Seraph of Sorrow

by MaryJanice Davidson

That made some sense. If this Dianna Wilson felt safe with her loving daughter, maybe she would wrap herself in some strange time-space wrinkle and leave the world alone. Then again, it was possible she would do no such thing.

  “What about the fourth?”

  “Sorry. No can do.”

  “Why not? What possible harm could it do? One of the Quadrivium is dead. The second is a spent shell I let wheel around this town because it amuses me. The third, if what you tell me is true, is a distracted astral tourist. Is the fourth so weak that you must protect her?”

  Jennifer shrugged. “I honestly don’t know how weak or powerful. It doesn’t matter. I’m trying to make a friend there, and I don’t need you screwing it up.”

  Glorianna considered her options. This had been the most informative interview of the five—but returns were diminishing rapidly. She could continue and grind gears, learning nothing much more of value. She could end it by drawing her sword, which seemed unnecessarily violent (and not entirely wise). Or she could end it on her own terms.

  “I’ve enjoyed our chat. You might consider changing out of dragon shape prior to your history lessons this afternoon.” Trying to look more bored than she felt, she stepped out of Mouton’s office and left the bemused dragon behind.

  Glorianna found herself alone later that cold evening, sitting in her office, with only a single desk lamp illuminating her grave face. She fought the urge to sweep her desk clean with one arm. Instead, she thought about a young, heroic woman who defied odds and took control of her own destiny. She thought about enemies who appeared to be friends, and vice versa. And most of all, she thought about death.

  Death is on our side, she had told herself and her followers countless times. And for decades, it had seemed true. Life was good in Winoka. Families were safe. She was an icon. No one doubted her word or stood against her.

  The recent past was more troubling. Enemies were growing bolder. Allies were softening. People were getting lazy and apathetic. And worst of all . . . Glorianna was getting old.

  Death’s getting a bit too close to my side, she told herself with a grim chuckle. She needed a successor, someone younger she could trust. The closest generation—Charlie’s—presented virtually no options today. Many of them had died either during or shortly after the establishment of Winoka, and the rest were unremarkable and aging.

  Her hopes had once rested more firmly on the following generation, starting with Elizabeth. After that short-lived dream, Wendy had seemed promising . . . until Hank Blacktooth browbeat his wife into uselessness. And Hank himself? It was a sad state of affairs when he was the most promising of the candidates. All the other major families in town, like the Jarkmands or the Seras, lacked the leadership and other skills necessary for the job.

  So on to the newest generation. What about Jennifer Scales?

  She almost slapped herself for the stray thought. Skill was not the only qualification to consider—Libby was proof of that. Jennifer Scales had obvious ties to too many enemies. She also had an attitude problem the size of Lake Superior.

  That night in Winoka Hospital over fifteen years ago weighed on Glorianna’s mind. If only I had ordered the doctor to give the newborn to me first, to observe for the first day. If only I could have convinced Libby to give me the child for a few minutes, without telling her why. If only I had expected the father to hide himself in the room.

  If only. Then Glorianna might be retiring today and bequeathing her empire to a teenaged prodigy with three key assets: appropriate priorities, a clean abdomen, and a corpse for a father.

  “She could have saved us all,” she whispered at the closed mahogany door to her office. “Now who will? Now who can?”

  As if in answer, a black speck crawled under the door. Two more followed it, and the trio scrambled quickly onto the well-paneled walls and began to climb in a tight formation.

  Four more specks followed the first three, and then eight more, and then sixteen, and soon a full parade—and it was a parade, with ranks and files neat and orderly—of strange specks was making its way under the door, over the floor, and onto the wall in front of Glorianna.

  More curious than alarmed, she stood up and walked over to examine the specks. Each was no larger than an ant—in fact, each rather looked like an ant. But if these were ants, they were a variety Glorianna had never seen before. For starters, each had eight legs instead of six. Second, each had a disproportionately large head and tiny body, with several pale yellow eyes. Third, they were hairier than ants were. Fourth, they smelled like maple syrup.

  Fifth, they were still marching in tight formation. This was not the guided amble of an ant following a chemical trail left by brethren, instead a methodical and purposeful approach. They remained centered on the largest part of the wall, equidistant from the door and the plaque of appreciation Glorianna had received from the city of Rochester.

  Lastly, they weren’t real. It took a minute for her to perceive the lack of depth to these things. They were like animated graffiti, sliding over the wall with coordinated movements. When she tried to crush one of them with a finger, the pressure did absolutely nothing.

  Her white eyes widened as she came to a realization. Someone sent them.

  The grandfather clock against the opposite wall chimed midnight, and the formation shifted.

  Instead of neat rows and files, it began to form a series of curves. Each of the arcs was a different length and shape, and they began to join together until . . .

  That’s impossible.

  The cursive script these creatures produced on the wall was simple and elegant.

  Mayor Seabright has a problem.

  “Indeed,” she whispered back. “How clever of you to notice. And what is that problem?”

  The tiny creatures broke their script and reassembled with different words:

  Worms on wings.

