“What sort of experiment?” she asked, drawing closer.
Hazel stood, and Seamus watched as she shook out her skirts and approached the girl, friendly and benign. If the girl went back inside and sent someone to fetch the police, their trip would be for naught.
“It’s an experiment involving air currents,” said Hazel.
“Why at night?” said the girl. “The air currents are the same during the day.”
Ah, so the girl was clever. That made her dangerous to them, but she was also curious, and they could use that to their advantage to delay her.
Hazel must have had the same thought. She said, “The cool air and the moisture from the land interact in a unique way at night, especially late like this. It’s complicated, but interesting. Would you like to see?”
The girl hesitated, glanced back at the dark windows of the building, and then nodded.
Yes, they had her, Seamus thought.
As a novice, she would not have taken her perpetual vows and thus could leave the cloister. It would still be an act of disobedience since she did so without permission, and thus a sin, but he was in no place to judge the sins of such a simple girl. His own deeds weighed far heavier on the scales.
“Tighten down these fastenings, if you would,” Hazel said to the novice, and the girl knelt to do so.
Good, thought Seamus. Get her to participate in the crime. Now, she was on their side.
“Have you ever seen anything strange around here?” asked Hazel in a conversational tone. “Like the air wavering. Or any people appearing that ought not to?”
“Nothing I can think of, no.”
“What about disappearances?” asked Seamus. “Anyone go missing?”
“One of the other novices ran away, but she must have gone somewhere far off, because she didn’t go back to her family. We never heard of her again.”
A disappearance was interesting, but not conclusive. He powered up the machine and scrambled over to take note of the dials on a larger box he had rigged to take more detailed readings than his smaller handheld device.
Once he had taken note, he cranked up the power on the signal generator, followed by the signal amplification device. The air crackled, like it did during an electrical storm, and he pulled the lantern closer to get a better look at the readings.
“Oh!” cried the novice, and Seamus looked up.
Another nun stood before them, but she was not alive, not physically at least. She was grayer and parts of her elongated and snapped back into shape, as if she was unused to being in that form. She was elderly, but stood straight and strong. She looked straight at them, one by one, and as her gaze fell on Seamus, he involuntarily drew back. The air around her shimmered.
“I know her,” breathed the novice. “That’s Sister Mary Benedicta. She died of a fever a few months after I entered.”
Seamus leapt for the machine to shut it off and flipped the switch, but the ghost still stood there, regarding them. Behind her, another figure appeared, this one less distinct, but most definitely a man.
The novice crossed herself but did not move.
“Shut it off,” said Hazel.
“I already have,” said Seamus. A third figure came through behind the other two. The figure of Sister Mary Benedicta looked up at the cloister and the chapel.
“Oh, Professor,” whispered Hazel. “What have we done?”
Chapter 37
Neil picked up note that lay on the kitchen counter. It was from March, telling him that if he was not back by that evening, Neil needed to give fresh water to the captive drake. She would not need to eat for another few days. March included instructions on the location of the drug and the dosage. It should be added to the water tank on the side of the cage and it would dissolve immediately. Simple. March had even left a key.
That night, Neil drove to the tiny building, unlocked the padlock and went down the metal staircase, deep underground. He located the room with the powdered drug, measured out the proper dosage into a little vial and pushed in a rubber stopper.
When he arrived at the side of the cage, the drake slithered up to the bars, enormous and strong. He discovered with surprise that he was genuinely afraid of her.
“Now that March is gone, perhaps we can speak frankly,” said the drake.
“What would you like to speak about?”
“Killing him.”
Neil couldn’t hide his surprise. “I don’t want to kill him.”
“Perhaps not, but you do wish to be free.”
“I am free.”
“No more than I am. If March wants you to do something, you do it.”
“He explained things to me. How we fight for human freedom, the freedom to choose one’s own path, the only true good.”
“And you believed him?”
He could not look into her cold black eyes and lie. Behind those bars, she held no power over him. There was no compulsion for him to speak the truth. But she was correct that they were kin, in a sense, and he would not dishonor their kinship with lies.
“I think about it,” he said. “How can a thing like me be good if there is no good and bad? How can rules and obedience be evil if there is no evil?”
“A good question,” she said. “One worthy of study. You see, he denies you your freedom. Just as he does with me. According to his own version of good and evil, he is evil.”
“He has been kind to me.”
“I’m sure he has. Love will make one follow a wicked man. A rogue golem is a dangerous thing, and he does not want you to disobey him. I have met your brothers, some of them, and they are more … internally malleable than you are.”
“I know you want me to free you.”
“Of course. I do not hide that fact.”
“I won’t be tricked.”
“I have said nothing tricky, nothing deceptive. You will do what you choose to do. An act of free will.”
