Midian Unmade (18 page)

As quickly as it arrived, the conviction in his voice departed; his shoulders slumped, as if glad to be free of some monumental weight.

“Not that it matters,” he said. “We're the last. They'll find us eventually and slaughter us. Drag our bodies through their pristine streets so they can show the world that the monsters are dead.”

Causwell turned away from Luna, turned back into his sorrow. She reached out and gripped his arm.

“We're still Nightbreed,” she said. “If we are alive, then there must be others.”

“The Breed are gone,” Causwell said despondently. “Like Midian.”

She let go of him and he shuffled off into the corner.

*   *   *

When she wasn't sitting on the sidewalks for money, Luna walked the streets and back alleys looking for others of her kind.

After the fall of Midian, the remaining Nightbreed scattered to all points of the compass. Many had come here, to the city of lights and cold winds; their only wish to be ignored, to find the peace they'd once known before.

Besides Causwell, Luna hadn't seen any other Breed. But she could feel them, somewhere out there. Lurking. Hiding. She wanted to find them—she
needed
to find them—but the Breed were good at staying hidden, even from each other.

Her reasons were not entirely altruistic. She told herself there was power in numbers, but mostly she just didn't want to be alone. Causwell didn't count. He lived so much inside himself, inside his own melancholy, that it was like she lived by herself at the radio station.

So, every night she went out and searched. She moved like a ghost along the periphery of city life, drifting along the edge of crowds, losing herself in the smoke haze of bars and the frenetic light show of dance clubs. She explored abandoned buildings and stalked the city's few green places, which at night became black places. Occasionally she found traces of the Breed—a faint scent of tombs and spices, a sigil painted or on a wall.

She thought it was only a matter of time before she found them, just as she had found Causwell. But sometimes she wondered if they were the last. It didn't make any difference. No matter how much the dread in her heart might eclipse the hope, she knew she'd never stop looking.

*   *   *

No joy tonight.

Luna returned to the radio station empty-handed and empty-headed. Her stomach growled; it was empty, too. Her pockets were filled with coins again, but she hadn't bothered to buy any food.

She felt bad that she hadn't at least got something for Causwell. She descended to the basement and found him in his corner. He turned away guiltily at Luna's approach.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

Causwell held something small and furry in his hands. He tried to hide it behind his back, but Luna saw it dripping on the concrete floor.

“Are you eating rats again?”

Causwell grinned a bloody, guilty grin. “I'm building up my strength.”

“For what?”

Causwell looked away. “Always good to have strength.” He changed the subject. “How is it out there?”

“Still dark,” Luna said.

“No change?” he asked. “No call?”

“If there was, I didn't hear it.”

“I told you. No one is coming. The Breed are gone. They're all dead.”

“Not all,” Luna said. “There is the one known as Cabal. He who…”

“Unmade Midian,” Causwell finished. “He who helped cast us out.” He spat on the floor.

Luna shrugged. “No refuge is forever.”

“You sound like Baphomet. And where is
he
now?”

“Don't blaspheme.”

“I didn't. I asked a question.”

“I have no answers. I'm tired.”

“Sleep, then. But don't dream. There is no comfort in dreams. If we're to find survival, it must be of our own making.”

Luna smiled faintly. “That's the spirit.”

“There is no spirit,” Causwell said. “Only flesh.”

He looked down at the dripping piece of rat in his hand and stuffed it into his mouth.

*   *   *

Luna didn't know the girl, but she recognized her right away.

She found her under a stunted tree on the edge of a sprawling, empty parking lot. It was in the industrial part of the city, near an old warehouse whose roof was full of holes. The girl—younger than Luna, maybe twelve—lay shivering beneath a pile of newspapers. Luna thought she was sleeping, but as she pulled the papers away, she saw the girl was bleeding. She was full of holes, too.

“What happened to you?”

The girl tried to shift away, and grimaced in pain. In a low, trembling voice, she said, “Please, let me be.”

