“Okay,” Alex said, folding his arms. “Take me there. Now.”
“I’ve already asked Marcus to escort us. He will arrive shortly,” Emily said, brushing the shimmering dust off a slab of solid crystal and then sitting down on it. “In the meantime, while we wait, perhaps I might use the opportunity to explain myself? I want you to be able to see that I’m not the bad guy here, Alex.”
“Me either,” Vivik added. “If anyone cares.”
“I do, but that’s beside the point,” Alex said. “I want to trust both of you, but you make it pretty fucking difficult. You’ve been stringing me along, for your own ends – and who knows? Maybe you have your reasons – but don’t expect me to trust you. Not until you decide to come clean and…”
“Alex,” Emily said, patting a spot beside her on the crystal block. “I just offered to explain everything.”
“Oh.” Alex frowned. “Ah. Yeah. Go ahead.”
Epilogue
The Changeling fell asleep first, head resting on Katya’s shoulder, her gentle exhalations tickling Katya’s ear. She must have fallen asleep as well, eventually, because when she opened her eyes, the room was dark, and they were no longer alone.
Fumbling about, Katya touched Renton’s still body, relieved that it had not gone cold and stiff. There was no time to search for a pulse, however, as something moved in the darkness not too far from where the assassin and the Changeling huddled against the wall.
Katya looked out into the darkness, straining her eyes.
“I see you,” she said softly, extricating herself from the Changeling’s grasp and rising slowly to her feet, leaning against the wall for support. “There’s no point in being sneaky.”
“An interesting trick,” John Parson remarked, the lights coming on, apparently of their own accord. “Where did you come by those eyes, Katya Zharovaya?”
“Friends in high places.” Katya watched Parson through narrowed eyes. “You’re Anathema. I’ve seen the files.”
“In many ways, I am the Anathema. It was originally my idea, you see,” John Parson said. “I must confess that I was not expecting to find you here, Miss Zharovaya.”
“You and me both,” Katya agreed, rubbing a shoulder she fear was separated. “Why are you here? Are the Anathema and the Thule Cartel in league?”
John Parson laughed uproariously.
“I’d like to say no,” he answered, wiping his eyes. “Thanks to one industrious young lady, however, we have all been cooperating far more than any of us intended.”
“What? Oh,” Katya said, with a grimace. “You mean Emily Muir. She fucked you over too?”
“You could say that,” John Parson said, expression full of good humor. “I prefer not to look at that way.”
He paused at Lóa’s corpse, appearing to study with a bemused detachment.
“Good for you.”
“Do you truly think so, Miss Zharovaya?”
“I don’t really care,” Katya said. “How did you get here, anyway? Eerie said something about the Ether messing with apports…”
“Ah. How perceptive!” John Parson looked amused. “The Changeling is correct. You are fundamentally trapped here in Central, with no hope of rescue. We all face uncertain prospects, I’m afraid, since your little club threw a wrench in the works. Do you even realize, I wonder, how many decades and lifetimes worth of planning you’ve ruined?”
Katya smiled with cracked lips.
“Don’t mess with the Rescue Alex from the Outer Dark Club,” Katya advised. “I wish I hadn’t.”
John Parson wandered across the interrogation chamber, running his hands along tools and restraints like an intrigued shopper, the lining of his long jacket an iridescent shade of almost-purple that made the backs of Katya’s eyes ache. His features were unremarkable, his countenance bland and indicative of no specific age, his skin smoothed and unlined, but also parchment thin. Even through her own odor and that of her reeking clothes, Katya wrinkled her nose at the astringent cologne he wore.
“Good advice, as it turns out, though it arrives a bit late. How in the world did you end up in a Thule dungeon, Miss Zharovaya? I was told you were left deep in the Outer Dark.”
Katya found no obvious answer.
“I’m not sure what happened,” Katya admitted, brushing greasy hair back behind her ears. “There was a witch involved.”
“A witch?”
“Yeah. Yaga, I think? Alistair, too.”
“I see. My protégés do seem to have their own agendas, these days.”
“Then Lord Thule himself.”
“Gaul? Truly? Miss Zharovaya, you keep exalted company! Have any other major players in the current conflict paid you a recent personal visit?”
Katya grinned.
“Well, Emily Muir has been a constant pain in my ass…”
“You are not the only one, I’m afraid.”
“No surprise there. Oh, yeah. One other thing…”
John Parson laughed.
“You are a wonder, Miss Zharovaya! Who else proceeded me?”
