Jay Posey - Three

“Come on, Wren,” Three said, picking the boy up.

Morningside’s security forces would most likely seal the gates, and work their way from outside in. That made the Governor’s compound literally the last place they’d look. And maybe he’d get a shot at Asher before all was said and done.

They raced together through the streets as citizens began flooding out of their homes, and it didn’t take long before Three realized something else was going on. Something terrible. The citizens of Morningside were in a panic, fleeing together in a mad rush, a churning human current that swept Three and Wren along with it, all going in the same direction. Towards the Governor’s compound. And then above the cries of panic, Three heard a shriek that pierced his heart.

The Weir were attacking.

Three and Wren were among the first of the crowd to reach the Governor’s compound, and as they approached, Three slowed his pace. Already a thin line of citizens was pressed against the gate, pleading with the guards on the other side to let them in. The guards stood dispassionately, clad in black, grim-faced and motionless. Their only job to protect the Governor, not his subjects.

“Governor Underdown! Governor, we need you!” came the cries. “Governor, please!”

From the clamor of the crowd, Three picked out news that the eastern gate was already overrun, that the guards had been cut down before they could seal it. The Weir were inside.

Three’s mind reeled at the prospect. He had walked the open for decades and never once seen the Weir roaming in daylight. Images flashed from his walk through the streets the night before, images of the people he’d passed. So clean, so carefree. Soft. He could only imagine how quickly the Weir must be cutting through them now.

Wren was sobbing on his shoulder, sucking in choking breaths, gripping Three’s coat in his trembling fists. “Asher. He’ll know. He’ll know I’m here!”

“I know, Wren,” Three answered. “We’re counting on it.”

The crowd swelled as more citizens joined the ranks, crushing together around the compound, piling against the gates, clamoring for Underdown to appear. Their Governor. Their savior. Three kept clear of the crowd, held steady around the edges, alert for any sign of the Weir. Watching for Asher.

“Tell me if Ran shows up,” Three said. Wren didn’t respond, so Three dug the boy’s face out of his shoulder and looked in his eyes. “I need you to do that for me, OK?”

Something shifted in Wren then. He caught his breath, wiped his eyes and nodded, and though he lay his head back on Three’s shoulder, he didn’t hold on so tightly.

Moments later, a cheer went up from the crowd. Both Three and Wren looked to the mob of people, then followed their collective gaze up to the wall. There, next to one of the towers to one side of the gate, he stood.

Underdown.

He was tall, nearly six and half feet by Three’s guess, with pale blond hair and a powerful frame. Even from this distance, the resemblance was striking. If there’d been any lingering doubt about whether Cass had told the truth about who Wren’s father was, it was dispelled. The Governor could have been Wren, thirty-five years older. Whatever catastrophe was about to befall Morningside, Governor Underdown had arrived to thwart it. Silence fell over the throng of citizens, though in the distance Three could hear the cries of the Weir approaching.

Three started to press his way into the crowd, a new idea forming. If he could just get close enough, maybe he’d be able to force a confrontation between Asher and Underdown. But as he neared the Governor, he stopped. The look on Underdown’s face was not the cool confidence Three had expected. Nor the grim determination of a seasoned warrior before battle. The eyes too wide, the lips colorless. The look of a man caught in a lie. Powerless.

He opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again wordlessly. At a loss. Somewhere nearby a Weir shrieked its electric call. Three figured they had two minutes, maybe three.

“People of Morningside!”

Another voice now. Younger. Cocky.

Asher.

“People of Morningside, you have been deceived!”

He strolled along the wall, making his way towards the Governor casually, hands clasped behind his back. Three had never seen him before but he knew him instantly. Shaggy brown hair, sharply handsome, he had just enough of Cass in his cheekbones to make Three hate him. Seventeen, maybe eighteen years old, he walked like he owned the world. Now that Three saw him, he couldn’t believe this was the little punk they’d been running from for so long.

“Your beloved Governor is a fraud,” he said, with a smirk. Like it was some cruel joke he’d pulled. “Tell them, Governor . Tell them how you lied.”

The silence of the crowd was intensified by the growing sounds of chaos gathering from the distance. The stream of citizens had ceased, which meant they’d either taken to hiding in their homes, or they’d been cut off by the advancing Weir. On top of the wall of the compound, Underdown remained speechless. Asher slid next to him.

“Tell them!” he barked, suddenly furious. Three saw it now. The trait which made Asher so frightening, though Three was not frightened by him. There was a strange mix at work; a malevolent childishness, like a spoiled prince with the power of life and death in his hands. No doubt he was powerful, to see how Underdown cowered before him, to know how men like Fedor, and Kostya, and Dagon had served his will. And in that moment, Three understood… Asher cared nothing for Cass, his mother, or for his baby half-brother, Wren. They had defied him, and for that alone he could neither forgive nor forget them.

Three’s vague plan had been to let Asher sense Wren in the Governor’s presence. He saw now his plan was falling apart spectacularly.

“He doesn’t protect you from the Weir,” Asher called. “He brings them upon you!”

Murmurs rose from the crowd even as the Weirs’ crying grew nearer. The tension strained with panic just beneath the surface, but some mix of curiosity, and dread, and belief that Underdown would still save them seemed to hold the people at bay, even if against their will.

“He calls them forth, and sends them away again! Behold! Your savior!”

And with that, the first of the Weir appeared in the streets, coming from the east, loping towards them like wolves on the hunt. New screams rose within the crush of citizens, and they surged against the gates of the compound. Three started to force his way back out, clutching Wren close as he fought to push through, away from the people. He’d rather die fighting in the open than get trampled in a mindless panic. Apart from the crowd, they’d have room to run, or at least maneuver.

The sight of the Weir was terrifying to the people of Morningside, who’d likely never seen them at all, and certainly not without a wall separating them. But Three could tell something was off with the creatures. They moved more slowly, heads weaving back and forth, like men stumbling through a heavy fog. The sunlight, he guessed. Three was nearly out of the knot of people, threading his way to the edges where those near the back had given up hope of gaining entry to the compound and were so less pressed together.

“Save them, Governor! Save your people, as you have so many times before! Save them now, if you can!” Asher mocked him openly now, robbed Underdown of any last sense of dignity or power. “Why won’t you save them, Governor?”

And then without warning, Asher put his foot on Underdown’s back and shoved him from the wall. It was a fifteen foot drop onto concrete, and Asher’s kick had sent Underdown sprawling. The Governor had no way to cushion his fall. With a sharp cry he impacted with bone-shattering force and lay still, mere feet from the throng of men and women who moments before had been his adorers.