Black Swan Rising

by Lee Carroll

  “It’s the cellular matter of the fog. The fog shapes itself into images using negative energy. It’s still at a protozoic stage, but as it grows stronger, the fog will be charged and then it will form into whatever mental images it encounters.”

  “So basically people all over the city will get to meet their worst nightmares mentally even if they manage to avoid them physically.”

  “Exactly. Even now if it encounters a strong enough mental image, it will shape itself to that. Since you’ve been exposed to training from the four elementals, your mind can send images powerful enough to spark life into it. So try to keep your mind blank.” He turned to me and smiled, but in the ghastly yellow light of the fog it looked more like a snarl. “And please stay close. We’ll have to feel our way across.”

  Will tucked my arm under his and we started down the slope. The ground underfoot was slick and, once we were in the fog, invisible. I slipped several times, but each time he caught me. I tried to hold on tighter, but my hands were dripping from the fog and shaking from the cold. His hands felt as chilly and brittle as bare bones, flesh that had been dead a hundred years—and of course he had been dead for much longer than that.

  “It’s not much farther.” His disembodied whisper came from beside me. The fog was so thick I couldn’t even see him . . . did I really even know it was Will I clung to? I peered through the thick clotted air for Will’s face. Even the face of a vampire—a creature of the undead—would be a welcome sight right now. I leaned closer . . . and a white skull loomed out of the fog, leering at me with empty eye sockets. I screamed and backed away, wrenching my hands out of the skeletal fingers I now saw clutching at me.

  “Garet!” the voice came from the loose-flapping jaw.

  I took another step back . . . and fell. Will—or whatever that thing by my side was—was too far away to catch me. I slid down the steep slope, through muck and ooze, and landed in a pool of foul-smelling water at the bottom. I heard Will’s voice calling from above me, but all I kept seeing was that horrible leering skull.

  It’s the fog, I told myself, but another voice said, But that’s really what he is—a four-hundred-year-old corpse.

  So I stayed quiet. I didn’t answer Will’s call. I got to my hands and knees and began to crawl up the opposite slope. I would go on to the tower myself, get the box from Dee, and then this pernicious fog would soon evaporate and Will—the real Will—would catch up to me. Everything would go back to normal, then. That’s what I had to focus on—my old life returned to stability and normalcy. My father would come home from the hospital and we’d find a way to pay off that loan. Becky and Jay would make up and find a way to compromise on the band’s direction. And I’d prove to Detective Kiernan that my father had had nothing to do with the robbery. I continued to climb, keeping my mind on these mundane problems, which had seemed so huge a few days ago but were now somehow comforting. In fact, my everyday worries seemed to be an antidote to the fog. When I reached the top of the slope, the fog cleared and I could see the tunnel entrance to the High Bridge. I snapped my fingers and produced a small, flickering flame that I held up to the mouth of the tunnel . . . lighting up the figure of a man standing just inside.

  I screamed. The man turned around and aimed a flashlight into my face, blinding me.

  “Garet James, is that you?”

  The voice was familiar, and when the man lowered the flashlight, I saw that he was Detective Joe Kiernan. “What are you doing here?” I gasped.

  “We saw that you looked up the High Bridge Tower and figured you’d come here,” the detective said. Then turning, he shouted into the tunnel, “She’s here. I found her.”

  Two figures emerged from the gloom: Jay and Zach Reese. I’d never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life.

  “We figured out what was going on,” Jay said. “And we came to help.”

  “You shouldn’t have tried to do it all by yourself,” Zach said.

  “I wasn’t—” I began, looking behind me. What had happened to Will? “I didn’t think anyone would believe me,” I said instead.

  “It is pretty unbelievable,” Kiernan said, “but some pretty unbelievable things are happening up above. Fires and explosions everywhere. Come on. Let’s find this guy Dee and stop whatever he’s doing to this city.” Joe Kiernan smiled encouragingly. It was such a clean, honest smile that I wondered why I had taken such a dislike to the officer before. He was only trying to help. He took my arm now and led me into the tunnel. Jay took my other arm and Zach walked behind us. I could hear his steps reverberating on the iron supports of the bridge, a pounding that made my head hurt.

