by Anthology
The silence sat heavily between them.
“Does it have to do with an angel?”
Menchú’s head shot up. “What did Asanti tell you?”
“Nothing. But you just did.”
Menchú seemed to deflate before her very eyes. Shrinking somehow, as though the clerical collar was just a costume, and he wasn’t a crusader saving the world from magic, demons, and things that lurk in the night, but merely a middle-aged man who was suddenly very, very tired.
Sal expected him to tell her that the discussion was over. Or that his past was none of her business. Or even to send her back to Rome. Instead, he said, “It was a long time ago. When I was still a parish priest in Guatemala.”
***
The parish consisted of a single village, tucked into a valley surrounded by as much farmland as the residents could cultivate before the terrain became too steep to support anything but virgin forest. The United States had been telling the world that Guatemala was a democracy for at least ten years, although what evidence it had to support that claim beyond a nominally elected government was dubious. Were mass executions and disappearances the hallmarks of a democracy? Menchú was pretty sure they weren’t. And he was dead certain that they shouldn’t be.
Still, there were a few signs that things were changing for the better, and maybe that was why he had not seen the disaster coming. Unknowing, perhaps he had let his guard down. Whatever the reason, the first Menchú knew of the impending disaster was a small fist banging on the door of his residence in the middle of the night.
Menchú had not been asleep and was at the door almost immediately. It was one of the boys from the village, an altar server no more than seven years old, fist already raised to knock again. “Father,” he said, “come quickly.”
Menchú read his expression in an instant. “What’s happened?” he asked, even though he was certain he knew the answer. Still, What’s happened? was a kinder question than Who died?
“The Army. They’ve surrounded us.”
Menchú did not ask further questions.
***
He followed the boy outside into the square. Soldiers were roaring into town now, making no attempt at stealth. Menchú couldn’t fathom how he hadn’t heard them coming. There was too much noise to pick out what individual men were saying, but their intent was clear. Every resident—about sixty men, women, and children—had been rousted from their beds and corralled into the main square. The man with captain’s braid on his shoulders paced back and forth. Behind him, a dozen men stood, their rifles still slung over their shoulders. For the moment.
Menchú didn’t fool himself that they were going to stay that way.
“Father,” a low voice called. Menchú turned, and his heart sank even further. Apparently the rebels hadn’t all made it back to their hidden camps in the mountains in time. And now here they were, guns at the ready, hiding in the shadows by the church.
***
Menchú paused, and Sal watched him with open concern. “The army just showed up to kill everyone, just like that?”
He shook his head. “There was an excuse. There always was. Harboring rebels who had refused to disarm. But effectively…yes. They showed up to kill everyone.”
“Why?”
“To prove that they still could.”
“And then the rebels found out, and surrounded the army?”
Menchú shrugged. “There weren’t enough of them for that. But it was enough for an effective ambush. With the element of surprise, they probably could have killed most of the soldiers. And then the government would have sent more to retaliate. Concentric circles of death all the way down.”
Sal wasn't sure what to say. “I’m sorry” seemed inadequate, but it was all she had.
“For years, I wondered if it was because of me. I had distinguished myself within the Church during the civil war. Conflict is fertile ground for demons, and I had made it clear that I would protect both sides from their influence, banishing them back where they came from as soon as they dared show themselves in my presence. I wondered if maybe…If someone high enough in the chain of command decided to take exception to that policy of neutrality, they might have made an example of my village in order to send a message.”
“The rebels couldn’t have been too happy that you were helping the army.”
“Not really. But they were more at risk from the demons than the government forces were. Doesn’t matter anyway. Eventually, I realized that trying to blame myself was just a form of self-aggrandizement. There was no way I made enough of a difference for either side to take me down so spectacularly.”
“You must have saved lives.”
“From demons, yes. But I couldn’t stop people from killing each other. And that’s what it looked like was going to happen again.”
They sat together in silence, until Sal asked, “What happened instead?”
Menchú sighed. “I stopped the massacre.”
***
Father Menchú steeled himself for the strong possibility of death. He wasn't naive enough to believe that his collar would somehow protect him when the bullets started flying. For every man holding a gun who might hesitate to shoot a priest, there was another who would want to be sure that no official representative of the Church survived to tell the world what had happened in a small mountain village.
His only hope was to somehow convince the two armed groups bent on killing each other not to kill a cluster of innocent civilians in the process.
And then a hand caught his sleeve.
The boy was still standing beside him. Only now his eyes were featureless white, his skin glowed with an unearthly radiance, and his hair fluttered by his face, fanned by a breeze even though the air was perfectly still. He was the most beautiful thing Menchú had ever seen.
“What are you?” Menchú asked.
“If you try to talk to them, they’ll kill you.”
“Maybe not,” he said, then repeated, “What are you?”
“You know what I am.”
He did. At least, he hoped that he did. Menchú fell back a step, still cautious, but—for the first time that night—hopeful. “Can you stop this?”
