Shadows in the House With Twelve Rooms

by J. Price Higgins

  Watching the excitement burst from his eyes, she held her breath in anticipation.

  "Six months ago, he segmented. Or cloned himself. I'm not sure which. According to Sef, this sack-like piece of tissue formed in the groin area. At first, Bianca thought that he might be developing external genitals again, but not so. Two weeks later, the growth had thickened and elongated considerably, remaining attached to his body by the sheerest of membranes—like he was dividing himself, Sef said. Twenty-four hours later, the sack ruptured and there were two sandmen: George and a smaller version. That one died. About three months ago, he produced another one. It's alive, healthy, and as large as George now. Bianca says Sandman is fully matured, that he'll continue the three month cycle."

  Ellery released her breath with an explosive gasp. "Binary fission. I can't believe it. A new species. It's a genetic milestone!"

  She sobered at a fearful thought. "As ferocious?" Her face fell at his downcast eyes. "Oh God. He passed the rage. He passed the rage. Destroy them, Dane!" she cried. "A hate as big as that must be destroyed before it destroys. With a three month gestation, the creatures will multiply rapidly. Destroy them."

  His eyes grew wide. "Bianca took the young one with her."

  Ellery could feel the blood draining from her face. "Let's hope it dies on the way. That still leaves George."

  "I'll try, Ellery, but it won't be easy. Bianca keeps a guard on the door at all times." He frowned. "I'll think of something. She and Munoz should be gone for a couple of weeks. That'll give me time."

  He looked at his watch. "Speaking of time—mine's up. If I stay any longer, those goons outside may decide to pay another visit. Besides, I have a long walk ahead of me before I dare call a taxi, and Captain Harmon's already warned me—if you're late boy, you spend the night."

  Ellery chuckled. "I can hear Jack saying exactly that. How is he?"

  "Getting old, he said to tell you. He's retiring next month. Going to spend the rest of his days fishing instead of running blockades, he says."

  "He ran the blockade?" Ellery's eyes rounded. "I thought Jack had better sense than that. You could have both been killed."

  Dane's eyes twinkled. "Not likely as long as the good captain is at the wheel. He's one of them."

  "Jack? An Aristocrat?"

  Smiling, he nodded his head. "Yep. Once he realized who I was, he appointed himself my special guardian. He got me over here, he'll get me back."

  "How did Jack know who you were?" Ellery could feel the fear dart across her face.

  "That picture you gave him of Vickie's wedding. He was doing a little reminiscing one day and pulled it out to show me. You should have seen his face when it dawned on him that one of those boys, as he called us, was me. I don't know if you know it or not, Ellery, but he's one hell of a fan club."

  "I know, Dane. I hope it doesn't get him killed." She brushed her hand down her face. "Or you. Bianca was at Vickie's wedding. You had better keep your fingers crossed that she doesn't recognize you."

  "After all these years? I don’t think so, Ellery." He shushed her fears with a gentle press of his finger to her lips. "I have to go. I don't know how long before I can come again. Unless something mighty important happens, it may be a while."

  Swallowing hard, she nodded.

  He bent and kissed her cheek. "Stay safe."

  She opened the door and watched him walk away, the heavy case banging against his legs. Her body trembled as from a cold wind blowing. Her heart felt heavy in her chest.

  How hostile the world has become, she thought. How filled with anger and deprivation. So many protests and riots and deaths. Nations disintegrating, chewing themselves to pieces. Police states the norm rather than the exception. All because of Munoz and his Church.

  And you.

  The thought rose up from nowhere.

  "No." Her whisper sounded loud in her ears.

  Yes. In the beginning, you could have stopped it, had you dared.

  No! She would not listen. There was no way she could have stopped the madness all those years ago. Her mind refused to quieten. Memories flowed and she followed them one by one, choice by choice.

