So do I.
She didn’t sound as sure as he would have liked.
Next, they’d be writing in the dirt, symbols and signs, messages sent to the ether. She wanted to use a stick to write; he didn’t have the strength or attention to look for one. Wasn’t sure he’d be able to hold onto it. He could use his finger just as well. Put whatever strength he had left into the spell.
I wish you’d let me do this.
“No. I need you in reserve.”
If you’re trying to spare me pain—
That was it exactly. No reason both of them had to suffer.
Cormac—
“Show me what to write.”
He closed his eyes to better focus on her presence, her disembodied voice calling to him. He didn’t sink all the way into their meadow, the space of their shared consciousness. But he could see what she wanted him to see, the patterns she needed written. Methodically, he scratched them into the dirt beside him. First left, then right. Then another, and another. She spoke a simple phrase with Cormac’s voice:
“Acclare! Acclare te ipsum!”
Silence returned. The nighttime forest was more still and ominous than a graveyard. Easy to remember, how many people had died just a few miles from here, and how horribly.
“What now?” he said.
A beam of light panned through the trees. A flashlight, accompanied by soft footsteps on the earth. The sudden motion was shocking, a jolt to his system that was almost painful. His heart raced, and it didn’t have the energy to work so hard. He looked, winced, figured out that someone was approaching, searching for the exact spot where he sat. Part of him grew hopeful, ready to call out for rescue. But he knew—this wasn’t rescue. This was a man come to see how his sacrifice was progressing. Maybe even alerted because things weren’t going the way they should. Someone had gummed up the works.
The light came to rest on him. Cormac squinted into the beam, only able to see a silhouette approach, a ghostly shape moving toward him. He felt worse than helpless, on the ground, looking up, barely able to move and no weapon to hand but a stupid knife.
Finally, as he came around to face Cormac the man lowered the flashlight, revealing himself: Elton Peterson.
“You’re dying, aren’t you?” Peterson asked, oddly toneless. “Starving. Just like they were. You can’t stop it. Now you know how it feels. Now you understand them.”
One thing at a time. This wasn’t over yet. Cormac said, “You hated Weber because he blocked your access to the park. Tried to keep you away from the Donner sites. Because you’re a nuisance. Bellamy—wouldn’t acknowledge your expertise.” And he hated Cormac just for hanging around. “What do you want, Peterson? What’re you doing all this for?”
The corona from the flashlight shone up, painting skull-like shadows on his face, like he was starving, too. “The usual reason. I want to live forever.”
Cormac chuckled. “Need a vampire for that. I know a couple who’d oblige. Or maybe not. They’d have to put up with your bullshit for eternity.”
Peterson sneered. “A vampire? Only awake at night, drinking other people’s blood? That’s not living. I said I want to live.”
“And you had a plan.” Statement, not a question.
“Yes. I will make myself a god.”
Well, Cormac hadn’t expected that. “I don’t get it,” he said, unable to hide his confusion. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, but he was losing hold of himself.
“What happened here a hundred and fifty years ago was a stupid tragedy, the end of a long string of stupid mistakes—and yet everyone knows the name Donner. Everyone knows what happened here. And why? The fear. The power of it. Starvation is horrible because it’s slow, because you see it coming. And yet people die of starvation every single day. A whole country starves and a bunch of celebrities sing a song about it! That’s power! That power will make me a god. But it’s more than that, more than just going hungry—there’s what people will do to avoid it when they have to. A boat is lost at sea—did they do it? A plane crashes in the Andes and we all want to know—did they do it?”
Cormac coughed at the pain welling in his gut. “You want to be the god of cannibalism?”
“Of hunger,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “Of starvation. The thing that has the power to make people do the unthinkable.”
Ask him a question, if you will.
“What question?” he murmured, and Peterson looked at him strangely.
Ask him if the power he seeks to wield was already here, at Donner Pass, or if he had to raise it from scratch?