Ellen’s death was entirely my fault. To think of all the ways it could have been prevented. If we had avoided a showdown with Wendell and I had done his bidding. If I had ditched her and Urszula and gone off on my own, taking on Wendell mano e mano. Any other path would have led to a better result than the one I chose. Why did I always make the worst possible decisions?
Nothing I could do about it now. True, nothing was irreversible in this universe, not even death, but I couldn’t help her if I didn’t know where she had gone. I certainly wouldn’t find her in Root or the Deeps. She had liked living. Those places were reserved for suicides and other criminals of the soul.
I had no desire to stick around Dartmouth and face questioning from the public servants currently screaming to the scene. What could I tell the cops that would make any sense to them? How could they possibly believe the truth, that all of this blood and destruction derived from a disagreement between a drug lord, a homeless kid and an assassin with one foot in the afterlife? What would they think about the hundred foot beech tree swaying in the breeze in the middle of the soccer field? Let them figure it out.
I saw that gun gripped in Ellen’s hand and had to fight off an urge to take it and shoot myself in the head. But I didn’t want to die. Not anymore. I did want to return to the Deeps, but I intended to dictate the terms.
I buckled down and closed my eyes, focusing my will like a laser on that one goal. I don’t know whether it was the sheer intensity of my anxieties or mere luck but somehow I found traction. The world spun. I swapped existences with a surety and ferocity that I had never managed before. And this time my sword made the trip with me.
I knew I was back in the Deeps when my tears went dry and all the warmth sucked out of my body. I couldn’t move right away, between feeling torn up about poor Ellen, and worried about what was going to happen to Urszula. Not to mention, I was freaked about how Karla had reacted to the sight of me. But I needed resolution. I had to find her again, explain myself, apologize for whatever I had done to disappoint her.
No one noticed me lying there among the other dropouts. I finally roused myself, got up and got my bearings. A man was trying to strap on the abandoned wings of the Seraph. All that fine webbing, those guy lines and pulleys, it looked like some impossible machine da Vinci might have sketched.
Their owner lay shriveled in the dust, though few marchers lingered to gawk at the murdered Seraph. A greater spectacle thundering down from the heights had drawn their attention. The Horus was on the move, creeping slowly but inexorably into the depression.
Most of the horde had rushed up slope to meet it, but a significant minority were content to wait and let it come and take them. A few souls with second thoughts had hightailed it up the other end of the depression, escaping to the plateau. These late-blooming infidels would be welcomed I’m sure by Lady An.
I wheeled around looking for Karla. I found Olivier first, his shredded body leaned up against his precious ‘egg,’ its surface etched with hexagonal facets that seemed sharper now, better defined. It seemed to be pulsing.
Brian, his legs shattered legs, lay beside him. His eyes were closed and he was singing or praying softly under his breath. Karla and some other woman, their backs to me, stood arm in arm watching the Horus slide down the hillside. At its current rate of creep, it wouldn’t be long before it reached us.
Brian’s eyes popped open as I approached. “You brought metal,” he said. “How?”
“I don’t know. It was just something I had with me.”
“That’s not ordinary steel,” said Olivier. “Can’t be.”
“Whatever, guys. It’s just a sword. Didn’t do shit for me over there.”
