by Mark Anthony
“They both do, girl. Lord above, they both do.”
But if the prisoner was the Knight, who was the Queen?
An image flashed through her mind: golden eyes, gazing at another deeply when it seemed no one else had been looking. No one but Marji.
She nodded. Mystery solved. Marji clucked her tongue. “You’re going to be one busy boy, Mr. Travis.”
She smiled, and the expression was one of sorrow as well as gladness. It hurt to let something so precious slip through her fingers. And it healed to know there were others who needed it more than she did.
“It’s your own fault for being so damn together, Marji. But thanks for the kiss, honey. I’ll lock it in my heart for always.”
Now she was getting weepy. Not a good idea when you wore so much mascara. Marji forced her tears back and picked up the deck of cards. She was due for a reading herself, and maybe it would help take her mind off things. She shuffled until she felt the spark that let her know it was right, then turned the first card.
A grinning skull stared up at her from the black hood of a reaper’s robe.
Marji went rigid.
It’s just a symbol, girl. Change, the end of a cycle, that’s all it means.
That’s what the books about tarot said, anyway, maybe just to make people feel better. But sometimes, she knew, the card meant exactly what it read.
Death.
A coldness flowed over her, and this time it wasn’t just imagination and skimpy clothes. The velvet curtain covering one of the small windows fluttered, and icy autumn air swirled into the room.
Marji moved to the window. “I thought you were closed. Marji must have breathed in a little too much nail polish remover today.” She shut the window and started back toward the table.
Halfway there, she heard it: a low whuffling, almost like her uncle used to make after downing a couple of malt liquors and collapsing on the couch.
Marji froze, listening. The whuffling ceased. Then she heard the bright sound of glass breaking out in the main shop.
Indignation rose within her. So some creep had let himself into her store and was now trampling around like a buffalo. She grabbed a stainless-steel nail file from a shelf. Whoever was out there had balls. But not for long.
Marji walked down a hallway, past several doors, then reached the curtain of beads. A stench hit her a second later, so strong she batted her eyelids, but the tears came anyway, and her mascara started to run. Whoever was out there, it smelled like he had rolled in a Dumpster before coming in. Breathing through her mouth, she reached out and parted the beads.
There was a wet grunt, then something dark and sinuous moved from the shadow between two rows of shelves. A small, low-browed head looked up, and pale eyes stared at Marji. With an easy, loping motion, it started for her, letting talons run along the shelves as it came.
More bottles fell to the floor, and Marji’s scream was absorbed by the sound of shattering glass.
She stumbled back, letting the beads clack into place, concealing the sight of the thing. But she could still smell it, could still hear it. Whatever that monster was, it was coming for her. Fast.
Groping behind her, she found a doorknob, turned it, and backed into her dressing room. The walls were lined with mirrors, and the top of a large white vanity was cluttered with makeup, hairbrushes, nail polish, and curlers. Beauty like Marji’s didn’t come naturally; it came in lots and lots of little bottles.
She shoved against the door, but she was too slow. Something struck it, hard and furious, and she stumbled against the vanity. The back of her head smacked the mirror, and jars and vials clattered as they fell.
It came through the door slowly, cautiously. Whatever it was, it was smart enough to know it had her cornered. She could see it clearly now in the bright light reflecting off the mirrors, and her gorge rose in her throat.
“You are one ugly boy.”
The thing reminded her of an ape. Its arms dragged the ground, claws cutting the rug to shreds. Long, matted hair covered its body, and its short snout wrinkled as it bared fangs in a drooling grin. Yet the eyes were the worst: too large, slanted, white as moons. Nothing had eyes like that. Nothing on this planet, anyway.
The creature stalked forward. Marji reached behind her, fumbling with numb hands on the top of the vanity. The stench was enough to induce unconsciousness. Dizziness swept over her. The monster braced short legs and reached for her as it opened its maw.
Marji’s hands closed around a pair of hard, familiar objects, and in a motion as smooth as a diva’s she whipped them out before her. With one finger she let loose a billowing cloud of hairspray from a can, and with another she flicked the lighter she used to heat eyebrow pencils.
She flashed a wicked grin. “Looks like you’re having a bad hair day, sugar.”
Fire roared forth, engulfing the creature. It shrieked, lifting impossibly long arms as flames licked up its greasy hair, and fell back.
Marji followed after, can thrust out before her, spraying a gout of flame. Again the thing let out a squealing cry, then it fell backward into the hallway. It jerked, limbs tangling in spasms as the flames ate it.
Marji lowered the can. The thing grew still, curled in on itself like an insect as it burned. It was dead. She reeled backward, eyes burning from smoke, and turned around. Breath fled her. Marji gazed into the dressing room’s mirrors and did not see herself.
It was a two-lane highway, leading over the crest of a hill and down into a valley. Beyond, flat slabs of gray stone thrust up like giants leaning against gray-green mountains. Five eighteen-wheelers sped up the hill, past a highway sign. The trucks were painted black except for a single white crescent moon on their sides. Marji gazed at the highway sign, but even as she did the image faded, and she stared at a tall, lean form in a sequined jacket and a beehive hairdo.
