Cadell was always the dreamer. But his dreams were nightmares for the rest of us. To call them anything else was an act of kindness and generosity that he did not deserve. He was the worst of them, the terror of terrors.
I dread the steady beat of his footfalls, the dry gasp of his laughter. I met him once; he shook my hand, offered me a drink. I said no. Better sobriety around the man who murdered Sean Milde, and tore the limbs from Vergers as though they were nothing but insects.
I thought about that, and changed my mind. Cadell smiled as he poured me my drink, as though we shared a secret. That smile is the progenitor of more than a few bad dreams.
THE CITY OF HARDACRE 965 MILES NORTH OF THE ROIL
Another storm rolled in as they left the Habitual Fool, thunder rumbling down from the mountains. David smiled and nodded his head. “Rain reminds me of home, and it'll hide our scent a little,” he said, and opened the umbrella, Cadell’s old one with the blade in its handle. He offered it to Margaret, who shook her head and shrugged her coat tight about her. “Suit yourself,” he said.
They headed back to the end of Backel Lane and where the Roiling — it didn’t do to think of her as human — had followed them. Patrols were out in force, constables armed to the teeth. Men and women with blunt-headed rifles, cudgels, and knives that were the match of any Verger’s.
The spot where the Roiling had lain was stained and black, the rain failing to wash these robust vestiges away. David looked at the stain appraisingly, dropping down to his haunches. He could feel that Cadell had been here, had perhaps stood in almost the exact same spot. He could even feel a little of his anger, that such a creature could have come this way. If David hadn't killed it, Cadell would have. David found that a little reassuring. Cadell hadn't changed completely, like these black marks, there was something that even death had failed to erase.
“He will be somewhere dark,” David said. “If we were still in Mirrlees, I’d have suggested the Downing Bridge and Mirkton beneath. There he would have had all the food he required, and less fight too.”
Then David realised that Margaret had no idea what he was talking about. She’d not seen the bridge, nor the vast levees — outside of tattered books, the pictures dim and hazy, and fronted by men and women in top hats (Engineers all), smoking cigars and patting each other's backs. Even on their flight over the city, all she'd have seen was lights glittering in a flooded landscape: suburbs drowning and those ready to drown.
“Dark,” she said. “And I guess deserted, too.”
David nodded. “Yes, even now, his capacities so diminished he… it will do its best to hide.”
“So, he’s an Old Man, but he was before, why does it kill?”
“Everything, well, nearly everything, that Cadell was before, except the hunger, is gone. And believe me, Cadell had killed before, he was just more… selective.” David didn’t go into any further detail, now was not an appropriate time for such a discussion, and he didn’t want to have to earn Margaret’s trust again. “What we’re hunting is just a shell. The real Cadell died on the Roslyn Dawn. He told me to dispose of the remains, but it’s rather hard to fulfil a dying man's request when you're unconscious.”
“If you just trusted me,” Margaret said, startling him; they were both so suspicious of each other. He raised his hands in the air.
“No, no, this has nothing to do with trust,” David said. “There wasn’t any time. When the Roil sent those iron ships, there was nothing but that threat in my mind. And, to be honest, I didn’t expect my actions to be so exhausting. I was naive, but I am not any longer.”
And yet, he thought, here they were — the two of them alone, looking for a monster.
They followed the streets, working their way outwards, each street longer, given to a broader curve. David felt they could be missing anything, except the further they walked, the more he could feel… it wasn’t so much a presence but a falling away, a rising absence. Cadell hadn't fed again, he could tell that much. The constables’ pursuit had weakened him, but he wouldn't stay that way for long. David reached into his bag, pulled out a sandwich, liver and kidney, all that lovely iron. He devoured it, and ate another.
He realised Margaret was watching him. “Need to keep my strength up. Would you like one?”
Margaret declined.
They ended up in the warehouse district. Row after row of deserted buildings crowded around them.
“He’s here,” David said. “I can feel him, I think.” David frowned. “And he’s fed again.”
But that was the closest they came for hours. They spent the afternoon slowly, slowly walking down wide and empty streets that would have not too long ago rang with industry. The rain fell, and David found himself never quite able to find Cadell, though once they came across a patch of road over which he might have eaten. David frequently made them stop and stand absolutely still.
“He’s passed us,” he'd say or, “He’s very close.”
Usually a few minutes later the scent would grow cold.
The day fell into night, lights came on across the city, and still they searched. David guided them back to eat in the city proper — once he had run out of his own supply — devouring huge plates of food like it was his last meal.
“Maybe it's time we went back,” Margaret suggested.
David nodded. “Perhaps it’s time you did,” he said.
“What about you?”
“I’m staying here until this is done,” he said. “You're right, too many people have died already.”
That seemed to decide it for her. She reached out and squeezed David’s hand, a gesture that was almost tender. “As if I can just leave you to die.” David nodded, but he didn’t try to talk her out of it. It wasn't much later that someone screamed.
The scream hung in the air between them. David actually jumped. Margaret could see the pain on his face, even as he smiled at her. “We have him now,” he said.
They found him on an empty street near a butchery closed for the night. The air stank of the slaughterhouse, which was appropriate, Margaret thought.
“He’s here,” David said.
“Where?” Margaret couldn’t see anyone.
There was a crash of glass and the light nearest to them shattered. Margaret heard the next stone as it shot through the air, even saw it just before it hit the next closest street lamp.
