“And Seamus made the tears worse. And then I used his machine to go to the Library to save Elliot. That destabilized things even more.”
“It did. There are natural Doors like you and I. There are ones that appear for no reason. These are not dangerous. Only the ones made by man are.”
He lifted Ihsan’s lifeless body with his front claw and clutched him to his chest. He walked beside her on three legs to an area at the far end of the garden that she knew held a small graveyard.
“Ihsan has been with me for many years,” said Sevilen. He set the man to one side, and Astrid knelt to close his eyelids.
“It wasn’t Neil who killed him,” she said. “It was one of the others.” It was important to her that he knew. He began to dig a hole, and Astrid sat back, letting him pile up the damp earth beside the long, narrow hole.
She kept alert for the golems to return, but they did not. Sending six of them to the void had been too simple. She couldn’t believe that they were dead, and even if they were, Neil still lived.
“It hardly matters which one killed him,” he said. “They act under March’s orders. March wants me dead, but why? And why now?”
“Do you think he’s working with the Seelie?”
“I doubt it. The Twelve are more concerned with humanity than the sidhe are. But almost everyone would rather that my kind vanish into memory. Do you have a coin to place under his tongue?” he asked.
She told him she didn’t.
“No matter,” he said. “Ihsan has earned his way to a good afterlife. He will not need a coin to travel. His good deeds will be currency enough.”
He placed his friend gently in the grave and filled it with earth. And even though he was in dragon form, she could see the pain in his posture. He said a few words in a language she did not understand, presumably Turkish, and then he turned to her.
“Let me get my clothes and I will change back. Then we will go to the void.”
He pushed off the ground and took to the air, covering the distance to the beach in moments. By the time she arrived at the beach, he was again human and clothed.
“I think I can move the entire island to the void,” he said. “But it will take me a minute.”
“You do not have so long,” cried a woman behind them. She was tall and slender with hair so white it was almost transparent. Her skin was an ordinary human shade of medium brown and her eyes were the deep brown of a fawn’s. She was accompanied by three identical men who looked like bodyguards.
“You do me an honor to pay me a call,” said Sevilen. “I suppose you are only returning my surprise visit to your throne room. Queen Bai, I would like to present my friend Astrid, the Door.”
Astrid supposed she ought to curtsy or bow to the Seelie queen, but by the time she thought of it, the queen had looked her up and down and stepped toward her.
“You have failed at your third task,” she said.
She was imposing, frightening even, but Astrid was no longer the easily intimidated girl she had once been.
“I won’t kill my friend.”
“You shall. You will send him into the realm of the dead, and you will do so immediately.”
“Is that so? Well, how about, no? Get me a different task. I’m not killing him.”
“Your human copy is in this world. So is your cousin. And I believe they no longer have the time machines to allow them to escape us.”
Ah, so the Seelie also knew what she and Sevilen knew, that the world had changed.
“Don’t you dare,” said Astrid. “If you touch one hair—”
“Astrid,” Sevilen said, taking her hand and pulling her close. “It will be all right. You can find me.”
“But why?” she whispered. “We can fight them.”
“Perhaps, but what happens after that? Other Seelie would get to Sister and Elliot.”
“We could find them first.”
“And take them where? The void? The Seelie will hunt them until death. This way is best.”
“Why would you do this? You don’t care about Sister and Elliot. You don’t love them.”
“Not them, no.”
He pulled her against his body and kissed her. At first, she was shocked, then concerned with kissing a man in front of the Seelie. But then everyone disappeared and there was only Sevilen, his skin unnaturally warm, smelling like wood smoke and cinnamon. She felt his heart beating very slowly within his chest.
“Find me,” he said.
His kiss left a burning, sweet sensation on her mouth with a metallic tang, like blood.
“I can’t.”
Other Seelie were walking up the beach to join the queen and her entourage, presumably to witness the drake’s death.
“My soul is still in my body,” Sevilen whispered into her ear. “The worlds are tearing apart. You said the geists are coming from the afterlife to this world. You can open a Door. You can find me.”
“It’s time,” said Queen Bai. “Don’t try your tricks like you did with your cousin. If you send the drake to anywhere but death, I will kill your cousin and your human copy slowly.”
Astrid obeyed, making a Door to death. Its mirrored surface quivered, then stilled.
“That’s it?” asked Sevilen. She could tell he was afraid, and he had every right to be.
“Just step through.” Her voice sounded far away, even to herself.
“You are not freed from your obligation,” he said. “Dinner fortnightly. And a piece of art.”
She watched him as he turned and stepped through. The door contracted and disappeared.
She stood for a moment, then turned to the Seelie.
“Get out.”
The queen looked at her, chin high. Astrid took a step toward her.
“I said, get out! You are not welcome here. I have fulfilled my three tasks, and now I am free of you. I banish you from this island from now until—until forever. This is my home now, and I order you from it.”
