No Hero (38 page)

“You have to trust him too, Kayla,” Shaw says. “Ophelia’s not your girl anymore.” And Shaw points her gun at Ophelia.

“I will take you all down!” Kayla’s screaming it now. “Not again. I’m not losing someone to these people again.”

“It’s too late Kayla. It’s too late.” It’s Clyde speaking. He spits out a battery from underneath his mask, pulls another from his coat, rolls it in his hands. He shrugs. “I’m so sorry. But it’s too late.”

“All of you,” Kayla hisses the words.

“Give it up,” Tabitha says. “Let it go.”

Kayla stares at us each in turn, arrayed before her. We all know what has to be done. She looks to Ophelia, to the shell of her adopted daughter. She looks back at me. Her lip curls.

And she moves.

And God, Jesus, Mary, and any Holy Ghosts that happen to be in the vicinity... I have seen her move before, I have seen her move like she defies time and space before, but this is something else, this is something different, this is beyond the limits of the human body, surely. I can see cracks opening in her skin for the split second she’s in the space between us, in the split second before she’s on me. I don’t even get to register the sword. I don’t even get to pull the trigger before—

Before nothing.

Nothing happens.

Kayla is hovering in midair before me, utterly still, her sword frozen above her head. Above mine. A bead of blood hangs in the air before us.

For a moment I just stand there too. Watching, staring at the imminence of death, at my own mortality poised in front of me. And then my head and my body and my instincts catch up and finally I flinch away.

Except I don’t. Not an inch. Not a muscle. I’m stuck there. I can’t even twitch my eyes.

Someone walks past me. I see her in the periphery of my vision. And then, as if relenting, the freeze lessens, and my eyes slide in their sockets. That, at least, she grants me. That, at least, Ephie lets me have.

She walks between us all, ignoring us. Her hair is still wet, a dark twisted braid down her still-dripping dress. The water steams here, making the palest of mists around her, lending her an ethereal quality.

“O,” she says, addressing her sister. “Is there any of you left in there?”

I can see Kayla desperately trying to twist in midair, desperately trying to say something.

But only skull-face’s voice sounds in the space. Even Olsted is silent now.

“Come here, child,” says old skully. “Come to your father. She is your sister always. We will all be together when this is over. A family. New blood. New life. New worlds.”

“O?” says Ephie, ignoring him. “O, can you hear me?”

“Come here,” and skull-face’s voice has lost some of its cooing softness now. “Come. Do as your father tells you to do.”

“You can’t save her, Mum,” Ephie says.

At first I don’t know who she’s talking to, but then I catch the look in Kayla’s eyes, the hollowness there, the tears welling.

“You never could. Arthur never could.” She pauses. “I can’t.”

There’s a lump in my throat, a weight in my chest. This is not a child’s decision to make. But she’s not a child anymore, I realize. That’s the price for the Dreamer package. Leaving childhood behind. And so Ephie holds us all still and steady, and she makes her decision.

Ophelia disappears from reality. Ephie grunts, drops to one knee. There is a tear in reality where her sister was. A ragged gap, and again the bright darkness of the void beyond.

As Ephie drops, so does Kayla. I can move again. Olsted is howling. Skull-face screams, a roar of horror and fury. He thrusts out a hand toward Ephie.

But Ophelia, the source of the Dreamers’ fear, is gone. And one of them finally grows a pair.

The princess’s hands go out, something still graceful in the movement, something almost passionate. And she has skull-face beat. And reality bucks and tears, and more than one Dreamer seems to shriek, but skull-face is gone. Then Olsted. Just a dark gash of light. The Dreamers do what they do. They tear out the bits of reality nobody wants anymore.

“Now!” the princess bellows at the other Dreamers, and the whole place shakes. “Do it now before it’s too late.”

As if on cue, the top of the tower tears away. And I can see everything. I can see the world torn apart, the world rising in ragged chunks, the world going to smash itself apart against the great implacable face of a god that truly does not care.

And this is it. This is the end of everything, and I can feel the madness stretching up, up, up, black fingers closing over my thoughts, I can feel the unreality of reality tearing my thoughts apart. And then comes a great sigh. A great exhalation. Something like grief and something like sorrow. And something like joy too.

And then the Feeder is gone.

