1.
Abe was gasping for breath for an entirely different reason than Tym. He was still recovering from the shot to the solar plexus he'd taken from Roods, while Tym was being magically strangled. A semi-transparent yellow bubble took shape around him and he was lifted into the air.
His breath came out in ragged wheezes and his sonorous voice was being crushed into a veritable croak, but still he managed to say, “Abe, go...” before a gesture from the woman silenced him completely.
Abe looked behind him and saw Roods picking up the pistol and the Woodsman completing his peculiar transformation. It concluded with the Woodsman actually sprouting clothing from its ill-defined wooden form. The clothes quickly took on the appearance of the same suit he had been wearing but stiffer, more solid. In another moment the suit became cloth-like and the Woodsman looked precisely as usual, right down to the dull, impassive look on his face as he looked at Abe and made a fist.
In front of Abe was the woman who had to be Lady Darbyshire. She looked like the sketches that Abe had seen in dressmakers shops that were used to design garments – proportions all seeming exaggerated in a manner that suggested great beauty but was sort of off-putting in person. She was simultaneously the most beautiful woman Abe had ever seen and utterly repellant in a cold, alien way. She watched him like a lizard watches a delicious insect with a broken wing, effortlessly holding Tym frozen in place and holding her other hand out in front of her like she was assessing her manicure. It was, Abe was pretty sure, a gesture meant to remind him that she had a free hand in case he had any ideas about her vulnerability.
“I...” Abe was still struggling to breathe and was scared out of his mind. “I notice that every time I meet one of your students, terrible things happen to them,” he said. His hand moved down to his side and drew the long slender knife he kept hidden there. “I wonder if it's me.”
Lady Darbyshire's mouth curled up at one end. “My dear, we have to assume it's the common thread.” She closed her hand and the yellow walls around Tym collapsed into his body, covering him like a balloon with all the air suddenly let out. It became more transparent as it stuck to his body, encasing him in a kind of clear sheathe as he dropped to the cobblestones, standing erect, completely frozen.
Abe inclined the tip of his knife toward her, his hands shaking slightly. “Isn't your wooden friend a common thread as well?”
She took long strides, slow and languorous, and smiled. “You're an educated boy, Mr. Crompton, and familiar with the scientific process.” She raised her hand as if she wanted to stroke his cheek, but kept back a pace. “You have to change one variable at a time...” She put on an exaggerated moue as she looked past Abe to Roods. “Use your gun, Mr. Roods.”
Roods had the gun in hand by then, but he didn't have it aimed at Abe and he didn't do so now. “It's not my gun, m’Lady.” He spun it expertly and when he stopped he was holding it so that the butt and not the barrel was aimed at Abe. “And I believe I agreed to get Wharmley to the tower.”
“Wharmley is well in hand, as you can see.” She didn't even move her hands, but Tym rose up a few inches from the ground and floated toward her and then back.
Roods shrugged and began unloading the pistol. “All the same, I'm not shooting Crompton.”
“Just betraying him,” Abe snarled.
Roods stepped toward him and handed him the empty gun with another careless shrug. “Ladies got a lot of Spirit, Mr. Crompton. Nothing personal.” Roods squeezed Abe's shoulder as he walked past him.
“Wait, spirit or Spirit?”
“The drug, Abe. She's got a lot of drugs.” He walked nonchalantly to Tym's side and put his hand on his immobile shoulder as he spoke to Lady Darbyshire. “A deal's a deal. I'll escort you and your immobile friend here.”
The Woodsman, who had been standing perfectly still and mute since finishing his horrific transformation, finally said something. “What about him?” he said.
She sighed like it was truly an inconvenience to be bothered. “Well, if McCallister won't do it, you take care of him. I'll leave your documents at the gate.” Then, to Roods, “come on, then. We're running late.”