The child nodded.
“Then why don't you?”
“You have to ask.”
A part of Menchú’s mind, some deep instinct, told him to say no. It warned that there was a trap before him, and the only way to avoid it was to walk away. But hope was too strong. The hope that no one, including him, would have to die that night.
Menchú asked.
God help him. He asked.
***
“And?”
Menchú looked up from his clasped hands and realized he had been staring silently at them for some minutes.
“I asked the…thing…to protect the villagers from the army and from the rebels.”
“And?”
“It did.”
***
It was as though a madness swept through both armed groups simultaneously. Suddenly the army seemed able to see the rebels wherever they were hiding, and fired unerringly into the alleyways. The rebels fired back. The sound of gunfire and screams filled the air.
Instinctively, Menchú threw himself over the child-thing, shielding its tiny body with his own, covering his head and trying not to be noticed or caught in the crossfire. Only when the square once again fell silent did he finally dare to rise.
All around, the buildings were studded with bullet holes, and under the straining glow of the streetlights, the cobblestones ran slick with blood. But in the center of it all, not a single villager had been touched. In shock, Menchú looked down at the child. Its unearthly appearance was unchanged. But then it smiled, and Menchú’s blood ran cold. It was not the smile of the boy he knew, or of any child on earth. It was…wrong.
“Why are you smiling?” Menchú asked. Was this how God wrought His miracles?
The child’s smile grew. “Because what comes next is fun.”
<
br /> Menchú stood there for the rest of the night. He found himself unable to move, speak, or intervene in any way as the demon who had possessed the boy tortured and killed every man, woman, and child in the village, there in the square in front of the church. At dawn, it turned to Menchú and slit its host’s throat.
Its last words were: “Let this be a lesson to you, Father.”
***
Sal flinched as Menchú gripped both of her hands in his. “I couldn’t protect them, but I will protect you. I won’t let you be brought down by the temptation of your hopes like I was.”
“But what about the rest of our people? How do we protect them?”
Menchú didn't have an answer.
5.
On the floor of the Archives, Grace shuddered and convulsed. Asanti held the other woman’s head, making sure she didn't choke on the bile she occasionally dredged up from her empty stomach.
Liam was doing the best of the three of them, and even he had emptied his stomach hours ago. Worse, the tone had grown so loud that it was impossible to hear each other, even if they shouted at the top of their lungs.
Liam left his computer where he had been trying and failing to find a way to block whatever was causing the effect and carried a pad of paper over to Asanti.
“No good,” he wrote.
Asanti sagged.
He flipped the page. “Your turn. I’ll sit with her.”
Asanti yielded her place on the floor beside Grace to Liam and stumbled off, rubbing her forehead with one hand. Liam hoped that the stacks would have more answers than his electronic resources. Given how his search had gone, that was a low bar. He really should find his tablet. That way he could work while he watched Grace. Why hadn’t he thought to do that earlier? Noise, lack of sleep, lack of food. It was making him stupid. Can’t afford that. Have to stay sharp…
With a mental wrench, Liam pulled himself out of his downward spiral. No time for self-flagellation. He could get his tablet in a minute. Just going to rest here for a bit first. Grace’s head was pillowed against his thigh. The fact that she would never have allowed such intimacy had she possessed even a shred of consciousness somehow made the whole situation even worse. She had always guarded her privacy, and Liam had respected that. Seeing her now, he wondered if he should have asked more questions. Then maybe he wouldn't feel so helpless.
Just a minute more. Then he would get the tablet and come right back.
Just one more minute.
As soon as his head stopped spinning.
With the relentless noise and the pain it caused, Liam wouldn’t have thought sleep was possible, but he must have lost consciousness, because suddenly Asanti was shaking him awake.
The whine was gone. The wind was back. Grace was still unconscious. But Asanti positively glowed with a smile that lit her entire face.
“What happened?”
“When I found you passed out, I killed the magnetic field, hoping that it might stop the tone, even if the wind came back.”
“Congratulations. You’re two for two.”
“That’s not the best part.”
A flying book knocked Liam in the back of his head and sent his chin driving down into his chest. “Are you sure about that? Because this is just brilliant.”
“Liam.” Asanti’s eyes danced with triumph. “Look around you. The wind isn’t just picking up books at random.”
Blinking past the new pain in the back of his head, Liam tried to concentrate on the spinning storm around him. Asanti picked up a book that had fallen to the floor and another from a shelf.
“This is a seventeenth century grimoire," she said, gesturing to the book she’d lifted from the floor. “Only copy known to exist. This”—she gestured to the one she’d taken from its place on the shelf—“is a first edition Francis Bacon. Rare, not unique.” Then she took both books and flung them into the air.
Liam started. While he had been passed out, Asanti had clearly gone insane. “Did you just—?”
“Watch.”
Both books tumbled, pages fluttering, until they finally landed, open, on their backs.
