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The horror of what she'd seen on the outskirts of Carpin flooded her eyes. The blue turned icy, but the
brown brimmed with an unshed tear.
"Ramos& maybe. But we had our pair& didn't want& anyone to know& needed a decoy. Denethan
had been sniffing around lately. Knew he wasn't bottled up in the Mojave anymore. Who but Thomas
would find out& sent my own daughter out as decoy& hoped he could keep her safe anyway& ." The
dying man's eyes flickered to his friend's face.
"You knew Denethan would follow them if I went after."
"Your& reputation. Ronnie's idea& internal spies& had to throw them off. We thought you were good
enough anyway& ." His eyes clouded. "Jennifer?"
Thomas shook his head briefly. He said only, "They didn't suffer."
"Veronica knew& two days ago. I didn't believe her." Charlie still held the stiff hand of his dead wife.
He squeezed it tighter.
Lady said to Blade, "And you knew about this. That's why you drove us to get home!"
Thomas shook his head. "Not about this. Only that the children weren't what we were told. I had no
idea about the attack. I did not think Denethan would be ahead of us." He turned away from the
astonishment on her face.
His friend's eyes had closed. Thomas raised his free hand to Lady's and gripped it so tightly she could
hear bones move. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
"Keep him here. Just another moment or two "
Instead of protesting, she nodded sharply. "I I'll try."
Charlie opened his eyes and squinted, tears running from the corners of them. "It's dark, Thomas. Is it
still sunrise?"
"No. Mid-morning, a little later."
"She said& we wouldn't see another sunrise. She was wrong& everyone dead but me. Denethan
kicked me& " He moved his hand feebly, rubbing his rib cage.
Lady pressed her right hand to his forehead and bowed her head in concentration. The strain began to
show on her already tired face.
"Charlie," Thomas leaned close and whispered urgently, "Did the children get away? Who were they?"
"Alma and& Stefan. But I told you& already, didn't I? I was& waiting for you& "
Lady whispered, "I'm losing him."
Sweet-eyed Alma and blond Stefan, whose genes had sailed all the way from the other side of the
world. Thomas rocked back. "Where?"
"To the College Vaults." Too spent for words, his old friend closed his eyes tightly. After a shuddering
breath, he added "We didn't plan to send out Alma and Stefan& until after searches had stopped. The
way would have been clear then& ."
Blade nodded and then added, because Charles could no longer see him, "Yes, except that it led back to
you again. You old fool."
"Yes." To Lady Nolan. "I'm cold. Can't you keep me warm?"
"No," she whispered. "Not now."
The frame of what had once been a massive, vital man seemed to shrink as he trembled from the cold.
Then he coughed again, and drew a long, painstaking breath. "We were betrayed." Then, "Ronnie?" He
put a hand up, brushing Thomas' face without knowing it. "Thomas, I've& got to go. Ronnie's
waiting& and there& Jenny& ."
The Protector lifted Lady's hand from the man's forehead saying only, "Let him go." He pressed his
fingers to his temples, trying to shut out the death rattle, so he could think of what he had to do next.
Lady didn't give him a moment's grace. "Give me a hand."
She shut the open eyelids, the stare already blinded. Then she let the man's head drop gently to the
bruised and rust-colored grass. She settled Ronnie's curled form next to him, smoothing out her dress,
unable to straighten slender limbs that death had already made rigid. He helped her, unthinking, his
hands and movements patterning her own, echoing her effort. When she was done, she took off the long
cotton slip from the dead woman and spread it across both their faces to keep away the flies.
"Shall we burn them?"
He straightened, putting his hands to the small of his back. He stared at the battle scene, the carnage,
the carrion of what had been a sturdy community making a comeback. Crows flew overhead, skimming
the roof of the manor house, headed for the slaughter in the front yard. Their harsh calls jarred his effort
to think clearly.
There were too many dead. He shook his head. "No," he said. "Just Charlie and Veronica. I'll take care
of them later." He walked away, taking stock of the fallen, trying now to note more than their faces, if
they had any left, bloating under the sun. Lady Nolan followed after, her steps hesitant, and he knew
her thoughts as well as if they were his own: someone, somewhere, might still be alive. Charles had
lived this long. She did not note, as he did, that someone else had already walked through here,
dispatching mercy strokes to a fallen enemy.
He found two of the Protectors, Alderman and Wyethe, huddled together. They were old men and it was
an odd thing to him that, in death, they looked much younger than he could remember them in life.
Lady went to one knee beside them. She gently caressed Alderman's bald pate which had sunburned
before he'd died. Blade wondered if Wyethe had gone down stammering in his mildly confused way.
"Leave them," he said. "We're lucky most of the wedding guests had gone home already along with
several of the Protectors, or there'd be more dead."
He walked in the back of the house. Furniture was overturned, and there were one or two bodies in
here. But the house had stayed mainly intact, though it held the sticky sweet smell of blood going bad.
He looked about, examining the inherited richness of a DWP's life, of the continuity of a lifestyle going
all the way back to the Disasters.
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