Empire's End (16 page)

“You herd about Manning. It’s happening,
babe, as we speak.”

And Tripper was fulfilling his role. He had
storehouses full of goods, ammunition, supplies. They’d be ready
when it all came down.

Cam got up and rummaged through a dresser
beside the bed. Glancing over, Lily saw something tattooed on the
outside of Cam’s thigh. “What’s that?”

“Oh, that?” Cam tugged up the hem of her
shorts, revealing the image of a skeletal green face, with one
bulging eye and strange hair that stood straight up in the middle
of its head. “It’s from a talking picture,” Cam explained, “called
Return of the Dead
or something.”

“What’s a talking picture?” Lily asked.

Cam smiled. “Poor kid.”

“Cam’s real serious about her zombie shit,”
Tripper said, grinning.

“Language,” Cam scolded.

“Sorry, sorry.” Tripper sat on the edge of
Lily’s bed. “I’ve seen this girl kill more rotters than I can
count. That’s why I hang out with her.”

“Yeah, that’s why.” Cam wiggled her ass at
him, then pulled a blanket from the dresser drawer. “Here sweetie.
It’s getting extra cold in here.”

“Thanks.” Lily let Cam bundle her up, then
sighed. “I hope my friend is okay.”

“What’s his name?” Cam asked.

“Death.”

The two adults glanced at one another. Then
Tripper shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“I guess we’re all pretty well acquainted
with death these days,” Cam mused.

“Yeah,” Lily said. “He let me ride his
horse.”

“Too bad about your eyes, friend,” came Finn
Meyer’s voice.

Voorhees sat bolt upright in his hospital
bed. He heard Meyer sauntering across the room. “I hear they don’t
expect you to recover. Shame.”

“Get the fuck out of here,” Voorhees
snarled.

Meyer laughed. “You won’t presume to tell me
what to do anymore, Voorhees. You’re finished. If you’re lucky
they’ll set you up in one of my slums and you can rot away there.
If you’re not lucky... well, there’s always room in Cleveland.

“Do you know about Cleveland?” Meyer asked.
He was standing right beside Voorhees. If the cop wanted to, he
could grab the bastard and wring his neck right now.

“Cleveland’s where we send all the rubbish,”
said Meyer. “It’s outside the Wall. Not many people know that.
Casey does. Cullen does.

“See, we’re on the same side, myself and
those fellows. The system works. And those who threaten it... well,
we have ways of dealing with them. Discreetly.”

Voorhees took a swing. Meyer must have seen
it coming, stepped back. “You want to be stupid?” the thug snapped.
“Fine. You’ll see, Voorhees. You’re done!”

Meyer stomped out of the room. Voorhees threw
the sheets off himself and stumbled out of bed, fumbling to the
door and out into the hall. “Nurse!” he barked. “Nurse!” He was
getting the hell out of here.

A hand grabbed his elbow. “What are you
doing?” Halstead exclaimed.

“Leaving,” he said. “I need my clothes.”

“They’re in your room,” Halstead said,
pulling him down the hall. “C’mon, I’ll help you.”

Once back in the room, she said, “Look,
Casey’s putting you on paid leave until this is all sorted
our.”

“You mean, until they take my job from me?
Until I’m thrown to the wolves? Forget it. Meyer is behind these
attempted killings and I’m bringing him down.”

“How? Voorhees...”

“Yeah, I know. I’m a cripple. Well, I’ll be
goddamned if that stops me. Seems like I’m the only one who gives a
shit about what’s wrong with this town.”

“You’re not.” She touched his hand. “But you
can’t just storm in there and arrest everyone. They’re protected.
Even if you could prove it... it’s going to take something
else.”

“I do things by the book,” Voorhees said.
“Give me my damn clothes.”

He quickly dressed himself, no regard for her
presence, and felt his way back out into the hall. “Where do you
think you’re going?” Halstead yelled.

“I’m going to work,” he shouted over his
shoulder. “You can help me or you can stay out of my way!”

He pressed against the wall and moved
forward. Couldn’t tell if there was a damn thing in front of him.
All that talk about the other senses compensating for loss of sight
was bullshit. He
was
a cripple.

She took his arm. “This way to the
stairs.”

She led him through a door and held onto him
as they slowly descended. “Thank you,” he said quietly.”

