Nightingale

Chapter 33 Dying to Meet You

When Lucius's plane touched down at the Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans, it took only moments to rush to a waiting helicopter.

By then, satellite pictures showed that the cabin was in flames, and three people had left it—speeding off in a raft until they reached an old Ford Explorer. A transmitter had been fitted onto the Explorer years ago, but it had suddenly gone inoperative.

Lucius's quarry had made it into the city, where they would soon be lost in the crowd.

Still, Lucius was eager to see how his agents had died. From the airport, he and his men took a chopper and headed along the Black River, into a tangle of trees. Half an hour after sunrise, they reached the remains of the cabin, it was only a smoking ruin.

From the sky, it looked like a black hole in the canopy of the forest. The trees all around it had leaves of dull green, as happens late in the summer, and only a little gray smoke marked the site.

Adel ordered the pilot to circle the burn a few times before landing. There was no open ground to land on—only a bit of shallow swamp, but the helicopter's landing gear was fitted with pontoons for a water landing.

So they circled.

A sweep of government radio frequencies confirmed that no authorities had come to investigate. A brush fire deep in the swamp wasn't a concern. The area was deluged by thunderstorms at this time of the year, and lightning strikes were common. But with the frequent rain, aided by humidity that normally ran at eighty percent, a fire in the swamp wasn't likely to burn long.

"Sir," Adel told Lucius, "the cover is very thick. Do you dare risk a landing?"

"Of course. Our quarry has already fled," Lucius ventured, for that was the safest thing to do. The Ael were good at running, at hiding. That was about all that they were good at.

So when the chopper dropped near the cabin, no one was there.

The house was completely gone. It had been propped up on poles, and when the main structure was consumed by flames, the floor and struts of the cabin had burned completely. Then the house had crashed in upon itself.

All that was left was the lower dock, with a black pontoon boat tied to it. Flames had scorched it, leaving it disfigured.

The chopper circled, dropping lower with each approach, much as a goose will do during hunting season, staying just out of shotgun range.

When the chopper landed, it made a perfect touchdown near the smoking ruins, and Adel leapt from the chopper onto the dock. He took a rope and wrapped it loosely around the pylons, and then two of his men followed after him.

His men climbed up to the burn and began to search for bodies. The Draghouls, in their dark assault gear and helmets, strutted through the smoking debris, taking no harm. They looked like demons in hell, tormenting the remains of the damned.

Lucius remained beside the helicopter, listening to his agents chatter through his Bluetooth, which was set to a secure channel.

"I've got two over here," one man said.

"Here's a third," Adel answered.

"I think... yes, there's one down here in the water."

The men began to flip charred bodies.

"They're all in fetal positions, my lord," Adel said. "I'm looking, but I don't see any signs of bullet holes. Our men were burned alive, I think. They didn't die in a firefight, or in any type of hand-to-hand."

Lucius grinned widely. An entire hunting squad, snuffed out by one untrained teen? It sounded too good to be true. He had to verify it himself.

He leapt off the floating dock, then rushed a few steps until he reached land. He strode among the remains of blackened timber, while wisps of smoke slithered about his feet. Glowering embers simmered here and there like fiery carnations, lending the swamp their brutal heat. His dead agents smelled like roasting pork, scorched in a pit.

He went to one of the corpses, blackened and puckering, its hair all burnt off. It lay in a fetal position. Millennia ago, Lucius had worked as a priest in an Egyptian temple, and he'd often taken dead merchants out into the desert for burial, folding them up just as these agents lay now.

With their hair burnt off, their heads looked shaven, in a style that had been popular back in Pharaoh's court. Adel flipped one of the bodies, and knelt, studying it intently.

"No sign of a struggle," he said. "No bullet holes or knife wounds. No ligature marks from strangulation."

Killed by a dream assassin, Lucius exulted.

Lucius began to chuckle. What a treasure Bron would be!

He raised his hands high, and threw his head back in triumph. "I love my son!" he roared, and deep in the swamp, herons squawked in alarm at the sudden noise.

On the far side of the inlet, Bron knelt behind a log, with an assault rifle in hand. He'd been waiting for Lucius to step into the open. He studied his father with his own eyes: a man with dark skin, head shaved clean, a little black soul patch for a beard. He had the glittering dark eyes of a snake.

Now Bron pulled the trigger, as easily as plucking a string on a guitar, sending one sweet note to fill the universe. He had taken only a few minutes of instruction in automatic weapons, having Olivia rip the information from Ramira's mind, training his fingers how to pull the trigger fluidly, how to take the long shots while releasing his breath imperceptibly.

It all came so naturally.

The gun jerked once, and the bullet ripped from the muzzle at 2700 miles per hour, spinning as it went. The brass casing ejected, and in that instant, Bron froze, hoping that he'd made his shot, even as the gun roared.

The bullet crossed the water in a fraction of a second, slammed into Lucius, pierced flesh and muscle. The lead bullet mushroomed as it went, sending fragments through bone, slicing nerves and arteries.

