CHAPTER 5

LET’S GO HOME SPLASHING THROUGH THE PUDDLES ON THE DRIZZLY ROAD

Kieli remembered reading in a book once about how somewhere in this universe had been a blue planet where there was lots of water on the surface, not just underground. The resources of that planet had long ago been devoured, and it had become a dry sphere of nothing but wilderness and desert just like this one. So even if mankind regained the technology to fly into space someday, she figured they probably couldn’t find it again.

While she was thinking about this, hearing but not really listening to the distant crash of falling water, the cold woke her up.

Her body had gone stiff as a board. When she awkwardly sat up, the coat she’d been using for a blanket slipped off her shoulders.

Within the bonfire that had died down to black cinders, the last of the flames sizzled and smoldered. Judging from the fact that almost all its heat was gone, she guessed she must have fallen asleep for several hours.

They’d dragged all the scraps of wood that seemed burnable from the debris that had washed up onshore. The lighter had been wet, too, but after a few tries it had worked; so they’d started the pile burning and then poured all the lighter fluid on top of it, too, eventually managing to build enough of a bonfire to give them some heat. If they hadn’t done that, maybe by now she’d have frozen to death in her waterlogged clothes.

Looking down at the man’s coat that lay on top of her own duffle coat, Kieli thought for a moment, then looked anxiously around her. The flashlight she’d set on the ground created a fuzzy patch of light, but its glow was slowly yet steadily getting weaker.

All she could see within the small circle of light was a gray wall slimy with dampness and moss, the rim of a great lake, and jet-black water so deep she couldn’t make out the bottom. Unease instantly started eating at her.

Where did he go…?

She realized that amid the far-off sounds of the waterfall and the nearer sounds of slow water, she could hear a faint clattering ahead of her in the darkness. Her eyes fixed in the direction of the noise, she pulled on the boots she’d left drying upside down by the fire. They were still cold and clammy, but most of the water that had invaded them had drained out again, and her feet wouldn’t slip around inside them.

Kieli picked up the light and began walking along the wall with the coats under her arm. The weight and unpleasantness of her still-damp clothes wore her down, and it took more energy than she expected just to walk. When she lifted an arm, heavy as lead, to hold up the light, she saw the back and copper-colored head of a man crouching by the wall.

Relieved, she opened her mouth to call his name, but he noticed her and turned around before she made a sound. The light seemed too bright for him, or perhaps he just couldn’t see very well with one eye; his squinting stare cut right though her. She unthinkingly swallowed what she’d been about to say and pressed her lips together, which ended up making her look angry. Maybe that upset him. He silently looked away and went back to what he’d been working on.

Everything was still strange between them somehow.

Kieli shyly directed her beam of light over his shoulder to see what he was doing. There was an arched tunnel in the wall that poured water into the lake. It looked as if Harvey had found a tributary like the one they’d been swept down—but luckily not so high up.

If they followed the tunnel upstream they could probably get out of the depths of the waterways where they were trapped now. The problem was that it was blocked off with iron bars just like the ones from the communal jail cell.

Harvey was crouched at the bottom of the entrance, scraping away at the groove where the iron bars met the ground with what looked like a rusty pocketknife. She guessed that he’d found it in the pile of garbage. If he could get one or two bars loose, they’d probably be able to squeeze through.

After a while she thrust the light at him and asked gruffly, “Isn’t it too dark? You might as well use this.”

“It’s fine. I’m used to it,” came the equally gruff response.

After opening and closing her mouth a few times searching for something to say, Kieli eventually left his coat and the flashlight kitty-corner behind him and retreated a little ways off to sit hugging her knees.

Looking around, she saw that some of the moss on the wall was giving off a very faint natural gleam, just enough to ease the inky blackness a little. Harvey was right: even without the flashlight, it wasn’t a perfect darkness. When she lifted her chin to look up, the belt of hazy light stretched all the way to the ceiling far above them.

She returned her eyes to Harvey and his work. He really was only using his left hand. It looked very inconvenient, but she knew at times like these he could do finicky work with unexpected perseverance, without a single complaint.

After hesitating for several seconds, she asked, “What happened to your right arm?”

“It broke,” he replied shortly, without turning around. But when she thought about it, that was more or less his normal way of talking.

Now that she’d asked one question and gotten an answer, other words came, even if she had to whisper them while staring down at her boots. “Thank you for finding out about my mom…I guess.”

“Sure.”

“Did you go to the capital?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you find out anything about…Jude, or anything?”

“…Yeah.”

“Is he alive? I’d like to meet him someti—”

“No. He’s dead.”

He said it matter-of-factly but so quickly that he cut her off, and Kieli’s mouth clicked shut. When she lifted her head, he was just working steadily, with no change of expression. She gazed at his profile for a little while, and then looked down again. “Oh…I see.”

“Yeah.”

Silence fell.

Kieli pictured the stubbly sand-colored beard of the large man who’d set her tiny self on his knee at the live music bar. She didn’t really know whether she was sad or not. But at the same time, she did feel a certain emptiness in her heart.

A while after that, Harvey clenched his fist and gave one of the bars a sharp blow with his wrist. It pulled free from the groove with a loud clang and splashed into the water on the other side. After several seconds of studying it with a thoughtful expression, he turned to her. “You can get through there.”

“No,” she answered immediately. Harvey seemed to have more or less expected this. He showed no particular reaction before turning back and starting on another bar.

“Wait there, then.”

And so Kieli had to wait even longer. She couldn’t think of anything to talk about at the moment, so she sat there with her arms wrapped around her knees, feeling uncomfortable.

When she wasn’t doing anything, she couldn’t think about anything but the cold seeping into her body. She dug her jaw into the collar of her coat, but it still trembled, and her teeth chattered softly together.

“Wear that,” Harvey said abruptly. When Kieli looked up at him through her lashes, he spared a moment from his work to kick his coat toward her.

She shook her head, stiff-faced. “I don’t need it. You wear it.” Then Harvey huffed a little in displeasure, and she wished she’d just borrowed it graciously.

After some time had passed, the second bar slipped free like the first, and it splashed down on the other side the same way when Harvey hit it with the base of his palm. The space still wasn’t wide enough to give him any leeway, but tall as he was, he was definitely on the bony side, so they should both be able to get through.

“Time to go,” Harvey said.

He picked up the light and the coat and stood, so Kieli got a grip on herself and dragged her heavy body up to a standing position, too. “I wonder what time it is?”

“Dunno. Maybe it’s morning already.” He gave her the flashlight and told her to hold on to it. She accepted with a nod. She slid the strap over her neck with a practiced hand, if she did say so herself, but Harvey’s movements were clumsy as he pushed his left arm through the sleeve of the coat and drew it up with his teeth. Halfway through the process, he seemed to notice for the first time that something was missing. He blinked at her with his good eye. “Where’s the Corporal?”

Kieli squeaked, remembering.

“And Bea. Aren’t they with you?”

“They were, but…” Hesitating, she avoided his eye. “It’s kind of a long story.”

Harvey frowned suspiciously, but then quickly seemed to lose interest. He faced forward again and slipped through the opening in the bars. Kieli hurried after him, afraid he’d leave her behind.

When she slid through the entrance and stepped into the passageway, water splashed at her feet. The river had risen to encroach on the corridor beside it, and a shallow film of water covered the floor, lapping at her boots.

She looked up at the back of the man in front of her. Harvey had come to a halt just beyond the entrance and appeared to be squinting into the dimness upstream, illuminated only by the faint glow of the moss on the walls. However, as she stood behind him to wait, he glanced at her over his shoulder and said, “Well?”

“Huh?”

“The story.”

Huh? So I should have kept talking? She gaped at him, then realized he’d already faced forward again and resumed walking.

“You said it was a long one, right? We have a long way to go before we get to the exit.”

“Oh. Right.” Kieli jogged after him, splashing water behind her. To anyone listening it would have sounded like such a faltering conversation, but it felt oddly comfortable. Maybe it wasn’t that they’d forgotten how to talk; maybe it had always been like this.

The sky was starting to brighten.

Shielding her eyes with one hand and squinting into the distance past the wilderness that spread out before her, she could just make out milk-white city walls standing against the sky with its light-sand-colored morning sun.

When she’d been making her way on foot, she had been sure she would never reach Gate Town. Having a vehicle was a magnificent thing. She could see why people said that out of all human inventions, evolving means of transportation had the greatest power to transform eras.

As long as the engine didn’t stall.

She looked behind her. Standing there was a hooded three-wheeled truck broken down in the center of the rutted path. As if it had lost its temper after being worked hard for over twenty-four hours, the truck had overheated just as their destination was getting close. Right now they were all taking a break and giving the engine a chance to cool off.

“I think it’s not too far to walk now,” said the radio hanging from its strap in one hand.

Beatrix nodded grudgingly. “True. Even if I don’t want to.” For one thing, she still didn’t trust that merchant, even if she didn’t have any proof against him. It would probably be best to cut off contact before they got into town.

“Kieli got into town a long time ago. I just hope she hasn’t gotten mixed up in something dangerous.”

“Now you’re just being overprotective. She’s not a little kid anymore. I hate you old men; you’re such worriers.”

“And you Undyings never mature enough inside for people whose lives are so long.”

“Shut up,” she spat back, lips twisting. The cover over the truck bed lifted a crack, and a plain girl came out, stifling a small yawn. Shrugging her shoulders slightly against the cool air of morning, she noticed Beatrix and walked toward her. “So the truck isn’t fixed yet.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“He’s sleeping. He wore himself out playing all evening,” she answered, glancing toward the truck bed with a wry smile. Beatrix inwardly grieved that this girl was overprotective even though she wasn’t old yet.

