by Tim Lebbon
Doubts flurried around Scott’s mind; fear played in his tense joints. A truck cut him off and he eased back on the gas, drifting into the inside lane, slowing some more so that he could concentrate. Wrapping the car around a bridge would not help at all.
“Where has he taken Helen?”
“Into the Wide. That’s far enough. None of you can get through to there—very few, anyway—and there’s no way she will get back.”
“None of who?”
“You people.”
“You mean normal people?”
“Yes, normal.”
“I got through.”
“You saw through. It’s different.”
“Where are you from?”
She stared at him, but Scott looked ahead at the traffic. He wanted to know, that was all. He was interested.
“Africa. South of the Sahara, before it was named.”
“You have no accent.”
“I do; you just don’t know it. I’ve lived all over the world, and I have the accent of humanity.”
Scott started laughing. Like the tears earlier in the kitchen, this laughter came out unforced and natural. It was tinged with panic—loss of control stalked beneath the surface—but he let it come, enjoying the sense of release. He guided the car onto the hard shoulder and switched off the engine. He laughed some more. It felt good, but it made every moment seem like the beginning of something new. The whole world was changing and he had to ride with it.
“You’re so full of shit,” he said when he could speak. He wiped tears from his eyes and switched on the hazard lights. “I don’t know who you are, what you want, what you put in my tea last night, but I’ll tell you now you can fuck off. Just . . . fuck off.” He started laughing again, gripping the steering wheel as though afraid Nina would steal it away.
“Oh, damn,” she said. “This is going to hurt.”
Scott was still laughing when she pulled a heavy knife from beneath her jacket, turned to face him, and sliced her throat from ear to ear.
The spray of blood splashed across the windshield and pulsed onto the dashboard. Nina leaned forward to rest her head against the air bag cover, letting more blood pour from her gashed throat to pool on the seat between her legs and in the footwell, soaking the front of her jacket and shirt.
Scott tried to shout, but it was as if his throat had been cut as well.
He was still holding on to the steering wheel. He gripped tight, unable to let go, and he was so silent that he could hear blood dripping, clicking in Nina’s throat as she tried to breathe, and the bursting of tiny bubbles as air escaped the horrendous wound. She had dropped the knife and he wanted to pick it up, but he could not let go of the wheel. Try as he might, his fingers would not uncurl.
Nina turned to look at him. There was no panic in her expression, and little pain. If anything, it looked as though she were accusing him of some vast wrongdoing.
“Hospital,” Scott muttered, and Nina snorted. Twin trails of blood burst from her nose. Her mouth opened with a wet sound, lips parting and tongue squirming as though she were trying to speak. She shook her head and expelled a bloody sigh through her new mouth.
Scott’s hands at last relinquished their hold on the wheel, and he reached for the door.
Something pressed against his side. He gasped and turned slowly to look down. Nina’s hand held the knife pushed into his jacket, point first. One shove and it would be in him. It gleamed red. He looked at her and she shook her head, very slowly. With each shake her slashed neck pursed like kissing lips.
The bleeding had stopped and the wound was scabbing over.
Scott held his breath and stared at the cut, and when he looked up at Nina’s face again a few seconds later he saw a smile in her eyes.
“Immortal,” he muttered. And he watched as the wound bound itself together. Every stage of a healing cut presented itself: blood clotting and scabbing, the rough scar, the smooth scar, the discoloration beneath the skin, and finally the virtual disappearance of any evidence of the cut’s having been there at all.
Scott timed the healing with the dash clock, and it took less than five minutes.
Nina coughed. Gurgled, spit out a mouthful of blood. Turned her head left and right, looked up and down, coughed harder. And then she spoke. Her voice started gruff and deep, but by the end of the sentence she was starting to sound like herself again. “So you see, there are more things in heaven and earth. And the truth goes far wider than you can imagine.”
Scott could not speak. There was so much he wanted to say—so many questions he needed to ask—that he could not think of a single one.
“Sorry about the mess,” Nina said. She took a small handkerchief from her pocket and started wiping the windshield, smudging the blood more than mopping it up. “Oh, dear.”
“I’m going mad,” Scott said, but he did not believe that. It wasn’t what he could see; it was what he could smell and taste: blood. Eyes could deceive, but nose and mouth were truer.
“Ah, madness. I’ve been mad a few times. Once, when they were building St. Etienne, I lived in a hole in the ground for almost a decade. Those building the chapel brought me fruit and live chickens, and they’d stand back and watch me slaughter the birds and eat them raw. I was an entertainment for them, and I played up to it. Enjoyed it. I asked them to build me into the floor of the place, but they declined. And things got nasty. See, I wanted to see how long I could live, trapped in a hole underground.”
“That would have been awful.”
“Yes. And therein lay my madness of the time.”
“How did it get nasty?”
Nina glanced at Scott, then away again. “We fought. They called me a demon. I ran, and I haven’t returned to France since.”
“When was this?”
“Ten seventy-five. Give or take a couple of years.”
“A thousand years ago.”
Nina gave her slight smile and nodded.
