Beyond the Grave

[Dogs231]

The sun disappeared. The moon returned. And, just as it had before, on every day in history, the day passed on, and the night was born. And then, of course, the night passed as well, and like a phoenix from the ashes, the day was reborn. The moon disappeared. The sun returned. And, on the next day, the day would die, and the night would rise again.

It was no comfort to know that this was the sole constant in their lives.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED FROM "Miles to Go"

Claire had already prepared herself for the arrival of the new dawn. Her sleep schedule had, ironically, become better under the looming threat of imminent death; it did more for her than any sleep aid ever had. In her left hand, she clasped tight the blood-stained tome, held the index finger of her right hand to her teeth, and felt the edge of the skin on the enamel.

The announcement came.

There were those among the ranks of the dead.

MELANIE MILES

HENRY DAVID DEARBORN

MARIYA WHITE

ANGELO LEE

ASHLEE DONOVAN

JOHN DAVIS

ABHISHEK PANICKER

QUENTIN SKINNER

And there those among the ranks of the killers.

Some new.

COLM FORSYTH

KARIN HAN

JACK KILGORE

JOSHUA JAMES •

DAENERYS TODD •

Some old.

And there were those among the ranks of both.

JANICE CRESNER •

MEENA LALITA KUMAR

And then, there was one name, the second-to-last death on the list, which caught her attention more than any other. It grabbed her, took hold, a grip like iron on her brain, and forced her to look at its wake. It was a name she had memorized. A sequence of four letters that, in her mind, Claire carefully shaped like clay into the concept of evil incarnate.

ALEX •

There was a moment of hesitation. For a moment, it seemed like a waking dream—unreal. Then, the blood-stained finger moved across the paper like a calligrapher's pen. Swiftly, it was gone. And, suddenly, there was a void where once desire and purpose had been. Claire's eyes grew wide, and she looked down at the handiwork—someone else's—still in disbelief.

ALEX •

He was dead.

Claire blinked.

She had spent days of her life with a singular goal: to hunt him down and exact revenge—a poor man's justice—for his crime, some of the final days of her shortened lifespan. And now he was dead, and neither she nor Evie had lifted a finger. He had gotten himself killed in a stupid blunder by someone he had no reason to pick a fight with. He was his undoing.

There was a moral there, in the end. But it wasn't the one Claire had wanted him to face.

A rage filled her heart. She wasted so much time, so much effort, trying to turn that man into a monster—and now, neither of them would be the one to slay him. He was dead, but there could be no repose drawn, no justice enforced, only a cosmic coincidence. There was no payoff. She felt her breath quicken, her teeth clench, and all of her muscles go rigid and taut.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't right.

It wasn't justice.

The anger burned a hole in her chest. All of it had, in the end, proven meaningless. They were not the protagonists to his antagonist; they were merely the unfortunate souls he had encountered first, stepping stones in his journey. In the end, for all they knew, he hadn't thought of them once since he had left their sight. And that infuriated her more than anything.

Claire was glad he was dead; he couldn't hurt anyone else. And that was good. But his death did not come with a reminder, an example to show others what their actions had wrought. It only poured more fuel into the flame. Its only purpose was to feed another, even greater monster, to reward their continued evils with a meal of flesh, blood, and bone.

It wasn't principle and precept that sentenced him to a well-deserved end; it was animal predation.

The simmer of vexation made the minutes tick by just that much faster. Silence ruled her whims. Anything said would inevitably end up colored by the red rage boiling through her veins. There was nothing to add to the discussion besides curt, cursory comments, and that, to her, was already more than she wanted to say. To say nothing at all was much preferred.

Claire remained hushed even as the tensions reached their precipice. Any word she dared to utter would be the breaking point. So, as Evie and Fitzroy bickered, she maintained her informal vow of silence. Just as swiftly as it formed, their alliance of convenience—without a unifying enemy to keep it fastened together—had just collapsed into nothing.

It had come from the void. It was only natural—expected, even—for it to return from whence it came.

Claire watched from a distance as the argument came to a close. Any sense of camaraderie shattered like glass. Her companion departed the group and stormed away. For now, it seemed prudent to leave her be. She bid farewell to the others and then turned and walked away. At first, she followed the path of her ally and then took a wrong turn on purpose.

Her hand tightened on the radio in her pocket, their connection. The two of them would meet again. Later, she would call her ally. If Evie answered, she would organize them to meet again; if not, she would need to find a new path. The latter possibility seemed unlikely and, to her, in equal parts abhorrent. But the other girl would decide, not her. For now, that was fine.

Her eyes caught on wisps of smoke high in the distance. Her destination, she already knew. She unfurled the map and, with its knowledge, knew that it would take a day's trip. That was fine. It couldn't be more of a waste than the past several days. So long as she found something—anything at all—it would be good enough to meet her low expectations.

Claire folded the map back up and placed it in the bag. She took a long, deep breath of frost and then let it out, a puff of smoke like a dragon, and readied herself for the long, metaphorical road that stretched before her now. After that, she began to walk, then run, one step at a time, towards the beacon of fire in the far distance. Anything would be a victory.

And she needed a victory right now.

S091: CLAIRE HAIG — CONTINUED IN "The Stele of the Vultures"