Berserk (33 page)

For reasons he could not fully comprehend he picked up Natasha and ran.

He leaped over the ditch at the edge of the road and started climbing up out of the valley. The ground here was loosely landscaped, small trees spaced well apart with heathers and bracken growing in between. The going was quite easy, though his legs soon began to burn. His thighs felt as if they would swell and rip apart his jeans, but he had come to ignore that pain.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Where are you?” But the berserker girl was a bundle of skin and bones in his arms. Whatever was left inside – her personality, her tenacious life force – had gone away once more.

Cole paused and looked back down at the flaming vehicles. The fire lit up the road in both directions, but he could not make out any bodies, inside or outside the Range Rover. If some of them had gotten away they were in hiding . . . or coming after him.

He continued uphill, carrying the shell of Natasha with him. Knowing he should kill her. Feeling, somehow, that the time was not yet right.

* * *

Somebody was feeding him. Tom could smell fire and cooking flesh, feel fire of a different kind coursing through his body and melting everything he had ever known, every thought that tried to surface, in its conflagration. And yet it was the hunger that brought him around, lifting him up above the surface of unconsciousness that hid only dead depths beneath.

It felt as though he had not eaten forever, and he lapped up the food, chewing, swallowing, opening his mouth and waiting for the next morsel like a fledgling bird.
There, there,
someone said, and Tom was not sure whether they had spoken out loud or in his mind. He was uncertain of the voice. It sounded soothing but behind it lay anger, and something else. The voice sounded hollow.
There, there.

“What . . . ?” he asked, unable to finish. Something crushed down on his chest and took away all his wind, and he gasped for long seconds as he tried to draw in another breath. One came, eventually, and he kept it light, in and out slowly, thinking that with every breath his insides would break.

Meat touched his lips, he opened his mouth and gulped it down, barely chewing.

Natasha!
He tried to sit up but the weight on his chest held him down. He opened his eyes. A shadow sat at his side, wavering as a fire cast it left and right.

“He has her,” the voice said.

No!
Tom could not speak, but he thought this shadow heard him well enough.

“Sarah has gone after them, but it’s down to the girl now. She’s more than you know. This could be interesting.”

She’s just a little girl,
Tom thought, and then he found his breath. “She’s almost dead.”

The shadow shook its head. “She’s almost alive.” And then it fed him some more.

* * *

Cole could hear the berserker coming.

If he kept going at this pace he would reach the access road first, then he had a mile to run before he was back onto the main road. And even then, there was no guarantee that anyone would stop for him. Not looking like he did, bloodied and battered and carrying a corpse.

“Where are you?” he asked again, and inside he wanted her back. He wanted to feel the nearly-dead girl in his mind, because her voice gave him purpose. He so wished to hear her, because his aim was to silence that voice forever as he should have done ten years before.

You were too cruel then,
Natasha said, surprising him. He had not sensed her creeping into his mind. Perhaps she was hiding, down in his subconscious with the living shadow of his hate. Or maybe she had always been there.

“Cruelty’s childish,” he said. “I’m over it.”

Don’t you want to know?

Behind him he heard the sounds of pursuit. Feet slapping through the knee-high ferns that smothered the hillside. Hands pushing aside branches. The noises were coming closer, however hard Cole ran. And Natasha, light as she was, was slowing him down. He should shoot her here and now, three rounds to blow off her head, and then he could leave her for them to find. The final insult. They would be free again, but Natasha would be dead.

But did he want to know? Did he really? Did he to? And the answer was yes, had always been yes. That was why Sandra Francis had died at his hand, after all. There was no other reason, and he could no longer pretend that her death had been a necessity. She died because she had refused to tell him how they had made Natasha special.
need

“No,” he said, and Natasha laughed.

Cole paused. She had
laughed!
And it had not been down there in the darkness, where lay all the knowledge he denied and the desires he refused to acknowledge. Natasha had laughed out loud, perhaps because she had
seen
those desires.

“That was you!” he said.

“I . . . can . . .” She said no more. He looked down at the bundle in his arms. It had spoken.
Not dead, but dreaming,
she said in his mind,
and now I’m coming back again.

