CHAPTER 3

-

I

-

The raft was assembled in about two hours—basically, it was all D’s show. For plants that were supposedly buoyant they were strangely heavy, and while Jan and Weizmann together could barely move one, D lifted them easily with one hand and bound them together with the extremely fine wire he carried. Bierce tried to squeeze a finger into the space between the cylindrical logs, but they wouldn’t budge an inch, and when he tried the same with an arrowhead, he couldn’t get it in even a millimeter.

“Talk about strength,” the experienced warrior said, clucking his tongue with amazement.

Everyone carried the raft over to the river and climbed aboard. D then cut the wire tied to a rock on shore, and the raft glided away.

A heavy anxiety clung to all of them. Perhaps realizing as much, Jan asked, “Say, Mr. D, what were those things in the armor earlier?”

“Illusions of the Nobility.”

Everyone turned in his direction.

“Illusions? You hacked them up, and they bled and everything!”

“Illusions can bleed, too. If they’re Nobles.”

“But no one’s heard any talk of them still being in this area for thousands of years.”

“That’s why he said they’re illusions,” Bierce interjected. “From what I hear, this whole area used to be a playground for the Nobility. They altered human beings in all sorts of ways and had fun hunting them. Did their god tell ’em to do it? Or was it just some new form of human sacrifice?”

The warrior’s last two questions were directed at D.

There was no reply. Like a gorgeous darkness, the young man stood still in the center of the raft, becoming one with the night.

An hour passed without incident. All of them had begun to think that perhaps they could keep drifting like that all the way to a safe place. Toto and the aged couple dropped off to sleep.

D suddenly shifted his eyes from side to side.

“What is it?” Bierce inquired. He was the only other one awake.

“They’re coming from both sides. At least twenty riders on either bank.”

Though Bierce strained to hear, only the sound of the wind struck his eardrums. However, if that was what the dashing young man before him said, it had to be true.

“For all your skill with a blade, you can’t reach the shore from here,” the warrior said, a confident smile splitting his bearded face. “I still can’t see our enemy or hear their mounts, but I want you to leave ’em to me.”

-

It was about five minutes later that the echoes of iron-shod hooves rang out. Unlike their earlier opponents, these men wore black capes and galloped on dark steeds. Each and every figure was outlined in pale blue flames. The men’s hair was ablaze, as were the manes and fetlocks of their mounts.

Perhaps they heard the thunder of those hoofbeats, or maybe they sensed the danger, but everyone on the raft woke up—and D walked over to one side. Spotting the horses and riders now running even with the raft, Jan got to his feet with a look of excitement on his face.

“So, those fuckers have come after us again—well, just tell me what to do!” the mobster said, his hand reaching for his broadsword.

“Just one thing,” D said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“Duck.”

“Huh?”

D kicked the man’s shin. Tumbling backward with a cry, Jan grabbed his leg while shouting, “What the hell did you do that >for?”

His scream was punctured by something whistling through the wind. Looking at it, Jan gasped. An arrow shrouded in blue flames had halted in midair. D’s hand was wrapped around it.

Blue arrows rained down on the raft from all sides.

“Stay down.”

Saying only this, D walked across the tiny craft without making a sound. His right hand flashed into action. A lone sword was all he had—but each time it moved, every approaching arrow fell.

“That’s a hell of a thing,” Bierce groaned in admiration.

“I’ll say. He’s cutting them all down!”

“No, only the ones that would’ve hit someone.”

“What?” the mobster exclaimed.

“That’s what’s so incredible. Follow his lead.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding. I couldn’t manage that for the life of me.”

“Then how about this?”

After batting away two incoming arrows with the crimson arrows in his hands, Bierce raised them up so they crossed over his head. His eyes were closed.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jan shouted.

Bierce, seeming to take this as his signal, swung both arms around. Four arrows were clutched between the fingers of each hand. His crimson arrows zipped out between the blue ones. Four blazing riders galloping on either bank dropped from their mounts.

