Chapter Twenty-Two

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My grip tightened on instinct, and I pulled the bowstring so tight I thought it might snap in my hands. Caleb opened his eyes and managed a pained grin. “Well now, looks like you can fight dirty after all. Knew you had it in you.”

I locked eyes with Caleb, holding his gaze for a moment before answering. I spent every second of this stare down looking for a way out of this stalemate, but I was coming up short. “So what now?” The question came out of me in a snarl.

“What now?” Caleb asked. “Well I shoot you, that arrow releases into my head. You let go of that arrow and it ain’t going to take more than a moth’s fart for this gun to go off. That about catch you up to speed?”

“So then it comes down to which of us is more willing to die for our goals, is that it?”

“Well now, there ain’t a doubt in my mind that the answer to that question is you. You ain’t got an ounce of quit in you,” Caleb replied. “So I am willing to begrudgingly be the pragmatist here and call for a truce and make you a deal.”

“Go on.”

“The way I see it, the easy way out of all this is we could just kill each other and be done with it. But I think a better option here is that I walk away from all of this in exchange for a promise from you of a favor of my choice. Oh, and while I’m at it, that you lift this damn hunk of junk off of me.”

I kept staring at him, waiting for this to make sense. Everything I’d heard about Caleb was that he never gave up on a job once he took it on. It was a matter of principle for him. “Why?”

“Because it’s goddamn heavy!”

“Not that,” I clarified. “Why would you give up when you’re this close?”

“Any number of things, take your pick. Maybe having you owe me one seems like the better prize. Maybe that story you told me about your friend reached my heart, and it just don’t seem fair. Or maybe, just maybe, I feel like you beat me fair and square.”

“Or maybe I just scare the hell out of you,” I offered.

Caleb smirked. “Or maybe that.”

“Give me your word, and we have a deal,” I said, and as a show of good faith Caleb eased the hammer back down and slid the gun out of reach.

“You have it,” he said. “But while I have you, did you really just detonate a bomb for little old me? Far be it from me to argue with results, but that seems like a bit much. And when did you find the time to plant it? I thought I had you every step of the way.”

“Shut up,” I muttered as I replaced the arrow into my quiver and lifted the ruined shelving off of Caleb to fulfill that condition of my bargain. It was then that I could see the real reason Mr. Duquesne wasn’t so eager to take the fight to the Battle Born: His left leg had been broken in the blast severely enough that the bone was sticking out. I couldn’t win for losing with this man. “Quite the poker face you have. Do you ever tell the truth?”

“On occasion,” he remarked. “Now maybe do the kindly thing here and set my leg?”

I could hear the crowd gathering outside now; few as they were, I imagined this to be the most exciting thing that had happened around there in quite some time. “Unless that is the favor you bargained for, I’m afraid not. Not to worry, I’m sure someone less weird than I will be along shortly with just so many questions. All the best.”

To his credit, Caleb didn’t protest as I turned and walked out of the plant. There were fewer onlookers than I would have guessed, a dozen at most, and I walked past them without being challenged. I didn’t have far to walk in any event. There was only one spot the Battle Born would have realistically gone, and it happened to be next door.

Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic Mission, the local church. And it was far less grandiose than the name implied. A single-story building that could have just as easily been an office building or a propane company as it could have been a church. Regardless of its size or stature, it was still a place of worship and a place for sanctuary.

I made no effort to hide my presence as I walked in the front door. The building, like most in the town, looked as if it hadn’t been updated in at least thirty years. The walls were shades of tan and beige; the interior was poorly lit. Rather than pews, the congregation was expected to sit on folding chairs. Only one chair was being used at the moment, and it was by the Battle Born.

Part of me just wanted to shoot her in the back of the head. I considered all of those bodies at the compound, how my friend was dying in a miserable excuse for a motel, and how all of it would just go away once she was dead. I’d never come back to this town again. Ann could be rid of her poison. All it would take would be one arrow.

But she needed to know who was here to stop her. That what she was and what she became was not natural and why she had to be put down. “On your feet!”

My command got her attention. The Battle Born lifted her head. “So I was right about you,” she said softly. “You are just a killer.”

“Get on your feet so I can put you in the ground.” The coldness of my demand didn’t represent the anger building in me.

The Battle Born rose to her feet and faced me at last as I drew an arrow aimed between her eyes. “You’re all the same; you know that? If you’re not trying to use me, you’re trying to kill me. And you’re never going to stop until I make you stop.”

