"The Photographer said the vial is poison."
"It is. But it's life as well. You'll die, and then I'll bring you back."
"You can't do anything," Finch said. "You're just in my head."
"So are you," Shriek said.
He picked Finch up by the shoulders. Raised him high. Pushed and released him in the same motion. So violently that he was sent flying over the city. Where Shriek's hands had touched him, a healing numbness. Spreading.
Below, the fires crackling on the Spit were snuffed out. The black smoke turned white and then broke apart. Still he soared, over the twinkling green of the Religious Quarter, over the dull white remains of the camps, over everything.
So this is how it ends. How it really ends. But at least it ends.
Woke to darkness. Woke to blood caked around his eyes. To a broken nose. To the knowledge that his bowels had loosened. That he'd pissed himself. Dribbling hot down his thighs, itching through the numbness. Was able to move his legs a little. A veil now between him and the pain. It registered as an even, serrated glow around his body. No part of him hurt more than any other part. Allowed him to concentrate. Gave him energy.
"Not done with you. Not the right answers." Mumbled like a prayer from somewhere in front of him.
Right eye was swollen shut. Opened his left enough to squint.
The Partial's face was up close through that slit of vision. The abyss of the fungal eye. The orange lichen of the other. The stark white landscape of that face. Staring at him. A hand shaking him. Trying to see if he was still alive.
Too close.
The gun was on the table. The knives were on the table.
Erupted hard up and out. Caught the Partial on the chin with the top of his head. A grunt of surprise. Of pain. Finch fell on top of the Partial. Legs still too rubbery. Brought his forehead hard onto the fungal eye. Could feel it give. The Partial screamed. Tried to push Finch off of him. Battered his sides with his fists. But Finch felt none of it. Bit into the Partial's left cheek. Pulled back. Spit out the flesh. The Partial shrieking. Finch kept smashing his head into the right side of the Partial's face. Until the eye socket sagged and the Partial was moaning. The beating of hands at Finch's sides now more like the wings of a bird.
Finally, the Partial stopped moving. Maybe he'd been saying something. Screaming something. Finch didn't know. Didn't care. The warm glow that surrounded him muffled sound. Muffled everything but itself.
Was the Partial dead? He would be. Finch picked up a knife off the table with his mouth. Positioned it between his teeth. Knelt. Bent his head to the side. Came down hard. Jammed it hilt-deep in the Partial's throat. Got out of the way as the blood came quick and heavy. The Partial convulsed once, twice, back bucking. Then nothing.
The pain was coming back. Everywhere. The veil fading. He backed up to the table. Got his hands around a knife. Tilted it downward. Cut himself free after a minute. Didn't care what he had to cut through to do it.
Stumbled past the Partial. Past Heretic. To his jacket. Found the vial. Opened it. Stood there, trembling.
The Photographer had said it was poison. Bliss had said in liquid form it would rejuvenate Shriek. Shriek was gone. But the figment in his mind had been right about one thing: one way or the other, he was going to die without help.
Downed it in one gulp. Tasted like dirt and chocolate. Sprinkled with some sharp yet familiar herb.
Fell heavily to the floor. Sat there as the energy left him. As his wounds laid him out flat on his back. As he gasped. Every inch of his body crying out in an endless agony.
a
inch and Shriek stood in the cavern by the underground sea. In front of Samuel Tonsure's one-room shelter.
"You're a hallucination," Finch said. Wouldn't look at Shriek. "I'm dying. I'm having a conversation with myself."
Shriek said, "Remember how Wyte had Otto inside of him? In a different way, you have me inside of you. I entered your mind when you ate my memory bulb."
Something had lived inside of Wyte. When it came out, Finch had shot it. Then sliced it apart as it squealed.
"That's impossible."
"Do you really know what's impossible anymore?" Shriek asked. "Are you in a position to have an opinion that means anything anymore? You will still die there, on the floor, Finch, if you don't believe in me." Felt an immense pressure in his skull. A kind of pulse. "That's me," Shriek said. "Me, trying to get out." His eyes burned with a deep and abiding fire. "I was still regenerating. Healing. But I altered the memory bulb. I encoded it with a copy of me. When you ate it, I entered your brain. If my body had lived, if the real me had lived, I would have eventually become less than an echo. A stray thought. An impulse for tea instead of coffee. Unexpected sadness or joy. You would have carried me, decaying, for the rest of your life. But that didn't happen. They've killed me and I'm all that's left. Now it's my mission."
Tea not coffee. The strange surge of energy during the shoot-out. Sadness or joy. Emotions not his own. Not Crossley's, either.
"There is no mission now."
"You're wrong, Finch. Very wrong."
Finch, disgusted: "Like Wyte and Otto. I'll die and you'll come out of me. Like a f**king parasite."
Shriek frowned. "No. Not like Wyte and Otto. Not like that at all. Otto ate Wyte from the inside out. I'm just a passenger, gone soon enough. If you help me."
"Help you do what?"
"Manifest in the real world. Become flesh and blood. Complete the mission while there's still time."
"But you're just a ... an imitation."
"It's not the best way. It's just the only way now."
"My mind's playing tricks on me."
"Listen to me, Finch. It was Bliss who found me in this cavern. Who brought me to the rebels. I wasn't even human anymore. I wasn't, in any sane sense, alive. I had learned so much about the world that I had decided to withdraw from it. If I could come back from a hibernation of so many years, then maybe you'll understand why a copy of me might be able to re-enter the world."
Bliss again. On the walls of Zamilon. Finding Duncan Shriek. Bending the ear of the Lady in Blue.
"When I wake up, you'll just be a memory of a dream."
"You're not hearing me. You won't wake up. Your body is shutting down."
"Then take over. It's a weak enough machine," Finch said with selfcontempt. "How can I stop you?"
Shriek waved his hand. They stood on the battlements of Zamilon. No one there but them. Cold and windy. Out in the desert: shadows gathering.
"I can't force you. It would take too much time. We don't have that kind of time. You'd die first. And right now the Lady in Blue is holding off the invaders at Zamilon. She's waiting for a miracle. I'm that miracle."