Something exploded in Lucius's neck—as if he'd taken a blow from an ax. Bones shattered, and a fragment of vertebrae exited from his throat. With his spinal cord snapped, Lucius dropped even as he registered a report from a single shot.

The blast roared, then echoed across the water, and echoed back, and echoed again and again. It reminded him of cannon fire in the old days, when a cannon was set upon a hill, and blasted into the heavy walls of a castle. The echo of the blast went on and on and on.

He landed on his side in the ashes, and felt a coal blistering his right cheek.

Here in the bayou, with trees rising up on every side above the water, the gunshot report seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, as if it rained down like a judgment from god.

His men cried out in alarm, and suddenly Uzis appeared in their hands, flashing up from their suits. They immediately laid down suppressing fire, each spraying almost blindly in a different direction.

Lucius lay choking on his own blood, gasping. He was perfectly conscious. The bullet had severed his spinal cord, paralyzing him. Lucius could not feel his fingers or toes. The only sensation below his head was a hot pain in his neck, as if someone had shattered a vertebra and then laid an ember in the wound.

He had moments to live before his lungs and heart shut down, moments to suffer. He struggled to breathe.

Adel knelt over him, Uzi in hand, and checked for a pulse. "My lord," he whispered, even as he opened fire into the brush. If he hit the enemy, it would be a miracle. Lucius worked his mouth, but no words would come out.

One of Adel's men rushed up, instantly assessed the situation, and grunted, "Leave him!"

The words were hardly out of the man's mouth when Adel leapt up and raced for the chopper. By some stroke of fortune, Lucius was lying in such a way so that the helicopter was in full vision. The Draghouls flitted into the black chopper quickly, shadows disappearing into deeper shadow. Smoke stung Lucius's eyes, and the coal against his cheek sizzled.

I'll come back, Lucius thought. I'll come back, and I will be stronger, and I will gain the devotion of my son.

The bayou looked so peaceful. He peered out over the dark pool where hordes of dragonflies danced above the waters, winged jewels of emerald and ruby and sapphire. The thought of his son filled him with hope. The blades on the helicopter whirred, and the prop wash whipped up the ashes, blew them onto Lucius's tongue and into his face.

The helicopter rose no more than ten feet before a white tracer round coated in phosphorous streamed from the jungle. Such rounds presented a severe fire hazard, and perhaps half a second after it slammed into the chopper's tank, the helicopter exploded. None of Lucius's men had time to leap for safety.

Bits of fiery shrapnel slammed all around Lucius while a fireball erupted into the sky. The props and hood exploded upward, while the ruined body veered and nosed into the swamp. Flaming debris rained down everywhere, amid falling bolts that thunked loudly. Most of the rubble sank instantly, while some of the insulation and seat cushions floated on the water, flaming ruins.

Lucius lay there in a daze, fading from consciousness. Watching, waiting, watching....

Bron rose up from his hiding spot in the jungle. His body had been hidden behind a fallen log, and it was a good thing. Return fire from one of the guards had sprayed into the log, almost as if the Draghoul knight had spotted him.

Heart hammering, Bron hurried through the cypress trees along the water's edge. He felt lucky. Killing Lucius had been easy, almost too easy. The Draghoul guards had tried to flee, as he had hoped. The sniper shot had taken his enemies by surprise.

He'd been well concealed in the shadows, away from the blazing sunlight. His enemies had directed most of their suppressive fire across the swamp. He'd hoped that they would think he was on the opposite shore.

Few snipers in the world had been as good as Ramira, and almost all of them were masaaks. Along with the training, he'd learned all about how to field dress his weapon, an Israeli galil ACE 52 assault rifle. It was a bit heavy for his inherited tastes, but the barrel was long enough to ensure accuracy for long-range shots like this one had been, and Ramira had installed a Humboldt laser sight on the gun's Picatinny rail. With a dead wind on a day like today, the bullet had hit within an eighth of an inch from where Bron had aimed.

At only two hundred yards, it had been easy to sever Lucius's spinal cord, leave him alive, paralyzed.

Now Bron reached his father and found him breathing almost imperceptibly. Bron twisted his father's face up, so that he could look into it.

"Hello, father," Bron said.

"My son," Lucius mouthed.

"This isn't over, I know," Bron said. "I learned from your man Stalzi. You're too powerful for me to take out this easily. So I wanted to see your face, and let you know: I'm going to destroy everything you've created."

Lucius peered up at Bron, and there was no fear in the dying man's eyes: only admiration for his son. Lucius smiled broadly, and then his breath faltered, and his focus slid from his son into the eternities.

With his father dead, Bron went back to the dock and waited. The swamp was quiet by day, the air as heavy as a wet shroud. Bron's thoughts came jangled.

He crouched for a bit, and sat. In the distance, an alligator growled, and a white egret flew up out of the trees. Dragonflies were everywhere, glittering in the morning sunlight.

Stress pulled at the muscles in Bron's neck. As the adrenaline wore out of his system, it felt as if a darkness settled over him.

Was I right to kill him? Bron wondered.

It had seemed like such a good idea, to make a statement, to put the monster down, declare war. Yet it accomplished so little.