If he hadn’t known better, he would think she was smiling, though her face remained as reptilian and inhuman as ever.
“Do you have a name?” he asked her.
“I do. But I will not give it to you. You may call me Coaxoch if you want a name.”
“If March recaptures you, he’ll kill you for certain.”
“I know. And I might say the same to you. Once you outlive your usefulness, once you disobey, he will kill you.”
“Did you really mean it when you said you would kill him if you got free?”
“Yes. But one of the other drakes might do it instead. March has never let any of your brothers come see me alone, so either he trusts you or something happened to him. I doubt he trusts you, not after we talked last time. You were too interested in me. Too curious. Too understanding. He saw it. But then, why not send one of your brothers to drug me? March is up to something and sending you was a risk. So I must conclude that something has happened to him. One of my kind may already have ended his life.”
“I think I would know.”
“Would you? Do you think you would feel a sense of freedom?” She seemed genuinely interested in the answer.
“I suppose so.”
“There’s one way to put it to the test. But remember, if you are wrong and he is alive, he might kill you.”
“He loves me.”
“That will not stop him. He has a higher purpose. Or a lower one, depending on how you classify his type. He wants humans to make their own way, to follow their passions. Without rules. Without restrictions. It is a lovely notion, if you don’t know too much about human nature. You and I are inhuman and may have trouble comprehending them. But you are young and I am old. I can tell you, without standards of good and evil, however they are set, man descends into barbarity. Strength gives power and power is kept with violence. It
is always so.”
“I would not see them enslaved to falsehoods and rules only to keep people docile. Isn’t that worse?”
She thought about it. “Perhaps. If complete freedom holds no true goodness, and standards of behavior do not either, then you can pick one was well as the other.”
“Then what is goodness?”
“A question I do not think the two of us can address while speaking through bars. Or ever. Our kinds are not natural allies.”
A question rose in his mind, and he decided to ask her. “Did you have children? Are any of the void wyrms your own?”
“Not now. My children are grown. But some of their children are still young and live in the void.”
“I did not like the idea of killing them. They are hungry babies. I can see that.”
“They do not want to destroy your world, only to live and eat, like all young. The drakes don’t want your world destroyed either.”
“But there are earthquakes and the void wyrms are eating people. March wants to stop this from happening.”
“March seeks to be the only thing who can open the Doors between worlds. But already, the worlds are in peril. Either with warrens between them or sealed off from one another, entropy will win out. The events are already in motion, and though March can kill as many drakes as he likes, he cannot stop it. He knows this, I believe.”
“What will happen?”
“I am not sure. I cannot see the future.”
“If I free you, I will have to run, to hide from March.”
“We both will, if I don’t kill him immediately. And I will not promise to help you,” she said.
“This might be a trick,” said Neil. “A trap set by March to test my loyalty.”
“It might.”
He pulled out the vial of white powder and studied it.
“Tell me about your life before you were here,” he said.
“If it will help you,” she said, and told him tales of her life in Mexico, of soaring over the land and the sea, of the people who lived in her land, how they honored her and how she watched over them.
“They were a people of laws. They had their gods who demanded certain things and forbade others. It was not always peaceful, but it was stable, in its way. But things changed, as they always do, and the men of you color came. They killed some of the people, enslaved others, married a few. You know how it goes.”
“Where did you go?”
“I spent some time in the void, but preferred this world. There are still mountains and forests where I can go, and like most of my kind, I can take human form if I wish. I had kin, at first. Though many were forced to leave, I was not, as I am a peaceful being. Most of the time.”
They regarded each other. The moment had come.
He knew. He had known what he would do from the first moment he had seen her curled up in the cage.
He slipped the vial into his coat pocket and walked away.
Chapter 38
“You killed him?” cried Felicia.
“No,” said Janeiro. “I said we were going to death. The child is alive.”
Janeiro took Felicia’s upper arm more roughly than necessary and created a Door. She had come with him through many others and had always been able to see where they were going. It was like stepping through a picture frame into another place. But this time, the center of the picture was mirrored. Every instinct in her told her to avoid going through, that it was beyond mere danger. It was annihilation. But Luke was there, and he needed her. She stepped through, Janeiro’s hand gripping her arm.
“This isn’t heaven,” said Janeiro. “Or hell, either.”
They stood in a village of cottages and small homes with roofs of both thatch and slate. The buildings were stuccoed in white, wood paneled or walled with brick, but every color was washed out, as if the very air in this place pulled the life out of things. The village looked like a mishmash of architectural styles and eras, with both gaslights and wall torches illuminating the dirt road.
The hills farther off were grayish, though the plants nearer to the town had a little more color. To Felicia, they seemed like aquarium plants, simulations of the real things.