The queen watched her, perhaps taking her measure, and Astrid met her eyes. All her fury and hatred burned within her and she was sorely tempted to send the whole mass of them straight into the void. Only her fear of what the Seelie would do to the loved ones of the queen’s murderer stopped her. The queen turned to her entourage, said a few words, and they walked down the beach. Astrid saw a boat, the modern kind, anchored offshore and three smaller boats pulled up on the sand.
She waited until they had all taken the smaller boats and boarded the larger boat. It sailed away. Then she walked back into the house and paced up and down the halls, through the small rooms that served as galleries and then outside, through the gardens filled with wonders. They did not interest her today, but she needed to walk and think.
How did Sevilen have such confidence in her? It was just like when Elliot had been sentenced to death by the Seelie, and he had asked her to carry out his sentence. He had been so confident that she would figure out a way to save him. She had done so by making a Door to the Library and then later getting him out. He had always known she would get him out, but that was because everyone knew that he’d still be in the Time Corps when he was older.
Now, time had been reset. Everything was happening again, happening twice, but with variations. Neil was a golem again, enslaved to March. And again she was a small, ordinary person up against forces she could neither control nor fully understand.
The whole world was reliving a story, a twice told tale, but this time, there were no older versions of the Time Corps to give them comfort. And none of them could possibly know how the tale would end.
Chapter 27
“It’s a boy,” said the obstetrician, and Felicia leaned forward to view the wriggling blood-covered child, still connected to her by the snaking gray umbilical cord. He was deep pink,
and after the nurse suctioned his mouth, he let out a high cry.
She delivered the afterbirth and the staff weighed and examined the baby. Then the nurse murmured something to the obstetrician that Felicia could not understand. He nodded in acknowledgment, and Felicia thought she caught a look of concern pass over his face. He went to examine the baby.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s his feet,” the doctor said, handing her the warm, squirming bundle. “I’ll have a specialist come later to look at him. He can discuss options.”
She opened the blankets to see that his tiny feet had an exaggerated big toe, almost like an ape. She touched his foot, and his tiny toes curled around her finger with a tight grip. The nurses did their work while she studied her child, and after a long time, they left the two of them alone.
“Like your daddy,” she breathed against his little head. He was perfect, and she wouldn’t let anyone do a thing to his feet. She held him, studying him, memorizing every detail of him for a long while.
“A Halloween baby,” said Janeiro, stepping through one of his Doors. “I’m sure that’s lucky somewhere.”
“He’s already proving lucky. There hasn’t been an earthquake or void wyrm here the entire time. We’ve run for so long that I’m surprised they aren’t here already.”
“I’ve been working overtime to ensure that they stay away. I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you when he was born. But I had to stand guard.”
“There wasn’t time anyway.”
Her labor and delivery had been fast, unusually fast for a first pregnancy. Just before labor had started, Janeiro had brought a plate of sugar cookies from his sister September, telling Felicia that they were a gift. She had gladly eaten a few, and afterward had such a feeling of peace and well-being that the beginnings of the labor pains hadn’t frightened her at all.
“Was there something in those cookies from your sister?” she asked.
“Nothing harmful, I promise. No drugs. They were just sent to relax you. That speeds up delivery. I didn’t want you in one place for too long. You’d both be sitting targets.”
“It worked a little too well. There wasn’t even time for an epidural. But you should have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure it would work myself. September’s cooking can affect people under normal circumstances, but people dealing with birth and death … those are a little different. It might not have done anything at all.”
“Where are we, anyway? I didn’t want to sound like a lunatic by asking the staff.”
“Los Angeles. We’re in the hub world, as you all used to call it. I made sure your calendar would align, so the child wouldn’t be born before it was conceived. I figured that would add stability to his existence. But I couldn’t take you to your home world. This place was easier to fortify to keep you safe. My brother helped me.”
“March?”
“No, November. He spends a lot of time in this world, so I thought this place was a safer option.”
“Have you spoken with your brothers and sisters? You said yesterday they were close to finding a way to keep the baby safe.”
“We’ve talked. But first, let me look at this little one.”
She let him hold the baby, and Janeiro looked him over like a proud uncle, examining his little hands and studying his small, serious pink face.
“Name?”
“Luke Seamus.”
Janeiro kissed the baby on the forehead, and Felicia got the distinct feeling that it was some sort of ritual, like a mark of protection.
“What was that?”
“Just a kiss.”
But she knew he was lying. She wasn’t used to that. Janeiro was a straightforward person, loyal and decent though occasionally too blunt. He’d leave facts out or refuse to answer, but he had never lied to her, not that she knew of.
“I want you to know that the Twelve are more like you humans than anything else,” he said. “You think we know things, but we often don’t. Some of us chose a side and some didn’t, but none of us ever had the full picture. We still don’t. We’re just foot soldiers. Watchers and guards.”
