Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (44 page)

“Not for long, Billy. I’m sorry. I’ve done all I can to stay in this world. It’s time for me to join your mother.”

“No!” She gasped, her heart jumping up into her mouth. “Daddy, you can’t go. You can’t leave me!”

“No choice. We walked the path together as long as we can.”

“I can’t leave you alone!”

“I’m not alone, Billy. I have company. He’ll see me off.”

“But I can’t leave you.”

“You don’t have a choice. Your time here is up.” His eyebrows raised, he shrugged. “All this is weird stuff, Billy. I never believed in other worlds and ghosts and magic. But here we are.” He laughed, then spluttered with a groan. “Just in time for me to know that you’ll be fine. And you
will
be fine.” He cupped her face in both his big rough hands once again and looked at her as though breathing her in, drinking up the sight of her. “My girl. My little girl. Just promise me one thing.”

She sniffed. “Okay.”

“Never come back. Don’t ever look for me. Just keep going.”

Tears burst from her eyes onto her cheeks and she shook her head, holding back a cry.

“Promise me!”

“But, Daddy …”

He held onto her face, keeping her before him. “Do it for me. It’s all for nothing if I don’t know you’ll be okay. And if you keep going …” He smiled. “You’ll make a difference. A real difference. There are big for you.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. But you’re too important to give up now.”

“Okay.”

“So you know what that means. It means you’re not going to sit on that floor and let some arsehole bleed you out on the ground for kicks. You’re going to get him first.”

“Daddy, that knife. It’s so big. And he … he’s a monster.”

“He is. But you’re my daughter.” A single tear trickled into his beard. “And like I said, you’re just like your mother.”

That tug at the back of her head was suddenly stronger, and she was slipping away from him. Suddenly, the cabin went from foggy blur to complete darkness, and the bed began to ebb and fade.

Daddy gripped her hard, but there was no pain, and suddenly his hands seemed cold and distant. This was it.

No, it can’t be the last time. I won’t leave. I can’t!

But she was going anyway.

Daddy was talking fiercely. “Don’t think, Billy. Don’t hesitate. Hit first, hit hard.”

The bed was gone. Now Daddy’s hands were gone and he was whizzing up away from him.

“I love you, Daddy!”

Daddy sounded as though at the end of a long metal pipe. “And keep running.”

“I love you!” she bawled.

His face shrank away and his body faded until all she could see were his smiling lips and soft brown bear eyes. “Run as fast as you can,” he said.

Then the darkness was gone and vertigo gripped her in a spinning, wild moment before she was thrown back into her body on the ground in the tent. Time had crawled while she had been with Daddy, and the world had moved not an inch during the long minutes she had spent in the cabin. But now it was all snapping back, spooling up like a winding clock. And now shadow was falling over her. Her heart lurched.

For a sickening moment, she saw the huge, curved knife snaking through the air toward her throat, and the wicked glee in the eyes of the monster as he bent to work on her, and she thought she really would freeze. It was all about to be over.

But then Daddy’s echoing voice came from the ether between the spaces. “Stick him!”

And then her hand was moving at her belt, so fast she had no idea what it was doing, somehow reaching out to full extension before her in no time at all. She closed her eyes and waited for the pain to start.

Nothing touched her. No pain.

Instead her arm thrummed with impact and an ear-splitting scream of pain and fury rang out.

She opened her eyes to see the monster reeling back from the paring knife in her grip, his hands held up to a gouge cut straight through the meat of his cheek. He fell back against the canvas and toppled over, staring at his fingers as though unable to believe he was seeing his own blood.

Then she was on her feet, running. This time, she wasn’t going to stop. Men and women were coming from all directions to answer the screams and already they were pointing at her and giving chase. But she wasn’t worried. The power of worlds was in her legs, and she knew she could beat them.

As she left the tent behind, a screech washed over her from behind. “BITCH! YOU
BITCH!
I’ll make you bleed good for this, you hear? I’LL BLEED YOU GOOD, WHORE!”

By the time she reached the trees, dozens pursued her. But her legs were like air under her and she flew without thought over the uneven terrain. And as she ran, though her heart ached and she knew she would never see Daddy again, she laughed.

From far, far away, one last echo of his smooth lilting voice reached her. “That’s my girl.”

Alexander jerked when Don emerged from his muttering stupor. His eyes had been rolled up into their sockets and he had been throwing his head from side to side, but suddenly he was back, staring at Alexander just as before, weak and pitiful. “Huh,” he muttered.

“What just happened?”

“I saw my daughter. She’s far away. Holy Mary, she’s far away. But I got to say goodbye.” A weak smile touched his lips.

Alexander smiled and nodded. “I’m glad.”

Those sombre eyes flickered. “You don’t believe me.”

“It’s not for any of us to say what’s possible.”

“Don’t give me that shite.” He choked his way through a brief laugh. “And don’t you dare treat me like a kiddywink just because I’m dying. I sound crazy, right?”

Alexander smiled again, but this time he meant it. “Batshit.”

“There we go. Wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve been pretending to be somebody else so long, I’ve lost track of what it’s like to tell the truth.”

“You were some kind of chief, I suppose?”

“You could say that.”

“Yeah, you got that way about you. You can see it in a man’s eyes.” Don tried to sit up but sank back again, hacking a thread of spittle onto the sheets in front of him. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. “But I don’t care if I sound crazy. I saw my girl, and I know she’s going to do great things. She’s got a place in this world, and that’s all that matters. I can go be with my wife.”

Alexander leaned forward. “How can you know? Really? Because I’ve known things. I have thought I knew them with every fibre of my being, and in the end, it turned out I didn’t know a damn thing. And a lot of people ended up hurt or dead along the way.” He was stooping over Don now, ignoring the stink and the rattling wheeze coming from his chest. “So how can you
know
?”

