Blood Day (42 page)

“You’re a mother.”

“Yes,” she said, a smile spreading across her face. “And this is for my children. All of them.”

Viv drove the root deep into Conrad’s abdomen.
 

“You are a hollow man,” she said, backing away.
 

He barely whimpered as the roots grew around him.
 

Forty-Three

Sia stepped into the dank cold of the cellar and scanned the immense room. She saw thousands of dirty children, barely alive. And she saw them for what they were. Had they been awake, their faces would shift and turn, back and forth. Monster to human and back again, with no control, just as she had done before Joshua fixed her.
 

“What the hell is this?” said Mike.

“Hush,” said Sia. “You are only here because of her. She worries about you. She wants you safe.”

“Who?” said Mike.

“Mike,” said a woman standing in the shadows. She stepped forward and Sia heard Mike suck in air.
 

“Viv?” he breathed.

“I won’t get too close to you, but I’m glad you’re alive.”

“Why won’t you get close?” said Mike.

“Because she doesn’t want to kill you,” said Joshua, coming down the stairs.

“She’s here,” said Sia. “My daughter. My Ana.” She looked at Viv. “Show me.”

Sia took several steps before she noticed the shadow. In the corner, cloaked in darkness, a great, gnarled tree, a tormented face visible among the branches. Sia touched it, feeling the heat of it. The weak pulsing coming off of it.

“Conrad,” Sia said. She looked around at Joshua, who ground his teeth as he looked at Viv.

“It was for the children,” said Viv. “My boy, I saw him, I touched him. Your daughter. All of them.”

“We cannot bring them back,” Joshua said, his voice low. Sia could see the disgust on his face as he looked out at them. All the tiny faces. “How could they do such things? It is not our way.”

“We cannot just leave them,” said Viv. Sia could see into her mind, a tangle of rage.
 

“No, we shall not leave them,” said Joshua. He looked at Sia, and his eyes filled with regret. He shook his head. “I'm sorry. We must kill them.”

“I’ll kill you first,” said Viv, her hand on the tree that used to be Conrad. “They’re mine.”

“The children are yours?” said Joshua. “All of them?”

“Yes,” said Viv. “I will be their mother.”

“Mother of monsters,” said Sia, smiling. “You will be glorious.”

Joshua stared at the two of them for a moment, for once at a loss for words. Finally he spoke. “No,” he said. “We cannot force children to live this life.”

“We didn’t force them, he did,” said Viv pointing at the tree. “Ambrose Conrad did this to them. And I will save them. I will save them all.”

“This isn’t saving them,” said Joshua.
 

Sia took a step toward Viv, feeling the woman’s grief radiating from her. Conrad's world had made her into this. Sia took her hand and caressed her face.
 

“Such infinite sadness,” said Sia. “But no death. I can’t see your death, Genevieve.”

“I won't die,” said Viv. “I will live on with my children.”

“Sia,” said Joshua. “Please understand…”

“I understand that there were once laws,” said Sia. She stood with Viv next to the tree, which was still throbbing and pulsing with life. “But we must change those laws, Joshua. We must help her. We must help all of them.” Sia leaned back and touched the trunk of the tree that was Conrad.

A vision flashed in her mind and Sia staggered, her eyes wide, a silent scream on her lips as the tree shuddered.

“NO!” Sia said, “OH GOD NO, PLEASE!”

There was a crack, a wooden hand grasping for her, wickedly sharp and wrapped with vines. The hand thrust forward, plunging toward Sia like a knife, and suddenly Joshua was next to her, throwing her out of the way, ripping into Conrad's trunk, foul-smelling black sap exploding out, and reaching inside. Joshua came away, gasping, screaming, with a knot of wood in his left hand, a thick, black ooze dripping down his arm. Sia stared at it and realized the knot was a heart, a wooden heart, still beating weakly.

“Sia,” Joshua groaned. “I’m sorry.”

As he turned, Sia saw that Joshua's right forearm was impaled by the wooden fingers that had reached out for her. Joshua's blood now mixed with the black sap pulsing from Conrad's hand, snapped off at the wrist. The wood was moving, living, growing and stretching around Joshua's arm, his shoulder, his chest.

“Please, Sia. Kill me. Kill me now.” His voice was soft, weak. “Don’t trap me there. End it. Please. You are strong enough.”