  Seeing this obvious ploy from an arachnid—It must be arachnid, she reasoned, if it’s trying to get me to kill dragons—offended her. Her temper flared. “Really? Because I thought my problem was a faction of disgusting, manipulative spiders trying to murder me.”

  They are dangerous. To you. To us.

  “And who is ‘us’? The Quadrivium, I presume?”

  Quadrivium is gone.

  “So who are you?”

  An ally.

  “On eight legs?” She sniffed. “You waste my time.”

  They will come to burn Winoka someday.

  Glorianna was insulted by this crude psychology. Weren’t werachnids more elegant than this, more subtle? They had been, once. Maybe Jennifer had killed the last intelligent one.

  On the other hand, she had never seen a sorcery like this. The werachnid behind it was skilled. Perhaps it was the fourth, unknown member of the Quadrivium? Whoever it was, he or she was worth meeting. Worth killing.

  “Enough,” she told the messengers on the wall. “If you’ve gone through all this trouble to send these things here and annoy me, I assume you want to meet. What do you propose?”

  The bugs meandered. She supposed she had short-circuited whatever amateurish sales pitch the mastermind behind this relay service had devised. Finally, they sorted themselves out:

  Winoka Bridge. Saturday night. 1 A.M.

  “Well, let’s have a gander at my calendar.” Glorianna couldn’t help a smirk as she flipped through the calendar on her computer. “Hmmm. I’m having drinks with some millipedes at midnight and playing cards with some hornets at two, but I’m pretty sure I can squeeze you in.”

  That’s funny. Don’t bring any dragons.

  The creatures bubbled out of the wall like tiny blisters, and then each popped in a shower of sparks. The resulting fireworks startled Glorianna, but they were clearly harmless . . . this time.

  Cute, she spat at the wall. This werachnid had to die. It was immature and disrespectful. More to the point, it could slide explosives into her office. She thought immediately of Skip Wilson, and the pulsing arachnid shape she had se
en within him when she had interviewed him at Winoka High. Could this be him, behind these words? Christmas may be too late to wait to kill him, she decided. Four days from now, though—that may be about right.

  She would do it herself, Esteban’s curse be damned.

  Suddenly, she caught movement in the darkness beyond her window. She snapped off the light on her desk so she could see outside. There it was, a misshapen head and crawling body—or was it coils? Or a lingering image of the strange, bursting bugs?

  Unable to know for sure, she slumped on her darkened desk and focused on certainties. Whether this was Skip Wilson’s work or not, whether he was operating alone or with others, the arachnids in question were better dead to her than alive. Honestly, how useful could these freaks be? Any arachnids worth their salt would have refined their gift until they could blow her out of her own office at the first attempt. They wouldn’t have revealed that the Quadrivium was defunct. And they wouldn’t have used the singular form of “ally.”

  So, not they. It. A single werachnid. Just like Esteban.

  And hadn’t she handled Esteban just fine?

  From under her cloak, she whipped out the blade she had inherited from her father and examined it. Though she wore it every day, it had not tasted a beast’s blood in years. Decades, she corrected herself. Why? Because she was afraid of losing something again? What could Esteban possibly take from her, at this advanced age?

  “There’s nothing left,” she told the sword. “Only death. And death is on my side.”

  PART 3

  Skip Wilson

  To betray, you must first belong.

  —KIM PHILBY

  CHAPTER 9

  Subtraction

  At the age of fifteen, Francis “Skip” Wilson said good-bye to his mother for the last time.

  They were at a café in Villahermosa, Mexico, their latest stop on their lifelong adventure together. Skip’s stomach was churning at the spicy coffee they offered here, but what was truly unsettling him had happened yesterday.

  After rising early and enjoying breakfast, the two of them had spent a normal morning reviewing Skip’s studies, used their lunchtime to talk about their people and their heritage, and then visited a nearby site with ancient ruins—Dianna Wilson’s favorite activity. They had been to the ruined Mayan city of Palenque several times over the last few days. He had taken another guided tour of the area, with the expectation he would be tested on the subject before bedtime. Meanwhile, she had slipped off to do her own private research. No one ever caught her when she wanted to disappear.

  During their return to Villahermosa, the mood between them had changed. Her excitement was high, but she kept the details from Skip. This didn’t happen often, but Skip knew his mother acted like this only when she learned something that might lead to her mysterious “dimension.” What or who was in this dimension, Dianna never told her son. He was nevertheless learning to resent the occupant with a passion.

  His own mood worsened when his mother didn’t quiz him on the Mayan ruins. Instead, she sent him to bed and spent the evening on the phone speaking in hushed tones.

  Now, sitting here the next morning at a café eating a poor breakfast and coffee, without any studies or tours or tests or books before them, Skip assumed he and his mother were waiting for whoever had been on the other end of the line to show up.

  “Francis, you haven’t touched your huevos.” Dianna’s eyes stopped scanning the nearby villagers and tourists long enough to show concern. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “I’ve asked you not to call me Francis,” he snapped. “Multiple times.”

  Her slender hand slid across the table and covered his. “Mother’s prerogative. Now tell me—what’s bothering you? Your huevos will get cold if you—”

  “I’ll tell you what’s bothering me. Your unnatural need to call this stuff huevos because we’re a few hundred miles south of where people would call them eggs. Bad eggs, actually.”

