Shattered Sky (57 page)

In the center of these protective layers, Lourdes had built a fire, and now stared across it at Michael and Tory, who lay unconscious, still bound by handcuffs. This journey—this gathering of meat—had exhausted the two of them more than Lourdes, for they had resisted every mile across the sea. But even against their wills, their power had added to her own, sweeping across Crete, pulling together the army she had promised the vectors. Such power she had wielded! Such intensity! She had thought that having such power would fill her in some fundamental way, but like the food she ate, it only left her with a deeper void, craving more and more.

So she stared at Michael and Tory, hating them for fulfilling each other. Lourdes might have been thrust into this world as a broken fragment of a star, intricately intertwined with them, but she was not part of them anymore. She was part of no one. She looked around at the circle of standing bodies.
This is my universe
, she thought.
A circle of flesh, with me at the center. There is nothing outside the circle.

But the vectors lie.

Michael had reminded her of that. It's what they were; lies transmuted into spirit. But still, their words had cut Lourdes too deeply to heal. Out there was emptiness, held together by threads of hatred and hostility. The universe at large. She could feel that emptiness in her bones like a hollow where her marrow should be. Hopelessness. Futility.

There came a shifting of bodies to her right, and she turned to see someone pushing through her meat-barrier. A man forced his way into the clearing; then her infantry closed the gap, shoulder to shoulder once more.

Lourdes stood to face him. No one should have been able to get through.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Do you not recognize me?”

She looked him over. He was tall, with closely trimmed, dark hair. A moustache. Early thirties, fairly attractive, and well built. His accent was markedly Mediterranean—maybe even Arabic, she wasn't sure. No, she had never seen him before, nevertheless she knew who he was. It was there in his eyes.

“The Old Man.”

“I'm much better dressed now.” He held up his arms and showed off the muscular curves of the new human body he wore. “You like?”

“I've done what you and the others wanted. Now leave me alone.”

He took a step closer. “I was wrong about you, Lourdes. Memo was the smart one.” Lourdes noticed that he wore a coat, even though the dead air was a sultry, salty balm. He glanced at Michael and Tory who lay inert beyond the fire. “It was wise to use these two as you did—adding their power to yours. Your cleverness surprises us.”

“Enough to regret the way you beat me?”

He took another step closer. “A vector moves forward always,” he told her. “No grudges, no regrets.” And then he reached his hand forward to her. “Come. We celebrate your success.” With his other hand he casually reached into the shadows of his coat.

What happened next came in a single fluid motion, like a step from a ballet. Something dark and shiny slid out of his coat, gripped in his right hand. Eight other hands reached from behind, taking him down to the ground. A bullet pierced the eye of one of Lourdes's minions, and although he fell limp,
there was another behind to wrench the gun from the vector's hand. In an instant the vector was under a tackle of Lourdes's puppets, and with a single thought she had them rip off his coat, revealing a second gun and a knife. Further exploration revealed another knife strapped to his leg. Lourdes stood over him while he struggled beneath the hands and bodies of her minions. “Is this how we celebrate my success?”

“You misunderstand!” he shouted. “Please! It was for them!” He pointed across the fire to Michael and Tory, still unconscious on the dark pebbles of the beach. “I come to kill them—not you!”

“Come on, say it like you mean it.” By now all of his weapons had been stripped from him, along with his jacket and shirt. Each weapon was trained on him now by her minions, poised at his head, his chest, his throat. “I suppose if I kill you, you'll just slip into another host.”

“Believe me. Your friends are the enemy—not you.” He let out a pained little laugh. “What purpose is killing you for? None. No, we let you live, and you keep to help us.”

Keep helping them? Would they have her do that? Was that the true definition of hell?

“You rule all people.” The handsome vector tempted. “Control them. We want this from you.”

“The Queen of Cattle.”

He looked up at her quizzically. “I do not know this expression.”

“Never mind.” She took a step back, and loosened the hands that held him. He pulled free, but his weapons were gone, passed back through the crowd. He made no move to attack her, but she knew better than to turn her back.