“Buddy, that’s pretty awesome!” Jan cried out in the fever of battle. The old warrior had batted down the enemy’s arrows, and pierced their foes with each of his own. The raft had impenetrable defenses and a flawless offensive.

When eight more of their opponents had dropped from their horses, D said, “They’ve multiplied.”

There was the sound of pounding against the ground as the pale blue mounts and riders once again rode even with the raft. Blue arrows fell from the sky like rain.

“There’s just no end to it!” Weizmann wailed.

When a black-gloved hand tapped him on the shoulder, the transport officer turned a stunned look at the inhumanly beautiful countenance while D pointed at the cliff to their right.

“Drop that,” he said.

About a hundred yards ahead of the galloping riders, there was a knotlike protrusion halfway up the face of the cliff. An outcropping of rock.

“I got you,” the officer said, but as he stood up he was jerked to one side by his collar, allowing an arrow to pass before he was let go again.

“I leave it to you, then,” the Hunter said.

Weizmann’s whole body tensed. The fight burned in him.

“Keep an eye on the suckling for me,” he said, raising his beloved motor gun. The twelve-pound mass of metal seemed like a crushing weight to his shoulder, arm, and legs. For sighting purposes it simply had a little piece of iron, notched to make a primitive crosshairs. The weapon was primarily intended to spray bullets at close range and mow down the enemy. It didn’t have the precision of a long-range scope.

A stream of fire and a deafening report flew from the moving raft. Twelve-millimeter explosive rounds hammered the base of the rock outcropping. Ten yards ahead of the madly charging riders, the chunk of rock dropped from thirty yards above them, its tremendous mass crushing a dozen or more steeds in the vanguard and as many men. When the terrific impact rocked the water, and fragments of the rock sent up splashes, the riders on either shore not surprisingly halted, and the raft left them behind.

-

Though the eastern sky was brightening like water, the river’s flow grew no gentler. Aside from D, almost everyone on the raft, including Bierce, had dropped off to sleep, but Jan was sulking.

“Sheesh, they all ignored me. Hell, I can handle myself better than the average guy. I might not be a Hunter or a warrior, but I want a chance to strut my stuff. They’d better remember they’ve got a real man here.”

As he grumbled, the mobster kept his voice low so that D wouldn’t hear it while skillfully using an oar to avoid rocks and rapids. But the young hoodlum had had all he could take.

It was then that his ears caught a thin thread of sound that he realized was most definitely a voice.

I know just how you feel, it said.

What the hell? the mobster intended to shout and leap to his feet, but he only grunted a puzzled sound and moved slightly. For some reason, he got the feeling he had to restrain himself.

Just as he was thinking his ears had been playing tricks on him, the voice continued, I understand your dissatisfaction. They can only ignore you for so long. Would you like to tell me about it?

“Who the hell are you?”

Shhhhh.

As the voice said this to him, Jan opened his eyes. Instinctively he looked at D. Their eyes met. He hurriedly looked away.

“Was I dreaming?” he muttered. Looking around, he didn’t see a single sign that anyone else was awake.

“What a weird dream,” he said, closing his eyes and trying to get back to sleep. Though he didn’t hear the strange voice again, Jan was somewhat surprised to realize that he wanted to hear it. At the same time, an intense hatred reared its head. The voice understood about D and that freaking Bierce, not to mention the transport officer. He got to show off, and he was still a damned kid!

Jan tried to sleep. His efforts were successful. The anger that had left him ready to scream had been quelled by the voice he’d just heard, thin but brimming with affection.

I understand. I can help you.

-

“Something’s bothering me,” a low, hoarse voice griped. It was so faint the others wouldn’t have heard it over the sound of the river.

“What’s that?” D asked, swiftly pushing the oar against an approaching rock to redirect the raft.

“From what I’ve seen, we’ve got two weirdoes here. The kid and the suckling. Neither one’s normal.”

