Christmas Carol (34 page)

Out of the armored vehicles leapt dozens of
men, reinforcements for the few civil guards who were still
standing. The new arrivals fanned out across the square, shooting
as they went. Amid the confusion, the smoke, the cries of the
wounded and the shouted orders, an all-too-familiar figure in a
plain brown uniform stepped down from the lead vehicle as coolly as
if he were once again leaving a limousine to attend a fashionable
party.

“Commander Drum.” Carol felt a cold hand
tighten around her heart. “Pen, come
on
. Move it, will
you?”

“I can’t. My legs—too weak.” Pen fell to her
knees. “Leave me. Take shelter, Car. You, too, Jo.”

“Are you crazy?” Carol screamed at her. “We
aren’t going anywhere without you.” She cast one more quick look in
the direction of Commander Drum, and then she tried to hoist Pen to
her feet.

“I can’t.” Pen’s voice was growing fainter.
“My entire left side is numb.”

“Al warned us the guards are using a new kind
of bullet in their side-arms,” said Jo, talking fast. “According to
him, it inflicts paralysis as well as a wound. Pen, we will have to
carry you.”

“No! Leave me, please, Jo. I can’t help the
revolt, but you and Car can.”

“Shut up, Pen. We aren’t going to leave you.”
Carol still had her arm around Pen and now Jo supported Pen’s other
side.

“We’ll never get her down those steps to the
house,” Jo panted as they dragged Pen along. “But Nik and Bas have
taken shelter, so let’s join them.”

The men were hunkered down behind a pile of
large stone blocks. As Carol and Jo dragged Pen toward them, Carol
saw Al race across the square, dodging the guards’ fire all the
way. He leapt over the stones to join Nik and Bas. Just as he took
cover, two of the armored vehicles exploded into pieces.

“Did you see that?” Carol yelled into Pen’s
ear. “Al is all right. You’ll be with him in just a minute.”

Pen did not answer. She was by now nearly a
dead weight, unable to help herself, but Nik had seen the women. At
once he left the safety of the stones to run toward them.

“One of those new paralyzing bullets got
her,” Jo explained. “I don’t know if shell recover or not.”

“You two get behind the stones,” Nik ordered,
taking his sister into his arms.

Staying as close to the ground as they could,
they all ran for the cover of the stones. Pen cried out when Nik
laid her down, then was still. Now it was Al’s turn to hold her. He
knelt, rocking her, whispering what comforting words he could.

“We can’t stay here,” Nik said. “Al, what
about those other two vehicles?”

“They should blow at any minute,” Al said.
“When they do, I’ll take advantage of the confusion to carry Pen
into the house. Sorry for the delay on the vehicles, but I’m not as
clever at demolition work as Luc was.”

“He’s dead,” Jo said. It wasn’t a question,
just a bleak statement of fact.

Al nodded. “When the tree went up, Luc went,
too. He couldn’t get away in time.” Even as Al spoke, two loud
explosions rent the air.

“That will be the other two vehicles,” Al
said to Nik. He picked up Pen, holding her close. “Cover me till I
get her inside,” he said, and started for the steps leading down to
the servants’ entrance and the familiar kitchen.

Al had not gone three steps before a loud
buzzing noise sounded. With a cry of pain, Al stopped abruptly,
dropping Pen. Al fell next to her, and they lay there like two
inert bundles of rags.

“Pen! No!” Heedless of the danger to his own
life, Nik was out of the shelter of the stones, kneeling next to
his sister.

To Carol’s eyes, what happened next happened
in terrifying slow motion. She went to Nik, to crouch beside him
and try to help him drag his sister to the steps that led to safety
within Marlowe House. Jo and Bas stood with their backs to Nik,
Carol, and Pen, firing away at the guards who were trying to kill
all five of them.

Al was dead; Carol could tell that much
without touching him. But she did not have time, even in slow
motion, to think about Al’s fate. They had to get Pen away to
safety, for she could not help herself.

