by John Shirley
She pulled at every wire she could find, ripping some out with her teeth. Closing the engine cover, she saw a rather elaborate gas mask lying on one of the van’s seats. She grabbed it, slung it around her neck so it hung down her back and, carrying the Hummer’s battery, she started to run to the road. But the mud sucked at her feet, caking heavily on her shoes, as if purposely trying to slow her down. She was able only to trudge sweatily along till she got to the road.
Feet crunching too loudly in the gravel, Glyneth ran down the road, feeling like she was wearing ankle weights with the mud caked on her shoes. About fifty yards along, she tossed the car battery into a gurgling culvert. She noticed the sun setting, and wished it would go down faster, because she knew she made a good target on this road, with the flat stubbly fields to either side and a quarter mile of open ground to the nearest stand of trees. She needed darkness to hide her.
She heard angry shouting behind her. They’d noticed her absence; they’d discovered her sabotage. They would be running after her.
She heard a bee buzz past her head, followed by a cracking sound, and realized it hadn’t been a bee at all.
She felt as if the middle of her back was exposed, cold—it was the place she was expecting the next bullet to hit. Another dark culvert opening yawned to her right, echoing with rushing water. She heard another bee, and a handful of gravel leapt up, stinging her calf. Someone was gaining on her, getting the range.
She looked around for cover—there was only the culvert. Oh, God, for a flashlight. Wait—she had a little one on her keychain.
Glyneth sprinted to the culvert and jumped down into the ditch, grunting with the impact as she splashed into the water, falling on her hands and knees. “Shit!” It was cold, a very sudden coldness. She straightened up, fumbled in her purse. Where was it? At any moment they might come to the edge of the ditch and fire down at her.
She found the keychain and turned on the little penlight. If only she had the car that went with the keychain.
She hesitated. The culvert ran toward the town. She was afraid of the town now, but she could hear the rattling of their running footsteps on the gravel road above her. Would they follow her in here? Maybe they wouldn’t have to. They might be able to call people at the other end.
She plunged into the musty, echoing tunnel, immediately running into spiderwebs, having to run, crouching, into wet, rushing darkness broken only by the thin ray of bobbing light shining from her hand.
Rostov, Russia
The old dervish hadn’t picked Rostov, nor their hotel, at random. There was a certain priest who worked at the Orthodox cathedral just across the way. But this small chapel grotto, though connected through an underground passage with the cathedral, wasn’t a part of it. The Conscious Circle did notwant to interfere with the specific consecrations of the cathedral; the Orthodox church had its own spiritual-vibratory identity. Though the bent old priest belonged to the Conscious Circle, he would have regarded its Work as heresy were it conducted in the cathedral proper.
It was a paradox Melissa had never quite mastered.
She and Nyerza helped Ira onto a cot in one corner of the mostly bare, clammy stone room and covered him with blankets. It was an ancient chamber, she thought, straightening to look around. Its damp walls were carved out of bedrock; the figures painted into the floor were very like Araha’s pendant.
The old, bent, gray-bearded priest, Father Spenskaya, wearing a dark cassock and hooded cap, regarded Marcus gravely and then Ira with pale eyes. His gaunt, lined face seemed itself etched in stone in the dim light of the candelabra standing in a wall niche, until he turned suddenly to speak to Shaikh Araha in Russian, in a voice that sounded like a squeaky winch.
Araha responded in the same language, then turned to Melissa. “He wants to know why we have brought a sick man. Says we have no time for healing anyone tonight.”
Marcus stepped out of the shadows then, and spoke in halting Russian—but the somewhat surprised old priest evidently understood, nodding acquiescence. Melissa looked questioningly at Araha.
“He said that he wanted his father here. That Ira must remain. He cannot concentrate, when his father is so much in distress, unless he can see that he’s at least safe with us.”
She glanced at Marcus who went to help the old priest light incense in little bronze bowls laid at the nine points of the figure on the floor. Around the figure were low wooden stools, much worn with use. Enough for Melissa, Marcus, Nyerza, Araha, Father Spenskaya, and four others.
Araha knelt beside Ira. The shaikh’s hands were clasped around an old pottery cup, brimming with water. He murmured over the cup—as he had for Marcus—and Melissa saw the water seem to stir. Then Ira, wincing, sat up and drank.
He’d had many such treatments from Araha since coming out of the prison. By degrees, he seemed to be coming back to them, healing and growing a little stronger.
The priest straightened, turning to look at Melissa. He spoke in uncertain English, gesturing toward her. “Is the—the Urn, da?”
Nyerza spoke for the first time in hours. “Yes, but the Gold is not with her. She grew angry, quite justly angry, and their connection was already tenuous. But together . . . we may perhaps find a path to them. . . .”
The priest shook his head; he’d understood little. Araha translated. The priest nodded. He went to a painted wooden figure of Saint Anthony tucked away in a wall niche and knelt in front of it on the naked stone; he began to pray in Russian. He was entering into hesychasm, the prayer of the heart: a prayer that was more an inner state than it was words.