“What’s different about them?”

“I’m not too sure about the kid, but he seems to be carrying a heavy load. Until he gets rid of it, he’ll be living under a cloud.”

“And the other one?”

“Him—he’s dangerous,” the hoarse voice said quite plainly. “Up until now, he’s come off as an ordinary suckling. The fact that the transport officer’s still doing okay after the sheriff died is proof of that. But there’s a danger in him you don’t find in your average suckling. There’s something unsettling about him. You must’ve noticed it too. It’ll be daytime soon, when you’ll be at your weakest. Whatever you do, don’t let your guard down.”

There were faint traces of haggardness to be seen in D’s handsome features.

“Oh, my,” the hoarse voice said, sounding surprised. “The current has weakened. Guess we’re just about there. At this rate, we should arrive in an hour.”

“If all goes well.”

And saying this, D turned around and looked overhead. His eyes alone would find that, in the far reaches of the clear but still pale heavens, there hung countless black specks.

-

II

-

By the time these specks became four-winged demon birds that assailed the raft, everyone aboard was awake and braced to counterattack. With wings over three feet long, the birds had beaks like pickaxes and four legs with four toes each for a total of sixteen talons. The wind their wings created left innumerable ripples on the water’s surface.

When they dove down, Weizmann opened fire on them with the motor gun. As the fusillade of explosive rounds made contact with the bodies of the great birds, the bullets created preposterously large holes, tearing them into pieces that plummeted into the river. The water was stained red.

Once they made it past the hail of bullets, they were greeted by D’s sword and Bierce’s arrows. One swipe of the blade decapitated the giant birds, while the arrows pierced even their ironlike beaks as if they were paper.

Before the flock of birds flew away more than a score of members shy, a dozen minutes of deadly combat had taken place.

“Anyone hurt?” Weizmann asked, but they all shook their heads.

His motor gun, D’s sword, and Bierce’s arrows had kept the enemy from achieving anything. Something resembling self-confidence seemed to emanate from the young transport officer.

“Looks like we managed to make it through,” he said as he mopped his sweat.

Bierce replied, “It’s still too early to celebrate. They’ve got things out hunting humans by day; they’ll just keep coming. You think the Nobility are controlling ’em?”

The last question was directed at D.

“Programming for human hunting must’ve been put into their brains. There were operation scars on their heads.”

“You could actually see that?” Bierce said, and not only his eyes, but also those of everyone who heard this, went wide.

“Excuse me,” Maria said, pointing up at the sky. “Here they come again. They’re carrying something. They plan on bombing us!”

Before she’d finished speaking, something whistled through the wind, and a great pillar of water went up not three feet from the right side of the raft. The waves surged toward them, making the raft pitch wildly. In order to both move quickly and keep the enemy from gaining a foothold, the raft was just big enough for the nine people. While it wasn’t exactly tiny, it had difficulty with these great waves. Chunks of black rock continued to fall on all sides of them, and the group was assailed by the spray from the pillars of water that went up.

“You clumsy bastards can’t hit us!” the soaked Jan jeered toward the sky.

Perhaps out of fear of Weizmann’s motor gun, the birds conducted their bombardment from a high altitude, and fortunately their accuracy was extremely poor. D’s skillful handling of the craft allowed the group to dodge all of the chunks of rock, with only one grazing the back end of the raft. However, as their foes carried five rocks each—one in their beaks, and another with each of their four feet—the onslaught showed no sign of ending. The raft pitched violently, and soaked from head to toe, Toto and the elderly couple began to vomit. They were seasick.

“Damn it, come in closer and fight us like men!” Jan said, shaking his fist as another pillar of water went up beside him, rocking the raft.

At the same time, something terrible happened. D and Bierce were both thrown off balance, and the others could only watch, their blood turning to ice, as the two men were swallowed by the raging current.

“Oh, damn!”

Though Jan and Maria each crawled over to where one of the men had gone in, there was no sign of them surfacing in the wake of the raft as it floated away.