“Your two friends—they must die—you know this. Let me do it now.”

“I'll kill them,” she said. “They deserve to be put out of their misery by one of their own kind.”

He considered this and finally nodded acceptance. Then he looked her over, showing some amount of admiration. “This host has desire for you,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Now we celebrate. Just you and me. This I will enjoy.”

“Get out of here.” With a wave of her hand her crowd advanced, engulfing him, pushing him back, layer by layer, tighter together so that he could not squeeze between them again. Once she was sure he had been pushed completely out, she went around the fire to Michael. Dear, sweet Michael, who had once told her he loved her. Who had stroked her cheek, and looked into her eyes when no one else would as she lay on a stone floor, too fat to move. It was that lie that had destroyed her, even before the vectors snared her on their line.

She knew what she had to do.

She found a smooth stone about the size of a skull, so heavy she needed two hands to lift it. Then she knelt beside Michael, and raised the stone above his head.

I'll do this quickly.

Michael's eyes fluttered open then closed.

Quickly before I change my mind.

And she brought the heavy stone down with all the force in her soul.

I
T WAS DEEP INTO THE NIGHT WHEN
D
ILLON AWOKE
. T
HE
tinker was nowhere to be found, and as Dillon looked out over the bay, he could see the moon had transversed the entire sky. There were voices—many voices coming from the shore below. He tried to see through the window what the commotion was about, but saw only the dim shapes of the tinker's mechanical graveyard.

Winston had fallen asleep as well, having crawled up onto the floor displacing the dogs from their mat—which was a better spot than Dillon's, which was nothing but a wobbly chair and a window sill for his head. It was a far cry from Hearst Castle or the plush trappings of Elon Tessic. So now they were lying with dogs. Dillon couldn't decide whether there was something wrong with this, or if such humility was a good thing; something to dilute their own innate arrogance that had always gotten them into such trouble. He woke Winston, and they left.

Outside, the sound of voices was a dense, white noise of people murmuring their excitement and confusion.

“Looks like we've got ourselves a Greek chorus,” Winston said.

The shoreline was packed, and for each one who made it to shore, there were hundreds still stranded on boats in the middle of the bay—so many boats you could hardly see the water.

“Do we really want to go down there?” Winston asked.

“I can't see as we've got a choice.”

They descended the steep slope toward the crowded shore, unnoticed, unquestioned as they moved through the crowds. It was clear to Dillon what was happening here. “Lourdes let them go. . . . ”

“She must have broken off syntaxis with Tory and Michael.”

Dillon nodded. When she broke off, her field would have gotten smaller. These were the ones who now fell outside of her influence. It would make sense—she only needed an expanded field long enough to get them here. And now, with the bay clotted with vessels, no matter how free these people were, they had nowhere to go. They went from being Lourdes's captives, to captives of the island itself, and they'd all be here at dawn, when the vectors tore open the sky.

Of those who had reached the shore, some had climbed up the hillside, toward homes, or the lights of towns around the bay, but most just lingered on the shoreline, sharing with each other the experience of a journey they did not understand.

“The poor bastards—they think they're waiting for something wonderful. A second coming. The opening of heaven.” Dillon could see the way they trembled with wonder and anticipation.
No!
Dillon wanted to shout.
Get out of this place! It's more horrible than death—more terrible than the flames of hell. You will see a glow of heaven, you will think it's something glorious—but they will devour you, for they are the only beings in creation that can kill an immortal soul.
He wanted to tell them this, but what good would it do? If they knew, where would they run?

“I feel Lourdes,” Winston said.

Dillon pointed. “Somewhere across the bay.” But there was another feeling as well; a dark, visceral stirring. Intuitively, his eyes turned toward the source; a square arch atop a nearby cliff, lit an eerie green and red against the dark sky.

“The vectors are up there,” Winston said. “That's where it will begin.”

“If the vectors are there, then they're not with Lourdes.” Dillon scoured the shoreline until spotting a small powerboat, and made his way toward it.

