Lexicon

he thought the kid was obeying. But no: He was hefting the ax over his shoulder. Fifty yards. Close enough to smell.
    “
Vestid foresash raintrae valo! Stop!
”
    The kid shambled through the words like they were water. Eliot drew the gun.
    “
Stop! Campbell, stop! Valo! Stop! Valo!
”
    The kid’s lips stretched back. The tendons along his forearms tightened. The ax rose. Eliot squeezed the trigger. The kid grunted. His expression didn’t change. Eliot pulled the trigger twice more. The ax clanged to the blacktop. The kid fell to his knees. He tried to rise, grunted again, and fell face forward onto the road.
    Eliot sank to his haunches. The sun had almost set. The world was awash in orange. He rose and began to load the kid’s body into the car.
    • • •
    He buried the kid in the desert and drove through the night. When the city lights rose, he couldn’t stand it anymore, and pulled over onto the shoulder and climbed out. He leaned on the car and dialed, inhaling night air. Cars whizzed by. “Yes?”
    “It’s Eliot.”
    “Ah.” He heard a tinkling: ice in glass. “How are things proceeding?”
    “Campbell’s dead.”
    He heard Yeats sip at his drink. “Do you mean he failed to return?”
    “I mean I shot him in the chest.” He closed his eyes, but that was no better, so he opened them again. “I mean he came out of there carrying an ax and I shot him.”
    “You sound unsettled.”
    He dropped the phone from his ear. When he could, he raised it. “I’m fine.”
    “You’re saying Campbell came back insane. Is that correct?”
    “Yes. Insane. Compromised. Something.”
    “Do you know how it happened?”
    “He made it to the Emergency Room. We were talking. Then he just stopped.”
    “How did he sound up to that point?”
    “He was cool under pressure.”
    There was silence. “It’s so intriguing,” Yeats said. “What I would give to know what she did in there.”
    He waited.
    “Come home, Eliot. It’s been long enough.”
    “I haven’t found Woolf.”
    “Woolf is dead.”
    “I don’t believe that.”
    “Stop believing what you want to believe. It’s unbecoming. You’ve found no trace. Your assignment is terminated. Come home.”
    He laid his head against the cold metal of the car and closed his eyes. “Yes, sir.”
    • • •
    A dot appeared in the snowscape. A car? Yes. Eliot checked his coat, made sure the gun was out of sight.
    Behind him, Wil’s footsteps clattered down the airplane steps.
That was quick
, Eliot thought.
He must have thought of something.
    “What happened to being
worth it
?” Wil shouted. “Isn’t that what you said to me? Those people who died back there, I had to make myself worth it?”
    Eliot didn’t answer.
    “Is that a car?”
    Wil’s shoes crunched toward him. He stopped beside Eliot, hugging himself. Eliot glanced at him. “Don’t leave me, you motherfucker,” Wil said.
    “Fine.”
    “What? So . . . we’re good? We’re staying together?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then what the hell was that before? Was that a joke?”
    The car slowed. Eliot saw glassed-in faces gaping at the plane. “This will be easier if you’re calm.”
    “Are you
fucking
with me now? I’m trying to deal with . . . magical, killer poets and you’re
fucking
with me?”
    “I reconsidered,” Eliot said. “You made a good point.” He walked toward the car.

GHOST TOWNS: #8: BROKEN HILL (AUSTRALIA)
    Following discovery of the world’s richest zinc-lead ore deposit in 1883, Broken Hill became one of the world’s largest mining towns. At its peak, up to thirty thousand residents lived here, many employed by the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP).
    Following exhaustion of two primary mines in the 1970s, however, the town began to decline. Several smaller mine sites remained viable, but isolation—the nearest city is three hundred miles away—and the inhospitable environment contributed to a steady fall in population.
    In the early afternoon of 14 August, 2011, the zinc-lead refinery, situated near the heart of the town, experienced a catastrophic explosion followed by a rapid, hot-burning fire. Reports suggest a river of deadly methyl isocarbonate flowed down the main street. Within the next few hours, all three thousand residents died from toxic fumes. Several emergency services teams that entered the town in the ensuing hours were likewise overcome.
    The town is currently fenced off at a radius of five miles and expected to remain uninhabitable for the