“Hot stuff,” Beach said, with a lecherous glint in his eyes, “but no use to us.” He straightened up, raised his leg, and kicked in the monitor. The screen burst, showering glass everywhere. Vasques leaped up, swearing. “Take it apart. We’ll analyze the hard drive back at the safe house.” The private detective nodded and started pulling wires out of the rear of the plastic box.
Stefan came running on crepe-soled tiptoe. “The man is coming back!”
“We’re through here,” Beach said. “Never mind. Leave the computer.” They departed down the fire-escape stairs just as they heard Jackson’s key fumbling in the lock.
The break-in had borne precious little fruit. Beach needed to look elsewhere for answers. The advertisement had been commissioned for Gadfly Electronics. It was time to investigate them, and any other lead that came his way.
Perhaps, he sighed, dusting himself off in the alley, even from Maria.
***
Chapter 16
“The first fifteen are complaints,” Catra said, presenting Holl with printouts of the e-mails that had arrived since phone service was restored. “From our customers, saying that they have been trying to get in touch with us. Only those who write to the postbox are not upset. Both Marcy and Keith have picked up the mail for us several times since the … disruption.”
Holl shook his head. “I’m almost inclined to side with the Conservatives, for once. If we had not become so dependent upon the new technology, we would not be out of touch with those who are relying upon us.”
The Archivist glanced around the busy workroom with an impish expression. “Do not say that too loudly. They’d gloat if they heard you.”
“There’s more they could gloat about if they wished,” Holl said glumly, but he kept his voice below the level of ambient noise. “Keith Doyle has mentioned that he has had many disruptions in his e-mail too, and always after he has opened a message from us.”
“So has the Niall,” Catra replied thoughtfully. “So it can send mischief coursing up wires if it chooses. It does begin to look as though we are dealing with a type of intelligence, doesn’t it?”
Holl nodded. “Thank you for not saying ‘I told you so.’” But she’d be the only one who wouldn’t be celebrating the petty victory of being right. The smug expression on Aylmer’s face, as the older elf stood varnishing boxes at the next table, told Holl he’d overheard the conversation. The Conservatives were vindicated. Well, knowing that fact wasn’t going to help clear it out of the house. “It doesn’t matter. We must be rid of it. If our disturbance is an aware being, perhaps I can try and communicate with it.”
His keen ears caught whispers as he strode out of the workshop. Everyone knew where he was going, but no one volunteered to go with him. Catra had given him a look of pity.
Her remark was an interesting one. This presence could and did affect transmissions leading out of the house, but it was still there, working its malign will on them all. That suggested that it couldn’t or didn’t want to leave. In Humanities studies, the Master had made them watch cinema westerns. The hero was always having to confront the intruder and inform him his presence was unwelcome. “This town ain’t a-big enough for the two of us,” the hero would say. But the villain never wanted to leave without a fight. Westerns reflected battles over territory. Well, the Folk had made this farm their home. It was too small for them and an un-socialized spirit that made everyone cranky, destroyed their winter stores and spoiled their e-mail.
Steeling himself, he marched down the cellar stairs.
The room was cool and dim after the warm autumn day. It took Holl’s eyes a moment to adjust. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. He felt along the walls, seeing if the spell protecting the wall had been interfered with. All was intact. That meant the intruder was still within the house somewhere. Could it be back in the liquor barrels? Warily, he sidled toward them. One after another, he flipped their lids up and let them drop back into place. No fireball. Nothing but the liquor and Marm’s watermarks. Lower again, Holl noted with dismay. One lid toppled off its barrel and clattered to the stone floor.
“Hey, down there!” Dennet’s voice came from above.
“It’s me, father,” Holl called out. “I’m …”
Dennet cut in, not unkindly. “I know, I know. Be careful, then.” Word had come up the hill as quickly as he had. Holl smiled.