The girl stood next to her and squinted quietly for a while at the distant walled city. There wasn’t anything going on, and yet oddly it wasn’t a perfect silence. The wind whipped at their hair with its constant, faint white noise.

“Are your relatives rich?”

“That’s what they told me. But my family was normal. My parents died last month, so that’s why they’re taking us in.”

“Huh,” Beatrix answered listlessly. The answer wasn’t unexpected. She couldn’t imagine a young boy and girl from such a common family (well, that had been her prejudiced guess, but apparently it was right) would travel alone for no reason, so she’d more or less assumed that was the case. “He doesn’t know they’re dead, does he?”

That had been a hunch, too, but it looked as if she’d been right again. The girl nodded, face clouded. “I don’t know what to tell him…”

“They went to be with God, right? There’s nothing to be sad about, really. They got what they wanted.” She’d started out wanting to mess with the girl a little, but it felt so childish that she stopped before long. She had no desire to get into a fruitless argument with a true believer about views on life and death. Instead, with a little disclaimer of “Well, this is just a little piece of advice, but,” she switched gears. “Once you hide it from him, it’ll never be the right time to say it. If you hold back, thinking he’s a child, that just basically means you don’t trust him.”

“…All right.” The girl nodded up at Beatrix, bewildered. Just then, a babyish voice called out “Monica!” from behind them. She turned to see a young boy rubbing his eyes and near-falling out of the truck.

“I gotta pee.”

The girl hurriedly ran up to him, taking him by the hand and leading him behind the truck. “Hold it in for a minute; you can’t do it there.”

As Beatrix watched, sighing, the smug-faced—well, smug-voiced—radio piped up, “Speaking from experience there?” She swung it viciously around by the strap and started back toward the truck, when a figure in the driver’s seat caught her eye. She could have sworn that just a moment ago he’d been lying down on the front seat taking a nap, but somehow he was awake and fiddling with what looked like a small communications device.

Communications—

Before she realized it, her body had slipped into motion. She reached for the driver’s-side door and yanked it open. The merchant jumped in his seat, hands still on the communicator. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“U-Uh, nothing?”

Beatrix lifted her eyebrows at this obviously flustered response, then reached out and snatched the communicator. The merchant yelped and pulled his hand back. She shot a glare at him before looking down at it. It was a fairly high-tech video communicator, even for a city with display screens. “Who were you call—” she began, when light suddenly glinted off something in the hand he’d hidden behind his back. Sheer knee-jerk reflex sent her leaping aside. At the same moment, she heard that familiar thick sound like a ball of compressed air being suddenly released. It had been a long time since she’d heard it, but she sure hadn’t missed it.

It was so unexpected for a civilian to have that kind of gun that her response was a split second too slow. A fragment of the bullet that had exploded at the edge of her field of vision flew at her and cut her face. Covering the wound with one arm, Beatrix skittered backward to put some distance between herself and the merchant in the driver’s seat, eyes glued on him and the object he held. A hefty big-bore gun wielded in both hands with back braced—the carbonization gun carried by Undying Hunters.

“…That’s a dangerous toy for a novice.”

“Now, I can’t have you treating it like a toy. It’s a knockoff made in Westerbury, but it’s just as effective as the real thing. It’s one of the things I sell. See, these are all the rage among the North-hairo rich lately. They buy ’em for self-protection.”

“Uh-huh. Self-protection.” And what exactly are they trying to protect themselves from? If they thought a bunch of Undyings were going to come attack the citizens en masse, that would be one thing, but…

“Hello there and nice to meet you, Witch of Toulouse,” the merchant said mockingly, holding her off with the gun. “I got a photo from my contact in Westerbury on a hunch, and boy, was I right!” He climbed down out of the truck.

Beatrix felt no particular urge to play dumb. She dropped the arm from her face. She’d avoided a direct hit from the bullet, but a thin piece of shrapnel had pierced her temple, and the blood dripping down her face obscured half her vision. She started to get really pissed off. Not because of the abrupt change in the man’s attitude—she didn’t really care about that, since he’d smelled fishy to her from the beginning. No, more importantly, he’d hurt her face.

“Beatrix,” the radio whispered urgently. She nodded slowly, eyes never leaving the enemy.

“You fell apart in the endgame.”

“What?” The merchant’s eyes widened.

“Too bad. I have a projectile weapon, too.” Air swelled up around the radio, and the shock wave flew—

—Or it would have an instant later, if she hadn’t wound up and pitched it at the merchant.

It was a pretty good sidearm, if she said so herself.

The radio spun at him like a fastball to dead center, and a corner of it hit him square in the face. He started backward with a hoarse cry.

Beatrix had seized the opening to run right up to him. She braked hard with one foot, at the same time using it as a pivot to spin a half-turn and deliver a sharp reverse roundhouse kick at the man while he was still moaning and clutching at his face. The back of her knee connected beautifully with the back of his neck, and he flew several meters through the air, sending up a cloud of dust.

You’re still wide open! Without missing a beat, she followed and kicked the gun out of his hand. She had just whirled around to face him again when he cried out in a shrill voice, still flipped over on his back, “W-Wait! It was a joke! Just a joke! Come on, don’t take that seriously!”

Does he really think it isn’t too late to worm his way out of this? Beatrix ignored him. She began to drive her leg down. “P-Please spare me! Don’t kill me!” he begged. The expression on his face was so pathetic that she lost her motivation.

As soon as she quit moving, the merchant looked as if he thought he was safe. So on reflection, she canceled her decision to cancel, and kneed him in the solar plexus.

He passed out with a strangled grunt, foaming at the mouth. Beatrix looked down at him with a “hmph.” He’d probably broken a rib or two, but that was getting off lightly. “I’ll let you off the hook with that,” she said. It would be a waste of energy to kill him.

“Beatrix! Why, you—” The radio let loose a stream of invectives from where it lay abandoned on the ground. “Don’t throw me around, you stupid bitch!”

“Excuse me, who are you calling a stupid bitch?!” She picked it up and brought it to eye level. “Good job; you were very useful as a projectile,” she said calmly.

The radio growled even more angrily. “That’s NOT what ‘projectile weapon’ means! And I’ve built up frustration, too, you know! Let me do some fighting!”

So that was his problem? The radio continued to gripe. Letting its voice pass in one ear and out the other, Beatrix moved on. She looked around her. The merchant might have already reported her to the Church Soldiers’ station in Gate Town. Maybe I’ll take the truck and run.

“Hey, what was that?!” cried an excited voice behind her. She turned around to see the little boy running out of the shadow of the truck. He darted up to stand beside her, eyes shining. “Wow! You’re really tough, huh? You’re so cool!”

Beatrix was sure he hadn’t really taken in the situation, but he was totally worked up. At a loss for how to respond, she pulled away. That’s right; I forgot about these two, she thought, inwardly irritated. I can’t just run off with the truck and leave them out here.

His sister was there, too, behind him—and when she saw the girl, Beatrix froze.

She was carrying the carbonization gun Beatrix had kicked out of the merchant’s hand. She clearly wasn’t used to holding one, and both hands and both knees were shaking wildly, but her finger was firmly on the trigger with the mouth of the gun pointed at Beatrix.

“Come here, Il,” the girl ordered the stunned boy in a firm voice. “You need to get away from that woman.” When Beatrix put a hand on his shoulder, her face went utterly rigid. “Please don’t touch my brother!”

“…Well, that’s certainly not a nice thing to say. What do you intend to do with that, exactly?”

“Was what he said true? Are you really an Un…Un…” She broke off on the crucial word, as if it were too unspeakably disgusting. Beatrix gave a jaded sigh. She couldn’t work up any anger about it.

“You go,” she told the boy, nudging him toward his sister. “You’re in my way.” He kept looking back at her uncertainly as he walked. When she saw him get halfway there, she fixed her gaze on the girl. She mopped at the blood on her face with her sleeve.

She’d bled heavily, but the wound wasn’t deep. Her tissue had already started to regenerate, and the laceration was closing up.

The girl’s eyes were wide with shock and fear.

“Well? What do you want to do about me?”

“I’m going to call the Church Soldiers here. P-Please turn yourself in quietly.”

“And if I say no?”

“If you try to resist, I’ll shoot,” the girl threatened in a low voice. Most likely the only thing the kid would accomplish by firing that thing would be knocking herself over with the recoil, but at any rate, Beatrix believed she meant what she said. Her eyes looked glazed. “You go against God’s natural law. You shouldn’t exist. But if you give yourself up, God in His mercy will forgive you. I know the Church will deal with you in good faith, too. So please, just surrender.”

“…What are you, stupid?” Beatrix found herself sighing a second time. “Do I need someone’s permission to be here? I’m not looking for anyone to forgive me, and I don’t think I’m some creature who shouldn’t be allowed to live without someone’s forgiveness, either.”…Well, maybe I do want to apologize to Kieli just a little. But that’s all.

She closed her eyes for a moment. She wasn’t upset with the girl. If anything, she was fed up with herself. She’d been playing Ms. Softhearted, a role that wasn’t even in character for her, and look where it had gotten her. She should never have let herself get emotionally involved with any damn humans in the first place.

She drew in a breath and opened her eyes.

In front of her was the familiar sight of the vast wilderness. And in the center of it, a human standing and pointing a gun at her. Therefore the human registered as an enemy. Obviously.

