Golem in My Glovebox

by R. L. Naquin

  She gave me a long, hard stare, and I gave one right back at her. Finally, her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Fine. He stays. Do you want to call anyone else in here before I tell this?”

  I shrugged. “Not at the moment, no.”

  Maurice swallowed and rubbed his forearm. “I don’t mind, really. I don’t want to be a problem.”

  I scowled at him, and he stayed put. “Bernice, tell us everything you know about Kathleen.”

  She nodded and cleared her throat. “This all happened a long time ago, before I was born. World War II took quite a few Board members, and Kathleen moved up the ranks because of it. A year into the war, she became the youngest person to head the Board of Hidden Affairs. She was thirty.”

  Riley crossed an ankle over his knee. “Impressive.”

  Art nodded. “By all accounts, she was incredibly powerful, even at the beginning.”

  “But she was a good leader,” Bernice said. “The war was hard on everybody, and she kept things going.”

  “Until it went to her head,” Art said.

  Bernice’s jaw twitched. “Yes, well, like I said, the war was hard on everybody.”

  “That’s no reason to throw away all the laws and make people do things against their will.”

  “Art, you weren’t there. Sometimes you’ve got to bend rules to keep people safe.”

  Art’s thumb did the invisible-pen clicky thing, but he was often confrontational and judgmental—and most definitely not one to approve of rule bending. The interesting party in the room was Bernice. Her body language was defensive, fingers clutching the leather arms of the chair and her torso turned slightly away from Art. A nervous guilt rose around her like a cloud of sulfur. It stank, and I had to force myself not to wrinkle my nose in distaste, since I was the only one smelling it.

  My voice was soft. “Art, let her tell it, first, okay? Bernice, what did she do?”

  Bernice took a sip of brandy and stared into the fire as she spoke. “Little things at first. When James Powell refused to call all the Board members in for a special meeting to deal with the shortage of rations, she flipped on her empath abilities and convinced him to do it. After that, she found it was easier to just make people feel what she wanted them to feel rather than sit around in endless debates. War is tough. Sometimes things needed to be done more quickly.”

  What Bernice described was one of my worst fears. I tried so hard not to eavesdrop on the feelings of my friends and family. I’d discovered not too long ago that if I concentrated, I could reverse the emotional flow and send my own emotions into others. I’d done it a few times for what I deemed to be a good causes in harmless situations, but the act left me feeling skeezy. Regardless of the outcome, forcing emotions into someone was manipulative. I worried that crossing that line of what was appropriate would cause another line to appear with an act a bit more manipulative than the last. How hard would it be to cross that next line? And the next? Where would it end?

  Bernice had stopped talking and didn’t seem inclined to go on.

  Art took over. “For months she used people as puppets, making them vote the way she wanted, running their departments exactly as she saw fit, and eventually, waiting on her like a queen. Nobody knows what set her off to start killing. James upset Kathleen in some way, then with barely a pause, he pulled out a gun and shot himself. Kathleen didn’t try to stop him. She stood there smiling while he did it. That’s when the real carnage started. The body count was high by the time they brought in the powervoid to nullify her powers and lock her up.” He shook his head. “Dark times.”

  My hands felt cold. I’d done what Bernice described. It was one thing to hear about some all-powerful villain whose powers were nothing like mine. But Kathleen was once like me, then grew into a dangerous psychopath. Was I on my way to becoming like her? Did I have inside me the capacity to turn people—even the ones I loved—into my personal servants? Goosebumps rose on my skin, and I rubbed my arms to soothe them.

  Before I knew he’d moved, Maurice stood behind my chair and placed his hands on my shoulders. “You’re not her,” he whispered in my ear.

  I nodded, grateful for his reassurance, and put a hand over one of his. “What happened to her?” My voice was hoarse, but I felt stronger for having my friend with me.

  Art shrugged. “That’s it. People were afraid to visit her. Gargoyles are immune to mental powers, so the Board always had a few around to take food to her, keep her and her cell clean. When Bernice joined the Board, they let the gargoyles go to cut costs, and the golems took over. That was—what—about twenty years ago?”

  Bernice nodded. “Twenty one.”

  I frowned. “So, this clearly unstable woman spent most of the last sixty years in total isolation other than gargoyles for the first forty years, then golems for the last twenty-one. So—what? You checked on her once to make sure she was still alive?”

  Bernice’s cloud of guilt grew outward in swirls. “Well, not exactly.”

  “Bernice,” I whispered. “What did you do?”

  “She was old.” Bernice clamped her hands together in her lap and wouldn’t look up from them. “The runes and stones in her cell kept her from using her powers, so I was safe. When I took over as head of the Board six years ago, I felt it was my duty to go talk to her. It wasn’t right to leave an old woman in isolation like that. She was harmless.”

  That explained how Bernice knew Kathleen’s story so well—and as such a biased version. She’d heard it straight from the source.

  Art’s face was hard as stone, and his eyes went dark. “How many times did you visit her? When was the last time?”