This is the madness of my time, Scott thought. This is my insanity. Yet I know there’s truth here. It’s impossible that this can be true; yet it is. The world has changed. My world has changed, and I think it changed thirty years ago when Papa died. Perhaps even before . . . Perhaps when I was born and my parents took me home and he first saw me, I was already existing somewhere different from everyone else.
“We need to get this blood cleaned up,” Nina said.
“Yes. Right.”
“Do you have Mr. Wolf’s number?”
“What?” Wolf? What now? What is she going to tell me now?
“Haven’t you seen Pulp Fiction?”
Scott nodded and remembered. There was a woman in his car who had been alive more than a thousand years ago talking about Pulp Fiction.
“Okay,” he said. “All right. This is happening. You just killed yourself and now you’re better, and this is happening.”
“Technically no, because I can’t die. But close enough.”
Scott glared at the woman. “Fine. But my wife. I need her back. And I have no idea where to start or how this will end, and you’ve appeared to offer your help. So if I accept everything you’re telling me—if I accept without question the things you tell and show me—please say what we have to do next.”
Nina nodded, apparently satisfied. “Next, you have to let me see your letter from Papa.”
“How do you know I called him that?”
She smiled. “He liked everyone to call him that, didn’t he?”
“You knew him?”
“Don’t tell me that surprises you.”
Scott thought about it. And no, it did not surprise him one bit.
At the next service station Nina remained in the car while he went to buy some tissues. He handed her Papa’s note as he left, and glancing back he saw the shadow of her head bent low as she read.
I wonder what she’ll get from what he said, Scott thought. I wonder what she’ll think.
He was not fond of service stations. They were tempora
ry places inhabited by people he would never see again, and he did not like the idea of that. He passed a man whose story he would never know, a woman whose name he would never utter, and before today these places had made him feel so insignificant. Now, he felt only distant. He saw the eyes of people living such narrow lives, and while in a way he was jealous of their ignorance, still he wondered what they could really ever achieve.
Did Papa think this way about everyone? he thought. Maybe Mother and Father, yes, but surely not me. He was training me. Grooming me to continue his quest. I was sixteen when he died . . . how much longer was he waiting before he told me so much more?
In the shop he bought some tissues and wet wipes, along with several bottles of water and some prepacked sandwiches. Does an immortal get hungry? he wondered, and then he remembered Nina relishing the coffee he’d made for her. He bought two strong coffees and went back out to the car. He passed a dozen people on the way, and only one of them nodded a brief acknowledgment. Even having seen what he’d seen these last two days, he was still just another man.
As soon as he opened the car door he knew something had changed. Nina looked up at him without smiling, waited until he’d sat in his seat and put the coffee down, then handed Papa’s note back to him.
“Got some stuff to tell you,” she said.
“I was hoping you might.”
“That for me?” She took one of the cups and swigged the scorching liquid, sighing and licking her lips.
“So what was in the note?”
“You read it, Scott. What do you think?”
“Directions. It was telling me how to get somewhere, but I don’t know those symbols.”
“Telling you where to find something, more like.”
“The book?”
Nina rested her head back against the headrest. “It’s much, much more than a book, Scott. It’s the Chord of Souls. It contains the original Chord of Souls, as well as many other things.”
“The Chord of Souls is the spell for immortality?”
“A large part of it.”
“So what else is in the book?”
“Stuff.” The look she gave him convinced Scott that nothing would encourage her to elaborate. Not now, at least.
And he was fine with that. For now. Jesus, I’m starting to think just like Papa!
“So where is it?”
“I don’t know. But Papa’s note illustrates where he hid the parts he and Lewis found in Africa.”
“Then let’s go, let’s—”
“Lewis can never have the book, you know. Nobody can.”
“My wife . . .”
“I’ll do my best to help you, but Lewis will never have the Chord of Souls. I’ll make sure of that. However I can, however I have to. Understand?”
“A threat?”
“No, not really. Just a statement of intent.”
Scott nodded. “Why can’t he have it? Papa did.”
“Papa and Lewis had only a few pages from the book. They discovered parts of the Chord of Souls, though not all. But what I think Papa did discover—somehow, and I have yet to work out how—is where the rest of the book is hidden. Lewis must have been close to discovering this as well . . . and that’s why Papa killed him.” Nina glanced at Scott and then down at her bloodied hands. They fisted in her lap, unclenched, and she lifted them to stare at where blood had dried in her lifeline.
“And then Papa killed himself.”
“Yes. He had knowledge he could never lose. Lewis wasn’t the only man alive who would value that knowledge.”
“But the note?”
Nina took a pack of tissues and began wiping down the windshield. “Lucky for me, some people can’t let go of such powerful knowledge. It’s like trying to un-invent the bomb.”
“Why do you want the rest of the book?”
“Because we’ve been looking for it forever. And because it’ll remind me how to die.” She spit on the glass to clear a patch of blood that had already dried.
