Alice felt comfortable walking in the dark. She felt as if she had been doing that her whole life. Marcus did not speak, but he stole occasional glances at her, and every now and again, he smiled nervously.
It was impossible to say how long they walked. Alice felt no need to eat or drink, and she did not grow tired. This felt a little unfamiliar, but that was just because she had gotten into the habit of doing that sort of thing.
If Marcus felt differently, then he kept that to himself, which was fine, because Alice did not care either way.
There was no need for pretense in the Outer Dark.
“Even at the end, John was looking out for you. He could have spat you out anywhere, or not at all. Instead he dumped you in the White Room, right where he told me to look for you. He told me that it would strip away all the implants and false memories, but that you were too strong for the White Room to digest you completely. If I pulled you out of there fast enough, John said that all that would be left would be your real self.” Marcus hesitated. “He told me that it would hurt. Did it?”
“Yeah,” Alice said, remembering many things that had. “It hurt.”
“Did it work?”
Alice grinned at him.
“What do you think?”
Marcus reached into the breast pocket of the dingy hiking vest he wore, producing an ornate glass bottle, the sort of vessel a fancy perfume might occupy, and handed it to her. Alice turned the cut glass bottle over in her palm, inspecting it.
“John left this for you. He wanted you to have it.”
“What is it?”
“From the Source Well,” Marcus said. “He used quite a bit of it, but there’s still some left.”
“What am I supposed to do with nanites?”
“Whatever you want,” Marcus said, shrugging. “You could make yourself some new sisters, to replace all the Witches who died, for example. Just a thought.”
They crested a knife-edge ridge made of smooth and treacherous volcanic glass to discover a silver tower, wider at the top than the base, with its door broken open, surrounded by mutilated corpses. Alice paid it all little mind, except to admire the killer’s handiwork.
The Inverted Spire. That was what John had called it.
He had always loved giving everything names. Nothing in the Outer Dark had a name, until he arrived, and set about giving them out like he was Adam in the garden, naming a parade of newly minted living things.
John hadn’t known a thing about it. He just thought calling it the Inverted Spire had a nice ring to it. Alice knew the tower for what it was, its original purpose and function, its original destination and its ancient arrival.
That memory was even older than she was, Alice suspected, perhaps an inheritance.
Then again, who had been there before her, and from whom could she inherit?
Becca would have called it a Chicken-and-Egg problem, a paradox with no possible resolution.
Alice thought about it anyway, as they walked, because she enjoyed considering the possibilities.
That was all that Alice could see since she had opened her eyes in the hot spring. Not the empty skin or the broken ground of the Outer Dark.
Alice saw only possibilities, unfurling before her like a red carpet.
“Are you going to kill me?”
She glanced at Marcus, and then smiled out of habit.
“I haven’t decided,” Alice said. “Haven’t even thought about it.”
“I’m sure you have a lot on your mind,” Marcus said. “I’d really like to know sooner rather than later, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Would you now?” Alice grinned. “You need time to get right with your God?”
“A true Christian is always ready to die, because his destiny is paradise,” Marcus said, shrugging. “I would like to continue living, I’ll admit it, but I’m not afraid.”
“What’s the hurry, then?”
“I hate suspense,” Marcus admitted. “I’d just rather get it over with.”
“Fine, then.” Alice surveyed the empty horizon, the fractured plain bordered all about by eroded mountain ranges, just as distant from them as when they had begun their journey. “Let’s talk about it. You really pulled a number on me this time, Marcus.”
“Yeah.”
“The memory trick was bad enough, but to recast me as the protector of Central.” Alice tossed her hair. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. You seemed happy as an Auditor.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah. It seemed like you made some friends.”
“Maybe.” Alice grinned at the desolation. “I suppose it wasn’t all bad.”
“You were very close with Rebecca Levy.”
“Everyone loves Becca,” Alice protested. “It’s impossible not to love her. She won’t let you.”
“What about Michael Lacroix, then?”
“That wasn’t friendship.”
“Something more, then?”
“Something else. It was intense, and it was for sure none of your fucking business.”
“You even sound like them,” Marcus said. “The experience changed you.”
“I didn’t ask for it, did I?”
“You did not.”
“As for friends – you and I have never been friends.” Alice planted herself in front of Marcus, hands on her hips. “Isn’t that right?”
“We have never seen eye to eye,” Marcus agreed. “We have known each other for a very long time, though.”
“I knew Jacob Havel for a long time. Did you hear what happened to him?”
“I heard that he lost his head,” Marcus said. “That’s too bad.”
“Is it?”
“For him, at least,” Marcus said. “You didn’t know what you were doing. You didn’t even remember who he was.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“Mine.” Marcus nodded slowly. “I know that.”
“John is gone. I killed Jacob, and I killed Christopher Feld, too.” Alice pinched her lip. “Yaga is dead, and Samnang was lost to the White Room. The old gang is gone.”
“That just leaves the two of us.”
“The last of the freaks of nature.”
“Yeah.” Marcus grinned. “Too weird to die.”
