Nemesis: Book Five (17 page)

R
igley stood
in perhaps the darkest place of all the floors. She could see nothing, neither above nor below, nor right in front of her.

Huge, ragged breaths heaved in and out of her lungs. She was bent over, her hands on her knees, her ass against the wall, doing her best not to throw up—though she thought it was coming no matter what she did.

She could still feel the heat baking up from the floor below, not quite ready to burn through the barrier separating it from her, but getting closer by the second. She didn't know where to go though. Sam and his feast awaited all the way up at the highest level, and on the others? Would she go back to look at that statue and those pictures? Christ, how had all this happened? How did she end up here, and how did that fire start below?

"Okay, think," she said. "Just think, because there has to be another way out of here. There has to be…."

A window.

Surely, at least one room in this damn place had a window, and she would leap out of it as fast as she could—damn the consequences.

"Okay. Okay. That's the plan. Find a window."

She straightened up, her breath still struggling to catch up with the rest of her body. It took her a second, but she started plugging away, moving up the stairs one step at a time. She kept her hand on the wall, bracing herself for whatever she couldn't see, but was surely in her way.

And once again, she reached the top of the stairs, though the hallway wasn't cold as before. The fire below was heating the whole place up, keeping it nice and goddamn toasty.

She looked down the hall, seeing the red lights at the end, the same ones that she had been pushed toward earlier. Now she was going back willingly, but just like last time, she didn't have a choice.
Stay to the edges; don't go near anything you see in there. The windows will be on the edges.

Doubt didn't flee, but Rigley did her best to shove it away as she moved down the hall, her feet going as fast as they could without tripping her. She wanted out of this place. To break her leg on the fall from whatever window she found was more than fine if it meant she could leave.

Rigley didn't even glance up as she reached the red lit door. She didn't care if she was walking into the room with her dead daughter or the room with the dead soldier, all of it was the same—a means to an end at this point. She pulled open the door and walked through, into an even deeper black than was outside. Outside, the red light held sway over all, but in here, darkness replaced it.

Had there ever been a picture or statue in this room?

Because she saw absolutely nothing. Everything had changed in this place, this house. She could trust nothing, perhaps not even herself. Trust didn't matter at this point, not when you couldn't see a damn thing anyway—what could she trust? Her eyes?

No, all she could hope to believe in was what she could actually touch.

"The edges," she said, taking on a bit of a frantic pulse. She expected to see her daughter or a statue, but she hadn't expected to see blackness—and this certainly wasn't the room marked
Grayson
. "Fine. Fucking fine."

Rigley backed up slowly, until she hit the wall behind her.
There, that's what you need
. She turned around, placing her hands against the smooth surface.
Now move until you feel a window.

So, Rigley started moving across the black room, trying to find some escape from her predicament. Blind, moving like a cripple, she worked with the faith of Samson.

B
ryan didn't knock
on the door, but opened it as quietly as he had exited.

Wren watched him enter, not daring say a word until the door was closed and Bryan as far away from it as he could get.

"What happened?" Wren said.

Bryan didn't look at him, but went back to the bed. He laid down, not bothering to pull up the blankets, but simply curling his legs beneath him.

Wren turned, following him.

"Did you talk to her?"

"Yeah," Bryan said, staring straight ahead. All he needed, Wren thought, was to put his thumb in his mouth and he'd look completely catatonic. Just staring out at nothing, sucking his finger, his brain no longer working. Was that where this was heading? Bryan turning into a vegetable while Wren sat in an alien's house, watching the world burn?

Wren squatted down, his knees popping as he did, though he made no sounds at the pain. He wasn't quite eye level with Bryan, but close. The bed was low to the ground, and small; whoever lived here before must have had little kids.

"I need you to talk to me, Bryan. What did you tell her? I need to know what's happening."

Bryan's eyes finally registered him, looking at Wren for the first time since coming back.

"I have to talk to Michael," he said.

Wren waited, but Bryan kept silent, only staring up at him as if nothing else need be spoken.

"Yeah, Bryan. We all do. The fucking Pope needs to talk to him, but that doesn't tell me anything." Wren felt his anger rising, coming to the surface like some kind of dark beast hidden deep in the ocean, but finally rising to destroy whatever vessel dared venture into its territory.

The anger of old.

