Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (16 page)

A feast had been prepared in their honour. Newquay’s Moon was prosperous even for the South-West, and James couldn’t help boggling at the great bowls of Old World tinned goods and preserves: peaches in syrup, hearts of palm, dates, beef jerky, beans, corned beef. After almost twenty years since the End, even the hardiest of preserved foods were beginning to foul, but millions of tonnes still littered the ruined cities, and so the plenty had yet to pass. Besides that, there were great volumes of the truly imperishable goods left behind by their ancestors: hard liquor, sugar, salt, pickles, corn, and entire flagons of honey. There were also small mountains of the Moon’s crops: fresh grapes from the orchards, tea, apples, fresh baked bread, potatoes, pies, gravy, and a few kegs of cider.

“What do you think, young master?” Malverston boomed at James as they sat at the head table, raised above the rest of the hall, such that they could see every nook.

James did his best to keep his smile uniform. “It’s very generous, Mayor. Thank you for this honour.”

They had been treated to such things before, but none as egregious as this. There was simply too much. There was no doubting more than half would be wasted, and somebody, somewhere not far away, would go hungry because of it, perhaps for weeks. The whole town had been ‘invited,’ and more than a few looked intrigued and unsettled to enter Malverston’s lair of finery and excess. They were still swaddled in ecstasy and frantic conversation for now, but later, once Alex and James were gone, James suspected many would see the darker side of their mayor emerge with a vengeance.

Malverston waved a hand dismissively and clapped a hand against James’s back, such that he slopped cider all over the tablecloth. “Think nothing of it, my boy. It’s a small price to pay for a man of my means, as I’m sure you’re aware. It’s the least I can do for those who will bring such prosperity to this place.” He lowered his voice, folding several kilograms of arm fat over James’s shoulder as he drew him into a confidential muttering. “Perhaps all this mumbo jumbo your master’s peddling about the magic of books and sacred destinies can lift us all out of the dirt, huh? Maybe we can stop being bit players in a world that’s being swallowed up fast. It’s a land grab, these days, my boy—survival of the fittest never played so big a part in world affairs as right now. Between the two of us, I was never meant to be small fry. If you play your cards right, we could end up very close indeed.” He shovelled a handful of grapes into his mouth. Juice running down his masticating chops, he gestured to the hall at large. “After all, a time will come when I can’t manage my districts on my own. I’ll need trusted friends to help me keep the peace, and keep people where they belong.”

I should drown you in your goblet right now, for the good of all these people, James thought. The gross overabundance of food dug at him like a hidden blade.

Smothering the grating voice in his head, he raised his own glass. “I look forward to our future together, Mayor.”

“Please, George. Call me George! We’re going to the best of friends, after all, closer even than to your master—ah, here he comes, now! Mr Cain, you honour us.”

Alex—or, rather,
Alexander
, appeared at the table, dressed in the same style of simple white robe that James had donned for the occasion. “Thank you, Mayor,” he said. James’s instincts had been right to recognise him as Alexander tonight; his chin was angled skyward, his eyes glazed, his countenance reserved. In times like these, he wasn’t himself. He was what some were coming to call the Messiah.

And in his shadow, James enjoyed a title of his own, bathed in the reflected radiance of
the
Cain; James was the Chosen One. Alexander told his story wherever he went. Every speech, every public appearance, James was thrust forward into the limelight of Alexander’s stories of what was to come. For one day those who survived the End would be dead and gone, and their children would be left behind. And James would be carrying the torch.

Now that Newquay’s Moon was with them, they could use it as a hub in the South-West, and coordinate their forays from there. Malverston’s lands, previously closed off to outsiders, would be free for them to scour for countless hidden cultural artefacts and scraps of technology. And, of course, they now stood a chance at saving all the books rotting in baths of mildew in the land’s surviving libraries. But for all that, had Alex really signed a deal with this devil?

Sometimes, behind all his certainty of the mission, James had his doubts. Sometimes, Alex lost himself in Alexander, and forgot the very people he was trying to save.

Malverston glugged the full height of his flagon—a gratuitous pewter tankard befitting his penchant for the theatrical—with sticky runoff dripping from the knotted tendrils of his beard. He was a good way through his fourth serving before he slammed his fist upon the table, sending plates and bowls trembling an inch into the air, and roared, “Girls!”

