night, the night her son was killed, she felt nothing. And just for a moment, she was glad Conrad had turned her into this thing that could not feel.

The woods were crawling with pale, weak Revs and her eyes flicked to each of them as she saw them surround them.

“Don’t worry, they are here to protect me,” said Conrad.

“They can’t even protect themselves,” said Viv. She stopped and turned to peer into the darkness.

“What is it?” asked Conrad.
 

“Someone is here,” she said. “Someone strong. More than one.”

“Who is it?” said Conrad, his voice suddenly tight. “Is it him?”

Viv closed her eyes. “Can you not see them?” she said.

“Of course I can,” he said. “I’m asking you.”

He was lying, Viv knew.

“The woman you tortured,” she said.

“I didn’t torture her,” said Conrad.

“Of course,” said Viv. “You had her tortured. She is with someone very big. He towers over her. He is strong, but I think that maybe she is stronger.”

“Stronger than Joshua Flynn?” he said.

“You are afraid,” she said.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Quickly. These creatures can fight Joshua Flynn and his concubine.”

“You made her,” said Viv. “Why doesn’t she abide by you?”

“She was never mine,” said Conrad. “She was always his. Everything I want is his.”

“You knew her before?” said Viv.
 

“Enough of your questions,” said Conrad. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t poisoned them, Sia would be mine now. Sia would be mine and it would break him.”

“This has always been about him,” said Viv.

“Get out of my head, or I will send you where you sent all my friends. You’re worse than my sister.”

Viv remembered the party. The woman he called sister before ordering the Revs to cut her heart out. It hurt to think of Sia on the slab, screaming as they sliced her apart. Refusing to die. Something had gone wrong. With all that blood, she should have been dead.
 

“Why didn’t she die?” said Viv.

“Enough!”

“Please, just one question,” said Viv. “She should have died. A human can only take so much trauma, so much pain. And there was so much blood.”

“She was supposed to die,” said Conrad, pushing his way through the snow. “Joshua must have given her his blood. It’s against our law. There was supposed to be a vote,” he said. “We’re all supposed to agree on the candidate.”

“But isn't it just the two of you?”

“What?”

“Weren't there just two Revenants left?” said Viv. “The only real Revenants. After you turned the others into weaklings.”

The slap came fast and hard and Viv felt her teeth vibrate. She could taste her own blood in her mouth. She looked at him, panting and breathing hard. She smiled and he turned and started walking again.
 

“This is the way the world ends,” Viv said, fighting the urge to laugh. “Not with a bang but a whimper.”

“What?” said Conrad, turning.

“It’s a poem,” said Viv.

Conrad shook his head, as if she’d just said something insufferably stupid. “It’s not necessary for you to understand our ways. Just do as I say and maybe you’ll live.”

Viv followed, though she realized there was someone in her head now. Someone she knew. And it wasn’t Conrad.

Hello, Doctor White.
 

Viv smiled behind Conrad’s back.
 

Hello, Sia
, she said silently.
I’ve been waiting for you a very long time.

Forty

Mike opened the double doors just as Sia addressed Dez.

“I was sure I killed you,” Sia said. She watched Dez back away from her and she laughed. The reporter quickly moved in front of the young man, defensive. One of his hands was bandaged and Sia reached for it.

“Mike Novak,” she said. “They cut you because of me.”

Mike pulled his hand away before she could touch it.

“It’s nothing,” he said, but Sia saw the lie. She looked at Joshua.
 

“He wants to die,” she said. “Because of what they did to him.”

“There’s no time, Sia,” said Joshua. “We have work elsewhere.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sia, looking into Mike’s eyes. “You tried so hard to save me. But I keep telling everyone, I never needed to be saved.”

“You say that,” said Joshua, “and yet when I found you, you were not in control.”

“I’m never in control,” said Sia. She lifted Mike’s hand gently by the wrist and he let her. “This is a brave thing you did, Mike Novak. I won’t kill you. You’re going to be the lucky one.”

