The Black Lung Captain - Chris Wooding [69]
The thought lit a flame in his breast. This was his burden and he’d bear it. Suicide was the coward’s way out. And Grayther Crake was no coward.
“Look what you did to me, Uncle,” whispered the voice. Crake turned and saw her. Lying there, just as he’d found her that day, with that same look of incomprehension and betrayal on her face. Blood-soaked, gasping, paralyzed by shock.
The sight brought fresh tears to his eyes. His lip trembled and he teetered on the edge of hysteria again. But he heaved in a shuddering breath, and he made himself look.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I did that.”
He walked over to her, picked her up, and held her against him. The sodden, slight, ragged weight of her. She squirmed in his arms, trying to push him off her, but he was too strong and wouldn’t let her go. Warm blood slicked his neck and hands.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured. “Uncle Grayther will make it better. I promise I’ll make it better, somehow.”
She began to squeal and shriek, thrashing in his grip. She pummeled and scratched at him. But he held her tight, tears streaming down his face, as the bloody child fought against him. The pain meant nothing to him now. He could take everything and more, as long as he didn’t stop holding her.
Her screams reached a deafening crescendo, and then the darkness erupted into chaos.
“Crake!”
It was Plome. The child in Crake’s arms was gone. An unnatural wind was blasting through the sanctum—a hurricane, sending apparatuses crashing past him in the dark. There was a terrible roaring and the sound of something pounding against metal.
He snatched up his lantern before it could be blown away. On the floor was a sharp length of steel, tipped with blood. His blood. A moment after he saw it, it was caught by the wind, skidding along the floor and out of sight.
He looked for Plome and saw him on the other side of the room. He was struggling with his control panels, lit by the faint glow from the gauges. Desperately trying to keep up the perimeter defenses.
“The chamber!” Plome yelled, pointing.
Crake staggered into the wind, toward the chamber. It was rocking against its struts, dented by the inhuman pummeling from the creature within. The door was still firmly closed. The daemon bellowed as Crake stumbled past the porthole, and he caught a glimpse of a thrashing muddle of eyes and teeth in the lantern light. Then he was at the control panel. Fumbling fingers found a lever. He threw it.
The daemon screeched as it was bombarded with agonizing frequencies. Crake leaned against the lever, his eyes closed, wishing ever greater pain on the monster in the chamber. For what it had done to him, for what it had shown him, he wanted to tear it apart. If he leaned on this lever for long enough, it would be shredded to pieces, dashed by the flux.
He wanted that. He wanted it so badly. But he had a job to do. He had people relying on him. So he took hold of the lever, and he pulled it back. The wind dropped, and there was silence. Several of the electric lights came back on, flickering and crackling uneasily.
Crake brushed sweat-damp hair back from his forehead, panting.
“Are you alright?” Plome asked, from where he knelt by his controls.
“I’m alive,” he said. “You?”
“Yes, yes, quite unharmed,” Plome said, his voice wavering. He brandished the pistol he’d brought at Crake’s request. “No need to shoot you, then?” he joked weakly.
“I should think not,” said Crake. He threw the lever again, out of spite, and listened to the daemon shriek for a few more seconds before he turned it off. Then he walked round the echo chamber and stood in front of the porthole, looking in.
“Now,” he said to the daemon. “Let’s begin again, shall we?”
PINN, LOST IN THOUGHT—JEZ TAKES A WALK—A FORTRESS—FREY HAS A PLAN
rtis Pinn lay on his bunk, fingers laced behind his head, and stared at the metal ceiling. It was possible to see shapes in the ancient grime, if you looked hard enough. But today he wasn’t playing his usual game. Today, he