  Bernice’s voice shook. “I went there once a month or so for about three years. She really wasn’t the monster history made her out to be. And she was totally powerless. Just a lonely old woman.”

  Bernice Abernathy—Head of the Board of Hidden Affairs, a woman who struck awe in the heart of monsters everywhere—sweated fear, embarrassment, and guilt in great, greasy droplets.

  “When did you stop visiting her, Bernice?” I asked. I tried to keep my voice gentle and reassuring. I could have sent her a stream of calm and acceptance to help her get through this, but after the story I’d just heard, I would sooner have shaved my head and painted it orange.

  “About two years ago,” she said. Her eyes focused on mine. “When the other Board members started to disappear, I had to concentrate more on keeping this place running without anybody finding out what was going on. I didn’t have any time to visit her. And then I forgot about her altogether in all the mess.”

  Riley set his drink on the table and fixed her with a cold stare. “How’d she get out of her cell, Bernice?”

  Bernice shook her head. “I swear, I have no idea. And that’s the truth.”

  Something in her story didn’t ring true. In fact, it stank like discarded shoe insoles left in the garbage behind a fish market after a heat wave. If the Board members started disappearing before Kathleen escaped, I’d dress up in one of Sara’s straight-laced business suits and marry Art.

  The strangest part of all was that, according to the emotions I was reading from her, Bernice was certain she was telling the truth.

  Chapter Eleven

  In the morning, I left Riley talking business with Art and headed a few buildings over to check out the prison. I doubted I’d find any clues, since Kathleen had escaped two years ago, but it was worth a try. Besides, I’d only ever been in the one building. Sometimes nosiness pays off.

  From the outside, it looked like any of the other dilapidated, whitewashed cracker boxes lining the half circle that formed the complex. I sort of expected the inside to have the same impossible floor plan as the main building, since it looked the same on the outside, but this one had completely different impossible insides.

  I walked thr
ough the front door into an office environment. No atrium. No staircase—nothing remotely similar to the building I’d come from. Four desks, two on each side of the room, faced each other, three of them occupied. A water cooler stood in the corner, a shared printer next to it. Everything was beige—the carpet, the walls, the clothes the people wore.

  All three workers looked up from the paperwork on their desks. In unison, they nodded, then lowered their heads and continued scribbling with ballpoint pens. The room was as sterile of emotion as it was of color.

  A door on the opposite wall stood closed, and I headed for that, half expecting one of the golem office workers to stop me. Apparently, my security clearance gave me access, because no one stopped me from stepping into the hallway and pulling the door shut behind me.

  Beige disappeared to be replaced by a dull gray. To the left, the hall broke off into what I suspected by the clanking noises was a kitchen. I poked my head in there and confirmed my suspicions. A golem in an apron stood washing a plate and cup in the sink. When she was done, she dried them, put them away, then removed another set of clean dishes from the shelf and dropped them into the soapy water.

  I stepped back into the hall, disconcerted.

  Straight ahead, the hall stretched farther than I could see, with no curves or intersections whatsoever. On either side, cell after cell lined the walls. Like the main building, the inside dimensions made no sense when compared to the outside. In fact, the prison made no sense anyway, with its single hall stretching out in to oblivion, as if someone had kept adding on whenever the need arose.

  Except, there didn’t seem to be much need, now. I passed at least twenty cells—ten on each side—before I found one that was occupied.

  The occupant was a sad little thing.

  I almost didn’t see him. His skin matched the dull gray surrounding him. If he hadn’t been muttering to himself, I might have missed him entirely.

  “Oh, hello,” I said.

  He froze and stepped back against the wall. If I hadn’t dealt with gremlins before, I might not have been able to follow the movement and keep from losing track of him. Gremlins match their surroundings like chameleons, melting into scenery. They were simple creatures with simple needs. I couldn’t imagine what this one could have done to get himself locked up, save for petty thievery.

  I smiled at him. “I won’t hurt you. You can come out.”

  Nothing moved against the wall. I shrugged. “Alright, then. I don’t want to upset you.”

  I moved down the line of cells. They were all empty, except for the gremlin’s. I’d expected, for some reason, that I’d be able to find Kathleen’s cell without any information.

  Way to think ahead, Zoey. Did you think you’d find it by osmosis?

  I spun around to return to the office when a chill stabbed my spine like a spike of ice. All the emotions I’ve ever felt poured into me at once, tumbling and jostling, shoving at each other.

  They tasted old, as if lived a thousand lives ago, yet their energy was strong, as if their owner—or owners—stood behind me.

  I gagged and pushed through, slamming my filters shut and building up extra walls to keep the feelings out. Each step I took felt like walking through a swamp of taffy until I succeeded in blocking out most of the bombardment.

  I stood in front of Kathleen Valentine’s empty cell, dismayed. Unlike the naughty gremlin several doors down, hers was more a room than a cell. A thick white carpet covered the concrete floor. Red velvet draped over the queen-sized bed, and pink and white satin pillows lay scattered across it. The cell was triple the size of the others, and contained privacy curtains that could be pulled around the toilet and brass, claw-foot tub.