It wasn't strange to him; in fact, it felt like coming home. It made him feel like he could grab Bryan's head with one hand, and with the other strike it over and over again. Strike him until he bled and told him every goddamn word Wren wanted to hear.

That's how you want to end this
? Linda said.
You want to kill your son's friend, and when that creature walks in, with Michael inside of him, he'll be able to see exactly what you are.

Her voice was cold, and a chill rose up his spine as if she dragged an icicle across it.

You can do it, Wren. Even as decrepit and fucked up as your body is, I think you could probably do it, given that the kid is barely functioning. You might get a few bruises, but he would take the beating he deserves. So why not do it? He won't answer you, so why shouldn't you beat him within inches of his life?

Wren stared at Bryan, though he didn't see the boy. The anger of old. How many times had he felt this, directed at his own son? Countless. Year in and year out, except it hadn't just been feelings. A lot of actions were tied to this old anger, actions that he kept committing even when Michael grew too strong for Wren to hurt.

That word.

Hurt.

That's what he wanted to do, what he had always wanted to do, and what he always did. Alcohol wrecking his brain, creating completely different structures of firing synapses, allowing abhorrent actions.

How long had it been since he sipped his old friend? He couldn't remember, but as his hand moved to his back pocket, he didn't feel the flask there anymore. And just as the anger rose, so did the panic, coming from somewhere deep inside him—a place that still believed he couldn't live without the bottle. It was his elixir of life.

No
, he said, closing his eyes. Nothing else, just that single word.

He didn't need to let the anger rise up; he didn't need to panic because he no longer felt the flask in his back pocket. Those things, they needed to be left in the past. Buried though not forgotten. His mind wouldn't let him forget, and in all honesty, he didn't need to.

Wren opened his eyes.

"Bryan, I'm sorry. I … I didn't mean to snap at you. I need you to talk to me, to tell me what's going to happen. We're not going to save Michael or get out of here if you don't."

Wren's eyes were wet, but his voice didn't shake.

"I have to talk to him," Bryan said again.

Wren kept quiet this time.

"There's a place. That same place I saw him before, the place she took Thera and I to. The Ether. I think he can come and go, maybe. At least I hope he can. I need to get back there."

"Okay," Wren said, nodding, not at all sure what the kid was talking about, but believing him all the same. "That woman will help you get there?"

Bryan nodded, his eyes breaking their connection with Wren. "I hope so."

Wren reached out and put his hand on the kid's shoulder. Not for long, because it felt as awkward as anything he ever did, but he left it there long enough for Bryan to hopefully feel it.

He stood up, knees popping again, and walked to the window. He looked out at what used to be a green yard. The rest of the past had been buried underneath millions of white, growing wires. The grass beneath wasn't trying to make a return, but had accepted its place. Buried beneath the present.

Wren didn't know what Bryan was talking about, but he knew that wherever the kid went—including another world—he was going too, if it meant he would see his son.

* * *

"
Y
ou've
gotta be fucking kidding me," Michael said, smiling. What else could he do, reading what was in his hands? He wasn't floating, exactly, as it felt like he lay on something (a board, maybe?)—though if he turned over from his back, he wouldn't be able to see it.

He lay horizontal, facing the ceiling, and maybe a foot away from the upside down shelves full of books.

This Briten guy, he came from a seriously fucked up place. The politicians on Earth were always ranting and raving about the violence in inner cities, and the atrocities seen in the middle east, but everyone on this goddamn planet—including the politicians—were amateurs.

Briten's family, the whole planet, they were professionals. They reveled in war like Stephen King did in words. Loving it as parents loved their children.

Michael couldn't stop reading about the planet.

Maybe that wasn't true; he would certainly stop reading if he could take control of his body again, but that wasn't a possibility. So the next best thing was to sit here and read the most deranged soap opera he could imagine.

Briten's father, who was apparently like a god on their planet, had killed his second born son. And by itself, that was pretty bad, but not nearly the worst part of it. These creatures could apparently withstand nearly any amount of pain thrown at them without dying, and so the father stretched the son—stretched him until whatever bones and organs in his body split apart and broke, and left him in a public square for a year, at a total length of twelve feet. The alien wouldn't die, somehow kept alive by his aura (though Michael understood little how that worked), only lay there suspended, screaming.

