The Last Murder at the end of the World

SIXTY-SEVEN

By the time Emory reaches the red flags marking the boundary of the farms, she’s dreaming of a bed she may never get to sleep in again. The fog is glowing so brightly that it looks like the sea’s been set ablaze. She thinks she sees a boat rowing towards it, but it’s much too dark to make it out clearly.

Emory’s hidden Hui in the medical bay where she found her. It’s risky, but her pulse was much too weak to move her further. Emory’s desperately hoping that Thea doesn’t think to go back.

‘Thea,’ she repeats, under her breath.

That wasn’t who she suspected of Niema’s murder, but everything Thea’s done tonight suggests Emory got it wrong. After all, Thea almost certainly killed Adil, and she tried to silence Hui. Surely that means she’s responsible for Niema’s death, but …

There are so many questions it doesn’t answer. Emory’s dogged by ideas and suspicions, facts without a home, desperate to find a place. Half-known things cast strange shadows across her mind.

She’s roused from her thoughts by a plume of flame rising above the village walls, black smoke shading the dark air.

Using the last of her energy, she sprints along the coastal path, then through the gate into the rear yard, where the infirmary is burning uncontrollably. Flames are dripping out of the windows, and scrambling across the roof. Even from here, the heat is unbearable.

‘Thought that would get your attention,’ says Hephaestus, emerging from the gloom.

Emory takes a step back, her legs turning to wood underneath her. He has Jack’s knife in his hand, and is making no effort to disguise his intentions. She expected him to betray her, and had prepared for it, but this isn’t like the fear she felt when the boat sank, or when they walked through the plants. This is primal: the mouse under the owl’s shadow, knowing what’s coming, knowing it’s always been coming, and that fate designed it this way.

‘I can’t let Thea put that extractor on you,’ he says. ‘She can’t know about the bodies in the infirmary, or that I was involved in my mother’s experiments. She’d try to stop me, and then I’d have to kill her.’

Emory’s breathing hard, becoming dizzy as black spots ink her sight.

‘Think about your daughter and the people you love,’ I say firmly. ‘Stick to your plan. If you die here, everybody dies with you.’

Emory squeezes her eyes shut, imagining Clara asleep in the lighthouse. She thinks about Jack, trapped in his body, and the fog rolling towards the island.

‘Run at the thing that frightens you, Emory,’ I urge.

She opens her eyes, staring at the flame-wreathed monster striding towards her. Hephaestus has the answers she needs, and he’ll talk when he thinks he’s in control.

‘I think Thea’s responsible for Niema’s murder,’ she calls out.

That brings him up short. He rubs his hand over his scalp, uncertainly.

‘I know,’ he snarls. ‘I woke up with my mother’s shattered memory gem by my bed. I saw the argument between them. Thea would only have been that angry if she found out about Blackheath.’

‘Why haven’t you done anything about it?’ Emory demands.

‘Kill her you mean?’ he asks, with a raised eyebrow. ‘That’s a lot of bloodlust for a villager, isn’t it?’

‘I just want to understand,’ she says pleadingly.

He puffs out his cheeks, shaking his head. ‘My mother’s dead because she refused to explain herself to anybody, even Thea. When the world ended, I saw what we became up close.’

He lifts his shirt, showing her the patina of burns and badly healed scars covering his body.

‘I got every one of these from another human being, and not because their survival depended on it, or because I was a threat to them. They hurt me for no other reason than because they wanted to.’

He points the tip of the knife at her.

‘Thea never saw the fog up close, so she doesn’t understand that it wasn’t the most terrifying thing. It was just a cloud, some insects. There was no malevolence in it.’ He bangs his chest. ‘The truly terrifying thing about the fog was how quickly it became a licence for every vile thing in the human heart. You tell me, Emory. How could anybody, in good conscience, save a race that had witnessed the brutality of the fog and then decided to one-up it?’

He’s peering at her, genuinely expecting an answer. He wants affirmation, forgiveness for what he’s done.

‘I don’t know,’ she says meekly.

‘It wasn’t control my mother wanted,’ he says. ‘It was empathy. She knew that if we let everybody out of Blackheath, the same thing would just happen again. She thought that if Abi had control, she could alter human nature from the inside. No more selfishness, or greed, or violence. For the first time in history, we’d be one people, acting in harmony for the good of everybody.’

His eyes are agleam, the future reflected in them. Hearing him, she believes every word, and she wonders what persuasion like that could have achieved somewhere else, in a different time.

‘Imagine having millions of people on the planet, living equally,’ he says happily. ‘No poverty, no inequality, no war, no violence. Imagine waking everyday, knowing you’d be safe; free to pursue whatever end you set yourself. We can have that, but we need Abi. That’s why I’m going to carry on with my mother’s experiments.’

Emory stares at him, bewildered. ‘You can’t just keep killing people in the hopes of saving them,’ she says. ‘You have to find another way.’

‘There is no other way,’ he declares vehemently. ‘Humanity can’t change itself, history has shown that. We need an intervention.’

‘What about Thea? What will she say? You’ve done all of this to keep it from her, and now you’re going to start it all up again. You could barely hide your experiments when you had the entire island to work with. How will you manage it in the cauldron garden?’

‘We’re not going to the cauldron,’ he snorts. ‘Blackheath has everything we need, and there’s space enough for us to both work in solitude. Thea will destroy the fog, while I fix humanity. Believe me, she isn’t going to look up from her work for the next hundred years. Now, I think that’s all –’

The infirmary explodes, flames pluming out of the windows.

‘Please,’ she interrupts. ‘Tell me about Jack. Why was he down there? What did he do wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ admits Hephaestus. ‘Niema needed a few lab hands in to help with her experiments. She couldn’t risk Thea seeing villagers coming and going, so she decided the best thing was to keep some permanent staff down there, under lockdown. The only reason she chose Jack and the others was because it was easy to make them disappear.’

No sooner has the last word left his mouth than Emory has taken off in a sprint, charging down the lane leading to the school.

Roaring, he charges after her, moving surprisingly quickly considering his size.

The exercise yard is still and quiet, aside from a solitary owl hooting somewhere on the walls.

His eyes flick to every shadow, interrogating the darkness.

‘I’m not playing any more, Emory,’ he yells, losing his temper. ‘Come out now, or I’m going straight to Clara’s room and –’

Hearing rustling, he looks up in time to see Emory hurl herself off the balcony, landing heavily on his back.

Something stings his neck, his vision immediately going woozy as an empty syringe is crushed under his staggering feet.

Reaching around, he grabs Emory by the arm and hurls her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. She cries out in pain, but immediately scrabbles onto her feet, trying to back away.

His vision’s swimming, but he’s still fast. He drives the knife towards her sternum, but he’s misjudged the distance. It sinks an inch into her flesh, before Emory falls backwards, wincing in pain.

Hephaestus looms over her, readying the knife to try again. He holds it up, then wobbles before collapsing to the ground unconscious.

Getting to her feet, Emory inspects the wound. A few inches higher and he would have put the blade through her throat.

She stalks over to the sleeping giant, picking up the knife with a shaking hand.

‘This belongs to my husband,’ she says.