Finch by Jeff VanderMeer (38 page)

When the gray cap saw them, it broke off its wandering dance. Tried
to escape. But they had it hemmed in by then. Its teeth, needle sharp.
Claws on its fingers. It expelled a fungal mist, but they were already
wearing gas masks.

Crossley was the first to shoot it. It lurched. Righted itself.
Ran toward another point of the compass. Two bullets. Another
lurch. But absorbed. A cry. A leap like a dancer, then. As if finally
realizing the danger. Crossley-Finch would never forget. It whirled
past one man and then another. But instead of escaping, it turned
to close the distance. As if enraged. Or sick. The light in its eyes
green and everlasting. Tore into one man with its claws, slapping
away his rifle. Took another bullet for its efforts, but scooped out
the Irregular's throat. The man crumpled to the ground. Crossley,
scrambling to aim and fire, thought he saw a glint of a smile from
the creature.

Darted. Flitted. Was gone. Then back again. Far then close. Each
of them struggling to keep up with that speed. Grunting and cursing
and sweating, as if it were something normal. Like digging a ditch or
a grave. Too invested now. Knowing they couldn't retreat, and that
the gray cap had decided to fight.

Wherever the thing stepped, a golden dust rose up from its tread.
Clouds of red-and-green spores radiated out from it like steam. Their
gas masks protected them.

Low on ammo. They kept shooting it, and it kept taking the bullets.

Knives out. Finch shouted the order to fix bayonets. Down to
four. Against one. Reminded them not to let the bayonets get stuck
in gray cap flesh. It would reel them in, finish each of them off.
But, still-one man's rifle got stuck. Forgot to let it go. The gray
cap jerked him forward, disemboweled him, then turned, stung by
fresh cuts from all sides. Down to three men. Flesh sloughed off its
body, but no blood. It did not wince. Kept shouting in its language.
Sometimes mixing in human words. In a hissing, sibilant voice.

They kept at their task. Too busy to be afraid. Too busy to scream.
Inside, its flesh was black, accordioned. Crossley saw as he came in
close at its back. As it bit and kept biting another man. Finch brought
his hunter's knife down across the back of the gray cap's leg. Felt the
blade cut through something hard and thick. He pulled it out, taking
a wedge of black flesh with it. The gray cap limped away. No longer
as agile. A snarl. Finch and the others shot it in the face, the chest,
the arms, the legs.

Still, it kept coming. Dancing in and out, its face a discolored mess.
Eyes peeking out from the ruined flesh. Crossley lunging, driving his
blade deeper into the leg as it turned to face one of his men. Dashed
out as the creature tried to turn.

There was a give, and a wash of purple blood.

He stood back. Saw the gray cap standing on one leg.

"Murderers," the gray cap crooned. "Murderers. In our city."

Crossley wanted it dead in that moment. To shut it up. Caught in
a blood lust so primal that the enemy looked fey and beautiful in the
moonlight. Distant and removed from what they were doing to it.

Now they converged, the three of them. It couldn't evade them.
Did it weep as they tore it to pieces? Did it make any human sound to
make them stop? No. All it did was stare up at the hard stars as if they
were but an extension of its eyes. Arms hacked and pulled off. Cut at.
Peeled away. Tossed to the side. The red of its leg. While still it stared.
While a cloud of spores erupted from the top of its head, puffing away,
disappearing. Hacked, too, at the torso until there was just a head
attached to a wreckage of neck. Still the thing smiled. Still it seemed
to live. The reflexive life of a gecko's tail.

Now they cursed and sobbed. Unable, as the bloodlust left them, to
understand how they had been brought to this. How they could have
done this. Even as they still wanted to kill it. Screaming. Shouting. Not
caring if an enemy could hear them. Just wanting to keep on killing it
until it was dead.

Finally, they burnt it, until it was just dead eyes laughing, asking if
it had been worth it.