Nik was pulling Pen into his arms, lifting
her, preparing to make a dash for the steps, when Carol heard Jo
scream. Turning, she saw Jo go down on one knee and then onto her
face, while Bas fired at the man who had shot his love. Then Bas
was lying across Jo’s body, his leg so badly wounded that Carol
wondered if he would ever walk again. Carol looked up from Bas and
Jo to meet the eyes of their opponent.. . and the hair at the back
of her neck rose in terror.

Commander Drum’s cold, impersonal glance
skimmed past Carol, not recognizing her because of the knitted mask
she still wore, disregarding her in favor of Nik and the burden he
held. Nik could not defend himself, not with Pen lying helpless in
his arms. Carol saw the flash of deadly amusement in Drum’s dark,
shadowed eyes, and knew he was going to kill both Nik and Pen with
one blast from the long, gray metal weapon he held so carelessly in
his right hand.

Never had Carol imagined that anyone could
enjoy the act of killing but, watching Commander Drum, she could
not deny he was relishing the thought of what he was about to do.
Still in slow motion, the dreadful scene unfolded with terrible
deliberation.

Apparently understanding that there was no
time in which to escape, Nik did the only thing he could. He turned
away from Commander Drum. As he turned, he bent over to shield
Pen’s body with his own and thus take the full force of the blast
himself. Commander Drum lifted his weapon, taking slow, careful
aim.

Nik
. He was going to kill Nik. Her
love. Her only love. And Pen, her sister and friend.

Carol did not have to think about what she
was going to do next. A deadly joy blossomed in her heart. What she
did, she did gladly, willingly, out of a pure and compelling love
and a belief that Nik and Pen deserved to live.

“Stop!” Carol leapt forward, placing herself
squarely between Nik and Commander Drum. She spread her arms wide
in a protective gesture. If he wanted to kill Nik and Pen, Drum was
going to have to go through her body first. “I won’t let you do
this! You must stop!”

Commander Drum’s eyebrows went up, but at
first he showed no other sign of surprise at her action. Then he
looked right into Carol’s eyes and she watched the slow light of
recognition dawn in him.

Carol understood at last why the two of them
had been fated to meet in this particular time … and knew that
Commander Drum understood it, too.

“So,” Drum said softly, almost tenderly. “My
nemesis. I know you of old. But you will not haunt me any
longer.”

“Car!”

Carol heard Nik’s desperate warning shout.
She saw the long, slow flame erupt from Commander Drum’s weapon and
make its leisurely way toward her. And in Drum’s cold eyes she saw
her own death, watching her.

From behind Commander Drum, Bas struggled to
a half-sitting position and fired his stunner. Drum went down,
sinking to the pavement in a peculiarly graceful paralysis. Bas
collapsed again, his eyes on Carol.

There was a hot, grinding pain in Carol’s
chest. She could not breathe, and the ground came up to meet her
with such a jolting shock it tore a cry of anguish from her
lips.

With the sound of her own scream, the slow
motion stopped. Normal speed resumed, and suddenly everything was
happening much too fast. Nik turned her over, holding her. When
Carol’s head fell back across his arm, she saw the still-paralyzed
Pen weeping silent tears… and a circle of poorly clad people— Nik’s
friends joined with allies from other rebel groups—all standing
shoulder to shoulder facing outward toward the civil guards,
defending this little space where she lay in Nik’s arms …. She
could hear shouts and screams in the background, and the continuing
sound of weapons fire.

“Car.” Nik’s face was wet, though it was not
raining. “Car, why did you do it? I’d far rather it was me. How can
I live without you?”

Still she could not get her breath, and the
pain in her chest would not go away. There was a hot, sticky fluid
pouring down her left side, but she was unable to stretch out her
hand to reach beneath her raincoat to discover what it was.

“Nik.” It was so difficult to speak. Nik’s
face was growing blurry, in a way she had seen once before … long
ago.

“Car—Car, my love.” Nik’s voice sounded so
broken and desperate that she wanted to put her arms around him and
tell him everything was going to be all right. But she could not
move. “Car, don’t leave me!”

“I love you.” She wasn’t sure he heard her.
There was a roaring noise that blotted out mere voices, and there
was a sickening darkness enveloping her.

Carol felt as though she were being dragged
away to another place, but she had not heard Nik shout an order for
her to be moved. And the pain … never had she experienced such
fiery, lancing pain.

