Day Boy (30 page)

And Dain nods his head. ‘Of course you will. Now, to bed
with you. I am what I am.
I am my nature. Boy, I once said there's a poetry in us; in the eternity that is
us. But I was wrong. Poetry is brevity, the sweet and sour ending of things. When
time stretches entire before you, it's stripped of urgency, and there is no poetry.
Every crime, every mistake and hatred, is not released but clung to. Enough time
passes, and all we are is our sins. Hold the sweetness of these next days to you.
Remember this town, please.'

‘I'll not forget it,' I say.

‘I know you won't. You're a good boy,' Dain says. ‘Even at your worst.' He walks
to his door and the room where I've already pulled the blinds and curtains. He pauses,
turns. ‘Don't forget those gutters need cleaning,' he says.

‘I hadn't.' My face shows enough for him to tell I had.

‘Don't forget.'

‘I won't.'

Dain smiles and his hand closes around mine. Cold as it ever was, that hand. ‘Good.'

And I sleep. Deep, worn-out sleep.

And I don't hear Egan calling once.

CHAPTER
44

I'M UP WITH the Sun and the house is all quiet; always is now, without Thom. I'm
having breakfast, the milk's off so it's just an apple, and there's a note:
Get milk,
I can smell it from my room. Boy, how do you live?

Five days left here, and that's what I get. I can't help but grin.

I get myself out of there.

Oh, the day's a beauty for all my work and mood, even if it's rubbing it in: the
Sun's just sitting and glaring warm and getting hotter. I'm puffing on a smoke, and
stomping down the road, the big house behind me. Might be some storm this evening,
I keep an interest though I'll be abed, listening for the whisperings of them corrugations,
and the soft rustling movement of Dain out and about.

I hit Main Street about the same time as most of the other Day Boys. We nod, Dougie
at the front, all the others deferring, couple of mocks are thrown, nothing too
serious. There's no fighting now. Things are all unsettled in some ways; more
certain
than ever in others. We'd not put our Masters backs to no new battles. Might as well
cut our own throats.

My time is almost done and Egan has a new boy coming soon. Dougie's senior, without
question.

There's some girls coming out of Mary's and I strut and grin. Still have to keep
up the show, even though it feels empty. No Anne.

There's a few giggles, mostly they're just staring back. These are newbies, the school's
taking in students from towns to the south. I haven't seen them before, but they
know me by my proud stomp. Day Boys, as Mary says, we're all of a type.

‘Ladies,' I says, dip my hat too—finally wearing the one Thom gave me.

‘Off with that hat in here, charmer,' Mary says, and I'm quick to it. Think she's
a bit annoyed that I never bought one of the ones she ordered. ‘What's the old man
want?'

I place the list careful down onto her counter, and Mary squints at the spidery hand
and sighs. It's a long list. ‘I'll have it ready by three.'

I nod and duck out, not before I snatch a handful of sour sweets. ‘On the tab,' I
shout, but we both know that is talk. She just throws a curse word or two my way,
all half-hearted. What else can she do? I'm a Day Boy for a few days more.

So I'm back to the house, and onto the lawn and the push mower. Hard work and I'm
breaking sweat by noon. Damn lawn.

Go in for a cider, all wet and hot, and stop right in the doorway. The place smells.
Even I can catch it over my own sweat. A death-stench in the air, and I up into the
Master's room and…

There's the Sun, and the roof half gone. And light. Everywhere light.

I know he's dead. He's lying there half burnt up. But I run to him, and I grab the
heaviest blanket I can find. And I throw it on him, and I swear he's looking at me,
through those dark eyes.

The blanket hits his body, and then it just sinks, and I know he's gone to dust.

And it's just me, in that light where it should be dark, in our ruined house. And
I wipe at my eyes. But I don't have any tears. Just me.

I go all bitter, start looking out at the sky, marking the hours. Don't have much
time left.

I open the door, expect to see five chalk Suns, but there's nothing as yet. Come
the night they'll be hunting me. For the first time I am glad Grove is gone, and
Thom too.