There was no wind to alleviate the silence that followed, the darkness absolute and unbroken, save only the fingers of lightning that erupted from the shattered badlands.
“What were you doing out here, Marcus?”
“I followed John when he left Central to start the Anathema. I didn’t feel like I deserved to be in Central anymore.”
“I didn’t ask why you came. I asked what…”
“Oh, sorry. I’ve been doing a little gardening. Do you want to see?”
Alice thought it over, then she nodded.
“This way,” Marcus said, heading out. “It’s not far.”
There was no direction save for away in the Outer Dark, and no distance aside from distant, but Alice appreciated the thought.
There was glass, and there was sand, and there was bare rock.
Sometimes she felt as if she should have slept or perhaps had a drink, but there was no real need, and no opportunity in any case.
The sky was empty, and it was always cold.
But for Marcus’s talents, they never would have arrived.
“There,” Marcus said, catching her arm at the top of a hill and pointing. “That’s it.”
Just below them in a sunken valley lay the remnants of a rose garden, a false sun bleeding daylight across a manufactured sky. The roses had been grown in neat rows, and the quantity of withered leaves strewn about the parched soil suggested that the bushes had been lush, but none survived. The plants were stripped and overturned, the exposed roots blackened by the malign influence of the Church.
At the center of the dead garden, a wrecked gazebo lay beside broken furniture.
Alice strolled toward it, desiccated peta
ls turning to dust beneath her soles as she went.
“You tried to stop the Church,” Alice said, glancing back at Marcus, who followed at a small distance. “I’m impressed.”
“It would have been more impressive if it had been more successful,” Marcus said modestly. “It was more of a symbolic gesture than anything.”
“Beauty over atrocity,” Alice said, tapping the pile of rubble that had been the gazebo with the toe of her boot. “Life amid total death. Was that the idea?”
“Something of that sort.” Marcus nodded. “It was not a bad place.”
“I bet John loved it.”
“This sort of thing always appealed to him, and anyway, no one was more determined to prevent the Church from manifesting.”
“A little strange, don’t you think? He was the Church, after all. A small part of it, maybe, but still…”
“He became himself,” Marcus said, shrugging. “It’s hard to go back.”
“If you say so.”
“Are you that different? You shared a consciousness with your Witch sisters, once. You were a part of a greater whole. Now, you’re Alice Gallow. No more or less.”
“That’s your fault, too.” Alice sighed. “They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
“The other Witches? Most of them,” Marcus acknowledged, looking a bit guilty. “There are a few left, scattered about. John subverted most of them for his failed assault on Central. You hunted down a fair number of them yourself.”
“I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Didn’t you? That was when you looked your happiest.”
“Maybe.” Alice grinned. “I never did like my family.”
“I’m amazed that Central never put it together,” Marcus said. “Your manipulation of shadows was unlike any protocol, recorded or otherwise. Your cruelty was legendary. Your zeal for violence and pain was common knowledge. And yet not once did anyone suspect that there might be a reason for all of that.”
“Even I had no idea I was feeding on all that pain and misery,” Alice said. “Gaul probably knew, looking back on it. I assume Becca suspected something was wrong.”
“Why did they allow you to stay in Central?”
“Don’t ask me to explain human behavior.” Alice smirked. “It was probably my charm.”
“If so, then I wouldn’t blame them.”
“Don’t start with me.”
Marcus knelt beside one of the dead roses, poking at the root bundle, which turned into a little cloud of ash when he touched it.
“I should kill you,” Alice said dreamily, staring at the horizon. “For what you did to me.”
“Did it really turn out so badly?”
“That makes no difference. You tampered with my mind and took away my free will.”
“I do regret that. I could see no other way.”
“No other way to do what, exactly? Why did you do this to me? Help me understand.”
“You were going to kill John. You remember that, right? You decided to kill him and wake the Church early, banking on the magnitude of all that death and misery to be enough for you to contend with the Church on your own.”
“It wasn’t a bad plan. Was it better to allow John to do whatever he wanted?”
“I’m still not sure.” Marcus sighed and pushed aside what was left of the dead rose. “After a while, he started to agree with your plan, and to think of it as a kind of back up, in case nothing else worked. He kept trying to wake you up, to return your memory so you could kill him before the Church manifested on its own terms. You were both pains in my ass.”
“Central was mine long before I helped you find your way in,” Alice said. “I should have killed you all on that first trip.”
“You were bored,” Marcus said, smiling. “We entertained you for a while, didn’t we?”
“You’ve never been dull,” Alice agreed. “Neither was John.”
“Yeah.”
Alice gave him a strange look, but Marcus made no effort to meet her eyes, instead looking sadly over the remnants of his garden.
“You loved John, didn’t you?”
Marcus nodded.
“I loved both of you,” Marcus said quietly. “How could I not?”
“You’re a disgusting old pervert. You fell in love with a Witch and an avatar of the Outer Dark,” Alice teased. “Don’t you have any shame?”
“I loved something that desperately wanted to become a man,” Marcus corrected, “and I loved a queen. She who wanders the dark, vexing the sons of Man. My queen.”
