Catherine was thinking of herself on the floor of the washroom in Hong Kong, letting that mystery Seeker hit her so she could get the glass into her hands. Archie was right, of course.
“Is that what you’re doing here, with me?” she asked with barely concealed malice. “Taking a hit for your family?”
He smiled at her, a cold smile that showed his patience coming to an end. Very deliberately he set his tea on a side table, balled his hands into fists, and took a boxer’s stance.
“Are you going to punch me?” she asked with interest as she took another sip of her tea. Still too hot. Why did she keep drinking it? “Should I put down my cup so it doesn’t get broken?”
He took the teacup out of her hands himself and set it aside. He was like a big, stupid child, she thought. He had no idea what it meant to really fight. He’d only ever done play-fighting in his life. He wouldn’t last a day on the estate.
“Hit me,” he said, resuming his boxing stance.
Catherine didn’t have to be asked twice. She struck out at his stomach with her fist, and it connected.
She’d hit him fairly hard, but her hand encountered the taut muscle of someone who’d practiced taking punches from much larger opponents. At once his own fist was coming at her jaw, not to hit her—she could tell by the trajectory that he didn’t mean to actually strike—but to illustrate his point.
Catherine couldn’t help herself. She twisted to the side so his fist ended up nowhere near her face. Even in play she didn’t want him to think she would stand there and be smacked.
She threw another punch at his ribs, intending to hit him a little harder than before. But this time he too twisted out of the way. He was faster than she’d expected. And he was smiling at her, like he was pleased with the speed of her reflexes. That was annoying—he wasn’t good enough to pass judgment on her fighting skills.
He threw another punch at her face. She ducked it and aimed an uppercut at his jaw, even harder this time. But he’d ducked away before her blow could land.
He took another swing, fast and sharp, trying to show her that he could beat her when he wanted, but Catherine caught his wrist and pulled, twisting him in front of her. She lifted an elbow to slam it down into his neck as he passed by…
All three parents were staring across the room at the two of them. Catherine saw frank horror on her mother’s face, embarrassment on her father’s. Archie’s father seemed amused, but concerned that Catherine might be injured—she read clearly on Gavin Hart’s face that he would be very disappointed if something happened to this girl as well.
She grabbed Archie’s arm to help him upright. They were clasping each other’s forearms for a moment, and she thought he looked pleased again. What’s he so happy about? she wondered. I could have beaten him easily.
She and Archie picked up their teacups and turned their backs on their parents so they would stop staring.
“Of course, it’s better to avoid a punch if you can,” Archie said quietly as he looked out the window with her. His breath was coming faster. “I imagine it’s the same in fencing.”
“Imagine all you like,” she said, her voice soft but full of venom. She was angry at him, and at herself as well, because she was still looking at his lips. “It’s not as though you’d ever be good enough to really fight me.”
—
All the way home, Catherine listened to her mother and her grandmother Maggie, who’d come to pick them up, explain the many benefits of a match between her and Archibald Hart, and the reasons why she should attempt to behave without open savagery the next time they met.
Catherine hated these lectures, but this time it was easy to tune out the cascade of advice and admonitions.
“…it’s simply more secure, if you’re part of a family that attracts attention,” Maggie was saying. “They may be past their prime, but the Harts are still a family that newspapers care about. There’s safety in that. In case you hadn’t noticed, Seekers tend to disappear. If you’re married into the Harts, you’re not going to disappear without someone noticing.”
“Shouldn’t we try to fix the reason Seekers are attacking each other, instead of accepting that’s just the way things are?” Catherine asked her grandmother.
Maggie ignored her. “Catherine,” she said, “you want to use your family’s athame, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Catherine said, turning to her grandmother. Defiantly she added, “And not for money, or power, or my personal safety. I want to use it as a real Seeker, to make good things happen.”
“All right, you have your dreams,” Maggie said, ignoring Catherine’s mother, who scoffed under her breath. “Now protect those dreams. Archie’s family will help you do that. And you can use the athame to help them.”
