Cathedral of Bones

by A. J. Steiger

She picked up Simon’s bag, slung it over her good shoulder, and walked toward the door.

  He blinked. “You’re leaving?”

  “Well, I can’t stay here.”

  “I—I thought you were going to kill me.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t kill for fun. And you aren’t much of a threat. You can probably work your way out of those ropes if you keep at it long enough.”

  He could hardly believe his luck. Once again, he had narrowly evaded death. Being left tied up on a bed in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the ideal situation, but it was better than being eaten alive.

  Still . . .

  “What about you?” he asked.

  She stopped. “What about me?”

  The sickly smell still lingered in the air. He recognized that odor. “Your wound is infected, isn’t it?”

  Her shoulders stiffened.

  “You’re too weak to fight, which is why you summoned the shoggoth.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Let me treat your injury.”

  She turned to face him, eyes narrowed. “You think I’m going to fall for a cheap ruse like that?”

  “I want to heal you. That’s all. I swear.”

  She fell silent. A shadow of uncertainty flickered across her expression; a crack in her armor. “Why?”

  He wondered, for a moment, how to answer that. He had no particular obligation to help her, and every reason to fear her. He didn’t even know what she was. And yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that they were alike in some way. He couldn’t just leave her. “Because you’re suffering,” he said. “Isn’t that reason enough?”

  They stared at each other in silence.

  With her free hand, she drew a long, rust-flecked knife from beneath her cloak. In two swift strides, she closed the distance between them, and the knife descended.

  Snick, snick. The ropes fell away from Simon’s wrists and legs. His hands tingled as blood began flowing freely again.

  “One wrong move, and I’ll gut you,” she said.

  A cold bead of sweat trickled down his spine. “I used up my stores of meta. I have to draw in more first, which will take a few minutes. It will help if I can put my hands on the floor. Most meta-receptors are on the palms and fingertips—”

  “Go on.”

  He crouched, pressed his palms to the floorboards, and closed his eyes. He was keenly aware of her looming over him, knife in hand. It was hard to shut out the thought, but he forced himself to focus. He experienced a brief, unexpected flash of gratitude toward Neeta for forcing him to channel with that grasshopper in his mouth. Once you’d learned to ignore wriggling legs against your tongue, you could ignore anything. His palms warmed and tingled as meta flowed up through the Earth, through the foundation of the house, into his body. The wood was rotten and riddled with worms, spiders, and roots, which helped; they had their own bits of meta to contribute and surrendered it without complaint. A few died, and he felt a pulse of remorse.

  Animists took what they needed from the Earth, as all creatures did. It had always been so; energy flowed and changed form. That was nature. Still, he wondered if Umburt was right, in a way—if there was something parasitical about Animism.

  He stood slowly—the pain and vertigo had passed, leaving him a little woozy, but otherwise normal—and faced her, heart pounding. “Ready.”

  The girl curled one of her tentacles around the knife’s handle. She held the blade against his stomach as she opened her cloak. “Make this quick,” she said.

  It was difficult to see, in the dimness. “I’m going to summon a light.” He cupped his right palm, and a golden flame sprang into place, casting its soft glow. Beneath her cloak, her clothes were little more than rags. She’d bound her left arm in a makeshift sling, with a dirty bandage tied around the shoulder. The bandage had already soaked through with blood.

  “This will hurt,” Simon said.

  “Do it.”

  Slowly, Simon peeled off the bandage, which seemed to be fashioned out of a torn shirt. She flinched, but made no sound as he inspected the deep gash. The flesh around it was red and swollen, clotted with pus. Crimson lines of infection had crept down her arm, like tiny rivers under the skin.

  He pressed one hand against the wound. Her skin burned fever-hot under his palm.

  His mind leaped back to the test he’d taken back at the Academy. He’d tried to heal an anesthetized rabbit with a ruptured spleen. He’d failed then; the rabbit had died on the table. Neeta’s voice echoed in his head, telling him he lacked the necessary focus for serious healing. He shoved the memory away.