“Samnang Banh, and the Church of…”
“Don’t say it!” John Parson shouted. “It is best not to attract their attention.”
“If you say so.”
John Parson indicated a body of the floor, face down on the tile.
“Who is this, Miss Zharovaya?”
“It was Lóa Thule.”
He nodded toward the other body, laying not far from a pair of ceiling restraints.
“And this?”
“A friend of mine.”
Katya hurried over to his side, never taking her eyes from Parson, and held her fingers to his lips.
“Your friend Renton,” John Parson said, with obvious amusement, “is he still alive?”
Katya nodded, moving back to where Eerie lay against the wall, gently snoring.
“Then your luck is not all bad. Shall we try and improve it further?”
“How about we don’t do anything?”
“This is hardly a tenable situation, even without my arrival,” John Parson said, his smile flickering on and off like a dying neon tube. “The only remaining question is, what to do with you now?”
“I’d suggest that you leave us both well the fuck alone,” Katya said, standing over the Changeling. “I know you think that you can just push me over, but I want you to stop for a second, to think about the people who’ve already tried me today, and what it got them.”
John Parson paused, fingers intertwined with the chain that had suspended Renton from the ceiling, and seemed to study her.
“I’m not about to underestimate you, Miss Zharovaya,” he said finally, with apparent approval. “You’ve killed any number of people today, haven’t you?”
“That’s my job,” Katya confirmed. “Let’s keep this on a friendly basis, okay? I don’t have the energy to fuck around.”
“Your protocol is inactive,” John Parson said. “A Thule poison. Likely derived from the study of pitiful Ériu…”
“Doesn’t matter,” Katya said. “I’ll find a way.”
“You do tend to, don’t you?”
“How’d you get in here, if you didn’t apport? Does Lord Thule know you’re here?”
“Certainly not,” John Parson said, with a quicksilver smile. “Despite everything, I do not believe that Gaul Thule would pass up a chance to extend to me his hospitality. I have no intentions, however, of giving him the opportunity to extend my stay. I came via my own means, no apport required. Some of us still remember the old ways, the techniques and shortcuts that allow direct transit of the Ether. I meant to be here only a moment, but circumstances distracted me. This is all very curious. Tell me, if you know, Miss Zharovaya – do you think this is the outcome that Emily Muir intended?”
Katya thought it over.
“I doubt it,” she decided. “As much as I hate her guts, I don’t think this is all on her. We all played a role in this, don’t you think?”
John Parson nodded and lo
oked pleasantly surprised.
“An erudite observation,” John Parson said. “You’ve impressed me.”
“I’ll do worse than that,” Katya said. “If you don’t…”
“Your bravado, however, grows tiresome,” John Parson said. “In recognition of your efforts, I will do you a single favor. I do not believe that we will meet again.”
Katya made her move, sore-footed and slowed by injury. John Parson smiled apologetically and said a word that carried with it a vast, dreamless weight, the mass of a thousand cool pillows, the passage of a million snow white sheep.
He did not move to catch her when she fell. Katya did not awake when her head bounced off the sealed concrete floor. John Parson paused and bent to study her, and then whispered something in Katya’s ear, no more than a single word, as clean and pure as glacial melt. He then returned to where the Changeling lay, deep asleep and occasionally muttering, face smeared with old blood and dried sweat. He looked at her fondly.
“You’ve come so far, Ériu,” John Parson said. “It feels something of a tragedy to bring you back to the beginning, after everything you’ve gone through. You have my apology, should you wish it.”
John Parson picked up the Changeling gently. She stirred and moaned, but did not wake. He walked out of the room with the Changeling draped across his arms, limp and fitful, the lights turning off in his wake.
Katya lay in the darkness, dreaming of nothing. When she woke, it was abrupt, rocketing out of sleep and into horrified awareness. She stumbled about in the dark, nearly tripping over Renton in her quest for a light switch. She located one beside the door eventually and activated it. Realizing that the Changeling was gone, Katya sank to the floor in despair. She roused herself twice to check Renton’s pulse, and once to kick Lóa’s body, but otherwise sat unmoving, watching the door for the next two hours.
She shifted warily when she heard the door rattle. The lock snapped, and then a moment later, the door was torn from its hinges, light flooding into the interrogation chamber from the outside hallway. Katya shielded her dazzled eyes, only able to make out a figure at the door.
Out of habit, Katya reached for her protocol, and when nothing happened, she felt a wild sort of despair, and might have laughed, if she had the energy.