A strain fell over the continued buzz in the hall, and James felt hundreds of gazes fix glances at him and the others at the head table. Then the slow beat of a drum kicked up, and a chorus of jingling bells heralded the arrival of a procession of women from a side door. Newquay’s Moon was a healthy community, but it was still a small place, and young women were few and far between. But Malverston and his men were too drunk to much care about the gnarled, work-hardened hands of the orchard pickers; their lustful roars filled the hall, nonetheless.

James’s stomach tied in knots at the sight of Beth Tarbuck’s gyrating hips. Her face was obscured by a cyan veil just like the others, but there was no mistaking her figure, nor the unmistakable grace afforded to her by her youth compared to the other dancers. In any case, he had spent enough time admiring her form from afar to have known it anywhere. They paraded around the hall for a while, sitting in men’s laps and twirling their hair, laughing and giggling despite the poorly concealed malice in their eyes, slowly making their way forwards.

Soon they were pivoting and undulating in a throng before the head table. Every eye fixed Malverston with a seductive glare. The mayor raised his goblet and gave a gargling wolf whistle, oblivious to the sneering lips that lay beneath those lusty gazes. James was pretty certain none of them were dancing for their own pleasure; most likely some unfortunate accident would have befallen their families had they had refused.

The drumbeat built to a crescendo and then the dance broke. Most townsfolk returned uncomfortably to their meals, and the dancers took to wandering the hall, entertaining the drunkest single menfolk with a laborious sense of duty about them, much to the tight-lipped chagrin of the women who had been spared public humiliation.

James glanced at Alex, who had watched proceedings with a vacant, reserved expression. It was all he could do to emulate the same plainness, and ignore the angry fire in his gut. He drank frequently, whenever a man groped or poked; each predatory cackle that rang out driving his teeth harder together. He suppressed a grunt when Malverston nudged him with a boisterous wink. “My boy, I see you eyein’ up that one,” he slurred. “What’s up, got the lover’s nuts?”

James blinked and jerked his gaze away from Beth. He usually made a habit of being discreet—a necessity in politically charged pleasantries such as this—but in those last few moments, he had been staring.

Malverston bawled and slapped his knee in jubilation, landing spittle across James’s face in a fine spray. “No sense being shy about instinct, son. Hunger like that shows you’re a man. It’s only natural. In some ways, all this apocalypse business was a godsend, allowed a little balance to come back to the world. You’re too young to know anything much about before—”

I’ve forgotten more about it than you’ll ever know, you sack of lard. They’re called books.

—“but back then, there were all kinds of pansies with soft hands and expensive suits running the show, passing all kinds of mollycoddling laws. Women had the same place as men or close to it—they would’ve taken over completely, in time, I have no doubt—and all kinds of
defective
people with
conditions
were given taxpayers’ money to keep them breathing. Backward, unjust nonsense.” He gestured to the dancing women, his red cheeks glowing with inebriation. “Now, natural order has been restored. Don’t you agree, Master Chadwick?”

James glanced at Alexander, seated a few chairs away, not only out of earshot but engaged in conversation with several of the dirty old men Malverston had named his advisors. He ground his teeth a little tighter. There was a lot riding on keeping the peace with the Moon. This alliance would save them years of struggling to win over all the towns and tradesmen between here and Land’s End.

But right now, it was hard to believe it was worth it. And what kind of power were they putting in the hands of this monster?

James resisted the urge to grind the gout-ridden brute into his platter of fresh baked delicatessen and hold it there until the twitching had stopped.

“Yes,” he said. The word seemed to lacerate his throat as he forced it out. “Of course. Natural order.”

“I thought so. I’ve got a nose for good character.” He tapped his bulbous, crimson schnoz. His gaze grew sly. “So you like the girl?”

James allowed his gaze to return to Beth, but made a point to keep his expression blank. “She’s all right.”

Beth and the others were making a long, slow pass of the head table, having extricated themselves from the clutches of the town’s drunken scoundrels—though more than a few had been doused with sticky beer, and a couple sported knocks and scrapes that would soon blossom into handsome bruises.