“Papa died a good man,” Scott said. He had always known. Whatever people said about him—his mother and father included, at times—he had always believed that there was much more to the death of those two old men than met the eye. Some gossiped that they were old lovers and that some third party had come between them. Others said Papa had gone mad with the imminence of aging and death, and wanted to take his best friend with him. Even at sixteen, Scott had believed that there was more than anyone could know.
Nina continued wiping. She seemed to ignore Scott’s last statement. “So, the book. Your grandfather. Lewis. I suppose I should fill you in on some stuff while we clean your car.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Cutting my throat? Of course. But it’s not the first time I’ve had to prove myself.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” She took another wad of tissues from Scott, lifted her rump from the seat, and started mopping up blood. “Papa craved immortality, Scott. You may have guessed as much.”
“He wanted to see beyond the veil.”
“And that’s why he wanted it. To see into the Wide, to be there, to explore. His intentions were honest, though he was naive to believe it could be done.”
“But you’re immortal.”
“And cursed. Let me continue.”
Scott wiped at the windshield and wet the blood drying there. It ran again, dribbling down to the dashboard, where he mopped it with tissues. Could be diseased, he thought, but he smiled and shook his head. She was immortal.
“He and Lewis found the pages when they were out in the desert during the war. Some old ruins, unearthed when a munitions dump was destroyed. They went in, dug around, and found seven carved stone tablets.”
“Parts of the Chord of Souls?”
“Some of the original parts. Hidden for . . . a very long time.” Nina grew quiet and looked through the smeared windshield, seeing something a long way off and a long time ago.
Scott continued cleaning, glancing at the woman every few seconds. He did not want to disturb her.
“I carved one of those tablets,” she said quietly. “There were twelve of us. When we learned, when we knew, we had to write it all down. Present the Chord as one continuous spell, as well as all the other stuff. If only we hadn’t.”
“Who did you learn from?”
Nina shook her head. “No one can ever know. No one. It would change everything. So, they found these tablets, and they brought them home, and Lewis and your grandfather spent the rest of their lives trying to read them.”
“They never told anyone? Never asked for help from . . . I don’t know . . . the British Museum or something?”
“No. The lure of the Wide hit them early on. Perhaps even before they’d come home from Africa. Something as powerful and potent as the Chord of Souls can exude a spell . . . affect those around it without their even reading it.”
“Like radiation?”
Nina smiled. “I suppose so. Radiated knowledge.”
“And how much did they learn?”
“It took them a long time, but slowly they started to discern the language of the stones. With every new word they translated, Papa became more certain that they were doing the wrong thing. He could see the wonders of the Wide, but he was also aware of how cursed it could be as well. It’s not a place meant for people, Scott. Not people like you and Papa. Not people like me.”
“But Lewis?”
Nina turned to look at him, her face stern, and in her eyes he saw the trust of ages. “No. Not for people like Lewis.”
“So why didn’t Papa destroy the tablets?”
“It’s not easy to destroy them once you’ve read them.”
Scott snorted. “What, some protective spell? A magical defense?”
“Nothing quite so romantic. It’s just that the more one reads of them, the more powerful the Chord of Souls seems . . . and as I said, such knowledge is not meant to be lost.”
“So instead of destroying
them, Papa hid the tablets and killed Lewis to prevent him from reading more.”
“Yes.”
“So how did Lewis—who is dead—take Helen from me? How can a dead man take my wife?”
“Lewis had read some of the Chord, and he didn’t want to die. He knew some of its effects, some of the minor enchantments that went to make its whole. He used them. So now, out in the Wide, his soul still wanders. He’s angry at what Papa denied him.”
“But Papa has gone. Or is he still somewhere too? Will I see him?” Suddenly the prospect of Papa visiting him in the same way Lewis had seemed very real, and it was terrifying. Lewis was a man he had barely known, but should Papa appear in such a form—there, but not there—Scott would find it awful.
“Your Papa was a good man, Scott. He wanted to die. He already knew too much, and he knew that. He was ready.”
“And you? How did you know him? Are you part of the reason he killed himself?”
Nina spit on a fresh tissue and wiped it across the dashboard. Another thick smear of her blood was washed away. “Too many questions,” she said. “Not enough action. We should go to find what we can of those seven tablets.”
“No,” Scott said. “No, no. I know far too little. There’s so much more. Where is Helen? Why can’t you find these things yourself? What do you need me for? And Papa’s note . . . why did it take so long to reach me? Just what the hell are you really, Nina?”
“Like I said, too many questions.” She nodded ahead. “Cardiff. By the castle. There’s a pub, and Papa hid some of the tablets there.”
“How do you know?”
She frowned. “Haven’t you read his letter?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“But you haven’t got a mind as open as you claim, perhaps.”
Scott shrugged. “Perhaps.”
“Papa loved you, Scott.”
“I know.”
“He really did. He loved you. But he wanted you to carry on what he had been doing. And that would have cursed you.”
Scott shook his head and started the engine. “Let’s go.”
Nina crumpled the tissues into a blood-sodden ball and dropped them by her feet.
Scott pointed at the windshield. “Missed a bit.”