The Dreamers drop as one to their knees. Grunts of pain. Tears and bellows. Shouts of joy

Above my head—just a night sky, just the night stars.

And then, finally, it’s over.

The world still hangs in the sky. Everything is still there, everything still a mess. But the terrible pressure is over. The crushing, sucking power of the thing is done.

It takes me a long time to look down. To look at us. Tabitha is slowly clambering down the steps of the walkway. She leans heavily on the banisters with her left arm. She still cradles the right to her chest. The masked man that is Clyde takes graceful steps toward her. He offers a slender arm for support. She takes it and wraps it around herself. He lifts her gently off the steps and she buries herself in his chest. When he sets her down, even in her platform Doc Martens she still doesn’t quite come up to his armpits. They stay there, holding each other like teenagers slow dancing at the prom.

Shaw is still slumped against one wall, looking bloodstained and dazed. I rummage in the back of my mind and eventually find the manual for taking a few steps toward her. My body feels distant and sore, like a problem I’m going to have to deal with in the morning.

I offer a hand to Shaw to pull her up. Kurt Russell waiting for the credits to roll. The man of action come to get his woman.

Well... I mean... Not exactly...

Shaw grabs my hand, and as I try to pull her up, she pulls me down. I don’t have the strength to resist.

“Sit,” she says.

I nod, take a seat next to her. We both sit there, side by side. After a moment she rests her head on my shoulder. It feels as close to peace as anything I’ve come across in a long time.

I can see Kayla, still out on the floor of the cooling tower, on her knees. Her sword lies before her on the floor, and she stares down at it, shoulders shaking.

Ephie is there too. The princess as well. The princess’s hand is on Ephie’s shoulder, but Ephie shrugs it off and crosses to her mother. She lays a small hand on Kayla’s forehead. She pushes Kayla’s head up, pushes the bangs back.

“You should grow your hair out,” Ephie says. “Your fringe hides your eyes.”

A sound comes from Kayla that lies somewhere between a sob and a laugh. She grabs Ephie and pulls her into a savage hug. I’m surprised I don’t hear the poor girl’s ribs snapping. But, of course, Kayla would never hurt her daughter. I know that now. I shouldn’t ever have doubted it.

I look at the space Ophelia occupied. No sign that she’d ever been there. Not a smudge or a mark. All gone.

Shit. Shit and balls.

“I’m so sorry, Mum.” Ephie’s words are muffled in Kayla’s hair but no one else is talking. Everyone is staring. Even the Dreamers, still standing there, staring along with us.

“No.” Kayla pulls away slightly, still holding Ephie. She shakes her head violently, sure Ephie can see her. “No,” she says again. “Never that. I’m sorry. Not you. I’m the one. You should never... I never wanted you to have to do that. I never wanted history to...” She bites her lip, chokes something back down. “I should have been stronger, Ephie. And I wasn’t. And I’m sorry you had to be the strong one for us.”

Something complicated and unspoken plays out on Ephie’s face. Not the emotions of a young girl. Something very adult. Eventually she says, “There was never anything you could have done.”

“It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have tried.”

Ephie holds her mother’s gaze, then nods. “Thank you,” she says. Then she steps away. The princess takes a step forward, puts her hand back on Ephie’s shoulder.

“I have to go now, Mum,” Ephie says.

“No.” I can tell Kayla doesn’t want to say it, but I can tell she can’t help it either.

“I’m not a little girl anymore, Mum.”

“I love you, Ephie. Ephemera.”

“I know, Mum. I love you too.”

Kayla’s biting her lip so hard I’m scared her teeth are going to go through it. “I’ll see you again, won’t I?” she says. There’s an edge of begging to her voice.

“All the time, Mum.”

Kayla smiles, a little glimpse of something brighter in the clouds of her fear. She swallows hard. “You’re going to make the world a better place,” she says. “I know it.”

Ephie smiles, big and pure. She runs forward from the princess’s hand, throws her arms around Kayla. They embrace one last time.

“We shall put it back,” the princess says to no one and everyone, sweeping her hand round, “as best we can. We will find what is left in the less probable realities. Bring it forward. Rewrite what is real.” She looks kindly at Ephie. “Of course some things will always be lost. Some things can never be regained. But we shall do what we can.”