They'll hunt me down quick if I leave the town; they'll smell me out quicker if I
stay. I might make it, but I am full of doubt. Both choices are death as I see it.
Fight, and I could make the world bleed a little.

I daren't hope for more. There's a cold shard of a cruel and wild determination building
in me. I go back inside and grab that stake that Thom made me.

Day Boys don't run.

I'm not a Day Boy anymore, but I'm not running either.

CHAPTER
45

NOT MUCH TIME left to me, so it's to Certain I go. On my bike, riding fast as I can.

Ah, he knows something's wrong soon as I show up, can see it in my eyes. He's off
for a steadier, a bottle of rum from up north, hands it to me straight. It burns
on the way down and I'm doubting my steadiness.

‘Dead then?' he says, and I blink at him knowing.

‘Deader than a stone. Just dust.' And I should be bawling but there's a coldness
in me and it's growing. Crying's for later and as far as I see, there will be no
later.

‘Shit,' he says. He breathes a deep sort of breath. ‘Well, you've got some choice.
Bolt or kill. You know how it goes.'

I puff up my chest. ‘I'm not running.'

Though it's dawning on me that vengeance is hard unless you got a Master backing
you up. Can't see none too good in the dark.

Certain nods. ‘Well, you haven't got long, and there's gonna be all hell. Sure you
don't want to run?'

On the road I'm just as dead, and Certain knows it. Matter of time either way, the
ones that did this won't let a Day Boy stand. There's too much fun to be had, not
to mention paybacks. I'm thinking about the boys, thinking if any looked too smug,
or avid at Grove's funeral. None what I can remember.

If they knew they'd won they buried it deep inside.

Certain's been talking, and I had hardly paid it notice.

‘…you start this, and all of them—'

‘I know.'

I don't know where Grainer is. I don't bother asking, don't want him part of this.

Certain leaves the room, then comes back with a knife, one that means business, curved
and meat-ready, and a bag of ash. I snatch them out of his hands before either us
changes our determination. Got killing to do.

Dougie's sitting on his porch, yard immaculate, and he sees me coming, swinging to
halt by the front fence, leaping it neatly.

‘Eh,' he says, and I nod. He don't seem fussed. And I don't have time to be questioning
his confidence.

There's a grin on his face, but he's already rolling me a cig when I knife him quick
in the neck and he looks at me knowing what I snatched, but you've got to take the
head and start down, that's tactic one I reckon, and I'm pulling him into the house
with me. And I feel bad about it. He's coughing, and light, and there's blood trailing
back to the porch. But we're used to blood.

‘Sorry, Dougie.' I'm in his ear. ‘Dain's dead. See you soon enough I reckon.'

‘Do the same,' is all he says. Then he's still, and pooling on the living-room floor
and the flies already buzzing and no
living hand to brush them away. But I've no
time for sorrow.

I'm quick to Sobel's cellar.

The fella's all whistley breath, time's running out, but there's two hours till night
proper. He's still upon his bed. You could slap him about the head, there'd be no
waking. But I'm cautious yet, in case all I know is a lie. They're canny buggers,
yes. The room's dark, even with the door open; I'm quick to start the downward stroke.
Right into the neck, it's rubbery and his eyes snap open, but I'm already cutting
through all that sinew and tissue, and the head falls, its teeth a-chattering. Grab
it by the hair and bring it to the porch, swing it out onto the road. It smoulders
there. And I've got my first pair of deaths, and the bitterest taste in my mouth.

You're lucky to be a Day Boy. That's driven in from the beginning.
Privileged
.

Shit. Privileged to work your fingers to the bone, them first years all spent in
terror. Cause your Master is death. Glorious, maybe, but death walking and brutish,
for all the airs and graces. You can't pretty that up.

You're there to make sure it works. And when it all goes to hell, you're there to
make sure it all burns. None knows as much about killing Masters as a Day Boy. We
know all the tricks, shall we say. The Masters set us up that way. We're not just
limbs and eyes and ears, but insurance.

I can hear the Parson twins squabbling, playing a game. I shouldn't, but I get to
the window and I stare right in. Monopoly. And it makes my heart ache, seeing them
laughing and kidding. I block all the doors.

