Chapter 24 - Blood
You’re a murderer now, I accuse myself. You literally have blood on your hands.
I expect to feel different, as I’ve committed what is considered the ultimate sin, but I don’t. I feel the same. I don’t feel guilty.
“We have to go,” Dylan urges me. He’s still clutching the severed hand like it’s a rare relic.
I look back at Brother Willow, at the bloody pulp I’ve made of his chest, the blood quickly congealing and turning black around his throat like a collar. His eyes are still open, staring at nothing. He’s gone now, and father’s body is unoccupied, just as it should be.
Dylan is at the door now, impatient and glaring at me. I notice he refuses to look at the body. Does he think I’ve killed our father? Does he blame me?
“He’s dead,” I mutter.
“You did the right thing,” says Dylan.
“He wasn’t Father,” I tell him. “He was nothing like Father.”
“I know that.” Dylan comes forward and kicks at a small saw like instrument, discarded on the floor, and covered in blood. “I sawed his hand off; the same hand he used to smack me across the back of the head when I did something naughty; the same hand he used to work with. I know it wasn’t him, this Brother Willow, but when I look at him all I can see is Father. I don’t think I would ever have been able to kill him, no matter what he did.”
”I could’ve killed him months ago, but all I saw when I looked at his face was Father. Then I finally came to understand that there was nothing of Father in Brother Willow.”
We look at the corpse again. I see I am standing in a pool of blood and my feet are bare. The blood is warm between my toes. The thin material of my gown is splattered with more blood.
I notice Dylan is pulling at a bag strapped to his back. He takes out some old clothes and a pair of brown boots ratty. They were the clothes I had been wearing when the gods attacked, when mother and Uncle Rooster had died.
“Put these on,” he tells me. “It’s winter outside.”
I’m puzzled. “Surely it’s late July?”
“Believe me, it’s winter,” says Dylan. “The seasons are changing. Spring never arrived and winter refuses to leave.”
I start to dress, glad to wear something different, even if it is my old clothes. I don’t fancy making an escape attempt wearing this flimsy gown they’ve put me in. Why did they keep my old clothes, I wonder. Were they going to send me back into the world as their sleeper agent as they’d done with Father?
“I miss him,” says Dylan as I pull on my old boots. “I miss them all so much.”
I nod and say, “They’ve taken everything from us.”
“As long as one member of the House of Casper still lives then they haven’t taken everything,” says Dylan. “There’s the two of us and somewhere out there is Skye. We need her.”
“She wanted to start her own House, though.”
He smiles. “I’m sure you can talk her around. After all, technically she is starting a House, or rebuilding an old one.”
I’m sure Skye would agree to this. If she knew about the death of her family, she wouldn’t hesitate to help Dylan and I restart the House. She’d be a founder member, too. She’d enjoy that honor.
Dylan puts his hand on my shoulder. “No more talking. We have to get out of here.”
“The sooner the better,” I say.
But I can’t go just yet. There is something I need.
I pick up the music box. I feel it in my hands; the weave of the wood and the sheer power that this tiny thing can command. Right now this is the most important object in the world.
“What’s that?” Dylan asks.
“Something I don’t want them to have,” I answer, before joining him at the door. I slide the music box into the backpack that Dylan has given me. I could destroy it. But my instinct tells me I need to keep it safe.
“What’s that for?” I ask him, pointing towards Brother Willow’s disembodied hand.
“This is what’s going to get us out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
He taps his nose, an affectation I’d seen Mother do. “Wait and see.”
“One more thing,” I say. I look around for something to use as a blunt object and notice a red tube attached to the wall near the door. I yank it from its bracket, and climb onto the operating table.
“What are you doing?” says Dylan, sounding puzzled.
“Wait and see,” I mimic.
I show him by smashing the red tube against the repurposing machine. Sparks flash and tiny bits of metal and bolts fly at me like shrapnel as I hit it over and over again. It’s delicate machinery. After four or five blows a large chunk of it breaks free, rolls off the table and smashes onto the floor.
I grab hold of the rest of the machine and pull at it, yanking it free from the ceiling. Electrical wires hiss at me from being exposed but they don’t frighten me. I jump onto the floor and put it with the piece that has already fallen off.
Then I piss on it.
“It’s not enough,” I say after my bladder has been emptied.
“At least they won’t be able to fix it, at least not easily,” says Dylan. He gives me a shamed look. “Brother Nectar is dead.”