“What have you got in mind?”

“I won't believe Lourdes has turned completely to their side.”

“Believe it,” Winston said. “Even before they got here, she had rotted all the way through. Remember, she threw me overboard.”

“She's got Michael and Tory—we've got no choice but to face her.”

“And if she kills you?”

“If it comes to that,” said Dillon, “I'll kill her first.” He tried to sound decisive, but still his voice quivered with the thought. They didn't have Deanna—if Lourdes was too far gone to be brought back—if he was forced to kill her to save himself, and to save Tory and Michael, what would happen then? Would four shards be able to hold back the sky?

“You go,” Winston said. “I want to get a better look at that arch. Maybe get a closer feel of the vectors.”

“If they catch you—”

“They won't.”

“We need to stay together!”

“We need to know what we're up against!” Winston said. “The vectors have got to have a weakness—I know I'll be able to sense it.”

Dillon knew better than to argue with Winston once his mind was made up. “I'll meet you back here in an hour,” Dillon told him. “Be careful.” Then he started the small motor boat, and took to the water, taking a long look at Winston before he
left. Like every parting glance he gave these days, it was laden with finality, as if he might never see Winston again.

D
ILLON WOVE THE SMALL
motorboat in and out of the logjam of vessels filling the bay. The sea was calm now, the air hung still. Dead air. It was more troubling than a windy sky, because it meant Michael's emotional affect was completely flat.
Has he contained himself?
No, that was too much to hope for. More than likely he had fallen into a deep sleep the way Dillon had, too exhausted to emote at all.

As he made his way between the overloaded crafts, the sounds of the crowds began to soften until all the voices came from behind him. He looked to the nearby vessels to see that they were just as crowded, but no one moved. People just stood, or sat poised, as if waiting their turn in a halted conversation. He knew he had crossed into Lourdes's field of control. Bit by bit he crossed to the far side of the bay, where a huge mob pressed inward—an atmosphere of flesh around a hidden singularity. He left the motorboat, and tried to force his way through, but the crowd was defiantly dense. In the end, he had to hurl himself upon their shoulders and stumble over them, until finally tumbling headfirst into the circle at the center. When he looked up, he saw Lourdes standing there, holding a rock in her fist, ready to throw it at him.

The anger in her eyes almost made him look away, but he didn't. She was surprised, even shocked, to see him, but in the end she regained her composure, and put the rock down.

“I thought you were the vector,” she said.

He looked around him. A fire burned at the center, casting shifting shadows on the stone faces of her army.

“Why couldn't I sense you?” she asked. “Did you lose your powers?”

To answer her, he took a glance at the fire, and it began to burn blue, pulling in warmth, rather than releasing it; unburning. “You knew I had to crash this party.”

“The vectors knew you'd come. I hear they have something very special planned for you. Where's Winston?”

“Parking the car.” There were two figures on the other side of the fire, but Dillon couldn't see them clearly.

“Go on,” Lourdes said, deep bitterness in her voice. “They're waiting for you.”

Dillon rounded the fire to find Michael and Tory. They sat up, groggy and weak. Drained. On their hands were handcuffs, but the chains had been broken.

“The rocks here are soft,” Lourdes said. “I almost couldn't break the chains.”

He thought for a moment that Lourdes might have taken a turn for the better, but the icy expression on her face said otherwise.

“It's good to see you alive,” Dillon said.

Michael slowly looked up. “Are we?”

Dillon turned to Lourdes again. He had played this moment over in his head a hundred times, so sure he would know the words that would snap her spirit into place, but now, standing before her, he had no idea what to say. For all her posturing and poisoned barbs, her actions here spoke louder than her words. She could have killed Michael and Tory, but had not. If that meant there was some hope veiled within her, Dillon had to find a way to access it. He had to plant a seed; a single thought that could take root and attack the battlements she had built around herself. He had once shattered a mighty dam with the tiniest of blows. Surely he could find a way to break through to Lourdes.