His father was proud of Holl’s status as Headman-in-Waiting, but he disapproved of what he called abuse in the name of proving his son’s worthiness. After all, the Master was unlikely to step down from his post for many years to come. If now was any moment to judge by, Holl didn’t feel ready, and might never feel ready. Some candidate he was, jumping at shadows.
He sat down on the floor and let his mind reach out, trying to sense the stranger.
His sensitivity expanded outward, listening. He’d used the same questing to reach out to his people while he had been abroad a few years before. Without trouble he felt the presence of his parents and sister, pottering about in the kitchen above. A bit farther than that were dozens of people he knew. He could pick them out one by one: Dola, Borget, Celebes, the Master, Olanda, Tiron, Candlepat, and the rest that he had left behind in the barn. Farther yet, Marcy and Enoch, stealing a moment alone on the slope of the hill. It wasn’t easy to be in love in a crowd. The older Folk charitably smiled and let them be. The less-kindly passed remarks about making a spectacle of oneself in public. Holl, who was just as much in love with his lifemate as he was the day he’d discovered the depth of his feeling, let his enigmatic brother-in-law and his chosen have as much peace as they desired.
He was so distracted by his thoughts that he was not prepared for the jolt of pain. Holl jumped, realizing he’d let his mind-touch go all the way to the protective spell about the perimeter of the property. Heavens above, no wonder the Big Folk were complaining of headaches. But he’d missed his quarry. It was no longer within the confines of the house. How?
He brought his consciousness inward, going more carefully now. Enoch became aware of the scrutiny as it passed over him and felt irritated. Holl sent a mental apology to him, hoping the sense of it would get through, though he was less adept at sending than receiving. Very few among them could transmit a specific message or feeling. It was why, Holl’s mother would always say, their ears were several times the size of their mouths. It was a better thing to listen to the sounds of the world than to make more.
How constricted the homestead seemed. Every blade of grass was irked by the one rubbing against it. Nests seemed too small for the birds. Blacksnakes in the kitchen garden hissed though there was nothing holding them at bay—but wait! Something was there with them, something … alive? Could that be their intruder? Holl prepared a charm of containment, hoping to stop it in place long enough that he could run up the stairs to examine it.
It became aware of him at the same moment, and flitted. Holl felt the astonishment of the snakes, normally imperturbable and short-sighted, as their tormentor departed. The moment passed, and the strong impression was gone. Holl was disappointed. He’d missed his chance. The enigma was gone.
No, it wasn’t. It reasserted its presence, not far out of the vegetable garden. In fact, it seemed to grow larger and larger, filling his inner vision.
Holl opened his eyes in alarm. It had felt his spell. It must be coming towards him! Then he felt the presence stop short.
He sprang to reinforce the protections around the cellar. They were intact. After that last attack, the Folk had sealed all of the conduits, the pipes, the cables, and wires running in and out of the house. Nothing should be able to go through them at all. Half of the village were certain they’d shut the intruder out, and half were afraid they’d locked it in the house with them. It looked as though the former were right.
A click and a gurgle from the far side of the room made him jump. Then the sound of running water overhead reminded him that those were the noises the electric pump made. Holl laughed sheepishly
. He was letting familiar things play games with his mind.
He was glad they’d managed to shut it out, even if they didn’t know how they’d done it. He’d better go warn the others that it was still on the grounds. Perhaps he could persuade the village to open the shield spell around the property’s perimeter and release it to the rest of nature. He started for the stairs.
Through his thin-soled shoes he could feel a rumbling in the ground. Earthquake, in this part of the North American tectonic plate? Surely not!
And then, from the drainpipe in the center of the floor, a fountain of gold-red fire poured upward. Holl threw his arms up to protect his eyes.
The long thin stream gathered in the air, coiling in around itself like a rattlesnake. Holl dropped to a crouch. Adhesion, his favorite means of holding something in place, wouldn’t work. The snake-being, for a being it was, wasn’t touching anything. He’d have to circle all the way around it to cast a containment spell on it. Charm at the ready, he sprang for it.