Catherine nodded and let her gaze wander outside the window of the taxi. It had started to rain. London was gray and wet and ancient.
She saw the view only superficially. She was thinking of that pleased look on Archie’s face and wondering what, exactly, it had meant.
The four Watchers moved in the darkness with only Nott’s lantern to light their way.
“You led us into that fight,” Geb said. “You distracted us.”
It took Nott a few moments to understand what Geb was saying, because he was speaking so quickly, but anyway it was the same thing Geb had said a dozen times already—that Nott and Wilkin had tricked them into a losing fight with Quin, that Nott and Wilkin had diverted them from their master’s orders.
“She had his athame and our helm,” Nott responded sluggishly, even though he knew Geb was right.
“Useless, you are,” Geb muttered. “I bet you can’t even count all the way up to two hundred on your own.”
Hearing his own voice as though from far away, Nott said, “We got you, didn’t we? Without us, you’d still be sleeping here.” Nott didn’t feel it was important to mention that he did, in fact, have trouble counting to two hundred all on his own. That was none of Geb’s business.
“Shut it, Nott,” Wilkin whispered at the speed of a snail. “We’re almost there.”
Nott fell silent. His hands gripped the lantern’s handle tightly, and in the lantern’s light, he could see the four of them—himself, Wilkin, Geb, and Balil—moving through the darkness There. They were all cut and swollen. Nott had so many bruises on his face, he could feel it puffed into strange shapes; his knuckles and chest were so sore it was hard to move. The others had makeshift bandages over shallow whipsword slashes on their shoulders, and beneath these were ugly seams where they’d sewn each other up.
“Here they are.” That was Geb speaking, and he was nudging Nott to hold the lantern higher.
Nott responded after a few moments. His mind was fuzzy and his arms and legs seemed to be swimming through the waters of Loch Tarm. As he raised the lantern, he became aware of two figures standing perfectly still in front of them. More Watchers.
“Let’s not stand here and stare,” Balil said slowly. “Let’s get back. I already feel strange.”
“Wait here,” Geb ordered. “I’m getting the other things we need.”
Geb disappeared farther into the darkness, the lantern’s light glinting dully off the helm on his head and licking at hidden forms rising in the black. Geb was now in among those forms, searching for something. But Nott couldn’t focus. He was stretching out.
“Should we leave the runts here?” Geb asked. He was back. Nott had lost track of time, and somehow Geb was already back.
“Might as well,” Balil said, his words as sluggish as Nott’s own breathing.
Were they really planning to leave him here? Nott wondered, though the thought seemed distant and unimportant. No, they were only taunting him; Geb was already hitting the athame and lightning rod together and carving a new anomaly back into the world. The edges solidified, and Nott could see their broken fortress through the hole, illuminated by a waning moon that hung behind its turret.
They didn’t let Nott pick up the sle
eping Watchers. Wilkin and Geb and Balil did that without him.
“Hold the light steady, runt!” Geb ordered.
Carrying their new comrades, the Watchers stepped across the anomaly and into the shallow waters of the lake. Nott stumbled through after them.
—
An hour later, the new arrivals were still lying on the floor of Dun Tarm in awkward, stiff poses, staring blindly up at the night sky. It might be hours yet before they began to breathe and move normally again.
Nott hugged his knees to his chest and studied the faces of the two newcomers. They weren’t what he’d expected. They were scrawny and spotty, and hardly older than Nott himself. Is that what I look like when I’m frozen There? Nott wondered. Is this what my master sees when he comes to wake us for our turn in the world, our turn to look out for him?
But these boys did not really look like him. They were dressed, in the way of all Watchers, in gray wool, but their clothes were much newer than Nott’s, as though their master had found them somewhere just a few years ago. Their eyes were open and staring, and one of them wore spectacles.