Luna touched the girl's cheek, smeared with grime.

The girl recoiled.

“You're Nightbreed.”

The girl turned her head to look up at Luna.

There was no question. The girl's black hair was truly raven, not hair at all but feathers that curved down in a sleek wave to frame her porcelain doll face. Her eyes were small and brown; her nose was hooked, her mouth a lipless line that quivered with fear and pain.

“I don't know you,” she said, but her imploring eyes held a glimmer of hope.

“My name is Luna.”

The girl's eyes widened. “The Lighthouse! I should have known. Your eyes!” She tried to raise herself up, then slumped back to the ground, wincing. “It hurts. It hurts even to breathe.”

Luna put her hand on the girl's shoulder, easing her down. “Tell me your name.”

“Mordryn.” She clenched her teeth, and Luna saw they were small and sharp, a mouthful of tiny fishhooks. “Mordryn of Midian.”

“Midian is gone,” Luna said.

“I know it.”

“Who did this to you?”

“Men,” Mordryn said. “Monster men.”

“From this place?” Luna asked. “The city?”

Mordryn shook her head with a faint ruffle of feathers. “No,” she said. “But they followed us here.”

“Us? There's more of you? Other Breed?”

“Not now. The monster men got them. They hunt us.” She reached out and gripped Luna's wrist with a yellow, reptilian hand. Talons lacquered with hot pink nail polish pierced her skin, drawing small pearls of blood. Luna barely noticed, her attention focused entirely on the words coming out of Mordryn's trembling mouth.

“They
eat
us,” she said. “They tried to eat me but I got away from them.”

“Who are they?”

“Monster men,” she said. “They call themselves the Sugar Babies. They followed us from Midian.”

Luna was confused. “I thought the men who destroyed Midian were killed.”

“They were,” Mordryn said. “These were the men who came after.” She flung her head back and sobbed. “Our mistake was going back.”

Luna shook her head. “I don't understand.”

“After Midian fell, a group of us left. We didn't know where to go. We traveled north, into the Territories, but it was cold and we couldn't find shelter. So we went back.” She closed her eyes and spoke the words like a mantra: “
Our mistake was going back
.”

“To Midian?”

“Yes.”

“But Midian is gone.”

“I know, but we were tired and hungry. We took refuge in the ruins. Then the monster men came. The Sugar Babies.”

“I don't know who they are.”

“They look like men in suits. Do you know suits?”

Luna nodded.

“The suits are as false as the men. They're monsters wearing other monsters. The ties they wear around their necks are alive! They move like snakes, and the men talk to them!”

“What happened?”

“We ran,” Mordryn said. “We came here, to this city. But the Sugar Babies followed us. There are others of our kind here. We saw them. Tribes on the move. We warned them about the monster men, but they found us. They killed my friends. They were saving me for last. They called me their little treat, their dessert.” She let go of Luna's arm and covered her eyes with her hands. “Our mistake was going back.”

Luna cradled her and told her everything was going to be okay, but Mordryn died that night with the mistake still in her mouth.

*   *   *

The Lighthouse.

She never thought she'd hear that name again. She had gone by many names in Midian. To the trolls she was Li'l Luna. To the blind witches, the hagathas, she was Helper Girl. It was Wardent and his clan—a brave and foolhardy group of souls who went on raiding missions to Dwyer and Shere Neck for supplies—who called her the Lighthouse.

She had earned the nickname by climbing to the top of Midian's tallest structure, a towering obelisk that the Nightbreed had called the Strivent, to stand as lookout for Wardent and his raiders.

Every time before they left on a run, Wardent would curl one of his claw-tipped fingers under Luna's chin and tilt her head up to him. His pale yellow eyes, slit by triangular pupils, would stare into her glowing blue ones, and he'd say, “Keep a watch, little one. Climb to the top of the Strivent and show us the light. That's what you are, the Lighthouse of Midian. Show us the way home.”