Blasted with a gust of terror, Jan turned to Weizmann. Their last hope was the young man’s motor gun. The mobster looked up. The shapes that’d been flying high above them were now steadily approaching.

“Here they come! Shoot ’em!”

With a strained look on his face, Weizmann raised his gun and pulled the trigger. Nothing came out.

“What’s wrong?” Maria screamed.

“It’s malfunctioned! It won’t fire!”

“Give it to me, you fucking idiot!”

As Jan was about to run over, a fierce wind slammed down in front of him and an enormous shape landed like a fiend spreading his cape. The man’s nostrils were assailed by the stench of rotting meat.

“You—you son of a bitch!”

Narrowly dodging an artless strike by that pickax of a beak, Jan struck out with his broadsword as if to counter it. One of the monster bird’s two left wings was chopped halfway through at the base. Raising its severe beak, it let out a shriek.

Covering his ears, Jan crouched down. The old woman and Maria screamed.

Three more of the giant birds were coming down to land on the raft. The remaining dozen or so circled fifteen to twenty feet above them.

It was at that instant that two figures sprang up beside the raft. One of them zipped between the birds with unbelievable speed. Every time he passed one, there was a stark gleam, and the bird’s head went flying. Unlike Jan’s opponent, these fell without making a sound.

On seeing the danger, another bird started to take off, only to have its neck pierced by an iron arrow. The birds circling overhead also turned around. One flap of their wings started them in a sharp ascent. A roar and fiery streaks ripped their wings apart, pulverizing their heads and bodies.

“How in the world did you two . . .” Maria said in a stunned tone after watching the last of the birds fall on the left bank, her remark addressed to Bierce and D, who’d already sheathed his blade.

“You tricked me, didn’t you, you bastard?” Jan spat at Weizmann a minute later as the officer lowered the smoking motor gun.

“Don’t take it personally. I told those two how it would go. If we hadn’t pulled this, those things never would’ve come any closer.”

Weizmann was embellishing the story. Actually, it was D who had approached the transport officer and told him to feign trouble with his gun once they’d jumped overboard, and then wait for the birds to take the offensive.

“Shit!” Jan cursed again.

“Okay, it was a good plan, but let’s have no more of that stuff. This old lady looked like she was going to die,” Maria told them harshly, while down at her feet, Mrs. Stow sported lips that were purple and trembling.

“Bad news! She’s got a terrible fever,” Bierce said, knitting his brow as he put his hand against her forehead. “She’s old. If things go bad, she and her husband might both come down with pneumonia. We’ve gotta warm ’em up. Get the raft to shore.”

D didn’t reply. He simply stared straight ahead.

“Hey!” Jan snapped in an angry tone.

D gave a toss of his chin in the direction they were headed. Something white was moving toward them. A bank of fog. But the sky was clear.

“We’ll be there soon. Beyond that fog lies the fortress.”

Though D’s tone was the same as always, his words sent ice water down their spines.

-

The raft floated into the fog without incident. It was so dense, the fog of the previous night couldn’t begin to compare. Maria held a handkerchief over her mouth and nose in spite of herself. She had the feeling they were drifting through a poisonous cloud.

The whiteness filled their field of view, erasing the shore and the cliffs. The only sound was that of the water. Everyone was staring at D—though they could only make out a faint figure. In addition to helplessness, this time their eyes also held anger. Though they’d agreed to the condition D had stated—that he would take care of his job first—now that the fog had robbed them of their vision, leaving them uncertain of where they were headed, it was only human to blame him for leading them to such a place. The only ones who remained calm were D and Bierce.

Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

“Hey, I’m not kidding. If we don’t do something for her, this old lady’s in serious trouble!” Jan shouted out, but his words were swallowed by a black hole that appeared unexpectedly.

“Where are we?” Mr. Stow asked in a frail voice.

“We’ve entered the fortress’s waterway. We’ll be landing soon,” D responded.