The winged snake guessed his intentions and flew up to the ceiling, out of reach. It wasn’t going to let the clumsy-footed ones catch it. So he had seen it making its mischief. Well, that was no more than they all deserved, invading its land! The force they had cast about this place, earth and sky, was painful, and they tried to keep it away from the tasty firewater in the barrels. How dare they? Bad enough that it could not escape from the small square of land. It had tried hundreds of times to make its way out, but it had to watch helplessly as beings without power went back and forth unhindered through the glowing barrier, while it, a spirit of the earth, was sealed in like the sweet fruit in glass it had destroyed several days before.
The golden-haired one was determined. The winged snake watched through glass-bright eyes as he approached, weaving back and forth to confuse it as to the direction from which it would lunge. As if the earth-spirit had not seen every dance made by the flesh ones for centuries! Out of anger it was making plenty of mistakes in its strategy. The winged snake was angry too, but it had been biding its time, hoping for revenge against its captors. It would not err.
Tantalizingly, it lowered itself a foot or two closer to the floor. The golden-haired one leaped forward, arms out. The snake flicked its wings and was out of reach in a twinkling. It almost laughed. As the being charged by, it slapped him hard with its tail, knocking him sprawling.
The little male was tougher than he appeared. In a trice he was on his feet, hands working in the air. Too late, the snake saw the weaving and retreated. A few feet behind, it ran into the makings of a thin barrier hanging in the air. He was trying to capture it! Unspeakable! It dodged backward, around the glowing strands of power. Its tail caught on another strand, left there by the being before he made his first lunge.
The snake’s thin temper frayed. It was a spirit of the earth, eternal. What did this blunt-faced, clumsy-limbed flesh-being think he was doing? It would teach him what its actions meant!
Holl threw up his hands to ward off the fire-creature as it shot towards his face. Holl felt fire singe his skin. Too late, he began weaving a charm to protect himself. The snake being battered at him, bruising and burning at the same time. Holl saw a malicious light in the eyes he had not noticed before. He backed into a barrel, which rocked on its cradle, and settled back again with a tremendous boom!
Footsteps stirred overhead at the noise.
“What is going on down there?” Curran called out irritably.
“Don’t come down!” Holl shouted back. “It’s …” His warning was cut off as the snake-thing coiled itself around him, attempting to squeeze. Holl pushed at it, gasping for air. His hands passed partway through it. It was substantial only to itself, but not to him. What kind of being was this?
He chanted the charm of protection against fire as fast as he could get the words out. Now the pressure was hot, but not searing. Heedless of his own pain, he wove a net of power, hoping to get it into a cage so they could get rid of it without letting it hurt anyone else. The snake-thing thrashed, knocking Holl’s arms upward. It shot a muscular coil around his leg, tripping him to the ground. Holl’s head hit the cellar floor and he saw stars. When his vision cleared, he saw a hot, red mouth lowering toward his face, long fangs dripping fire. He grabbed for its throat with both hands, holding the head away from him.
By now half a dozen males piled down the stairs. Instinctively, when they saw Holl’s assailant, they threw charms of protection and repulsion. The snake-thing, Holl still gripped its coils, was propelled partway across the floor.
But it was not to be captured. As Enoch and Bracey jumped down to grab it, it unwound itself from Holl’s body, and slithered like mercury down the drainpipe. Aylmer, Dennet and two of the others sent nets of power down after it, but they retreated, shaking their heads.
“It moved too fast,” Aylmer said.
Enoch helped Holl to his feet. “Look at you,” he said gruffly. Holl’s clothes were singed, and he had bruises on his face and arms. He yanked up the hem of Holl’s shirt. “My sister’s not going to be pleased with you. What did you mean, starting a fight with it alone?”
“Couldn’t be sure it was an ‘it,’” Holl said. “I had to find out. I reacted too fast.”
“Not fast enough.”
“Stubborn to the very end,” Aylmer said, shaking his head. “We knew weeks ago it was a being.”
Enoch glared at the bearded male. “Then why did you not make this attempt yourself in force, and save him from a beating?”
