The instant the cover was up, every loose object in the shop lifted into the air and rushed toward the copier as though Asanti had opened a black hole.
• • •
Sal watched Liam go even more pale than normal as Christina’s words sank in. He looked like he wanted to bolt, vomit, or both. At least, that was how Sal would have felt if the head of the Network had announced that she was possessed by the Hand.
“We shouldn’t be enemies,” Christina called out. “This is all the culmination of work that you started. We never could have done it without you.”
Sal reached down to squeeze Liam’s wrist and could feel his muscles shaking.
“This is not on you,” she whispered to him. She had kept her voice low, but apparently the demon could still hear her.
“Isn’t it?” asked Christina. “If you hadn’t broken out of the virtual beta in Switzerland, maybe we wouldn’t have had so many problems in Middle Coom. That test gave us valuable information, but it was much messier than it had to be.”
Before Sal could stop him, Liam surged forward. Glimpsing his expression, she realized that he hadn’t been shaking with fear, but with rage. In five steps he was face-to-face with Christina, so close they were nearly touching. “You want me to help you fix this?” he asked.
“I want you to rule beside me. Look upon your works, and see how good they are,” she breathed back.
Liam reached out, caught Christina’s hand.
There was a flash of light from the demon within her.
Sal screamed, “No!”
And then all hell broke loose.
• • •
If Asanti had been more conscious of her surroundings, she would have been reminded of the magical hacking of the Archives as part of Mr. Norse’s search for the Codex Umbra. As it was, the maelstrom surrounding her barely registered in her consciousness. She had to trust Grace and Menchú to protect her body, because the combination of the machine, the spell, and the shroud threatened to consume her mind. In all of her years with the Society, she had never felt anything like this.
The augmented shroud appeared to sense the capacity for limitless text possessed by the altered copy machine. Linked to it by the spell she had cast, Asanti could see infinite pages, filled with the demonic script already duplicated by the machine. The shroud was drawing all of it in, taking the words and overwriting them.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor …
Lorem ipsum is a protective incantation? Or is it merely a neutralizing solution? And if either is the case, are the properties inherited from the original Cicero, or is there some significance to …?
Asanti felt something in the magic shift, as though her interest had attracted its attention. For a moment, she had the sensation that she and the shroud were examining each other, two peers of the magical arts. And then it was crushing her, reaching into her mind, filling her with …
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet …
No!
• • •
As Liam grabbed Christina, he could feel the force of the demon pressing back against his skin. “It’s not too late to join us, Liam.” Even though she whispered, he could still hear her over the clash of Sal fighting Christina’s goons. “This is where you belong. With us.”
She carried the demon, but it hadn’t taken full control yet. Christina had always been strong. Stronger than him, certainly. “It’s not too late for you,” said Liam as he reached into his back pocket. “If you come with us, there’s still a way out.”
“There is no way out,” she hissed, but the voice wasn’t entirely hers. “You never should have left us. Come home.”
As she said it, Liam looked into Christina’s eyes. In them, he could see a reflection of the infinite black. The void where there was no light, no God, no hope. Show me the vastness, Liam, she had said, and he had done it. This was his work. It was time for him to finish the job.
“You’re right,” said Liam. “I am a sinner. But I have been redeemed.” He brought his hand out from behind his back and dropped Sal’s cross, now wired into an EMP generator, over Christina’s head. One tiny flick of his fingers and, with a crackle, a dazzling arc of electricity lanced out from Christina to the others in her Network. They all screamed as one.
• • •
With the part of her mind that remained, Asanti watched in horror as the shroud feasted, consuming all that the machine could give it, everything it could take from her. It was growing, like a snake filling the world with looping coils … coils that wrapped themselves around her, consuming mind, soul …
Asanti had always believed magic to be neutral, a tool that could be used for good or ill, but as the snake turned its head toward her and she felt herself caught in the mesmerizing pull of its gaze, she knew that this was a force with its own desires that cared for her intentions and desires not one whit.
• • •
As soon as the vortex appeared, Grace felt the world slip into slow motion. It wasn’t like when she burned, trading moments from her life in exchange for living more quickly. This was something more subjective, like watching a car accident she was powerless to prevent.
The shroud affected lighter objects first, pelting Asanti with a hail of projectiles on their way to the gaping void. But already the office machines and shelving shook in their places and began to lift. Even a glancing blow from any one of them would damage Menchú or Asanti beyond their ability to recover. Menchú had launched himself forward and was hurtling toward Asanti and the center of the storm, heedless of the danger.
She had to get to the shroud before he did.
Grace burned brighter than she ever had before.
• • •
Asanti tried to reach out, to close the machine, but her fingers found nothing. She tried to call for help, but her voice was gone. She tried to take a breath, but there was no air, or was it that she had no lungs? Her body must still exist, otherwise all of this wouldn’t hurt so much. A black circle grew from the center of her inner vision. The darkness pressed the world away, and just as it was about to disappear there was a light, brighter than anything she had ever seen.
