by Sara Beaman
Haruko’s expression sours. “Did it work?”
“Don’t ask me,” Aya says calmly. “Ask Adam.”
Adam closes his eyes and tilts his head back, the muscles in his face tensing.
“I think it did,” he concludes after a moment.
Aya stands and faces Haruko. “You won’t seal me again,” she says, smiling. “You won’t be able to.”
Haruko takes a step backwards, looking confused.
“Come on,” Adam says. “We need to get to the basement.”
We cross back through the yard to a side door. Haruko takes a key ring out of her pocket and unlocks it, then slips inside, turning the light on. Inside is a storage room full of gardening supplies, tools and other home maintenance paraphernalia.
“Why didn’t Desmond try to call us?” Adam asks.
“How should I know?” Haruko says, grabbing a machete from a wall full of hanging tools and implements.
“He must not intend for us to survive,” Aya says.
Adam takes a sledgehammer from the wall. Aya grabs a pickaxe. I pull down the only remaining tool that seems remotely combat-ready: a little hand axe. It looks and feels almost like a toy. I briefly consider putting it back, but the other three are already moving on, disappearing up a staircase against the far wall.
The stairwell opens into a narrow hallway. Haruko leads us to the right, further into the house, stepping over the placid bodies of ghouls strewn about the floor. The hallway opens into a meeting room with a lofted ceiling and a floor carpeted with bodies.
Something grabs my ankle as we step into the room. I tumble forward, slamming my shoulder underneath me in a way that makes it pop sickeningly. Haruko whirls around, lifts her machete and severs the ghoul’s hand from its wrist. I drop the axe and scramble to my feet, clutching the box in my left hand while trying to torque my right shoulder back into place. I look back at my assailant for just a second, unable to stop myself. Her face twists into a grin.
“Katherine Avery,” the entire house full of ghouls calls in concert. “What a singular pleasure.”
Sleep, you bastards! I think at them with all the authority I can muster, gesturing wildly with the box. Go back to sleep!
The ghouls laugh hideously. It’s not working. How does Adam do it?
“What the hell are you doing?” Haruko grabs my free wrist and drags me along behind her, sprinting through the meeting room towards a door on the right wall. Twelve or thirteen of them are waiting on the other side, and now several more are closing in behind us. They move quickly. Within seconds we’re completely surrounded.
Adam grabs one of the approaching corpses and places his open palm against her forehead. Once again, they all fall to the ground, asleep.
Haruko starts off down the hallway, shoving a path through the bodies.
“Where do you think you’re going?” a familiar voice calls from behind us. Just one voice, alone.
I turn to look. A thin woman with green eyes and auburn hair stands on a balcony overlooking the meeting room. She looks exactly like me, and she sounds exactly like Mirabel.
I lunge back toward the meeting room.
Adam grabs my arm. “No! That’s not her,” he says. “It’s just another doppelganger.”
The ghouls are already starting to rise again. Adam pulls me into the hallway and locks the door behind us. Haruko is yards away, already surrounded. She whirls her weapon with calculated precision, beheading a ghoul before it can pull itself upright. The others ignore her entirely, closing in on Adam and me.
I shrink into a corner, curling my body around the box. Adam shoves his way between me and the surging mass of dead limbs. He shoots three times—three of the ghouls fall—but then I hear the click of an empty chamber. They seize his arms and legs before he can ready the sledgehammer. Two of them latch onto him with their mouths full of elongated teeth, ripping into his flesh.
Haruko rushes over, sending one of the ghouls reeling to the ground with a blow to his ear. Adam pulls an arm free; he grabs a ghoul by the scalp, dislodges her teeth from his shoulder and slams her skull down into his knee. Haruko grabs the one with its teeth still lodged in Adam’s bicep and hurls it backwards, sending her machete through its throat with a swift backhand stroke.