Jan and Maria cheered at this.

“Well, we’re going ashore, kid,” Maria said, giving Toto a hug. He was surprisingly hot. It was small wonder—for a mere child, being put on the aircraft all alone and then crashing would’ve been enough of a shock, but then he’d gotten soaked to the skin on the raft. On top of that, they’d been attacked by monsters. It would’ve been strange if he hadn’t been a mess both mentally and physically. And yet, the boy hadn’t grumbled at all or groaned in pain even once.

Maria thought he couldn’t be gloomy straight to the core—her woman’s intuition told her as much. This was the same child who’d asked D to save them all. Though he kept his head low, somewhere inside him there lay a great, burning courage. And Maria believed that even if a man were gloomy, even if he were a criminal, when the time came, that courage would shine through.

Apparently they were traveling through an enclosed waterway, and droplets of water fell incessantly from the ceiling. The walls to either side looked quite high, and the ceiling quite wide.

“Huh?” Bierce could be heard to say a little way off, and Maria reflexively turned her eyes forward. She intently focused her gaze on the depths of the white fog.

There’s a light. Something luminous is floating up ahead. There are two of them. But what could they be?

As she was wondering this, they slowly rose up.

That’s the sound of water dripping. It’s pretty far off in the distance. Yet they still seem so big. How large could they really be? How could they rise so high? Why are they staring at us like that? We’re moving toward them. Closer and closer every second!

She rose to her feet unsteadily. The glows were above her now—almost directly overhead.

Okay, they’re coming down. There’s a warm wind coming off them. It’s hitting us.

At that instant, Maria jerked as if she’d received an electric shock. From behind, she could sense an intense and unearthly aura bearing down on her. Gripped by an indescribable fear, Maria collapsed on the spot. Violent trembling assailed her. Meanwhile, the thing or things overhead rapidly faded in the distance. After a short time, she heard a splash to one side of the raft. It sounded as if something quite large had been swallowed up.

Although she wasn’t sure exactly what’d happened, she got the feeling they’d been saved. From here and there, sighs of relief rang out. Jan asked what the hell that thing had been, and the transport officer replied he was damned if he knew.

Once her trembling had subsided, Maria looked at their savior. The Hunter who’d driven away that unknown thing with his air of murderous intent alone was visible as no more than a black shadow behind the wall of milky whiteness.

After another hour passed, this time without incident, the fog abruptly cleared. The raft had started moving to the right, toward an enormous stone quay. Bringing the raft to a stop next to one of several rocky protrusions that looked like jetties, D announced with a coolness and brevity befitting the young man, “Land.”

-

III

-

More than desolation, it was an air of death that lay thick around the group. Aside from D, all of them seemed on edge, with the stagnant air and bits of rock falling here and there only making it worse. Devastation robbed one of energy, but death filled one with terror. Though they were sealed away in this stone fortress, it was filled with a grayish light that frightened the group.

“What’s going on here?” Jan asked D after they’d gone up the rock wall and he’d checked his footing several times. “Since we came here, the fortress has gone back into operation. I thought you said the Sacred Ancestor’s army trashed this place?”

“This is powered by another source.”

“What?”

D led the group to a fifteen-foot-wide entrance in the rock wall. The members of his party could only stare at the gigantic iron gate that towered over them. Its rusted surface was studded with hobnails the size of a child’s head. It stood more than thirty feet tall.

“It’s like a door for a giant,” the transport officer groaned.

When D stepped up to the gate, it opened down the middle without a sound. The group advanced into a room that was the size of a small castle courtyard.

“What’s the story here? There are no windows or doors! And that ain’t all. There’s a God-awful smell,” Jan said, his nose twitching.

Maria added, “I wonder if someone or something wandered in here since the place was wiped out.”

“Nobody’s been in here for five thousand years.”

Maria looked at D in surprise. The voice had come from his direction, sure enough. But why had it sounded so hoarse? At any rate, the voice’s words erased any other questions about it.