“…Since you’re pointing a gun at me, I assume you’re prepared for the consequences.”

“Beatrix, don’t do it. She’s a kid,” the radio whispered in a hushed voice. “Hey, wait—”

Without answering, Beatrix let the arm holding the radio dangle and let go of the strap. She heard it strike the ground at her feet.

It all happened in almost the same moment: Beatrix taking a step forward, the frightened girl pulling the trigger out of what was probably pure reflex—and the boy suddenly leaping forward and yelling “Monica, stop!”

Beatrix wanted to curse at herself. Why did my body move like that?

The instant she’d judged that the boy had leapt directly into the line of fire, she’d snatched him into her arms and twisted their bodies around.

She took the hit to the shoulder. Immediately and clearly, she felt that unpleasant sensation of rending flesh and vaporizing blood that was unique to the carbonization gun. Monica’s scream rang out and was swallowed up by the peaceful sand-colored sky of the wilderness.

“You’re such a kid…”

At this exasperated remark, Kieli pursed her lips in displeasure. “I know,” she grumbled at the back of the tall man walking in front of her.

Along the way, she’d stumblingly explained how she’d left Beatrix and the radio behind at the live music bar on the parish border. At the time, she’d run away out of mistrust of the two of them, but when you got right down to it, Harvey’s thoughtless letter had at least partially caused the whole thing. He had no right to make one-sided, exasperated comments about her immaturity.

She was glaring huffily at his back when he casually muttered, without turning around, “Well, I caused Bea trouble, too. Want to apologize to her together?”

Kieli blinked and momentarily stopped walking. “…Yeah,” she replied, nodding. Then she hurried to catch up to him.

The sounds of rushing water and two pairs of feet splashing through the puddles echoed in the gloom of the tunnel. By now the light around Kieli’s neck was only bleeding a weak yellow glow, but the luminous moss crawling along the walls and ceiling lit their path with dull bands of light.

She closed the distance between them until she was just behind Harvey and to the side, and stole a glance up at his profile over his shoulder. She felt as though the angle she saw it from had changed, even if only just a little; it must be that she had gotten taller. Gauze still covered his right eye. The right sleeve of his coat was empty, the cuff stuck into the pocket. His right hand was inside the pocket of his work pants underneath the coat.

She still hadn’t heard anything about what had happened in the capital.

According to Beatrix, he had sneaked into a secret Church facility or something, but what could he have done there to get such horrible injuries? Kieli figured it must be an important facility since the information peddler said he wanted the inside scoop about it. Was there something about that place above and beyond Harvey’s goal of looking for Jude…? If it was something to do with the Undyings, then of course it would have been dangerous for him to go there. So the fact that he’d gone anyway must mean that Jude was there…but he’d said Jude was dead.

Now that she thought about it, what were the circumstances of this “he’s dead,” anyway? Had Harvey found his body? Or had they been able to meet first? If so, had he died after that?

The more she thought, the more her disorderly imagination ran away with her. She could probably just ask Harvey himself, but she was strangely certain that he’d give her some vague, evasive answer. And she didn’t really feel as though she could bring it up now anyway. He was talking to her just like always—in fact, a little more gently than usual—but all the same, he had an air of inapproachability that probably wasn’t just Kieli’s imagination.

Right now she could almost understand why Julius’s nursemaid had thought Harvey was frightening.

Abruptly she heard Julius’s voice in her head saying, They found the body of the guard who’d gone after him in the underground waterway. He was murdered. His neck was broken.

No, of course it couldn’t be Harvey. There was no way. But if Harvey hadn’t done it, who had?

Kieli shook off the thought that had momentarily blossomed in her mind. She was horrified. Not at the idea, but at herself for letting that doubt enter her, even for an instant.

Harvey turned back toward her from his position a little ways ahead, and she realized that she’d unconsciously stopped moving. She rushed to catch up. Without any particular change of expression, he glanced at her with his left eye, which had somehow taken on the color of dried blood in the semidarkness, and quickly faced forward again.

“Um, hey…,” she ventured timidly from behind the shoulder of his dark gray coat. She hadn’t been aware of it before, but looking closely now she saw that there was a small pin at the collar of his hood—a gun and a sword symbolically crossed. The emblem of the Church Security Forces. “Is that coat from one of the prison—”

Before she could finish the question, out of nowhere Harvey’s hand shot toward her and clapped over her mouth. She gurgled. “Shut up,” he whispered sharply. He wrapped her up in his arm, hand still over her mouth, and plastered them both against the wall so that her cheek pressed up to the stone. Unsure what was happening, she grew scared and felt confusion starting to sweep over her before her ears picked up a faint sound that was new and different.

There was someone upstream from them. “Kill the light,” Harvey hissed into her ear. She turned it off without looking at it.

The moist sliminess of the cold wall made it stick to her cheek. At her back was the warmth of Harvey’s body and his breath. In contrast to her own pulse, which was racing with anxiety, the heartbeat she could feel behind her seemed to switch to war-ready mode; all signs of living presence vanished, and hearing him breathe.

It’s Church Soldiers. She could tell from the metallic scraping noise of their plate armor and the unique tone of their conversation. Flashlight beams flickered up ahead.

“Kieli.” The soft whisper was pitched so that only she could hear it. “We’ll see how things play out. If worse comes to worst, I’ll hand you over to them. I’m sure Julius will take you under his wing right away, so—”

She tried to make an angry sound of protest. The hand over her mouth clamped down tighter, as if Harvey had expected this response, so instead she shook her head as hard as she could trapped between him and the wall.

They both raised their voices without thinking. “Calm down, idiot. I said we’d see. If it looks like we can get out of this, I won’t—” “Nngh!” Then they heard a loud hail coming from upstream, and both froze stock-still.

Holding her breath, Kieli peered in the direction of the voice. It seemed they hadn’t been found after all. Another soldier had come to deliver a message to his comrades. She could hear several voices talking at once. Eventually their sloshing footsteps and the beams of their flashlights disappeared back into the darkness upstream.

“Why did they turn back?” muttered Harvey, glaring doubtfully after them. His hand still covered Kieli’s mouth. His long fingers dug into her cheek with biting force. When she protested with a pained groan, he finally relaxed them as if he’d just now noticed what he was doing.

She reflexively jumped a half step away from him and put a hand up to her aching cheek.

“Sorry. I panicked.”

“Harvey, was it you who killed the prison guard…?”

It chilled her to hear the mistrust in her own voice. The moment the words were out of her mouth, her heart stung with regret. She’d never spoken to Harvey in a tone like this before. It was just that for a second, she’d been frightened…

In the shadowy glow of the moss, she could see his face go blank and expressionless. After a pause, he said, “What are you talking about?”

“Juli said someone found the guard who went after you…and he’d been murdered. And they have permission to shoot you on sight because of it…”

“Don’t know anything about it,” Harvey answered promptly. He sounded as if it were news to him, and Kieli felt a little relieved.

“Then I was right; it was some kind of misunderstanding,” she began somewhat excitedly, when Harvey’s voice interrupted her in the same awful tone she’d used on him earlier.

“Did you believe them?”

The words lanced at her heart a hundred times more heavily and sharply than when she’d said it herself. For a moment she couldn’t breathe. “N-No, that’s not what I…” She started trying to explain it away, but then she remembered how she’d started to let that tiny bit of doubt invade her, and she hesitated. “I’m sure if you explain it to Juli, he’ll understand right away. It’ll be all—”

“No,” interrupted Harvey, cutting off the reassurance she’d unthinkingly twisted around. He looked somehow dazed, or maybe even really dismayed. “More like, if you don’t trust me, who would?”

It felt like a terribly dry wind had blown through the damp underground tunnel.

Kieli stood paralyzed, unable to come up with anything to say to that. After a short silence, Harvey gave a little sigh and looked away. “Whatever. One false charge doesn’t really matter at this point.”

“Harvey…”

“First things first. I guess we’d better get out of here.” And with that, he put an end to the conversation, turning on his heel and walking rapidly down the path again.

So in the end, Kieli hadn’t been able to say anything for herself. She hurried after him.

A while past the place where they’d seen the Church Soldiers’ lights, the stream they’d been following ended, and there was a meter-high wall in front of them. Harvey issued the one-word command “Light”; she thought for a second and then trained her flashlight on it from behind him. At the top of the wall was a path along another branch of tunnel that intersected with this one. It must be the main river. The low, violent sound of a large current reverberated off the walls and ceiling.

Harvey put his left hand lightly on the ledge and jumped up ahead of her, then turned and squatted down to offer her a hand. He didn’t say “Grab on.” He didn’t say anything else, either. Kieli looked up at his face and found him silent and expressionless, just waiting. This time, after only a split second of hesitation, she meekly gave him her hand and let him pull her up.

She was just getting one knee on the ledge when suddenly a shadow fell overhead.

Huh?

By the time she lifted her head to see what it was, Harvey was already looking over his shoulder at the tunnel behind him. Straight afterward, what looked like a long arm reached out and grabbed him by the throat, dragging him into the waterway before either of them had a chance to speak.

Her hand abruptly wrenched out of Harvey’s, Kieli lost her balance and tumbled down with a shriek, landing backside-first in the hallway she’d just climbed out of and sending up a shower of water in all directions. At the same time, she heard another, more dramatic splash on the level above her.

She immediately jumped to her feet and clung to the ledge, shining her flashlight around the river. She let its beam play along the surface and found Harvey’s head bobbing above the current. But he seemed to be grappling with something underwater that clutched at his legs and tried to drag him down.

