The creature leapt, curling into a ball and rolling over in the air below the high ceiling, landing on its feet behind Marcom with a swish of its cloak and the clang of metal on stone. Marcom spun, raising his drawn sword defensively, but the hellish thing had leapt again, this time to his left. One of its steel boots came down on the healer’s head, and it exploded like an overripe grapefruit, spattering blood, bone, and brain across the wall behind it.
It was toying with him, Marcom realized as the creature took to the air again, moving with almost beautiful grace toward the east wall where a huge, glassless window looked out over the city. He couldn’t let it escape. How many more would it slaughter if he did?
Marcom lunged for it then, sure that this would be the last act of his life, but the creature simply stepped aside, moving as gracefully as a dancer. As Marcom’s momentum carried him by, the thing seized him around the throat and hurled him to the floor.
All of Marcom’s breath whooshed out of him in a rush, and the back of his head collided with the stone. Spots flashed before him as he tried desperately to fill his lungs with air. Dimly, he was aware of the clatter of his sword as it hit the wall behind him—far, far out of reach.
Slowly, almost casually, the creature placed one heavy boot on Marcom’s chest, pinning him to the floor as it stared down at him with those expressionless eyes.
The seconds ticked by in utter silence apart from Marcom’s gasps as he struggled against the pressure on his chest. The smell of death hung thick in the air, and fine droplets of blood dripped from the ceiling, pattering against his face and running into his hair like rain. The creature did not move, standing as still as though carved from stone.
And then it spoke. Its mouth did not move, and yet the flat, emotionless words were perfectly clear—perfectly audible in the still room.
“Tell your mistress,” it said. It raised one hand, and Marcom could see blue flames flickering between its fingers.
“Tell her.”
It reached down and pressed the tip of one finger against his forehead.
Marcom was screaming before he even felt the pain. The demon’s finger moved with unnatural speed across his skin, and all at once the coppery scent of blood was replaced by the acrid stench of burning flesh—his flesh.
With one last stroke across Marcom’s brows, the monster turned, releasing him. It strode away toward the window, unhurried, and without a backward look, leapt from the tower, vanishing in a flash of silver and a billow of its cloak.
Marcom lay stunned, panting and clutching his face. The pain was unlike any he’d ever experienced, and for a time that might have been minutes or hours—it was impossible to tell—it filled his world, preventing him from thinking of anything else.
At last, he rolled over and got to his knees, retching as a fresh wave of pain sliced through his skull.
Before he did anything, he had to see—even though he already knew what would be there. But he had to see it. He had to know.
He crawled to the table, grasped its edge, and pulled himself to his feet.
The small mirror the healer had been using was where he’d left it, lying beside his knives and other tools. Marcom snatched it up and raised it before his eyes, his heart thundering inside his chest.
Etched upon his forehead, red and livid as a brand, its edges burned black, was the outline of a dragon, its wings spread in flight.
Emily
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
For an eternal, breathless moment, Emily stared at the glowing bar on her phone’s display. She waited for a key to turn—for another piece of the interminable puzzle to fall into place—but nothing else happened. Instead, a cascade of thoughts and emotions began tumbling over inside her mind, pushing and grinding against one another like great tectonic plates. A fissure opened between them, like the doubling that came when her soul shared space and time with another, but now the twinning of her realities was painful, fracturing into all the facets of her carefully constructed world, breaking down to nothing more than microscopic pixels that blinked up at her from this relic of the past.
It really hadn’t been that hard, had it? This crazy new life in this crazy new world had felt like a dream after the sixteen years of hell that had preceded it, in spite of its own devils and demons. The sudden and total disconnect had made it easier to accept the Haven, despite the questions she’d asked and the things she pondered. Magic ruled supreme here, just as the laws of physics had back in her own place and time. Different rules, maybe, but still the same goddamned game. Everything always came back to the people and the power they wielded or craved, regardless of their trappings; the people and the web of relationships and lies they wove around themselves and each other.
Now, new questions about those trappings began to stir, threatening to bury her beneath an avalanche of unanswerable mysteries.
…And so it came to pass that the worlds were brought together…
Where the final vestiges of the world she’d come from were hiding was only the most obvious question. How that world of rational thought and science could coexist alongside this one of insanity and sorcery was the next, and how could the two possibly relate or be brought into harmony with one another?
…When those who would reunite them walked the lands in fellowship once more…
Was Casey out there, somewhere, reborn as a flyer, perhaps? Or a Karikis? Or some other creature for which Emily had no name? Could she, Emily, find her? Would she even want to?
What was the point in bringing the worlds back together? Why not just let them go on as they had been for thousands of years?
When Emily, just a moment before, had questioned—no, mourned—the lack of remnants of the world she’d come from, she’d been thinking of more tangible things; but what she was thinking of now were the inescapable truths she’d spent a lifetime relying on. Where was the line between science and sorcery drawn? If her iPhone still worked—hell, still got a fucking signal from God knew where—didn’t it stand to reason that the other tenants of science must also live on? Political ideologies? Religious dogmas? Social structures? Histories? And if she, Celine, and Michael were the reincarnated souls of individuals who came before them, why not Casey, or coach Anders, or everyone—anyone—else? Were there any new souls? Or was everyone she saw a recycled personality, replaying their lives in an endless, vicious loop?