“The lucky one?” he said. He looked at Joshua then back at Sia. “What the hell does that mean?”

Sia smiled and kissed his injured hand.

“Everyone you meet falls just a little bit in love with you, don’t they?” said Mike.
 

Sia turned to Evelyn Hauser.

“I wonder,” Sia said, “if I could ever give you a Hell better than the one you’ve constructed all on your own.”
 

“Please,” whispered Evelyn. “I relive what I’ve done every day. Sia, please. I don’t sleep.”

“You would tell me to take the pills,” said Sia. She touched Evelyn’s cheek with her finger and the old woman closed her eyes.
 

“Can you see them?” said Evelyn, opening her eyes as the tears fell down her cheeks. “Will you help the children?”

Sia pulled her hand back, her smile gone. She felt her lip tremble and she put her finger to her mouth, just as she had that first night, under the tree. How had she strayed so far from her path? She looked at Joshua, who stood watching, still as stone.

“Are you going to kill her?” he said.
 

Sia watched the three human faces, looking at her, concerned. She took a step back. The eyes of the drug dealer, terrified and confused, floated into her mind. She saw herself as though from another’s eyes. She had spent months befriending him, buying his Slack, making him think he had her. Until it was time. Until the night she’d come to the door with a knife. Poor Trey had never had a chance. She saw her husband, Collin, falling to the ground on that cold night, his fingermarks still on her neck. Her mother’s blood was still in her mouth. But it had all had a purpose. She had to be strong. She had seen Ana in Evelyn’s mind. Ana, among an ocean of other children.
 

She felt her then. Genevieve was her name now. She was broken, hurt, but she had a purpose too, just as Sia had. The forgotten purpose, drowned in the need to kill, to hurt them just as they had been hurt. To make them pay.
 

But first the children. Sia looked at Evelyn, who nodded. She knew Sia had seen them.
 

“My violin,” Sia said.

Evelyn nodded and walked across the hall and unlocked the nursing station with the key on her wrist. Sia watched her retrieve the case from under the counter and hand it to her reverently, as though it contained a sacred relic. Sia exhaled as she set it on the counter and the latches sprang open. She opened the case and inhaled the smell of varnish and rosin. She lifted the violin, closing her eyes as she rested it under her chin.

“I know what you want,” said Sia.

“You do?” said Evelyn. Sia didn’t need to open her eyes to know that she was crying.

“You want a funeral march,” said Sia. “You’ve been dreaming awake and it’s always the same song. The one I played for you.”

“Yes,” said Evelyn breathlessly.

“I will play you something beautiful,” said Sia. “It’s your redemption.”

“And then?” said Evelyn.

“And then I will give you what you want most of all,” said Sia.
 

“Please,” said Evelyn. “Don’t toy with me. I’m not strong like you. I can’t go on like this.”

“I’ve never lied to you, Evelyn,” said Sia. “Can you say the same?”

“I-I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t recall.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you in another life, Evelyn,” said Sia. “But this is the last you’ll see of me in this one.”

“I love you, Sia,” said Evelyn.
 

Sia played for her, the sound resonating over the woman’s sobs of relief. Sia could feel the music washing over Evelyn, and she watched her fall to her knees, her face upturned, as if in prayer. Sia gave her everything she wanted, and when it was time, Evelyn smiled.

Her blood was bitter.

Sia felt Joshua watching. She knew there was a fervor even in his eyes. She felt the two human men repulsed by her, held in place by Joshua’s will. And, further away, she felt her savior. Genevieve. Viv. The good doctor who risked everything and succeeded, but at great cost to herself. Sia could feel her. They were linked, the two of them. Sia could see death all around her, but not her own. and not the doctor.
 

Hello, Doctor White
, she said, reaching into the woman’s mind. It was a gloriously broken place. Sia felt her pain and her strength and her fear and felt she could live in the woman’s head. It was a fabulous chaos. Sia sighed as the woman spoke to her.

