Fray (The Ruin Saga Book 3) (22 page)

Malverston caught her hand almost lazily, her fist disappearing into his beefy paw. He smiled and took hold of her shoulder, turning her in mid-air, pulling her close to his chest and yanking the knife from her hand. She wriggled in his grip, but he held her fast around the throat. Already she had begun to grow blue.

“Don’t do this!” Beth cried.

Mel started forwards through the crowd, scrabbling with all she was worth, plunging through the immobile stupefied bodies of the others. She was going to kill him, kill him if it was the last thing she did in this world!

She was frozen in place ten feet from the front of the crowd by a pair of stares: Mrs McKinley’s and Beth’s. Both wide-eyed, warning, as loud and terrible as if they had reached across the space in between and shoved her back. Gritting her teeth, tears filling her eyes, Mel let her slingshot fall to her side.

Malverston had been watching. He picked her out of the crowd and winked. “I sentence this woman to death for crimes against the town. We live in dangerous times. Alas, justice must be done.”

He drew the knife sharply through the air, and Mrs McKinley’s throat gaped wide. Her eyes rolled up into her head as Malverston dropped her like a bag of trash. She fell atop her kin and rolled down the steps in a series of bony crunches. Then silence.

Malverston’s eyes grew hard, his face a tiny island in an ocean of flab. “Go home. All of you.”

For a moment Mel was on the verge of calling out to them all: all it would take was one last push. Malverston’s men wouldn’t have enough bullets for all of them. But another stare lanced her way, this time only from Beth, taking up all of Mel’s field of view. She gave the minutest shake of her head and mouthed,
Please.

Mel shook all over as those around her shuffled away, heading back towards the town like zombies. The tears came fast and angry, and soon she stood alone in the square, before the bodies and the mayor’s entourage. Malverston looked right at her and laughed; laughed down at her as though she was nothing.

The mayor looked around at his men as though expecting them to join in. They didn’t, just stared. Mel saw the look they were giving him despite Beth’s struggling as she was hauled back inside, and McKinley’s body jerking at their feet. Through the tears swimming in her eyes, Mel saw: the guards weren’t defending him anymore, only themselves.

No matter what, the mayor would die, die soon, and die badly. She wasn’t going to let those men get him first, though. He was hers. Burning his supercilious grin into her memory, she turned on her heel and strode back to McKinley’s cottage with her nerves crackling and fire in her veins.

“I know how this works,” James said, standing over the quivering, gagged figure upon the palette. “And I know you do, as well.” He crouched slowly, careful not to break his level gaze.

A week ago, he wouldn’t have thought he could pull this off: the cold-blooded killer act. But right now, there wasn’t a shred of doubt left in him: he would make this man believe he’d be cut into tiny pieces.

Are you sure that isn’t exactly what you
are
going to do to him, anyway?
muttered a voice deep inside.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered—

Liar
, answered that secret voice, for he had strode across the room to pick up a pair of shears. Returning to the man’s side, he bent anew, bringing the instrument into plain sight.

—“But I will, if I have to.”

“I’d start talking really quick,” Lucian said from the bottom of the stairs. “He might come off all peaceful and highbrow at first, but you don’t know what he’s done to people down here. It gets…” His face contorted into a ghastly mask so wholly unlike him that, at any other time, James would have laughed. “It gets pretty ugly,” he finished with a whisper.

The man looked James up and down disbelievingly, yet his entire body shook upon the palette as James leaned closer.

“I’ll start with your fingers,” James said after some mock contemplation. “I don’t think you value your face all that much, but a man without hands isn’t much good to anyone.”

The man thrashed, but he was stuck fast. James seized his hands, which were bound at the wrists, and drew them up so that the man could see them.

Where am I going with this?

He had no idea. He just knew he couldn’t stop, or the illusion would be broken.

“I’m going to ask a few questions, and you’re going to answer them. You tell me what I want to know, and you go free. It’s that simple. Sound fair?”

Jesus, I sound like…

Like one of the Bad Guys.