“Don’t thank me,” she replied. “I don’t
deserve a partner like you, you know that?”

He patted her hand. “Yeah, I’m a pain in the
ass.”

* * *

When they entered the squadroom, he heard
voices fall silent. Halstead led him to his desk, and he sat
down.

“Well, I’m back,” he announced. Still no one
said anything.

Casey’s wheelchair, crossing the room. The
S.P.O. cleared his throat and said, “I think Halstead told you
you’re on leave. Why don’t you go home? Were you even supposed to
leave the hospital?”

“Your breath smells like candy,” Voorhees
said.

“What?”

“Officer Voorhees really wants to work this
case,” Halstead said. “Even if it’s only from his desk—”

“Not your call,” Casey interrupted.
“Voorhees, Halstead will take you up to your quarters.”

“What’s your game?” Voorhees asked. “Are you
part of it, Casey? Is that why the killer came for you? Taking care
of loose ends?”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?
Halstead, get him out of here!”

“You want me out, Casey, you take me
out.”

“Don’t make me suspend your pay!”

“You think I care about—”

Two desks behind Voorhees, unseen to him, but
horrifyingly clear to everyone else—Killian rose from her chair
with a guttural moan. Her dead eyes locked onto Gulager, and she
ran at him.

Gulager fell backwards over his desk,
swinging his baton wildly. Ernie threw a chair into Killian’s path.
She jumped it and headed in his direction. “Oh God!” he cried.

“What the hell?” Voorhees yelled, standing.
Had a fight broken out?

“Killian’s turned!” Halstead said, drawing
her baton and catching Killian in the mouth. The undead went down
hard, smacking her head against the floor, but rose unfazed and
grabbed Halstead’s arms. They staggered back into Voorhees. He fell
to the floor.

“
Help me!
” Halstead screamed. Voorhees
heard her baton clatter on the floor. Everyone was shouting now, in
a panic, unable to act. He yanked open the top drawer of his desk
and grabbed something from under a pile of papers.

“Where is she, Halstead?” he yelled.

They had fallen onto his desk. Killian had
Halstead pinned and was trying to bite her wrists. “She’s right
above me! Your twelve!” Halstead screamed.

Voorhees reached out with his left hand. He
touched Halstead’s hair, her arm. He followed it up to Killian and
seized her by the hair.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, and swung the
widowmaker.

It cleaved Killian’s face in two. Halstead
swung her head to the right as gore spilled from the yawning
wound.

Killian stumbled off of the desk and stood in
the aisle, the two halves of her skull slowly pulling away from one
another, her gibbering silenced. She swayed, then dropped with a
thud.

“What the FUCK?” Ernie yelped.

Voorhees set the widowmaker on his desk and
swallowed a deep breath. Adrenaline coursed through him. Casey
grabbed his trembling arm and said, not without a bit of awe, “You
killed her.”

“That’s what widowmakers do,” Voorhees
said.

““Look at this,” Halstead gasped.

“What is it?” Voorhees asked.

“In Killian’s desk... it’s a knife, made from
bone.”

“It was Killian?” Casey exclaimed.

“She must have accidentally cut herself,”
Voorhees said.

“Maybe it wasn’t an accident,” said
Halstead.

“God,” Casey sighed. “Assassins. Terrorists.
There must be more to this.”

“We’ll find out if there is,” Voorhees
said.

“All right,” Casey said. “You can have your
desk after it’s cleaned up.”

Halstead picked the brains from her coat.
“I’d better get to the hospital.”

“You’ll have to be quarantined.”

Voorhees caught Halstead’s hand as she passed
him. “You’ll be okay.”

“I know,” she said. He heard the smile in her
voice.

“Who was I?” Adam asked the woman in
white.

“In all honesty, I don’t remember,” she said.
“But does it matter? You’re still you.”

“So I’ll never know?”

“What would it affect if you did?”

Adam was silent for a moment. They were
seated in the front room of the cottage, before a crackling
fireplace. Outside, snow was coming down in torrents.

“I dreamt of her again,” he said. “She was
frozen... she looked pale as a corpse. I don’t think these things
have come to pass, not yet—but I feel powerless.”

“Adam, that
is
your power,” the woman
in white said. “Precognition. You can till save her.