It burned like the sun.
• • •
Menchú’s hand brushed against the shroud and he felt a dread he had never experienced before. Whatever was in the machine was very, very hungry, and evil in a way that dwarfed all of his prior experiences with the demonic. He felt it reaching for him.
Then there was a rush of air, and his world exploded into flame.
• • •
Grace burned with a dizzying intensity that took her breath away. She was so fast and hot that the world was as frozen to her senses as she was to the world the instant her candle went out. She brushed Menchú’s fingers away from the shroud and began to lift it.
As soon as she touched the machine, she could feel it in her mind.
Do you hunger, little one? Let us feast together. Come to me, and you can burn forever …
She could feel the lie behind its promise, but that didn’t make the temptation go away. One last blaze of glory to save the others, and then … nothing. She could be back in step with time again, the time that had taken everyone she had known and loved, and should have done the same to her long ago. Menchú had always said that demons gained power over their victims by promising to grant what they most wanted.
Was oblivion what she desired?
The foreign missionaries of Grace’s childhood had taught her to believe that God was an active participant in the lives of the faithful and that He did nothing without a reason. Although they would have been scandalized by her current occupation—possibly more by the Catholic part than the magic part—they would also have insisted that her life was still part of a larger plan.
And that suicide was a sin.
As was her rather cavalier attitude towards certain injunctions found in the book of Leviticus.
All long dead, little one.
And here you are, alone.
But she wasn’t alone. Not while she still had the power to save the people who had made her life—strange as it was—worth living. She reached for the shroud and for the thing it had absorbed from inside the machine.
It was time for them to all burn together.
• • •
Christina’s screams took on a frantic pitch. She locked eyes with Liam, and for a moment, the darkness vanished. He didn’t see the vastness, or the demon. There was only Christina.
She wore an expression of utter betrayal. “What have you done?” she cried. For a moment, the blackness returned to her eyes, and Liam knew that the demon wasn’t gone, merely distracted, but it meant Christina had room to fight.
Liam reached out and grasped her arms. “Leave it,” he said. “Join me and be free forever.”
She leaned in and kissed him. And for a moment Liam thought he had won. Then she pulled back and he saw she was crying. “We could have had forever,” she said, “but you threw it away.”
Liam knew that Christina had the strength to defeat the demon, she had the strength to defeat anything, but she had to want to. He saw the moment in her eyes when she let the blackness bubble up and consume her. He was still holding her when she collapsed, dead, in his arms.
• • •
Asanti looked up from where she had fallen to the floor. The copy machine was a smoking ruin. Menchú nursed a burn on his hand. Grace was … Where was Grace?
An instant later, Grace appeared, the remnants of the burned shroud falling lifeless from her fingers.
“Are you all right?” Menchú asked Asanti.
She checked her limbs. Most of her various aches were ones she had brought with her. Her mind was clear and whole. “Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
Menchú held out a hand to his old friend. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
6.
Sal wasn’t the only one who didn’t feel much like talking on the flight back to Rome. She sat next to Liam, and left him alone until she’d finished picking at her dinner. He looked up at her gentle poke.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
There was so much she wanted to say to him.
You did an amazing job.
I’m sorry about Christina.
Are you okay?
I still care about you.
But what came out was, “I think we beat your demon pretty good.”
He swallowed. “Yeah. We did.”
Her eye fell on the little brownie, still wrapped in plastic, on the corner of her dinner tray. She said, “I know it isn’t anyone’s birthday, but …” It sounded so stupid, saying it out loud. Her nerve faltered, and she trailed off.
“What?” he asked.
Sal mustered her courage. “Do you want to share my cake?”
Her reward for bravery was Liam’s tiny smile. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
• • •
Asanti didn’t pay much attention to the trip home. She was exhausted, shaken, and couldn’t shrug off a feeling that the other shoe had yet to drop. A feeling that was proved correct the moment they landed in Rome and were met by two Vatican security guards who marched straight up to Asanti and seized her by the arms.
“Archivist Asanti. You are hereby placed under arrest on the charge of thievery, insubordination, and witchcraft.”
As the others protested, Asanti felt herself relax. It had finally happened. The storm that had been brewing for so long was going to break. She found she had to fight to keep herself from smiling.
Let’s do this.
Bookburners
Season 2, Episode 13
The End of the Day
Max Gladstone
1.
Asanti stood before the court.
Monsignors Fox and Umber watched her from the bench before the empty cardinal’s seat, while other prelates waited in the wings. Fox rubbed his eyes and clutched his coffee. Angels warred with devils on the arched ceiling, and Adam and Eve sheltered in place. Everyone looked like they’d rather be anywhere but here.
Everyone except Asanti.
She was a pillar in a gold dress. She was indomitable. She stared up at the bench as if she were staring down.
The audience packed into the narrow courtroom. The sole empty chair belonged to the cardinal, and that only because the Society still lacked one, after months of debate. Angiuli had been the presumptive candidate—but he was gone now, having withdrawn his name from consideration for the position and from the Society itself. The audience swelled with Society functionaries, trusted ministers, and sharks smelling blood in the water.
