Would he know by then if he’d done the right thing?
5
The way home. So heavy, so light, he almost didn’t feel the pavement. Wearing one shoe. Only a sock over his other foot because it hurt too much. Somehow easier to hold the sword. The gun shoved into his belt. Head felt like a balloon stuffed with rags. Ached all over, with eruptions of pain in the places most sorely used by the Partial.
Through a haze, saw:
Partials gathered in a black squadron, marching toward a barricade manned in part by a truck weighted down by a cannon that had to be a century old at least. Two anemic mules whose ribs stuck out stood placidly behind the barricade. Along with the pale, uncertain faces of the defenders.
Gray caps approaching, at their back a huge cloud of spores, gliding and shifting, a thousand shades of green. Of red. Of blue. Suffocating the street. A last few stragglers running out before them, anonymous in their gas masks.
The huge drug mushrooms transformed. Hoods drawn down to the ground, the red surface once so soft become hard as brick. Wavering lines of green energy sparked from their minaret-like tops. Shot out toward the green towers. Gray caps stood watch from tiny circles of windows. Across the sides of each stem, unending repetitions of the symbol Shriek had carried with him on the scrap of paper. Over and over again in a kind of madness. No flow of food or drugs now. No pretense of even caring. Just a sense of waiting. For what?
He took a side street, then an alley. Crept through a courtyard and walked into an apartment complex as a shortcut. Kept his face turned to the wall. If someone wanted to kill him, they could.
Finally reached the hotel steps. The madman lay sprawled there. Someone had slit his throat. His arms were thrown out to either side as if in welcome. Just another body. Already a sly fringe of tiny green-and-white mushrooms had sprouted up through his pant legs, his shirt, his face. In another day, he’d be a fucking flower bed.
Next to the madman’s left hand Finch saw a little round carving. He picked it up. Crudely drawn, but unmistakably Stark’s face, with its sharp features. The deep-set eyes.
Rathven telling him, “You have to choose a side, Finch. Eventually you have to choose a side, even if you pretend to be neutral. Even if you think giving out information is like selling smokes or food packets.”
Through his fuzziness, a terrible thought.
Dropped the carving. Hobbled fast up the steps.
* * *
At Rathven’s door. One more time. Only it was open now. Had forced the Lewden Special into his left hand, over the bandaged finger. Held the sword in his right.
Hobbled inside, trying to focus his fading attention. Through the hallway. Entered the room ringed by bookshelves. In one chair, facing him, Bosun. He’d abandoned his custom-made revolvers. Held a fungal gun on Rathven. Her back was to him, but he could see her raised arms. The glint of her own monstrous revolver. A standoff.
“You are fucking late,” Bosun said. “We’ve been waiting for a while.”
Didn’t reply. Just walked around until he stood to the right side of them both. Bosun’s bald head was bloodstained. Other people’s blood? A yellowing bandage over his shoulder where Finch had clipped him. A nervous tic working its way across the corner of his left eye. Wore a dark shirt and darker pants, tucked into boots. Taken from a Partial? Some perverse form of camouflage?
Rathven was pale but composed. Gaze never wavering from Bosun. The battered old gun trembled only a little in her grip. A smell of sweat and fear came from both of them.
“Finch!” Relief in Rathven’s voice. That someone was there. That she wasn’t alone with the madman. “I didn’t let him in. He took me by surprise.” As if Finch might, even now, accuse her. Stress crackling into her voice as she glanced over. “But he didn’t know I had the gun…” Her look turned to dismay at his condition.
“This is my fault, Rathven,” Finch said. “I’m sorry.”
Bosun: “Your fault? Because you didn’t kill me when you had the chance?” An odd expression of sadness and contempt.
Not for lack of trying.
“No, because I ever went after you. I should’ve left you alone.”
A snort from Bosun. “I don’t believe you.”
I don’t believe myself.
The fungal gun complicated things. Even if Finch got a shot in first, Bosun’s gun could go off in an unexpected way. Infect them both.
“Where’s Stark?” he asked. Knew the answer. Had to start somewhere.
Flat, emotionless: “Gone, but you knew that. You didn’t hide him well enough. I found him all crumpled up in the alley, thinking he was someone else. Then he died. There was nothing I could do … He’s somewhere safe. For now.”
A wave of dizziness washed over Finch. Let it come, bent at his knees to stop from falling. As if he were back on the boat with Wyte, heading out to the Spit to meet Stark and Bosun for the first time.
Said: “I wasn’t trying to hide him. I didn’t want to hurt him. But he, you, kept coming at me.”
Bosun ignored that. “I came here to kill you, maybe kill her, too. I still could.” In a speculative tone. Like weighing whether to skip stones across a river or keep their smooth weight in his pocket.
“You didn’t bring your muscle.” To remind him it was two-to-one odds.
A sharp, curt laugh from Bosun. “No muscle left. They wouldn’t follow with Stark gone. Now it’s just like old times. Or would have been.”
Finch, in an even tone: “Why don’t you just leave? No one gets hurt then. Because you’ll get hurt even if you manage to take out one of us. You know that.”
Could see Rathven was having a harder and harder time holding on to the revolver. Didn’t want her to drop it. No idea what Bosun would do then. Even with Finch ready to put a bullet in his head.
Bosun looked up at Finch for a second. Nothing there but a low animal cunning. But unmoored somehow. The eyes older than before. “Here’s a deal for you: give me the memory bulb powder and then I’ll leave.” Could sense the intent.
Something in Finch rebelled at that. Wyte resurrected, even as a shadow. Along with Stark and Otto. Each haunting the other inside of Bosun’s mind. Dead but not put to rest.
“That might drive you insane, Bosun. All kinds of things might happen.”
“He’s my brother!” A shriek. A scream. Something horrible and lost rising out of Bosun. Finger twitching on the trigger. Finch saw now the incredible control Bosun was exerting over his own impulses. To kill. To strike out. Weighed against that the promise of seeing his brother again. No matter how perverse the homecoming.
Could hear Rathven’s sudden intake of breath in the aftermath.
Finch nodded. “I’ll give it to you.” Took the last pouch of powder out of his jacket. Turned sideways, gun still trained on Bosun. Tossed it toward the open door. “All you have to do to get it is leave.”
Mouth dry. Legs still shaky. Holding it together for Rathven.
Bosun: “Tell her to put her gun down. And put down your sword.”
“Rathven, put the gun down,” Finch said. Let the sword clatter out of his hand. Couldn’t risk squatting to place it on the floor. Might just fall over.
“I don’t want to put the gun down, Finch.”