“Joshua,” Sia said, touching his face. “No, no, no, no.”

“Please,” he said, a tear running down his cheek. A green vine slithered around his neck and he shuddered. “Sia…Please? My love, please.”

Sia forced herself to move. She broke a branch with a snap and held it in her hand, frozen, staring at Joshua, overcome with branches, with death. She screamed, tears running into her mouth.

“I love you, Sia,” Joshua said. “It is more. More than love. It was always you, always you. I didn’t want them, the Revenants never mattered. There was only ever you.”

“Joshua…”

“Do it,” he whispered, his face a mask of grief. “Please. Do not trap me. I do not wish Mathilde’s fate on anyone.”

“Mathilde,” Sia said. Vines wrapped around the abdomen of her beautiful Joshua. He screamed as a branch tore its way out of his abdomen.
 

Sia sucked in air, and lifted above her head the branch she’d snapped off.
 

“I love you, Joshua,” she said. She kissed his lips as she plunged the wood straight into his chest. Joshua closed his eyes as she backed away, sobs racking her body, screaming as Joshua was consumed, as a great tree grew around him and shook the ground. And as she keened, the children awoke. Their screams matched hers.

Viv watched, uncomprehending. Sia looked at her through blurry eyes, through a body weak with sobbing. Her ears hurt from the screams of thousands of children, matching her anguish, her despair, her loss. She felt rage wash over her, but as Viv stared, frightened and confused, Sia realized she couldn't blame her.

You didn’t aim for the heart,
she said into her mind. And Viv looked down at the tree that used to be Ambrose Conrad.
Genevieve, it’s the heart that matters. You have to aim for the heart.

And then Viv screamed, too, feeling Sia’s pain as if it were her own.
 

Black petals rained down, welcoming the children to the world.
 

“Sia,” Viv said.

“We have work to do,” said Sia, her voice barely a whisper. She could feel the humans overhead, swarming the hospital, discovering its horrors. “Can you feel all of them? So much humanity.”

“They’ve come for Mike,” said Viv, blinking. She looked around, but Mike Novak was gone. Viv looked back to Sia.
 

“He will be safe,” said Sia.
 

“And the children?” said Viv.

Sia looked out at the small faces, their teeth shoving in and out of their mouths, their spines lengthening as the drugs ran out in their IVs.

“They will be hungry,” said Sia.

“They will?” said Viv, smiling. Sia took her shaking hand.
 

“As will we all. Are you ready to be a mother again? Are you prepared to lead your children upstairs to feed?”

“Yes,” said Viv. “Oh yes.”

Sia smiled at her as Genevieve gathered the vials of heart's blood from the cooler, as she went from child to child, waking them to a new life. Sia turned and touched Joshua's tree, still raining black petals on her head. Mathilde’s heart glowed in her chest as she touched the wooden face nestled in the trunk, the only face she would ever love.

“My Joshua,” she said. A sigh shuddered its way to her lips. “Oh, Joshua. I'm so sorry.” Sia rested her face against his wooden one and closed her eyes. He was still warm. Like the tree she had rested against the night Dez Paine loaded her into a van. “My love,“ she crooned. “I swear we will keep the darkness. We will be the monsters of nightmares. Your wish will come true.”

She kissed him and felt something breaking inside of her. She picked up the violin and bow, splattered with blood and forgotten on the floor.
 

“I will be most terrifying monster of all,” she said. “For you, my love. They will die screaming. All for you.”

She began to play and marveled at the darkness. She played and reveled in her grief. She played and felt the shadows calling to her.

And as the children woke, they began to dance.

Forty-Four

Mike rose from his desk, stretching. He always felt startled when he looked up from his work, and stared out the window of the rebuilt Post Building. They’d put him in a swanky office on the top floor, with an impressive title on the door. He had been kicked upstairs, and knew he didn't need to write another word ever again. He was the legendary Mike Novak, whose newspaper had brought hope to the human race.
 

Still, he wanted to get it all down on paper, the whole sordid truth. He needed to tell the stories: Matthew Blake being murdered in front of him. The monster Joshua Flynn, dying to save Sia. The death of Dez by the one remaining Rev. Mike closed his eyes. Dez died a man after killing countless monsters, drawn to the music.
 