Olivia had argued against it, claiming it was too big a risk. But Bron remained firm.

He'd pulled the trigger easily enough.

Yet now an arctic front seemed to blow through the hollow landscape of his soul. Bron crouched on the dock, shaking, suddenly chill despite the heat. He peered around at the swamp as if through a haze.

There was nowhere that he could go. He didn't know the way out.

He wished that he was not alone, that Whitney was there. Today was supposed to have been their first big date, out hiking in some incredibly beautiful canyon.

I'm missing it, and for what?

He wondered what she would think if she knew what he had done.

A week ago, he thought, I longed to know my past, to know who I am. Now I know: I'm a killer.

He wondered if he should ask Olivia to erase the memory of the past twenty-four hours, but he knew that he couldn't do that. What was done was done, and sometimes forgetting can be far worse than remembering.

Memories can haunt a man. Memories can be a form of torture. No one had understood that any better than Ramira, a woman trained in a hundred forms of torture.

A foreboding warned that more Draghouls might be coming, and each little movement in the forest, each slap of a leaf or crunch of a twig, brought Bron more alert.

After a few minutes, Bron went and heaved up the little that he had in his stomach. Miserably, he sat and waited for Olivia to return in the boat and take him to safety. Olivia, or Whitney, or anyone.

He longed to be rescued from what he was becoming.

Back in Saint George, Whitney woke that morning to the sound of doves cooing in the backyard.

She grabbed her cell phone, checked it for messages, and found none.

She lay in bed for a long time, wondering what had become of Bron. He'd taken off early from school, and though she'd left three messages, he hadn't returned her call.

They were supposed to leave early this morning, drive up to Bryce, and go hiking through the fairy canyons. It was perhaps the most beautiful place on earth, and they could drive there for fifty dollars. It wasn't as if her mom had money to spare, of course. Her mom was making a tremendous sacrifice for Bron, for this date, and he hadn't called.

She resisted the urge to dial him again. Maybe his phone was broken, or maybe he'd gotten hurt.

She thought about how his lips tasted, and how his embrace made her feel warm and mushy inside. She longed to have his arms wrapped around her now, to be hugged. Or maybe, she worried, he's not as crazy about me as I am about him.

Galadriel raced in the dawn, her feet pounding the pavement as she took the long climb above Pine Valley, into the trees.

She had wakened to a dream about Bron. In it, she had been in her hospital bed, an IV dripping into her arm, and he had told her, "The human body can be shaped by will. You can choose the figure that you want, then sculpt your muscles and pare away your fat until you choose the exact form you want.

"In fact," he went on, "through will alone you can shape your entire future. You can take control of your destiny."

In the dream, he'd shoved will into her.

She wondered what it would be like to have limitless will. If I could have all I want, what would I shape myself into?

I wonder if there's a way to exercise my will, make it grow more powerful, make it respond to my wishes more forcefully?

She suspected that there was.

She'd never been a runner, but she knew that Bron had done a little racing, and she hoped that someday they might be able to run together.

The sun was still creeping over the bowl of the valley, and a pale blue fog wound along the creeks. The air smelled of bitter juniper and sweet grass. Meadowlarks sang in the tall grass at the roadside.

Galadriel raced with eyes closed, taking long loping strides. A yellow car was driving toward her, but she paid it little mind.

She'd never run this long before. Her mother had warned her that if she ran too far, she'd pay for it tomorrow with aching legs, but for right now, Galadriel was experiencing the joy of her first runner's high.

It was strange, all the energy that coursed through her. She'd never felt anything like it before.

I'm like a little car that has suddenly been given an enormous new engine, she thought. She picked up speed and sprinted with abandon. She wondered if you could make someone love you by will alone.

No, she thought, you can't make them love you. But maybe you can remake yourself into the kind of person they can't resist.

She decided to do just that. It might take a week to win Bron over, or a month or a year.

She imagined Bron just in front of her, and herself calling, "You can run, but you can't hide."

In her imagination, Bron turned back and smiled gamely. She imagined the sweet smell of his musk in the car.

Yummy!

Justin Walton drove past Galadriel in his yellow Mustang and wondered what could cause such a beatific smile. He'd noticed her at school last week. Who wouldn't? She was the gorgeous girl who had gotten into the madrigals on her first audition.

Justin wasn't entirely sure why he was driving into Pine Valley. He was looking for Bron, and he'd heard from his dad that Bron liked to run in the morning.

But Justin could see no sign of the creep.

What would I do if I found him? he wondered. Run him over? Beat him up? Call him names?

Justin had been stewing all week, ever since he'd failed to deck Bron at lunch that day. It would be a shame if Bron got hit by a car some foggy morning, run down from behind.

He glanced into his rearview mirror, watched Galadriel's backside as she ran. She was all curves, sensual and languorous. He admired the way that her hips swayed as she ran, the way that the muscles in her rear bunched, then rolled, and stretched, almost in slow-motion.

Suddenly the car jerked to the right and he hit gravel. He veered hard to the left, flushed with embarrassment, and got all four tires back on the road.

Keep your eyes on the road, he thought. Remember, it's Bron you're after.