Nott’s mind had gotten lost There, and it was only now coming back. He asked suddenly, “Why did we get only two Watchers? We were supposed to get all of them.”
“Yes,” Geb said. “Eventually.” His eyes flicked to his partner, Balil, who nodded encouragingly.
“Eventually?” Nott asked. He looked back to the frozen newcomers. “But…why did you pick these two? Who are they?”
“I don’t know their names,” Geb said defensively.
“But—but are they indeed Watchers?” Nott asked.
“They are training to be Watchers. Just as you did once. Just as we all did.”
“Training?” Nott asked. “So they’re not full Watchers?”
“Not yet.”
“But—what about our orders!” He bared his teeth at Geb.
“We will follow them,” Geb assured him. “Very soon.”
Nott cried, “Soon? That’s what Wilkin has been saying all along. ‘Soon.’ ” He got to his feet and tried to look menacing, even though he was the smallest of them. “You beat us for not following the plan.”
Geb got to his feet, from which position he towered over Nott’s head. He pushed Nott back onto the cold stones of the fortress floor.
“We will!” he said angrily. “But you’ve lost your helm, haven’t you? And that girl has our master’s athame. And you’ve already wasted weeks. Even if we obey our master’s orders, even if we find him—when we find him—he’ll be angry.”
Balil was nodding. “It’s your fault, Nott, but…he might see it as our fault too. The lost helm, the delay. We’re the oldest. He’ll be angriest at us.”
Geb gestured at the new, still frozen boys. “These Watchers will help us find the girl. And when we find her, we’ll get our master’s athame back—and your helm. Then we’ll wake the others, then we’ll search every inch of the darkness and find our master. He will have no reason to send any of us to our caves. Especially not me. All will be well.”
Nott looked from Geb to Balil to Wilkin. All three seemed satisfied with this plan.
“But…”
“Sit down,” Geb ordered, not meeting Nott’s eyes. “That’s enough from you.”
Nott sat and stared at his feet. Every Watcher was so terrified of being disciplined he was determined to prove he was better than all the others. Their master had been so arbitrary and secretive about his punishment that no Watcher was certain what would draw his anger or what penalty he would exact. The Watchers themselves were one of their master’s biggest secrets, but he was full of so many other secrets that Nott sometimes wondered if the man was built of them. If you removed his cloak and his clothing and boots, would there be anything inside? Or is he filled with the smoke of his own hidden plans? If you pierced him, would those secrets leak out into the world?
“These are new ones,” Balil explained, pointing at the frozen Watchers, “from just a few years ago.” He chucked a stone at the frozen boys, and it bounced off one of their faces. Ever so subtly, their bodies were beginning to soften—arms slowly relaxing, legs straightening out against the floor.
“They’ll know how to use computers!” Wilkin said in a burst of understanding. “They’ll use them to lead us to Quin?”
“Aye,” said Geb. “They’ll know the modern ways.” He gave one of the boys a swift, hard kick. “Hurry up and come awake, will you?”
“And those?” Nott asked.
Behind Balil were two disruptors Geb had retrieved when he’d run off into the darkness There. The metal weapons gleamed with faint iridescence in the night’s glow.
“When we find her, we’ve got to scare her, haven’t we?” Geb asked. “I don’t know about you, Nott, but I don’t fancy being cut by her whipsword again if I can avoid it. We’ll scare her into giving up the athame and the helm.”
“Look!” Wilkin said excitedly.
One of the frozen boys had blinked, very slowly.
The hospital basement smelled of death and disinfectant. Dark shapes of gurneys and old medical machinery loomed up around Shinobu. The anomaly he’d created had already fallen shut, but its residual tremor was alive in the room, and equipment vibrated around him. It was well past midnight, the heart of the graveyard shift, and except for rattling pipes and the buzz of fluorescent lighting fixtures, the hospital was quiet as he crept into the hallway.