It was a faint skittering sound that broke the trance. Marji turned around.
They scuttled through the door, wriggling toward her across the singed carpet, gleaming in the light. Spiders. Gold spiders. She counted ten, twenty. Then she stopped counting as they continued to pour through the door. Again she lifted the can of hairspray and the lighter. Flame burst forth. The first row of spiders melted into motionless lumps.
The can sputtered. The flames wavered, then died out.
Marji threw down the can. She backed up against the vanity.
This is not good, girl. You always looked best in silver. Gold is definitely not your color.
The spiders wriggled closer. She fumbled for the phone on the vanity. There was time for one more call. From her jacket pocket she drew out the card the handsome, grumpy one had given her. She dialed, lifted the phone to her ear.
You have reached a Comlink pager, an electronic voice intoned. Please enter the telephone number where you can be reached.
No, there was no time for call-backs. They would just have to be smart enough to understand the message. She didn’t know what it was she had seen in the mirror, only that if she saw it then it had to be important. With a hard fingernail, she punched the keys.
Something brushed her ankle. Marji dropped the phone and stamped her foot. A spider fell off. Another stamp, and it was pulverized beneath her stiletto heel.
More spiders followed after it, and more. There was no more room to back up.
“Last dance, Marjoram,” she whispered.
More spiders crumpled under the heels of her shoes until she felt the first, sharp pricks of pain.
57.
Beltan crouched in the metallic shadows behind a pile of steel crates. He cocked his head, listening: the sound of rapid footsteps, echoing voices, the boom of doors shutting. For over an hour, Beltan had crept through the dim, angular halls of this fortress, encountering little activity. Then, a few minutes ago, the noises had begun. Something was happening.
Perhaps the doctor has gone back into the room and found your bed empty, Beltan.
Except he had heard no alarm, and the dista
nt shouts were not sharp with anger and fear. They sounded more like commands.
It was cold. The thin white coat he had pilfered offered no warmth, and he pulled his knees to his chest. He knew he should get moving again. The guard he had seen a minute ago was gone, off to join his companions in whatever task they had been set to. But he needed to rest, just for another minute. While there was a strength in his bony limbs he had not thought possible, the simple act of moving quietly between hiding places had left him damp, weak, and trembling as a newborn foal.
A low hooting noise.
She was curled up in the corner behind him, long arms coiled around her small head, as if cradling it. She gazed at him impassively, her gentle brown eyes filled with intelligence and pain. The bare patches on her arms glowed in the faint light, scabbed-over cuts marking them like some of Travis Wilder’s runes.
“It’s all right, my lady,” he whispered. “We’ll stay here another minute.”
She leaned back as if she understood him.
And maybe she does at that, Beltan. She knew the secret of the lock on the door. And she was there, in your dream of the Gray Land. She called to you.
He knew it was risky and perhaps foolish to have brought the chin-pasi with him. But he owed his life and his freedom to her—however long each of them would last. He had found a metal instrument in a drawer—its purpose unfathomable, except that it looked as if it could cause great pain if applied correctly—and had used it to lever open the cage’s lock. The chin-pasi had climbed out on stiff legs and had embraced him, encircling his thin body with gangly, powerful arms.
After that, she had followed just behind him, silently, quickly, seeming to anticipate each of his moves. Twice she had made frantic motions, flapping her long hands as he started down a corridor, and each time as they fell back he had heard voices coming in their direction. Beltan wondered what they had done to her. And what they had done to him. The chin-pasi was not the only one who seemed to know things.
More than once, as they stole through the fortress, he had felt the tingling creep over his flesh, along with a sensation of danger. Each time he had led the chin-pasi to a hiding place. And each time, moments later, a guard came into view, clad in their strange uniform of black boots, tight black trousers, and thin black shirts with short sleeves.
That they were guards there could be no doubt. Beltan was a disciple of Vathris; he knew a warrior when he saw one. To a one they were large men, arms and necks thick, hair cropped close. Their shirts were marked with a white crescent shape—surely an insignia of some sort. But the clearest sign of all were the objects strapped to their belts. The things were short, stubby, and made of metal. Beltan couldn’t say exactly what they were, except that by the way the men carried them they were clearly some sort of weapon.
The needle pricks came once again, swarming over his neck and arms as he crouched behind the crate. A heartbeat later the guard came into view. He was not walking on patrol, but rather jogging toward a specific task. He touched a wire coiled around his head.
“This is Clarkson. Alpha and Beta Sections are clear. Moving to Gamma Section now. Trucks one and two are already fully loaded, so start with truck three. Good, then—”
The guard’s harsh words were cut off as he rounded a corner. The tingling faded, along with the sense of peril. Beltan turned toward the chin-pasi. She gazed at him, eyes quiet in her dark, wrinkled face.
“They’ve done something to me, my lady,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Just like they’ve done something to you.”
The creature pursed her lips and gestured with curving fingers. Time to go.
Hunched, he started down the corridor, toward the source of a faint, gray light. The chin-pasi loped after him. Beltan wished he could walk like her, leaning on the knuckles of his hands. His sinews felt like wet leather left in the sun to dry; stretching his tall frame upright was painful.
