Darren Shan: Hell's Horizon

The Troops on guard were already beginning to restrict access in and out of the complex. If not for my gold clearance, I’d have been turned back like the others who were trying to leave. As it was they let me through without argument, though I’m sure they’d have been stricter had I been five or ten minutes later, when word came down from Tasso or Frank not to let anybody out.

As I took a right turn away from Party Central, I noted a familiar motorcycle — Wami’s. I braked, jumped off my bike and ran to check for keys. Wami wasn’t a man to leave his keys in the open, but this had been a special occasion and in his rush to learn the truth of the Ayuamarcans he may have acted uncommonly. To my delight, I found he had. The keys were in the ignition, a fob — a tiny shrunken head — dangling gently from them in the brisk wind.

I jumped on and tore ahead of the banks of creeping fog, trying not to think about how awfully fitting it was for the son to follow in the saddle of his father.

It had been a long couple of days and I was all but dead on my feet. If Bill wasn’t waiting for me at his house, I wouldn’t know where to turn next. Thankfully the light was on when I pulled up outside. I rapped loudly on the window as I passed and he was at the door when I got there. He nodded somberly and ushered me in without saying a word. I sat in the guest chair in the living room, the huge window to my rear, Bill directly opposite. Our usual positions.

“I’ve been waiting for you.” He sounded weary.

“How did you know I was coming?”

“I had your apartment bugged long before you moved in. I recommended it to you and introduced you to Ali, remember?”

Then he’d been eavesdropping on me for years.

“Did Ali have anything to do with this?” I asked.

“No,” he answered to my relief.

“You heard me kill Priscilla?”

“Yes. That’s when I came back. I expected you last night. Where’d you get to?”

“Party Central. I wanted to make sure.”

“You didn’t believe her?”

“I didn’t want to.”

He smiled sadly, then said softly, “The house is wired. The explosives in the cellar are ready to blow.” He showed me a detonator in his left hand (which was wrapped in bandages and short a finger). “When we’re done talking, it’s over.”

“We’re dead men?”

“Yes.”

“So we can speak the truth?”

“That’s the idea. No more lies.”

I took a deep breath and said the words that tore me apart. “Why did you kill Ellen?”

“It was Priscilla’s doing. She belonged to the blind priests. I recruited her, and I was her superior, but her first loyalty was to the villacs . When she suggested killing Ellen, I rejected the idea, but the priests contacted her behind my back. I wasn’t told. I’d have stopped them if I knew. I never meant to involve Ellen. I loved her like a daughter.”

“I don’t believe you,” I sneered.

“It’s true,” he insisted. “I loved Ellen. I love you .”

“Then why destroy my life?” I screamed.

“The usual motive,” he said casually. “Revenge.”

“What the fuck did I ever do to you?”

“I’ve been planning this longer than you can imagine,” he said by way of reply. “I’ve had my sights set on you since you were a snotty-nosed kid who chased girls around the schoolyard and pulled their panties down. You were a real monster.”

I ignored his attempt to lighten the atmosphere. “What have I done to you, Bill? What did I do to make you hate me?”

“I don’t.”

“So why fuck with me like this?”

“I didn’t mean for it to go this far. It was the villacs . They were determined to ruin you. I had to go along with them. They wouldn’t have helped me otherwise.”

“I don’t understand,” I moaned. “Just tell me, Bill. Why did you do it?”

“Revenge,” he repeated, then added, “Not revenge for anything you did. I was after…” He reached into a pocket with his right hand, pulled something out, leaned down and rolled it across the floor to me. My fingers snatched for it. A black marble with golden squiggles down the sides. Now I knew how the marble had gotten into the trout’s mouth.

“Wami!” I gasped, and the fury drained out of me. I stared at Bill, horrified. He looked so small, timid, harmless. He wasn’t enjoying this.

“I’ve known you were his son all your life. I’ve been shadowing you since you were a kid, observing you, plotting around you. That’s how I teamed up with the priests. They were also interested in you, and feared I intended you harm. They wormed my scheme out of me, then struck a deal. If I gave them you, they’d give me Wami. If I’d turned them down, they’d have killed me.”

“Wami,” I said again. He’d told me he knew Bill. I tried recalling exactly what he’d said but couldn’t.

“The villacs have plans for you,” Bill went on. “They destroyed your old life in order to build a new one, to mold you the way they want you. I don’t know why — all these years, I was never able to work them out. But I helped them. As your friend, I showed them how to hurt you. If I hadn’t, they’d have eliminated me. That would have meant I couldn’t go after Wami.”

“Wami,” I said for the third time, then leaned forward. “Tell me about him .”

“He did something terrible to me a long time ago.”

“What?”

Bill shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

“He killed someone close to you? Your mother? A brother? A lover?”

“Don’t ask, Al. Don’t push me there. My hand might slip if you do.”

I didn’t like it but I was in no position to argue. “OK,” I growled. “He fucked up your life. And ? ”

“I’ve spent the past few decades plotting to get even.” Bill’s eyes were dark. “At first I meant to kill him. Plain, simple revenge. Track him down, put a gun to his head, blow his brains out the back of his skull.”

“Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “It wouldn’t have been enough. I wanted…” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You could say poetic justice , but that doesn’t really explain it. I wanted you to kill him, you or one of his other sons. I didn’t want him looking into my eyes when he died — that would have been too easy. I wanted him to stare into the eyes of one he gave life to, one he brought into the world. I don’t expect you to understand, but there it is. That was my plan.”

“You’re crazy,” I whispered.

“No!” he snapped. “Vicious, yes. Crazy, no. I knew what I was doing and why. I spent years preparing. I used Nicola and Jinks to pitch the two of you together. I thought you’d hate him when you found out he was your father. I fingered him for Nic’s death, then had him kill the Fursts.

“When I learned of Ellen’s murder, I put my horror on hold, rushed to your apartment, found the marble and planted it.

“And when I sent you my finger, I thought, ‘Surely now he’ll react and strike the monster down.’ I never thought you would unite, that you’d side with him and believe him when he denied involvement with the murders or my kidnapping.”

He was crying hoarsely. “Why did you trust him, Al? Why didn’t you kill the bastard when you had the chance?”

“He was my father,” I answered.

“All the more reason!” Bill yelled. “If I was related to a beast like that, I’d move as swiftly as I could to rid the world of him. Ellen would be alive today if you’d—”

“Don’t!” I snarled. “Don’t blame me, you hypocritical son of a bitch. Ellen’s dead because of you . Not Wami, me or the blind fucking priests. You could have warned me, told me they were after me. You were my friend. I trusted you, loved you, took you into my confidence, and you did nothing but betray me. This is your fault. I don’t care what Wami did to you. Hurting me to get back at him is the act of a sick, unholy motherfucker.”