  “This is really cool,” Jay said, pointing his flashlight onto the floor. “Look, the pylons of the bridge are hollow. You can see all the way down to the river.”

  A dizzying abyss opened beneath us and I gasped.

  “Don’t worry,” Jay said. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” Then he whispered into my ear, “You know how I feel about you, don’t you?” His breath, so close to my face, smelled coppery. I turned to look at him, but he’d turned away so all I could see was his profile.

  “She doesn’t feel that way about you,” Joe Kiernan said. “She doesn’t really care that much about you or Becky. Look at what she let happen to Becky.”

  “And to her father,” Zach added from behind us. I tried to turn around to face Zach, but Kiernan tightened his grip on my arm.

  “That’s right,” Kiernan said. “You led those men to your house so they could shoot your father, didn’t you? If he had died, it would have been a convenient way out of your troubles. And you wouldn’t have to waste the rest of your life catering to a senile old man who gambled away your inheritance.”

  “You wished him dead just like you wished your mother dead,” Zach’s voice came from behind me. But it wasn’t Zach. The two things marching me across the bridge weren’t Joe Kiernan and Jay, either. They were demons I’d conjured up out of the fog. I closed my eyes and said aloud, “You’re not real.”

  The three men laughed. “Aren’t we?” the one in Jay’s shape said. “We know all about you. Remember the time we cut school and took the ferry to Staten Island? I wanted to kiss you that day, but all you talked about was some boy you had a crush on.”

  “And remember what your father said at your mother’s funeral?” Zach asked. “I was the only one close enough to hear. He said he wished it had been you who died instead.”

  “That’s not true!” I yelled, struggling to break free and turn around to face Zach. “He said if I’d been in the passenger seat I would have died.”

  “But that’s what he was thinking.” Kiernan clucked his tongue. “What a terrible thing for a father to think, but then your father always has been a selfish man. If he really cared about your well-being, he wouldn’t have gambled away all your money.”

  I pulled my arm away from Kiernan and he suddenly let go. Jay let go of my other arm. I took a step forward, but then I looked down and saw that we were at the edge of one of the bridge’s pylons. Far below me I could see the churning water of the Harlem River.

  “Go ahead, Garet,” the three men whispered together. “Jump!”

  I braced myself, waiting for them to push me over the edge, but nothing happened. They didn’t have that power, at least not yet. They were made of air and water and, I suddenly remembered, I had power over both. I turned around and faced the three of them. “You’re just water,” I said aloud. The shapes turned gray and began to waver in the air. I lifted both arms up—the way I’d seen Ariel summon the wind—and listened for the wind’s song. I felt it rushing over the High Bridge and skimming the water below, insinuating itself into the cracks between the bricks. Then it came through the tunnel like a freight train, lifting me off my feet for a moment. The shapes of the three fog-men began to disintegrate until there was only a trail of smoke that the wind blew out the other side of the tunnel.

  “Thank you,” I said aloud.

  A sigh
stirred the air and then was gone. In its place I heard my name.

  “Garet? Are you there?” It was Will.

  “I’m here.” I saw him coming out of the gloom, his face pale and drawn but whole. The fog was gone now. This was the real him.

  “Thank God!” he said, pulling me into his arms. “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “It was the fog. It made me see terrible things, but it’s gone now.”

  “Not for long,” Will said, holding me at arm’s length and turning me toward the Bronx side of the tunnel where a curl of mist lay at the entrance like a coiled snake. “We’d better hurry.”

  At the end of the bridge was another gate chamber leading to the base of the tower. Without the fog it was easier to navigate, but still it was a difficult climb. My legs were shaking by the time we reached the base of the tower. I leaned against the brick wall for a moment to catch my breath, and then I looked up and saw a stairwell made of perforated iron spiraling up as far as my eye could see.

