“You must choose between love and hate. Choose wisely.”
She listened, eyes widening with amazement. When Grunt gently nipped her hand to demand a pat, she barely noticed.
For half an hour, she listened to the message, over and over, then lay on the sofa with a pillow over her head. It helped her concentrate. Grunt didn’t mind; he promptly sat on the pillow.
If the message was genuine, there might be a way to be free of the ghosts. If. To trust, or not to trust. The priest who’d brought it was genuine and he knew this other priest, this man who claimed to be from Vassbinder’s time. Ridiculous, but then so was her predicament. To find out if this was all true, she had to travel north and meet him.
And maybe Drager wanted to hang her?
Pillow still on head, she stuck a fingernail in her mouth and chewed at it, then the one next to it.
She had to meet with Thom Drager. The man who’d caused this. The traitor. A nasty violent man, no matter what this priest said. Could he have changed? Beating an addiction to somm was nigh on impossible. She’d be in so much trouble if anyone found out she knew where Drager was and she didn’t tell. If the Enforcers got hold of him, she doubted she would ever get a chance to be free of the needles. Gutter gossip said Drager had the secret of making partial Immolators. He was not someone the Imperator would want on the loose or alive.
Maybe she could do this and then afterward, send word. Betray him. Yes. It would be justice. An even-handed justice. That is, if she didn’t plant a dagger in his chest as soon as she saw him.
What he’d done to her...
Though she’d never flat-out planned to kill someone, never wanted to, she could see herself holding her sung steel dagger. See herself kneeling above him as he lay prostrate on the ground.
His eyes locked on hers. The dagger raised to strike.
She shivered. Oh, the pleasure it would give her to do exactly that. Perversely, imagining him before her sent a warm throb of desire between her legs.
Ouch! A quick had torn and her fingertips ached. She’d gnawed them all down to the flesh. Served her right for getting all weird.
“Heloise! Heloise? Is that you under there?” Bull asked. “There’s a cat on the pillow.”
“Leave him,” she warned. “He bites. And swats.” Gradually she moved out from under the pillow and slid herself onto the floor. Then she deposited the pillow on the sofa with cat intact.
Stone-faced, Bull stood in the middle of the room. “Dangerous, hey?” He waved a folded note at her. “This was on the table. You might want to read it.”
“Another message?” She struggled upright and snatched it from him. “From Kane” was scribbled on the front. And inside?
I’m sorry, Heloise. I can’t stomach knowing what you do for a living and what has happened to you,
Kane.
That was it? Break up by scrawled note? Coward. She crumpled the note, tossed the wad to Grunt and watched him pounce on the ball of paper.
“Not good?”
“No. But I expected as much. He’s gone. Scared off. Don’t blame him.” Much. Okay, she blamed him a lot. Which might not be fair but it was how she felt. She screwed her mouth around, thinking, trying not to show how upset she felt. “Um, Bull?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got to leave here and go north. There might be a way for me to get these needles removed, but I can’t tell any more people than I have to.”
“It’s a secret?” For the first time, he looked around. “Hells, what a disaster. Did Kane do all this?”
“What do you think?” She waved at Grunt.
“Him? The cat?” Bull rubbed his chin. “If you go north, I’m coming too.” His tone was as flat as a windless sea. It was clear he wanted no argument from her.
Relief and joy and a tinge of fear rolled over her. Funny. She didn’t want Bull getting hurt.
The man was a giant and a great friend, and if he got hurt, she would blame herself forever. Yet somehow she hadn’t managed to tell him that she only thought of him as just that – a friend.
“Bull,” she blurted, sticking out her hand. “Keep my secret and you can come. I cannot think of anyone else I’d rather have by my side.” Oh. That might have come out wrong.
“Good. Agreed.” He took her hand, enclosing it in his large hand, squeezing gently. “Now tell me the secret.”
She extricated her hand. Yes, it had come out wrong and she knew her face was flushed. Damn. Who would’ve thought he’d get over Sonja’s death so easily.
