Джеймс Фрей – Descendant (страница 5)
“The Sight?” Declan says, skeptically.
“The evening news,” Agatha says. “I extrapolated.”
Agatha is La Tène, like him, which is why he is allowed to know her name, see her face. And like him, Agatha is an apostate, a traitor, a nonbeliever. He grew up hearing tales of her, a bogeyman invented to scare the children: ask too many questions, the wrong kind of questions, and you’ll be sent into the wilderness, where Agatha the witch will find you and gobble you up. Agatha has been with Le Fond for longer than Declan has been alive.
She’s lived in hiding for decades, because the La Tène have never stopped hunting for her and the ancient scriptures that she stole from the archive.
Agatha blazed the beginning of the trail that Declan has been following.
She discovered the first clues that Endgame wasn’t what it seemed, in the words of their very own forebears—and as a reward she will live out the rest of her days in lonely exile.
She can be trusted.
“She’s gone,” Declan says. It hurts to speak the words aloud. “Lorelei. They killed her.”
Agatha says nothing for a long moment. Her expression never changes. Then, though he hasn’t asked yet: “Yes, you can leave the child here with me for as long as you need. Until it’s safe. Do what you need to do.”
What he needs to do.
Go north.
North as far as Canada, where he can slip across the New York border unseen, then south again as far as the city, his city, where he found the happiness he will never have again.
Dye his hair, turn telltale red into mousy brown.
Disguise his face with false nose and beard.
Return to Queens.
Watch his people from the crowds and the shadows. Watch his father. Watch his Player.
Simmer with rage.
Burn.
He could kill them, all of them, easily. They’re not expecting him to return. They’re not on guard. He could slip through Pop’s window in the dark of night, slit his throat while the old man snores in his Barcalounger,
An eye for an eye.
A loss for a loss.
Declan’s blood is ice; his heart is a stone. He could do it. He could do anything.
But he holds himself back.
Not for the La Tène line or for the dying embers of family loyalty, not for the sake of his humanity.
They robbed him of that, his father, his trainers. They made him a killer, and it’s only justice that they reap the benefits.
He holds back for Aisling.
Someday she will be old enough to know him.
He will be a man she deserves to love. He’s come back here partly to prove to himself that he can be. That in the face of the greatest temptation, he can show restraint. That he’s not simply a soldier and a killer.
Still, he burns.
And now they will burn.
They’ve posted guards in front of his old apartment; he knocks one out with an efficient choke hold and the other with a blow to the head, then lets himself in to retrieve what he needs: a bottle of Lorelei’s perfume, so he can breathe her in when he needs to remember. His journal, a record of every step of his journey from ignorance to acceptance, which he’d left behind in hopes that Pop and Lorelei might come to understand. A photo of Lorelei, so that Aisling will never forget her mother’s face. Then he sets the incendiary device and watches his past bloom into flame.
Next stop: the High Council chamber. Hidden in the basement of what looks, from the outside, to be a dilapidated veterans’ hall.
Declan disables the security system with a few simple clips of the wire cutters, picks the complicated locks on the chamber door, and lets himself in.
It’s easy.
They gave him all the tools he needs to betray them.
The Falcata is hanging in its place of honor over the long council table. He takes it in his hands, presses his lips to the cool metal, a sign of respect for its deadly blade.
Sitting in an ancient brass bowl in the center of the table is a small, polished stone.
This is the mark of the Player. The symbol of responsibility and commitment to the line, of the promise made to the gods and to the coming apocalypse.
Once, his birthright.
Now, Molly’s.
Soon, Aisling’s, unless he can stop them.
He pockets the stone.
Then he places the second incendiary device.
Slips out into the night with the ancient sword, activates the device.
Stands in the shadows, watching the heart of the La Tène line burn to the ground.
It’s only a symbol. A message. Meant to remind them that he is out there, that he will destroy everything they have and everything they are if that’s what it takes to stop them, to prevent Endgame, to save Aisling.
Destroying what’s precious to them doesn’t make up for what he’s lost.
But it feels good.
When he returns to the delta, the shack is gone.
Razed to the ground.
No Agatha. No Aisling.
Declan turns his face to the sky and shrieks his pain to the heavens. His scream shreds the silence of the swamp. Birds scatter into the clouds. Coyotes sing back to him, and together they howl at the moon.
Then, from the trees, another sound. Faint, but familiar.
A child’s cry.
He follows the sound, his heart thumping, lips moving in time with the drumbeat of his pulse,
He finds them curled up together in the hollow of a fallen tree, Aisling tearstained and screaming, Agatha bleeding from too many wounds.
“I don’t know how they found me,” she whispers, as Declan frantically tries to staunch the blood. “But they don’t know the swamp.”
“Where are they?” Declan asks, panic flooding him. Has he just walked into an ambush?
“They looked for a while, then gave up,” Agatha croaks. “Took their guns and their helicopters away. Outsmarted by old Agatha. Again.” When she laughs, blood froths at her lips.
“You saved Aisling,” Declan says in wonder.
“No more children should be sacrificed to this bloody game,” she says, gasping at his touch. Her forehead burns.
“How long have you been hiding out here?”
“I held on until you came back.”
“We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”