Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(164)

“He’s been eating the others.” The Tall Man tucks away the handkerchief and motions to the island with the Glock. “And now he’s eating himself.” She follows the pistol and sees the ape squatting among the bones. Its thinness is obvious despite its shaggy red coat. It has the wrinkled face of an old man. It is gnawing on its arm and she can see even from this distance the bone peeking out from beneath its fur.

“Anything to stay alive. Amazing resolve.” He smiles wretchedly, the burned skin so tight around his skull that it appears it might split at the effort. “But it looks like he doesn’t have much time left. It looks like this is the end of the road.”

“You followed me?”

“From the woods? Yes. What a surprise to see you there. But of course I’ve been following you for a long time, Claire.” He touches his face. “To thank your father properly for what he did to me. Did you know that my nerves have been damaged in such a way that they feel constantly aflame? All this time I have been burning.”

She should shoot him. She should reach for her revolver and shoot him. She feels unsteady on her feet, as she did minutes before at the cliff, drawn to the edge. If she moves, she could die, but so could he, so could they both. But she is unable to move, arrested by his gaze, and so spins on an axis that can’t find its course. His eyes are so gray they are almost black. Absent of light. But there is little, she knows, that they do not see. The moment her hand twitches, he raises his gun and studies her down the long line of his arm.

The ape that has been silent up to this point now begins to screech. It has spotted them. It lopes to the shore and swings its good arm into the water, pounding, splashing, trying to get their attention. The Tall Man turns to acknowledge it. It gives a short leap and races in a circle and returns to the water to slap once more.

When he turns away, it is easier. His face is eclipsed by the faces of Miriam, of her father and mother, of Matthew, and the thought of them gives her the gravity she needs.

The ape cries out and the Tall Man brings a finger to his lips to tell it shh—and his finger is still there, still at his mouth, when he turns to face Claire as if to silence her drawn revolver before it reports.

She remembers the tree behind the cabin. She remembers the way her bullets bit through it. She remembers its slow collapse. He falls in much the same way.



*



It takes five slugs to bring down the giant, and even then, he is still alive. His breath whistles and bubbles through the holes in his chest and throat. He lies in the foyer of the mansion, like a fallen grandfather clock, with the Americans standing over him, commenting on what a huge piece of meat he is. He says nothing when they ask him where to find Balor. He only raises a hand to swat away the shotgun Max aims at his face, but it is too late. A second later a thunderclap fills the air and his arm falls heavily at his side.

They make their way methodically through every room on the ground floor, killing two others, before climbing the stairs. Someone fires down on them and they toss a grenade onto the landing and duck down. Plaster clouds the air. The ceiling cracks. In the dusty silence that follows the blast they continue upward. There is a metal gate secured at the top of the landing, and then another at the doorway to a master bedroom at the end of the hall, both of which they blast through with C-4 charges.

He sits on a walnut sofa with green velvet cushions and a floral crest. He wears a white linen shirt unbuttoned at the top to reveal a silvery thatch of hair. His legs are crossed. His hands are folded in his lap. He disappoints Max. He does not race at them. He does not cower. He simply sits there, staring into the empty fireplace, until they surround him. He then looks up with a dispassionate expression, ignoring the shotguns aimed at him, staring into each of their eyes.

“You’re him,” Max says.

“Who?”

“Him.”

“Yes. I suppose I am.” He sighs through his nose and stares again at the fireplace. “It’s too late, you know?”

“Too late for what?” Max says.

“You’ll see. Soon enough you’ll see. It’s already happening.” One of his eyes is the blue-silver of sage, the other the purple of an old bruise.

“I used to be like you, you know,” Max says. “But then I learned something. I learned that talking is one thing, doing is another.” He reaches for his boot and unsheathes the knife there. “You want to do some real damage, use fewer words.”

The knife, Max notices, catches the sun and throws a bright blade of light onto the couch. He turns the knife and makes the light slide along the cushions, along Balor’s thigh, up his torso, trembling across his face until it settles on his eye, his decayed eye, which glows for a moment like a dying star.



They find stores of gasoline in the carriage house. They splash it along the walls, soak pools of it into the rugs, waterfall it down the stairs. Their eyes tear over. The fumes make them dizzy. They cough and laugh at once.

They make a trail of gasoline through the foyer, down the porch, along the brickwork path, to the driveway, where Max lights a match. “Time to clean house,” he says. The match falls sizzling from his fingers and the gas ignites with a huff. A tongue of blue-and-orange flame licks its way speedily into the mansion.

It isn’t long before the windows explode and the fire rises through them and the brick around them blackens. Sparks swirl. The roof vanishes in a snapping crown of flame. The heat is tremendous. Everyone staggers back. Smoke shadows the sun. And a smile plays across Max’s face as he runs his fingers through the new scalp at his belt, petting it, the hair long, with a light gray sheen, as if woven from silver.