  “I’m sorry about the eggs. Should we get you something else?” Her attention was fully on him now. He relaxed a little. It was not unusual for Dianna to lose herself during their travels. She had been absentminded enough in the Mayan caves in West Central Belize to get separated from everyone else and lose her way, and in Tanzania she had gone an entire day without talking at all. This, she had explained to her son afterward, was because the places would make her think, and her thoughts ran deep.

  Maybe this was the same. Maybe today would be normal after all.

  “No, Mom. I don’t want to spend more money. I can eat this.” He picked up his fork.

  “Don’t be silly, Fran—er, Skip. Money was never a problem.” Skip’s blood ran cold at the way the past tense slipped out. His forkful of eggs hung in midair.

  “Mom. Who’s meeting us here?”

  She sat up straight, irises pulsing orange in surprise. Skip felt a soft touch on the back of his neck, and knew she was peering inside.

  Can you see?

  So he did what he always did when she tried to poke around—he thought of a dark, rippling pool, and nothing else. The two of them both understood what it meant: Mothers stay out of their teenaged sons’ heads. Usually, that was the end of it.

  This time, something happened to the pool. It might have been his mother’s excitement, or a subconscious desire to tell him what was about to happen. Whatever it was, it cast a reflection on his pool. More pulse than image, it pressed him, pained him, and compressed those waves of pain. There were screams—they might have come from his mother—and then the stench of fear. The soft snap of a door opening was followed by a touch of wind on his skin as something passed by, and then out of this world. Then there was shock, deep sorrow, and tremendous loss.

  She lost something. And now she’s found it.

  Then, without knowing exactly what she had found, he knew she was leaving him for it.

  He threw the fork down and slammed his fist into the ceramic plate. How can she do this? She’s my mother! He knew his actions would upset her—but what did he have to lose?

  So he stood, gripped the edge of the table, and flipped it over. The nearby café patrons scrambled out of their seats. Dianna remained seated and put her hands over her face.

  Francis. Please. Calm down.

  “Stay the fuck out of my head!” He kicked the upturned wrought-iron legs of the table, sending it spinning over the cobblestones. Instead of a rippling pool, he gave her what she deserved: a blast of blinding light and raging noise.

  This jolted her out of her seat. Her hands came down, her face darkened, and then he heard a single word in his head.

  Asleep.

  He resisted for several seconds before the curtain of slumber tumbling around him finally pressed him to the ground and rolled his lids shut.

  When he woke, he was back in bed in their hotel suite. The lights were off and the curtains drawn. He was alone in the bedroom, but he could hear voices in the other room—his mother’s, and a man’s. The man’s voice was smooth, with an underlying current of irritation.

  “Do you have any idea how complicated this was on short notice? I had to fly through O’Hare and Mexico City. The mountain drive from San Cristobal nearly made me throw up.”

  “Have a lozenge; there’s a pack on the end table. I wish I could have given you more time, but I don’t know how much longer the conditions will be right for entry.” It sounded as if she were pacing back and forth, pulling zippers and locking clasps. Packing.

  “When do you leave?”

  “Immediately, now that you’re here. Francis is in the next room.” Skip felt a nudge again. She was checking to see if he was up. Still numb, he stayed on the bed, listening.

  “How did he take it when you told him what you were doing?”

  “I didn’t tell him why. He knows I’m leaving. He’s upset.”

  “I don’t blame him.”

  “Neither do I.” This comment was directed not at the other, but at Skip. “Saying sorry doesn
’t begin to describe how I feel. But I can’t pass on this opportunity. As our families always liked to say, ‘With sorcery comes sacrifice.’ I have to hope you both understand.”

  The voice hardened. “I’ve never understood why you do many of the things you do, Dianna. I didn’t understand your teenaged crush on the lizard, or your trips across the southern hemisphere, or your insistence on raising our son alone, without letting me see or talk to him.”

  “I’m letting you see and talk to him now.”

  “Only because you have no choice,” the man shot back. “Where you’re going is plainly too dangerous for him. If he were a few years older, you never would have called me.”

  “Let’s not get into this now, please.” Through the connection they shared, Skip could feel his mother’s impatience for this man. “You and I both know you’re no ideal parent. At six years old, he’d have been clinging to your hind leg as you firebombed Eveningstar.”

  “So if I’m such a travesty, Dianna, why did you marry me? Why stay with me long enough to have a child, and then disappear as if we had nothing?”

  Family.

  Skip heard that word before she withdrew. “I thought I could start something new. I was wrong. I’ll be trapped in the past until I get this settled. That’s no fairer to Francis than leaving. This way, he has a chance to move on himself. I hope you can help him.”

  “What about The Crown? You’re putting the Quadrivium at risk, for your own interests.”

  “How ironic. Your paranoid fantasies about an Ancient Furnace, and your expansion of Winoka’s sewer system, have nothing to do with your friends in the Quadrivium. Were you following The Crown’s instructions, you’d focus on Mayor Seabright, not an innocent young—”