The light burned in silence.
Norse’s laugh was cold and harsh. “What are you talking about?”
“Haven’t you noticed it by now, Alex? You have a demon in you.”
• • •
Liam dove for the console, flying more than running, a horizontal line above the earth. The gun spoke.
He didn’t know what being shot would feel like. Bullet scars on his torso suggested he must have known, several times, but that had been during his possession, and he doubted demons (or humans ridden by them) felt pain the same way as mortals of the unmodified type. But all the stories he had heard suggested he would have felt something.
He didn’t. The homunculus fired three times more, but Liam was behind Norse’s control panel by then, breathing hard, glancing down, no blood, heart racing, sweating everywhere at once.
God. Grace.
He risked a glance around the panel’s edge—she lay on the ground, unmoving, in front of her chair.
No. She couldn’t be, she couldn’t have. He wouldn’t allow it.
But—
Her arms were in front of her. Somehow. And there was something wrong about her shoulders beneath the jacket.
As he watched, they clicked back into their sockets. One of Grace’s hands lay in front of her on the bare earth. It was bleeding.
The homunculus’ attention drifted toward her. Liam shouted, “Hey! Ugly!”
Two more gunshots answered, splintering the panel.
Grace moved.
• • •
“A demon? Impossible.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Asanti said. “The Codex has been hidden for hundreds of years, and yet you hunted this place down, yourself, alone.”
“I’m smart. I have money, and magic.”
“So do others who want this book. Do you think you are smarter, more powerful, more rich, than the Maitresse?”
Norse wavered. His outlines smudged, and while he did not lose balance his form shifted from side to side, as if he were a painting on a flag blown in a high wind. Asanti stepped forward. “I’m more ruthless,” Norse said. “More aggressive. Tradition binds the others, blinds them.”
“While your eyes were open. Because something opened them for you. You stayed one step ahead of us this entire hunt.”
“I started before you.”
“You knew where to go. You found the one book in an archive that might have helped you; you killed the Pythia just before we could ask her how to beat you. The world’s full of strange coincidences, but they do stack up.”
“You’re grasping at straws. You want to make me doubt myself.”
“I want you to doubt yourself,” Asanti said, “because there’s a monster in your mind, and it’s ridden you this far because it wants that book, to call its other monster friends to play.”
“I would have seen—”
“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t. You have your resources, your powers—but what friends would have held you back from the brink? Who would have noticed the demon dig its claws into your mind?”
• • •
Grace moved faster than anything Liam had ever seen—blurring to tackle the homunculus, which staggered beneath her. She kicked its leg and the metal bent. He’d seen her fight before, but never like this.
She was not just good. She was unnatural.
Magical.
He’d known, of course. Suspected, but never asked, because if he’d asked he would have had to accept that this person who fought beside him was touched by the same force that had claimed his mind and destroyed his old life.
She was magical. And she’d saved him.
He heard footsteps outside: soldiers coming. Grace had the homunculus distracted, and he could probably figure out this panel, but she’d be exposed. Fast as she was, he doubted she could outrun fire from automatic weapons.
Dammit.
He edged toward the tent flap and hid behind Norse’s burbling blood tanks. A merc stepped through, saw Grace, raised his rifle—and Liam took the rifle from him and hit him in the face.
This, at least, felt right.
• • •
Norse blurred again. “I learned the secret ways of power. Demons answer when I call them. Magic obeys my command!”
“Magic commands,” she said, “and you obey.”
“No!” Desperation shone naked in his eyes.
“Look into your past, Alex. Remember the night you were alone, and scared, and a voice whispered to you, offering freedom, offering control. You let that voice lead you, and you’ve been led ever since. You’re being led now. Is it you that wants the book, or the voice? You were scared, and something crept inside your skull and used that fear to rule you. Tell me if I’m wrong.”
“I . . .” He tried to walk toward the book, and fell to his knees. He tried to speak, but his mouth was an inky smudge, his words a hopeless wail.
Sal wanted to be sick.
Asanti advanced toward the light and the podium. “That book belongs with a person who will not let it rule her.”
The cross on the golden figure burned with shadow.
She passed through the light, bowing a little beneath its weight, as if it struck her like falling water. Then she was through, and the light failed.
She touched the Codex Umbra, and closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the burning light was in her. She wept.
Menchú took the shroud from his shoulder bag and held it out. “Asanti. Give me the book.”
She bared her teeth in something that was not quite a smile.
• • •
It is, Liam reflected bitterly on occasion, much harder to hit people so they stay down than media suggests. Even Peggy Carter indulged in the old one-punch knockout from time to time. To be fair, Liam did hit the first mercenary with the butt of his own gun and then trip the second without getting shot himself—but while struggling for merc two’s gun, of course merc one got up, which divided Liam’s attention because he had to break that guy’s knee with the rifle, then shift back to head-butt the second, duck out of the way of a rifle blow, oh shit he’s going for the knife, okay, hit him in the throat, maybe this time—
At which point he realized he’d kept his eyes off merc number one too long, long enough for the guy to go for his sidearm and—
Merc number one’s arm broke at the elbow with a sickening crunch, and Grace stood over him, gun in hand, covered in deep cuts that closed as Liam watched. Grace spun a glorious circle and kicked merc number two on the temple, and he fell.