“It’s Drager. He’s up north and it seems he wants to make amends. Don’t!” She held up a finger as Bull’s eyes bulged and he looked about to combust. “Sit there, on that chair! I’ll make us tea and explain. Please.”
Finding the tea beneath the chaotic clutter turned out to be easy compared to explaining to Bull.
Once the table was the right way up, they sat down at the small dining table to have tea, her on the lounge, Bull on a chair.
How to say this? She cupped the mug and sipped. Red pansies ran around the rim of the china. How to say this so Bull wouldn’t protest? Like, maybe she should leave out the hanging threat?
“There is a priest of Amora up north. He sent word that Drager is with him.”
She checked on him and Bull was frowning.
“He guarantees my safety.” White lie, she told herself.
“Okay. And that helps how?” His forehead wrinkled some more. “Shouldn’t we go up there and kill the bastard.”
“You want to do that.”
Bull shrugged.
“Huh. Me too. At first. The priest says choose between love and hate. I still hate him...” She gazed unfocused past Bull’s ear toward the wall. “But he also says Drager will try to remove the needles. So, I’m going up there to talk.”
“Talk?” Bull swallowed most of his tea. “That’s all?”
“We can kill him or call enforcers in if anything goes wrong. A priest delivered this. I think I’ll be safe. I want to try to get healed. I need to.”
Involuntary tears stung her eyes but she refused to acknowledge them.
“When do we leave?” He pointedly stared at her hands where she nervously wove a cradle from a loose thread pulled from the lounge.
“Today.”
“Today? Really? Heloise, where did you learn that?”
“This?” She held up the somewhat higgledy-piggledy mat she’d woven and shrugged. Where had she learnt to weave? No matter. Other, more urgent, problems called.
She planned to reveal as little as possible to Uncle or anyone else, to sneak away before awkward questions were asked or anyone attempted to stop them. She hoped she might encounter less ghosts in the country. In a city there was bound to be someone dying every single day, and thus a never-ending army of ghosts. The other reason for leaving, which she could barely stand to allow room for in her thoughts, was that she hoped to outrun the other Thing, the twisted ghost, because if she couldn’t, she might not make it as far as this orphanage where Drager was hiding.
But it was no use worrying on it farther. She pushed the morbid thoughts away and looked around.
“You go find your gear, Bull. I’ll sort things out here. First, I’ve got to figure out where we’re going to put Grunt. Maybe a pack quagga would bear him without panicking?”
Bull halted, partway to the door. “The cat? He’s coming?” His voice rose at the end.
Was that fear? Heloise eyed him, grinning. “Yeah. Course he is. He’s my bodyguard. Say, do you know how to change the ownership or home destination of these things?” Balanced on one fingertip, she held up the homing fly.
“No. It’ll return to whoever sent it.”
“Oh.”
Her forehead wrinkled. Should she say nothing and simply turn up, or should she arrive with fanfare? Some grandiose announcement? She smiled, as for a startling second she saw through Drager’s mind. If he was repentant, perhaps he quailed at the thought of their meeting. A grim de
termination firmed her thoughts. With finger and thumb, she activated the homing fly and spoke to it.
“Drager, I am coming. Meet me on bended knee, or not at all.”
There, that would put the cat among the pigeons. Even if it made things more difficult, for after all, who liked being told to kneel, it still made her happy.
Released at the kitchen window, the little replica of an airship climbed, buzzing, into a cloudless blue sky, steered in an arc to the north, dwindled to a black dot, and was gone.
****
Thom was sitting in Omi’s library, painstakingly going through yet another mildewed, moth-eaten tome, when the homing fly zipped in through the doorway and landed on Omi’s lap. Since he was concentrating on tying feathers on a fishing lure, Omi ignored it at first. The little thing lay there, the buzzing winding down to a complete stop.
It was impossible to look at anything else. Thom stared at Omi, then at the homing fly. He let out a long, exasperated sigh.
“I have seen it, Thom. Patience. Remember, you said you should be learning patience.”
“When?” He slid the book to the side. “Please, what does it say?”