After the noise and commotion, the hallway was now eerily silent. Together, they passed open doors leading to rooms empty save for a few papers crumpled on the floor or a handful of colored wires dangling from the ceiling.
The light grew brighter. A new sound echoed from up ahead, a roaring he could not comprehend. It made him think of the growling of some great beast. However, he did not feel the tingling. Whatever the source of his new instincts, they had gotten him this far. He clenched his teeth, willed his legs to keep pumping, and swung around a corner.
He nearly collided with a man and woman in long white coats.
Beltan’s bare feet skidded on the slick floor, then stuck, halting him. With a soft whuff, the chin-pasi bumped into him from behind. He stared, frozen, waiting for the two doctors to turn around, to see him, and to cry out in alarm.
They did not. The roar was loud now, pouring through the opening in which the two doctors stood. Beyond was bright gray light and chilly air.
The doctors were talking—loudly, to compensate for the grinding noise. They had not heard Beltan and the chin-pasi. But why hadn’t he felt the tingling? Maybe his new instincts were fallible after all. Or maybe he was not really in danger—not as long as they hadn’t heard him.
“—and it’s being loaded now,” the male doctor shouted above the noise.
The female doctor clutched her coat to keep it from flapping in a stiff breeze. “And the subject?”
“You mean E-1?”
“Yes. The nonhuman.”
“He’s already on the same truck.”
The female doctor turned slightly, and Beltan realized that he recognized the shape of her profile. It was her, the woman in his room, the one he had frightened when he spoke to her. He remembered the words she had spoken as he listened.
This is Dr. Ananda M. Larsen. End recording.
“Do you know why the order came down to evacuate?” Larsen said, her shoulders hunched against the chill.
The man shrugged. “Who can say? We’re just the brains, remember. It’s the brawn that calls the shots here. But I’ve heard it’s because they discovered our location and are planning a strike.”
“Who?”
“You know very well who.”
Larsen nodded. She seemed to murmur something, but the word was lost amid the roaring.
Beltan swore under his breath. He wanted to know who it was that planned an assault. Perhaps Beltan could befriend these people and use them to escape.
“Damn, it’s cold.” Larsen stamped her feet.
“It’s not just the wind that makes me cold. There—do you see? Over by the truck.”
Dr. Larsen muttered something Beltan did not understand, but which could only be a curse. “I thought he was gone. Wasn’t he supposed to be searching for them?”
“That’s what I thought. He must have come back for the mobilization.”
At last Beltan understood. The activity, the words of the guard, the empty rooms. They had been discovered, they feared an attack, and now they were abandoning their fortress. But where were they going?
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he got out of there before they discovered he was missing. In the chaos of the mobilization, he just might have a chance.
Larsen grimaced. “He gives me the creeps.”
“To say the least. What do you think is behind that mask of his?”
“God, don’t even say that. I don’t know where they dredged him up, but I wish they’d send him back.”
“I agree, but we needed him. He was the one who showed us we could perform gene therapy using the non-human’s blood serum as a delivery vector. And he was the one who brought us the nonhuman in the first place.”
“Fine. I won’t argue with you there. But we don’t need him anymore. We’ve advanced our techniques ten centuries beyond his crude methods. Have you seen some of the hybrids he created? Thank God they destroyed them all. They were monsters. Nothing like Ellie.”
“You mean your chimp?”
“You wouldn’t believe the results I’ve been getting. Basic manual d
exterity skills up seventy-eight percent. Abstract reasoning test scores up one hundred fifty-three percent. It’s incredible. I think she’s on the verge of achieving language. I don’t mean mimicking a few hand signals, but real, complex language.”
The male doctor wasn’t listening. “You know, I’ve heard he can’t stand it.”
“Can’t stand what?”
“E-1. I’ve heard he doesn’t like to be near it.”
“But he’s the one who brought it through.”
The man shrugged. “Well, sometimes we have to associate with things we hate in order to get what we want.”
Larsen looked away. Again her words were lost in the droning sound. They might have been, Yes, we do.
“So, do you think it’s going to help us?”
Larsen turned back. “What?”
“The nonhuman. I’ve heard they think it understands how to activate the artifact. Do you think it will help us?”
“I don’t know.” Larsen sighed. “I’ve heard it’s in constant agony.”
“Well, that’s to be expected. We’ve seen what hybrids go through here. Logic dictates it would be worse for a homogenetic specimen. That’s why the lab at headquarters synthesized Electria in the first place, to control their pain.” A soft laugh. “The international drug trade is just gravy to help fund interesting little side operations like yours and mine, Ananda.”
She took a step back, body curving inward, as if repulsed.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I think they’re moving on to Gamma Section.”
“They won’t let you touch anything yourself.”
“I know. I just … I just want to make sure they treat Ellie and E-2 all right.”
The man nodded. “See you at the rendezvous, Ananda.”
Larsen said nothing. She took another step back, then turned to move down the corridor.
She stopped, jaw open, and stared. Ten steps away, Beltan and the chin-pasi stared back.
For several moments they stood this way, frozen. Then a grin crept across Beltan’s face.