That something broke the black surface of the foamy, turbulent water just long enough for her to catch a glimpse of it. It was a giant human shape, grossly bloated as if it were filled to the bursting point with water—in fact, she wasn’t sure she could call it “human” at all. It definitely had the rough shape of a human, but its skin was greenish with rot. That skin couldn’t possibly belong to a living person.

…What is that thing…?

Harvey was being swept downstream as he fought with it, so she scrambled up the wall on her own power and began to run along the bank. “Harvey!”

By then he’d managed to shake off his attacker, but he seemed to have lost all sense of direction. His head peeked out above the surface, and he was looking around wildly. Kieli had to shout at the top of her voice to be heard above the roar of water that filled the tunnel. “Harvey, this way!” He appeared to notice her, and started paddling one-handed toward her side of the river.

She ran a little farther until she came up beside him, and then got down on her knees and leaned forward to yank at the shoulders of his coat and help him crawl up onto the pathway. He promptly doubled over and began coughing.

Kieli rubbed his spasming back. “Are you okay?”

A great crash of water sounded nearby. When she looked toward it, the humanoid shape that had gone after Harvey was hauling itself up onto the bank a little way downstream.

There was a wet squelch. Sloshing a liquid that was far thicker than the muddy river water onto the concrete floor of the passageway, the thing drew itself up to its full height.

It was way too eerie to call “human.” But if she were forced to assign it some kind of human condition, maybe the rotting corpse of a drowned man would be the closest. Its green-tinged skin swelled up in patches as if it was covered with hundreds of blisters, and through their translucent membranes, she could see the blood vessels beneath pulsing unsteadily. Various blisters had burst and were oozing that viscous liquid. As for its face, both skin and flesh had half rotted off, and it retained no trace of its original shape. Maybe it had once had hair, but if so that had all fallen out, too. Its lidless eyes bulged grotesquely out of their sockets.

From the way it stood, back rounded and arms dangling in an animal stance, and the way it sluggishly let its eyes rove around the passage, it didn’t seem capable of much thought. But what Kieli couldn’t come to grips with was that it was precariously wrapped in what looked like scraps of cloth. Maybe it had worn clothes once. So did that mean it really was human after all…?

Kieli just watched the strange creature for several seconds, petrified. Then her instincts kicked in and snapped her back into reality. We have to get away.

“Harvey, hurry!” she said, standing up and turning to look behind her. But Harvey was still collapsed on all fours, staring frozen at it with a face even paler than Kieli’s.

“What’s wrong?…Harvey? Harvey?!” she called again. She seized him by the collar and pulled. His shoulders twitched once, and he swiveled his eye toward her, looking startled. Then he let out a cryptic little “Ah” sound, and with no warning he grabbed her wrist, sprang hastily to his feet, and began bolting down the corridor at full speed.

“W-Wait,” Kieli gasped. Obviously he wasn’t considering how much shorter her legs were than his as he pulled her along; she stumbled after him as best she could. They spotted the entrance to a sidestream in the wall ahead of them and plunged into it, Harvey still dragging her. As they rounded the corner, her foot slipped on a puddle and her legs shot out from under her, tangling up in Harvey’s and sending them both crashing to the ground with a squeak (Kieli) and a surprised “oof” (Harvey).

“I’m sorry!”

“…No, it’s my fault.” Harvey finally seemed to register that she was having trouble. He stood up and then reached down to her and lifted her to her feet. Arm still around her, he leaned one shoulder against the wall, silenced his breathing, and turned a wary eye to the waterway behind her. She could feel the heartbeat that had been so composed when they’d discovered the Church Soldiers earlier now pounding wildly, erratically against her.

They waited for a little while, but it showed no signs of chasing them. What sounded like a sigh of relief washed over Kieli from above, ruffling her bangs.

She tilted her neck back to look up at his jaw and whispered, “What was that? Have you ever seen it before, Harvey…?”

Harvey shook his head, eyes never leaving the stream’s entrance. His face was still whiter than usual. “I don’t know. I didn’t see anything,” he said, but the answer didn’t seem to quite mesh with her question. Rivulets of water streamed from his soaking-wet copper hair and slid down Kieli’s cheeks.

“Harvey, you’re acting funny. Are you okay?”

“…It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

When she tried to press him further, he assumed a calm expression, though it looked forced. “That thing was probably what killed the guard. We should get out of here fast. Let’s go.” Speaking quickly, he pushed her away from him, and then his face suddenly stiffened.

“…Kieli.” His voice lowered. “When I give you the signal, you run straight that way, and you don’t turn around no matter what.”

“Why—” she started to ask, lifting her head to look at him, and then she dropped her gaze, a sudden unease pulling her chin downward. Above her, Harvey gave a short sigh that seemed to say You idiot.

A greenish human arm was sticking out of Harvey’s side—at exactly the spot where she had been squeezed up against him just a few seconds ago.

Five sharp-taloned fingers closed around ripe flesh and pulled it smoothly out through Harvey’s back. Harvey’s body listed to the side a little. She instinctively reached out to support him, her gaze shooting upward. She’d never sensed it circling around them at all, yet somehow there it was, standing behind Harvey.

That face that was smooth and featureless like that of a drowned corpse. Those bare eyeballs that looked as if they might fall out of the sockets any second, staring fixedly down at the meat caught in those fingers. The thing tilted its head, and then with a throaty growl, it stuck out its red tongue and it licked—it licked the flesh—Harvey’s flesh.

Kieli’s heart turned to ice.

“Kieli. Go.” Harvey’s voice in her ear penetrated the fog around her brain from what seemed like a great distance. Eyes riveted on it, she jerkily shook her head.

“I said go!” A hand on her shoulder shoved her violently away. Not a moment later, its hand unceremoniously swept straight to the side, grabbed Harvey’s neck, and slammed him into the water without slowing down. Kieli stumbled toward him and fell, turning even as she did so to see that it was following him, too, about to jump in after him. Harvey didn’t surface. Could he have drowned?

She whipped out the flashlight and pointed it right into the thing’s bulging eyes. The beam wasn’t strong enough to blind it, but it did respond to the light, stopping right on the edge of the bank and ambling around toward her.

“This…” She gulped, flinching. “This way!”

At her shout, it charged fiercely toward her. Kieli spun around at the same time and took off running down the tunnel.

Her footsteps echoed as she splashed through the puddles, running along the dank waterway.

She didn’t have a grip on the lay of the land, so she had no clue in which direction the exit lay. She just operated on instinct, picking the direction she thought the tunnel continued in. The one thing she had to avoid was hitting a dead end.

At some point she realized that the second set of footsteps that had been echoing behind her, not too close but not too far, had faded. Still running, she turned her head to look, and immediately slipped on the wet concrete and tumbled to the ground with a stifled cry of pain.

She’d banged both of her knees pretty badly, and for a moment the wind was knocked out of her. Still, she quickly sat up. Her heart was pounding with exertion—and more importantly, with anxiety and fear.

Had she managed to draw it at least a little away from Harvey? It worried her that Harvey hadn’t surfaced, but surely, just as he’d always told her, he could manage something if he only had to worry about himself.

Kieli didn’t quite stand up, but she braced herself so that she could take off running again at a moment’s notice. Looking ahead of her, she saw an arched tunnel gaping in the wall a little farther ahead that must be the entrance to a sidestream. That spot was just a tiny bit brighter than everywhere else. Maybe it led outside.

She looked behind her for any signs of living presence, but it didn’t look as if it had followed her this far. I wonder where it went…

She held her breath and focused on the sounds around her. All she could hear were the sounds of rushing water that filled the passageway, the faint background noise that was always in the underground air, and her own heartbeat, which throbbed harder the more she tried to quiet it. Now that she wasn’t moving anymore, the chill crept into her bones in no time, yet her clenched palms were soaked with sweat. Where is it?

She couldn’t see anyone in the hallway behind her. But for some reason, her muscles refused to relax. Something was definitely nearby.

Slowly and methodically, she swept her eyes over the area. First she traced the path she’d run along, gradually moving her gaze over the waterway to right in front of her, and then looking down at her own feet—the tips of her boots were hanging off the brim of the bank, and the black surface of the water immediately beyond dully reflected the light as it rippled.

Kieli’s heart jumped in her chest.

No sooner had she instinctively jerked her foot back than a hand sloshed up out of the water and clutched the air right where it had been. Sharp nails scratched against the concrete with a horrible high-pitched screeching that pierced her eardrums.

She forgot to even scream. She just started running along the bank again, stumbling blindly. Behind her she could sense it leaping up onto the path and coming after her. She veered ninety degrees to the right into the tunnel where she’d seen the light. If it turned out to be a dead end, everything was over.

Ahead of her was an arched sliver of sandy illumination.

It’s the outside!

Fortunately, there were no iron bars here like the ones at the bottom of the waterfall. Thanking her lucky stars, Kieli sped up and flexed her knees to jump—

—And then came to a shocked halt as the sudden gust of wind whooshed past her face.

Clinging to the stone exit at the last minute, she looked down and saw her toes brushing the air beyond an ancient wall that plunged several dozen meters straight down to a paved road below. Between her boots, the shallow water of the passageway soaked through a crack in the wall and trickled down.

She was at one of the exits halfway up the inner walls that divided the city.

Sprawling below her was the giant slum of downtown, covered in a thin morning mist. As they got farther away from the wall, the shadows of the buildings grew lower and sparser, swallowed up by the red-brown wilderness that stretched beyond the horizon. A dry gust of wind blew at her feet and sent the hem of her coat flapping.