“You,” Liam said. “I mean.”
“Can we talk about this later?”
The mirror erupted with light.
“Sure.”
She raised the gun and took aim.
The light died.
Menchú, Asanti, and Sal stood in the tent. Menchú held a shroud-wrapped book.
Behind them, the mirror warped back to its initial shape, and shattered.
On the ground, among broken pieces of homunculus, the bundle of skin split and opened like a flower. A man lay within, weeping.
“Sorry we missed the party,” Sal said.
Grace ejected the magazine and tossed the gun away. “Took you long enough. Where’s Norse?”
Asanti shook her head. “Somewhere else.”
5.
They escaped.
There was a tense bit with Grace laying down covering fire while Liam rammed a stolen jeep through a perimeter fence and Menchú performed CPR on Mr. Alhadeffs, while Sal herself drove, but the salient point remained: escape, Codex Umbra in hand, wrapped in the shroud, harmless for the moment. They took Alhadeffs to a hospital.
Then it was time for a party.
Liam brought whiskey he’d smuggled in his carry-on bag; Grace changed into clothing that was, at the very least, less bloodstained, and ran out for mixers. Sal DJ’d for the first hour until Menchú took over. The Father’s phone turned out to contain zero applications save what came pre-install
ed, and sixty gigs of soul.
Sal sang; she danced with the Archivist. She poured drinks and muddled cherries in them. Why not? They’d won.
“How did you know?” she asked Asanti, between dances.
“I didn’t,” she said. “But neither did he.”
“What?”
“We’re not so different, Norse and I. I hit him where I knew it would hurt the most—because it would hurt me. It’s true, our search has been plagued by coincidences, but as many have helped us as hindered us. Likely Norse was seduced by a demon; I wouldn’t put it past him. But mere suspicion in that kind will do as if for surety, as the Bard says.” She leaned back against the wall, and closed her eyes. “The mind’s our strongest tool, Sal. It can take anything in the world apart, including itself.”
And Diana Ross still sang.
After a while, Sal couldn’t bear it any more. She stepped out onto the balcony, drink in both hands, staring out over rooftops toward the harbor, and thought about underwater chains.
“Hey.” She didn’t turn to look. Liam joined her by the railing. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “You could have died.”
“Not really. Grace has my back.”
“Even now that you know she’s magic?”
“Can’t say I’m wild about that, but.” He knocked back the last of his whiskey. “Nah. I have a bad history with magic and demons both. I can’t blame her for being close with her past, given that. But we have to look out for one another.”
“I guess so.” Melting ice in her glass clinked and settled into a new formation.
“So, come on. Apocalypse averted. Our biggest coup in—well, since I joined, at least.” He offered her his hand. “As friends, okay?”
“Thank you.” She took his hand, and felt the strength she knew there. “But it’s been a long day. I almost got you killed. I need some rest.”
“Of course. Fine.” He didn’t sound as if it were, but he didn’t press her, either. “Take care of yourself.”
They walked back into the party together, but he stayed, and she returned to her room alone.
• • •
There is a house, somewhere—not in this world, or at least not in the part of this world you’ll ever visit if you’re lucky. Can you remember the last time you felt the sun? Can you feel its warmth on your face?
If so, you’re probably safe.
But even if you are—trust me. There is a house, somewhere, and in that house is a boy named Alex, and in that house Alex runs, screaming, from a firelit room. He runs toward something. He hasn’t reached it yet.
• • •
Sal closed her hotel room door. In darkness, she walked to the bathroom, and closed that door too. Fluorescent lights carved shadows from her face. Moths fluttered against the open window’s screen.
She stared into her own reflection’s eyes.
“I know you’re in there,” she said, cautiously, as if testing whether she could speak the words aloud.
Nothing happened.
“You overplayed it in the library bathroom. But then, I guess you had to—win now, or walk, isn’t that right? You couldn’t afford to let Norse get your number.”
Crickets chirped.
“Like Asanti said: you gave me hunches that always led us almost right. You sent Grace and Liam in to die, knowing the homunculus would catch them—because you wanted them out of the way. You made sure we found the library. You made sure I remembered where to go at the right time. You even helped us work the spell. I wondered, dammit.” Her throat choked off her breath. Her eyes burned. A tear rolled down the curve of her cheek. She saw the tear, but could not feel it. “I wondered why silver tarnished so fast on me. I wondered why I could close your book with my bare hands.”
She was wrong. The mind can take anything apart, even itself. This was stress, and terror, and the afterglow of magic. That was all.
“Give me my brother back, you son of a bitch.”
She couldn’t finish the words.
Her eyes closed.
When they opened, they were pools of blood, and from her tongueless mouth a voice of fire answered: “No.”