“If you’re looking for Lóa Thule, she’s dead!” Katya shouted. “You set foot inside this room, and…”
“I’m not here for Lóa Thule,” Leigh said, stepping close enough that Katya could make her out. “And you don’t need to yell.”
“You’re that Anathema vampire,” Katya said. “You work for Emily…”
“Leigh Feld, and yes, I suppose do.” The vampire sighed and looked around. “Where is the Changeling?”
“She was taken,” Katya said, too exhausted to lie. “She’s gone.”
“I see that.” The vampire bent down beside Renton. “Is this one with you?”
“He’s a friend of mine, I suppose,” Katya said. “We just happened to bump into each other down here.”
The vampire raised an eyebrow.
“In a torture chamber? That’s some luck. Damn it – nobody said anything about injured people. How am I supposed to carry both of you?”
“Carry?” Katya shook her head. “I can walk.”
“Really?” Leigh looked dubious. “If you say so. Let’s get moving, then.”
“Where are we going?”
“Isn’t away from here good enough?”
Leigh picked up Renton as if he weighed nothing, arranging him carefully across her shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
“Not at all,” Katya said, stubbornly remaining seated. “Where?”
“Away from here. That’s all I know!” The vampire sighed. “We are improvising, okay? Things didn’t go exactly to plan…”
“You don’t say?”
“…and now we are scrambling. I just found out that you were here an hour ago, when Emily filled me in, and you’re already practically rescued. We’ll get clear of this place, and then figure out the rest. It’s kind of a mess out there, and the next step isn’t exactly obvious. Good enough?”
Katya thought about it.
“No.” She held out her hand to the vampire. “Help me up.”
“I thought you said you could walk!”
“I did,” Katya confirmed, grimacing as Leigh yanked her to her feet. “I didn’t say I could stand.”
Katya fell as soon as the vampire released her arm, smacking her hip against the tile and moaning. Leigh shook her head sadly.
“Nobody said anything about carrying two people,” Leigh said, bending and scooping Katya up from the floor, tucking the assassin beneath her arm despite protests. “Don’t you think you could lose some weight?”
“My BMI is ideal for my height!” Katya shouted, struggling feebly. “Put me down!”
Leigh, dear, Emily chimed in telepathically. How goes it?
Progress is slow, Leigh explained, bent under her load as she made her way down the hall, past the bodies of the Thule security she had dealt with on the way in. You owe me.
Oh, I agree! And I have just the thing in mind to settle my tab, I promise.
Are you going to have Marcus pick us up?
About that! I have one more teensy…
Emily! This is ridiculous!
…tiny thing for you to do in Central. Pretty please, Leigh?
The vampire attempted to be upset with Emily, and found herself unable.
The stairs out of the basement were strewn with massacred Thule personnel, and the first floor was alive with alarms and hurried footsteps. The vampire glanced about the hallway, and then bashed out a nearby window with her fist. After cleaning the remainder of the glass from the frame, she set about shoving Renton through the opening.
You’re making me go along with this, aren’t you?
I’m making you not mind the imposition, yes. Is that a problem?
Not really, Leigh thought, pushing Katya out of the window after Renton. What’s next?
I have one more small affair to conclude here, and then Marcus and I will join you. We’re going ahead with the next step in the delightful little plan that Vivik devised for us.
Oh, right, Leigh thought, crawling out the window herself. Don’t remind me! I remember it. We’re on…Step Four, right?
Yes, Leigh, dear. I need you to meet up with Adel.
Do I have to? I told you, I don’t like him.
Neither do I, but he has a car arranged, and Hegemony passwords for the checkpoints. We won’t need him for very long, in any case, so humor me. Please?
You know I’m going to agree.
Oh, don’t be a grump! You loved Step Four when we went over it during the briefing. Don’t you remember? It’s time to destroy the Source Well! Then we’ll have one last picnic on the lawn, before we burn the Academy to the ground. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing. What do you say?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zachary Rawlins lives with his lovely and amazing wife, Chloe, and their genius Corgi, Ein, in an 80-year-old Tudor in Oakland, California. During the day, he works in the environmental industry. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, photography, building computers, and writing books like this one. He can be reached at [email protected] with compliments, questions, or lucrative publishing offers.
THANK YOU...
...for reading The Outer Dark! Book Five of the Central Series, The Church of Sleep, will likely see release sometime in 2019. In the meantime, I would be thrilled if you were to check out The Unknown Kadath Estates books or The Night Market, from my cosmic-horror themed series of American light novels, all available presently on Amazon.
Cheers!
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The Outer Dark (Central Series Book 4) Page 68