The Marriage of the Living Dark

DeVore smiled. Coover thought he’d kept that secret

Not that I blame him, DeVore thought After all, a successful card player always stacks the deck in his own favour.

Trouble was, Coover was playing the wrong damn game.

And aft the while I’m slapping down stones in his territory.

DeVore laughed aloud, amused by Coover’s naivety. But what could one expect? He

had not been bred to intrigue, and though he was both cunning and greedy, Coover

was neither a subtle nor an intelligent man - not in the way that, say, he and

Shepherd were intelligent

And that, alas, would be Coover’s downfall

So Egan it was.

He sat back, surprised by how right the decision felt He would answer Coover in the affirmative, of course, for it would not serve his purpose to make an enemy of him straight away, yet he would let Egan know of his dealings with Coover -maybe send him copies of everything that passed between them, to create a sense of openness between them. And in time he would send Egan a token of his friendship.

Horton’s head, perhaps.

For now, however, he would keep it simple.

Setting down Egan’s note, he took a sheet of his own headed paper and penned a quick response. Then, satisfied that he’d got just the right tone, he folded it in half, then half again.

As he finished, he looked up, to find Emtu standing there in the doorway. “What is it, my love?””If s Horacek. He’s called from Dusseldorf. He wants to see you tonight Says if s urgent Life or death.” “Life or death, eh?” DeVore considered a moment, then shrugged. “A plot, perhaps?”

“He would say nothing more.”

“Then tell him to come. And Emtu... is it true that Ben has gone?”

She nodded. “If s true. He went an hour back.”

“How strange. Did he leave a note?”

Emtu shook her head.

“Well,” DeVore said, ‘Tm sure he had his reasons. But if he calls, put him through, even if I’m sleeping. There’s something I want to talk to him about.” She nodded then withdrew.

DeVore sat there a moment longer, then stood. Horacek, eh? The rat-boy he’d made Marshal. Now what in the gods’ names did that little creep want? A plot. I bet you it’s a plot. Some of my generals, III warrant, < want to do away with me. Or so hell daim.

DeVore smiled. Maybe one of them insulted the little monster and this was his way of paying them back - to blacken their name the same way the fire had blackened his face.

If so, he would play along ... this time. But Horacek was running out of rope. Daniel might have fled to the Wilds, but there’d be another boy who’d fit the bill And he, in time, would replace the odious Horacek. For there were always replacements: an endless line of them, hungry to serve. The messenger waited just outside the door. “Here,” he said. “Take this to Egan’s man. You know where.”

“Master!” The man took the folded note and bowed low, then backed away, hastening to run his errand.

Servants, everywhere he looked servants. Even Emtu, for all she looked like Emily Ascher, was but a servant - a plaything.

And that, more than anything, was why he wanted the real Emily, alive. Because she had defied him. For the very fact that she had refused to serve him, as others had always served.

And when he had her ... what then? He did not know. Indeed, he had never known.

Yet he would have her. In time. Yes, everything would come to him in time.

“Well?” Daniel asked after an awkward silence. “What do you want to know?”

“What if s like in there?”

“Like?” He gave a tiny laugh, then looked down, his face sober. “You must know what if s like, surely?”

Emily watched him, her eyes noting every nuance of his body language. She could see that even talking about this was painful, but she needed to know. She needed as complete a picture of what DeVore was doing as she could get if she was going to come up with a half-decent strategy.

“Ifs different,” he said. “I mean, not just different, but different. When you go in through those gates if s as if you were in another universe entirely. Even the sky overhead seems different. And the boys ... the boys are like machines. Jou chi ch’i, the guards call them sometimes.”

“I know the term,” Emily said. “Meat machines.” “Right,” Daniel said. “But if s like everything in there’s deliberately reducing the boys to that state. To the suppression of the instinct of decency.” Emily sat back a little, surprised to hear him say that Surprised not by the idea so much as the way he articulated it “Daniel, can you read?” He hesitated, then nodded.

“And you learned that in the camp?”

“No.” He looked down, the smallest hint of vulnerability in the gesture suggesting to Emily that she had hit upon something. “Then how ...?”

She stopped, understanding coming to her. Was that why Daniel was different from the rest?

“Daniel... were you quite old when you first went to the camps?””Older than most” She waited, but he would not go on, nor would he look at her. “Then you knew your parents?”

He hesitated, then gave the tiniest of nods.