There's more tubs of oil around Kast's place than I'd ever
expected. Fuel for his
burner. I roll a few under the house, quiet as, and split another, and one more,
and I set a match to the slick.

The whole place goes up faster than I could believe, faster than kindling. There's
screams, but I close my ears to 'em. One of those Parson twins bangs against the
door, but I've blocked it good. And then those big tubs blow. And there's naught
but wreck and ruin.

Kast got his premonition. Kast got his flames.

And I'm back riding. There's no point in stealth, just keep charging on as the Sun
plays its way down into the west.

Twitch is waiting at Tennyson's. There's no surprise after that fire. There's people
everywhere rushing towards it and me riding the other way. I slide off my bike, holding
the blade. Twitch has got his knife out, and a scared, hurt look on his face.

‘Just you and me,' I say, the Sun low behind me.

‘No, just me,' Twitch says and he's on me with the knife, and we're rolling in the
dirt, swinging and shielding and grabbing at each other's throats. He's smaller
than me and wiry as all hell, and I'm tired. The knife draws a line of blood across
my back, deep wound, but not deep enough, I'm already pulling away, then stabbing
in. Cut him above the eye, and it's spilling and he's blinking, and I'm back in quick:
I cut to kill.

He tumbles, throat gaping. And I leave him there.

Tennyson's down in his hidey-hole, just beginning to stir. Calling Twitch's name,
and it's Thom's stake that I use to drive him to ruin. I run it straight through
his heart and leave that taipan blue-eyed and burning in his chest.

Just the knife and Certain's bag of ash in my hands.

CHAPTER
46

I GET TO Egan's. Left him last, because he's alone. Purely strategic, even if he's
the one I want dead first. But I'm quick to finding that he isn't there.

And I realise that there's only one place he could be. Back in my home, back hidden
there. And I know for sure that he was the one that did the killing, of course he
is. And I'm belting down those four streets to mine. Blood full in my head. That
storm's building in the west and I expect I'll be dead before it hits. But if I'm
fast enough—fast enough—I might just—

And when I make it, he's standing on the verandah, looking down. And for a moment
I can almost imagine that it's Dain. Not him.

I let my bike drop. Knife gripped tight. Bag of ash held loose.

‘What are you doing, boy?' And there I am standing and bleeding and sticky with my
blood and the blood of the other Day Boys and the dust and smoke of those Masters
dead by my
hand. And there's a crack of thunder, distant, but not that far. Storm's
filling the lands. Setting down its mighty legs, bellowing its great lungs out.

‘Making revenge,' I say in the silence that comes after.

‘It's to be expected. Could have saved you time if you'd looked in the cellar. Near
killed myself, tearing open that roof. Had no time to do anything but hide. But it
was worth it to kill the bastard.' There's a joy in his features now. He knows it's
done, and he wants to share his cleverness. He wants to play. The great battles have
been fought, and now it's just him and a boy. ‘To ruin him and you. I should have
done it a decade past. I tried to have it done in the city of course, a little street
assassination, but you were lucky, the both of you. And that would have been the
end of it. I'd failed. I was ready to make peace, bringing you back from there. But
then you killed my Grove. And so there's no forgiveness that I can find, just hatred.
And now,' he flashes me a smile, and the verandah creaks beneath him, ‘here we are.'

I can see the Sun's marks on him. I can smell the rawness of his flesh; he isn't
quite the fullness of his kind.

‘You're the last,' I say.

Egan slumps a little. Doesn't bother hiding his surprise. ‘You killed them all? I
thought you'd just come for me, thought you'd nut out my hiding place. Thought Dain
would have taught you better.'

He takes each step of that verandah with a little jump down.

Jump.

Jump.

Playful, like a cat that knows he has the mouse, but he's still
not all awake. He
opens his wide mouth and there's those rows of teeth. Then the first breaths of that
storm hit, wind chimes sing, and he's got my scent, the raw death of it, and he shivers.
That weakness is a little bit of hope. Course, even weakened, he can take me.