Mike stepped away from the computer, wiping his eyes. Nothing seemed particularly real now after everything that had happened. Nothing seemed solid, and he found himself often testing the ground before he stepped to make sure it was real.
 

He had worked straight into the night. Again.

“Good thing I don’t have anyone waiting up for me,” he muttered, pulling a blanket from the closet and tossing it onto his lush leather couch. He saved the day's writing and powered down the computer, unbuckling the clasp that fastened his prosthetic fingers to his wrist. He tossed the artificial hand into a drawer and slammed it closed, scratching where it left marks from being buckled too tightly. He turned when he noticed a change out of the corner of his eye and frowned. The lights in the hall usually stayed on. But now they were off. Hadn't they been on a moment before?

He was frowning at the frosted glass door when his lamp sputtered out. Mike felt his heart in his throat, and cried out when the bulb of the overhead light burst apart, raining tiny bits of glass into the plush carpet.

Mike was breathing hard as the door slowly opened. A dark figure slipped inside, creeping through the shadows.

“Hello, Mike Novak.”

“Sia,” he said, his heart beating fast. She slid from the darkness like an eel.

“Calm yourself,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I’m not going to kill you.”

She smiled at him as if he were an old friend. Her dress was black and old-fashioned. Like she belonged to a different time, a different place. A different world. Not this modern executive office with its electronic equipment. Mike opened a cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon.
 

“None for me,” said Sia. Mike nodded and took a deep drink right from the bottle.

“I know what it is you write,” said Sia, watching him. Her eyes seemed to burn right into him. “I have a favor I would ask of you.”

“A favor?” he said. He put the bottle back and closed the cabinet with a snap. “In exchange for what?”

“We won’t kill you, of course,” she said. She smiled prettily.
 

Sia walked around the room, her silk high heeled boots sinking into the white carpet. She ran a hand over the leather sofa, nodding in approval.
 

“You’ve done well for yourself,” she said.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“I’m glad I didn’t kill you.”

“What’s the favor, Sia?”

She tilted her head coquettishly, and Mike remembered when he'd first laid eyes on her, strapped to a gurney, looking every bit the frightened junkie. How foolish to think that this being, slithering through the shadows, shattering lights with a thought, had ever needed help from someone like him. Or from anyone, for that matter. Sia stepped gracefully across the office and looked out the window, her back to him.
 

She touched the glass as she spoke, with one gloved hand. “Don’t write about the children,” she said, watching the street below. She lowered her voice. “And don’t write about Genevieve. Please.”

“Viv?”

“As far as anyone knows,” she said, lowering her hand from the glass and turning to look at him, “I died killing Joshua Flynn.”
 

Mike thought he saw a haunted sadness pass across her face. But it was soon gone and Sia smiled, walking around the desk with dainty steps. She touched his cheek with a finger and closed her eyes.
 

“There were no children, Mike Novak. They killed the children in the Blackout. It was Conrad, all Conrad. Can you do that for me?” She opened her eyes again, her forehead coming to rest against his. He knew what she was, he knew what she could do, but when Sia was this close, he had a hard time breathing, let alone thinking straight. He backed away from her.

“So you want me to lie,” he said, his heart beating fast.

“No,” she said. “I would like you to be...creative. For her, if for nothing else.”

“For Viv,” Mike said. He shook his head, and Sia shrugged.
 

“I could just kill you,” she said.

Mike watched her for a long moment. “But you won't, will you? You won't kill me because you want her to love you. You need her to love you. You need Viv, don't you, Sia?”

“Her name is Genevieve now. And it's not about me.”

“It's about the children,” said Mike. “The monsters.”

“Call them what you will,” said Sia. “As long as you don't write about them.” She looked at the couch, the blanket and pillow. “You’re wise to stay in on a night like this. You’re wise to stay out of the shadows.”

“Well, I guess I learned my lesson,” he said. “There was this girl I tried to save once.”

She smiled and Mike saw her again as he had that first night, naked and covered in blood. He saw her playing the most exquisite music. He caught his breath as the past punched him in the gut. He blinked and Sia was watching him curiously, the lace of her black dress covering nearly every inch of skin. She reminded him of someone, then. The woman in the courtyard when they arrested him, just before they took his fingers. She had worn a veil of black lace that brushed the snow when she walked. Sia moved a gloved hand to her chest, just over her heart. She smiled again.