All they had of the Old World was their art, the combined media of generations; a fantastical imprint of their lives, where good and bad were clearly separated. Light and dark. James’s instincts rang like a gong to that sharp divide, but now he saw it was but a fantasy. In the cartoon world of heroes and villains, there was no doubt or anguish—none of the awful instability and morphing face that was morality in the real world.

He was on shaky ground.

The man grunted until James poked his fingers into his mouth and plucked the gag away. He made to speak, but James seized his face around his lips and squeezed hard.

“You’re used to being the one in control. I bet you’re feeling that you can’t give in without putting up some kind of fight, throwing some insults at me, wasting my time. Let me tell you this: stalling is not part of the deal. I’ll ask questions, and you’ll answer them. Anything else, and pieces of you start going missing. We clear?”

His staring eyes bored into James, but when James released him slowly, he said nothing.

“Why did they take her?” James said.

The man was silent a moment longer, then threw his gaze over to the far wall. “The mayor’s tired of the insolent bitch. I don’t know why he kept her around so long. I’d have kicked her into the dirt a long time ago.” His eyes filled with malice as he turned back to James. “It’s you that turned the tables. The mayor could take her crap when only he had to stomach it, but she showed him up in front of you—and us. Now he knows he won’t be top dog for long.” His yellow, crooked teeth glinted in the lamplight. “Congratulations, boy, you’ve killed your sweetheart.”

James gripped the shears so tight he thought his hands might break, but he kept his temper, just.

“He’s waiting for us, isn’t he?”

“We got him thinking you was going to cross him the first chance you got. As soon as he sent the girl, we knew all we had to do to set him off was make him think you wanted to steal her away from him.”

“Malverston knew about us?”

“Him? The mayor’s blinder than a mole. He don’t see nothing but his own wants. But we saw what you really are.” The man cackled. “What, you think you were so smart that you could hide it from us? Like it wasn’t written all over your faces? We saw, boy. To get rid of him, all we had to do was let you two play your games and whisper what we saw into his ear. Once he got mad enough, the town would tear him down for us.”

“Letting all this slip easy, aren’t you?” Lucian said. “Why should we believe that?”

“Because there’s nothing you can do about it,” the man said. “Go ahead, go be heroes. He’ll cut off her head while you walk into the ambush. Then the town will take him all the sooner. Or you can stay here and let her be her crazy bitch self until he kills her anyway.” He shrugged. “Same result. We win.”

“What then? I’m supposed to believe that you and the others are going to play nice and share the Moon good and fair?” James said.

The man cocked his head and shrugged. “Well, that’s another story, ain’t it? One step at a time.”

James shared a look with Lucian. Half in shadow, Lucian’s eyes were cold and hard. James rounded on his prisoner and ran a hand through his hair.

“How do we get her back?”

“I told you, she’s dead one way or the other.”

“We could bargain. We offered you knowledge, here: everything you need to rule.”

“You ain’t got nothing we want. All that song and dance about learning the
ways of the Old World
was just to get the ball rolling. Without us there to keep everything in line for him, it was only a matter of time before he blew his top.”

“Then tell us how to beat the trap.”

“How can I know the trap when I’m strapped down here?” He turned his head away to face the far wall. “I don’t know shit.”

James felt something snap inside him, deep down where muscle met bone. Before a single thought could register in his head, he reached down, drew one of the man’s fingers up to full extension, brought the shears around the digit, and yanked both handles to a close.

The screaming cut at his ears like glass. Suddenly the man’s entire body was thrusting and writhing, and blood spilled over James’s hands in a hot gush. “You son of a bitch, you bastard!”

James blinked, taking a step back and looking down, shocked at his own bloody hands. A shuddering exhalation escaped his throat.

Lucian lurched from the shadows, blinking stupidly. “James…,” he said.

“I…” James shook his head.

“You bastard, you shit, you promised!”

“Tell me what I need to know and you can keep the rest of them!” James roared.

“I ain’t got nothing. I SWEAR!”

“Liar!” Some great beast welled in his chest and he surged forwards despite himself and seized the man’s hand once more.

“NO!”

But it was too late. A moment later the man screamed anew, and another digit dropped to the floor.

“James!” Lucian’s hand clutched his shoulder, vice-like. “What are you doing?”