  Her stubborn refusal to let go of Victor Dakota's transgressions had colored every decision she'd made. She had established the cardinal rule to insure that the name Dakota remained above reproach, but then allowed Bianca to continue her horrors. When she saw the truth of Munoz, she crawled away lest a Dakotan be named accomplice, clutching that fear tight to her chest like a woman possessed, afraid to stand against the Pope of the Church of Universals. Nothing broke her silence—not even the knowledge of George Kayman's ultimate fate.

  Ellery heaved a deep breath. Not the best choices, but what else could she have done? Honor was on the line and she had made a promise to herself. Protect the Dakotan name; that had been her credo.

  No matter the cost, her mind quietly added.

  No matter the cost? She reeled with the impact of understanding and her hand flew to her mouth, for cost it had. Despite her crawling and clutching and looking the other way—Dakotans still wound up outcasts. As for the world—it was set on a course no one could stop. Such was the price of cowardice; she would call it nothing else. Courage set aside personal desires, faced the odds and tried.

  Oh, God. How wrong she had been. She could at least have tried. She should have! Surely someone would have listened to her. Munoz's hold, though strong, had not yet chained the world to walls of darkness.

  She shook her head impatiently. Stop it, Ellery Jensen. Hindsight explores the path once traveled with great clarity of vision, presenting wonderful options for a past you can't change for all your desperate wishing. Now you have another choice to make. What will it be?

  Her head lifted and the trembling ceased. She couldn't change the past, but she could add her voice to the future. Not as a Dakotan soliciting forgiveness, but as a woman seeking freedom. Tomorrow, a Dakotan courier would deliver a package to Jack Harmon. In it, he would find a letter volunteering Ellery Jensen's services to the Aristocrats, a detailed map of Pelican Island such as only she could draw, and most important, a smooth, white worry stone complete with instructions: her first step toward responsibility.

  It was a start.

  Chapter 63

  Bianca

  Bianca grimaced at the sticky heat inside the central building of the City of The Dead. Patting her face and neck with a damp handkerchief, she entered the small room that had once been the recessed lounge area for on-duty personnel. With a frown of annoyance on her face, she limped to the rosewood reading table and repositioned the small gold statue of a rearing stag that Raphael had brought with him from Rome.

  It doesn't belong in this room, she thought. Once Raphael is in the powder, I will give it to Mace as a memento to remind him of his commitment. She tapped one of the leather volumes back so that its spine aligned exactly with the other seventeen. Pulling the plush reading chair forward an inch, she adjusted the angle so that the small lamp, when turned on, would bathe the reader with perfect light.

  A royal blue carpet with three interlocked rings of gold woven into its center cushioned her feet. Her gaze followed the repeating pattern that bordered the field of blue—snow white doves flying into a jeweled tiara. Glancing briefly at the two clear cases positioned side by side near the center of the room, her attention rested on the four cases aligned behind. As the shell of a walnut hides the kernel of meat, so, too, was their glasslike clarity hidden inside shells of carved wood. She sniffed at the pungent smell of lemon.

  "You're smelling the fragrance of the Thua tree, Bianca. It's a hardwood that will last for centuries." Munoz rocked gently back and forth. "So, does it meet with your approval?"

  "It is a beautiful room, Raphael. Restrained and simple, yet elegant. A fitting place for eternal rest, don't you agree?"

  The smile on his face agreed. Stepping to the front two sarcophagi, he patted each in turn. "Yours. Mine," he said, then chuckled. "Unless you prefer
sleeping on the opposite side." His hand reversed the light pat.

  "Either way, Raphael." Her smile remained fixed as she watched him stroll to the reading table, pull a linen handkerchief from his inside pocket, and begin to polish a dulled area on one of the gold corner pieces of an ancient volume. As he rubbed, his monogrammed initials appeared and disappeared as if flagging the start of a marathon.

  The sounds of groans and grunts filtered from the mammoth outer room. Bianca heard Mace utter a soft curse.