Soon even that burst into spores.

othing remained of Finch when he was done with Wyte. Not
really. Blood or something like blood drenched him. His left hand
gripped the sword tightly, the guard thick with gore. Wyte wouldn't get
a funeral. Wouldn't get much of anything. He'd already begun the short,
sharp process of becoming one of the forgotten. Nothing anybody
could've done to save him from that.

Finch's left shoulder sang with pain from the blow Wyte had given
it. Left knee unsteady from having his legs taken out from under him.
Toward the end. One last reflexive lunge from a creature that didn't want
to die. The whole time it had felt like it was happening to him. His steps
were heavy from the weight.

The sounds had been horrific. Something had lived inside of Wyte.
When it came out, Finch shot it. Then sliced it apart as it squealed. Was
it part of Wyte? Was it the remnants of Otto? Finch didn't care. He had
just wanted it dead. Wanted to make sure Wyte wasn't coming back.

No relation to the family man and husband Wyte had once been,
before the Rising. No correlation between his life then and his death
now. Something crazy. Something beyond prediction. Never sat on the
stoop of Wyte's former house, drinking out of his silver flask, and said,
casually, "You're going to turn into a monster, Wyte, and I'm going to kill
you with a ceremonial sword forged by the Kalif's empire."

Would the resurrection of Duncan Shriek be the opposite of this?
Better or worse?

The phone rang inside Wyte's apartment as Finch was leaving. He
hesitated. Went back inside. Closed the door. Locked it.

The phone was in the kitchen. He avoided looking in the comer. The
stillness was oppressive. The smell thick, physical. Had to pull his shirt
collar to his nose.

Picked up the phone with his bloody hand. Waited.

"Hello. Finch?" Stark. Almost cheery.

"What do you want?"

"You sound a little shaky. What's wrong?"

"What do you want?"

Realized then that Stark's people had followed him there. Told
Stark where he was. And that Stark knew Wyte's phone number.

"It's not what I want," Stark said. "It's what you want. And, apparently,
you want me to keep hurting you. Apparently if I keep hurting you more
and more, I'll get what I want."

A barking laugh from Finch. "The city's fucked. The Spit's destroyed.
The towers are almost done. Whatever you want won't matter in a
day or two."

"My dear Finch, that's exactly my point. You need to tell me everything
you know-by the end of today. Otherwise, don't waste your breath
lecturing me about the state of this shitty city," Stark said in a silky
voice. "Because what you should be worried about is: we could've gotten
to Sintra easily enough. If you don't reveal all by nightfall, she's dead."

The same Sintra who betrayed me to the rebels. The one who is still in my
head, fucking up my thoughts. Giving me this pain in my chest.

"But you didn't get to Sintra yet," Finch said. "Which means you
don't know where Sintra is." Any more than I do. Finch's voice had
risen to a shout. The back of his throat hurt. Every part of him hurt.
How had Stark known Wyte's number?

A long, low laugh. "Finchy, I want whatever's in that apartment
with Shriek. Today. So make it happen. Or Sintra's next. Or Rathven.
I don't care which. Look what we did to Wyte. True, he was almost
there already. We just gave him that final push. Want to know how?
Look around before you leave. Maybe on the counter, maybe in the
sink. Just take a look. Get a sense for just how desperate your friend
really was. And who you're up against."

"There's nothing in that apartment but Shriek," Finch said.

"Then bring me Shriek," Stark said.

Finch hung up.

Hated himself for looking, for taking Stark's suggestion. Found
nothing on the counter. Nothing in the sink. In the garbage under the sink, though, he found a small white envelope and a note.

In an embellished script, the note read, "Take these, Wyte. They'll help.
As promised. Love, Stark." Inside the envelope, the crumbly remains of
something fungal. Something that hadn't helped Wyte at all.

Forced himself to imagine it. Wyte. Terrified by the quickening
change. Making a deal to trade information, even though Finch
had warned him against it. Wyte maybe thinking that giving Stark
some of what he wanted would take the pressure off of Finch.