“All right? My son, she’s a stunner! Just ripened, fresh from the vine. One of my most prized assets.” Malverston lurched forward with a vigour that seemed impossible for such a gluttonous wretch, and seized Beth Tarbuck by the hem of her dress. The other dancers flashed on by, their faces blank as James’s, but for a moment, the entire hall stiffened. Beth flew into the waiting crook of his elbow, and he whirled her around to face James, pressing her cheek up against his.

They both looked upon James, Malverston’s face twisted into a gaudy sneer. Beth’s eyes glittered with disgust, having for a moment become murderous marbles set deep in her skull. Then, she transformed into a voluptuous vixen and had looped her arm over the mayor’s shoulder, turning her side askance to plant a wet kiss on his neck. She purred as one of his paws gripped her buttocks.

“What do you think, Chadwick? Not bad, eh? All this is the gravy that comes with seizing opportunity.” He turned to her face, which looked almost too pink. James had never seen her in makeup before, let alone freshly bathed. He felt as though he could fall through some wall between reality and illusion if he looked at her for too long. Malverston’s fat, ugly tongue snaked the entire length of her cheek, leaving a slimy trail from her chin to her hairline. “The fruits of hard labour are the most delicious,” he muttered.

James’s stomach turned over. Under the table, his hand twitched towards the pistol holstered at his belt. His hand was already on its way towards the safety catch when she shook her head. It was only a fraction, coupled with a flicker in her gaze, but it was there. Then she was purring once more, tracing her fingers along the nape of the mayor’s neck as she prowled behind him, dragging her shining curtain of hair across his lap, his chest, across his face.

“She has spirit, this one,” he said. He lurched forward once more and grabbed her by the throat, hauling her around to face him once more. “Almost has me forgetting to watch my back sometimes.”

James rose an inch from his chair before he caught another warning glance. This time it came from Alexander, who seemed to finally have caught onto what was going on. He was nodding to the hissing husks that were Malverston’s advisors, who clustered around him as though they could absorb his brilliance if they drew close enough, but still he beamed a warning in James’s direction.

Beth gasped as she was hauled around between Malverston’s knees, clasping at the knuckles of the enormous fist wrapped under her jaw. She choked out a seductive giggle. “Finally got your attention, m’lord? A girl could think she was losing her touch.”

Malverston bared his teeth, running a finger along the exposed flesh of her flat belly where her dress had ridden up. “Creatures like this one are the last forbidden fruits in this world, Chadwick. They keen and grin, they give you a hell of a run between the sheets, but all the while you’re a hair’s breadth away from being stuck in the eye with a hairpin.”

Beth’s face paled, yet still she maintained her coquettish grin, running her finger over his chest. “What can I say? Men who can take a little play are hard to find. Real men.”

Malverston gave a guttural growl. “Any man who looked me in the eye like this one would have eaten lead a long time ago. But these women, Chadwick, you just can’t bring yourself to put them out of their misery. They’re all backwards, diseased, rotten seed of the lowest families, but here I am bringing them into my house. Women, Chadwick. Women will be the end of us all.” He dropped his fist, and Beth crumpled to the floor, rolling down the platform steps and landing in a heap of tussled hair and torn gown. She rose up gasping, red faced with bloodshot eyes, panting and wheezing.

Malverston waved his hand, and the drumming came to an immediate stop. The other dancers scrabbled forward and helped Beth to her feet before filing away through the side doors, leaving the rest of the townspeople still seated, forcibly maintaining the veil of good cheer, eating and drinking.

Malverston relaxed back and nodded to Alexander. “My apologies, those were bordering on private affairs. But I’m overwhelmed sometimes. All these people leaning on me to guide them, sometimes I can get a little worked up. You understand, of course, leader to leader?”

“Of course, Mayor,” Alexander said. There wasn’t a mote of contempt in his tone. “We all have our foibles.”

“Foibles!” Malverston said. “Indeed, indeed. Mine is women, to be sure.” His face darkened and he relaxed back so that only James could hear him. “Especially that one. I’d kill her if I didn’t love her so much.” Then he was smiling, stuffing pastry into his mouth and drawing James into a companionable embrace. “Now, young master, tell me, what’s it really like, being a creature of destiny? What’s it like living under the great Alexander Cain?”