Monsters (Ashes Trilogy 3)

A orange-red blaze of heat detonated in his head, an immense thunderclap like a pillowing wave of napalm. Peter wailed in agony as another shock wave blasted him back. Still screaming, he toppled. The pain was molten and all-consuming. Through the clamor, he just made out a voice he knew too well: “All right, boy-o. Let’s everybody cool down.”

As suddenly as the pain swept through, it evaporated, as if someone had flicked a hidden switch. Wallowing in snow, Peter turned a look to where Finn stood, massive and compact, a monolith in a uniform as black as a crow’s wing. A long, curved parang hung in a scabbard from his left hip. At his right rested his pearl-handled Colt. Flanking him were two Changed girls, also in camo-whites, and their eyes were like Davey’s: blood-red pools.

“Ease down, boy-o,” Finn said.

“No, no!” Peter rolled to all fours, like a seething animal. “Let me finish!”

“And you will, but not today or with Davey. Unless you want a repeat?”

It was a question that required no response. Peter spat a bullet of blood. “How did you do that?”

“Oh, it’s complicated. Come on, on your feet. We’re all friends here.”

“I’m not your friend.” Blood from his torn shoulder spilled to the small of his back and leaked along his right arm to drip from the knob of his elbow and melt into the snow. The red on white was, eerily, like the girls’ eyes set against the white ovals of their faces, and Davey’s— and, probably, his own. “I’m not his. I’m not theirs.”

“But you are mine.” Finn’s fissured face didn’t crack a grin. “I’m your world, Peter. Look at yourself. Naked as a jay but not cold, are you? Don’t need to sleep?”

“No. But I dream.” To his left he saw Lang, coughing, struggle to a sit. Already on his feet, Davey slid to Finn’s right. Peter’s blood was smeared over Davey’s mouth in a drippy clown’s grin. “With my eyes wide open,” Peter said. “Daymares.”

“Ah, yes, the flashbacks. Those’ll wear off. They’re a . . . glitch.”

“You drugged me from the beginning, didn’t you? When I was in the infirmary and after I broke down and ate . . .” He clamped off the rest. “Will it wear off ?”

“Possibly, but I sincerely hope not. The withdrawal’s a bitch. But you were too good a specimen to pass up. Your brain is already different. We know because you’re still alive.” Finn regarded him with the kind of curiosity reserved for a new and fascinating lab specimen. “Do you really want this to wear off, Peter? To end?”

“I—I” he began, and stopped. Weren’t those two different questions? Being with Finn, yeah, he wanted out. Yet riding that electric red swoon was like nothing he’d ever felt. And really, had that been so bad? No. I want that feeling back. I’m new, different, better than I was, but if I can hang on to part of who I was, maybe I can use this somehow. As for the winged thing muttering its dark language . . . he could live with that.

Which perhaps proved that he really was insane and never coming back, no matter what. Maybe Simon had been right: You were lost the moment you decided the Zone was a good idea.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Not surprised. Great high, isn’t it? Betcha that shoulder isn’t too happy, but you’ll muscle through. And all that energy? Maaania?” Finn waggled his thick eyebrows, which were as white as his squarecut hair. “You’re not indestructible, but you are different. Tell me: say you killed Lang, what was supposed to happen next? Where could you run?”

Peter realized that he hadn’t thought that far ahead. Strange, too, how that electric red swoon was guttering. Already, he could feel his body yammering after it, craving the rush.

There is no going back to Rule, or even Chris. All I can do is press my face against the window. I’m an exile, an Azazel: the red heifer that bears all sins, sent to wander the desert. Considering his eyes, that was apt.

“You’ve come too far to turn back,” Finn said, as if Peter had spoken aloud. “And do you know why? Because you chose to live. To survive, whatever the cost.”

“Chose?” There was no choice involved. Finn had broken him. “You fed me a drug, locked me in a cage, made me fight, wouldn’t give me water or f-food . . .” His tongue stumbled.

“You chose to fight, to eat. You broke yourself, Peter, because of the compromises you’re willing to make and the rules you’re willing to break to stay alive. And don’t you see? You are the Changed.”

“No.” There had to be a way of coming out the other end of this. “What do you want? If I was an experiment, if they are . . .” He jerked his head at the red-eyed horrors. “What now?”

“Depends. What would you like?”

Revenge. Because what the hell? He was already lost. “I want what’s coming to me.” He pointed a dripping finger at Lang. “You’ve got me, but I want him.”

“In your dreams.” Snuffling, Lang spat out a jellied clot.

“How about a trade?” Finn said. “I give you something, you give me something.”

“What?” Startled, Lang looked up, eyes wide above a crimson bib. “Boss?”

“A trade?” Peter cawed a harsh laugh. “What’s left that I could have or give?”

“A few things,” Finn said. “Depends on how badly you want Lang, I guess.”

“What?” Hand drifting for his pistol, Lang backed up a step. “This wasn’t the deal.”

“Well”—Finn’s black eyes flicked toward Davey—“deals meant to be broken and all.”

“I don’t think so,” Lang began, as Davey stiffened like a dog catching a new scent. In the blink of an eye, both girls swiveled in an eerie, silent synchrony toward Lang.

“How are you doing that?” Peter asked, sharply—just as he realized something else. At the moment the Changed reacted to Finn, that electric red rush also thrummed through his brain, but it was much more muted now, only a tingle. His thoughts were still clear. It’s like I’m picking up only the overflow.

“Oh, trial and error.” Finn’s mouth stretched in a death-head’s grin. “I’ve been at this awhile, for decades, and well before the world did me the immense favor of giving us the Chuckies.”

As if suddenly released from whatever held them in check, the girls charged. They went so fast that Lang never cleared his weapon. In a flash, the first girl head-butted the old man to the snow as the other whipped her knife to his throat.