Machine

by K. Z. Snow

  “I did. Until this morning. Fan threw me out.”

  “What?” She waved a hand, or so it appeared. “Let’s go into the kitchen. You can explain while I work.” Both hands came up to her head as she drifted through the doorway. “Oh dear goddess, what is going on?”

  Betty had been in the process of doing what Will had planned to do: brewing a pot of tonic. “Fan hasn’t been to see me to replenish his supply,” she explained, pulling a cloth bag stuffed with pungent herbs from the simmering water. “I know exactly how much powder I give him and how long it will last. By my calculations, he ran out six days ago.”

  So that was why the subject of taking his medicine had upset Fan. Between working, maintaining the property, tending to Cloudburst, spending time with Will, and keeping up with his duties as the Eminence of Taintwell, he’d been too busy to visit Lizabetta. Given how proud Fan was, and how seriously he took the concept of responsibility, he was likely ashamed of his lapse.

  Will explained this to the healer. “Yes, that sounds like him,” she said with more resignation than disapproval. “But dear goddess, to throw you out rather than admit to his procrastination—that doesn’t sound like Fan. He cherishes you, William.”

  “There’s more,” Will said, emboldened by this confirmation of Fan’s love. Besides, wasn’t Betty one of Fan’s dearest friends? Confiding in her wouldn’t be like blabbing to Mrs. Scrubb. So he told the healer about Zofen Perfidor’s return and how it had affected Fan. He also told her about the Spiritorium and the beliefs of its master.

  The pieces of Betty’s body became agitated, like drying laundry caught by a rising wind. “What a terrible turn. Fan must be in shreds! And now I must deliver more disturbing news.”

  Oh no. Would Betty add another dark layer to Fan’s melancholia? “What news is that?” Will asked with trepidation.

  Betty hesitated. “I’m afraid I can’t say. I’ll give away another’s person’s secret if I do. I shouldn’t have even mentioned it, but I spoke my thoughts before I could censor myself.”

  “Please, just tell me what’s wrong!” Will blurted out. Why did everyone—Zofen, Fan, this mostly dead witch-woman, even Ulney Rumpiton and Yissi Sweetgrass—have to be so damned impenetrable? Will considered himself a smart but simple man. When he asked simple questions, he expected simple answers, not evasions and obfuscations.

  Betty looked at him with great sympathy. “I’m sorry, William, but I must speak to Fan before I say anything to anybody else. I’ll wait for him to get home. You, however, might want to leave.”

  “I’m tired of being told to leave!” Will cried, shooting up from the table. His nerves were stretched to breaking. “And I’m tired of being kept in the dark!”

  Betty’s arm rose. Her hand reached for Will. He recoiled—how strange to see a body moving in this fashion, as if each part had a mind of its own!—but she touched him in spite of his reaction. Within a few seconds, his gooseflesh smoothed away. He felt soothed. The light pressure of her fingers was comforting, like a buttery, fresh-smelling salve melting into his skin.

  “I appreciate your frustration,” she said. “But you must keep in mind how fragile Fan is right now. You can’t force your presence on him. It’s too important a presence to be forced. He’ll come to you when he’s ready. Be patient, sweet William.”

  MRS. SCRUBB put out a good supper, as she’d implied she would. The food was savory and plentiful but hardly light, and Will overindulged because he was hungry as a buzzard. He conversed with his fellow boarders just enough not to seem unsociable. All three men were bachelors: two Branded Mongrels (one who worked at a forge and the other at a farm) and one Pure (a drummer who was passing through Taintwell on his way west). Will got the impression the drummer was a twor and rather fancied him, but he had no interest in any man’s attention save for Fan’s.

  He built a small fire in his stove after visiting the privy, then donned a nightshirt and sat at the sitting room’s desk. Lying in a pool of lamplight was the diary he’d purchased on his way to Simon’s shop, along with a bottle of ink and a pen. He opened the book and began writing—but didn’t get far.