Then Stark had given Wyte some kind of mushroom he knew would
drive Wyte over the edge. The note was dated two days earlier, so
that meant Wyte had come back to his apartment two straight nights.
Looked at Stark's note, the possible solution. Trusting it. Not trusting
it. Desperate for something that might save him for a time. Driven
to it by the gun battle. Driven to it by every careless, cruel comment
by his supposed friends, Finch included. Wyte, too embarrassed, too
ashamed, to tell Finch what he'd done. How stupid he'd been. Even
at the end. Especially at the end.

For a moment, Finch's self-disdain was boundless. Threatened to
bring the ground crashing in on him.

The phone was ringing again. Finch ignored it.

Blood dripped down from his hairline into his eyes. His blood. A claw
must've caught him in the scalp as Wyte was shifting from shape to shape
near the end. Wiped it away. Went back to what remained of Wyte.
Wasn't much. Already beginning to rot. But he rummaged in his jacket
pocket. One last thing he had to do now. It wouldn't change anything.
Not really. But it might, in the end, satisfy his sense of justice.

Now it was time to take care of Stark.

Ambergris Rules. Take out the immediate threat.

Two hours later, Finch was done. He pulled the curtain back a sliver.
Looked out with one eye shut against the glare. Dazzling sunlight.
The grainy gray of the wall and a curving narrow strip of archway.
Showing the street beyond. Weeds between sidewalk tiles. A row of
dank, rotting warehouses on the other side. A lone tree. Crooked and
bare of leaves.

If he had watchers, they'd be impatient by now. They'd have to
come in closer. Especially if they had another reason.

Took out his gun. Fired a single shot into the room behind him.
Lodged in the wall next to the kitchen. The sound was loud, like the
others had been. Now they'd heard him with Wyte. Seen him come
out, then go back in. Heard the shot. Followed by silence.

That might be enough to bring them.

Thirty seconds passed. Then two men came into view on the
sidewalk. Dark clothes. The bulge of weapons under their jackets.
Tallish. If Stark had a team on him, say four, they'd split up. Two
would keep watch outside. Another one would walk up to the door,
with the fourth covering him from the wall. Or they'd have one on
the back window. Except Finch had checked the back, and there
was no cover. Just a long, narrow alley filled with parts from motored
vehicles. No one watching from what he could see poking his head
out. Too dangerous. They probably didn't know the area, either. Might
not even realize there was a back window. Beyond the narrow alley lay
a taller building, more apartments.

They'd be coming right about now. Imagined he could hear
footsteps. He went into the bathroom. Stood on the toilet. Hoisted
himself up and through the window, ignoring the ache in his shoulder.
Dropped into a crouch in the alley. Surrounded by worn tires and
metal viscera. Everything but the motored vehicles themselves. Smell
of rubber. Distant smell of oil. The long, tall wall of the building next
door close enough to reach out and touch. No one watching. Unless
they waited out of sight.

Gun drawn, heart beating fast, he made for the far end. The slice
of blue sky above. The dull gray-brown of the buildings beyond.
Made it, peeked around the corner. No one. Ran parallel to Wyte's
apartment complex, into the streets beyond. Doubled back until he
was looking around a corner at the wall of archways that hid Wyte's
apartment.

Just in time to see, in glimpses, broken up by the wall, a man come
out the front, walk down the corridor. Short. Muscular. Looked oddly
burnt. Then another man came out from around back, where Finch
had just been. Taller, thinner, bald. Weapon out. Finch drew back into the shadow of a stoop until the man was safely past a line of sight
where he could see Finch.

The shorter man was now clutching at the front of the taller man's
jacket. But the taller man gave way, and suddenly the shorter man was
down on his knees, being sick into the ruins of the garden. Wyte had
made an impact.

A hand signal from the taller man brought the two lookouts to their
side. A quick conference. A few nervous gestures. A head bowed in
exasperation or pain or some emotion Finch couldn't interpret. Either
way, they'd lost their man and now had to report their failure back to
Stark.