  Kathleen may have been a prisoner, but they hadn’t tossed her in without some comforts.

  The residue of this powerful empath continued to bombard my barriers until I stepped into her cell.

  It all stopped. All of it.

  In my daily life, despite being closed up tight, I continued to feel people around me at all times. With my walls up and filters closed, I couldn’t read their emotions, but they were there, like when you feel someone standing behind you, or when you can hear people moving around in the next room.

  I hadn’t realized this until I stepped into the cell and it all fell away. I opened my filters and tested, but I was alone. Feeling daring, I tore down my protective walls.

  For the first time ever in my life, I was completely alone with my own emotions. I thought I had been before, but blocking everyone out isn’t the same as being utterly alone.

  Part of me relished the silence. But a bigger part of me had to stave off a panic attack.

  I threw my barriers back up, more for the sense of familiarity and safety than anything else, then backed out of the cell.

  The minute I crossed the threshold, it was as if my ears had popped on an airplane, and I could sense people again.

  The gremlin a few cells down. Riley and Art. Bernice. A large group of people I couldn’t identify, but who probably worked somewhere on the compound.

  My walls were up, so I wasn’t feeling their emotions exactly, but I could feel that emotions were out there being felt by their owners.

  I leaned my forehead against the cool concrete wall and took a deep, shaky breath. Total isolation after a lifetime sharing the lives of others had been a deep shock.

  No wonder Kathleen had crossed over into psycholand. Although, to be fair, she’d already crossed over before that. It’s why they’d put her in there. The isolation sure as hell wouldn’t have helped her, though.

  I had intended to search Kathleen’s cell for clues, but I didn’t feel up to it. Riley could do it, maybe. I couldn’t go back in there. Whatever they’d done to dampen Kathleen’s powers was too strong for me to handle. I trotted down the hall to the office.

  All three golems lifted their heads again when I walked in.

  “Hey,” I said, breathless from the jog. “What’s with the gremlin?”

  They continued to stare at me for a minute, then went back to their work without answering.

  God, I hated golems.

  I scanned the room and found a file cabinet in the corner. No one objected or tried to stop me from thumbing through the files, which were arranged by cell number. I pulled out the file for the gremlin, then grabbed Kathleen’s file, too.

  “I’m just going to take these with me to my room,” I said, knowing nobody was paying attention to me. “I’ll be back later to steal the petty cash and drink all the water in your cooler.”

  No reaction.

  “Seriously, guys. Why do you even have a water cooler?”

  They failed to answer before I left.

  * * *

  With the sort-of-stolen files tucked under my arm, I had one more stop to make. The last time I’d been here, I hadn’t been allowed to see anything other than my room. Well, then the dining room and Bernice’s office, once Maurice had broken me out of my luxurious jail cell.

  This time, I had full run of the place, and I had every intention of poking around—partly for the sake of curiosity and partly because the place never felt right to me.

  I’d asked Art ahead of time, and he’d given me directions to the correct building. I climbed the rickety steps of an identical cracker-box house and let myself in.

  Of course, the layout was totally different again. The first room was a bit like a reception area, though there was no receptionist on duty, and only a few chairs lined the wall. I continued through to a maze of cubicles, all populated with serious-faced goblins wearing headsets and staring at computer screens.

  A couple of goblins strode up and down the aisles, hands clutched behind their backs, eyeing the operators, pausing here and there to discuss possible findings.

  One supervisor goblin with an unruly mop
of black hair saw me and made his way over. He stood about waist high to me, and had dark skin and pointy ears. I’d taken care of two wonderful goblin kids a few months before until we’d found and rescued their mother, Rene.

  “May I help you?” He asked, tipping his head to look at me.

  This was a different from the golems in the prison. Instead of feeling like I had a right to go anywhere I wanted, I felt bad for disrupting their work. After all, I was a civilian intruding on their space. Aegis or not, it didn’t give me the right to barge in unannounced.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize there were so many real people in here. I won’t interrupt.”

  I turned to go, and the goblin grabbed my wrist and spoke in a soft voice. “You’re Zoey, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He smiled. “Please stay. I would love to give you a tour of the call center, and I doubt there’s a person here who doesn’t want to meet you.”

  So much for thinking I was nobody. I’d have to be careful to avoid getting a fat head.

  Randall, the call center manager, took me around to each station and introduced me to the operators. He also took the time to explain exactly what was going on in there.

  Because they worked inside the compound walls, the goblins were some of the few people who knew that the Board members had been murdered, resulting—among other things—in the O.G.R.E. squads wandering off and Hidden breaking the one cardinal law: Stay Hidden.

  The goblins had always monitored the outside world for problems, but in the current circumstances, their workload was ten times what it had been. They monitored traditional media, supernatural and conspiracy-theory blogs, surveillance cameras, phone calls—everything they had to in order to keep the Hidden safe from the public.

  “Doesn’t this upset people, knowing you’re watching their every move?”