“You should go,” she said, standing up. “I
don’t want to keep you any longer. Just trust your instincts.
You’ll find her.”

He nodded and rose to stand beside her.
“Thank you for everything.”

A window shattered somewhere in the
house.

Adam snatched up the scythe and strapped it
onto his forearm. A terrible feeling permeated his being; he felt
weighed down, weak, and suddenly he knew it was the Omega’s
presence. For the first time he sensed the ties that bound them,
the ties that had allowed the rotter to stalk him across the
badlands for months.

This time with the woman in white had
awakened his mind, brought dormant abilities to life. He wondered
if she was clairvoyant too; had she known where to find him? Had
she seen all this in her mind’s eye?

“It’s the one who attacked me,” Adam
whispered to the woman in white. “You have to get out of here.”

“You said something else was driving him,”
she breathed. “What did you mean?”

“I mean he’s not like the others.” Adam edged
toward the door leading to the hall. “There’s something inside him,
controlling him.”

“Adam.” She caught his shoulder and turned
him to face her. “Sometimes the dead are angry. Sometimes they
don’t understand why it was their time. They blame God, or they
blame themselves... sometimes they blame Death.”

Just as he began to realize what she was
saying, the Omega leapt through the front window with a horrendous
crash, landing right behind them. Icy air blasted their faces as
they whirled to face him. The woman spun, fire blooming in her open
hand; the Omega swung his shovel down and hacked it off at the
wrist.

The woman screamed. Adam swung the scythe
into the Omega’s leg. The rotter responded by slamming his shovel
into Adam’s gut. He kicked his legs in agony as he was lifted off
the floor. Pulling the scythe free, he slashed the rotter across
the throat. Black blood sprayed from the ragged wound.

With her remaining hand, the woman grabbed
the Omega’s head and sunk her fingers into his left eye. He shook
his head frantically, losing his grip on the shovel. Adam fell,
prying himself off of its blade.

The rotter turned on the woman in white.
Raising the shovel over his head, he drove it like a spear into her
breast. She sagged, eyelids fluttering. He was
killing
her.

The scythe exploded through the Omega’s ribs.
Adam turned the blade sharply to the right and raked it through the
rotter’s black guts. Ichor spewed from the undead’s mouth. Throwing
the Omega into the wall, Adam fell upon him, hacking flesh away
from bone, the rumble in his throat building to a roar that blurred
his vision. All he saw was his blade coming down again, and again,
and dark chunks of meat spattering the walls.

Adam collapsed in a heap, exhausted by his
rage. The Omega was a ruin. The rotter gnashed his teeth, staring
at the ceiling as he tried to gather his spilled guts. As Adam
watched, the thing’s trembling hands fell motionless.

He crawled over to the woman in white, lying
on her back, eyes barely open.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, touching her face,
her beautiful face, looking into her glistening dark eyes. He felt
something welling up in him, and choked; his vision blurred again,
this time from grief, and he felt wetness spreading beneath his
eyes.

His tears fell on her cheek. She blinked and
looked up at him. “Adam?”

“I’m so sorry,” he wept.

“Don’t be.” She took his hand, his ugly,
charred hand, and said, “I love you.”

He buried his face in her neck. She sighed,
and then he was alone. Snowflakes swirled around their prone
forms.

Adam staggered to his feet and crossed the
room to where the Omega lay. He knew it was still in there; the
blue spark of undeath still resided in those rotten bones. He was
still in there, while she was gone.

Adam drove the scythe through the rotter’s
face and into the floor. He fell to his knees and screamed, “
WHY
HER?
” He forced the blade deeper. “
WHY? TELL ME
WHY!
”

There was no answer from the Omega. It was
just a rotter, after all, dead and dumb. Just a rotter that had
killed a woman.

He pulled the scythe out and sat back on the
floor.

Lily.

Something about the woman in white had
reminded him of Lily. He couldn’t place his finger on it. He only
knew that he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let the same fate befall the
child.

There was a knock on Voorhees’ door. He
dragged himself out of bed and limped across his quarters.

He’d already started to get used to the
blindness, at least as far as mobility was concerned. He knew the
layout of his place and could move about with confidence. He’d
tried counting his steps at first, but it was easier just to trust
his gut.