As soon as Abe heard her instructions he turned his back on her and began to back away from the Woodsman. Thrusting his hand into his a pocket he smiled privately. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lady Darbyshire floating Tym along with her, Roods trailing behind them, and mentally noted where they were headed. When he turned back around the Woodsman was advancing on him with slow deliberate movements, inexorable as ever, wooden lips curling into a barely-there wooden smile.
Abe stepped back again and pulled his hand from his pocket, flipping the pistol open to reload as he did. Weeks of paranoia had forced Abe to form a system for keeping weapons about his person, and so even though he'd not had a gun on him his ammunition pocket was still well-stocked. He put two rounds into the chamber and spun it as he slammed it back into place. Of course, he knew that bullets wouldn't hurt the Woodsman much, but it might buy some time to get away.
He pulled the trigger as fast as he could as he stepped in toward the Woodsman. He had to force himself to do it because his hand was shaking so badly he feared he would miss otherwise. The gun clicked as the hammer fell on an empty chamber, clicked again, and then fired, the barrel mere inches from the Woodsman's chest.
To Abe's great surprise, the Woodsman stumbled back and fell.
2.
The Woodsman had a small hole in his chest from the bullet, but the view from behind was much worse. There was a hole nearly a foot across in his back, the wood of his body opening up like a grotesque bowl where the bullet exited. There was no blood (sap?), only flesh the color of wood but closer in consistency to wet clay. The shot sent the creature to one knee, much to Abe's surprise.
Which explains why Abe was standing there dumbfounded rather than going after Tym or, perhaps more usefully, shooting again. “You're not the Woodsman,” he said.
The creature, no longer bound by needing to play a part, let it's wooden lips spread into a cruel grin that was far more expressive than the real Woodsman was capable of. “No, sir,” it said, it's voice higher pitched now, lubricious and soft. “But you notice that I was given vague instruction to 'take care of,' yes?”
Abe had recovered sufficiently to aim the gun once more, his hand still shaking. “So I can go?”
The thing steadied it's breathing and the smile spread still further, the opening of the mouth now wider than the lips themselves, making the wooden face look a bit like a carved doll for ventriloquists. It planted a hand on the ground and groaned. Abe couldn't see the wound on the back knitting. “Well,” it said slowly... deliberately pausing for breath as it's back closed up more. “You don't stay taken care of very well is the thing, my friend. If you did, we wouldn't be here now, would we?”
Abe shrugged and leveled the gun. “Perhaps not.”
Before he could pull the trigger the thing sprang up toward him and threw it's hand out, the fingers and palm turning into a solid mass of brown and wrapping around Abe's hand, gun and all. He pulled the trigger frantically, the impotent clicking sound almost entirely lost by the mass of substance covering the gun. Click-click-click. All as fast as Abe could pull the trigger as the material of the thing's hand snaked up his arm.
BLAM!
The arm split all the way to the shoulder and Abe and the creature both yanked their arms back, Abe's hand hot from the trapped gas of the gun firing, the thing crying out in agony as the shredded limb flung the pistol away.
Abe wasted no time in rushing the thing, slamming his other hand into it's face and shoving it over onto the ground. He drove his knee into it's crotch and rammed his fist into it's stomach again and again, all the rage that had been fueling his dreams coming out. This thing was trying to kill him, but Abe's anger and fear were both demanding an outlet. The strength and ferocity behind his blows were enough to win any fight with another man, but Abe wasn't fighting a man, exactly.
Abe's assault caught the thing off guard, and while its arm dangled useless at it's side from the pain of the gunshot wound, the other blows seemed to have no effect at all. “Should've run,” it said through its wide and horrible mouth and then its hand caught Abe's face as he drove his fist uselessly into its sternum. Its fingers spread like melting wax over his face and the palm extended and forced its way into Abe's mouth.
Trying to pull away was useless, so the next best thing was to try and get a breath. He managed to get a bit of air through his nose before the flesh stretched up and filled his nostrils. It was cold and dense like potter's clay, the flesh that was filling Abe's mouth, and he wished he weren't in a position to observe that it tasted salty. Of course it's possible that the salt flavor was more his own mucus and tears finding their way into his throat as he started to panic at the thought of suffocating on an arm. He grasped the arm and tried to pull away, but the hand was spreading further over his face, encircling it like a cage and holding him in place with strong tendrils as he struggled.