  Just past one of the spirals was a narrow vertical opening in the wall; it looked like one of those slits in medieval fortresses built for archers to fire arrows through. There was a muted orange and yellow glow in it which baffled me, so I took a few steps to scrutinize it more closely, and then I gasped. The glassless window looked out on a block of apartment buildings, and two buildings at the end of the block were in flames. I shuddered with the thought of how many spark-sprouting tentacles could be growing throughout the city now, and how much of the city could be ashes by the time we subjugated Dee, if we did, but there was nothing to be done but try. Turning back to Will, who had enough on his mind, I pretended to be distracted only by profuse amber light, thick as honey, that was flowing down from the top of the tower.

  “At least there isn’t any fog,” I said to Will.

  He nodded, but I noticed that he looked drained.

  “Have you fed tonight?” I asked. “I thought that’s where you were before you came to me.”

  “Your call interrupted me,” he said.

  “Do you need—”

  He waved me away. “You need your strength. There’s something in this tower that drains energy. Can’t you feel it?”

  Now that he mentioned it, I did. It felt as if gravity were stronger here, exerting a downward pressure on us. I had to grip the iron railing of the stairs to pull myself up onto the first step. As soon as my feet touched the iron staircase I felt the charge—an electrical current running down through the metal slammed into my body with the force of a Mack truck.

  “Whoa,” I said, sinking down to my knees. “What is it?”

  “Dee has set up an energy coil. The spiral stairs are the perfect vehicle for it. This is what’s pushing the fog out into the city—it’s like a giant fan.”

  “How are we going to get past it?”

  Will didn’t answer. I looked behind me and saw him slumped to the ground, his face ashen gray. “Will!” I called, and reached down to take his hand. A current of energy leapt from my hand to his.

  Instantly his skin lost the gray tint and he opened his eyes. He sat up and looked at me, his silver eyes flashing like mirrors. “How did you do that?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Without losing contact with his hand I turned my palm up and saw that the compass stone embedded there was glowing. “Oberon said that the stone grounded me. I can still feel the energy, but now it’s flowing through me.” I stood up, pulling Will to his feet effortlessly. I felt the energy coursing through my body, but it no longer weighed on me. It felt, rather, as if I were standing beneath a cool waterfall. It felt . . . well, energizing. “Come on,” I said, “keep ahold of my hand.”

  Climbing the spiral stairs was easy now. It was as if I were being carried upward on a spiral escalator. The whole stairway thrummed with energy, producing a low hum that reminded me of the song I’d heard in the wind. “There’s one thing I don’t understand,” I said to Will over my shoulder. “I thought Dee was summoning demons, but this energy wave doesn’t feel evil—it feels great!”

  Will laughed. “And what makes you think that evil can’t feel good? You made love to a demon last night. Are you telling me that didn’t feel good?”

  I looked back at him and saw that he was shining like an alabaster vase filled with light. He looked more like an angel than a demon. “You’re not a demon,” I said.

  “There are those who would disagree.” He smiled sadly and touched my face. The energy connection set off sparks. “At any rate, this energy isn’t good or evil—it’s just a conveyer, the engine behind whatever you send with it. Compared to the two demons that Dee has conjured, I am an angel. We’d better hurry.”

  He looked so beautiful that I hated to turn away from him, but he was right. I continued up the stairs, but after the next flight Will put his hand on my arm to hold me back. “Wait.” He pointed to something above my head. “There’s someone—or something—on the stairs up ahead.”

  I looked up and saw what he meant. Because the stairs were perforated you could see through them all the way to the top, but on the next level just below the top something blocked the flow of light—something large and dark. I watched it for a few moments without seeing any movement. “We’d better see what it is,” I whispered.

  We took the remaining loops toward the top slowly and quietly. When we came around the last turn, I saw that the inert, dark mass was Oberon. He was pinned to the iron steps by a mesh of metal chains, as if a spider had spun a web of fine iron and trapped him in it. His eyes were open, staring vacantly toward the top of the tower.

  “Is he dead?” I asked.

  “It takes a lot to kill a fairy. I think he’s just iron-klampt.”

