Dark New World (Book 3): EMP Deadfall (40 page)

Creak.
Cassy froze and listened. The first stair wasn’t quite right, dammit, and she should have remembered that. Maybe Jim hadn’t heard it over the din of combat and the thick earthbag walls in the house. It only took a couple seconds for her to realize that Jim hadn’t stopped firing, however. He hadn’t heard. She continued to creep upstairs, but she was careful to avoid the loose fifth step. It was the only other creaky stair.

As she continued up the steep, narrow stairwell—almost a ladder—more of the upstairs room came into view. First, the bed in the middle of the room, but Jim wasn’t there of course. Then the north wall with its window—she wasn’t surprised to find Jim wasn’t there, either. Disappointed—she could have caught him unaware and exposed—but not surprised. The sadistic, little weasel was careful of his own welfare—always.

Finally, she was far enough up the stairs that her head was almost visible from anywhere in the room, but not far enough for her to see Jim. The last couple steps would be the biggest risk. She’d be the one exposed and unaware. She paused as a shiver of fear ran through her, but then that sweet, sweet adrenaline kicked in once again. The fear fell away.

She could get up the steep stairs faster and quieter with her hands free. It might cost her a half second to draw her pistol again. But the element of surprise would give her that time, whereas if he realized she was coming up, then he could get the drop on her… Cassy decided to tuck the pistol in her waistband and to clench her knife between her teeth like in the movies. It was a small room, so it was entirely possible she could kill him faster with the knife than by drawing her pistol again. She hoped so—it would be delicious to end Jim with her own knife as she had almost done with a small pocketknife a month ago right after the EMPs hit.

Cassy’s hands reached the top of the stairwell railing, and she grabbed hold tightly. She brought her feet up a few more steps, forcing her to crouch. She was ready—it was showtime. She pushed up with her legs like pistons and pulled hard on the railing, vaulting her over the last few steps. As her head shot up and out of the stairwell, she caught a glimpse of Jim crouched at the south window with his rifle thrust outside; a shot went off, and he smoothly moved to cycle the rifle’s bolt to ready another shot.

As she noted all of that, she landed a foot beyond the stairwell edge and snatched the knife from her mouth. Jim must have heard her despite the battle din, because he began to turn away from the window toward her, swinging his rifle around with him.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, including herself, but Cassy knew that was only a side effect of the adrenaline that again poured through her system. Knife in hand, she pushed off hard with her right foot, propelling herself at the bastard. The surprised and suddenly-fearful look on his face as death came for him was satisfying in a way she hadn’t felt before. Bloodlust… With savage joy, she realized she would reach Jim before he could bring the rifle around to fire.

Pain shot through her left foot when it landed, and the hardwood floor rushed up at her. There was the sound of a rifle going off and an odd metal
ting
noise. Cassy brought her knife up in a vain, instinctive attempt to put it between her and Jim—but her hand was empty. She stared at it dumbly, uncomprehending. Jim’s hyena laugh echoed through the room.

Cassy looked down. Why was her foot bleeding? Was that a bone sticking up through her shoe? It looked more like a nail…

Jim spoke: “Caltrops, bitch. Pretty great shot though, huh?”

His voice snapped her out of her shock, and time sped up again. So it wasn’t her bone, it was the sharp point of a caltrop. She realized there were several of them scattered at the top of the stairwell, made from filed-off soldered nails. Her knife was broken in half on the other side of the room. He must have hit the blade with his panicked shot.

Cassy looked to Jim again and saw him work the bolt. Reloading. Well, she might be about to die, but at least Jim was no longer at the window killing her friends and allies. They had a good chance now to get into the house before he could get back to the window. As Jim took aim, Cassy smiled—content with her small victory—and waited for him to shoot her.

“What are you smiling at?” Jim asked, voice harsh and demanding. “Sure, you got me once by surprise, but that was the old-world me. I was trying to be
merciful
with my punishment, and you were just too stupid to take your lesson and move on. But even after you stabbed me by surprise, like a coward, you were too weak to finish it. Weak, Cassy. For all your high-and-mighty bullshit about being some powerful ‘Clan leader,’ in the end you’re just a woman. Did you really think some
woman
could kill me? I’m all man, babygirl, and you never had a chance.”