“Five thousand years? And this smell hasn’t faded in all that time?”

D raised his right hand. But not by way of a reply.

The gate through which they’d entered had slowly begun to shut. Though both Bierce and Weizmann trained looks of concern on D, he didn’t so much as arch an eyebrow of his inhumanly handsome visage. For about five seconds after the gate closed, no one said a word. They were waiting for D’s reaction.

He didn’t move a muscle, but the gates opened again. Seeing the scene beyond them, the group cried out. It wasn’t the quay, but rather a hall at the end of a seemingly endless corridor. The chamber they’d entered had been an elevator.

There wasn’t time to be surprised by this as D stepped out into the corridor. He went over to one of the iron doors in the stone wall, and it opened perfectly naturally.

As if coaxed along by D’s relaxed stride, the rest of the group entered. Maria cried out for joy. The stone room was ten times brighter than the last, and at a glance the woman recognized the medical equipment assembled there.

“This was a treatment center for their human servants. Unfortunately the machines have all been destroyed, but there may be some medicine left. The beds are next door. All of you need to wait here.”

“What do you mean, wait here?” Jan asked. “Until your job’s done? Or until whatever monsters are chasing us show up? How do we know it’s safe in here?”

D went over to a white desk to his left and held his left hand out over the black sphere that sat on it. A diagram appeared on the wall.

“Here’s a map of the fortress. It should be safe enough to look for food. But once the sun goes down, you’re not to set foot out of this room.”

“Just a second there!”

“This facility is equipped with devices to protect the humans receiving treatment here. Relax.”

“Protect them from what?” Weizmann asked.

“From their god,” D replied, heading for the door. The people assembled behind him were no longer his concern. Now it was time to be a Vampire Hunter.

-

After putting her three charges into bed in the neighboring room, Maria returned to the treatment center.

“How’s it look?” Jan asked.

“All three of them are showing early symptoms of pneumonia. All we can do is keep them warm, get some nutrients into them, and get them into a hospital later.”

“As far as food goes, the delivery boy and Bierce went off to look for some. But this sure is a hell of a mess we’re in. Right about now, I was supposed to be in a hotel in the Capital snoring my brains out. Instead, I’m stuck in this mystery shit hole watching over a suckling. Makes me wonder whether there’s really a god.”

I believe there is.

“Huh?” Jan said, glancing at Maria, but she looked just as puzzled as he did.

Could it be? he wondered.

God is all around you.

That’s it, he thought. It’s the same voice that spoke to me on the raft.

It continued, saying, Is this the situation you want to be in? I don’t see how it could be. Do you know why this has happened to you? Because you’re a mobster with nothing but strength to your credit. And the others—that woman, the old people, even the child—all look down on you.

Who are you? he wanted to ask, but he couldn’t say the words. Dazedly, yet in a way that Maria wouldn’t notice, he listened to the voice. And its next words were to strike him hard and burn themselves into his heart.

God can change people. Make you something greater, stronger, more deserving of fear.

Bullshit! he meant to sneer, but the word never came out. It was a terribly attractive offer.

If you want to become all those things, slip out of this room tonight and come to me. I’ll give you my location when the time comes.

-

“Dear . . . can you hear me?” Mr. Stow heard his wife say to him from the next bed, but he ignored her. He was chilled to the bone and exhausted. What’s more, he was sick and tired of listening to the old woman’s disconsolate tone. He decided to just keep breathing steadily.

“You’re asleep, then. Good.”

He was relieved to hear the resignation in her voice, but then she continued.

“I’m sure you probably know this already, but even if we go to Pare’s, he won’t be happy to see us. Yes, it’s just as you said. To our children, you and I are nothing more than the wrinkly old people who raised them. They have no special feelings for us at all. Pare told me something a long time ago, right before he left home. He said it was natural for parents to bring up a child. And while it wasn’t strange for children to see their parents, it was natural for the parents to die alone instead of putting a burden on their children.”

