Kendul knew there was no point in trying to hide it any more. Besides, there was no time for games. Palermo was dead. The whole society was at risk of exposure with Kyllo now rampaging around. “Yeah. Henry Kyllo is the guy’s name,” Kendul said, sagged against the wall near the office window. “We tried to hide it again – just as we tried to hide it when Adelina ascended.”
Marcton was genuinely shocked – but mostly at the first part of Kendul’s little speech; he barely heard the second part. The color drained from his face. “Wait, what!? This? This fucking abomination is ascendance? This is what we become when we reach–”
“Yes!” Kendul shouted. Then: “Yes,” he said again, quieter. He couldn’t look Marcton in the eyes any more. Just stared down at his feet. “We didn’t know what would happen if people found out. We thought it would be over. Everything. Our whole way of life. To be fair, though, we didn’t know – still don’t know – what the final ascension looks like because we stopped it happening in Adelina. Palermo couldn’t bear to lose his daughter, even for something that was supposed to be an honor. We knew it would happen again, but we hoped it wouldn’t be while we were leaders. But it did. And he’s bigger than Adelina was, and certainly more exposed. We thought we could contain it, thought that by the time it happened, we could–”
Marcton launched himself across the room, tackled Kendul. Both men crashed against the window behind Kendul. It bulged, but didn’t shatter, then they were on the floor, Marcton on top of Kendul, right fist pummeling his face over and again.
At the sound of the scuffle, Cleve, Bill, and Melvin came running. The door was open and they burst in. Cleve immediately grabbed Marcton by the shirt collar, yanked him off Kendul. It took both Cleve and Bill – one with each arm – to subdue Marcton. He didn’t say a word, just stared at Kendul where he lay bleeding on the office floor, and struggled against Bill and Cleve’s bulk, trying desperately to break free so he could pulverize Kendul’s face some more.
Melvin stepped outside the office, told everyone everything was OK. A friendly disagreement. Sorted out in a matter of moments.
“What the fuck happened?” Cleve said in Marcton’s ear. “Calm down, man. Come on. Calm down.”
At Cleve’s words, Marcton struggled a little less, sanity slowly filtering back into his brain. His breathing calmed, arm muscles relaxing enough so that Bill and Cleve felt safe releasing him. Marcton shrugged his shirt back into position, smoothed his hair back, said, “This piece of shit killed Palermo. It’s his fault.”
Bill and Cleve said nothing, just looked down to Kendul for his reaction. Kendul pulled himself into a sitting position on the floor, back against the front of the wooden office desk. Caught his breath. “Sure,” he croaked, leaned to the side, coughed twice, spat up blood. “I killed him. He killed himself. I guess both are true.”
Cleve and Bill just looked to both men, confused.
Kendul stood up slowly, arranged his clothing so it settled on him properly, wiped blood from his nose, said, “We let it happen, Marcton, and we shouldn’t have. We should have told people. At least you. Probably others. But we didn’t, and Palermo’s dead. That’s on me. That’s on Palermo. But there was something… intangibly bleak about Adelina when she started changing. It washed over Palermo and me in that house. By stopping her ascension, we felt like we were simultaneously saving her and damning her… But listen, we can do something about it now. We can take Kyllo down. Bury him. Like we buried Adelina all those years ago.”
“Why not just let him ascend?” Marcton said. “What’s he to you? You’re not saving a son or brother or something, so just let it run its course.”
“Marcton, that’s what I’m trying to say: I don’t think ascension is a good thing. If you’d felt what we felt back then… You’ll have to trust me on this. Kyllo needs to be stopped. Hell, the Inferne Cutis as a whole probably needs to be stopped. Palermo could have put this in clearer terms, but I think there’s just something cosmically… wrong with us.”
Marcton went silent.
“All that aside, I know where she is,” Kendul continued. “And I think I know how to bring her back. I have no idea how – or even if – we can control her, but it’s our best shot.”
After a long moment Marcton said, “You said she’s a machine. Like Kyllo.”
“Pretty close, yeah. By the sounds of your description, she’s a bit smaller than Kyllo, but probably not by a lot… And if we can bring her back, she needs to know that Kyllo killed her father. That could be our ace. Once she knows that, it might be enough for us to control her – to a certain extent, anyway. She can bring down Kyllo, then we put her back in the ground, just like we did the first time. Then we fucking well leave this place. Try to set up again in some other part of the country, far away. Or hell, another country entirely. We’ll do what we’ve always done because what other choice is there?”