As he delivered his monologue, Cassy propped herself up on her elbows—which put her right hand tantalizingly close to the pistol in her waistband—and pretended to listen to his every word. Her smile didn’t fade, though—this blowhard stood there gloating while justice rolled inexorably toward him. Without him sniping in the window, the other loyalists would soon be overrun. Dying wasn’t so bad, knowing that her kids and her people would again be free of people like Peter and Jim.

Cassy said in her sweetest voice, “You know, Peter might still be alive if you weren’t so painfully stupid—”

Jim fired his rifle—the noise and smoke briefly baffled her senses. Pain flooded through Cassy’s left leg, but not from the nail in her foot. She cried out and glanced down reflexively. The bullet had struck her in the thigh, and a pool of blood was growing rapidly. It didn’t hurt as much as she’d imagined a gunshot would though.

Jim cycled his rifle’s bolt and then stood motionless, staring at her through half-closed eyes with a smile on his face. The same smile he’d had when he first tried to “punish” her outside of Philadelphia.

Cassy knew he’d never let her tie off her leg to stop the bleeding, so what the hell. Now or never. She drew the pistol from behind her hip and shoved it toward Jim. He was so enraptured by the sight of her bleeding leg that he didn’t even seem to notice. This time she didn’t hesitate. She barely heard the pistol fire, but she saw clearly the spurt of blood that erupted from his right shoulder. Jim fired back reflexively, but the shot went wide, and the recoil caused his rifle to fly from his hands. He was already moving toward her when Cassy pulled the trigger again, but she couldn’t tell whether the round struck him.

Screaming in pain and rage, Jim leapt into the air and dove toward her. He landed on top of Cassy, knocking the wind out of her. The pistol skittered away. Cassy struggled to catch a breath as Jim raised himself with his good arm, and then he drove forward so that his forehead smashed into her nose and swollen left eye.

As Jim raised himself up again, Cassy cried out from the pain and frantically struggled to get out from under him, to no avail. He dove forward again, but Cassy held him off with her outstretched arms. She felt her thumb slide into the wound on his shoulder, a sickening warm, wet feeling, and Jim screamed in agony. His left arm gave out, but he used the momentum to roll away—anything to escape that agony.

Cassy rolled onto her stomach and struggled to get away, but her left leg was just dead weight. She clawed at the floor to pull her body along, away from Jim. Away from death. She couldn’t help it; the almost serene acceptance of her fate had vanished amidst the pain and terror of fighting for her life. But then her hand struck something metallic—one of the caltrops. She grabbed at it like a drowning person reaching for a life vest and managed to get ahold of it. It felt like a miracle, a gift from God.

Jim got to his feet and, with a quick shuffling step to get closer to her, whipped his foot forward, kicking Cassy in the ribs. She screamed, pain exploding in her side as she curled into a ball just as Jim kicked her again. And again. He laughed maniacally as his blows rained down on her. After the third kick, she stopped moving; try as she might, her body refused to obey her.

Jim kicked her twice more in the side and then stopped, panting. His shirt was covered in blood, and Cassy found herself wondering how long it would take him to bleed out. Not long enough, she decided.

Still unable to move, she could only watch as Jim looked around the room. He’d find his rifle, or her pistol, and she knew it would all be over quickly after that. But then he stopped looking around and stared at the floor. She followed his gaze and realized with horror that he had found her broken knife. Four inches of good, sharp steel remained, and the jagged edge where it had snapped in two looked plenty sharp enough to stab her with. Or maybe he would just slit her throat with what was left of the blade. Jim bent over and groaned with the pain, but managed to pick up the knife. He was talking, but she couldn’t make out the words through her pain and fear-clouded mind.