  Yawning, ready to drop, Will abandoned his effort and blew out the lamp. Moving toward the small bedroom wasn’t difficult. Moonlight paved his way. He crawled beneath one of the quilts Mrs. Scrubb had made while her beloved Major had been off defending his country. The bed was inviting enough, as supper had been filling enough, but Will would much rather have eaten bread and soup with Fan and crawled into his bed. This one not only felt and smelled strange, it seemed as desolate as a bunk roll spread out on the open prairie.

  Fan will be all right with Lizabetta there, Will told himself. Good thing she’d showed up, for he was too exhausted to travel back to Fan’s house and look after him. And who knew where Clancy was?

  He could barely keep his eyes open. His attempt at a journal entry had worn away what little alertness he had left.

  “I love you no matter what,” he whispered to the darkness, “and I always will. Please take care of yourself.”

  Damn it, he’d forgotten to leave a note on Fan’s kitchen table. He’d make a point of doing it tomorrow. He had to take back those damaging untruths he’d spewed.

  Vaguely, as Will let Morpheus coax him toward much-needed rest, he heard the window rattle. He’d neglected to close it. But that was all right. Breathing in a fresh breeze was better than breathing in smoke from the stove. This peaceful night carried no threat.

  II

  The Spiritorium

  HE ALWAYS moved about between dusk and dawn, within a fold from the drape of night. No one, not even the most insomniac, saw or heard him summon his horses to the wagon, saw or heard the large wagon creaking and rumbling through the streets. No one witnessed his cleansings and siphonings, except indirectly. Only those who’d invited him caught glimpses of the tubes that telescoped from the Spiritorium, snaking into portals, glimmering in the moonlight. Only those who’d invited him heard the grinding and whirring of the mechanism housed within.

  When he invited himself, which he often saw fit to do, no one saw or heard anything at all.

  Chapter Eight

  “I TRAVELED all the way over here, so you’re damned well going to drink that tea.”

  “Quit hovering,” Fanule said to Lizabetta, “and I will.” He felt like the sheep excrement that coated his boot soles. At least he’d been able to push himself enough to complete his job at the Pinshinses’. And once home, he’d had enough presence of mind to leave his boots on the rear stoop.

  Were those good signs? Fanule was afraid to speculate. He didn’t want to give himself false hope, for he wasn’t yet out of the woods.

  “I’ve no choice but to hover,” Betty said smartly. “Have you not noticed over the years that gravity doesn’t affect me?” Keeping her head and limbs in close proximity to her torso, she made an effort to sit at the table. Or appear to.

  “Thank you.” Fanule lifted heavy eyelids to look at his friend as he sipped from the mug.

  “Keep going,” she ordered.

  Lacking the energy to argue with her, he drank more.

  “And tomorrow you’ll have your usual two cups. And the next day and every day thereafter. I’ll not tolerate you sacrificing your sanity for your pride. There’s no shame in affliction, Fan.” Betty shook her head, a movement that was always a bit disorienting for Fanule. “Sometimes I wish men were more like women. You’d be so much easier to help.”

  Fanule sighed, finished the tea, and dropped his head to his hands. “So William told you everything?”

  “I don’t know if he told me everything, but he told me enough.” Betty’s hand reached across the table. “I, however, didn’t tell him everything. What I left out is one of the reasons you need to pull yourself together and keep yourself together. To hell with Zofen. Your friends and neighbors and especially that sweet, sweet man who worships you are the people you need to pay attention to, not your ne’er-do-well sire.” />
  A sob hitched in and out of Fanule’s chest before he even knew it was coming. Why did she have to mention William, who likely stopped by only to gather more of his things?

  He squeezed his eyes shut as still more tears—would they never stop?—wet his lashes. “Can’t you leave me be?” he said, feeling broken and raw and helpless.

  “No.” Betty’s voice was firm. “Look at me, Fanule.”

  She never called him by his full name, yet he couldn’t seem to raise his eyes. An all-too-familiar, hellish despair had scooped every ounce of strength out of him and put a black rock in its place. Missing William, knowing he’d mistreated William, fearing he’d lost William only made that rock blacker and colder and heavier. Still, he couldn’t bear the thought of being seen this way by someone so precious to him.