Alice roared with laughter, slapping him on the back.
“There you go again,” she said. “You’re such a romantic!”
“I never denied it.”
“And a huge deviant. Did you ever consider falling for a human being?”
“Never,” Marcus said. “Not once.”
“Ha! You know, I think you and clueless little Alex would have been friends. You have so much in common!”
“We met,” Marcus said. “I like to think we got along.”
“I bet you did,” Alice said. “Let me guess. Emily Muir had something to do with it?”
“She did,” Marcus said. “We became friendly during her time in the Outer Dark.”
“You old dog! You’re old enough to be her great-great-great…”
“I never put a hand on her.”
“You mean she never gave you a chance.”
“Well, yes,” Marcus agreed. “The flesh is both willing and weak, in my case.”
They were quiet for a while longer.
“Tell me, Marcus,” Alice said. “What should I do with you?”
Marcus did not reply, lost in his contemplation of the ruins, or perhaps the barren horizon.
“I’m going back to Central,” Alice said. “You know that.”
“I heard the Source Well was destroyed, and I already gave you what you need to rebuild your sisterhood,” Marcus said. “No reason to go back now, is there?”
“Plenty of reasons. There may not be a Source Well, but there is a Changeling, and a catalyst.”
“I heard that he was asleep.”
“I’ll wake him the fuck up,” Alice snarled. “Don’t patronize me.”
“I don’t think that it will be as easy as you assume,” Marcus replied. “Central has its protectors.”
“Don’t kid around with me,” Alice said. “I was Central’s protector, thanks to you.”
“You were never the only one.”
“So? You think the Auditors will be able to stop me?”
“They will try.”
“Let them!” Alice laughed. “They don’t stand a chance.”
“They won’t be alone,” Marcus said. “You will be.”
“Who can they call for help?” Alice’s voice dripped with contempt. “The Black Sun? Maybe your friend Emily? Or are you referring to the Changeling and her dopey boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
“If that’s all I have to worry about, then I don’t have to worry at all.”
“Maybe.” Marcus smiled at her. “Maybe not.”
They watched a bolt of lightning climb out of a steep canyon, languidly clawing into the sky.
Alice came up behind him and draped her arms over his shoulders.
“If I told you to stay in the Outer Dark, and to stay out of my business, would you do it?”
“No,” Marcus said. “I have friends in Central.”
“Why shouldn’t I kill you then, you old bastard?”
“Because no one else knows you but me,” Marcus said. “Everyone else is gone.”
Alice wrapped her arms loosely around his neck.
“Maybe I like it that way,” Alice suggested, hugging him. “You ever think of that?”
“Life will be dull without me around to meddle,” Marcus said. “You’ll be lonely and bored.”
Alice tightened her grip, pulling her forearm across his throat and cutting off the flow of blood.
It d
id not take very long.
She opened her arms, and Marcus tumbled to the dust, lifeless among the remains of the roses.
“Son of a bitch,” Alice muttered, turning her back on the garden. “You always had to be right about everything.”
***
They met in a clearing just off the path, beside what was left of the Main Library. The Administration had provided lighting for the event, attaching LED strips to the remaining walls and wrapping nearby trees in lights.
The illumination seemed to hint at the holidays, though spring was approaching, and the evening was warm and pleasant.
“It’s been a while,” Eerie said, shifting nervously. “Thank you for coming.”
“This is the only club I’ve ever been invited to join,” Emily said. “How could I possibly miss it?”
“I’m glad we are meeting again,” Vivik said. “I wish Katya was here, but…”
They all went quiet.
“I’m sorry,” Vivik said. “I shouldn’t have mentioned her.”
“It’s okay,” Eerie said. “We all miss her.”
“Yes,” Emily said. “We do.”
“It won’t be the same club without her,” Eerie said, “but I also feel like she would want us to continue…you know. Doing stuff. Club stuff!”
“That’s a good idea,” Vivik agreed. “What should we do?”
“I thought we could go to the party together,” Eerie suggested bashfully. “Once we finish the meeting.”
“Yes, of course,” Emily said. “I would love to!”
“Me too,” Vivik agreed. “Is that it?”
“I think we need to do more activities,” Eerie said. “Or else we aren’t really a club, are we? We’re just friends.”
“Yes,” Emily said, smiling. “That’s true.”
“Alex doesn’t need to be rescued from the Outer Dark anymore,” Eerie said. “We need a new activity.”
“He’s probably going to get in a lot more trouble, eventually,” Emily said. “We could focus on that.”
“I don’t think Alex would like that,” Eerie said. “He is sort of a member, kinda.”
“What should we do, then?”
Vivik cleared his throat, and the young women looked at him.
“I always thought it could be better in Central,” Vivik said. “I don’t think that things need to be so cruel. I’m tired of going to my friends’ funerals. I don’t trust Lord North or Anastasia, and I don’t think the cartel system works. Maybe we could do something for people who don’t want to be a part of that?”
The Church of Sleep (Central Series Book 5) Page 94