Now, only a moon lit the street.
Margaret unsheathed her rime blade, though she didn’t activate it, counting on its hard edge.
“Put it away,” David whispered. “He’s too fast for that.”
“You don’t know how fast I am,” Margaret said.
“I know how swift he is, and, believe me, you’re no match — there, there he is.” He pointed into the dark. Margaret didn’t sheathe her blade.
Cadell crouched in the shadows. He hadn’t even bothered to wipe the blood from his lips. He grinned at Margaret, and seeing that face, all that blood, she knew that David was right, there was nothing of Cadell there. Nothing gentle or clever in all that hunger, unless the world itself was just hunger. Margaret had grown up on the terrors of the Roil, but this was an altogether darker thing, and worse, because she had seen some of that look in David. This was no Cadell, but a hollow man, possessed of a mouth, a gut, and cunning. Then clouds passed over the moon, and he was little more than a dark mannish shape.
Rain fell all at once, a great heavy downpour. How could they fight in this? Cadell sprang to his feet and sprinted at them through the dark — and David did something truly annoying. He stepped in front of her.
Margaret had to resist the temptation to cut into his back. David raised a hand, the Orbis on his finger flared with a cold hard brilliance that drew everything around them sharp and clear. It was almost as though the light of another time lit the street, things slowed, and grew a dangerous clarity.
Cadell backed from the light, a blood-covered hand thrown in front of his face, and Margaret could see each drop falling from his fingers to the gravel. None of it lost in the rain. Then things sped up, the light changed subtly. Cadell scurried backwards. But the glow followed him, and his hands couldn't conceal what he had become from it. Another drop of blood splattered on the ground.
“You remember what you are,” David said, and Margaret was startled by the pain and disappointment in his voice, as though despite knowing what he was facing, he’d never truly expected it. Cadell halted, lowered his hands, his face long and lupine. None of the sadness was there nor his overbearing mockery and impatience. He truly was cored of everything but the husk. And yet he stopped.
David strode towards him, closer and closer, until they almost touched. “You remember what you are,” David repeated. “Though not as much as me. If you honour the man, not the curse-”
Cadell swiped him aside, a movement so swift that Margaret hardly saw it, her limbs already given over to reflex as Cadell darted towards her. So much for David.
Margaret swept her rime blade out, and Cadell grabbed her by her wrist so tightly her bones creaked. She slammed her left fist into his face, it was like punching iron, and yet Cadell reacted. His eyes widened, and dark blood streamed from his nose. But he didn’t let go, just yanked her closer. She felt her fingers loosen, the sword starting to fall from her hand. Something moved behind them. Cadell's head snapped forward, Margaret almost buckled beneath his weight.
Over Cadell's shoulder, David's face loomed; blood streamed down a cut beneath his eye. He smiled at her, and, again, there was something ghoulish and un-David like about that grin. He closed his hands around Cadell’s head and wrenched him to one side. Now Cadell’s fingers released their grip, and David kicked out, driving him away from her — ribs cracked as the Old Man lifted into the air.
David was already sprinting after Cadell, who had landed in a crouch, catlike. Cadell wasn’t running, though. David kicked out at him, Cadell grabbed his leg and, as though it were little more than an afterthought, spun David in a rough circle, before hurling him into the window of the butchery. David went through, headfirst. There was no elegance in the way either of them moved, only strength and speed.
Cadell was fighting on instinct alone and it was giving him the edge.
Margaret let her rime blade drop, pulled free her rifle and shot Cadell in the head. The Old Man spun towards her; perhaps she should have considered running. She shot him again, and then there was no time. He was swinging out at her, and she was using the rifle like a club, looking up at those bloody teeth. She knocked his hands away, heard one of his fingers break as she struck them.
She scrambled back, all instinct herself. His eyes were as dark and empty as an Endym’s, and Margaret knew that soon she would follow him down into death. She was outclassed. Endyms, Quarg Hounds, Roilings — she could destroy those, but Cadell was another thing altogether. She flung her rifle at his head, and he swiped it away. She snatched a pistol from her belt and shot him in the chest, point-blank. It didn't even slow him down.
Cadell struck her hard, and she fell to the ground. He pressed one hand against her shoulder, reached down with the other to touch her neck. She raged against that strength, and couldn’t move. Her hands closed around the Verger's knife in her belt, she yanked it free, drove it into his chest. His mouth opened and shut. Margaret could hear the breath whistling through his broad nose, she could smell blood and putrefaction on his breath.
The rain stopped. Gutters gurgled, something dripped nearby, and Cadell peered at her, a heartbeat and a heartbeat more. Kill me and be done with it, she thought.
Cadell jerked forward, and then he was rising. Lifted up from behind, David’s hands around his neck, the Verger's knife jutting from the Old Man's chest.
“Husk,” David said, in a quiet voice that became a growl. “Husk, you are as NOTHING to me!”
David squeezed, and Cadell shook, eyes bulging. He thrashed in David’s grip, but David didn’t let go. The muscles in his arms flexed with a strength that Margaret could only wonder at. He squeezed and squeezed, and finally Cadell stilled.
David threw the body at the ground, and kicked it. Bones cracked. He kicked it again and again, mumbling something under his breath.
He turned to Margaret. “Are you all right?”
Margaret nodded.
“Good,” he said, and he didn’t look all right. He looked like he was crying. “We need to end this. Now.”