After staring dumbly at the view for a while, she snapped back to herself and looked back into the waterway.

It appeared at the opening into the sidestream. At first it seemed about to walk by, but then it rolled its glaring eyes toward the tunnel, caught sight of her, and stiffly changed direction, long arms still dangling seemingly carelessly at its sides. Slowly it approached her with sucking footsteps that made a sickening squelch against the ground.

She turned back outside again and scanned the wall in all directions, but she couldn’t find any cracks or ledges to which she could escape.

The footsteps were getting steadily faster, closing the gap between them. Kieli’s heel faltered back a little, catching on the edge of the precipice and sending a tiny bit of stone flying. It bounced down the wall and was swallowed up by the city below before she could blink.

She gulped in fright, but at the same time an idea occurred to her.

I wonder if I can do it…

There was no time to flinch. She couldn’t think of any other option.

The footsteps broke abruptly into a run, slurring together into a harsh noise like someone pounding quickly on a flat board. Kieli stood right at the brink and faced it as it charged headlong at her.

She forced her heartbeat to slow, licking her dry lips.

Please let this work, she prayed. Not to God, but to her own judgment and good luck.

Right before the long arm that rose up before her could close around her throat, she took half a step backward.

Her body dropped. Its arm wheeled through empty air, fingers taking a few strands of her hair with them, and its momentum sent it sailing over her head.

Several seconds later, she heard the sound of something hitting the ground far beneath her feet, which were dangling in the air.

Clinging to the wall with every ounce of her upper-body strength and just barely hanging on, Kieli craned her neck to look down at the street below. Beneath her swaying legs, the green corpse looked tiny. Pieces of it were scattered all over the block.

Kieli closed her eyes and turned her face away, using all her might to crawl back up into the waterway.

As she sat in the shallow water, panting, her legs began to shake uncontrollably in delayed reaction. If her timing had been even just a little off and she hadn’t been able to grab on to the edge, she’d have been the one splattered on the pavement right now.

When she put her hands to her knees to stop the shaking, a sharp pain zinged through her, and she gasped. It looked as though she’d scraped them up pretty badly; reddish-purple bruises were forming, and blood oozed from a bunch of little cuts. When had she fallen? Oh, right…

Kieli forced the pain from her mind and pulled herself up with one hand on the wall. I can walk. So ignoring pain was something anybody could do to some degree—she probably wasn’t managing it as perfectly as Harvey, but she thought she sort of understood now, a little.

“Harvey…”

She stared straight ahead at the tunnel before her, and started walking.

I have to get back to Harvey.

He wasn’t sure how many minutes had passed since he’d sunk into the water, but even his lungs were starting to scream. He wouldn’t die just because he couldn’t breathe, but there must be some sort of time lag between the oxygen deprivation and when his core would start pumping blood again, because it was no better than dying, and it was literally as painful as death.

In the muddy, pitch-black water where not a glimmer of light reached, it was all he could do to keep some sense of direction based on the pressure of the current, but he thought he’d been washed pretty far downstream.

Bastard…Harvey kicked his legs to try to shake off the sensation of hands grabbing at his ankle and dragging him down, but he couldn’t control his movements very well underwater. The dark form he caught fractured glimpses of was definitely the thing from before.

It hadn’t sneaked around them. There had been two of the damn things all along.

Maybe they had meant to attack the Church Soldiers, but if so, they’d probably automatically shifted focus to him and Kieli when they showed up just as the soldiers were disappearing. Or maybe the creatures had just figured they’d be an easier meal than a bunch of big men covered in plate armor.

Harvey felt anxious. If the other one was still back there with Kieli, he didn’t have a second to waste playing with this one, but not only was he missing an arm, the thing had captured one of his legs, and he was underwater. The deck was just too stacked against him.

Did these guys escape from that place…?

He’d never imagined he’d run into them in a place like this—but it did make sense if he assumed they’d been traveling along the waterways. This place would be connected to the capital underground. He didn’t know how many of them had settled down here or how long ago they’d come, but they seemed to have adapted extremely well to the water. The bones of their jaws and the nails on their fingers and toes were abnormally overdeveloped—as weapons to hunt their prey with?—and they even had translucent webbing between their fingers.

Did he have a weapon, too?

Remembering, he felt around in his coat pocket with his left hand. His fingers touched the jackknife. He’d meant to throw it away after he’d finished sawing at the bars, but somehow he’d forgotten about it, and it had been sitting in his pocket ever since. It was duller than a butter knife now, but Harvey guessed it was better than nothing. He gripped the handle and flicked it open with his thumb.

Suddenly the hand disappeared from around his ankle.

The abrupt release from bondage left him at the mercy of the current, and he got completely disoriented. By the time he began to curse to himself, the form had risen to the same depth as him and started to wrap around him from behind.

This bastard is smarter than I thought! He slid free from the clutching arms by the skin of his teeth, sinking deeper into the water. The momentum sent him spinning upside down. Without righting himself, he plunged his knife into the center of the shadow.

A blossom of red sprang up out of the uniform blackness and spread like smoke. As he’d thought, the blade was too loose; it didn’t feel as if he’d wounded the thing at all. Harvey forced it in with brute strength and yanked it sideways. The heavy sensation of gouging flesh resonated all the way along his arm, and he felt a wave of discomfort, like something foreign was forcing its way up from his stomach into his throat.

The knife caught against bone, or muscle, or something, and refused to pull free, so he let go of it. He kicked the thing in its chest, and the motion propelled him at last to the surface.

As soon as his face got above the water, he started gulping in great, ragged breaths of air, sucking oxygen back into his lungs. Looking around, he saw the side of one bank gleaming whitely past the waves. All the strength was already gone from his arm, but he somehow managed to swim there anyway. He grabbed the edge and hauled himself up until he was lying facedown on his stomach with his legs still in the river, and then his strength gave out, and he couldn’t move anymore for a while.

All the feeling that had been numbed crashed back down on him at once. The roar of the churning river, the sound of his own irregular breathing, the twitching stab of pain in his side every time he inhaled, the weight of the clothes plastered to his skin, the water coursing down his cheeks from his soaked hair to form a spreading gray stain on the concrete below him.

He shifted his face slightly and looked up out of the corner of his eye. Far above him was a domed ceiling covered in luminous moss. He seemed to be at a dead end.

After an interval of catching his breath, Harvey pushed himself up with his left arm and was trying to drag his lower body up onto the bank when something suddenly caught his eye.

A radio…?

There was something like a small gray box lying on the floor in front of him. It was a portable radio. Slowly he slid his gaze even farther forward, and in the bleary light of the moss, he made out the outlines of various other things washed up on the bank.

Or maybe fished out of the water?

It was a pile of bloated corpses. Most likely of people who had gotten lost in the waterways and drowned—but the majority of them had been half-eaten, their remains scattered about the floor. Bits of human body parts littered the bank like toys a child had grown bored with and tossed away.

It’s a nest…

He forced down the bile rising in his throat. They were lower than animals. Sometimes one animal attacked another so that it could survive, but Harvey thought these guys just attacked and ate any living thing they happened across, without even really knowing why they were doing it.

He heard a splash behind him.

Shit—! He recovered his wits and pulled up the leg that was still in the water, but the hand that had vaulted out of the river seized his ankle before it was clear, and he ended up pulling it onto the bank with him.

With an unpleasant wet slapping noise, it used its other hand to crawl up the side. A rush of dirty water poured down from it to form a muddy puddle on the floor. Harvey thought it might actually be overflowing from inside the thing’s body.

Its chest gaped open where he’d dug out a chunk of it with the jackknife, and blackish organs peeped out of it; they must have lost most of their function from tissue death. And deep inside that chest, a little to the left of center, was buried exactly what Harvey had expected.

Surrounded by a mass of bio-cables was the warped black stone, steadily blinking with a dull amber light.

He shuddered.

“Let go!” Harvey tried to shake off the creature, but instead it slithered up his body. The feel of its sticky skin clinging to his thigh sent a chill up his spine.

Ephraim.

What?! He was jolted by the voice that abruptly sprang up in his own head. It had to be a hallucination.

Superimposed on the rotting, shapeless face hovering over his was another face, one he recognized. It was a man who hadn’t left much of an impression; his blue-gray eyes were the only things vaguely unique about him. The creature reached out to Harvey as if begging for help, and its half-melted mouth twisted in its half-melted face.

Hey, Ephraim. It’s me.

“Stay away!” he cried, shaking his head to clear it of the unreal voice. At the same time, he plunged the heel of his foot into the gaping tear in its chest with enough violence to kick in those exposed organs. This finally had an effect. It rolled to the edge of the bank with a whine like a puppy’s.

What the hell are you doing in my head?! Harvey sank to the ground and panted so hard his shoulders heaved, staring aghast at the thing curled up on the floor and cursing his own hallucination. What the hell do I care you betrayed me again you bastard I’d be on cloud nine if you died in the street somewhere and your body was eaten by bugs and broken down into harmless molecules never show your damn face in front of me again—no, more like, why the hell can’t I learn my lesson?! How many times does this have to happen before I get it through my head that nothing good ever comes of getting involved with that damn—

It let out a low groan.

It seemed to have recovered from the damage in no time. It shuffled up onto its hands and knees, moaning, so Harvey smothered the churning swirl of thoughts in his mind and focused his attention on the enemy before him.