“Em,” Celine was saying beside her, and she felt her friend’s hand on her arm. She looked up into the lined and wizened face, framed by the thinning white hair, and a new wave of memory crashed over her, distracting her from these questions for a moment. The scents of cinnamon and peppermint overwhelmed her, and she saw the features of another old woman smiling down at her.
Emily shook her head, trying to clear away the image. Was it a real memory? A grandmother or long forgotten grade school teacher? Or just another piece of broken film from one of a thousand other lifetimes? She hated that she didn’t know—couldn’t know; she hated that her sense of self was eroding beneath such questions. Resentment smoldered inside her, but toward whom was it directed? The wizard? The mermaids? The world…worlds?
She wanted something tangible to cling to; she wanted an anchor to quantify her individuality. Her gaze returned to her phone.
“Somethin’s spooked yeh,” Celine said, looking into Emily’s face. “What is it?”
The little battery indicator in one corner of the screen showed six percent of the charge remaining, and suddenly, it seemed vitally important that she not waste this chance to see if there was anything left of her world out there.
“Give me a second,” she said, “I need to check something.”
She slid a finger across the screen to unlock the phone, a gesture that seemed both strangely familiar and alien to her now. She felt the jagged edge of the cracked glass as it passed beneath her touch, dividing the screen the way her thoughts were—the way the worlds had been.
Her thumb hovered over the browser icon for a moment. A mixt
ure of excitement and trepidation surged up inside her. What if it worked? What if it didn’t?
Slowly, she took a deep breath and tapped it.
A plain “Page not found” error filled the little screen, and she exhaled a soft sigh. Without much hope, she tapped the address bar and typed in the first thing that occurred to her: Google.com.
Almost instantly, the browser’s display changed to inform her that it could not connect to the server. She tried a few others—Yahoo, Apple, even the website for Lindsey High—but all were unreachable.
She hadn’t really expected that to work. What had she expected? She didn’t know. Frustrated, she stabbed a finger at the home button and stared at the grid of icons laid out before her like the faces of old friends in a grade school yearbook, recognizable but so far removed from her life now that they seemed like strangers.
She tapped the one for Messages. It was still opened to the conversation she and Casey had been having as she’d sipped her latte on that last night in Minneapolis. It seemed so long ago.
There was the photo of Casey’s little dog stuck in the snow, and…
There, at the bottom of the scroll, were two messages Emily hadn’t seen before.
U ok?
Ur freaking me out. Call me!
The timestamps on those were late that same night. Casey had probably sent them as Emily had lain crying on a dirty warehouse floor.
Her vision began to blur, and she blinked hard to keep the tears from spilling over onto her cheeks. That part of her life was done with now, and good riddance. Right?
…Right?
But she still couldn’t shake the sense of loss that the little plaque with its penny had triggered and that the sight of Casey’s last few texts to her was now compounding.
It had been easy to stay here; it had been easy to escape the days of drudgery and the nights of tyranny that had constituted the bulk of her life. It had been easier—better—for her, but what must it have been like for Casey when her best friend in all the world suddenly vanished without a trace? Guilt wormed inside her.
It was a stupid thing—an impulse born out of regret and confusion, but Emily tapped the little box at the bottom of the screen and watched as the keyboard appeared below it.
I’m sorry, Case.
She pressed the send icon, and to her surprise, the message vanished from the box, appearing in a green bubble below the rest of the conversation.
It meant nothing, of course. It was just a string of ones and zeros, floating somewhere out there in the ether—a message in a bottle.
Emily powered down the phone and looked up to find Celine and Corbbmacc staring at her intently, waiting. Outside, the rain was slackening, and the first dim vestiges of sunlight were creeping into the room.
“Can we get up to the roof?” she asked Corbbmacc, slipping her phone back into the pouch on her belt. He blinked.
“I don’t know. I think there are some rooms up there. There’s probably a set of stairs in the back, but given the looks of this place…” He shrugged. “Why?”
How could she even begin to convey the intricacies of cellular service when she didn’t really understand them herself? It would just seem like one more kind of magic to her friends. How could she possibly make them understand?
What she knew, though, was that cell networks operated with antenna towers. Maybe if she could get on the roof, she could see where the signal was coming from.
“I think there’s something out there…something from my world…maybe something important…maybe not. I just want to find out if I can see it from here.”
She stood, and when Celine reached out to her, Emily helped her to her feet. Rascal stretched his forelegs lazily, eyeing them both with an expression just this side of disinterest before rising to his own feet and padding over to nuzzle his mistress’s ankles.
“Yeh watch out now,” Celine scolded him affectionately. “Yeh’re like as not to knock me on me arse, yeh are.”
Emily looked down at Corbbmacc. He was still seated on the floor, cradling the jar in which he’d brought her water between his palms and staring into its depths, pointedly avoiding her gaze.
“Coming?” she asked him.
He flushed and set the jar down, still not lifting his eyes.
“Sure,” he said flatly, and he rose as well, dusting himself off as he did.
“What’s wrong?”
