Pointed to the corner nearest the kitchen. Finch saw something long and black. Half-hidden by the drawn-back window curtain. Still twitching. Relief that the skery was dead. Followed again by panic. No time. There wasn't time.
"Imagine this, Finch," the Partial said. "Those things were going to replace us."
"Untie me. Untie me and I'll leave. Like I was never here."
The Partial slapped Finch across the face. It stung, but nothing like the pain in his knee.
"Bad idea, Finch," the Partial said. Went over to the kitchen. Took the pot of water off the burner. "I think that's hot enough."
"Why are you doing this? Why kill Heretic?"
"You know, Finch, we're almost on the same side," the Partial said, cheerily. Pulled up the side table. Set the pot on it. A hissing sound.
"I don't understand," Finch said. Still in shock.
"Heretic's a disappointment. All of his kind are. Traitors to our cause. Not committed to it, Finch." He went back for the knives. "They can travel by uncanny means. But won't tell us how. They can make spores do whatever they want. But won't tell us how. We only get to be walking, talking cameras. That wasn't the deal. Now they plan to abandon us. Having first made us. Heretic said as much. And I am not interested in letting it happen."
"I still don't get it."
The Partial looked for a second like he would slap Finch again. Instead, he placed the knives on the table. Next to the pot of water. "They're bringing more of their kind here. They've already begun to abandon us. We have no orders. We're having to create our own purpose, our own orders. Because they don't care anymore. They have no need of us. Any more than they need Unrisens like you."
"Is that what you call us?" Trying not to look at the boiling water. The knives. The hammer.
The Partial sat back. "You should thank me. Heretic would have killed you outright. But I want you alive. I want you alive to tell me what you really know. To tell me what Heretic would never tell me. What you've found out. All those times you went missing this week. Where I couldn't see you."
"I don't know anything that can help you."
The Partial frowned. "That's not true. I think you're just stalling. Maybe you still don't really believe me about Heretic. Maybe you think he's going to come walking through that door."
"No, I believe you!" Anticipating the hammer.
But the Partial stood up anyway. Got behind Finch. Pulled his chair around until he was facing Shriek's body under the blanket.
Stooped. Pulled the blanket away.
Revealing Heretic, and a couple of pillows. The hat missing. A head stippled with tiny mauve mushroom caps. His neck twisted. His face crumpled and torn. Eyes closed. One of his feet was on the wrong way. As if he'd fallen from a great height.
From a suffocating distance, Finch heard the Partial say, "See? Just like I told you."
Heard someone say, "Where's the body? Of the dead man."
Heard the response through the singing of the blood in his ears: "Oh, we destroyed that yesterday. Too big a risk to their plans. Heretic's orders. When he was still giving orders. We spread the ashes over the base of the towers."
Then, thankfully, the Partial was hitting him with the hammer again.
And he was losing the thread again.
Going under.
Going deep under.
SATURDAY
I: Try to see it from my point of view. Because I'm trying to see it from theirs. They've got a vision that's extraordinarily deep and wide. A long view.
F: How you must admire that.
I: Does an ant mourn the passing of another ant?
F: Maybe. I don't know.
I: They see everything, everywhere, over thousands of years. And they work with spores and things smaller than spores-on a microscopic level. What's it to them if they reduce a life from a macroscopic to microscopic level. To its different parts. It's just life in a different form. Nothing's been killed. Nothing's ended because something else has begun. I find it liberating. If only they'd kept their word.
F: Does that excuse them?
I: After all you've done over the past week, Finch. Do you really think they need an excuse? Believe me, it's nothing personal. Now, I'm going to have to hurt you again.
I
oke to a sack over his head. Woke to the Partial whittling a tattoo into his leg. Woke to his own shrieks. Wondered if the Lady in Blue had spirited him away. Waking and drugging him. Waking and drugging him. Never lost.
And always, the Partial asking him questions. Who was Ethan Bliss? How did the doors work? Had he met the Lady in Blue? Kept answering sideways, but after awhile didn't remember what he'd said. Or not said.
After midnight. Maybe. Pitch black except for the lanterns. Except for the pale face of the Partial.
Part of his mouth didn't work right. Jutted out. Swollen. His vowels came out slurry. Couldn't feel his feet or hands. A kind of mercy. Because early on the Partial had cut off one of Finch's toes. Had busted up his knee again. Cut a slit in his right cheek that bled into his mouth.
"Confess," the Partial kept saying. "Confess."
Was he ready to confess? And to what? Duncan Shriek was dead. The mission dead with it. Changing his name, leaving Crossley behind, now seemed as pathetic as the plan to revive Shriek. What had he been doing but playing sides off against each other? Buying time working for one, working for the other. For what? More of the same? Maybe even less of it. And if he confessed that, would the Partial do more than blink in confusion? Half the time the Partial wanted information. Half the time he just wanted to inflict pain.
The Partial said, "My name is Thomas. You should call me Thomas. That's my name."
Laughter gushed up from deep inside Finch at the absurdity of that. Laughter he couldn't stop.
"I confess," he said. Screamed it. As the Partial went back to work.
The chair slowly rocking, rocking back and forth.
Rocking. Rocking. Back and forth.
Finch sat on the upper deck of a houseboat in the Spit. From the towers across the bay, green fire gathered. It leapt out at them. Became huge and sparkling over their heads. Burned into boats all around them. Splintered timbers. Sent up waves of flame. A fire that never seemed to reach them. And yet was inside him.
Wyte and Finch's father sat on a whitewashed bench opposite him. His father was the hunched-over specter he'd been at the clinic, in the last days. Coughing up blood. Wyte was, mercifully, as he'd been before the vainglorious charge from the chapel.
"Getting close," his father said.
"Getting close," said Wyte.
"Hang on," his father said.