Apparently it had abnormally high powers of recovery. He guessed that to kill it he’d have to get its heart—

The creature, crouched on all fours, unexpectedly kicked off against the ground. Harvey had been watching it like a hawk, but he hadn’t sensed any motion of warning, and his response was delayed. It scurried fast toward him with movements that didn’t resemble a four-legged animal so much as a giant crustacean. Horrified by the grotesque sight, he tried to dodge, but an arm darted out at him from an impossible angle and a hand fastened onto his left wrist. He reflexively shifted to raise his right arm, but of course it didn’t move, and he collapsed to the ground, landing on one shoulder. The force of the impact threw his whole weight onto his side. He bit back a scream and shoved down the pain.

Harvey didn’t know if it was addicted to the taste of human flesh or what, but it opened its cavernous mouth wide and lunged at his neck. His left arm was pinned; he couldn’t move it.

I can’t block him—!

There was a shrill noise, like two hard objects banging together.

For a second he doubted his own eyes. “What the…?” The right arm that should have been broken and useless had flung itself in front of his throat at the last possible moment and taken the impact of its teeth. The metal framework creaked between the unnaturally gaping jaws, but still it seemed to resist. Sparks flew from the exposed cables as its motor thrummed.

“Stop it, don’t hurt yourself—” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his forearm collapsed under the pressure and flattened. Yet it didn’t stop. With a screeching noise Harvey’s mind couldn’t wrap itself around, it was cruelly crushed between the thing’s teeth.

Everything went utterly blank. A split second later, almost without conscious thought, he plunged his left hand into the cleft in its breast. He slammed the rib cage in and wrapped his hand around the black stone at its heart. It was hotter than he expected; he felt the skin of his palm burning. Ignoring this, he planted his foot on its chest for leverage and began to tear the stone from the bio-cables that connected it to the rest of the thing’s body.

It probably didn’t understand what Harvey was doing to it. But maybe it instinctively sensed the danger. It started to resist, contorting its body wildly.

Stop it, Ephraim! Please—

The man’s face hovered above the thing’s again and reached out a pleading hand. It was as if someone who knew what made Harvey tick was manipulating the illusion, because now he saw another face. It was another one he recognized, with sandy hair and an unshaven face…

Ju—

He knew it wasn’t real, but his fingers slackened slightly all the same. Pointed talons dug at his face and scratched off the gauze over his right cheek, taking a patch of skin with them. He let out a hiss of pain.

Harvey put all his energy into the fight again, and this time he didn’t hesitate as he ripped the last of the bio-cables and yanked out the stone.

His arm slipped out from between the thing’s organs. The impact sent his back slamming into the floor. The giant form of his enemy, all strength gone, slumped on top of him. Even though its power source had been removed, its nerves seemed to react just a little longer, and its limbs flailed. But like springs going slack, the movements gradually grew dull, and eventually it dropped into stillness.

Even tugging his body out from under the huge creature was too much trouble. He lay with his cheek pressed to the slimy concrete for a while, listening to nothing but the gasping sounds of his own breath. The fiery-hot stone in his left hand steadily cooled in the outside air. He wasn’t gripping it tightly anymore, but it was stuck fast to his burned palm and wouldn’t come off.

He was smeared from elbow to fingertips with black blood like coal tar, and he had a feeling that even if he washed it off now, the sensation of someone else’s flesh and blood would be with him for a long time.

“I’m sick of this…,” he grumbled softly.

He never wanted to do that again. To—to kill something like one of his own kind.

He finally summoned up the energy to move a little. Using his elbow, he crawled groggily out from under the heavy corpse on top of him. He shifted his gaze to the right arm still trapped underneath it where it had been dashed to the ground, and called, “Hey…”

There was no response. Harvey peeled off the stone stuck to his hand, along with the skin attached to it. Then he used that hand to pull out the arm.

Its metal framework was crushed and unrecognizable. Weak sparks rose from where the cables had melted from the high heat. “Hey, come on, answer me. You moved just now, didn’t you? Do it one more time…,” he said, and noticed that his voice was gradually breaking and falling soft.

Maybe before he could’ve taken it to a good mechanic and had it fixed, but now it was probably beyond repair.

When he pressed his forehead to the pathetically warped heap of metal his forearm had become, he could still hear the feeble sound of a motor coming from somewhere near the elbow.

With one last, short rumble, that quickly disappeared, too.

Harvey knew he had to stand up, but his sopping-wet clothes were stuck to the ground, and he couldn’t move. I have to go back, fast, he told himself impatiently, but he couldn’t quite recall what it was he had to hurry back to.

Huh?

Mixed in with the sounds of water filling the passageway, he could hear a familiar noise coming from somewhere. It was so horribly garbled with static it was hard to make out, but it was the up-tempo sound of stringed instruments.

Spurred on by the somehow nostalgic sound, or more like by a slap on the ass and a voice hissing What are you doing resting in a place like this, you bastard? he abruptly remembered. He had to get back to Kieli.

When he opened his eye, a shadowy form leaning over him let out a yelp and jumped backward. Harvey didn’t really get who the unfamiliar man was or what was going on, but the guy was holding a broom and a dustpan, so maybe he’d been cleaning. A portable radio hung from a belt on his waist. Harvey had a hard time believing that radio waves would reach them this far down, but the noise was undeniably coming from its speaker.

The man was peering at him fearfully from a short distance away, but soon his face relaxed and he smiled innocently at Harvey. “Hey, I thought that was you. I took you for a dead body again.”

Huh? He looked up at the man suspiciously and thought for a minute. A man with cleaning implements and a radio…“Oh!” He hadn’t been in the best mental state at the time, but he retained a vague impression of what had happened. It had been a long time since he’d heard that guerrilla radio station, and he’d felt oddly comforted.

Harvey narrowed his eye. “Give me my money back.”

The man waved his hands around, flustered. “Ah, see, I spent that a long time ago.”

“I’m kidding. It doesn’t matter anymore.” He quirked the corner of his mouth up in a smile, and then dropped his gaze, already tired of talking.

After a hesitant silence, he heard the man’s voice above him. It was a mixture of surprise, exasperation, and wry laughter. “You look terrible again. Are you alive?”

“…Fortunately,” he said with a nod, and sat up unsteadily. First he wiped the blood from his right eye with a shrug of his shoulder, and then he looked down at the hole in his side. He figured he could still walk. Probably.

It struck him as kind of strange that he’d answered with “fortunately.” He was pretty sure he’d never had the ability to think of being alive as “fortunate” before.

Fortunately, he could still go home to Kieli.

All of a sudden reports came to Julius of a commotion outside of town involving a (failed) attempt to capture an Undying and the discharge of a knockoff carbonization gun. He was lost as to what it was all about, but he temporarily withdrew from the waterways along with the soldiers in his search party and dashed to the entrance into downtown.

A tiny civilian truck was parked there, surrounded by the black trucks of Church Soldiers. One moment the mercantile-looking man in front of it was whining in exaggerated tones something along the lines of “It’s because you jerks took so long to show up that it got away from me,” and the next moment he was clutching his stomach and crying for a stretcher.

Julius seized one of the nearby soldiers and requested an explanation. He was told the Undying who’d gotten away was a woman.

A woman?

He cocked his head. Apparently it wasn’t the man they were searching for.

Then he noticed the two children clutching each other and cowering at the sidelines—though in fairness, he supposed that two short years ago he hadn’t looked any older than the girl did. She was about ten, and the other one was a younger boy. They looked like siblings.

At any rate, it wasn’t the kids who had caught his eye so much as the old radio the little boy was clutching lovingly to his chest. He couldn’t imagine there were two groups of travelers who would lovingly carry a beat-up old antique that was so rusted it looked like something from the junk pile.

“They say that girl fired the weapon, but it wasn’t a fatal hit, and the Undying got away.”

“Her?”

At the soldier’s explanation, he studied the girl again in surprise. From a distance she had seemed meek enough. When he left the men and walked toward her, she caught sight of him and shrank back as if overwhelmed. She seemed just as meek up close as she had from a distance.

“Reverend.”

Being surrounded by all those brawny soldiers must have been frightening. She gave him an imploring look, and he felt momentarily disconcerted. But there was no point in confusing her more when she was already scared, so he didn’t correct the false impression. To the average citizen, there probably wasn’t much difference between a seminarian and a full-fledged priest. “Do you live in town?”

“Yes, at our relatives’ house…”

“Okay, I’ll have someone bring you there. I might have to ask you about all this again later, but go on home for today,” he said, striving for his most adult tone so that he would sound like a priest. The girl bowed deeply and looked relieved enough to cry. In his mind, Julius laughed ruefully at the awkward position he was now in. He actually had no authority to release them without permission. In fact, he didn’t particularly have the authority to be here at all; he was just butting his nose in. However, even if he didn’t have authority, he did have power.

Julius dropped his eyes to the object in the boy’s arms and changed the subject. “By the way, where did you get that radio?”

“This is the lady’s,” said the boy. He slightly emphasized the words “the lady’s,” as if proud. Unlike his sister, he didn’t seem the least bit unnerved. Maybe he didn’t understand the situation.

“Would you mind if I held on to it?”

“No, of course not,” answered the girl for him, poking him sharply with her elbow. The boy looked as though he hated to part with it, but in the end he reluctantly handed it over.

It was switched off. When he took it and inspected it more closely, he got the feeling it really was that radio after all. It seemed more than likely that this escaped Undying had something to do with Kieli and Harvey.

