So it really was true. He really was behind all this, leading the scourge. Alexander had shown him all the signs, but he had never quite believed James was really still out there. It had been easier to half-believe it and keep it at the back of his mind. Because if his brother really had returned, it meant all this was their fault. They had bred a monster.
Just like Lucian had done yet again with the young man before him.
Charlie smiled. “You don’t need to worry about Him. You won’t live long enough.”
Lucian scowled. The wire cutting into his wrists was starting to work its way deeper into his flesh. The pain was pulsing, raw. With the damp and the dirt, he was liable to get some nasty infection soon enough. He had to get out of dodge, or else he’d be suffering long before Charlie got to him. He’d rather eat a bullet now than live through that. Dying from septicaemia was a messy affair. “I’m all for walking and talking a while longer, but why bother moving me if you’re just going to kill me? Why don’t you end this, Charlie? You’re only here to get revenge for your father. What’s to stop you pulling the trigger right now and walking away from all this?”
Charlie didn’t answer, but Lucian heard the crack deep in his throat.
“You can’t do it, can you?”
“I can do it!” Charlie snarled.
“Then go ahead.”
A moment of silence stretched out between them, then snapped; and in the next, Charlie was holding his knife in his hand. The blade twinkled in the hallway light, reflecting Charlie’s wounded, terrified face.
Lucian forced himself to keep his gaze level despite the snakes slithering in his gut and the ball of fear swelling behind his eyes. Not long ago their roles had been reversed; Lucian had held a gun right to Charlie’s head while he kneeled on the cobbles of New Canterbury, right before he had set him free. It hadn’t been loaded, but Charlie didn’t know that. He had threatened, bullied, and beaten the kid. It hadn’t been enough that he had killed his father. He had treated him as though he had been the one who had been wronged, rather than the other way around. And why? Because he had been scared and ashamed.
He could have made amends, maybe, if he had tried hard enough. Maybe he could have at least stopped him signing up with the wolves at their door. He had failed him, just like he had failed his friends and his family. He had sworn to protect them. Yet here he was. And after everything he deserved no better.
He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
I’m sorry. Jesus, I’m sorry.
Ringing silence stretched out for so long that the snakes in his gut quieted, and the sound of his own breathing returned to his attention. He peeked one eye open and saw Charlie standing with his arms by his sides. His knife was back in its sheath. In his hands was a black linen hood. “Like I said, we’re moving you,” he said.
“You can’t do it.”
A muscle leapt in Charlie’s jaw. “Enjoy the trip.”
Then the hood was over his head and he was back in darkness.
CHAPTER 3
Norman retched, clutching the toilet bowl between his hands. Precious, irreplaceable morsels he’d eaten for breakfast slicked the U-bend. He wiped his mouth, head swimming, his fractured ribs throbbing, and then he stumbled from the stall to lean against the door. Two weeks since he had been attacked, and still the pain was no better.
But it wasn’t the pain that was making him sick, not really. It was something else. Something was at odds with the world, and the weight of two cities rested on his shoulders. They had all stared at him in the lobby. Hundreds upon hundreds of expectant, dull, cow eyes trained upon him, as though all they had to do was fall in behind him and he would saddle up a warhorse and vanquish the enemy.
He took a deep breath and headed out into the lobby of Canary Wharf Tower, cane clacking on the faded marble floors. Yesterday, the tower and its fenced-off compound had been near empty; the shining pinnacle of England’s last coalition of societies, relics of the Old World. Today, it was a refugee camp. Torn knapsacks, crushed luggage, bloodied bandages, and filthy exhausted refugees littered the floor. As many wept as those who had gone deathly still,