  She strolled from the small room into that part of the central building where control boards were filled with blinking lights. Her gaze flicked to the one button that glowed steady and green—the switch she would use to shut down the Triune Control Center. The time to tap that button was close. When she did, the green would turn to warning red then fade to black; power grids all over the world would cease to function. Chaos would begin. She turned her attention back to her assistant and waited while he and five others struggled to position a large statue near the alcove doorway of the room that would be her resting place.

  Bianca studied the bizarre statue of a female body with an ostrich feather on her headdress. Wings sprouted from graceful arms curling around fluted columns—columns that would be attached to the wall on either side of the doorway. She held a scepter in her left hand and a curious, cross-shaped object in the right. An intricately carved vine of jade flowers wrapped around her left wrist, passed across her body, and was tightly clutched against the cross in the right hand as if to bind her in eternal guardianship of the niche.

  Mace Williams stepped back, swiping his face against the sleeve of his shirt. "Once the doorway is bricked over, this alcove will be nothing more than a focal area for the sculpture. Strange looking, isn't she?"

  "As is truth. That's what she depicts, you know. That's why Raphael chose her to watch over us."

  "Oh?"

  Bianca ran her hand up one of the arms, traced along a marble wing. "Maat—Goddess of Truth according to Egyptian beliefs of the ancient past." Her hand dropped to her side. "Did you leave the iron cage out in the desert where I told you?"

  "Your sandman's out there, Bianca, but if you're going to turn him loose, I suggest you do it now—before the sedative wears off completely," he answered. He pointed to two stretchers that had been carried into the hall. "Which one of these are we doing first?"

  Bianca peered into the pale faces of two young men. Once these two technicians were placed into the powder, crystallization would begin; a process whereby minute particles of suspended life were dispersed into and protected by the powder. The transfused Hydrace-glycavera—a clear, gel-like preservative—would prevent protein unfolding and hold the form until, once again, the water came.

  Bianca closed her eyes and breathed deeply as if she could feel the water flowing, flushing the HG compound from the tissues, could feel the crystals being reabsorbed, gathering into their places. Her body quivered into an orgasmic shudder as she envisioned the surge of flowing life that would turn cold flesh to warm. Genitals still pulsing, she opened her eyes and once more focused on the two young men.

  They would be the first to be revived in that future time. If they survived, she would be next and, together, they would revive the remaining three. What if the technicians don't survive? Bianca shoved away the thought. If she let her mind travel that road, she would never make the journey. Bending closer, she placed her hand on first one and then the other; their chests barely rose with the breaths they still took.

  "They're down deep. That's good. Our work will be easier if they stay deep, they won't struggle." She beckoned forward two of the men who stood beside the statue. "Take both stretchers to medical room one. We'll be along shortly."

  Mace wiped his forearm across his face, used his fingers to rake damp hair off his forehead. "Christ, it's hot," he said.

  "I would have thought you would be used to the Sahara by now, Mace," Bianca said, chuckling. "As for your question of which one first, I'll prepare one, you do the other."

  Mace had been an able student, she thought as she looked at the glittering boards and interminable dials. His absorption of Dane Wyland's knowledge had been phenomenal. His casual replacement of Dane Wyland's staff had been brilliant. No outraged cries were heard, no hostile emotions were raised. Only one remained of the old regime: Joseph Galen, the dune expert who drove the Skimmer. When his skills were no longer needed, even he would cease to exist. The few who manned the boards now would also be replaced once the room preparations were complete. Before Mace was finished, only he would know of the secret room and the occupants who dwelt there.

  Bianca's lip curled with self-satisfaction. He would kill before he would allow anyone or anything to disturb that room. As would she. She had chosen her assistant well; would he be as diligent when choosing his own replacement?

  She brushed at the air around her head as if shooing away an irritating gnat. She had other things to concern herself with. First in line: Doctor Ellery Dakota Jensen. The woman had become more than a reminder of failed dreams. She was a threat to Raphael's plan as long as her kind carried a functioning BH Gene.

  "Not until your fangs are pulled, Ellery Jensen, will my plan be complete," she muttered to herself. "That will be sooner than you expect." She couldn't contain her laughter. They didn't know it yet, but she had found Ellery's little covey of Dakotans—and her daughter.