“What am I watching?”
“The pages!”
Liam blinked, still not seeing it. The Bacon lay there, unmoving. The pages of the grimoire continued to flip in the wind.
“These books are the same size, with similar binding and weight paper. The wind is everywhere. Why aren’t the pages of the Bacon still moving?”
And now that she had said it, Liam saw it. “The wind only affects books that are unique to the Archives.”
Asanti nodded. “Yes. Now, if we can just figure out what that means—”
But Liam already knew. “What it means,” he said—speaking carefully, but with growing certainty—“is we’re being hacked.”
Finally, something he could work with.
***
At sunset on the third night of the Market, Sal arrived alone at Gutenberg Castle, where she was greeted by the disapproving frown of the Maitresse.
“Where is the priest?” she asked. “I hope he hasn’t decided to depart prematurely.”
Sal shook her head, fighting the feeling that she ought to bow or curtsy or something else that would probably just end up looking stupid. “He had an errand to run in town and was unavoidably detained. I’m expecting him soon.”
The Maitresse gave Sal a penetrating look that went a step beyond a standard “disapproving superior” glare and straight to “look right into your head" territory. Sal fought to keep her expression bland and concentrated on repeating an internal mantra of: I’m not lying to you. I’m not lying to you. I’m not…
Almost as though she really could read Sal’s thoughts, the Maitresse’s lips quirked upward.
“Very well, Bookburner. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Sal nodded to the Maitresse and proceeded to beat a retreat across the courtyard as quickly as she could without looking like she was fleeing for her life. She wasn’t sure she managed it. But she hadn’t lied. Menchú was running an errand in town. She was expecting him soon. She just had something to do before he got back.
The first night of the Market was for posturing. The second was for negotiations. The third was for deals. Over Sal’s head, but low enough that it couldn’t be seen outside the castle’s walls, a firework in the shape of a red dragon exploded silently. Sal didn’t give it a second glance. She had an appointment with the Index.
***
Opie grinned as she approached, noting that she was alone. “Baby Bookburner breaking the rules. Are you going to have to go to confession later?”
“Not a Catholic. Let’s get on with this.”
Opie opened the door and ushered her through with a mock bow. Sal stepped past him into the room full of fantastical computers, heartened to see that her suspicions were correct: bowing when you didn’t know what you were doing did look stupid. He seemed amused at her impatience as she waited for him to follow her inside.
“You’re awfully eager to give up a piece of your mind.”
Sal held his gaze, waiting for him to blink first. “I’ve seen some things since I took this job that I wouldn’t mind forgetting.”
Opie made a small, negating gesture. “The Index takes what the Index wants. We can't control—”
“Cut the crap.”
Opie’s jaw snapped shut with an audible click.
“You were trying to stare through me from the first night of the Market. I think you found out that Mr. Norse had a grudge against the Society and offered to let him use the Index to find a weak spot in the Archives. Then, when everyone arrives at the Market and he attacks us—oh look—you just so happen to have the solution to our little problem, for the low-low price of a peek inside my head.”
Opie scoffed. “Which makes perfect sense, if everything we do somehow revolves around you.”
Sal shrugged. “Maybe you get the benefit of a happy coincidence, then. Bottom line, there’s something in
my head that you want, and you’re not going to trust to random chance that this Index of yours is going to pull what you’re interested in.”
“And what would you know that would be that valuable to us?”
“I know what happened to my brother.”
In the silence that followed, Sal could hear the faint hum of computers, the ripple of the sea horses’ aquarium, and the rustle of night moths pollinating the flowers blooming on the moss computer’s keyboard.
“You have information I want; I have information you want. Let’s make a trade.”
Opie blinked. “How very…pragmatic.”
“I’m a practical person. Hell, we can dispense with this whole Index bullshit for all I care. You tell me, I tell you, we both go our separate ways.”
The obnoxious smile was back. “No deal. How would we know you weren’t lying?”
“How do I know your Index knows anything useful?”
“Given that I’m not the one with the friends under threat of death, I guess that’s a risk you’ll have to take.”
Sal made a show of scowling. “Fine. Let’s do this.”
“Temper temper, Baby Bookburner.”
“Friends dying. I didn’t sleep well last night. PMS. Take your pick. Plus, I think we both want this business concluded before Father Menchú gets back from his errand in Balzers.”
That, at least, got Opie moving. He walked over to a large black packing case, opened it, and removed a wooden box just large enough to hold a pair of shoes. He closed the case immediately after removing the box, and Sal caught a glimpse of flames, skittering legs, and a brief moaning sound. Oh yeah, this is a great idea.
The box remained connected to the packing case by glowing filaments wrapped in sinew-like tendrils that gave off a faint smell of burning meat. Remembering Scotland, Sal’s stomach gave a lurch, and she swallowed bile.
“That’s the Index?”
Opie nodded. “The box is the interface, the case is the processor, the server is…elsewhere.”