Beneath his blanket, Mr. Stow’s blood ran cold, but his ears caught the old woman’s voice, ringing out doleful and sweet.

“When he said that, I just resigned myself to it. When the children left home, our job was done. But you don’t see it that way. You always said we did this or that for those children, so they should do the same for us without giving us any argument. Our children all knew it. And Pare came out and said it. When he left, he said he hated you. Said they never asked you to give up your life for them. So they didn’t want you or me interfering in their lives, either.”

The old man’s body trembled. The nerve of that boy! And the nerve of his wife, repeating these things! He knew all too well that his children didn’t welcome them. He understood things hadn’t gone well between them for a long time. But to say this to him now, in this of all places, even if she thought he was sleeping—

You’re right.

It wasn’t his wife that said this. The voice that reverberated in his head was much deeper and stronger than that of the woman who’d shared his toil for exactly fifty years. The old man couldn’t ask who it was. But he knew whom the voice belonged to.

Your dissatisfaction is natural. What terrible sons you have. Do they think you shouted at them and beat them because you wanted to? A farmer’s lot is hard. At times, he can get in a foul mood. At times, he might also want to lose himself in drink. Everyone gets drunk and knocks their wife and children around. And taking a hot poker to a child who doesn’t do what he’s told or locking him outside in winter with no supper are both part of establishing discipline. Everything you did was justified. If they can’t see that, that’s their problem. You know, I believe those ingrates need to be punished. Very, very severely. But first, you’ll need to be stronger.

The old man no longer asked who it was. It’d already said. Naturally, his wife didn’t seem to have heard it.

“How will I get stronger? How can I have my vengeance—I mean, how can I punish the ingrates?”

Tonight, wait until everyone is fast asleep, and then go outside. You can leave the rest to me.

-

For the boy, having this high fever was actually rather pleasant. He was able to stay in bed. It’d been years since he’d been able to just lie around like this. At the monastery, he hadn’t been allowed to miss work, no matter how high a fever he had. It was on account of that rule that Eurina had died spitting blood, and Pol had fallen and never gotten up again, dead before anyone knew it. For breakfast they’d had cold soup and a piece of bread, one of only two meals a day. Forced to labor in the fields for twelve hours straight, children didn’t last long. Just catching a cold was enough to have them dropping like flies. A few winters ago, ten of them had fallen at the same time, making the garden seem like a quiet battlefield.

Still, the other kids had it better. They at least had friends. The boy had had some too, in the beginning, but once they noticed his habit, they steered clear of him. As if staying away from him protected them from anything. The silent treatment the other children gave him left the boy essentially bereft of hope. His parents, sister, and brother had abandoned him for the same reason. The boy could remember quite clearly waking up one morning to find his house empty and seeming strangely bigger. He’d been sad. There was no reason he wouldn’t feel that way.

His family, the children at the monastery, and everyone else had taken a liking to him at first. He never sensed any anger from them at the start. But that always changed. At some point, the boy got in the habit of living with his head hung low. He knew why everyone turned their backs on him, yet it wounded him deeply. The only reason he felt somewhat at peace was because the old woman in the bed and the other woman—sketchy, but nice—had been kind to him. But even they would eventually—

That’s right. Once they truly know you, none of them will have anything to do with you. This fleeting kindness means nothing. You’re just a little different. The truth is, if they just keep their distance there won’t be a problem, and it’s not as if it happens every day. Yet they alienated you. Pushed you away. Left you all alone. They didn’t try to understand your pain. They didn’t care what happened to you. Grieve no more. What you need is anger. Anger to lay them low, to strike them dead.

“It’s no use,” the boy said, curling up in a ball. “I can’t do that. If I could, I would’ve got angry a long time ago.”

I’ll make it so you can, the voice said gently. Toto got the feeling that it sounded like someone he’d played with a long time ago.

“Really?” the boy asked with all his heart.

THE WHISPERER