The brother had tried to initiate a coup, over both Briten and his father. Second born and unhappy with his proverbial lot. It seemed to Michael that all anyone on Briten's home planet cared about was power; in fact, they seemed a lot closer to humans than Morena's crew.

Briten, clearly, never tried to attempt a coup.

And as far as Michael could tell, no one else did either—not after the ruler decided to kill his own son.

Tortured his own son.

Michael felt Briten moving, though it didn't affect anything he was doing at the moment. More just a knowledge that Briten was using his body, outside of Michael's control, of course.

"What?" Briten said, speaking to someone else. Michael snapped the book closed, having not heard Briten's voice sound like that before. He wasn't speaking to Morena or any other
Bynum
(Michael understood more and more of the language, not having much choice as he either could look out someone else's eyes or read the volumes before him). Briten's voice sounded harsh, as if whoever woke him from his slumber shouldn't have had the gall to do it.

The transition from library to body always worked seamlessly, the books fading away, revealing themselves as nothing more than Michael's imagination. He stepped forward, mentally, and looked out his eyes as he always had, only no control came with the view. He saw as he always did, but now was completely paralyzed.

He looked out at the brunette who was here when they all arrived.

She was dying.

Michael didn't know if she understood that, but he saw her future as if looking into a crystal ball. Hair falling out of her head. Splotches across her neck and arms. Body thin and dark rings spreading out under her eyes like nightfall.

"I just wanted to say hi," the woman said.

Rigley
. Michael knew her name because Briten did. He searched Briten's memories, rifling through them as fast as he could. Briten knew he was doing it, but he couldn't do anything about it.

She's government. She thinks she's helping Morena.

Clearly fucked up, though—that was Michael's overall assessment.

"Say hi?" Briten said.

The woman nodded, her stringy hair shaking around her face.

"Have you talked to the other two in there, the ones that came with you?"

Briten stood up from the couch, five feet from her. "No. Why?"

"The boy. He kept saying something about the grays. Over and over. I think something might be wrong with him."

Grays?
Bryan said that?
Michael knew she was talking about Bryan—who else could it be? But why would he mention the grays, or the Ether at all?

"Leave," Briten said, clearly his thoughts about the woman even harsher than Michael's. He stood looking at her, waiting for her to get out of the living room.

"Grays. She just kept saying it. Gray, gray, gray," the woman repeated the word, though stepping back, trying to get her message across before she was shut out completely.

Briten didn't respond, only stared—surely his red eyes beaming almost through the woman.

She finally left and Briten lay back down on the couch, completely ignoring what she said and trying to find sleep again.

Michael let reality fade away and the library fade in. He still lay staring up at the ceiling, though with no book in his hand. He waited a while before actively thinking, until Briten was surely asleep. He didn't want any chance of Briten intercepting his thoughts.

Grays?
She said it over and over, not even making sense at the end. If something was wrong with Bryan, Michael certainly would have announced it another way—though his hair also wasn't falling out in huge clumps.

She couldn't be … No. No way. That woman was fucking crazy, and here helping Morena. No way had Bryan tried to send a message through her.

Gray, gray, gray
, she said, her voice fast and low, as if …

She wasn't speaking to Briten at all. Like a child, trying to whisper something into someone's ear before the teacher turned around.

Was Bryan communicating? And if so, was he telling Michael to go back to the Ether? Michael didn't even know if it was possible. He hadn't thought about it nor tried since leaving that place. More, everything over there was dangerous. If he went, if it was possible, and Bryan didn't show up? If this woman was just insane? If Briten woke up and saw Michael had left, could he lock him out? Take control completely of Michael's body and leave him over there to be eaten alive?

The questions knew no bounds. Endless to the point of ridiculousness.

But the most important one was—what if Rigley did just deliver a message from Bryan? What if he wanted to meet Michael in the Ether?

He couldn't even see out of his own eyes right now if he wanted to. Briten had them closed and if the library faded away, Michael would be faced with darkness.

Is that what you want? To sit here forever? At least if you get lost over there, you might die. Here? You wait and watch—except when you can't even do that. So why not try? Maybe you can come back unscathed. Maybe Bryan's there.

In the end, that's what decided it. The maybes. Maybes hadn't existed in his life for a long time, just the certainty of waking up, going to school, then work, then home to Wren and the smell of alcohol.

So Michael embraced the maybes.