“What I have to,” James said and moved the shears around the man’s wrist.

The man wept. Nothing of the swagger and venom remained about him now. He merely wept as a child weeps, trying to crawl up into a ball, managing only a pathetic bending due to his restraints.

Lucian was pressed close to James’s side, whispering in his ear. “James, stop. This isn’t you.”

James glowered down at the man, blood dripping from his fingers, a sickly and vivid scarlet in the lantern light.

“Let me go, Lucian.”

“I’m with you until the end, but don’t turn into him. If we do this, we’re no better.”

James turned to face him slowly. “If she dies, Lucian, it won’t matter. None of it will matter.”

With all his strength, he brought the shears together, and the man’s mouth opened soundlessly, a terrible rasping emanating from his throat. A dull thud at James’s boot signalled the severed hand hitting the dirt. His vision blurred. Everything seemed to happen at once. He fought nausea, swallowed bile rising in his throat, then Lucian’s arm wrapped around James’s neck, his other hand seizing the shears.

“Let go of me!” James writhed and kicked, but Lucian had a firm hold, and with a jerk of his arm, sent the shears clattering across the floor.

“I’m getting you out of here.” Lucian hauled him towards the stairs, fighting him up the risers as the door banged open and the others spewed into the basement.

All of them started screaming at once, Agatha wailing and Oliver roaring for a belt to tourniquet the wound. All the while, James bellowed at the man upon the palette, projecting hellfire down into the echoing abyss.

“He’ll live,” Agatha said in a tiny voice, emerging from the farmhouse. “I’ve put ’im out. Moonshine is all we got, but he took it gladly.”

James sat in a pile on the floor, shaking his head weakly. His hands and face were still spotted with the man’s blood. “I thought he’d talk.”

“He can’t tell you what he doesn’t know,” Lucian said. “You’re not going back in there.”

“I have to.” James was dimly aware that he shook his head ceaselessly. “I won’t leave her.”

“Nobody’s thinking about leaving anybody,” Oliver said. “But we can’t become that.”

James blinked his way back to sense and realised they were all looking at him, gaunt-faced. They had never looked at him like that before, like he was dangerous.

Oliver cleared his throat. “We’re in the same situation, flying blind.”

“Our own bloody fault,” Agatha spat. “I can’t believe we were so stupid.” She played with her hands. “Maybe she’ll be fine, James. Like we always said, Malverston’s a crook, but he ain’t a monster. Maybe…”

James only looked at her.

She snorted. “Yeah, I don’t buy it, either. I can’t understand what got into Alex. It’s not like him. Why would he do this?”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” James said, nodding to the path leading from the gate.

They all turned towards the bedraggled figure atop a limping steed, trundling a few yards from the square. Alex’s face hung shrunken around eyes ringed with saggy bags. His horse looked as though it was fit to collapse to the ground and die that instant. The clopping of its hooves were the only sounds to be heard, for everything had grown painfully still. His eyes watery, Alex said nothing, only waited.

“Don’t you dare presume to come back here,” James said. “Don’t you dare. This isn’t your home, not after what you’ve done.”

Alexander Cain—for that was who was before them now, Alexander and not Alex, the Messiah persona he presented to the masses, instead of their brother—was a master of disguise and manipulation, but James knew the mask too well. Beneath the placating, calm exterior, he saw his words cut deep.

“I did what I have always done,” Alex said, dropping to the ground and approaching them guardedly. “I protected us.”

“You protected your fantasy,” James said.

“James, don’t speak like that,” Oliver said. “Nobody could have known—”

“We all knew!” Lucian rounded on him. “Like we all weren’t just waiting for something like this to go down. We all smelled trouble the moment those bastards got here.” Lucian looked between Alex and James, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “I don’t know who’s stupider.”

James blinked, stung despite himself. “What?”

“You, or him.” Lucian’s lips drew back from his teeth. “That idiot”—he pointed to Alex—“was always going to overstep his mark some time or another. Go pushing your way into other people’s lives and sooner or later you’re going to get beat down, no matter how smart you are.” He turned to James and pushed out a sharp sigh. “But you… You let your balls get in the way of your brain.”