Only four ghouls remain standing in front of us, but more are pounding at the door. Haruko shoves two of them into a wall. Adam swings the sledgehammer at the others, sending them to the ground like dominoes.
Haruko takes off down the hallway, and Adam and I follow. As we round a corner, I hear the door behind us give way. Haruko throws another door open, waits for us to pass through, then slams it shut and locks it from the inside.
On the far wall is an elevator with double glass doors behind a metal grille. Adam collapses the grille and begins trying to pry the doors open with his hands. Haruko lags near the door to the hallway. She brings the machete to her palm and slices it open, then takes her wound and swipes it against the ground, saturating the threshold with her blood.
Next to her, Aya materializes from thin air. “What are you doing?”
“Warding the door.”
The ghouls begin slamming themselves against the other side. Haruko pulls herself to her feet and dashes to the elevator doors; they open automatically as she approaches. We cram into the elevator. Haruko punches a sequence of keys into a keypad next to the doors. The combination she enters elicits an alarm and the doors refuse to close.
“What?!”
“Let me see it,” Adam says, placing his hand on the panel and closing his eyes.
The door to the hallway flies off its hinges and ghouls begin piling into the room. As they cross through the doorway, something in their glassy eyes mutates and goes feral. They immediately begin to turn on one another, going for each other’s throats.
Then Mirabel’s doppelganger appears in the door frame, carrying a revolver. She starts shooting into the fray, aiming for my head. I duck and cover; she hits a ghoul. She curses and begins to reload as Adam punches a new sequence into the keypad.
The double doors slide shut and we begin our descent.
28
The Enclave
{Kate}
“The enclave is about a hundred yards down,” Haruko says. “We’re fine. We’re safe now. There are level nine wards set all through the foundation of the house. Nothing can happen down here.”
Adam nods, staring at the ceiling. I hold the box in both arms, unable to relax.
“I still don’t understand. Why didn’t Desmond warn you about this?” Aya says. “And why didn’t your password work?”
“Maybe he did text me. I didn’t check,” Haruko says. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out her phone. “Shit—he did.”
“What did he say?” Adam asks.
Haruko frowns. “It’s like he was trying to write in code, or something, but not a code I understand.” She shakes her head.
“At any point does he tell us to go somewhere else?” Aya asks.
“No.”
“Am I the only one who sees what’s going on here?” Aya narrows her eyes. “We’ve been set up. They’re planning to kill us, take the head, and give it back to Mirabel!”
“Look, Aya, I know you’re angry,” Haruko says, “but that doesn’t make any sense. Why would Desmond have contracted us to steal the head from Mirabel just to let it fall back into her hands?”
“It’s a charade. They want to hide the fact that they’re all in Mirabel’s pocket.”
“Why would they have had us avoid all contact with the outside world if they were only doing this to maintain their image?”
Aya doesn’t answer.
Light floods in through the transparent doors. We’ve reached the level of the enclave. Outside, a blond man in a somber business suit is waiting alone. He must be Desmond. He rushes to the doors as they slide open.
“You’ve made it,” he says, smiling with relief.
“No thanks to you,” Aya grumbles.
He doesn’t seem to hear her, nor does he seem to notice my presence. His eyes go straight to Haruko’s forehead. “Haruko—were you injured?” He brushes her bangs to the side.
“Yeah, but I’m fine now.” She pushes his hand away.
“I trust you still have the head?” Desmond asks.
“Yes, of course—“
“Why didn’t you call us?” Aya demands. “Why didn’t you have someone meet us upstairs?”
Desmond leads us down a passage to our left. “Yes, well. I apologize for that inconvenience. I can’t leave the body, you see.” He inhales through his nose. “They tried to take it from me. They’ll be sending reinforcements soon. I couldn’t risk leaving it down here. But you’ve arrived safely, so all is well.”
“Wait, what?” says Adam. “Who are you talking about?”
Desmond stops. He gives Adam a withering look. “Mnemosyne’s body. What else?”
