The GTR gives a beastly rumble and reverses; its blazing headlights exposing the stricken bodies that lie in the cone of its illumination. Once Marco speeds out of sight Landon hobbles over to Hannah and finds her breaths in flutters.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t know…” she croaks.
“I’ll get you to a hospital.”
“They won’t let us.” Hannah winces and points to her wound. “Press here.”
Landon does as he is told. A lump of emotion chokes him up and smothers his speech. He bites his lip, grieving at the touch of Hannah’s torn body.
Despite everything Hannah smiles and pulls him close. “You got the tenderness of a simpleton—and a good heart,” she says. “Yes, a good heart.”
“No I don’t.” Landon squeezes her hand. “I’ve been a wimp many lifetimes over. In the years between us I don’t even know your real name.”
“Do you have to?”
“Don’t tell me if you can’t.”
“Ning Yan,” says Hannah. A wan, anaemic smile accompanies her reply. “I was born in 1712, Hubei. Grew up on the plains. We had a river there.”
The reply overwhelms Landon. He finds it ineffably astounding— the centuries of her existence, the mystery of her origins, the delicate ring of that lovely name. There is so much to share and yet time is draining away between them so quickly, so cruelly.
“What’s yours?” Hannah asks in a laboured exhalation.
“Aldred.”
“So you remembered.”
“My journals—” he says.
“You don’t look like an Aldred.” She chuckles weakly. “Sounds like an old man.”
“Yes, it does.” Landon laughs with her and withdraws briefly into himself. “John said he’s got back-up. Maybe we could wait it out and—”
She shakes her head. “Help me with something, Arthur.”
He snuffles and swipes his hand across his nose.
“Take care of that old man for me.” She cradles his arm. “Bed 8-C, Loewen Lodge. He’s the only truth left of the lies I’ve lived. I moved him there so we could make contact.”
“Who is he?”
“Why ask what you already know?”
“I want to know if it’s true.”
“Why does it matter now?” Hannah looks wearily away. “Quit asking and hold me. It’s getting very cold.”
Landon pulls her to him, and in his arms she feels fragile and ethereal, like a wisp of vapour that could vanish in a blink of an eye. The lustre in her beautiful eyes dims as life goes on ebbing from her body despite the pressure he keeps on the wound.
“Nice of you to offer yourself to Khun.” She smiles. “He might have just shot you.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Always a darling.” She touches his cheek. “And a fool.”
Landon’s eyes burn and glaze up. “Fool?” He snuffles. “Who’s the one bleeding out?”
Hannah convulses painfully in laughter. “I’m finished, you airhead.” She closes her arms over his. “You know, that Transfusion thing could be worth a try.”
“No, we should live on and find a way to fix this together. We can, we got plenty of time if we keep the Serum inside us.”
“They’ll be here soon.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
In an unexpected gesture of affection Hannah pulls Landon down to her and plants a soft, lingering kiss on his lips. Overwhelmed, he holds it for no more than a couple of seconds before a torrent of emotions assails him and breaks him down into a weeping wreck.
Mustering all her strength Hannah lumbers to her feet, her wound dripping, and shuffles a few yards ahead to retrieve her own weapon and Landon’s pistol. Landon rushes forth to render assistance. He takes one of the guns and carefully lowers her against a stack of damp plywood sheets nearby and sits down on the spot of ground in front of her.
She nods at the pistol in his hand. “Ever used one of those?”
Landon drops it as if the metal burns. “Don’t. I know what you’re thinking.”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“No, we can work something out.”
Painfully, Hannah retrieves the pistol. She puts it into Landon’s hand and positions its barrel over the spot between her eyes. Landon tries to jerk it back but her arm holds firm and unyielding as a rod of steel. She clasps her hand over his and locks it in place over the pistol’s hand-grip. He attempts a savage twist but still he fails to dislodge the weapon.
“If John speaks the truth then you must go to them.” Her tone rings resolute and cold. “Only they can keep you away from Khun.”
“Please…” He tugs feebly at her grip. “It doesn’t mean I have to shoot you…”
“I would’ve done it myself. You’ll be doing me a favour.”
“Oh God… Hannah, they could fix you. You might still live.”
“What use would they have for a wounded Tracker?” Hannah strains to raise her voice, now sounding a trifle vexed. “If I live Khun will have me kill you all over again. I know that.”
“I’ll speak to them, I’ll tell them everything—”
“It’s not going to happen, Arthur.” Hannah clasps tighter at his hand that holds the pistol. “No faction of CODEX would risk exposure. They’d do me in on the spot and if that had to happen—” She pauses and gathers herself. “I’d want you behind the trigger, Arthur.”
Aggrieved, Landon winces. “I’m Arthur no more and you know it.”
“To me you’re always Arthur. It lets me remember the swell times we had.” She lifts the pistol in her other hand, holds it sideways and jams its barrel into the spot below Landon’s chin. The move startles him. “Now,” her voice drops to a bellow. “You will deliver the shot or I will.”
Landon’s face contorts. Sorrow rushes in like boiling surf and dashes against his heart. Once more he tries to yank his pistol away from Hannah’s head, but against her Serum-charged strength his efforts amount to nothing.
“Go to them,” she says.
“Not without you.”
Hannah pushes the pistol farther up his chin. “I’m counting down, Arthur.”
He quivers, tears now rolling free. But his eyes remain hard and still.
“Three.” the apathy in Hannah’s voice rings chillingly.
“Hannah, please…”
“Two.”
“Oh, God… Hannah…”
“One.”
Landon shuts his eyes.
The report ranges to the heights of the viaduct above them. The wind abates, the rain thins. And in the wake of it all, a heavy, haunting stillness envelops.
40
JANUARY 1856
That day—how could I forget?
Ning Yan, her dark hair in a chignon, glowed in a burgundy silk dress with tucks arranged in ascending tiers from the hem of her skirt. Fifteen-year-old Vivian sat beside her in the gharry and stuck out her head as they drove past groves of bandicoot berries and Chinese violets. The morning sunlight winked at her through the leafy canopy and the edges of her bonnet fluttered in the wind.
“How do you like the dress?” said Ning Yan.
Vivian’s cheeks dimpled. “It’s hot and tight at the waist.”
“That’s how European dresses are. I thought you might want to try them on at least once for the garden party, before we return them to Mrs Watkins.”
The gharry wound along a roadway of dirt, amid luxuriant foliage and treetop canopies. They came upon a small river; its waters flowing so slowly they looked like they were stagnant. Masses of dhobies speckled its banks, beating out carpets and dashing their laundry against corrugated wooden boards. Those who had finished threaded up the slopes with full baskets over their heads.
The gharry swerved to avoid a small herd of goats before turning onto Orchard Road—an avenue of tall bamboo hedges that fronted plantations of nutmeg, pepper and gambier. Rumps of vegetation rose on either side as the gharry drove past a large Chinese cemetery and towards the district of Tanglin. On a hillock sat a bungalow. The gharry rumbled up an incline, negotiated a bend of gravel and came to a stop before a large, white portico where two empty hackney carriages and their Kling peons, having deposited their passengers, were just departing.