Menchú squeezed into the front row beside Sal and Grace and Liam, themselves squeezed by Asanti’s assistants, minus poor Frances. He felt surprised both by how many faces he recognized, and how many he didn’t. Hilary Sansone, of course, across the aisle, crystal calm and cool as ever. Thavani Shah sat in the second row with her team, including Lynne Soo, who still walked with crutches after her fight with Grace in the catacombs last year. He even recognized Siegfried, the door guard. Nurses from the clinic, file clerks from Team Two, Swiss Guards, mailroom attendants, all the hangers-on even Menchú seldom remembered, the unglamorous support staff without which no organization, secret or not, could run. They didn’t get enough credit. Of course, they didn’t get killed as often, either.
Menchú clasped his hands, and tried not show his nerves. He’d last been here after the Tornado Eaters fiasco, after Bouchard’s death, when he and Sal and the whole team had been arraigned for incompetence. The hearings following Cardinal Varano’s indictment had been held elsewhere, in the high and private offices where cardinals were brought to task—or not—for their misdeeds. Back under Varano, the death of a team leader, the use of magic on American soil, had been regrettable inconveniences, not in themselves, but for the paperwork they generated; the hearing’s point had been to offer an impression of action without actually taking any. Varano would never have allowed an audience like this.
Not that Menchú wanted the old man back. Cardinal Varano had been a horrible human being—racist, obstructionist, condoning slaughter and torture so long as they made his life easier. Under his rule, Asanti might have been quietly—and deniably—killed. Now, if she died, there would be people watching.
“This feels different from when I was up there,” Sal said, beside him.
“That was an inquest,” he said. “This is a trial.”
“Can they actually … sentence her?” She sounded disgusted by the prospect.
Menchú didn’t blame her. He did not hate the Society—not often. But some questions, Sal’s among them, forced him to consider what the organization to which he’d given his life had been before he joined. What work it had done in the world, who it had hurt, and why. The Society must have been in Guatemala during the conquest. What magic had his ancestors used against the church he served? What happened to them afterward? “The Society is very old,” he said, because there was no space to say the rest. “Its rules and punishments were framed in a different time.”
“And nobody changed them? Amended them?”
Sal could be so American sometimes. “Customs change faster than written law. That is, for example, why you were not formally tried—an investigative committee can censure and reprimand, but it cannot punish.”
“But this is a formal trial.”
He did not want to answer that question. “Yes.”
“So Asanti could—”
“We hope not,” he said, too quickly.
Sal blinked. “Wait. How does that go with the whole seamless garment of life thing?”
“The Society’s methods and rules are older,” he said. “She may be exiled. She may be killed outright, though that’s … unpalatable for many. More likely, they will confine her. There are cells—dark, empty rooms where no one goes, rooms without visitors or books. A woman could live a long time in those cells. They have not been used
in a very long time, but they are kept up to code, in case.”
“She’ll go mad.”
“They will bring her a pill,” he said, “every day, with dinner. It used to be a cup, back when we were less good at poison. Whether she chooses to take the pill is up to her.”
“Christ.”
He didn’t make the obvious joke. It felt too cruel. “No one has been sentenced in at least two hundred years.”
“When was the last formal trial?”
The only answer he could give to that was a change of subject. “Asanti will be fine. She has an excellent canon lawyer. Everything she did, she did to save Belfast, and the world. We’re only alive now because of her. And custom is powerful—nobody on that stage wants to make a precedent of using punitive power. All she has to do is let the lawyer argue.”
“I’d be happier,” Sal said, “if this didn’t feel so much like a firing squad.”
The canon lawyer entered, a balding man in a priest’s collar who walked as if his suit were too tight. The lantern painted his face a mottled red. Menchú wondered if the lawyer was claustrophobic—his eyes kept darting to the windowless walls. He joined Asanti at the defendant’s table; they sat. Monsignor Fox struck the gavel, and the courtroom hushed. Silence tightened like a drum skin.
“We are here,” Fox said, “to address serious charges laid against Archivist Asanti: charges of dereliction of duty, abandonment of mission, theft and misuse of archival materials, and . . .” He did not look like he wanted to say the last part. Menchú did not blame him. The word was, doubtless, the reason the room was full. Who had suggested it? Sansone? “… witchcraft.”
The courtroom rumbled. Someone laughed, and someone else shushed her.
“Counselor,” the monsignor continued, addressing the canon lawyer, “how does Ms. Asanti plead?”
The lawyer looked down. The room grew quiet once more, the audience afraid he might speak too softly for them to hear. They needn’t have bothered.
“It’s ‘Doctor,’ actually.” The loudest crowd roar couldn’t have covered Asanti’s voice, though the audience tried. Asanti swept to her feet, and fixed Fox and Umber with an imperious stare. “Your Excellencies, I will argue in my own defense. And I plead innocent.”
Bookburners The Complete Season Two Page 48