Cassy forced herself to take deep, even breaths. She had only moments to get herself together, get her body to obey her again, but it wasn’t working. Abruptly, she heard Choony’s voice in her head almost as though he was there talking to her, and she had a vision of one hot summer day when they’d met in the barn to talk and banter. “Your pain and turmoil is a product of your will,” he’d said. “You cling to what
should
be and so you don’t see
what is
. Change doesn’t hurt, Cassy. You change your socks, and it never bothers you. It’s the resistance to change that so greatly disturbs your peace.”

And then she knew what to do. She’d been fighting for her life, ruled by her instincts, ever since she leapt out from the stairwell. But she didn’t have to fight for her life. What truly mattered was the Clan. She had given birth to the Clan, and if it lived, then a part of her would live on and not only through her children. Her
idea
would live on. She only needed to delay Jim as long as she could. Her pain and fear slipped away. She focused on moving her finger, and it obeyed. It obeyed! Her whole body tingled as she regained control. She opened her eyes.

“—cut your head off and put it on a spike,” Jim was saying. “You die before I do, Cassy. Ladies first,” he said and then laughed.

As Jim staggered toward her with the knife, she took one last deep breath to brace for the pain that was about to come and then rolled from her belly onto her right side. At the same time, she lashed out with her left leg, thrusting it with all her might. Her foot smashed into Jim’s knee, and the exposed nails from the caltrop embedded in her foot punched deep, crunching and grinding against bone. His leg caved backwards with a sickening wet, tearing noise, and he fell forward screaming. It was unlike any scream she’d heard before.

The monster crashed face-first into the floor next to Cassy, still gripping her knife. She clenched her hand tightly around the caltrop she’d retrieved, heedless of the nails that sunk deep into her hand. However she gripped it, it was still a caltrop; one spike must always point away. Cassy screamed and swung it with all her might at Jim’s head. The blow landed just over his right ear, the caltrop spike sliding through the thinner part of his skull with ease. She felt something warm and sticky spatter over her hand.

Cassy struggled to her feet. Her left leg wouldn’t bear weight so it was difficult, but after almost falling over once, she made it. She looked down at Jim, and for the first time she felt nothing. No hate, no outrage, no fear. Part of her wondered how she could look at that monster without those feelings, but she knew that was just her analytical side trying to make sense of things.

The simple truth was that none of it mattered. Not anymore. Her Clan would live, under whatever conditions, or it would die. She would do all she could to ensure it lived, but she could only do what was possible. More than that was beyond her means and so not her responsibility. Peter’s conquest wasn’t her fault. Jim and his tortures weren’t her fault.

Even killing Peter and Jim wouldn’t be her fault, though she accepted that responsibility gladly enough. They had sowed the seeds for this showdown, not Cassy. The fierce joy she’d felt at killing Peter melted away even as her nagging little feelings of guilt did, disappearing down some needed drain like wastewater. None of it was her fault, including Peter; he’d tried to kill her, and she had done what was necessary. That’s all.

Cassy looked around the room and spotted Peter’s pistol. At her feet, Jim cried and whimpered, unable to move, begging for mercy. First, she realized she probably couldn’t save him even if she’d wanted to. Without trauma surgery in a hospital, he’d die regardless of what she chose. She wasn’t bothered by that fact.

She’d seen the monster he truly was outside of Philadelphia, but she knew she’d spared him out of cowardice—a resistance to the idea of killing that made it too emotionally painful to finish the job. Because of that lack of will on her part, so many good people had suffered or died at Jim’s hands…
 

No, their blood was on her hands. If he lived and she exiled him—the worst punishment the Council had agreed to take responsibility for—he would only prey on others. Then their blood too would be on her hands. She knew now what mercy for Jim would cause for others. Ending him was her responsibility. Cassy picked up the pistol. Jim saw it, but could do nothing about it. Couldn’t move. Destiny was coming full circle for him.

“Jim, the terrible things you’ve done are as much my responsibility as yours. I let you live once. It was a mistake. I want you to know that I no longer hate you. God made people good, and Satan made them evil. We’re both, Jim. All of us have good and bad within us. God doesn’t make us do evil things, but He doesn’t force us to do good, either. We have free will, even when people harm us. You choose evil every time.”