Emily closed her eyes, wondering if she should really push this. She knew from her own experience how tender such wounds were and how they never really healed, for all the care - all the mending - one lavished on them. She looked at him again, seeing at once how he held himself, his shoulders set, as if to fend off the whole world.

No wonder he’s fucked up.

But then they were all fucked up, those who lived in DeVore’s world. There was no normality in his universe.

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“If s okay.”

‘The camps ...”

He looked up suddenly, the hurt in his eyes surprising her. “I’ve done things - terrible things - simply to survive. Things that I can’t believe I was capable of doing. But every time it was as if I hurt myself. Every time it was a ... a violation.”

Emily saw how he shuddered and knew that it was no exaggeration. She could imagine it A young, sensitive child, torn from a loving home environment and thrown into a living hell. It was a wonder he was even half sane. “And Eden?”

Daniel laughed, then looked at her. “They never understood. Five times they watched me and they never once saw it” “Saw what?”

“They thought I was brave, but it was easy in there compared to the camps. I didn’t have to feel, you see. I could exist on a single level. No complications. I wasn’t... torn.”

She nodded. So torn, in fact, that he had cut into his own head to get out DeVore’s wire.

“7 think you’re brave. But not for the reasons they’d think you brave. I think you had to be brave simply to get here, to this moment.” “What do you mean?”

“To come through and still be able to feel, to still be able to make real choices about what you should and shouldn’t do. That must have taken a great deal of courage. Almost your whole store, I’d say.” He looked down. “I don’t know.” But she could see his eyes were moist now. Something in him had relaxed - something he had kept clenched all these long years was finally untensing in him.

Emily stood, then went round the desk.

“Stand up,” she said gently, “then turn around to face me.” Daniel stood, then turned, facing her, the uncertainty in his eyes now so marked, so prominent, that she knew she had been right “Here,” she said, stepping close and embracing him, mothering him, her arms tight about him. “Come here, my darling boy.”

“So?” DeVore said, watching his Marshal cross the room then snap to attention before him. “What is it that”s so important?”

Horacek held out an official scroll canister, offering it to DeVore. “I intercepted this, Master.”

DeVore took it lazily, making no attempt to remove the scrolled message from within. “Let me guess. From Horton to my generals.” “To General Lodge,” Horacek said, his eyes registering surprise. “You knew?”

DeVore smiled. “Of course I knew. So what are you going to do about it?”

“Arrest him?”

“And torture him, no doubt?”

“I...” Horacek hesitated, then. “Forgive me, Master, but is something wrong?” “No, Horacek Everything’s exactiy as I thought. If s rather reassuring, actually.”

“Reassuring? But they were planning to kill you, Master.” “Kill me?” DeVore roared with laughter. “You really think that’s possible, Josef?”

Horacek blinked. There was something strange about his Master’s manner and he could not work out what it was.

“Take this, for instance,” DeVore said, lifting the scroll canister slightly.

“It seems innocent enough, neh? Yet what better way to smuggle a weapon in.”

“Master?”

“Everyone who comes into my presence is searched ... for weapons. But what if some innocent-looking thing - like this -was actually a weapon. A bomb, perhaps, or a means of poisoning my blood. Why, I might already be dying.” Horacek’s mouth opened in astonishment.

“Only it wouldn’t be possible,” DeVore went on, “You see, I wear special skin-tight gloves to protect against such a possibility. And as for bombs, why this whole room could be destroyed and I would not be touched.” “But, Master ...”

DeVore’s smile was steady now. “Do you wish me dead, Horacek? Speak freely now.

You may speak freely.”

“No, Master. You know I’d give up my life for you!”

“Go on then ...”

“What?”

“Here,” DeVore said, taking the knife from his belt and holding it out to him.

“Prove your loyalty, Josef. Slit your throat”

Horacek stared at the knife in horror, but made no move to take it Slowly DeVore’s smile changed into a snarl. “Take it!” he barked, jerking forward so that the hilt of the knife brushed against Horacek’s knuckles. Horacek took a step backward. His eyes met DeVore’s briefly, then looked about him, like a cornered rat about to run.

“You heard me,” DeVore said, beginning to enjoy the game. “I said, take the knife. I order you to slit your own throat” A shiver went through Horacek’s frame, then his expression changed, becoming a snarl that mirrored DeVore’s owa Snatching the knife, he crouched, facing DeVore.