As he stared at it, turning it over in his hands, he heard the girl’s thin voice say, “Reverend…” This time he started to tell her he was still just a seminary student, but after one look at her he shut his mouth.

She was standing there with her hands clasped in front of her breasts, lips trembling, and she went on speaking in a rush of words, almost more to herself than to him. “Reverend, I thought what I’d done was right. The Church teaches us that those people are abominable creatures cut off from God. And I always thought that was true.” She paused. “But…maybe it’s a sin to say this, but…are you sure I wasn’t wrong?”

Julius wasn’t able to answer right away. He met her expectant gaze in silence. He was sure the girl would be relieved if he told her, “What you did was right, so there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

But the only words that eventually came out of his mouth were, “I’m not a priest.”

He had no authority to preach to her. He was bitterly disappointed with himself for running away like a coward only at the worst times like this. Perhaps the girl’s face showed her own disappointment, but he turned around and left before he could see her reaction.

He ordered a nearby soldier to take them home and then headed back to the truck he’d come in, saying, “I’m going back to the waterways. The search is still ongoing.” As he was about to climb into the passenger’s seat, there was a ring from the communicator on the driver’s side.

The soldier standing by to drive him took the call. It looked as though the other trucks were all getting the same message; commotion suddenly broke out all around him. Julius swept his eyes over the scene, frowning. “What happened?” he asked his driver.

The other man looked as if he didn’t understand it himself. “They say a corpse fell out of the waterway,” he said.

She could hear a radio playing.

Guided by the faint static coming from somewhere past the section of tunnel she could see in the muted light of the moss, Kieli automatically picked up her pace. She sloshed along through the film of water covering the passageway, gritting her teeth against the pain in her knees.

She saw someone ahead of her in the waterway. He was leaning his slightly sagging right shoulder lightly against the wall to prop himself up as he dragged his tall, waterlogged body toward her. When Kieli stopped walking, he caught sight of her and stopped, too. He glanced back over his shoulder and murmured something. The sound of the radio faded quietly away, as if relieved to have done its duty.

Then he turned back to face her, and his expressionless mask faltered just a tiny bit. “…Are you okay?”

It was obvious he was the one who wasn’t okay. Kieli scowled at him, a little annoyed. “I should ask you that.”

They started walking again. The gap between them steadily closed until just as they were about to meet in the middle, Harvey slipped on a patch of slime. She reached out a hand to hold him up, and they went stumbling to their knees together.

“Heh, you fell for it,” said a voice near her ear. It was scratchy, but Kieli could hear the mischief in it. The arm Harvey had wound around her shoulders didn’t budge. It took a few stunned moments for her to catch on that he’d been faking, but when she figured it out, it rankled a little.

When she pressed her face to his chest and wound her arms around his back, she could feel the sharp angle of his shoulder blades even through the coat. “…You’ve lost some weight.”

“Eh, it can’t be that much.”

“Yes, it is. I remember exactly how you felt before.” The feel of the bony hand hugging her shoulder, its warmth, the voice that rumbled a bit in his throat, the way he talked, the rhythm of his breathing, everything—right now, she could remember all of it.

Kieli raised her face slightly and looked up at his closed right eye and the scar on his cheek. She bit her lip. “How come every single time I let you out of my sight, you end up looking like you’re going to die? You’re so dumb…!” she spat accusingly, looking down again.

“Oh. Yeah…,” came the uncomfortable reply.

“You just left all of a sudden and didn’t write me for so long! Do you get how completely selfish that was?”

“Yeah…”

“And do you get how I felt this whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“Liar. I know you didn’t even think about it.”

“…Yeah.”

“The Corporal and Beatrix were worried, too, you know. Are you sorry?”

“Yeah.”

“Say something that’s not ‘yeah’!”

“Yeah.” And then, a second later: “Sorry.”

It was a really short and clumsy apology, but it was straight from the heart. Kieli kept right on glaring at his collarbone for a while, anyway, lips pressed tightly together, but eventually she couldn’t hold back the tears welling up in her eyes. She started to sob violently. It was like a dam breaking, and then she couldn’t stop. She buried herself in the chest of the man in front of her and blubbered like a little kid.

“You’re such a crybaby,” said a discomfited-sounding voice above her head after a while. “I thought you’d grown up some, but on the inside you haven’t changed at all.”

“Shut up, I didn’t cry!”

As a comeback, it didn’t sound very convincing, but it was true. She hadn’t cried all this time.

After all, she’d decided not to cry until she’d made him apologize.

A hand ruffled her hair, and a voice somewhere behind her left shoulder repeated, “Sorry.” Then she heard it whisper one more thing, almost to itself.

…I’m home.

“This place is like a circus…”

When Julius arrived at the scene, there were a lot more onlookers than he would have expected. He eyed the crowd dubiously and then looked up at the wall beyond. Far up the cracked wall gaped the black mouths of a row of tunnels. Thin streams of water dripped down from them. He shoved his way through the throng of people (most of them residents of downtown), seeing a ring of soldiers huddled around the dried-up track of an open conduit running parallel to the wall.

The prone figure they surrounded must be the fallen corpse.

Even the highly trained Church Soldiers were grimacing and giving it a wide berth. The instant Julius saw it from the other side of the crowd, his eyes widened, and a second and a half later he looked away.

True, he’d have to be a messy corpse just from falling all the way from those tunnels up there (and I really don’t want to see that, even), but doesn’t it look like he was dead before he fell…? He looks like a bloated-up drowned man, and like a burnt corpse with its skin melting off—

“What is that thing…?”

Julius gulped, fought off the urge to throw up, and turned to question the soldier who’d come with him, but the man was already facing the other way and throwing up for real.

The orders were to carry away the corpse and to avoid the onlookers while they did it. While the troops prepared to transport him, reluctant though they were to approach him, the sounds of a heavy fossil-fuel truck engine roared up close to them.

Julius furrowed his brow at the truck as it drove over the embankment and entered the ruined conduit. It was definitely one of the black Church trucks, but its excessively thick armor gave it an overwhelming air of intimidation.

The soldiers shrank back, clearing space. The men who came out of the truck were clothed in pure white that contrasted starkly with its black paint. They were fortified with full-body armor and helmets that covered their faces; it all far and away outclassed anything the lowly city troops wore.

Undying Hunters.

As Julius gaped, they shoved the city soldiers aside as if it was their God-given right and started preparing to carry the corpse to their own vehicle. “Hey! What makes you think you can show up here out of nowhere and just—”

He was about to storm up to them and tell them off when another soldier stopped him with a whispered, “Master Julius, you shouldn’t.” He bit his lower lip in frustration. The Undying Hunters reported directly to the Council of Elders. This was the one unit he couldn’t interfere with, even with all his father’s influence to back him up.

The masked men whisked away the revolting corpse with supreme indifference and without any explanation. Julius watched it all with a glare, unable to hide his displeasure. The other troops seemed to share his feelings.

From all appearances, the Hunters couldn’t care less. As soon as they finished collecting the awful body, they began forming a search team, as if they meant to take the next step in walking all over Julius and go investigate the waterways on their own.

“Has our escapee been found yet?” he asked the soldier next to him in a low voice.

“Not yet. We had to stop because of all this fuss…It doesn’t look like we’ll get the chance to investigate any further, either.”

“Give me that,” he said, and borrowed—or more accurately, snatched—the man’s bayonet gun before turning on his heel and walking away.

“Er, uh, where are you going, sir?”

Julius didn’t turn at the sound of the flustered voice behind him. “I just remembered something I have to take care of. No need for you to come with me.” He forced his way through the bystanders and back to the truck he’d come in.

Kieli tried several times to get down. “I can walk by myself.”

“It’s fine. I want to carry you.”

So as they made their way to the exit out of the sewers, she gratefully accepted the ride on Harvey’s back, resting her cheek on the shoulder of his coat.

Afterward, she’d cried for a time, apologizing to him through her sobs. Harvey hadn’t seemed to understand at first what she was apologizing for. When she explained, “For the thing about the guard who was killed,” he looked just a little miffed before mumbling, “…Whatever. It doesn’t matter what a bunch of people I don’t care about think of me. But you—” And then he broke off. Kieli felt as if he’d stopped right in the middle of something important, but he didn’t continue.

Kieli fiercely told herself again that even if the whole world turned against Harvey, she would never, ever betray him.

And then they started walking along the waterway again. On their way, Kieli told him, from her perch on his back, all kinds of things about the last year and a half: life in the towns of East South-hairo, her live-in job, the time Beatrix had packed up the Corporal and sent him to a charity, and the time she and Beatrix had dressed up in disguise and crashed a cruising party at a port town.

While she told him her memories bit by bit, whatever came into her head, he just kept silently walking straight ahead without even responding; but whenever she thought, Maybe I’ll stop because I don’t think he’s listening anyway, he’d choose that moment to prompt her with a little “Huh. Then what?” So it was really hard to tell whether he was listening or not.

Beatrix’s name inevitably came up a lot, and it brought home to Kieli all over again that between one thing and another, they really had been together for a whole year and a half. “Beatrix is funny, huh? She’s selfish and stuck-up and she does whatever she wants, but sometimes she surprises you by acting really nice or having this weirdly strong sense of responsibility…” She thought about that golden hair and sulky expression, and gave a pained smile.

“Didn’t I tell you you could trust Beatrix?” answered Harvey, in this tone of What, you just now figured that out? And come to think of it, Kieli did remember that. At the time, they’d been in a pretty desperate situation, and it’d seemed as though he was just saying it on impulse to make her feel better, but now she guessed he must have just been telling the truth.

