The Dying of the Light (30 page)

“I’m going to miss these chats of ours.”

“You are leaving?”

“Retiring,” Stephanie said. “I’m going to leave the fighting to Valkyrie. She can save the world. I just want to live in it.”

“In that case, I wish you a happy retirement,” said the Engineer. “Would you like to know how long before the Accelerator overloads, for old time’s sake?”

Stephanie opened her mouth – then paused. “No,” she smiled. “That’s not my problem any more.”

“Very well. Have a nice life, Stephanie.”

“You too, Engineer,” she said, and walked out. And that was it. That was all she’d needed. A simple choice like that, and it all changed. Her future opened up before her. Blossomed like a flower. Every opportunity, every avenue, came into sudden, vivid clarity. She would be a good daughter, a great sister, a wonderful girlfriend, a decent person. She would finish that Stephen King book. She would go to college. She would live and love. She would be vibrant and happy and thoughtful and strong. She had long outgrown her limitations as a reflection, and now she would outgrow her limitations once more.

Stephanie laughed.

The fist caught her in the side of the head and the corridor tilted and threw her to the unsteady ground. She rolled, not sure which way was up. She got her feet under her and straightened her legs, staggered against the wall. The whole world spun and the wall wasn’t there any more and she was falling through an open door.

A man appeared in the doorway, a giant of a man, muscled arms bursting from his sleeveless denim jacket, long black hair in tangles. She knew him. She knew his face, ugly as it was. Obloquy. He was one of Vincent Foe’s little band of nihilists. She backed up unsteadily, expecting Foe to make his presence known. But it seemed that Obloquy was here alone. Obloquy the giant, the thug. The Sensitive.

But of course it wasn’t Obloquy. Not really. He was sweating, and his movements were clumsy. He was a vehicle that someone was taking for a test drive, and not planning to return.

“Darquesse,” Stephanie said.

Darquesse twisted her male face into a leering grin, and swung a punch. Stephanie saw it coming. She ducked under it and lunged, going for Darquesse’s eyes, but Darquesse was already raising a knee.

It was an awkward move, but it caught Stephanie right in the belly. Her jacket was open, unzipped, and the knee took the breath out of her. She stumbled away, her muscles in spasm.

“Did I hear right?” Darquesse asked, following. “You’re retiring? You’re saying your goodbyes? Did you honestly think that was going to happen? Really? You think you’re the one, out of everyone, who gets a happy ending?”

Stephanie straightened, sucking in air. She tried to zip up her jacket but the zipper was stuck.

Darquesse brushed her matted hair out of her eyes. “I mean, I understand it. That desire. A happy ending sounds nice, doesn’t it? I had a happy ending in mind, too. I was going to do what you were trying to do. I was going to fit in. I was going to belong. But they weren’t content with that. They wanted Valkyrie back. Wouldn’t settle for anything less.”

“You don’t look well, Darquesse,” Stephanie said. Her voice was weak. Her lungs couldn’t draw in enough breath to shout for help.

“I
don’t
look well, do I?” Darquesse agreed. “I can feel my organs boiling inside me, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“Must suck.”

“I might not be able to use my powers, but this body will do the job. It’s enough to kill you.”

“I’m not going to die,” said Stephanie. “I’ve got too much to live for.”

Darquesse closed in. “Life and death are just two ways in which energy moves. Two possible paths out of a billion. Look. I’ll show you.”

She moved in and Stephanie dodged under her swipe, slammed a boot heel to the side of her knee and watched her shift her weight drastically. Her instinct was to go for the head – always go for the head – but Darquesse had picked this guy for his size. Stephanie would need to work her way up.