Episode 12: Puppets
By Brian Francis Slattery
1.
A man in a tan jacket, hands in his pockets and mumbling to himself, headed across the courtyard toward the Vatican Palace in the early morning light, weaving among the tourists and people idling in the morning sun. At first there wasn’t anything about him that drew the attention of the police or the Swiss Guard. He just walked like he knew where he was going. Then something changed in his step; it was too quick, too deliberate, and getting faster.
A policeman noticed his dark, moving shape in the crowd, the way a lifeguard at the beach notices the shadow of a shark in the water. He put his handset to his mouth to tell a couple other officers. He headed over to investigate.
The man in the tan jacket noticed the policeman, too, and further quickened his pace. He stopped weaving and started to make a straight line for the palace. He jostled a woman trying to take a picture, bumped shoulders with a tourist walking the other way. Hey, the tourist said. The man in the jacket didn’t look back. His pace was even faster now, almost a run.
The policeman moved through the crowd toward the man and radioed for backup; two other policemen responded. The second officer approached the man in the jacket from behind, the third from the side.
The man broke into a run. A sound came from him, a whine that burst into a roar too big for a human throat. The third policeman reached him first and grabbed one of his arms. The man tried to throw him off, but the policeman wouldn’t let go. The man leapt forward, still in the direction of the palace. That was when his skin began to change. It started to shine, to shimmer, until it was almost translucent. Then it tinted a splotchy red. The man kept running.
The first policeman yelled at the crowd to clear the square. Most followed the order. A few whipped out their phones to take videos. The phones didn’t work.
The second policeman caught up to the man from behind and tackled him to the ground. The third policeman had one arm. The first policeman ran and pinned the other one down.
“Calm down, sir,” the first policeman said.
The man roared again, louder than before. A torrent of words, in a language none of the officers had ever heard before, rushed out of his mouth. They sounded like curses, old and foul.
Then the man blistered all over, in seconds. His skin cracked open and smoke poured out. Blood burned off before it could flow, and the policemen jumped away as the man self-immolated in front of the Vatican Palace, so fast that he left his clothes behind—pants, socks, jacket, and all—singed and smoking but still there.
“What the hell was that?” the third policeman said.
The second policeman just stared, wide-eyed, shaking his head.
“Back!” the first policeman yelled at the crowd, which was starting to move forward, wondering what they had seen. “No pictures, you understand? No pictures!”
Later, the three officers were informed that they had thwarted a terrorist attack. They were given bonuses and a few days off. Hilary Sansone from Team Two made the rounds in the media and gave them the same story. The newspapers and TV shows were satisfied. It was what eyewitnesses thought they saw; it was the best way to explain the memories they had. No one could explain why none of the cameras worked, but there was nothing to be done about that fact. Something about the bomb he had, someone said, and that was enough.
• • •
The Society knew what had happened. It was the third attack they’d faced that week. Team Three had found one small demon on a highway into the city. There had been a car chase for a few kilometers, then a zigzag through back streets before the demon, which didn’t know where it was going, hit a dead end. It turned its host into water, there in the driver’s seat of the car it had made the man steal, as Grace approached.
Another demon, brawny
but stupid, managed to land itself in jail for brawling and hanged its host in the cell. Team Three only knew about that one because of the Orb. The man had no identification. The police buried the body. The demon was still out there, looking for another host, another shot. Team Three was sure of it. So was Team One.
Team Three was all together in the Archives when Team One’s new leader arrived. She descended the long spiral staircase fast, with three men in tow, and somehow found her way straight to Asanti’s desk. Team One’s leader gave each member of Team Three a courteous smile and a quick nod, but it was hard for Sal to shake the feeling that this new leader was here to arrest her.
They know, Sal thought.
No, they don’t, the Hand said.
“Father Menchú,” Team One’s leader said. She turned to each of them. “Grace. Liam. Sal. Asanti. Is it all right if I address you this way? I am Thavani Shah, the new head of Team One. I’ve been reading up on all of you and these Archives you oversee, and I want to tell you how much I admire the work that you do.”
“Thank you,” Menchú said.
“I hear that some of you were present when my predecessor died.”
“Yes,” Sal said.
“I hope I can serve you as well as he did.”
I hope you can do better than he did, Sal thought, but kept it to herself.
Shah looked around. “Fascinating place. I’d like to visit someday when I can have time to appreciate it. But we have work to do.”
Her eyes focused again on Menchú.
“I know that you have some very capable people, but we are going to strengthen security here.” She extended her hand to her left, toward the three men who had followed her in. Two of them were wearing the bright uniforms of the Swiss Guard, a look that Sal was still having trouble taking seriously. One of them was dressed in the loose fatigues the members of Team One liked to wear.
“This is Gardist Schaffner and Gardist Huegin,” Shah said. “With them is Joki Vaz, one of our own. I’m going to ask you if I can station them here in the Archives.”
Bookburners: Season One Volume Two Page 12