Kill the Dead (Sandman Slim 2)

“It’s the worst possible way for a Geistwald.”

I look at Aki and back at Koralin.

“I see Aki over there and I see a pampered little prince taped to a chair. His heart is beating like a scared rabbit and his soul is bouncing around like a Super Ball in his chest. Then I look at you and I don’t see anything. You’re hollow and I can’t help noticing that you don’t seem to have a soul.”

“The Geistwald line discarded them centuries ago. They’re done away with at birth.”

“Are you dead by any chance, Koralin? Are you Death Born?”

She shoots Aki an angry glance.

“Der Todes Geboren. Yes. All Geistwalds are. It’s our gift. The source of our strength.”

“You’re Drifters. Your whole fucking family. That’s your secret. Savants might be special, but you’re something else entirely. I bet no one even knows there’s a fourth kind of Drifter.”

“Not many. The few who do either work with us or they die quickly.”

“I bet. That’s a big secret to hide for centuries. Is that why you came to America? You couldn’t stay in the old country without someone finally figuring out what you were? Pretty soon you’d have to wipe out every Sub Rosa in Europe. Not the way to make friends and influence people.”

“Something along those lines. But we also came for the same reasons as the Springheels. There was no room for new dynasties at home. Here it was open land and fertile soil. The East already had settled families so we followed the Springheels to the West. It was paradise for many years, but then things changed.”

“Other Sub Rosas came and started crowding you out?”

“Of course not. We encouraged them to follow us. You can’t build a true dynasty in the wilderness. A dynasty must be appreciated and acknowledged.”

“Then why are you doing this? How many old families do you have to kill off to prove you’re the best? How much more wealth and power do you need? What the hell is it that you really want?”

“The next million years,” she says. Koralin paces as she talks. I’ve hit a nerve.

“This land is ours. It belongs to Der Todes Geboren. The other families can stay as long as they understand who rules here. But not you. Not your stores or industry or cars or noise. When we came here, the Indians living along the river didn’t trouble us. They recognized what and who we were. They respected our privacy and we respected theirs. Then others came. Traders from Mexico. Spaniards on ships. European trappers and settlers. They ran out the Indians. We poisoned the river. We called down the haze from the ocean. We froze and choked them, but they wouldn’t go away. They planted trees and brought their stinking cattle. They built their cities and bred like rats. They changed the land completely. We hardly recognized our home.”

“But they learned to keep out of your way, so you must have made contact sometime.”

“Charles Springheel was a fool. He decided that we should coexist with you people, and being the oldest family, he convinced the others to go along with him.”

“So, you decided to kill off everything to get back at Charles for snubbing you. It sounds convincing except that when I look outside I don’t see any kind of organized attack. All I see is chaos. I mean, Aki here was running around prying open manholes by hand like some teenybopper playing pranks on Halloween. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, is it? This isn’t your plan. It’s Eleanor’s revenge. Stealing the Druj screwed up your timetable and you weren’t ready.”

“It doesn’t matter. Tonight. Tomorrow. This has been coming for a long time and now it’s here.”

“It’s going to end tonight.”

“Yes, it is. The golems we’ve released should make the situation clear. You people can leave now and live, or you can die here and wander the Jackal’s Backbone until the stars burn out.”

“I wonder what would happen if I held you down and pulled your head off your pretty shoulders.”

She smiles and touches a hand to her lips.

“Aelita said that you would make threats when you didn’t get your way. She gave me something that’s valuable to you. A Jade named Candy.”

“Anything else?”

“A head that won’t stop talking.”

She waits for me to say something. I don’t. I stand still.

“Interesting. Aelita told me that this is when you would attack. She said that you would erupt at anything resembling a threat.”

“I’m not like that anymore. Getting all theatrical is only about making the attacker feel better.”