Luna was certain that Wardent and the others could find their way back without her, but she was glad to be included. With their excited howls still echoing through the night, she would climb the Strivent, digging her fingers into the cracks in the cold stone while the wind tried to pull her off and fling her to the ground. Once she reached the top, she would open her eyes as wide as possible, and even though she was far above Midian, and the Breed so far below the ground, she could see them, her people, her family, down past the graves and tombs, deep within the catacombs, thousands of darkling souls. She'd stay up there for hours, eyes blazing out into the night, until Wardent and the others returned with their pillage.

She knew they didn't really need her light. But they wanted her there, and that was more important. That was what made them family. What made them Nightbreed.

*   *   *

There was something different about the radio station.

Luna couldn't tell what it was at first. The building looked as decrepit as ever. A yellow-brick box with a metal tower sprouting from the roof. Smashed-out windows glaring like black, blind eyes. The pavement cracked and frost-heaved, sprouting weeds.

She stepped through the glassless front door and called out in a timid voice, “Causwell?”

No answer.

She started down the stairs to the basement … and froze.

Something different, right there. A ragged curtain hung across the entrance at the bottom of the stairs. Luna approached it slowly, warily, swept it aside—it was dry and thin, like very old paper—and stepped through.

As she stood there looking around, a series of emotions coursed through her; surprise, sadness, dread, and finally, fascination.

Causwell wasn't in the basement.

Causwell
was
the basement.

He had done something with his body, extended it, stretched it, spread it out across the walls and floors. His flesh and bones had been transformed into a structure that infused itself with the building's architecture. The previously sagging ceiling was now supported by beams of bone. The cold concrete floor was carpeted in warm, soft flesh. Luna looked over her shoulder at the curtain she had passed through. Not a curtain, she saw now, but a diaphanous sheet of skin.

This was unlike anything she had ever seen Causwell create before. And yet she knew it was him. His body, his smell, was unmistakable. But why had he done it? If he had grown tired of life, he would have killed himself. He had talked about it enough. But what she was looking at wasn't the result of suicide. Quite the opposite.

She found his head in the corner where he'd taken refuge so many times before. His skull seemed to grow right out of the Sheetrock, his blanched face peering at her like someone sunk almost completely in quicksand.

Luna leaned down to cradle his cheeks. “Oh, Causwell, what have you done?”

“I built it for them,” he said in an airless voice.

“For who?”

“The others,” he gasped. “The ones who will come.”

Luna brushed her fingers across his forehead. “You said they were all dead. You didn't believe.”

“I believe in
you
,” Causwell said. “You've always been able see further than I can.” His eyes darted around the room, admiring the sanctuary he'd made. “But it's not finished. I'll need more…” His gaze fell to the floor.

Luna looked down at the desiccated rat carcasses scattered about.

“I'll bring you more,” she said. “As many as you need. And I'll bring
them
, too.”

Causwell smiled. “I know you will.”

*   *   *

She went up to the roof.

The cold wind caressed her, blew her hair around her face. The light in her eyes ebbed and flowed.

She went over to the broadcast tower and began to climb.

Her mind drifted back to the day of her baptism in Midian. The cold fire of Baphomet's touch, his enormous hands raising her up, his words searing into her mind, branding her brain.

You will light the way. When everything goes dark, when all ways are lost, you will be the beacon. You will guide them.

She reached the top of the tower. She couldn't tell if it was as tall as the Strivent, but it didn't matter. There was a light at the tip, but it was dark. That didn't matter, either.

She opened her eyes—opened them wide—and her light shone out across the night sky.

It was not a light for all to see. It was a private light. Only the Breed would see it. Only the Breed would know it. She hoped Wardent would be the first to come. If he was still alive. If he was out there, somewhere. She wanted to feel his claw-tipped finger tilt her face up to his. She was his Lighthouse. Now she would be the Lighthouse for all the Nightbreed. She would guide them here to the House of Causwell.