“No. I mean, who was trying to take it?”
“It’s best if we discuss this later,” he says, continuing along down the hallway. “I can no longer be sure she isn’t listening.”
Adam frowns. “Who, Mirabel?”
Desmond scratches his bicep through the fabric of his suit. “Yes—yes—of course, Mirabel.”
“She can’t hear us, Desmond. We’re Wardens,” Haruko says, her voice thin.
“Don’t be naïve,” he says. “She could listen in using mundane technology.”
We pass a reinforced metal door on our right. My nostrils fill with something acrid, a combination of chemical smoke and something I can’t identify. I notice a trickle of some dark substance seeping from the door towards a drain in the concrete floor—a viscous liquid, like motor oil.
“Ever since the initial breach, I’ve been concerned that she has had recording devices placed throughout the entire enclave. Video, and audio, and perhaps even specially-calibrated biometric sensors,” Desmond continues in a calm monotone. “I’ve swept the facility for bugs. I’ve not yet found anything, but I can’t assume we’re not compromised.”
“The initial breach?” Haruko asks.
Desmond doesn’t reply.
Desmond leads us down another dimly-lit corridor to a perfectly triangular room with a domed ceiling. The walls are lined with newspaper clippings and photos taken by surveillance cameras and satellites. Along one wall is an aluminum desk stacked high with papers; the other holds several bookcases crammed with texts. The room is clean, if cluttered, but I can’t get that strange caustic smell out of my nostrils, and it’s starting to make my stomach turn.
Desmond removes a leather-bound book from a shelf and opens the cover, revealing a silver key, which he pockets. He shows us back out into the hall, locking the door behind him.
“I’m glad you all arrived when you did,” he says. “I’m worried it won’t be long until Mirabel finds her way into the compound. We can’t allow her to take the head again—“
“So you didn’t give it to her in the first place?” Aya asks.
“That’s ridiculous. I did nothing of the sort. Where did you get that idea?”
“How else could she have gotten it out of here after you stole it from Julian?”
“Aya, that’s enough,” Haruko snaps.
Desmond holds up a hand. “No. It’s a legitimate question. I admit, I did have the head and the body stolen.” He pushes open a set of swinging double doors. “But I certainly didn’t then give the head to Mirabel.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Aya says.
“I have no answer to give you,” he says, slight irritation in his tone. “I’ve been trying to solve that mystery myself for the better part of a year, to no avail.
“In any event. We must act quickly. I’ve been watching the horde upstairs through the surveillance system. I can scarcely believe how rapidly they adapt, shrugging off such potent manifestations of the blood...”
“Do you think we’ll be able to make it if we run away, though?” Haruko asks. “Won’t she just follow us to the next outpost?“
“Who said anything about running?”
“We can’t stay here,” Adam says. “What exactly is it that you’re planning to do?”
“Let’s not speak of it until we reach the chamber,” Desmond says. He takes the key from his pocket and begins turning it over and over in his palm. “I must wait to say more until she is no longer able to intervene.”
We continue into the complex. The sound of our footsteps echoes off the bare white walls.
Adam looks through a half-window on one of the office doors, frowning. “Desmond, where is everyone?”
“I’ve seen to it that we’re alone,” he says.
The hairs on my arms stand on end. Something is wrong here. Really wrong. Desmond has the aura of a cult leader that just gave everyone the Kool-Aid. I give Adam a desperate look.
He ignores me and keeps walking.
Adam! What the...
Desmond pushes open a door. On the other side is a passage that slopes gently downward. It’s warmer here, and there’s a soft whirring in the air that offsets the quiet.
“As I said, I’ve never been able to account for how we lost the head,” he says. “I understand Aya’s suspicions all too well. I have come to wonder if I can trust my comrades any longer. No—I no longer wonder. I’ve considered it at length and I... I can’t understand how she could have stolen the artifact without assistance. She must have had an accomplice within our ranks. At least one. Maybe more.”