  Her thoughts flashed back to their arrival at the two-runway airport in Erfoud. Mace was lifting the last of their luggage into the skimmer when the airport director charged from the terminal building waving a message over his head. Doves have been located and blinds are in place, it said. Urgent you advise hunting schedule. At her look of dismay, Raphael had turned back to the terminal entry. "I'll take care of it," he'd said.

  For a change, Vittorio had listened to his Pope without presenting his interminable arguments, had volunteered to personally handle the details of the hunt. Even now, Cardinal Morandi was preparing to lead the assault on the Kansas farm. By the time she returned, the Dakotans would be waiting for her. So will you, Ellery Jensen, she thought. So will you.

  "The sandman, Bianca," Mace reminded her. "He may not be the one you love to hate, but he's every bit as dangerous as George and each minute he's out there, that sedative's getting weaker." He shifted from one foot to the other and pulled at his lower lip.

  "What else is bothering you, Mace?"

  "One sandman, that's what. Are you certain that will be enough to build the kind of army you've been talking about? Maybe we should have brought old George along and set him loose, too."

  Her lips pulled tight. "That sandman has a role to play in a different future. He'll soon be ready to segment again. Not until then will he take his place alongside these two technicians. Our young one is enough to start with. He, like George, will divide every three months and his progeny, in turn, will accelerate the process of supply. Stop worrying about things not of your concern." She whirled and crossed the room.

  The idea of fighting the steadily blowing wind that had plagued them for two days did not appeal to her, but she had no intention of letting someone else release the young creature. Pulling open the massive doors, she stepped into the heat, delighted to find that the wind had died. She paused, drinking in the welcome silence that surrounded the compound.

  Grimacing at the surrealistic brilliance of reflected sun glare, she limped down the smooth street and through the west gate. In the dunes, the young sandman waited.

  The creature, transported across the desert in one of the small iron cages, moved sluggishly in its cramped environs as she approached. For several seconds, she peered through the bars at the thing she had created. A light breeze tugged at her shirt, disappeared, then tugged again. Like a child playing tag-and-hide, she thought. A game the young sandman would learn to play well. Only his version would be tag-and-die. Smiling, she leaned over and pressed the latch release; the end door lifted smoothly.

  The sandman moved
forward.

  Shouting her victory into the desert stillness, Bianca watched the young creature crawl across the hot, golden sands. The sedative still held him captive, but that would soon wear off and his sloth-like crawl would become a mastery of motion. A perfect creature of the desert, she thought. Her chest heaved as her mind's eye pictured the sleek head with its razor-sharp jawbone decimating his enemies, her enemies. So, too, would George destroy in that future time, should Raphael choose not to relinquish his throne to her. George Kayman's hatred for Bianca Raborman could now be controlled. She had the key; she was sure of it.

  Over the past year, she had watched George's behavior change each time little sister came into the room, had listened to the soft chukking sounds he made whenever she stopped near the container. Somehow, someway, he had bonded with her. George would do whatever was necessary to protect Sefura from harm, even align himself with his sworn enemy. Of that, she had no doubt. Yes, for George, Sefura was the key. For Raphael, also, her mind whispered.

  She could feel the strengthening wind against her face. A swirl of sand whipped around her legs. An ominous moan filled the air. Startled by the sound, she jerked her head to the left. A mammoth cloud of yellow rolled across the dunes, obliterating everything around it. For a moment she stood transfixed, staring at the tidal wave of sand, then, with a muffled gasp, she whirled and raced for the central building. Through the west gate and up the smooth street she ran, the roar of the wind drowning out the roar of her pounding heart. Fine particles of grit bit and stung.

  "Raphael." She screamed his name into the wind, knowing he could never hear her. "Raphael."

  Ahead, she could see the main building. Fifty feet to safety. Sand swirled and whipped. The building seemed to waver in and out of her vision. Thirty feet. The cloud slammed down upon her, forced her to her knees. The building vanished.