“I can’t tell you. I just know. Might just be approaching the end means a man hears the whisper o’ God. Men near the end can afford to hear.” He grinned, showing yellow, rotten teeth. “Who’re we going to tell?” He sat there a while before continuing on, looking at Alexander anew. “I know you.”

Alexander blinked.

“I’ve seen you before.”

“I think I’d remember meeting an Irishman.”

“No. I’ve
seen
you every night after I close my eyes since we came across the water. And I think my girl’s been seeing you as well.” He frowned. “Just who are you?”

“I don’t understand.”

“That makes two of us.”

Alexander sank slowly back onto his stool. “You have seen me in your dreams?”

“Easy, boy. You’re not that pretty.” Another nicotine-yellow grin. “Yeah, I seen you. You and few others. Spotty images, little film reels. It was like something was trying to speak to me, let me know it was important, somehow. I thought it was the sickness until my girl told me she’d been seeing the same.”

“What did you see? Besides me, what did you see?”

“Man just south of thirty, black hair, eyes that look like somebody’s told him Christmas ain’t coming ever again.”

Alexander swallowed with a rifle-shot crack.

Norman
.
Was he talking about Norman?

“And?” he said, licking his lips.

“Some other guy, young as well. But this one was different. Tall, dark clothes, black patches under his eyes like he’d had a fight with a bottle of mascara, and lost.”

This time Alexander couldn’t hold it in. His jaw fell ajar and he surged forward. His fists bunched around Don’s collar of their own accord and suddenly he was breathing down his scrawny pale neck. “What did you say?”

“What’s got into you?”

“Please, tell me! You saw him?”

“Clear as I saw you. In some old city with a big church on the river.”

Canterbury. They’re not hitting London, they’re going for New Canterbury first.

But it was crazy. Don couldn’t possibly have seen anything real. Could he?

He’s seen us. And he saw that … thing. The one with the dark eyes.

Don shook his head, looking past Alexander’s shoulder. “It was all on fire. And all around you, all of you … them. Those monsters who’ve been prowling the woods, taking people north, burning up anyone who fights back. They were all around you.”

“They’re coming? You’re sure?”

“Bloody right they are.”

“How long?”

“Can’t say. I’m no bloody mystic. But they’re coming for the lot of you. And my Billy is a part of it.”

“What part?”

“I don’t know. But without her, you lot are fixed to lose. It might not be in the here and now, maybe not even this big fight you’re fixing for. But if your paths don’t cross, some very bad things are going to happen.”

Alexander let him down gently, breathless. “I’m sorry.” He put his hand to his forehead and paced the cabin. Don watched him all the while, and it irked him. “You don’t look all that concerned.”

“Your paths will cross. You can’t fight destiny.”

Alexander laughed. “You can try. I know somebody who’s been fighting their destiny all their life.”

“Well you can’t fight this kind. You believe me, you’ll want to watch out for my girl—for the sweetest angel you ever saw. And they are coming.”

Alexander ran a hand through his hand and cursed.

This wasn’t possible. It was crazy.

But so much crazy had ruled the way of the world since the End. Even the End itself … They might have become used to it, but the very idea of it, all those people … It was all crazy.

I left for no reason
, he thought.
I’ve left them and James is coming anyway.

I knew he would, but I ran.

And now I have to go back, before it’s too late.

He turned back to Don and sighed. “Son of a bitch,” he breathed.

“Don’t mention it, mate,” Don said. “Now,” he said and sat up. This time he struggled against his failing body and balanced on his bony arse. “I need a favour.”

“What?”

“I need a hand getting up.” He was leather-skinned and barely alive, but sitting up, and his eyes held a distant ember. “I’ve got a date with my wife.”

Don hadn’t been able to drag himself outside since Billy had left—it had taken all the strength he had to make it to the fireplace and throw a few more logs into the pit. When the fresh air hit his face, he gasped, overcome by the sheer freshness of it. He had been breathing the same stagnant air for endless hours. But the crisp seaside breeze flowing up over the cliffs was like sweet nectar, glacial and rich.

Alexander grunted beside him, hauling Don’s moribund body from the interior of the cabin. All Don had left of his old life was in there; all his possessions, but he didn’t feel an ounce of regret at leaving them behind. He was quite content never to see any of it again for the rest of his life.

Seeing as his life was bound to end in the next few minutes, it would all work out just fine.

They staggered out onto the grass of the cliff edge and Don cried out. His legs had seized up and were useless masses of dead flesh under him, the tendons shrunken and immobile, the muscles dried up as though with rigor mortis.

Christ, I could be dead already
.
My body’s way ahead of me.

What would he have done if this guy hadn’t come along?

Suffered. I’d have suffered in that bed by myself. I wouldn’t have had the strength to end it.

“Thank God for you, mate,” he wheezed. “You’re an angel. I swear it.”

Alexander grunted beside him. “I’m no angel, Donald. Believe me.”

“No, no, I mean it. I’ve got nothing left but a chance at a little dignity. I get to make this date with Miranda because of you. So thank you. Thank you.”

A pause, then a sigh. “Don’t mention it.”

It was only a short distance to the cliff edge, where the long, windswept grass gave way to a jagged edge, then the stark bright blue of the evening sky and the aquamarine of the English Channel.

Though his chest felt as though it was full of razor blades, Don closed his eyes and took in a deep breath.

“This isn’t a good idea. We should get you back inside,” Alexander began. His grasp had grown stiff and hesitant.

Don gripped his wrist desperately. “Don’t you dare chicken out on me, now,” he growled. “You see this through.”

They paused a moment and he felt Alexander’s eyes on him. “Alright.”