When the gray cap saw them, it broke off its wandering dance. Tried to escape. But they had it hemmed in by then. Its teeth, needle sharp. Claws on its fingers. It expelled a fungal mist, but they were already wearing gas masks.
Crossley was the first to shoot it. It lurched. Righted itself. Ran toward another point of the compass. Two bullets. Another lurch. But absorbed. A cry. A leap like a dancer, then. As if finally realizing the danger. Crossley-Finch would never forget. It whirled past one man and then another. But instead of escaping, it turned to close the distance. As if enraged. Or sick. The light in its eyes green and everlasting. Tore into one man with its claws, slapping away his rifle. Took another bullet for its efforts, but scooped out the Irregular's throat. The man crumpled to the ground. Crossley, scrambling to aim and fire, thought he saw a glint of a smile from the creature.
Darted. Flitted. Was gone. Then back again. Far then close. Each of them struggling to keep up with that speed. Grunting and cursing and sweating, as if it were something normal. Like digging a ditch or a grave. Too invested now. Knowing they couldn't retreat, and that the gray cap had decided to fight.
Wherever the thing stepped, a golden dust rose up from its tread. Clouds of red-and-green spores radiated out from it like steam. Their gas masks protected them.
Low on ammo. They kept shooting it, and it kept taking the bullets.
Knives out. Finch shouted the order to fix bayonets. Down to four. Against one. Reminded them not to let the bayonets get stuck in gray cap flesh. It would reel them in, finish each of them off. But, still-one man's rifle got stuck. Forgot to let it go. The gray cap jerked him forward, disemboweled him, then turned, stung by fresh cuts from all sides. Down to three men. Flesh sloughed off its body, but no blood. It did not wince. Kept shouting in its language. Sometimes mixing in human words. In a hissing, sibilant voice.
They kept at their task. Too busy to be afraid. Too busy to scream. Inside, its flesh was black, accordioned. Crossley saw as he came in close at its back. As it bit and kept biting another man. Finch brought his hunter's knife down across the back of the gray cap's leg. Felt the blade cut through something hard and thick. He pulled it out, taking a wedge of black flesh with it. The gray cap limped away. No longer as agile. A snarl. Finch and the others shot it in the face, the chest, the arms, the legs.
Still, it kept coming. Dancing in and out, its face a discolored mess. Eyes peeking out from the ruined flesh. Crossley lunging, driving his blade deeper into the leg as it turned to face one of his men. Dashed out as the creature tried to turn.
There was a give, and a wash of purple blood.
He stood back. Saw the gray cap standing on one leg.
"Murderers," the gray cap crooned. "Murderers. In our city."
Crossley wanted it dead in that moment. To shut it up. Caught in a blood lust so primal that the enemy looked fey and beautiful in the moonlight. Distant and removed from what they were doing to it.
Now they converged, the three of them. It couldn't evade them. Did it weep as they tore it to pieces? Did it make any human sound to make them stop? No. All it did was stare up at the hard stars as if they were but an extension of its eyes. Arms hacked and pulled off. Cut at. Peeled away. Tossed to the side. The red of its leg. While still it stared. While a cloud of spores erupted from the top of its head, puffing away, disappearing. Hacked, too, at the torso until there was just a head attached to a wreckage of neck. Still the thing smiled. Still it seemed to live. The reflexive life of a gecko's tail.
Now they cursed and sobbed. Unable, as the bloodlust left them, to understand how they had been brought to this. How they could have done this. Even as they still wanted to kill it. Screaming. Shouting. Not caring if an enemy could hear them. Just wanting to keep on killing it until it was dead.
Finally, they burnt it, until it was just dead eyes laughing, asking if it had been worth it.
Soon even that burst into spores.
4
othing remained of Finch when he was done with Wyte. Not really. Blood or something like blood drenched him. His left hand gripped the sword tightly, the guard thick with gore. Wyte wouldn't get a funeral. Wouldn't get much of anything. He'd already begun the short, sharp process of becoming one of the forgotten. Nothing anybody could've done to save him from that.
Finch's left shoulder sang with pain from the blow Wyte had given it. Left knee unsteady from having his legs taken out from under him. Toward the end. One last reflexive lunge from a creature that didn't want to die. The whole time it had felt like it was happening to him. His steps were heavy from the weight.
The sounds had been horrific. Something had lived inside of Wyte. When it came out, Finch shot it. Then sliced it apart as it squealed. Was it part of Wyte? Was it the remnants of Otto? Finch didn't care. He had just wanted it dead. Wanted to make sure Wyte wasn't coming back.
No relation to the family man and husband Wyte had once been, before the Rising. No correlation between his life then and his death now. Something crazy. Something beyond prediction. Never sat on the stoop of Wyte's former house, drinking out of his silver flask, and said, casually, "You're going to turn into a monster, Wyte, and I'm going to kill you with a ceremonial sword forged by the Kalif's empire."
Would the resurrection of Duncan Shriek be the opposite of this? Better or worse?
The phone rang inside Wyte's apartment as Finch was leaving. He hesitated. Went back inside. Closed the door. Locked it.
The phone was in the kitchen. He avoided looking in the comer. The stillness was oppressive. The smell thick, physical. Had to pull his shirt collar to his nose.
Picked up the phone with his bloody hand. Waited.
"Hello. Finch?" Stark. Almost cheery.
"What do you want?"
"You sound a little shaky. What's wrong?"
"What do you want?"
Realized then that Stark's people had followed him there. Told Stark where he was. And that Stark knew Wyte's phone number.
"It's not what I want," Stark said. "It's what you want. And, apparently, you want me to keep hurting you. Apparently if I keep hurting you more and more, I'll get what I want."
A barking laugh from Finch. "The city's f**ked. The Spit's destroyed. The towers are almost done. Whatever you want won't matter in a day or two."
"My dear Finch, that's exactly my point. You need to tell me everything you know-by the end of today. Otherwise, don't waste your breath lecturing me about the state of this shitty city," Stark said in a silky voice. "Because what you should be worried about is: we could've gotten to Sintra easily enough. If you don't reveal all by nightfall, she's dead."