CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

 

 

"Mrs Archer."

The voice that rolled out of that terrible glare was the sound of continents breaking apart, the groan of ice shelves falling into the sea, the harsh bark of machine-gun fire across muddy jungle.

Kimberly stood firm. She'd emerged from the mouth of a mineshaft into a burning nova, a flare like the sun itself had put down roots beneath the skin of Rustwood. The fire in her right hand sizzled out of control, her fear sending it wild. Looking into that light sent aches through her bones, burned at the back of her skull, but she forced herself not to blink.

Behind the light, swaddled by it, was an unnatural shape. A series of long blade-shadows connected at a huge black core. Limbs like treetrunks. Shimmers that might've been wet eyes blinking in sequence.

The pretender queen.

Even with Chan and Darling by her side, Kimberly was terrified. The fear sank deep, twisted her stomach, left her trembling. The thing Gull had put inside her turned, twisted, burrowing deeper. Its panic was her panic, a heat swelling up, closing her throat, blurring her vision.

"Christ," Chan whispered. "We shouldn't have come."

Darling said nothing. The dynamite shook in her hands.

Kimberly couldn't let that same fear take her. She planted her feet and forced herself to squint into the glare. To take in the silhouette of the thing she'd been chasing, been chased by, since her first day in Rustwood.

"New queen, huh?" Her confidence sounded forced. Even through the light she could see the beast was the size of a truck. It could crush her casually, effortlessly. "What the fuck are you?"

A low rumble of disapproval rang through the muddy corridors. The new queen shivered and the light shivered with it, like a cloak being thrown off its shoulders. And maybe that's all it was, Kimberly thought. A blinding disguise to keep her from seeing what waited behind.

The true queen LIVES! She'd seen it scrawled across town, graffiti spattered across walls and sidewalks. And here she was: the new queen, but maybe not the true queen, hiding behind the glare like a cop turning their flashlight beam into a motorist's eyes.

The reply was slow, measured. It came in a tangle of voices, old and young, high and low, honey-sweet and rough as gravel. "Have you come for your child?"

"You have Curtis?"

"Your child is safe with one of my servants."

"Where?"

"Close."

Her anger was almost enough to drown out the terror. "Give him back. He's not yours to keep."

"Not yours, either."

True enough, and Kimberly had never thought she'd be arguing otherwise, but no child deserved this. Not hers, not anyone's. She forced herself to stare into the light. "Why'd you take him?"

"I didn't. His father did."

"So where's Peter?"

"A long way from here. I send him where I want. I am the successor. This land is mine. Everyone in it is mine."

"Not what I hear. Out on the street, everyone thinks the old queen's holding her own pretty well. You're just a kid throwing her toys around because she's not getting what she wants. They call you the pretender, did you know? You're a joke. A joke!"

A flutter of motion. Wings unfurling, huge and iridescent. Detective Chan shrank back. "What're we doing, throw the dynamite, we should go, what're we-"

"Wait." Kimberly stepped forward. The ground fell away before her, the new queen's cavern opening up in all directions, becoming a cathedral beneath the earth.

And in that darkness, pale faces gleamed. A hundred more servants, light-starved, hungry.

Waiting.

No closer, Kimberly thought. If she let the light swallow her, she'd never come back out. She inched back, not wanting those dead faces to turn towards her. "I need to know something!"

The new queen buzzed furiously. "I owe you nothing."

"You can tell me why you keep trying to kill me."

The buzzing grew louder, until Kimberly felt like her teeth would rattle loose of her gums. "You don't know?"

A glance down at the dead men and women waiting in the cavern. "Is it because I keep kicking the shit out of your little servants?"

A hoarse, rattling laugh rang through the chamber, a laugh that reminded Kimberly staccato gunfire. "I have thousands more than these."

"Where are they, then?"

A pause. Wings bent and flashed.

Then, finally: "You don't fit."

"Say what?"

"You came back. You brought memories. You should've given them up. You... break the rules."

"Your rules, or your mothers?"

"They are bigger than us both."

It didn't make sense. She'd fallen in front of a train, somewhere outside Rustwood. Lost a man whose face and name had been snatched away. But because she didn't fall into line, because she didn't forget it all and mould herself into the fake life Rustwood had given her... she had to die? And what did the queens need memories for? Did they collect them on VHS? Watch them while gorging on popcorn at family gatherings?