She was a little jealous of Beatrix, that Harvey talked about her that way, but now she kind of looked forward to seeing her again, wondering if from now on they could be normal friends, without reservations like they’d had before. It would be nice if they could be close the way she and Becca used to be.

Though she had the feeling she’d be getting a serious tongue-lashing about this whole thing first…

When we get back, I’ll tell her I’m sorry.

Kieli closed her eyes lightly and inhaled. She could smell the faint aroma of tobacco as she leaned into his neck. He’d been in that cell, so he couldn’t have smoked for a long time. Had the smoke seeped so deeply into his body that it was part of his natural odor now? It was the old familiar scent of him, the one she hadn’t smelled in so long.

Mist-fine beads of water were falling down on them from the ceiling, filling her ears with the enjoyable sound of rain. The droplets felt strangely warm, like light raining down from the ceiling moss, comfortably caressing her cheeks.

Harvey was supporting her rear end with only his left hand, so she adjusted her grip around his neck so that she wouldn’t slide off. While she was at it, she cast a look ahead of them. Far down the long stretch of passageway, a thin beam of sandy light was coming into view. A ladder along the wall led up to a square, cavernous opening in the ceiling. It was the drain on the edge of the uptown district that Kieli had climbed down from when she’d first entered the waterways.

Harvey suddenly stopped walking.

A wariness permeated the air, one that was quiet like a still pool of water, yet alert to the tiniest thing.

“I thought I’d find you here,” said a voice that ricocheted off the walls of the passageway. A young male voice: not a child, yet not quite an adult.

Someone began making his way down from the patch of light in front of them. When he jumped off the ladder halfway down, the hem of his long robe billowed up in the wind, and then fluttered back down around his legs again as his feet touched the floor.

He wore black priest’s garb; the gentle sand-colored light lit him from behind and cast his face into shadow. Kieli squinted. Then she saw who it was and sagged with relief.

“When I heard you’d gone down into the waterways, too, I figured you must have come through this drain.”

“I’m sorry, Juli…” She ducked her head a little and hid behind Harvey’s back, then noticed something was wrong. The wariness radiating from that back hadn’t eased even the tiniest bit. Just as her mind started to question this, she heard a soft metallic click.

When she looked forward again, Julius was silently pointing a bayonet gun at them.

“Juli…?!”

Kieli slipped hastily down from Harvey’s back. Pain flared up in her knees the moment her feet hit the ground. Ignoring it, she tried to run up to her friend, but Harvey’s arm shot out to hold her back, and she was herded behind him. When she peeked up at him over his shoulder, his gaze was cold and unsurprised, trained on Julius. “You know you can’t kill me with that thing.”

Julius was silent for a moment. He pressed his lips together, looking as if he was the one cornered, and then solemnly opened his mouth, gun still not wavering. “I’ll ask you one question. Are you the one who killed the guard?”

“No, Juli, he—”

He cut her off apologetically but firmly. “I’m sorry, Kieli, but you’re not the one I’m asking.” And he looked steadily at Harvey, waiting for his answer. Kieli bit her lip and almost cried, but Harvey was just his usual indifferent self, as though he really didn’t care one way or the other.

“If that’s what you want to think, be my guest.”

“Was it you or not?” Julius repeated. His face was dead serious. Harvey sighed tiredly, but in the end he answered readily enough.

“No.”

“…Fair enough.” Julius breathed out and nodded lightly—did he believe them now?—but his hard expression didn’t relax. “What did, then?”

“It sounds like you have an idea,” Harvey answered, and she realized that Julius hadn’t asked who did; he’d asked what did.

After a breath, he continued in the manner of someone telling important news, and Kieli thought this must have been the main issue all along. “We found a corpse downtown. It fell from the waterway. It was like a monster…”

“That was—” Kieli began unthinkingly, then swallowed the rest of the sentence and gripped the sleeve of Harvey’s coat. That was the thing I sent over the edge.

“You stay quiet,” Harvey whispered to her without taking his eye off Julius. Still staring fixedly at them, face harsh, Julius asked another question: “Undying Hunters from the capital carried it off. What…was that thing?”

“Undying Hunters?” Kieli said, surprised. She looked up at Harvey’s profile, but he seemed to have expected this. His expression didn’t change.

“There are a lot of taboo things in this world that you don’t know about.”

“Give me a straight answer.”

Harvey thought silently for a minute, and then jammed his left hand into his coat pocket. Kieli saw Julius’s whole body stiffen at the sudden movement, and her heart did a somersault in her chest, but Harvey, supremely unconcerned, just drew out something from the pocket and casually tossed it to Julius. “Here.”

“Ack!”

Harvey seemed to be far better than Julius at situations like this. After Julius took one hand off his gun to catch the flying object, he realized he’d lost his offensive stance and made a bitter face. Then he frowned and looked down at it.

A black stone just about the size and roughness of Harvey’s fist—seeing it even from this distance, Kieli’s eyes widened. She looked back and forth between their faces.

“What is this?”

“Did you know there’s a fossil energy lab in the capital?”

“…I know it exists. What about it?”

“Try asking your dad about it,” Harvey said, breaking off the conversation rudely. Then, with a whispered “Let’s go” to Kieli, he started walking toward the exit Julius stood in front of as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

It looked as though Julius didn’t feel like pointing the gun at him again either way. He was obviously unsatisfied, but he just stuck the stone into his own coat pocket, reached underneath the coat, and produced a very familiar little radio.

Her own shriek was no surprise, but Harvey’s voice joined her at equal volume before they both snapped their mouths shut in confusion. Then she was running up to Julius and practically snatching it out of his hand, crying, “Where did you get this?!”

Julius gave her a look that said I knew it. “Apparently an Undying woman was carrying it. So you two know her.”

Beatrix! “Where is she?”

“She got away. We don’t know where she went, either.”

“What happened?!”

“They say she was headed to Gate Town in a traveling salesman’s truck, but she was shot by another passenger, a civilian. That’s all I know.”

“Shot…?” Kieli murmured, stunned. She looked up at Harvey. He started to say something, too, stopped, blinked hard, and turned his back to them. He stilled and glared into the waterway as if searching for a presence there. A few seconds later, Kieli’s ears picked up a faint metallic sound.

“The Undying Hunters have started searching the waterways. If you’re going to run, do it fast. I won’t help you,” Julius said, scowling. He stepped away from the ladder. Kieli didn’t think letting them go was much different from helping them—but when she stared blankly back at him, he glared not at her but at Harvey, and said in an unnaturally low tone, “This time, got it? We might be enemies the next time we meet. Be ready.”

Harvey mumbled a curt affirmative and pushed at Kieli’s shoulder. She let him urge her up onto the ladder, turning back to look at Julius one more time from across Harvey’s arm. “Thank you so much for everything. I’m sorry things got so crazy again…”

“We’ll see each other again, won’t we?”

“Yeah. I think we will.” And even though she didn’t have any grounds for thinking so, she really did. When they’d parted the first time she hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again, but here they were, so she was sure she’d get a third chance.

He smiled and nodded, youth and just a little bit of maturity mixing together in his dark green eyes. “Okay, that’s a promise. And I’m going to be bigger than he is by then.”

“In your dreams, moron,” Harvey said maliciously, sweeping aside their reluctant good-byes. He gave the ladder a sharp kick for good measure, as if to tell her to get a move on. Kieli ducked her head and scrambled up.

When she stuck her head out of the drain in the ceiling, she was greeted by the sight of the back roads of uptown and the sandy skies above the rooftops of the houses. The dry city wind stirred her damp hair. It seemed like forever since she’d felt it.

She clambered up the asphalt onto the shoulder of the road, then crouched on her knees and peered down over the edge of the drain and saw that Harvey, the one who’d hurried her along in the first place, had come to a stop halfway up the ladder as if he’d abruptly remembered something.

“Julius.” He cocked his head to the side and regarded the boy seeing them off from below. “The Undying Hunters will probably find him soon enough, but at a dead end on the east side, there’s a corpse with a radio. Have your guys bury him if you can, okay?”

“Uh, sure…?” Julius obviously didn’t understand, but he nodded anyway, and Kieli saw Harvey breathe a sigh of relief. Then he shot up the ladder to where she waited, taking it two rungs at a time.

Harvey’s scars looked so awful now that she saw them in the light. He didn’t seem the least bit troubled about it, though. He just stood there shaking himself off like a dog, sending droplets of water flying out of his hair, and then looked up to the sky overhead with his left hand shielding his eye, as if the sky was a little too bright for him. Now that Kieli thought about it, with all the time he’d spent locked up in that underground cell, it must have been a long while since he’d stepped out into the sunlight.

“I hope Beatrix is okay. I wonder what happened to her…”

“We’ll ask the Corporal about it later. Right now we have to hurry. Can you run?”

“Yeah.” Before she let him push her into a run through the streets, she stopped for a moment and looked up into his face. He chose that second to glance down at her, as if he’d had the same thought she had. They exchanged meek looks, and then Kieli dropped her gaze to the radio hanging from her hand.

“I’d rather let him be for a month or so.”

“Yeah…”

There was no doubt in her mind that the instant they turned the power on, a month-long lecture would begin.

Harvey sighed resignedly. “Oh, well. Guess we’ll let him get it out of his system.”

Kieli laughed and nodded. “We’ll kneel humbly on our knees and listen together,” she said, and then she slipped the radio’s cord around her neck just as she always had.