Darquesse lunged, grabbed Stephanie’s right arm and threw a punch that would have taken her head off if she hadn’t stepped in to smack her forehead into Darquesse’s mouth. Darquesse howled, blood spraying from burst lips. Maybe the blow had broken a tooth or two. Stephanie hoped it had, because the headbutt had hurt her, too, sent bright flashes of light exploding behind her vision. Darquesse stepped back, both hands at her face, and Stephanie crouched, threw an uppercut right into Darquesse’s groin. Darquesse made a sound like a stone door being opened, all grinding and hollow, and she doubled over, eyes bulging for a moment before screwing shut in slow-delivered pain. Stephanie danced back a step and kicked, her toe catching Darquesse just under the chin. That should have put her down. Instead, her big man’s legs shook a little, and after a moment she straightened up again.

Stephanie feinted one way, went the other, foot swinging for that knee. What was it Patrick Swayze said in that movie Tanith had made her watch? Take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he’ll drop like a stone. Damn right. Look at Darquesse now, lurching, hobbling, her bloody face contorted in pain, her breath coming in ragged wheezes. All Stephanie had to do was keep dictating the distance between them until she could break off and run.

Darquesse dropped back, glaring at her.

“You’re not much without magic, are you?” Stephanie said. Her breathing was back under control. Her voice was strong again. She kept circling, getting closer to the door.

“New body,” Darquesse responded, blood dribbling from her mouth. “Takes a while to get the hang of things. Also, male. There’s some vulnerable spots I’m not used to.”

“You’ve got more muscles to make up for it.”

“Suppose I do,” Darquesse said. “But I can’t be relying on stuff like that, can I? I have to remember who I am. Have to remember my training. Which, now that I think of it, is exactly the same training as yours. This is going to be interesting, isn’t it?”

Darquesse smiled, and took a limping step forward. Stephanie took one back. Darquesse wiped the blood from her mouth, looked at it, then flicked her hand out. Drops of blood splattered across Stephanie’s face and she flinched, and in that split second Darquesse forgot about her limp and dived across the space between them. A huge hand grabbed Stephanie’s shoulder and the other ripped the jacket off her. A punch cracked her ribs, then an elbow came in with the force of a wrecking ball, shattering her jaw.

Pain screamed through her body and she fell into the corridor. They went down, Darquesse a crushing weight on top. Stephanie tasted blood, swallowed broken teeth. She squirmed frantically, shifting her hips. She went for the eyes, but Darquesse kept her head out of range, so Stephanie grabbed the hand that gripped her shoulder, swung her legs up, tried to force Darquesse into an arm bar, but Darquesse got her feet beneath her and she stood, taking Stephanie up, lifting her off the ground, and then she let herself fall and Stephanie hit the floor and Darquesse landed on her and Stephanie’s arms and legs splayed wide open with the impact.

She felt thick fingers at her throat, but her body was too stunned to react.

Then she heard voices. Valkyrie. Fletcher.

She tried to shout, but her jaw sent fresh waves of pain crashing through her. Darquesse abandoned the choke, went searching through her jacket for something. Stephanie’s body was starting to respond again. Darquesse took a wooden sphere from her pocket, twisted the hemispheres in opposite directions, and a bubble rippled out, enveloping them both just as Valkyrie and Fletcher came round the corner.

“You don’t think it’s weird, do you?” Fletcher asked in a low voice, oblivious to Stephanie and Darquesse only a few paces away. Stephanie wanted to call out, for all the good it would do with the cloaking sphere preventing sound from escaping the bubble, but Darquesse’s fingers were squeezing her throat and she could barely breathe, let alone shout.

“Actually, yeah,” Valkyrie said, “I think it’s very weird, to be honest. You’re doing things with her and she’s me, essentially, so even though we’ve broken up, you’re still getting to do stuff with … OK, listen, it’s just unsettling.”

“Amazingly, this isn’t all about you,” said Fletcher.

“Oh, really?” Valkyrie said, not bothering to hide her scepticism.

Stephanie tried a closed-mouth roar as they passed right beside her, but they didn’t even glance down.