Aylmer shook his head, but he took Holl’s other arm. “Some folk need to learn lessons on their own.”
The snake-being was gone but traces of malign power still informed the room, making it feel tainted. Curran raised a commanding hand and gathered the malice in a ball, which he threw to the ground and stamped underfoot to dispel.
* * *
“Now we know the horror is a livin’ creatur,” Curran stated, as soon as a village council could be called. “To be sure, it comes and goes as it pleases.”
“It was affected by the containment charm I tried to use on it,” Holl said wearily. He sat on the Progressives’ side of the room with his shirt off. Maura and Candlepat treated his scorches and bruises with salve. Only one scrape on his wrist and another at the base of his throat were bad enough to bandage. Even so, he felt as if he’d rolled around in a tumble dryer with a wheelbarrow load of rocks. “It could feel the wall, and avoided it where it could. We can capture it.”
“How?” Rose asked. “It appears insubstantial.”
“It’s substantial enough,” Enoch said. “Look at Holl.”
“We can contain it,” the Master said, “but we cannot control it. Did it communicate with you in any way?”
“No,” Holl said, then corrected himself. “I am wrong. It felt at me. It felt angry. And when it was angry, I was too.”
The Master raised his thick eyebrows. “So. This may be the cause of all our black moods.”
“That’s a mercy,” Dennet said. “Now we’re aware of that, we can counter it. No need to let it play with our emotions whenever it pleases.”
“But what to do about it?” Shelogh asked, standing up. “Now we know it’s a live thing, however ye define life. How can we make it go away?”
“Strengthen the fence,” a couple of the Conservatives insisted.
“It’s on this side of it,” Maura pointed out reasonably. She gave Holl a gentle pat on the shoulder. He pulled his shirt back into place. His back and arms ached. “How is it we didn’t know where it lies, if it leaves so large a footprint in our souls?”
“Did anyone ever sit down and try to trace it, as Holl did?” Marm asked. It was a surprisingly wise question for a simple soul. The others wondered why they hadn’t suggested it first.
“We weren’t looking for it,” one of the Conservatives said with a sour glare at the Progressives.
“Well, if it’s a magical being, as we saw, it ought to have been hard to miss,” Tay said, wit
h a nod of support for Marm. “Doing damage we’ve been blaming one another for.” Marm looked surprised, then pleased. He relaxed on his spot on the bench and gave the younger male a good slap on the back. It was an ill wind that blew no one any good, Holl thought. It was worth a sound thrashing to him to see the two of them friends again.
“Clearly it’s been here for some time,” Holl said, rising. “It appears to like the cellar. We need to block the drainpipe and prepare for a fight.”
“We’ll have to move all the breakables and foodstuffs,” Rose said. “Including the beer.”
“No!” Marm protested. “It’ll ruin it!”
“Would you rather an evil intruder rendered it undrinkable?” Rose asked, frowning.
“Moving it does just that,” Marm protested. “Master!”
The Headman shook his head. “Uf all things in this household, it appears to haf left the contents of the barrels alone.” He held up a hand to forestall Marm’s protest. “Apart from draining them, that is. Can ve not now agree that it vas this being who has been stealing mead, and not vun of us?”
It was Marm’s turn for an apology, and he didn’t stint. “I am sorry for any false accusations,” he said. “I care for my art. It’s the heat of the moment that made me forget I do not do this for myself alone.”
“Handsomely said,” the Master acknowledged. The others murmured assent. Even the normally sour Curran seemed appeased. “Now: action. Vhat must ve do?”
“That would depend on what it is,” said Holl. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.”
“Nor I,” said the Archivist, “but I will research it more closely. Will everyone give me their best images of it, on the computer, if you can render it there?”
“And if it does not ruin the computer again in the meanwhile,” Tay said.
“Ah!” Bracey said, raising a knowing finger. “Do you think this is a new kind of demon? A computer virus? We’ve heard enough about them in the newspapers, not to mention in the on-line digests.”
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