  Perversely, for there was no aspect of this illness that wasn’t perverse, he even blamed William for making him feel worse—for making him feel weak and useless and beyond his own control. Yet in doing so, he made himself feel worse by turning the man he loved into a scapegoat.

  There seemed no way out of this cave of shadows, this restless mob of contradictory thoughts.

  “I hurt all over, Betty, inside and out. All I want to do is go to sleep and never wake up.”

  “That’s the sickness talking,” she said. “Fight it with all your might. You know you can pull out of this. You’ve done it before.” One of her arms moved into Fanule’s view. The ghostly hand snatched up the empty mug and returned it, full, seconds later. “Drink another draught. You need a forceful push to start moving in the right direction. Go back to your regular dosage tomorrow.”

  Fanule stared at the steaming mug of bitterness. He knew it helped him but was just as convinced it wouldn’t. “You fear failure too much,” William had once told him. “You can’t make progress, with anything, if you let yourself be at the mercy of that fear.” Then he’d smiled, and his blue eyes had shone like faith itself, and he’d said, “Regardless of any outcome, you know, I’ll always stand by you.”

  Until yesterday evening. “Perhaps I should stop squandering my love on an ingrate like you.”

  More tears ran down Fanule’s face. He was powerless to stanch the spill, as if he were standing in the rain. He’d been given a gift of inestimable value, and he’d thrown it away.

  Desperate, he drank more medicine. What he needed was a miracle.

  With her “fetching” arm back in place, Betty moved beside Fanule. “I need to tell you something I find troubling, and I pray it helps galvanize your will. But if you think it would pound you down further, I’ll wait. Maybe the situation will resolve itself.”

  “No. Tell me now. I need something to pull me outside of myself. I’m tired of collapsing in on that stone lodged within me.”

  Betty didn’t ask for clarification. She could certainly intuit what he meant.

  “Yesterday,” she began, “shortly before dawn while I was in the forest, I had the strangest feeling I wasn’t alone. At first I assumed it was Clancy, returning to his daytime quarters. I’ve suspected for a while he has a special someone with whom he spends his nights—”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “—but I also know he isn’t yet comfortable sleeping there.”

  “He claims that spending his unconscious hours on Whitesbain Plank Road would make him too vulnerable.” Fanule didn’t tell her the rest of the story: that Simon Bentcross, manly as he was, feigned indifference to his lover’s choice of daytime hideaway, but Fanule could tell it hurt his feelings that Clancy didn’t stay close to him.

  “I see Clancy’s point,” Betty said. “I just pray he didn’t overestimate his safety at his current location.”

  Fanule’s attention was now securely hooked. “That sounds a bit ominous. Tell me what you mean.”

  “As that feeling came over me, the feeling I wasn’t alone, I thought I saw a shimmer of light in the gloom behind the bluff. Not the blinking light of fireflies, not the wavering light of torches, but more like a reflected glint, as if the first sunbeam peeking over the horizon and breaking through the trees had glanced off a dull mirror. At that very moment, my cat made his beware! sound, a muffled howling, growling noise deep in his throat. He doesn’t do that when Clancy is around. Lickshank is quite fond of Clancy.”

  Slowly Fanule rose from his pit, pulled along by Betty’s intriguing tale. She would never betray Clancy’s trust by naming his hideaway, but she didn’t have to. What she’d been saying confirmed what Fanule had believed for a while: Clancy slept in one of the small caves sunk into Barleymead Bluff.

  “I suppose I’m giving away his secret,” Betty said dolefully, “but it can’t be helped.”

  Fanule tried on a reassuring smile that didn’t quite fit. Not yet. “You haven’t given away anything. I deduced the general location of his quarters a while ago. So, did you investigate?” Betty didn’t quail from wandering around a dark wood. She did it every night. After all, nothing could harm her. The harm had already been done.

  The question seemed to unsettle her. Although not in a chair, she was in a sitting position, and her airy hands clasped and clasped above her lap. “Not then, no. I probably should have, but I wanted to deposit the plant matter I’d gathered. Each piece has to be stored in its own way.”

  “But eventually you did have a look?”

