“Shit,” said Janx.
Denaris nodded. “Apparently the owner of the company, one Losgana, or Losg, Coleel, holds the monopoly on harvesting and distributing the ghost flower nectar. That seems to be the way it’s done in Kusk. It’s a strange region with many alchemical source elements, and businessmen and women purchase or bribe their way into controlling the monopolies on certain ones. At any rate, this Losg Coleel controls the substance, and he’s proving a difficult man to get ahold of. General Vursk refuses to send another team out to find him unless we’re willing to send our own people with them.”
Avery glanced at the others, and Janx swore. Layanna seemed disappointed, but if there were a deeper, more violent reaction under the surface Avery couldn’t tell it. As for himself, he felt physically sick. He had been standing, but now he hastily sat down. His legs had felt very weak all of a sudden. A fluttery feeling came to his stomach.
“We’re going to have to go, aren’t we?” he heard himself saying. “We’re going to have to go to Ezzez.”
“I don’t see another way,” Denaris said. “Captain Vursk refuses to send any more men, and I don’t blame him, and we don’t have time for another failed mission. Our newly acquired Octunggen submarines report that the nearest Starfish is coming our way, closer every day.”
Avery didn’t need her to tell him that. He read the papers, and every morning or two he was greeted with news of another island vanishing, its people either killed or put to flight, and every day the destroyed island was a little closer to home. There weren’t that many left between here and there.
“They’ll reach us in three weeks, maybe less.” Denaris let a moment of silence go by, then said, “I’ll send a couple of men with you, but beyond that ...”
“No,” Avery said, thinking of the business card on his pillow. “We’ll go alone. Just provide us transportation.”
“Shit,” Janx said, as if the reality of it were just sinking in. “Shit.”
“We’d better not have to go into the fucking Atomic Jungle,” Hildra said. “Ezzez is bad enough.”
“I’ll arrange it so that you meet up with Captain Vursk or his people upon your arrival,” Denaris said.
“Why us?” Hildra said, and they looked at her. “I mean, why does it always have to be us?”
“Because we took an oath,” Janx said.
“I could send some of my people to escort Layanna,” Denaris said. “Really, she’s the only one of you that must go.”
Silence met this, and in that moment Avery pictured himself staying in Hissig with Ani, being a father and at rest for the first time in what seemed like forever, while Layanna went into the war-torn city with men she did not know and could not trust on a mission to determine the fate of what could very possibly be the world.
He sighed. “I’m going. I’m the one that activated the Device and brought all this on us. I’ll help make it right if I can.”
“Well, shit,” Janx said. “I ain’t lettin’ you go into the godsdamned Crothegra without me. Besides—see it through, right? Mu didn’t die for nothing, and that oath still matters.” He seemed to say this last part more for Hildra’s sake than his own.
“Well, I can hardly let you die alone, you idiot,” she told him.
Layanna touched Avery’s hand. Quietly, she said, “What of Ani?”
* * *
“Well?” Avery asked. “What did you think?”
Together he and Ani walked away from the motion picture theater after having just seen Vengeance from the Grave.
“It was great!” Ani said. “Wow, when that witch came out of the graveyard I thought I would piss my pants.”
“Ani!”
She laughed and hugged herself.
“You’ve been spending too much time with Hildra.” It was true. In the days since their return, Ani had been spending many hours with Hildra and not enough with Layanna—one as a playmate, one as schoolmaster. Of the two, Ani imitated the former more than the latter, much to Avery’s chagrin.
“You really should spend more time with Aunt Layanna,” Avery said.
“She’s in the lab all day. And all she wants to do is study.”
“Study is important.” He heard the lecturing tone of his voice and despaired. He wished he could be a fun, exciting father, but knew that he was not. At least he’d gotten to take Ani to the picture show alone; Janx and Hildra had begged to come along to help celebrate Ani’s birthday, but Avery had insisted on some father-daughter time. Besides, there was important business to take care of. Important, terrible business.
Gingerly, he said, “How do you feel now—after having seen the movie?”
“I feel great. That zombie guy kicked ass!”
Hildra, we have to talk. “That’s not what I meant. The feelings you’ve been wrestling with ... about feeling different. Did the movie help?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t really seem ... well, I don’t know. Anything like me, I guess. He was supernatural. Y’know?”
“I know.”
“But I liked that he was strong. Tough! He faced everybody down—and kicked their ass.” She giggled again, then grew sober. “But everybody hated him, and was afraid of him. He was all alone. I don’t want to be alone, Papa.”
“Of course not.” He knelt and hugged her. “You’re not, you know. I’m with you. Janx, Hildra and Layanna are all with you. And we have new friends now, too.”
“Like Aunt Gwen?”
“Like Aunt Gwen. Although, remember what we talked about.”