“Ah...” DeVore said, relaxing back into his seat. “And so we come right down to it, neh? The truth. You hate my guts, don’t you, Josef? And if you could you’d stick that between my ribs, wouldn’t you?”

Horacek’s eyes flared, then, with a sudden little movement he thrust the knife at DeVore, aiming for his heart Yet even as he did, the air about DeVore seemed to shimmer and the knife-blade melted like smoke. Horacek cried out, then sank to his knees, clutching his damaged hand. He had lost the tips of all four fingers down to the first knuckle, but there was no blood. They had been neatly cauterised.

He stared at his hand a moment longer, then looked up at DeVore, expecting to die. But DeVore had other ideas.

“Get out,” DeVore said. “Get out before I kick you out” Horacek blinked, then began to back away.

“Oh, and Josef... send General Lodge to see me. It seems I need a new Marshal.”

Horton made to pass Lin Chao, but Lin Chao blocked his way.

“Lin Chao? What’s happening?”

Qiao’s face was stern. “You must turn back, Shih Horton.” There was a flicker of suspicion in Horton’s eyes. “But I need to go this way, Lin Chao. I am expected, at the labs.”

Again he tried to step past Lin Chao, but again Chao blocked him off. “I am afraid that is not possible, SMi Horton. The laboratories are out of bounds for the time being.”

“Whaf s going on?” Warning bells were clearly sounding in Horton’s head.

“We are merely implementing a decision.”

Horton narrowed his eyes. “What decision?”

“To destroy the powders.”

Horton’s face went ashen. Then, with a bellow of rage, he tried to shove Lin Chao out of the way, but Chao, anticipating his response, stepped back and fended him off.

Drawing his sidearm, he levelled it at Horton’s chest “Go back to your rooms, SMh Horton. I will not ask you a second time. This is our affair, not yours.” Horton glared at him, openly hostile now. “You’ll regret this, you Chink bastard!”

Qiao’s eyes widened, but he did not respond to the insult “So if s true.”

“True?” Horton stared at him sneeringly.

‘The Campaign for Racial Purity.”

Horton laughed. “You bet your fucking life it was.”

Chao stared at the man, feeling a cold hatred, then gestured with his gun. “Go.

Now. Before I shoot your fucking bollocks off!”

Emily was still talking to Daniel when Lin Chao burst in.

“You’d better come. Horton’s got into the labs. Him and four of his thugs.”

She stood, alarmed. “Aiya\ What happened?”

Chao shrugged. “I’m not sure. I stopped him earlier, but he must have gone back and got his men. It looks like they went through the west tunnels.” “Anyone hurt?”

Chao grimaced, then nodded. “They’ve killed young Cho.” Emily’s face creased with pain. For a moment she rested her weight on her arms, then, nodding to herself, she straightened up again. “Okay. We need to play this carefully. Have they got into the inner labs yet?” “We don’t know. But I can’t get through to Tybor.”

“How far along was he?”

“When I left him he’d only just begun. I’d say he had three or four hours work incinerating it all.”

Emily looked to Daniel. “I’m sorry, Daniel. We’ll have to finish this later.”

Daniel nodded. “Can I come along?”

“It might be best.. .”Then, changing her mind, “Okay. But don’t do anything rash.”

Daniel smiled, then stood. “I won’t”

It was bad. Horton couldn’t come out - not without having to come through them - but equally they couldn’t get in. Not unless Horton let them in. Whaf s more, he had Tybor.

Emily stared up at the screen, seeing how Tybor tried not to flinch as Horton tightened the loop of cord about his throat, and swore to herself that she would kill the man when this was over.

“What do you want?”

“You know what I want,” Horton answered her, a cockiness in his manner now; all pretence at politeness shed like a skin. “I want you to refuel my cruiser, then I want a safe passage out of here.”

“I can’t do that”

Horton smiled sourly. “I think you can.”

“I can’t let you take that stuff away.”

“No? Then how about if I open a packet or two and sprinkle it into your air-conditioning system.”

“I’ll shut it down.”

“Then you’ll all suffocate.”

“Eventually. But that’ll get you nowhere, will it?”

There was a flicker of irritation in Horton’s eyes. Again he tightened the cord.

“I’ll kill him,” he said.

Emily nodded, her eyes meeting Tybor’s, understanding in them. “Tybor knows the risks.”