The thing was laughing at him now, its head leaning back as the jaw stayed in place, flapping inhumanly as the sound of its cackle grew louder and meaner.
The laughter stopped abruptly when Abe stabbed into the thing's arm just behind what had been its elbow. He had raised his leg enough to reach the small knife in his boot, and with it he began to cut into the thing's arm, dragging the blade through the clay-like flesh while he gripped the arm with his other hand. It was like cutting through very hard cheese, he noted and in his oxygen-starved panic Abe wondered if that was why he tasted salt.
The creature was starting to panic now. It screamed as Abe cut along the arm and then repeated it again and again. The blade was short, but he was gouging through the flesh and meeting no resistance. It was uniform throughout, no blood or muscle or bone, just that dense brown material. The thing tried to stop Abe's work, but its other arm was a flapping, useless husk, hollowed out and damaged by the bullet.
Abe hacked desperately as he started to see spots in his vision. Finally he threw his body to the side and the arm came with him. The grip of the tendrils around his face slackened and Abe dropped the knife and clawed at the lifeless clay around his head. He ripped the bits from his face and yanked the arm away, gagging as the long snake of invading flesh pulled up and out of his throat. He threw the arm away, hardly an arm at all anymore, and gasped for air. He wiped his mouth and spat into the street and then looked at the thing on the sidewalk. It was in obvious pain, muddy sort of tears streaming down its face, and it's cruel laughter and pained screams had been replaced by a kind of whimpering.
It made no movements aside from rocking, one arm a useless flap and the other simply a stump. Abe walked into the street and found the gun, slowly loaded another bullet into the chamber, and walked back to stand before the creature.
“No,” it said. Abe pulled the trigger, blasting the top of the thing's head off. He got a few steps down the road after Tym and his captors before he doubled over, shaking hands on his shaking knees, and vomited.
3.
The tower.
Abe had definitely heard Lady Darbyshire say that they were going to the tower, and that meant they were heading for the Prestorian. Well, either they were headed for the Prestorian or they planned on circling a block and going back the other way, and since Lady Darbyshire seemed fairly confident in her creature's ability to murder him, Abe assumed they weren't going to waste time with circumlocution.
He tried to force himself to run, but the cobbles under his feet seemed determined to trip him up and it was very hard to catch himself when he stumbled with a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other. He finally sheathed the knife again, but he wouldn't let the gun out of his hand. Not that it would do much good against magic or the Woodsman (who, Abe never forgot, was still unaccounted for despite the creature he'd left dead in the street), but it would be better than nothing. Caution overcame haste and finally Abe settled on a fast walk, gun in one hand and his eyes scanning the eerily empty streets for any sign of his quarries.
He wondered about the absence of people on the streets as he walked. No one had been around during the entire confrontation earlier, despite the multiple gunshots and the screaming and the magic. No one in the restaurant had so much as peeked their head out the door, not even the head waiter who, Abe imagined, would have been pleased to see Abe getting almost-murdered.
It was unnatural and would have been worth investigating if Abe hadn't been slightly distracted by trying to stop the abduction of yet another student of Lady Darbyshire's School for the Profoundly Gifted. Tym's face as it was frozen by the magical shell around him was stuck in an expression of fear so great that Abe was afraid that Tym's might be the third life of a student that would end within 24 hours of meeting Abe.
Or at least that's what he thought as he turned the corner before the Prestorian.
It was a former castle, once owned by the king of Highmark, notable for the single massive spire that made up the middle of it and from which, rumor held, an archer could shoot any man in the city. It was off limits now, functioning as a monument to oppression and a reminder of the importance of the republic... or something. Abe was never clear on precisely what the point of keeping it standing was, but as he came within sight of it he froze.