She could bear the pain. It would not last
for long, and Nik and Pen were still alive. That was what really
mattered, not her own temporary discomfort. Her lungs ached for the
air she could no longer draw into them. Carol struggled to breathe
and found she still could not.

The encroaching blackness grew closer and
heavier, pressing down on her, driving the life out of her
pain-wracked body. The last thing she heard was Nik’s howl of
agonized loss as his dream of love with Carol turned into a reality
more devastating than any nightmare could ever be.

“
Car
!
Noooo
!”

Noel.

London, 1993
.

“Be careful,” warned Lady Augusta, “or you
will trip and fall.”

“Where? … what?” Carol stared into thick fog.
There were pale halos around the street lamps, and the lights on
the Christmas tree sent forth a ghostly, multicolored glow. “I’m
still in the square. But it’s so quiet. What has happened to the
weapons fire? And where are the others?”

“Your former companions remain in their own
time.” The words came out of the darkness. Carol could just barely
see Lady Augusta as a slightly more distinct shape than the
formless, shifting fog.

“Nik,” Carol cried. “Pen. The others. What
happened to them?” She was beginning to understand that she was not
dead. Though she had willingly given up her life, . she had been
returned to the world in which she belonged. The change had been so
abrupt that now she could not stop thinking about those whom she
had left behind. Or was it left ahead? She was too confused to
reason through the answer to that question, and Lady Augusta’s
response only added to Carol’s distress.

“Do you mean, what
will
happen to
them?” asked Lady Augusta. “Are you certain you want to know?”

“Of course I want to know! I love them! Stop
playing tricks on me and tell me the truth for once.”

“If you wish, I will let you see for yourself
what their future will be.”

“Yes. Show me.” Carol placed a hand on her
chest where the fatal wound had been. There was no wound now, and
no flow of blood. Her raincoat was intact. Yet beneath her hand her
heart beat at an alarming rate, and a terrible pain still lingered
in the form of a rending sensation of loss.

“Since you desire it so passionately,” said
Lady Augusta, “I will vouchsafe one last vision to you. Prepare
yourself, Carol.”

There was a movement in the fog, and once
more Carol was plunged into a dizzying, empty blackness. She was
not completely alone. She sensed the presence of Lady Augusta,
though she could not see her ghostly guide.

“Where am I?” Carol asked.

“Watch.” Lady Augusta’s disembodied voice
came out of the void surrounding Carol. “Watch, and learn the final
lesson.”

In the darkness there slowly developed a
circle of light. Carol could see into it as though she was looking
through the wrong end of a telescope. While everything she saw
appeared to be far away, she was able to make out a gray stone
wall, three wooden poles in front of the wall, and a few men in
brown civil guards uniforms. Commander Drum stood at their head,
waiting in a gray and cold dawn.

As Carol watched, more guards appeared,
supporting three bundles of rags. The bundles moved in short,
jerking steps, and Carol realized that the three objects were human
beings—or what was left of humans after unspeakable tortures. She
understood now the purpose of the three poles. The pitiable
creatures being dragged forward were unable to stand alone and were
going to be tied to those stakes.

“Why are you showing me this?” Carol demanded
of Lady Augusta.

“You insisted upon seeing it. This is the
final act, the last scene for you to observe,” came the doleful
answer.

With a rising sense of horror Carol
comprehended the significance of the series of rusty-brown stains
on the wall behind the stakes. When the prisoners were secured to
the stakes, Commander Drum stepped toward them, cloth in hand.

“No blindfold,” rasped the person tied to the
center stake.

“Nik!” Carol screamed. “No, this can’t be
happening.”

“No.” The figure at Nik’s left side also
shook its head, like her brother refusing Commander Drum’s offer of
a cloth to cover her eyes.

“Pen! Lady Augusta, stop this! Make Drum
stop.”

“I cannot change it,” said Lady Augusta. “So
long as the present and the future remain unaltered, this will be
their fate. Only you can make the difference, Carol.”

“I suppose you intend to be as foolishly
brave as your companions and also stare death in the face?” said
Commander Drum to the remains of a person on Nik’s right. This
distorted shape could barely gasp out a single word.