For a heartbeat, he didn’t respond, and when he looked at her at last, she saw frustration and resentment in his face for the briefest of instants. It melted away almost at once, replaced by the rare crooked smile that she found so disarming.
“You and your damn questions,” he said, but his tone was gentle. “I’m fine, Em. Really.”
He started across the tavern, leaving Emily and Celine to follow in his wake.
A door behind the bar opened out into a narrow alley that was carpeted in a thick sludge of decaying leaves, dirt, and sand. The rain had trailed off to little more than a drizzle, though, and the sky, while still dark, had lost its menacing pallor. Somewhere, a crow voiced its displeasure, the harsh sound echoing between the buildings and the rocky mountainside.
Apparently unimpressed by the cloying carpet of mulch the rain had made of the dirt and leaves, Rascal hissed and took wing, coming to rest in his accustomed spot upon Celine’s shoulder. He shot a filthy look at each of them in turn, as if trying to decide which one of them was to blame.
A narrow set of stairs, comprised of stained and mismatched boards, led up along the back wall of the tavern to a second level, and from there onto the roof. Many hung at odd angles by rusting and twisted nails, and a few were missing entirely. It looked as if one strong wind would knock them down like a line of dominos.
Corbbmacc started toward them, but Emily reached out and caught hold of his arm, pulling him back. He glanced around at her, raising his eyebrows.
“What?”
“Let me go up first,” she said. “I’m lighter. I can test the boards and let you know if they’ll hold your weight.”
Corbbmacc studied the stairs, as if only really seeing them now for the first time. He said nothing for a long moment, and Emily let her hand fall back to her side, suddenly conscious of the feel of his arm beneath her fingers. Heat rose in her face again. Damn it! What was the matter with her?
“And what if they don’t hold you?” he asked, not looking at her.
Celine let out an exasperated sound beside them. “Jaisus, Corbb! If they don’t hold ’er, Em’ll fall a couple feet into this nice, soft, slimy muck and need a bath. Not like she ain’t needin’ one already anyhow. If yeh go up and bring ’em all down ’round our ears, then no one’s gettin’ up there ’tall. Em’s the one who needs to see whatever it is she’s lookin’ for. Let ’er get on with it, and we’ll follow if she reckons it’s safe.”
For a moment, Emily thought Corbbmacc was going to argue the point further, but then he shrugged and stepped aside.
As she passed them, she shot a glance in Celine’s direction, trying to convey her gratitude. The girl just shrugged and smiled a little ruefully.
Emily climbed the stairs slowly, testing each step before trusting it with her weight and skipping those that seemed too chancy. On the whole, the structure was more sound than it looked, offering steady footing despite the constant groans and protests that accompanied her progress. Overhead, a shutter rattled in the breeze, clinging to the building by a single warped hinge, and water dripped steadily from the eves. The smell of damp wood was so strong, shielded by the shadow of the tavern, that she could almost taste it in her throat.
She paused on the narrow landing to the second level and looked down at the others.
“It’s fine,” she told them. “Just go slow and be careful.”
She turned, ignoring the door that led into the tavern’s second floor, and began climbing the last few steps to the roof. The stairs below her resumed their complaints as Celine and Corbbmacc began making their way up to jo
in her. She heard their voices but didn’t listen to the words. There were still too many questions rattling around inside her head, vying for her attention.
The roof was flat, and a low wooden railing ran along its perimeter, though sections of it were missing. Broken and weatherbeaten remnants of furniture lay piled in places, damp from the recent rains and dotted with glistening bird droppings. A few bits of broken glass were scattered here and there amidst the wreckage like tiny gems, and from atop one of the posts that supported the railing, the skull of some enormous bird seemed to be staring at her, a dirty gold holder held jauntily in the yellowing bone of its beak.
“Hello, my dear,” it seemed to be saying. “Care for a morsel?”
Emily shivered, averted her gaze resolutely, and made her way across the boards, weaving between the debris. She stopped beside the railing that looked out over the front of the building. It was easy, somehow, to see the patrons sitting up here on warm summer evenings, cold drinks in sweaty hands as a fiddler played his tunes and men told bawdy jokes.
She turned slowly in place, staring down into the little streets and buildings of this ghost town. Signs of the storm were already fading from the hardpan between the buildings, as if the rain had never come. Most of the structures were simple, single story affairs; none were taller than the tavern. Many were gone, erased by the relentless march of time. She could see a long way, over rooftops and out across the desolation of the desert that lay ahead for them. She saw nothing; no towers, no satellite dishes, not so much as a gleam of metal amidst all those grays and browns.
She continued to revolve, staring up into the mountains from which they’d come. Snow shone, crowning the peaks far above, seeming unnaturally white against the gray of the sky. Still, though, there was nothing that hinted of her own world.
She completed the circle and glanced back down into the street below her. In the light of day, the town looked merely sad. Windows were boarded over; doors hung askew from rusting and twisted hinges; broken bits and pieces of long forgotten lives dotted the narrow expanses between the empty husks of homes and shops and saloons. The place looked more like the abandoned set of an old western movie than anything that could have sprung from twenty-first century America.
Haven Divided Page 20