He could see, beyond the gate and standing outside the doorway to the tower, Roods and Lady Darbyshire and the Woodsman. They were surrounded by students, Tym the only one frozen in his weird immobile state. The rest were all perfectly ambulatory. They were being herded by Lady Darbyshire toward the door, and there, in the back of the line, was Merry.
Abe started to run, shouting even though it was suicide, “Merry!” He was so far away that he couldn't even be sure that it was her, and he was certain to draw the attention of Roods and the Woodsman. He could swear that Roods heard him, but the only response to his breathless shout was for Roods to hurry the others inside.
Roods hustled the Woodsman in ahead of him and remained outside for a moment. He did took a few things from his pockets in a rush and threw a wad of paper out down in the yard beyond the gate. Then Roods went inside.
Abe dashed through the gate less than a minute after Roods had gone in, wheezing from the quarter-mile sprint toward the tower. He went inside expecting and dreading a climb up a terrific number of stairs and then, probably, a fight he couldn't win. What he found instead was a closed door for a lift with a dial that was going up very slowly. The numbers on the dial went up to 50 and then there was a letter D at the far right side.
Apparently everyone had gotten on the elevator and was on their way up to whatever D was. Abe smiled breathlessly and said, “well at least no stairs.” He pushed the call button and leaned against the wall.
And that's when he remembered what Roods had done. He stepped outside and found the wadded up paper. It said, in hastily written scrawl, “go home.” Abe folded the paper over in disgust and that's when he saw the words on the back, in much smaller and neater print, “if following wait, woodsman suspects.”
Abe couldn't trust Roods, and he couldn't count on being able to find Merry again even if Roods was trying to help him. He checked the pistol and his small knife while he waited, and he watched the elevator pause at the top, level D. There was a monster and a traitor and a formidable woman up there, and they had a bunch of kids who were supposed to be dead, one of them Merry.
He took a deep breath as the elevator started to come down to him, wishing desperately that he had gotten breakfast this morning. When the doors opened, Abe looked once again at Roods’ note, crumpled it, and threw it away. He waited five interminable minutes before getting in and pushing ‘D’.
Chapter Nineteen: The great glass elevator
1.
The dial on the inside of the elevator was identical to the one on the outside, and Abe watched the numbers climb higher and higher. The walls were glass overlaid with thin, elegant golden designs, but the beauty
of the work was decidedly muted by the dull stone that made up the shaft. The number climbed up into the 30's and Abe wondered why anyone would design an elevator with glass walls simply to encase it in stone. It was perhaps an example of the conspicuous consumption that characterized the kings of Highmark and had ultimately led to their downfall.
Wasteful extravagance with no point or purpose whatsoever.
And then the elevator reached the fiftieth floor.
And then Abe understood.
The distance between the number “50” on the dial and the letter “D” was equal to the distance between “49 and “50”. This was a deceptive design choice, because the distance between the fiftieth floor, which was the top of the Prestorian tower, and whatever D stood for was significant. In that once the elevator rose beyond the fiftieth floor it rose up into nothingness, floating swiftly up above Highmark.
Abe cried out in surprise and jumped back from the glass wall, only to realize that in the small elevator he had actually jumped all the way back to the opposite glass wall, which was no less terrifying than the one in front of him. He stepped forward fast and stood as close to the exact center of the elevator as he could, his legs trembling as he tried not to move.
The view eventually won him over, though. Highmark was spread out before him on one side, the streets a surprisingly exact grid, and on the other side, behind the tower, were the sheer cliffs of Highmark and the green expanse of the sea. The sunlight overhead reflected off the puddles of something that was probably disgusting, making the cobbled streets below gleam like the city was a magical place. From this height it was impossible to pick out the details – impossible to focus on the building where he'd worked for years only to be fired for using drugs he'd never used, impossible to spot the building he had worked at for precisely one day and was certain to be fired from shortly, impossible to make out the horrifying monster he'd left for dead in the street with both arms mangled and three bullet wounds – no, from way up here it was just gorgeous.
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