  “But he said it was just the little fey who were susceptible to iron.”

  “Usually it is, but this is a lot of iron and Dee must have rigged a net to catch him.”

  I knelt down and looked into Oberon’s face. His eyes were the opaque white of milk glass—lifeless marbles. And his face was contorted in a rictus of pain. He had tricked me, left me to die, but I didn’t like seeing the King of the Fairies pinned and trapped like a housefly. I laid my hand on his chest to feel for a heartbeat, and the blind milky white eyes revolved in their sockets toward me.

  “Marguerite?” It was a hoarse croak, barely audible through dry, cracked lips.

  “It’s Garet. Here, let me take these chains off you.” I plucked at one of the chains with my fingers, but it was weirdly heavy. I pulled harder, but I couldn’t budge it. I turned to Will to ask his help, but he shook his head.

  “He left you paralyzed. Why should we help him?”

  Oberon shook his head weakly back and forth. “He’s right. You have no reason to trust me again. Besides, as long as the box is open, the force of its energy keeps these chains pinned to the iron beneath me. But once you close the box, the chains will fall away.”

  “And then he’ll try to take the box from you,” Will said. “We should finish him off.”

  “No!” I said with more force than I’d intended. “I won’t kill the King of the Fairies. He only did what he thought he had to, and besides, I think he’ll be too weak from the iron to do anything to stop me once I have the box.”

  “You’re right,” Oberon said. “Go! Just one thing. . . . When you get to the box . . . close it right away . . . don’t look into it.”

  It felt like a fairy-tale admonition, but then, it came from a fairy. I was tempted to ask why not, but there wasn’t time for that. It seemed an easy enough thing to promise. “Okay,” I said. “We’ll come back for you.”

  Oberon stretched his cracked lips over his teeth and I realized he was trying to smile. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll be waiting right here.”

  The Amber Room

  The room I stepped into was the same room I had seen under the river and on the TCM set, and through Madame Dufay’s eyes, but none of those perspectives had prepared me for what the room looked like now. I had noticed before that the wal
ls behind the paintings were gold-colored, but now I saw that they were actually lined with panels of translucent, glowing amber. And I recognized the panels—they were from the famed Amber Room, built for the Catherine Palace of St. Petersburg in the eighteenth century, looted by the Nazis, then mysteriously lost in the aftermath of World War II. I had seen pictures of the ornate panels, but I had never heard that they glowed. It was as if some energy source had filled them with light. The whole room was pulsating with a honey-gold energy that set my teeth on edge and made my blood fizz.

  The energy came from the shallow silver box sitting on the table in front of the fireplace. I looked up from the box and saw all that energy reflected in the amber eyes of the man seated before me.

  “Welcome, Garet James. I had hoped you would make it. When I saw Oberon, I was afraid he’d already disposed of you.”

  “Will saved me,” I replied. “You were wrong about my not being able to trust him . . . but then spreading dissension and doubt is what you’re best at, isn’t it? When you’re not preoccupied with physical destruction, that is.”

  Dee smiled. “Oh, my dear, you really haven’t known me long enough to judge what I’m best at . . . nor should you be so certain that I was wrong about Will Hughes. I notice that he’s let you take the lead here.”

  I glanced back to see that Will stood on the threshold of the room, his hands braced on either side of the doorframe.

  “I can’t come any further,” Will said. “This energy field he’s created is too like sunlight.” To demonstrate, Will extended one hand a few inches into the room. Instantly his skin blistered and crisped.

  “Stay back!” I cried, trying to go to him, but I couldn’t. I was stuck. The amber light filling the room wasn’t just light, it was made up of some kind of viscous substance—like the prehistoric sap that amber came from—and I was trapped like an insect in its sticky grasp. Or at least I thought I was. Although I couldn’t go back to Will, I found I could turn back around to face Dee. And when I tried, I found that I could take a step toward Dee. Or, rather, toward the box. The energy flowing out of the box created a pathway I could walk on. In fact, it seemed to be pulling me forward. I had to dig my heels into the carpet to keep from going any farther.