  He could sense the infection, a sort of dark greenish sludge congealing under the flesh. He visualized the sludge coalescing, clumping together. Then he pulled, coaxing it to the surface with his mind. The girl grunted with pain.

  “Almost done,” he murmured. Sweat trickled down his brow.

  The infection didn’t let go easily; extracting it was like fishing a hairy, greasy clog out of a sticky drain. It clung as if it had a will of its own. “Come on,” he muttered through clenched teeth. He pressed down a little harder. At last, he felt something give.

  Thick yellow pus ran from the wound, dripping to the floor. The redness in the surrounding flesh faded as the swelling went down, and the lips of the wound closed, forming a thin pink line of scar tissue.

  Simon exhaled softly and he wiped one sleeve across his sweat-drenched brow. The meta-flame in his other hand went out. A tiny balloon of triumph swelled in his chest. He’d healed a serious injury. Neeta had been wrong about him, after all. “How does it feel?”

  She flexed the arm and squeezed her hand into a fist. She gave Simon a suspicious look, then shoved the knife into a sheath at her hip, beneath her cloak, and crossed her arms. “Better.”

  “I’m glad.” The room was a little spinny. He sank to the edge of the bed.

  “Are you—?”

  “Fine.” He gave her a wobbly smile. “I don’t suppose there’s any water left in there?” He nodded to his pack.

  She rummaged through it and fished out his canteen. “I drank most of it.”

  He drained the last few swallows. “I’m Simon, by the way. Simon Frost.”

  She kept her arms crossed over her chest. “Alice,” she muttered.

  Such a normal name. Yet it suited her. “Pleased to meet you, Alice.” He held out a hand. When it became clear she wasn’t going to take it, he lowered it awkwardly.

  His gaze wandered to the tentacles poking out from beneath the hem of her cloak. He tried not to stare, but there was something hypnotic about them; the way they constantly moved, curling and flicking. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How is it that you’re able to stay in this world?”

  She gave him a blank look.

  “I mean . . . most demons can’t remain long on Earth.”

  She scowled. “I’m human.”

  Simon wasn’t immediately sure how to respond to that. He could point out that most humans didn’t have tentacles, but that seemed a bit condescending. “So then . . . how . . .”

  “I’d like to know, too.”

  “You don’t remember how you got this way?”

  She stared down at her hands. Her fingernails were a deep green, with the dull luster of water-polished pebbles. “I can’t remember anything from before a few months ago. I just woke up in this forest. All I know for sure is my name.”

  “But you know how to talk. You knew how to make that trigger circle.”

  “I don’t know how I knew that. I’m not even sure I could do it again, if I needed to.” She crossed her arms over her chest again and studied the floor, looking suddenly younger. “Things just . . . come into my head. Words, pictures. As soon as I saw you, I recognized the symbol on your cloak”—she pointed to the silver clasp, which was shaped like a phoenix, the emblem of the Foundation—“and I knew what it meant. I knew you were an Animist. But I can’t remember anything about my own past.”

&n
bsp; “Then what makes you so certain you’re human?” She tensed, and he realized that he’d asked a cruel question. “I mean—”

  “I feel it,” she replied, quietly but firmly.

  Who was this girl?

  Simon cleared his throat. “In that case, you must be under some sort of curse. Or maybe someone transformed you, and the shock of it made you forget your past?” At her skeptical look, he added, “People do block memories sometimes, when they’ve had a trauma. I’ve never heard of someone forgetting everything, though. I suppose there could be some other cause. Anyway, why don’t you come with me to Eidendel?”

  “To the city? Are you joking?” She pulled down her hood. “Look at me.” His eyes had adjusted to the dimness, and he saw that the grayish tone to her skin wasn’t dirt: she was gray. Dolphin-gray. Dove-gray.

  “Well, all right, you’re a little . . . unusual. But the citizens of Eidendel are accustomed to unusual things. They aren’t like these villagers. The people of Splithead Creek, they’re . . .” He paused, searching for a nonjudgmental term.

  “Backwoods yokels?” Alice supplied.