Omi cocked one eye at Thom, splayed out his hands. “You cannot wait? Oh, very well.” He screwed the homing fly onto his earlobe for a short while. “Ah, you may not find this amusing, the girl says she is coming and that you should greet her on bended knee.”
Heat flushed across Thom’s face. “What impertinence!”
Omi shrugged, wrinkled his nose. “Hmph! I don’t know. Maybe you deserve it. Hey?”
It was difficult to think of an answer to that. Did he?
Sunlight, strained through a dusty window pane high on the wall, illuminated floating dust motes. Children laughed outside. A goat bleated. He did deserve it. Of course he did. It was a sobering thought. Not that he’d ever kneel. The cursed woman was simply trying to stir him to anger.
Omi added, “I sent word to the other one, Pela, as you asked me to, though I doubt she knows where Samos Goodkin is.”
“Thank you. It only seemed right to try.”
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E
As nightfall approached, Heloise discovered how futile her hope of avoiding the attentions of ghosts was. In the dim glow of evening, as the countryside around them shrank away into silhouettes and lilac-orange shadows, a luminescent tail assembled to the south of the horse she rode. It moved with them along the road and slowly, to her eyes, a cavalcade of ghosts was revealed. Five or six of them. To her horror, the twisted Thing curled and writhed within their luminescence.
“We have to stop. Now!”
“Why?” Bull hauled on the reins of his horse and the quagga tied to his pommel trotted to a halt alongside him. Grunt meowed in protest from the wicker cage swaying atop the quagga. “What is it, Heloise?” He followed her gaze, frowning as if he saw nothing amiss. “Are they there? Why can’t I see them?”
“Maybe they don’t want to be seen.” She slid from her horse, passed the reins to Bull, closed her eyes. “I’ll have to choose one quickly, else the other one, the Thing I told you about might reach me first. It’s there too.” She stared, thin-lipped, at Bull. “Don’t let me do anything bad.”
“I won’t.” He gripped the hilt of his sword, white-knuckled, as if that could help somehow. “I won’t.”
Would she ever get used to this?
“Remind me,” he added. “To kick Drager somewhere it hurts when we see him.”
“Sure. But not till he pulls out the needles.”
The ghosts crowded round, whispering, gaining sharpness and bodily detail as they came closer. Some of them, she felt sure, had followed her from Carstelan.
“Stop! Please! Back off!” To her surprise, they did. Except for one, a man in a striped suit, who flowed forward and introduced himself.
“Pardon my intrusion, miss.” He doffed an imaginary hat. “But I was hoping you might pick myself. My need is a simple and somewhat less terrifying one than some of those presented here.”
Heloise stared. What was this? Glancing along the motley morass of ghosts, she found she could gather at least a little information as to why they were here. A lover needing solace, a murderer seeking forgiveness, a lost fortune, a needy parent, a thief. A surface indication glimmered from all of them, though what lay deeper than that, she had no idea.
“And what are you?” she asked, almost spitting.
“An architect, or once I was one. Now?” A specter-thin hand waved. “I am reduced to this. Begging.”
One eye on the architect, the other on the Thing, she clenched her hands into fists. Praying that he only wanted to say goodbye to a building, or something equally harmless, she reached out. With a flash, he surged into her body. The ice-shock of possession hit her as she took a last breath as herself.
To her relief, this ghost did only need to see the ruins of a temple he’d helped construct. It was a long night ride several miles off their planned route, but at least it only involved standing under the stars and looking.
The second night, the ghost searched in vain for a man he intended to frighten halfway to the grave. Or so she understood. She never quite worked out the reason. The distance from the city had made a difference. The number of ghosts shrank to one or two on some nights, of course the black coiling Thing was always there. Lack of sleep and the extra work for the horses meant their travelling speed slowed to half what it could have been.
The eighth night, the ghost was a woman, Lorella, who’d died young from some accident, and she sought a last tryst with a lover. Trapped, as always, within her own body, Heloise battled to gain control, and failed, as always.