He’d woken in the middle of the night, curled up next to Quin, but all he’d been able to think about was the focal. No, all he’d been able to think about were the secrets the focal had whispered to him while he was wearing it—the boys who’d attacked them, the athame of the Dreads, Catherine’s journal. But more than all these things was the Middle Dread himself. It was as if the focal knew the Middle Dread, and the voice Shinobu kept hearing, just out of earshot, belonged to him.
When he’d woken, he remembered that Quin hadn’t hidden the helmet yet. She’d only tossed it into the closet before they fell asleep. He’d shaken her shoulder and whispered, “Quin, wake up, please! I’m going to put it on, and I don’t want to put it on.”
Quin was so deeply asleep she didn’t feel or hear him. He shook her harder, and said, more loudly, “Please, Quin. Wake up! Stop me!”
She came half-awake and turned toward him in the bed. In the pale light through the window he saw her dark eyes flutter open between locks of her hair.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
He wasn’t able to answer her, because something very bad happened. As he looked at Quin’s face, still mostly asleep, he didn’t see Quin at all. All at once she didn’t look like the girl he loved, the girl he’d grown up with, the girl he’d give his life for. He saw her differently: she was a Seeker who thought only of herself and her house, at the expense of anyone else, at the expense of more important plans; she would use Shinobu and then discard him…unless he stopped her.
When she put a sleepy hand on his cheek, it was like an enemy touching him, and he recoiled.
He knew straightaway that the focal had changed the way he saw her. It had twisted something in his mind.
I don’t think that, he told himself, lying in the bed next to her. I don’t think that. I love Quin. I love her.
He closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them, the evil vision was gone. Quin had fallen back asleep, her hand tucked comfortably between his jaw and his neck, her hair messy and everywhere, her breathing soft and even. She was Quin again, she was his.
But the memory of that other vision lay upon him like a heavy stone. What if it came back? What if he had no control over it next time? He never wanted to look at Quin that way again.
He got out of bed, grabbed up the athame, and then took the focal from Quin’s closet. It required all of his resolve not to pull the helmet onto his head, but he stuffed it into the backpack instead, along with the athame; then he pulled on his boots and quietly left the house.
When he
wore the focal, he saw the outlines of something grand and disturbing. Sometimes he thought there was a way to do what Quin hoped to do—understand when and why Seekers had changed—and he also thought, maybe, there was a way to have a measure of control over the future, to stop being victims of others’ greedy designs, as he and Quin had been since their earliest childhood.
But the Middle Dread was at the heart of this feeling. The Middle Dread was in the focal somehow. Shinobu knew of one person, still alive, who’d been on good terms with the Middle. That was Briac Kincaid. Shinobu had seen their close ties on the estate before he’d taken his oath, and he’d seen them fighting in unison on Traveler, before the Young Dread killed the Middle.
It had taken Shinobu some time to locate Briac, but at last he’d tracked him here, to this hospital on the outskirts of London. And now Shinobu had arrived. He was coming to speak to Briac.
He found the stairs at the end of the basement hall and began climbing.
The stairwell was badly lit, and Shinobu was just able to make out the signs posted at each floor. He exited at the third floor and moved cautiously into a brightly lit corridor. He soon discovered there was little need for stealth. With only one exception, the night nurses and orderlies were huddled around a gaming screen, playing an online role-playing game in their messy break room. The exception was a large, unshaven orderly who was sound asleep on a gurney at the end of the hall, wrapped in a fog of beer fumes. Shinobu stepped past the man into the mental ward for adult males.
The smell inside was awful. It took his eyes a few moments to adjust to the interior of the ward. It was a bright night outside, but the only windows here were tiny and high up in the wall, covered with black mesh screens that filtered out most of the city lights. The walls were possibly a shade of gray in daylight, but now they were a ghostly green, fading into shadows in every corner and beneath each of the old metal beds.
There were twelve beds in the room, all of them occupied. Dark shapes lay beneath the government-issued blankets, some turning fitfully, some lying as still as corpses.
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