Ephie pulls away from Kayla, goes back and takes the princess’s hand.

“See you soon, Mum.”

“See you soon, Ephie.”

They both turn back to the main body of the Dreamers, but before they take a step, the princess pauses, turns back, looks me in the eye and smiles.

And then she’s gone, and Ephie’s gone, and they’re all gone, and all around us, reality starts to pull itself back together.

Light comes in sluggishly through my curtains and puddles on the floor. Morning has broken.

I should feel awful, I know. I should, at the very least, be hungover to hell. And failing that I should be bone-sore. Every muscle in my body should be screaming at me, asking me what in God’s name I was thinking, what I thought I was playing at. And, all told, I should probably be regretting that I ever set my eyes on Felicity Shaw.

Except Felicity Shaw is looking at me right now, is smiling at me right now, and, quite frankly, I’m still a little bit drunk, but she looks pretty great.

I smile back at her. Her expression changes to something like suspicion.

“If you make any jokes,” she says, “about working under a woman, I swear I will castrate you.”

With a grunt, she rolls off me. I shiver as a breeze blows over my naked, sweat-slick chest. But I don’t go to pull the sheets back from her. There is something wonderful and grounded about being here, now.

Outside I can hear traffic trying to make headway, can hear townies shouting insults at students, can hear the students ringing the bells on their bicycles as they plunge madly between buses and infuriated drivers. All the mundane minutia of everyday life.

“I like this,” I say. “I really genuinely like this.”

“Peace?” Shaw asks me, wrapping the sheets around her, a great rumpled bundle of white.

“Yes.”

“It won’t last.”

“I know,” I say. “I don’t think I’d want it to.”

Shaw leans over and shuts me up with a kiss. When it’s over she rests her head on my chest.

Quite the night, all told. Quite the night.

“Do you think Kayla will be all right?” I ask. Now, with some distance, some peace, I can start to think about things, to process events. I see again the fractured smile Kayla gave as Ephie left with the Dreamers.

The Dreamers.

They put our car back. Put the road back. Most of the infrastructure of things seems to be back. There were signs of damage of course. Roofs gone. Trees lying on the ground. Patches of turf torn up. Cars trashed. There was a story on the news about terrible storms. Meteorologists were being fired. Not so bad really. Unless you were a meteorologist.

We’d dropped Kayla off outside a house in Southtown I’d never seen before. A surprisingly flowery-looking place with boxes of roses and a purple door. Not too far from the Sheilas actually.

“After everything we’ve been through,” Shaw asks, “do you still really doubt Kayla’s strength?”

“No,” I shake my head. No hesitation.

“We’ll go over later,” she says. “Make sure she’s got some company.”

“Yes,” I say. “Disturb the peace.” Shaw laughs. And it’ll be good to see Kayla, to check up on her.

Things I never thought I’d think...

And maybe Clyde and Tabitha could be there too. Pick them up from Tabitha’s along the way. We dropped them both off there after Kayla said goodnight. It didn’t seem like a good idea to take Clyde back to his place. I’m not sure how Devon would take the news that her boyfriend is leaving her for an angry goth, let alone that his entire physical form is now a wooden mask. She’ll have to hear it at some point, but that’s not today’s problem.

I smile. Tabitha and Clyde. They’re an odd couple, but I can actually imagine it working.

And this... Whatever this is. Shaw and I. Can I imagine this working? I feel like this has been sneaking up on me for a while, and I never got the chance to even think about it. I’m worried that if I do think about it, I’ll just mess it up.

One day at a time. If this job has taught me anything: one day at a bloody time.

A cellphone rings, interrupts my thoughts. Shaw groans and rolls over, picks it up.

“Yes?” she says. Then she sighs. “What?” A pause. “Where? When?” Another pause. “Now?” She sighs. She nods. “OK. As soon as possible.” She hangs up.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Apparently there’s a thaumaturge re-enervating fossils—”

“Wait.” I hold up a hand. Find out what people are actually talking about—another lesson I’ve learned. “Can you translate for me? Please.”

She smiles. “Rogue wizard. Natural History Museum. Zombie dinosaur.”

My eyebrows climb a good inch up my forehead. “Zombie dinosaur?”