“No you’re not,” Cole said. He ran on, holding the berserker close to his chest with one hand, grabbing at thin tree trunks and hauling himself up the slope with the other. He dug his feet in, leaned forward, ignoring the pain in his thigh that felt as if his flesh were melting and running from his leg. Soon there would be only bone left but he would push on, because his cause was inbred, it was instinct. Nothing would swerve him from the path, and—

Then why aren’t I dead already? It’s because you can’t kill me. It’s because you need to know. Kill me now and I’ll always be a mystery, and you’ll never understand why you buried me alive. You killed yourself doing that, didn’t you, Mister Wolf. Didn’t you,
Cole? I know because I’ve been to that place in your mind, that underground. And I’ve talked to the shadow of you.

“What is it?” Cole shouted. He paused, shaking the girl’s corpse and hearing the crackle of weak things breaking. But she did not scream. Instead she opened her mouth and whispered, something so light that it told itself only to the dark. “What?” He leaned closer. The pistol in his belt was forgotten. The sound of pursuit grew louder, but he did not care. Now, here, he would discover a truth that had haunted him for a decade. “What?”

“They . . .”

Cole only caught the first word, so he brought her closer to him, turning his head so that she could whisper into his ear.

“They made me the mother of the future,” Natasha said. She came to life, warm and shifting, and before Cole could let go she had buried her teeth in his throat.

Cole tried to scream, but he heard it only in his mind.

* * *

Tom was being dragged through the dark. The shadow had revealed itself as Sophia as she bent before the flames to scoop him up, but she had changed. Her face was bashed and bloody, her hair matted, one side of her scalp burned and bubbled. And her eyes had changed the most. They reflected the flames and gave back only sadness, as if the fire told her unwanted truths.

“Lane?” Tom croaked.

“He’s gone,” Sophia said. “What do you think you were eating?” She held him beneath the arms and he was looking up at her face, upside down. She glanced down and a tear hit his cheek. “Dan as well. My son. I heard him screaming. He couldn’t escape the fire. That’s no way to go, not for anyone.”

“
Eating?”

“You have silver in you. We’re immune, and Lane’s flesh will help you.”

“But—”

“Please!” Sophia said, her voice breaking. “Please, just leave it. It’s done.” She grunted as she dragged him, and Tom wondered why he did not feel nauseous. Why, in fact, he still felt hungry. The red meat was heavy in his stomach, and he could sense the goodness radiating out from there.

“I was shot,” Tom said. “Cole shot me again. I felt it . . . I can feel it. Heavy, like a block of ice in my chest.” This fresh pain made his back feel like a tickle. “I should be dead.”

“It’s not easy to kill a berserker.” Sophia hauled him off the road, heading down a slope into a thicket of trees and shrubs. Hidden from the road she set him down and dropped beside him.

Tom had so many questions vying for attention that for a while he could ask nothing. The tang of meat was still rich on his tongue. His muscles burned, his veins carried fire around his body, and he was sweating so much he thought he must be seeping blood. But Sophia did not spare him a glance. He saw the burning cars reflected in her eyes, as if she were imprinting the sight on her memory.

“There is no Home, is there?” he said at last. In his pain, his mind was an oasis. And in his mind loose ends were coming together, and understanding bloomed like a blood-red rose.

Sophia shook her head. “Natasha’s mother was always so protective,” she said. “How you can protect someone by telling such lies, I never knew. We argued about it. We fought. But Natasha was her child, and really I had little say.”

“Home is where Natasha said you berserkers come from.”

Sophia chuckled, a surprisingly light sound against the continuing roar of flames. “Berserkers come from Porton Down,” she said. Tom saw the truth in her eyes, and that truth lay in her humanity. He had seen her as a raging monster and a vicious killer, but now, eyes reflecting the fire of her son’s and husband’s funeral pyre, she was as human as he.

“They made you,” he said.

Sophia nodded. “We were normal families. Lane was Army, as was Natasha’s father. They used science, and something more arcane, and they gave us our cravings. They made us monsters. And now Natasha has made you.”