I released the arrow without another word. It traveled the length of the room in a second and was caught in midair before it could strike its target, but the arrow was only a feint. I dropped the bow the instant I had released the arrow’s shaft and dashed forward, reaching into my cloak and flinging the ‘Boom Boom’ potion at her.

She understood just a moment too late. Her arms were up to take the brunt of the blast, but she couldn’t dodge entirely. The potion went off against her forearms with the force of a grenade and propelled her back. The blast scorched her arms, but unfortunately, she didn’t lose her footing.

That was something I’d anticipated, but this was all still part of the plan and tied into what I’d picked up from Caleb. She was weakened, somehow, and while I might not have known the mechanics of it, I didn’t know that I needed to. That she had been growing weaker was enough to give me confidence in fighting her. And the plan was to keep her defensive and to utilize counter attacks.

She was quick enough to catch an arrow in flight. She nearly killed me at the mall. Trying to overpower her would be a losing proposition. But I could make her think that was my plan. While dashing in I made a show of moving in to strike, but I was waiting and watching for her.

A left hook came, which I ducked under and took a jab at her puncture wound. Then she let a right hook follow that up, and I leaned back, allowing it to sail past wildly as I tapped her twice with jabs to the jaw. Each time she took a shot at me, I was there with a counter, and it was working.

It worked a bit too well. She threw a podium at me. I dodged easily enough, but with the scattering of folding chairs around the room, keeping my balance required more of my attention than I would have liked, and that meant I wasn’t in time to create space against her follow up. She came at me with a straight punch, but as I ducked underneath to counterattack, she turned the punch into a grab, pulling me by the neck into a knee strike to my jaw. Before her knee even went down, she had already gripped me with both arms and spun me around and through the front doors like a discus hurl.

“You think that’s going to be enough to beat me?” she asked walking out into the street after me. “You might be fast, but you simply don’t have the strength to match.”

That attack hurt tremendously, and I don’t think I even caught anything approaching full power. “Let’s make one thing bloody clear,” I said through clenched teeth, rolling onto my knees. “I’m not here to beat you. I’m here to kill you.”

“Then you came here to die,” she said. “I can learn your patterns, and it won’t take me more than a couple of direct hits to make sure you don’t get up. And, idiot that you are, you’re making me do this.”

I stayed there until she was within range before tossing the handful of sand I’d managed to grip into her eyes, springing to my feet and kicking out her right knee in the process. As she went down, I put my full strength into turning my body into a kick to the base of her skull with my other foot, sending her down face first and creating separation.

“After what you did last night at the compound, someone has to,” I growled.

The Battle Born seemed to shrug off the damage done by my kicks and started to stand. “All I did was leave. I know where I’m not wanted.”

She was recovering all too well, so I pulled the remaining potions from my cloak. One of them would make me durable, and the other would greatly amplify my strength. Both had their appeal right now but taking both wasn’t an option. Potions are dangerous enough on their own, but there’s no telling how they might interact with each other.

She tagged me once, and she’d do it again. I could outlast her; I knew I could. I opted for the Steelskin potion and swallowed it in a single gulp.

The effects were immediate. Head-to-toe I felt smooth and sleek as a rippling tingle flowed through me for an instant before vanishing. I tested my mobility, and I was okay. Better than ever in fact. I felt invincible, and as a bonus, I was even a little shiny.

I pressed my advantage now, sprinting at her as she stood and lifting a running knee to her temple. She certainly hadn’t been expecting that, and I didn’t give her time to adjust as I sidestepped my way past her and delivered a mule kick to her kidneys. In response, she swung a massive backhanded fist where I’d been, but I was already moving to her blindside, delivering hard shots to her extended rib cage.

She grimaced at the blow, and her expression turned angry as she bore down on me, swinging wildly with both fists. I was able to duck and weave past the first few strikes until I saw what I felt was an opening. I went to parry and counterattack, then I saw my error. Each of those strikes was an attempt to get me to parry, and I fell for it. If I was close enough to parry, I was close enough to grab.

Her grip on my wrist was inescapable, and, had it not been for the potion, my bones would have been jelly. She lifted me off my feet and began to strike me in the face. Reflexively, I tried to get my free hand in up a guard, but without my feet, it was a token effort. Two thunderous blows echoed off my face before I dug a thumb into her eye.

The desperation maneuver worked well enough that she loosened her grip enough for me to kick off her chest and escape. I made a run at her again, but this time I flipped over her and unstrapped my cloak, wrapping it around her head as I came down. Relying more on leverage than strength, I used the cloak to bring her down into the dirt skull first.