Sia
…

Sia walked out of the nursing station holding her violin in one hand, her bow in the other. She looked at Joshua.

“I know where Conrad is,” she said.

“You just killed her,” Dez said. His heart was beating fast and hard. You’re a damn murderer,” he said. Mike put a hand on his arm, but Dez shook him off. “You tried to kill me, you killed the nurse, who else are you going to kill?”

“Do you know what they did to the Bleeders?” asked Sia.

The two men froze as they watched her. She let them see her then, just for a moment. She let them see her Revenance.
 

“They took them all,” said Sia, her voice low. “They turned them into husks. They took so much from them that their bodies can’t survive without the medicine keeping them alive. But they’re not alive, not really. They took these people, people who may have been good or bad, and turned them into something ugly. Conrad took us, and fed us this ugly thing and made us weak. And now that he knows this ugly thing has failed, he’s going to kill all the ugly things he created and turn children into monsters. He’s going to take everything from them and make them his own. I didn’t know what I would become, but I made each and every choice on the journey that led me here. These children won't get to choose. Do you understand?”

“And Evelyn?” said Dez. “What about her?”

“Evelyn got to choose,” said Sia, meeting his eyes. He flinched. “Her journey led her to die at the very moment she wanted to go. And she was grateful.”

“I wanted to save you,” said Dez. Sia realized he wasn’t angry, he was grieving. For himself, for a life badly led. Sia reached into his mind to soothe him.

“No,” he said, but he couldn't stop her from reaching inside and taking his pain away.
 

“What are you doing?” said Mike, as Dez went still.

“Sia,” said Joshua. “They know I’m here.”

“So let’s go introduce ourselves,” said Sia. “Are you boys ready to take back your world?”

Mike frowned at her.
 

“I only have one hand,” he said. “I’m not in good shape.”

“And now?” said Sia. “Do you feel pain now?”

Mike flexed the wrist of his bandaged hand and looked at her in amazement.

“How did you do that?”

“I can’t give you your fingers back,” said Sia, “but I can make you forget your pain.”

“And the children?” Mike asked.

“Yes,” said Sia. “Kill Conrad and the children might be saved.”

“Give them stakes,” said Sia. “Give them all you have.”

“And what will we use?” said Joshua.

“Did you not plant an orchard of death outside?” she smiled. Joshua tossed a bundle of stakes onto the floor and the two men knelt to begin gathering them up.

“You are changed,” said Joshua, taking Sia’s arm in his hand. “What has happened?”

“Just flashes of a dream,” said Sia.

“You’ve seen something?”

“I see everything,” she said. “You gave that to me.”

“Are we going to survive?”

“You don’t care about surviving,” said Sia. “You care about your kind surviving. You care about killing Conrad. And you care about me.”

“None of that is false,” said Joshua.

“Conrad will die on this night,” said Sia. “And all that happens will be to save the Revenants. We will outlive this night, Joshua. Do you want me still?”

“I will always want you,” he said, his eyes burning into her own.

“You could take me now,” she said. “Forget all this, forget about Conrad. We could leave and you could have me forever.”

He touched her naked breast, heat in his eyes.

“But you will not,” Sia said for him.

“No,” he said. He didn’t take his hand away and Sia reached up and licked his lips.
 

“And neither will I,” she said. “More lives are at stake than ours tonight.”

He pressed up against her, quivering in his desire. He seemed to gather up every bit of considerable self-control he had to pull himself away. His heart was beating so fast that Sia could see the glow in the pulse at the base of his throat.

They followed the human men down the hall and Sia stopped them at the door that led outside. The four of them looked out onto the snow drifts sparkling under the now-cloudless sky. Sia could feel Revs coming from either side of the hospital, could feel them crouching in the forest, waiting. She smiled and stepped into the snow, coloring it red with blood. She raised the violin as she reached the middle of the courtyard. She looked into the edge of the trees and saw the blur of Joshua cutting stakes. The Revs didn’t stir. They were watching her. Too slow to see him, too stupid to know what was about to happen.