“This way,” said Janeiro, pulling her down a narrow road. Gauzy spirits floated here and there, some solid and others less so, a few busy going somewhere while others simply hovered and observed.
“What is this place? Where is my baby?”
Janeiro didn’t answer, but dragged her between two buildings, emerging near an open-fronted stall. Inside was an unlit forge and an anvil to one side. Various blacksmithing tools lined the wall.
“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, understanding what he intended to do to the handcuffs that linked them. “You’re taking me to my baby first.”
“He’s here, but I’m not taking you to him attached to me like this. I have to manage the rip that opened at Luna Park as well as the time tears your husband made. All of you have created a lot of problems.”
He muttered something unflattering under his breath as he pulled a large pair of iron shears from the wall with his free hand, spun around and shoved her wrist down on the anvil.
“Hold still. I don’t want to accidentally hurt you.”
She was about to pull away when a boy of about ten approached. He was better formed than the spirits, and his expression was watchful and intelligent. He had dark, curly hair and golden brown eyes the same shade as her own. He wore a baggy green tee shirt, and as he rounded the edge of the stall, she saw his blue jeans, rolled up at the bottom. His feet were bare. They were his father’s feet.
She felt the crack of the metal as the connecting chain between the wrist cuffs broke apart. This boy, his face, his shape, were all known to her and yet so strange. She took in his hands, long-fingered and oddly clean compared to the rest of him, his narrow shoulders, the shape of his mouth, his teeth, including the slightly crooked second incisor, his quick and questioning look between Janeiro and her, and back to Janeiro.
“Hi, Janeiro,” the boy said. He looked genuinely happy to see him. “Did you bring me anything?”
“I did, as a matter of fact,” said Janeiro. “I brought your mother.”
The boy looked her over, interested, but in a detached sort of way. He had not expected this, she knew. He had not asked for her.
“My God, what did you do?” she turned to Janeiro, but he was gone.
“He must have something he has to do,” said Luke. “He has to go suddenly sometimes.”
“You’re Luke,” she said, wanting it to be true, but fearing the answer.
“Yes.”
He looked more wary now, and she supposed he was reasoning through things. Here she was, recently handcuffed to Janeiro, who Luke seemed to like, looking crazed and disheveled.
She had to keep her head. She couldn’t break down or cry or snatch him into an embrace, not if she wanted this child to be comfortable around her. Her fury and pain would have to wait. Luke didn’t need to see her despair over their lost years apart.
“Have you always lived here?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you have a family?” she said.
“No.”
“Then who raised you?”
“Janeiro. But he leaves me alone now that I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
She watched as he took the iron shears and reached up high, tiptoeing to hang them back on the wall.
“You’re hurt,” he said. “I can see by how you stand.”
“I just had a baby.”
He glanced at her stomach, still swollen, and then at her face.
“Want to come with me? I have a place where I take care of people.”
“Sure,” she said. She didn’t want to stay standing
in this blacksmith’s stall, and now that she had finally found him, she was intensely curious about him.
“Why did Janeiro bring you?” he asked. “He usually just brings food and clothing and medical supplies.”
“I made him bring me. I wanted to find you.”
He did not answer or look at her, and she sensed how out of place he would be among ordinary people. A spirit slid past them, and he took her into a long building with several square windows along the side.
It was a hospital, of sorts. A spirit hospital. Beds lined the walls, just as in a medical ward from the nineteenth century, and spirits lay in most of them.
“You can lie down, if you want,” he said.
“No. I want to stay with you.”
“I have work to do. But you can help. Janeiro told me my mother was a doctor.”
She hated Janeiro now, but he had not lied to the boy. She wondered how much Luke knew.
A spirit nearby rolled over in bed, her dark eyes locking on Felicia’s face. She pulled her hand from inside her blanket and held it out, palm up.
Luke stepped forward, kneeling beside her. Neither of them spoke, and the boy and the spirit simply looked at one another. Then Luke stood and brought her a glass of water from a nearby jug. She sat up and drank.
“How can they drink?” asked Felicia. “And how can they need medical care?”
“They’re thirsty. Or hungry. Or they have a disease or a wound or pain of some kind.”
“But why? They’re dead.”
“This is the place some of the spirits come to when they’re dead,” he said, moving to the next bed to check on a man’s broken arm. “They come here to be healed and to suffer.”
“How can it be both?”
“Because this is where justice can be done. Justice before they go on to the final place. These people here, they did bad things, but they were sorry for them. I don’t ask them, but sometimes they tell me what they did. That’s part of justice too, admitting what they did. They hurt people when they were alive. They beat their spouses or children. They raped or attacked people. Some killed people. Once there was a regiment of men who gave diseased blankets to a village. They came in with terrible sores and fevers.”
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 136