No, it had to be more than just not forgetting. It was seeing. Everyone else in Rustwood walked around blind. They lost family and forgot. Passed monsters in the street and kept their eyes on the pavement. They slept easy because the city washed away their nightmares.

A hiss to her left. "Let's get going," Darling said, hefting the two sticks of dynamite. "She's gonna make her move. Drown us with her servants."

"But-"

"Did you come here to kill her or have a chat?"

Weight shifted behind the light. The new queen was moving, almost too slow to be noticed. Approaching in sly increments. A whisper that carried through the muddy mineshaft, low and inviting, beckoning her dead army to do the same. "There is more, so much more. I can tell you why my mother made this place. I can tell you what's coming. I know they call me a destroyer. That's why my servants walk away." At that, Darling tensed. "I can tell you where my mother hides. She sees all. She has her own servants. Your detective. Do you know what she asked him to do?"

"You want to make peace? Start with giving me back Curtis." But she could already tell that wasn't going to happen. The queen was closing now, along with her army. Kimberly inched back, fire boiling between her fingers. "Tell me about Goodwell, then. We know he cleans up messes for the old queen. Doesn't matter. He's with us now, so if you think you can split us up so easily, you..." Her brow furrowed. "What do you mean, I came back?"

A flurry of black behind the light. The army of rotten-eyed civilians shifted as one.

Then, in a blur of limbs, the pretender pounced.

"Move!" Darling shrieked as she threw the two brown-paper sticks of dynamite overarm. Kimberly was already turning to run, feet skidding in the soft earth, but too slow, much too slow, everything had gone wrong...

The explosion was an animal roar. It boiled around her, smashed the air from her lungs. Kimberly staggered, hit the wall, bounced away. The fire in her hand shuddered and vanished.

All was dark.

The only sound was the echo of the explosion reverberating up the mineshaft. Kimberly couldn't hear herself screaming, but her mouth was open and all her air was rushing out so she had to be screaming, the terror too much to keep inside.

The floor vibrated. Footsteps. Hundreds of footsteps. But greater than them, thudding, crashing, was the rhythm of the queen.

She forced her legs to move. Something bumped her from the right. She lashed out with her fists, hearing nothing, only the rush of blood in her ears.

A strong hand on her arm, hauling her onward.

Two brief bursts of light. To her left, Detective Chan stood steady, legs planted, pistol up. Her grimace was lit in muzzle-flash strobe as she fired back down the way they'd come.

The ground trembled beneath her feet, faster now, an oncoming earthquake.

The queen was right behind them.

No time to look back. No time to pick their path. She ran blind, begging the thing inside her for fire but finding none, pulse crashing as she caromed off dirt walls.

She could smell it. A stink like grave dirt, old earth after rain. A creature of dark places, deep places, clawing her way free.

Kimberly ran faster.

There. Light, dim and grey. The sky. Her legs were lead and her breath was ragged but she forced herself onward. Her ears had stopped ringing and now she could hear the beast squeezing through the tunnels, roaring in fury.

She dared a glance back. Darling and Chan were only a few paces behind, wheezing, swearing. And coming up the tunnel like a wall of teeth...

"Fitch!" she screamed. "Fitch, help!"

A hundred yards to the mouth of the mine. Fifty. The new queen was close enough to touch, pushing a wall of foetid air before her that stole Kimberly's breath, tarred the inside of her lungs.

Figures at the mouth of the mine. Fitch and Goodwell.

Then they were gone.

For a moment Kimberly could've screamed. They'd run. Seen what was roaring at them out of the dark and scattered, saving themselves, leaving Kimberly to be turned to mulch.

Then twin explosions rattled Kimberly's vision. The ceiling was coming down behind them, cutting the queen off from her nest and her brood of servants, making it impossible to retreat.

The plan had made so much sense when they'd laid it out in the safety of Rosenfeld's cafeteria. Now it all seemed so futile. They hadn't really stopped the queen from running away. All they'd done was put the beast's back to the wall.

When animals caught their paws in snares, they fought twice as hard.

All Kimberly could do was put her faith in Fitch and Goodwell.

Have faith, and run.