I grab Adam’s arm and try to pull him back up the ramp. Adam, listen to what he’s saying! He killed them all! Do something!
He frowns. “What is it?”
My heart sinks. Goddamn it. You can’t hear me, can you.
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
I pantomime shooting a gun at Desmond’s head.
He takes out his pistol, points it at the ground, and pulls the trigger. Click.
“Come on,” he whispers. “We’ll think of something.”
We continue down the ramp, which turns right at a sixty-degree angle. I shove up the sleeves of my shirt—the heat is intense.
“I’ve never trusted Mirabel,” Desmond continues. “I’ve been campaigning for a century for the Wardens to cut ties with her, to disavow her techniques and come up with another way to conceal ourselves from the prying eyes of the breathers. But now...” He squeezes each of the fingers on his right hand with his thumb one at a time, popping the knuckles. “It’s up to us now to do what is necessary. To do the only thing that’s left to be done.”
We reach the end of the slope. Desmond takes out the silver key and unlocks the door. He steps inside first; the rest of us file in behind him, Adam taking up the rear.
The chamber is massive, dark, and perfectly triangular. The walls are all black, polished to an obsidian gleam. At first glance they appear to be featureless, totally flat; but as I focus my eyes I can see hairline features running throughout in a purposeful design, geometrically precise, like the filigrees in a mosque. The floor is set with a mandala of intersecting equilateral triangles, their interstices growing smaller and smaller towards the center. An intense warmth from beneath the floor penetrates through the soles of my sneakers.
“Wait here,” Desmond says.
He crosses to the far side of the room, disappearing into the blackness. Perhaps a minute later, he returns, wheeling a cart in front of him. On the cart rests a granite tomb with a circular depression in its lid.
“As Dr. Radcliffe and Haruko are already aware, this is the tomb of Mnemosyne,” he says. “Almost a hundred years ago, after Julian Radcliffe beheaded her, Mnemosyne’s four favored lieutenants created this artifact and sealed her body in it. It will only open when given a blood offering from someone of her House.”
Adam gives me a look I can’t decipher.
“Beneath our feet is an incinerator,” Desmond continues. “We will use it to destroy her—both her body and her head.”
Haruko’s mouth falls open. “Desmond—we—we can’t just destroy one of the ancestors. Not without the President’s permission.”
“The President won’t listen to reason.”
“He can’t keep backing Mirabel after what she’s done! She raised horde of ghouls, for Christ’s sake. We need to get Mnemosyne to Chicago and talk to the administration—“
“I’ve already spoken with both the President and the Speaker on this matter. There is nothing left to say.”
Haruko takes a deep breath.
“He’s right,” Aya says. “We should destroy her. As long as she’s still around, it’s just a matter of time before Mirabel –“
“You killed the trainees, didn’t you?” Haruko interjects. “They were trying to take the body to Chicago, weren’t they?”
“Haruko, love... “
She sneers. “Don’t.”
“Sometimes the necessary course of action is painful,” he says.
She doesn’t reply.
“In order to open the coffin, I will need to disable the wards on the facility,” Desmond says. “They’re strong enough to prevent even mechanical manifestations.” He looks to Adam, forces a smile. “Before I do that, I need to know I can rely on your support, Dr. Radcliffe.”
“You don’t need his support,” Aya says. “All you need is his blood.”
Haruko readies her machete. “Over my dead body.”
“Haruko, wait,” Adam says. “I’ll do it. It’s fine. Okay? No one needs to get hurt.” He laughs. “Let’s just disable the wards and then I’ll make the offering.”
“Thank you for being so reasonable.” Desmond removes a calculator-like device from his back pocket and punches in a long sequence of characters. Somewhere above us sirens start to sound.
“Well?” Desmond says, gesturing to the tomb.
“Right,” Adam says, again laughing inappropriately. He turns to me. “Kate, could you... give me my knife?”