“Those people might not have been your friends, but not all of them were looking to use you!” I nearly screamed as I hammered fists into her covered head. “Most of them were sick or being used, themselves. They needed help, and they didn’t deserve to be slaughtered!”

A hand shot towards my throat as the Battle Born rolled out from under the cloak. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked suspiciously.

“About how I’m going to make sure you never kill again!” Her hand wasn’t quite in position, and I was able to parry it away from my neck relatively easily. Gripping my cloak, I rolled away from her and removed one of the blades I’d stashed from the birdcage. I held it tightly in both hands and brought it down as hard as I could muster into her calf muscle. I struck bone, and with a howl that rivaled that of any beast I’d ever encountered, she turned on me with blinding speed and caught me flush in the chest with the full force of her might. It put me through two walls and sent my body the length of the entire church.

Had it not been for the potion, there wouldn’t have been enough of me to go through the first wall. With the potion, I was afraid of a broken sternum and I had trouble breathing. I used the back wall to prop myself up and catch my breath as the Battle Born gingerly walked towards me, absentmindedly stopping to remove the blade from her calf.

“I hate you,” she hissed. “With my whole heart, I hate you! People like you do far more damage to people like me than any Abbot or Gardener ever could. They may look at me and see me as something to be used, but you? You had nearly two centuries to learn about what it’s like to be used because of what you were born into. And yet, you’ve come for me at every step. I told you face to face that I didn’t want to fight, that I just wanted to be free, and you’re still willing to believe the worst of me, pushing me, oblivious to the possibility of another answer. You didn’t learn empathy from surviving your master; you learned cruelty by embracing the life he gave you.”

The two of us stood there a moment, the air heavy and loud with our labored breaths. Tears lightly fell down her cheeks and for a moment, her voice quivered. “I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t even know they were dead. I just snuck away. With the Abbot dead, there was nothing there for me. But maybe I don’t have a choice, do I? Because if it’s not you, it will be someone else, and it won’t end. So maybe I just go back and do it with a smile and learn to love it, because they were right all along. Or maybe we just kill each other right here, do the rest of the world a favor and remove a couple of monsters from it. So come on, what are you waiting for? Let’s get this over with.”

She wasn’t lying. If she didn’t kill those people, I had no idea what did, but that was a concern for another time. I had no way to explain what had happened at the compound, but it wasn’t her, and these weren’t crocodile tears. For the first time, I saw her for what she was: A child. Her appearance aside, she couldn’t have been older than Ann. She could hurt me, but she’d already been hurt so badly. She was scary, but mostly she was just scared. There was a lot to consider, but most of what she had to say was true. My actions were my own, and I was ashamed of them.

I stepped away from the wall and spread my hands in surrender. The fight was gone out of me entirely now, replaced by things far heavier than rage. Guilt. Shame. Sadness. Debbie compared me to Abarta a moment ago and, in my heart, I couldn’t blame her. “No, I won’t do it. I’m not like him. You’re not like them. I believe you. And that’s not an excuse for what I’ve done, but I won’t continue this path, and I won’t push you to be something you don’t want to be.”

Debbie sniffed at that, unmoving. “So you don’t kill me. That doesn’t change anything. They’re going to keep coming for me, and soon I won’t have the strength to fight back. I barely had the strength for you.”

“Then you don’t run,” I offered.

“I can’t stop now,” she replied. “I go to them, or they come for me.”

“Yes, exactly,” I said, locking her gaze. “There’s a way out of this, I think. Where we can both get what we want, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Debbie’s laugh was mirthless and sour. “Trust you? You stand to gain from my death, and a minute ago we were ready to kill each other. Why would I trust you?”

I shook my head helplessly at that. “I’m not telling you it will be easy or even that I’d do the same if our situations were reversed. But you said it yourself, they’re not going to stop, and whatever comes next is going to be worse. I truly believe I’m the best shot you have. Please, end this with me, and you have my word I’ll do everything I can to help you start over. I was wrong.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” Debbie said softly, studying me. “Swear it to me. Swear an oath that you mean what you say.”

“I swear to it, Debbie,” I said to her solemnly. “I swear by my mother and by my lands and by my honor.”

Debbie picked up my bow and walked it to me, thrusting it into my hands. “Don’t... don’t let me down,” she said in a hushed tone. “Everyone else has, but I’m trusting you. This is it for me.”

I nodded and took the bow, then fished my phone out of a pocket. I selected the preset number and waited for an answer. “Alistair. I have what you want. Where do we meet?”

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