Sophia stood and grabbed him beneath the arms once more. “You’ll survive. Now we have to get further away from the road. There’ll be police on their way, and more Army. We’ll be going soon.”

“Natasha?”

“She’s fine,” Sophia said. She glanced up at the emerging stars and smiled. “She’s just given Mister Wolf his answer.”

“Steven,” Tom gasped.
“Steven!
If there’s no Home, then where’s my son?”

Sophia looked over her shoulder to see where she was going, avoiding his eyes. “We buried him in a forest in Wales,” she said. “He fed us for a while.”

* * *

Cole looked up. Sarah, the image of her parents, stared down at him. She held Natasha in her arms, and in the darkness the little girl seemed to be still again.

Sarah had snatched the pistol from his belt and was pointing it at his face.

Cole opened his mouth to speak, but could not. His throat felt cold and exposed, and raising his right hand he felt the truth of that. He touched a part of himself he should never touch, and it sent a rocket of pain into his head. His hand came away slick and bloody.

“Please, you don’t have to say anything,” Sarah quipped, but she was not smiling. “I’m leaving you here. You’re well hidden. They won’t find you straight away. Too many bodies to scoop up first. Those bastards down there, and . . .” Cole saw the glitter of tears in the berserker teenager’s eyes.

The little bitch had bitten him. Torn out his throat. And now she was not only not dead, she was more alive than she had been in years. He could not see her moving, could not hear her, but he felt her, rooting around in his mind and burrowing beneath the truth of everything he believed about himself. The streets of his subconscious were growing dark, and not because he was fading away. They darkened with approaching night.

“Natasha says you might want to know a couple of things first,” Sarah said. “And I agree. It’ll help you in your choice.”

Choice?
The girl lowered the pistol.

“They made her special,” Sarah said. “That’s why we had to get away, except we wanted Natasha with us. Her father had other ideas, but once we were out there was no way we could go back for her. We thought you’d killed her, Cole. We’ve spent ten hopeless years living between the lines, moving around, surviving. And now . . . this. Thanks to you, we berserkers have a chance again.” She knelt and reached out, thrusting her fingers into Cole’s torn throat.

He tried to scream, but he could only bubble blood.

“Nasty,” Sarah said. “You should be dead. But lucky for you, they gave Natasha something no other berserker has. They made her fertile.”

Natasha spoke up then, a hoarse whisper eased somewhat by Cole’s blood in her throat. “They made me contagious.”

Sarah threw the pistol at Cole’s chest. He gasped, caught it, aimed it right back at her.

“There’s one round in the chamber,” she said. “It’ll hurt, but unless you’re a very good shot, it won’t kill me. Silver? You’re behind the times, Mister Wolf. But now you have a choice. You think you’re damned. But if you don’t mind knowing the true meaning of the word, maybe we’ll see you again one day.”

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he rasped. “I’m going to Heaven.”

“Really?” Sarah asked, scoffing. “Heaven? That’s as real as Home.” She turned and walked back down toward the burning cars, taking Natasha with her.

* * *

They left Cole out there in the night and took Tom with them, but Tom knew that they both faced the same choice. His, he supposed, was made easier, because his heart held nothing like Cole’s unreasoning hatred. And he had Natasha to take care of him, and he of her.

They hid in the valley for a while – the berserkers Sophia, Sarah and Natasha, and Tom, the man who should have been dead – and then when everyone else came in, they walked out. Police cars, fire engines, ambulances, Army trucks, other unmarked cars, they all flooded into the shallow valley, some of them pausing by the burning cars, most continuing down to the industrial estate. The flaming wrecks of the Chinooks lit the way.

As they walked through the night, none of them heard the
crack
of a pistol. But it could have been drowned in the roar of helicopters.

Sophia’s revelations about the nature of the berserkers were more of a shock to Natasha than Tom. The girl became silent, shivering against him in the small car Sarah eventually stole to drive them to safety, and however hard he tried he could not find her in his mind. She had withdrawn into herself, just as the chance had come to reach out.