“But you said the Twelve would know how to keep the void wyrms from following us.”
“I do.”
The way he looked at Luke, with something like sadness, set off every maternal instinct she had.
“Give him back to me.” She couldn’t keep the strain from her voice.
“Oh, I won’t drop him. He’s fine.” He stepped back, away from the bed.
“I want him now. Give him to me.”
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed onto her IV pole. The birth had been painful, of course, but now she was glad she hadn’t had the epidural. She could move and walk, albeit painfully.
“Janeiro!” she said. “Please.”
“The pawns on the board are just that. They don’t run the game. And sometimes there’s a sacrifice, and a piece is removed from the board.”
“You can’t hurt him!” she lurched forward, but Janeiro made a Door and appeared across the room.
“I won’t. He’ll be alive. He’ll be safe. But he’s hastening the destruction of the worlds.”
“He’s a baby!”
“I’m sorry. You’re not the only mother who made a great sacrifice. I know how it is. ‘Thine own soul a sword shall pierce.’”
“Please,” she said, moving closer, pretending to feel more pain than she did. Maybe she could get close enough and snatch back the baby. “Please.”
“Your sacrifice will save the worlds.”
She leapt for him, but the moment her hands reached Luke, he and Janeiro were gone. There was only the empty hospital air, and then she hit the floor hard. The pain in her knees and hands was nothing. Her son was gone.
A cry tore its way from her throat. Gone. He was gone. That man took him, and she had no idea where. Any place. Any time. Any world. Never was a child so lost as her little Luke, and she was helpless to do anything about it.
But no. Not helpless. Not weak. She was something new now. And she understood something she had never understood before. She understood why you never got between a mother animal and her baby. Because the mother will kill you without hesitation. She would never hurt another person, not without very good reason, but for her child she wouldn’t hesitate. She would do anything to save him.
She would get Luke back. If it took her until her dying moment, she would get him back. The Twelve, the Five, the One, the Thousand, she would fight them all. She would take on the devil himself, if such a being existed. She’d tear apart all the worlds if she had to.
This was the hub world in Los Angeles. Janeiro had separated her from everyone she knew. Her family would be in her home world, her husband in another, and her son somewhere else, but she was here and she didn’t need to open up her dream journal to know what existed in the hub world.
Pulling open the overnight bag she had carried with her through the worlds these many months, she went through a plan in her mind. She wouldn’t report Luke missing, as the police couldn’t help and talking to them would only waste time. She’d walk out of here, doing her best not to look like a patient, and get him back herself.
She pulled on the comfortable tee shirt and loose pants she had brought for wearing after the birth, then put on socks and sneakers.
Janeiro had been her friend. Her trusted friend. He had saved her and protected her during her pregnancy. His betrayal hurt, and under other circumstances, she might have raged or wept at the pain of it. But now, there was no time for that. Pain and rage would come later, when she had the luxury of the time to feel them. But now, she had to keep a clear head and figure out what to do.
Money. She needed money for a cab. She had some bills in her wallet, but wasn’t su
re if currency was the same in this world. But gold, that was always worth something. She had gold earrings and could pawn them. She’d walk if she had to. She’d do whatever was necessary.
Before now, she had been a time traveler, a wife, a Civil War nurse, a twenty-first century medical student. She had traveled between worlds, escaped void wyrms and crashed a monstrous machine into the Mississippi River. But now she was Luke’s mother.
She zipped up her coat. She might be bleeding and weak, in pain and exhausted, but it didn’t matter. Her child needed her.
Chapter 28
Hazel Dubois stood on the deck of the passenger steam ship, leaning as far over the prow railing as she could. This was the closest thing to heaven she could imagine, the wide green sea, dark and filled with living things, the wind, cold and bracing, the sky so high and empty, the feeling of flying over the water’s surface.
As a woman traveling alone, she was already an oddity on the ship, so when a gentleman stood beside her and asked her where she was headed, she didn’t hesitate to look him in the eye and answer honestly.
“I’m going to meet someone,” she said. “And his family.”
“Ah,” he said, and she knew he thought she was speaking of a suitor or fiancé.
She knew she ought to ask about his destination and feign interest in how he was enjoying his voyage, but she wasn’t working and thus had no obligation to entertain a strange man. She was in possession of a good amount of the Professor’s money, no one knew who or what she was, and she was not in a position to need anything from anyone. It was a delightfully freeing feeling, almost as good as flying over the water.
After a few more questions, which Hazel answered in the shortest manner possible while still remaining polite, the man gave up. She felt bad for a moment, but she wasn’t interested in making social connections. Besides, it wasn’t as if she could tell him that her friend was a prisoner and that her first stop in Clonakilty would be at the police station. After that, she would find the Professor’s family and figure out what they ought to do.
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 131