Empire's End

Twenty-Seven / The Blood of Angels

“Who was I?” Adam asked the woman in white.

“In all honesty, I don’t remember,” she said. “But does it matter? You’re still you.”

“So I’ll never know?”

“What would it affect if you did?”

Adam was silent for a moment. They were seated in the front room of the cottage, before a crackling fireplace. Outside, snow was coming down in torrents.

“I dreamt of her again,” he said. “She was frozen… she looked pale as a corpse. I don’t think these things have come to pass, not yet — but I feel powerless.”

“Adam, that is your power,” the woman in white said. “Precognition. You can till save her.

“You should go,” she said, standing up. “I don’t want to keep you any longer. Just trust your instincts. You’ll find her.”

He nodded and rose to stand beside her. “Thank you for everything.”

A window shattered somewhere in the house.

Adam snatched up the scythe and strapped it onto his forearm. A terrible feeling permeated his being; he felt weighed down, weak, and suddenly he knew it was the Omega’s presence. For the first time he sensed the ties that bound them, the ties that had allowed the rotter to stalk him across the badlands for months.

This time with the woman in white had awakened his mind, brought dormant abilities to life. He wondered if she was clairvoyant too; had she known where to find him? Had she seen all this in her mind’s eye?

“It’s the one who attacked me,” Adam whispered to the woman in white. “You have to get out of here.”

“You said something else was driving him,” she breathed. “What did you mean?”

“I mean he’s not like the others.” Adam edged toward the door leading to the hall. “There’s something inside him, controlling him.”

“Adam.” She caught his shoulder and turned him to face her. “Sometimes the dead are angry. Sometimes they don’t understand why it was their time. They blame God, or they blame themselves… sometimes they blame Death.”

Just as he began to realize what she was saying, the Omega leapt through the front window with a horrendous crash, landing right behind them. Icy air blasted their faces as they whirled to face him. The woman spun, fire blooming in her open hand; the Omega swung his shovel down and hacked it off at the wrist.

The woman screamed. Adam swung the scythe into the Omega’s leg. The rotter responded by slamming his shovel into Adam’s gut. He kicked his legs in agony as he was lifted off the floor. Pulling the scythe free, he slashed the rotter across the throat. Black blood sprayed from the ragged wound.

With her remaining hand, the woman grabbed the Omega’s head and sunk her fingers into his left eye. He shook his head frantically, losing his grip on the shovel. Adam fell, prying himself off of its blade.

The rotter turned on the woman in white. Raising the shovel over his head, he drove it like a spear into her breast. She sagged, eyelids fluttering. He was killing her.

The scythe exploded through the Omega’s ribs. Adam turned the blade sharply to the right and raked it through the rotter’s black guts. Ichor spewed from the undead’s mouth. Throwing the Omega into the wall, Adam fell upon him, hacking flesh away from bone, the rumble in his throat building to a roar that blurred his vision. All he saw was his blade coming down again, and again, and dark chunks of meat spattering the walls.

Adam collapsed in a heap, exhausted by his rage. The Omega was a ruin. The rotter gnashed his teeth, staring at the ceiling as he tried to gather his spilled guts. As Adam watched, the thing’s trembling hands fell motionless.

He crawled over to the woman in white, lying on her back, eyes barely open.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching her face, her beautiful face, looking into her glistening dark eyes. He felt something welling up in him, and choked; his vision blurred again, this time from grief, and he felt wetness spreading beneath his eyes.

His tears fell on her cheek. She blinked and looked up at him. “Adam?”

“I’m so sorry,” he wept.

“Don’t be.” She took his hand, his ugly, charred hand, and said, “I love you.”

He buried his face in her neck. She sighed, and then he was alone. Snowflakes swirled around their prone forms.

Adam staggered to his feet and crossed the room to where the Omega lay. He knew it was still in there; the blue spark of undeath still resided in those rotten bones. He was still in there, while she was gone.

Adam drove the scythe through the rotter’s face and into the floor. He fell to his knees and screamed, “WHY HER?” He forced the blade deeper. “WHY? TELL ME WHY!”

There was no answer from the Omega. It was just a rotter, after all, dead and dumb. Just a rotter that had killed a woman.

He pulled the scythe out and sat back on the floor.

Lily.

Something about the woman in white had reminded him of Lily. He couldn’t place his finger on it. He only knew that he wouldn’t — couldn’t — let the same fate befall the child.