  “I was going to say ‘sheltered.’ They have little experience with Animism, or demons, or anything of that nature. It’s rare for an Animist to even be born in this part of the world; it tends to run in families, and the families tend to flock to the cities. Of course they’d see you as a monster. People always fear what’s unfamiliar to them.”

  “So you’re saying in Eidendel, there are other people like me?”

  “Well, not exactly. But they wouldn’t be shocked by you, either.” At least, he didn’t think so.

  She frowned. He could almost see the gears in her head turning as she considered his words. Then her eyes lost focus. She tilted her head, as though she were listening to something.

  “Alice?”

  “Shh.” Her gaze snapped toward the wall.

  Simon blinked. “What are you—?”

  “Shh.”

  For a long moment, there was silence. Then, faintly, shouting voices—many of them, mostly male—reached his ears. Dogs barked, adding to the chorus. His stomach tightened.

  Alice spun to face him, teeth bared. She grabbed Simon, hands fisting in his shirt, and slammed him against the wall. Simon’s head bounced off the wood. She was breathing hard and fast, her eyes wild and white-edged. The purple irises glowed. “You planned this!”

  “No!” Simon gripped Alice’s wrists, trying to push them away. Tentacles shot out from under her cloak, snaked around his forearms, and yanked them back, pinning them against the wall. Another grabbed his throat, squeezing. “I swear,” he said, voice choked, “I didn’t know they were coming!”

  “You’re lying.” Her voice shook. “I was a fool to trust you.”

  “Alice.” He held her gaze. “Do you really think I would heal your injuries just to stall for time? If I wanted you dead, I would have just let you walk away. The infection would have finished you off.”

  Uncertainty flickered in her face.

  “I told you before, I’m not your enemy,” he said. “They are.”

  She drew in an unsteady breath. She loosened her grip but didn’t release him. Her nostrils twitched. “I smell oil,” she muttered.

  Simon went cold inside. Brock’s words came back to him: If it were up to me, I’d burn down the lair with the monster still inside.

  Apparently, Brock was going to make good on his threat.

  Chapter Ten

  The angry voices grew louder. “They’re here,” Alice said.

  All at once, her tentacles released Simon, and he slumped against the wall, his bones like rubber.

  She dropped into a crouch. Beneath her cloak, he saw movement—things bulged and shifted, as if her muscles were rearranging themselves. She began to swell. Then she cried out. She gripped her recently healed shoulder, shaking, her form dwindling back to normal. “Can’t shift,” she said. “Not yet.”

  Outside, the dogs had gone into a frenzy of snarling and barking. “They’re closing in,” she said. “They’ve already surrounded the house.” Her eyes were wild, frantic. “I have no choice. I have to fight them.”

  “There are too many. There’s no way you’ll be able to fend all of them off.”

  “Even if they kill me, I’ll take a few of them with me.”

  That, Simon thought, seemed like a bad outcome all around. “Let me talk to them,” he said.

  “You really think they’ll listen to you?”

  “Just give me a chance.” The smell of oil was so strong now, even Simon could detect it. They didn’t have much time.

  He ran, stumbling, out the room and down the hall to the front door. He flung it open.

  A crowd of people stood outside. Torches burned in the shadows of the forest. Several burly men in the back held pails filled with black, glistening oil. At the front of the crowd loomed Brock, wearing an open jacket, exposing a chest matted with black hair.

  “Uh—hello,” Simon said. “What are you doing here?”

  Brock crossed his arms over his chest. “After you left, the men and I talked among ourselves. Decided we’d lend a hand.”

  Meaning, they hadn’t trusted him to get the job done and had come here to kill Alice, with or without the mayor’s approval. Simon bit the inside of his cheek.

  Brock leaned forward, peering over Simon’s shoulder, and grimaced. “Bloody hell, what a stink. Is the monster still in there?”

  “It’s been dealt with.”

  There were a couple of half-hearted cheers from the crowd, but mostly confused silence.

  “Show me its corpse,” Brock said.

  “Er—that isn’t—”

  Brock shoved Simon aside and stomped into the house.

  “Wait!”