I look at him, shocked. “You killed him.”
“I had to, even though we were friends.”
“I want this entire room to burn.”
“We haven’t got time for this!” yells Dylan. “You’ve done enough damage! Just leave it!”
“They want to start a crusade,” I tell him, not sure if he already knows. “They could have more of these machines and we need to kill them all.”
“MOVE!”
We exit the operations room and I see the outside corridor for the first time. It’s the same as on the cell levels, white and sparse, but not as long. I can’t see any more doors. There is a small chamber opposite with several comfy chairs, almost like a waiting room. It definitely isn’t for the patients. I realize that as soon as I see Sister Faun sit up from her seat and glare at us.
She is completely stolid.
This woman still terrifies me and she knows it.
“I heard the screams,” she says. “Your father didn’t die easily.”
“He wasn’t my father,” I spit.
She appears shocked. “You killed him? I suppose I can see that. You have the look of a murderer.”
Our escape attempt had lasted mere seconds before we were found out. Sister Faun would use her powers on us and we’d be helpless and we’d be right back where we started. At least they can’t repurpose us anymore.
Sister Faun just stares at us.
“You can go,” she says. “I won’t stop you.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say.
She sighs. “I said I won’t stop you, but I don’t know about the others. They’ll probably kill you.”
“I destroyed your machine,” I brag.
“You did?” She grins. “Good for you.”
“Looks like your crusade has failed.”
“My crusade will go ahead as planned. You don’t know everything.”
“Do you have more of them?”
Dylan pulls me along with him, ignoring her. “Leave her be. She’s mad.”
“I’m not mad!” she calls to us as we ignore her, heading away. “I’m just planning ahead!”
She laughs as Dylan presses Brother Willow’s severed hand against a white panel on the wall. The wall vanishes to reveal the interior of the lift. We step inside. Dylan touches something on the inside of the lift, a button that I hadn’t seen in the other lift, and the doors close and we take off.
“What does she mean?” I wonder. I don’t ask about the hand, as it’s now obvious. We needed someone more powerful to access the surface.
“She knows we intend to find the God Cannon,” Dylan explains. “She’s just letting us go so she can follow us and destroy it.”
“Why would
she tell us that?” I ask, confused.
“We can’t stop her, can we?” says Dylan. “So what’s the point of even hiding what her plans are?”
It’s a simple plan and one that had yet to occur to me. The thought of her chasing me for the rest of my life scares me.
“So we won’t even think about finding the God Cannon,” I suggest. “That way we can’t lead her to it.”
“Is that really an option?” says Dylan.
We look at each other. After a few seconds I state, “I want to find it. We could formulate a proper plan once we escaped this place.
“So do I,” he says. “I want those gods to pay.”
“Is this about revenge?”
He watches me for a while before replying with, “Yes.”
I can settle for that for now. Revenge is a powerful motivator.
The music box! If we had the God Cannon all we had to do was summon them with the box and kill them. It’s simple when you think about it.
“You have to do your best to make sure Sister Faun can’t follow you,” Dylan says. “You have to be careful. She’s an excellent tracker. They send her out after escaped prisoners. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, she’s very good at her job.”
The lift journey seems to be taking a while.
“I should’ve killed her,” says Dylan with a long sigh. “She stood right in front of us and we did nothing. We should’ve killed her.”
“Next time,” I promise him.
“I’ll never live with myself if she finds the God Cannon.”
“We won’t let her.”
The lift comes to a stop, and Dylan’s words ring in my head. I’m just about to ask him whether we’re at the surface or not when the door opens and he shoves me out of the lift. I don’t notice where we are, or what level we’re on.
I turn to him, feeling shocked. “What are you doing?”
“You know what you have to do,” says Dylan. He looks straight into my eyes and smiles, like he’s made peace with something. “Get out of here and kill them. Do it for me; do it for the House; do it for Mother and Father.”
What is he saying? I’d much rather prefer this to be a trap.
“Dylan!” I beg.
He answers “If I do make it after doing what I have to do, I know where you’ll go first, but if I don’t...I love you, brother.”
I run to stop him, but the door to the lift closes up again. I bang on the door, on the white panel, but nothing happens. Angry and betrayed, I fight back the tears. I hear the faint sound of the lift whizzing upwards, taking my brother away from me.
“Dylan!” I cry. “Come back!”