  “Yes. The incident kept nagging at me—that burst of soft light, Lickshank’s reaction. I feared for Clancy’s safety. He’s utterly helpless, you know, between daybreak and nightfall. So I had to, I had to check on him.” Ripples ran through her translucent face. “Oh, how it pained me to violate the most sacred of a vampire’s privacies!”

  It was impossible to be unaffected by the distress that continued to shiver through Betty’s features. “And?”

  Her eyes grew larger. “He was gone, Fan,” she pronounced in distinct, dreadful syllables. “Clancy was gone. I checked again today, with the same result. He wasn’t there.”

  “And you didn’t hear him arise last night, or return this morning? You’ve heard no sounds to indicate he’s been up and about?”

  “None,” Betty whispered.

  Fanule absorbed her anxiety. Rarely was Betty fearful. Concern as well as curiosity began to displace that rock inside of him. “Are you sure you searched the right places? And thoroughly?”

  Betty’s head nodded. “I know that bluff like I used to know my own palm. I slipped in and out of every crevice and cranny, even looked for signs of disturbed soil at its base. I recognized Clancy’s sleeping chamber as soon as I saw it.” She made a mewling sound, and when she spoke, her words shook. “Strands of his beautiful hair lay within, and the cave smelled of that fragrance he wears.”

  “Was there”—Fanule swallowed; the question had to be asked—“a pile of dust where his body should’ve been? Or pieces of jewelry and empty clothing? Or something a hunter might’ve… left behind?” He couldn’t bring himself to name the favored weapons. They sickened him. Wooden stakes and iron spikes, crossbow bolts and long, pointed bullets clad in silver. Clancy Marrowbone was his dearest friend, not to mention a former lover, and Fanule could not begin to contemplate the end of his existence.

  “No. Nothing like that,” Betty said.

  Fanule exhaled in relief. “Thank gods. So it appears he’s changed his sleeping quarters, that’s all.”

  “I suppose it’s possible.” Betty didn’t look convinced. “But Clancy once told me that when he finds a place he favors, a place where he feels comfortable and secure, he tends to settle there.”

  “For a while, perhaps, but he’s too cautious to sleep in one place indefinitely. I imagine all it takes is the smallest hint of encroachment—a campfire, a minor rockslide—to undermine his sense of security and make him move.” The more they talked, the more engaged Fanule felt with the reality that existed outside himself. The tonic had likely helped, but it was Betty’s concern for Marrowbone that had forced Fanule to refocus. “It’s the only explana
tion, Betty. Mortals might occasionally kill vampires, but they don’t steal them.”

  She smiled again, although the smile was nothing more than a stretch of her lips. She clearly didn’t feel comforted. “His things are still in my wardrobe, Fan.”

  “We can’t read too much into that. If his new hide isn’t far from the old one, he can still travel quickly to and from your cottage.”

  “He hasn’t left any clothes for me to launder, either.”

  “Does he always?”

  “Not always. Not if he’s in a hurry.”

  In a hurry…. Fanule rose from the table. “I know exactly what will put your mind at ease.” He wished his memory were clearer, but every onslaught of illness scrambled it. “A few nights ago, Clancy stayed in the city to visit with some acquaintances he’d run into. His lover was upset with him, threatened to call it quits if Clancy ever again disappeared without notice. So all I need do is vox Simon Bentcross.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Betty said, more chipper now. “Clancy’s quite smitten by that man—put his own life in danger to save Simon’s life, as I understand—so he wouldn’t intentionally do anything to jeopardize their bond.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. Excuse me a minute.” Fanule went into the parlor, aware of the difference in his footsteps. He was no longer shuffling like an octogenarian with aching joints. After glancing through one of the parlor windows to gauge the progress of dusk—it was November, and darkness closed in early—he had the vox connector patch him through to Simon’s residence. He knew Simon liked to be there before Clancy arrived, so he had time to clean up and fix himself a bite to eat.

  “What do you want, Perfidor?” Bentcross asked straightaway. He sounded more morose than snappish.

  “Sorry if I’m interrupting something, but—”

  “All you’re interrupting is my rather sorry excuse for supper.”