  The other villagers crowded into the doorway, but Brock called, “The rest of you stay out here.” He flashed them a toothy smile. “If I don’t come back in five minutes, burn the place down.”

  Simon’s jaw hung open. Dear Spirit, this man was a lunatic.

  Brock strode down the hallway, shoved open the door at the end, and vanished inside. Simon ran after him. The room appeared empty. Brock squinted, holding his torch aloft. Its light reflected off a pair of purple eyes under the bed. Brock lunged.

  “No!” Simon cried.

  The struggle was brief; Brock hauled a thrashing, snarling Alice out from under the bed and pinned her to the floor with one boot on her back. Her tentacles thrashed, but in human form, she was too scrawny to put up much resistance. “What is this thing?” he said, lip curled in disgust. “Looks almost like a human girl, but clearly you’re no girl. A shape-changer? Folks tell tales of witches transforming themselves into cats or wolves. But you . . . you’re a special one, aren’t you?”

  She panted, glaring up at him, but she’d stopped struggling.

  Brock glanced at Simon. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Animist, but I was wrong. Seems you’ve subdued the creature.” He lifted his foot and aimed a kick at her ribs. She flinched.

  Simon tensed. “Stop that. Can’t you see she isn’t dangerous?”

  Brock ignored him and aimed another kick at her rib cage. Crack. Alice cried out and scrambled away, toward the corner of the room, fingernails scratching at the floorboards. Brock advanced toward her.

  “I said stop!”

  “Why are you protecting her?” Brock growled.

  Simon hesitated. He knew he had to be careful with his words. “There’s no point in beating an enemy who’s already defeated. It’s cruel.”

  “Cruel? You call this cruel? I watched this thing throw my brother around like a rag doll. I heard his skull crack. I saw him die.” He grabbed the back of Alice’s cloak, hoisted her up, and slammed her against the nearest wall. Alice glared at him, teeth bared—but still, she didn’t speak, didn’t struggle. “Not so powerful now, are you?” He drew a long knife from a sheath at his belt. “Time to finish this.”

  Something dark rose up within Sim
on. His fingertips prickled as he instinctively drew in meta. Tiny darts of lightning crackled and arched within the cups of his palms. I could kill him. The thought came to him with surprising calm. Brock was totally focused on Alice, blinded by his own rage; the back of his neck was exposed. Simon could walk up behind him and deliver a short, sharp jolt of meta to his brain stem, stopping his heartbeat. He would be dead before he even felt anything. It didn’t take much skill or strength to kill someone in that way. With the right opportunity, any Animist could do it.

  He wanted to do it.

  Slowly, he raised his hand, two fingers extended. Time slowed as he reached out toward Brock’s unguarded nape. A strange humming filled his head, and a dark filter slid over his vision.

  Just one quick touch.

  He took a step forward—then froze. His insides turned cold with shock. What was he doing? If he killed Brock, the villagers would kill them.

  Brock raised the knife.

  Simon lunged and grabbed his wrist.

  Brock turned burning, bloodshot eyes to him. “Don’t make me go through you,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Simon managed to keep his voice level, despite the way his heart thudded against his ribs. “That isn’t necessary. I’ll take her with me. Back to Eidendel.”

  “We’re the wronged party here.” He wrenched his wrist from Simon’s grip. “We don’t need your courts. We do these things quick and clean.”

  Alice rose to her hands and knees, head downcast, hair hanging around her face. Her fingers twitched and arched like claws. Brock planted a foot on the back of her head, forcing her face against the floorboards. “Stay where you are, witch.”

  “Let her go,” Simon said firmly. “She’s my responsibility.”

  Brock’s eyes narrowed. Simon flinched as one massive hand came down on his shoulder and gripped, tight. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. This isn’t your decision, boy.” His fingers dug in with bruising force. “Last warning. Stand aside. Now.”

  Simon struggled to keep his breathing steady, even as panic clanged in his head. His gaze darted to Alice. Beneath the hood, her face had started to change, the muscles shifting beneath her face in disconcerting ways. Her tentacles lashed behind her.