The possible permutations of such a tryst rattled like spiked caltrops through Heloise’s brain as the woman galloped the horse unmercifully toward the town where she sensed her lover now lived. North, the way they needed to go, but oh, the trauma to the horses.
Dirt clods scattered from under the hooves, spittle flew, and the horse’s chest heaved to the fearsome rhythm of the ride. Somewhere behind would be Bull, following them as fast as he could. But he couldn’t know what this ghost intended, and with his heavier weight, his mare would have fallen behind. If ever she needed him to stop a ghost from doing something, now was it.
How long ago was this? What year? Heloise thought at the ghost, striving to get an answer from Lorella. No answer. How old is he now? No answer.
Chances were, she didn’t know. Ghosts seemed to lose all sense of what year, or decade, or sometimes even century, they were in. This man could be fifty or seventy. About the only surety was that he wasn’t dead. The idea of Lorella making love to a stranger with her body, made Heloise nauseous. She lunged and scrabbled to regain control of her body, or thought she did, and it was like falling into a stone wall. Painful. The skitter-screech of fingernails drawn down a window echoed in her head. Imagined, yet apt.
And still they galloped on. Drumming hooves, rattling, jingling tack – if the horse went on like this much longer, she would die. Above, the black, star-speckled sky streamed past. To the right, at the corner of vision, where Lorella refused to look, Heloise spied a hint of light. Dawn. A triumphant cockerel crowed.
“Oh, no. No!” Despairing, Lorella slumped, allowed the horse to clatter to a halt where it stood, head down, blown, exhausted. Sunlight gleamed on sweat – the mare was lathered with it. Lorella rested with arms propped on the saddle pommel. On a rise ahead, written on a wooden sign, was the name of a village: Jikknam.
“Farewell, Yacob, I tried my very best.” She blew a kiss. “Live your life to the fullest.”
Heloise felt the ghost drain away as slowly as the night’s darkness drained from the sky, until only a feather-light trace of her consciousness remained, then she was gone.
Exhausted almost beyond mortal limits, aching, thirsty and craving sleep, she found a mango tree, dismounted, and collapsed, resting with her back against its trunk.
“Heloise! Heloise!”
&n
bsp; Someone was shaking her.
That must be Bull. She opened her eyes, winced at the too-bright sky, and closed her eyes again. “Yes?”
“You’re okay? There’s ants all over you. Gah! Big green ones. Haven’t they bitten you?”
“No.” Her mouth and tongue were stuck together. “Guess, erm...I didn’t seem worth biting. Water. Please.”
“Here.”
Once she’d swallowed a few good mouthfuls the world steadied and made more sense. This time she kept her eyes open and levered herself upright and onto her feet with Bull’s help.
“I am so tired.”
He clasped her hand as if he’d never let it go again. Looked her over, deep furrows creasing his face. “Are you hurt? Anywhere? No? Nowhere? I couldn’t keep up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I tried.”
“No. Not your fault. At all. Not, your fault.” Her mare was nowhere to be seen. “Where’s Maggie?”
“Ah, gods.” He hung his head a moment, then looked her in the eyes. “She’s over there in the long grass. Dead. The ride did her in.”
Though her legs refused to do more than drag her feet a few inches above the red-brown dirt, she limped over and looked down at the body. Already stiff, with flies buzzing and small black ants crawling on the mare’s protruding tongue.
Heloise sniffed and stood there shaking her head, over and over. Her body shook too, little trembles that weren’t just from exhaustion. Maggie hadn’t deserved this.
This was a bad start to the day.
“Is there any good to come out of this, Bull? Anything? I mean...hells.”
He rested a hand lightly on her shoulder. “What happened last night?”
The words refused to come out though she struggled to find them. “Ahh... Let it lie this time, Bull. I’ll tell you another day.”
The tack and saddle needed to be stripped off the mare. A ghastly business, but it had to be done. Bull unbuckled the saddle and hauled it free. “You asked if any good had come of this. Well, depends how you look at it, but we’re now within a day’s ride of the border. The orphanage is just this side of it.”
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