“You’re bluffing.”

“I was never more serious. I’d rather we all died than you took a speck of that stuff out of here.”

Horton’s expression slowly changed. It was clear he couldn’t comprehend the notion that someone would rather sacrifice themselves than make a deal. “You are bluffing,” he said, an ugly grin appearing on his face. “And I’m going to call your bluff right now.”

Emily looked down, unable to watch. She heard Lin Chao, just behind her, gasp then cry out. Daniel, she saw, had clenched both fists. There was an awful noise, somewhere between a sigh and a choked swallowing sound, and then she heard the huge body fall.

Dead, she told herself. That bastard Horton’s dead.

“Lin Chao,” she said very quietly, so Horton would not hear, “cut off the air.” As Lin Chao turned away, she looked to Daniel. The boy was watching the screen, his eyes narrowed. Noting he was being watched he glanced at Emily, something in his eyes.

What is it? she mouthed.

He stepped back, out of view of the overhead camera. Let me take him, he mouthed back. I can do it.

Emily looked back at the screen. Horton had stepped back. Now he was snarling up at the screen.

“Well?” he said. “Are you going to let us go, or are you going to die? You’d better make your minds up. Time’s running out.” “Okay,” she said, letting a false resignation sound in her voice. “You’ve got your cruiser. Give us fifteen minutes.”

“You’ve got twelve,” Horton said. “Now move!”

Emily nodded, then turned away as the screen blanked. “Okay,” she said, looking to Daniel. “He’s yours.”

Horton looked about him at his men, then nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now lef s see those bastard Chinks try and trick us!”

They had taped packets all over themselves, covering their chests and backs and the tops and backs of their heads. Horton grinned, then picked up his rifle and hung it by the strap over his shoulder. It was like wearing a bomb. The rebels didn’t dare shoot for fear of splitting open one of the packets. But as a precaution, Horton had saved one packet, which he now picked up, holding it in his left hand, then unsheathed his hunting knife One wrong move and they’d all be dead.

But there weren’t going to be any wrong moves.

“Jeffers? Is the cruiser ready?” he asked, speaking into the button mike on his lapel.

“Ready and fuelled,” came the reply.

His man. One of two left in the craft

“Have they backed off?”

There was a pause, then Jeffers answered again. “Looks like it There’s no one in sight” “Good.” He turned, checking his men were ready, then gave the thumbs up signal.

“Okay. We’re coming out,”

Lin Sung leaned forward, putting his left hand over the mike, then smiled at the pilot, pressing the gun a little harder into the man’s temples. “Good boy, Jeffers. Now start the engines.”

The corridor was clear. There were two doors leading off, but both were closed. “Check those out,” Horton said, gesturing to two of his men. “If there’s anyone inside, shoot the fuckers.”

They hurried off. A moment later a head popped round the first doorway. ‘If s clear.”

“And this one,” a second voice came back as its owner reappeared. “Good.” But Horton was still wary. The woman had capitulated too quickly for his liking. Not that she had any choice, but...

“Up to the end,” he said, sending the two forward. “Take up position in the next corridor.”

He was used to this. Many a time they’d fought the Chinks, corridor by corridor in the old City. Yes, and winkled the little fuckers out, too. He smiled at the memory.

Yeah, and maybe I’ll leave our friends here a tittle something to remember me by.

Or, better yet, give DeVore a little something. A grid reference, maybe.

Not that his patrols wouldn’t be able to follow a trail of smoke. Getting the thumbs up, he hurried forward, then sent his men on again, commando-style, as they’d been trained, back in the Sons. He had the map of the tunnels in his head. Up ahead they turned sharply left, then climbed a set of concrete steps and out, onto the roof. “Jeffers? All clear up there?” he asked, speaking into the lapel mike once again.

“All clear,” came the answer.

So far so good. But just in case ...”Ascher? You listening to me, woman?”

There was a pause, then, “I can hear you.”

“You ain’t gonna try any tricks now are you? Because if you are...”

“I don’t like you, Horton, but I’m not stupid.” Horton grinned, then gestured to his men to move on to the next turn. “Good, because I’ve got a packet right here in my hand and if you try anything ...” “As I said, I’m not stupid.”

“Good. Ve-ry good.”

He glanced back down the corridor behind him, listening, then nodded to himself.

Coover would pay him well for this little lot; maybe even give him a command.