She felt Darquesse tighten the choke and she tried to squirm backwards and Darquesse shifted her weight forward and Stephanie caught her in a beautifully-timed scissor sweep, flipping Darquesse on to her back with Stephanie on top. She scrambled to get up, dropping hammerfists on to Darquesse’s nose when she tried to hold on to her. Stephanie fell sideways and Darquesse turned over, and they got to their feet.

“Hi,” she heard Valkyrie say from the Accelerator Room, “have you seen Stephanie?”

“I did indeed,” the Engineer responded. “She was here two minutes and forty-nine seconds ago.”

Stephanie called out. It came out as a gurgle from her broken mouth.

Darquesse grinned.

Stephanie rushed forward, her hands sliding over her own head, those elbows smashing whatever was in front of her.

“Typical,” Valkyrie said as they walked out into the corridor. “You know, she does this just to show me that she’s her own person.”

“Don’t be mean about Steph,” Fletcher said. They stood there, looking at each other. “I like her and she likes me. You remember what that was like, don’t you? Back when I was irresistible to you?”

Valkyrie laughed. “You were never irresistible.”

Stephanie hooked her left hand round the back of Darquesse’s neck, started driving more elbows into her face, desperate to get the space she needed to just lunge out of the sphere’s bubble.

“Of course I was,” Fletcher said, grinning. “You were totally into me. Before the vampire came along, of course. You and your bad boy phase.”

“It didn’t last long.”

Fletcher shrugged. “Didn’t have to.”

Darquesse flipped her over her hip and Stephanie slammed to the ground. Darquesse twisted the arm she still held and even through her broken jaw Stephanie screamed as her bone snapped.

“I really never meant to hurt you,” Valkyrie said. “You were my first real boyfriend. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.”

“You think I did? You were my first girlfriend.”

Valkyrie frowned. “I thought you said I was your fourth.”

Fletcher laughed. “Yeah … may have exaggerated about that part.”

Valkyrie’s eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

He laughed again. “Yeah,” he said, and went quiet for a moment.

Darquesse let go of her arm and Stephanie turned over, tears in her eyes, started dragging herself towards the edge of the bubble.

She didn’t look back, but she felt Darquesse standing there, watching her as she neared the edge.

“I really like Stephanie,” Fletcher said softly.

“I know,” said Valkyrie. “And if that’s what it is, then I have no problem with it. But she deserves your honesty. So are you sure you like her because of her, or do you like her because of me?”

Stephanie reached out, her hand passing through the bubble, her fingers curling, digging into the floor, dragging herself after them. All they had to do was look round. All they had to do was see her hand.

Fletcher took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

Strong fingers closed round her ankle and Darquesse hauled Stephanie away from the edge of the bubble. She sobbed in pain and desperation as she was flipped on to her back, and Darquesse knelt over her, those hands round her throat, squeezing. The face she wore, Obloquy’s, grinned down at her with a bloody mouth.

Stephanie scraped at those hands, dug her fingernails in, tried to claw at that face, tried to bend one of those fingers back, tried to do something, anything, to stay alive, to keep going, to see her family again, her mum and her dad and her baby sister, please Christ, she didn’t want to die, she’d worked so hard, she’d done so much and come so far and she was a person now and she loved Fletcher and she loved her family and she loved this world that was getting darker and dimmer and the sound was muting and she couldn’t hear any more or feel or touch and then it was gone and it was all black clouds of cold and then even they were gone and she

ootsteps echoing in the empty corridors, they continued their lazy search for Stephanie until finally Valkyrie took out her phone.

Fletcher was being adorable today – he had a way of doing that, of dropping the grin and swaggering demeanour and allowing glimpses of the young man underneath to shine through. She liked him when he was honest, and it was in those moments that she was reminded of why she’d fallen for him in the first place. Those feelings had long since faded, of course, but what remained was a connection that would never be forgotten. They had been each other’s firsts. That meant something. No matter what else happened, that meant something.

And as long as he didn’t break Stephanie’s heart, or as long as she didn’t break his, it always would.