Melissa hunkered beside Ira, feeling his head. It was clammy cold in here; he really shouldn’t be here.
“I’m okay,” he whispered raspily, looking at her through still-puffy eyes. He smiled crookedly.
“You’ll live, sure, if that’s what you mean,” she said, just loud enough for him to hear. “But they don’t just torture a man’s body.”
“It wasn’t a long . . . interrogation. It was horrible. But people have worse. I don’t want to sound—”—
“Pious? Falsely humble? You’re right on the verge. But sound any way you want. Soon we’ll find you a therapist, to help you work through it.”
“I’ve had my rage already. I can feel the depression. The—” he licked his lips and groped for words “—the sense that people are all just . . . things, robots. Mindless, only pretending to be . . . to care. But the men who tortured me probably love their children. . . .”
“Perhaps. I doubt it, but maybe. Listen—you’re strong, you’ve been through a lot. You’ve looked the seven clans in the eyes. You killed a man to defend me, and I remember how you mourned for him and prayed for his soul. I don’t underestimate you, darling. But you mustn’t underestimate what you’ve been through.”
He chuckled, showing broken teeth. “Every time I move it still hurts. Don’t worry—it’s a reminder.” He turned his head to look as Marcus, Araha, and Nyerza settled on the little stools at the points of the sacred figure on the floor.
She remembered holding her husband in her arms that morning, when he’d awakened more or less cogent. He had silently eaten porridge, drunk a little tea—and then he’d begun to weep into his teacup. She held him as he sobbed against her for an hour, and then he’d gone to sleep. And when Ira had awakened, Marcus had bent near him, kissed him on the forehead, patted his cheek. Even now, Ira turned on the cot to look intently at his son.
Did Ira know? Did Ira understand what had happened to the boy? Had he heard her discussing it with the others, in his semiconsciousness?
Another man came in then, making her shiver at his sudden appearance. It was Araha’s old assistant, Hiram. He nodded to them, smiling faintly, and went immediately to sit on one of the low stools.
Then another man came in, and both Ira and Melissa gasped in surprise.
“Yanan!”
Wearing a long overcoat, Yanan came and stood by Ira, smiling softly down at him. “I come righ
t from the airport. I have not been to this room for some years, but it does not change. So—I am glad you are safe and with those you love, Ira, hm?”
“Yes, he is,” Melissa said, giving Yanan a brittle look. She took Yanan aside, lowering her voice so Marcus and Ira wouldn’t hear. “With his wife—and his ‘son.’ Did you know what they were going to do, Yanan?”
“I . . . only knew that they said he would be able to help. That he would be awakened through remembering who he had been, before.”
“He hasn’t only remembered it,” she whispered, “he’s become it. He lost who he was.”
“Many died, nine years ago, in our circle, eh? And afterward, weakened, others died. There weren’t enough without Mendel—we sensed he was close, in the boy. Araha was told he could be reawakened, if he was brought to a place where the influences were strong enough, you see. But as to how it feels for you . . . I feel that you suffer. And I had not thought it would be so.”
“You wouldn’t have changed anything, none of you, if you’d known how I’d feel.”
Yanan led her back to Ira’s side.
Ira was trying to sit up. “I . . . found something in myself . . . these last days . . . that could help. . . .”
Yanan smiled. “You are ready to help us now, Ira?”
Melissa shook her head firmly, pressing Ira back on the cot. “Marcus just wanted him here. We can’t—I mean—Ira can’t help. You don’t know what’s happened to Ira, Yanan. What he’s been through.”
“Yes, I do know,” Yanan said tenderly. “I very much do. It happened to me before, hm?” He smiled with an ancient sadness. “We must all pay our bills, eh? Come, Ira.” He extended his hand to Ira, to help him stand.
Melissa snapped, “No!”
Yanan stood there, looking down at Ira, hand extended. Ira swallowed, then smiled wearily, and took Yanan’s hand. He grimaced as he allowed his mentor to pull him to his feet.
Melissa was close to walking out. What had they done to her family? First Marcus—now Ira.
Her father had taught her to trust them. Maybe her father was wrong.
Ira wore only pajamas and a robe and slippers, but he hobbled across the room, leaning on Yanan, and sat down on a stool. “I’m okay, Melissa,” he said. “It’ll take all of us—Marcus, too—to call him . . .”
“You understand who we call, eh?” Yanan said, looking at Ira.
Ira nodded. “Someone who’s gone beyond—who can talk to their Retriever . . . Marcus . . .” He looked at the boy. He shrugged. “Marcus told me.”
The old priest got slowly to his feet—she could almost hear his joints creaking. The priest turned to look at her, his eyes like pale blue fire. He waited.
She took a deep breath, and let the anger slide away to some dark place inside her. She crossed to her small wooden stool and sat down; it was so low she had to squat as much as sit.
The priest came and sat opposite her. They all joined hands—and it began. They set out to summon the ninth participant in their Circle—a dead man.
Beneath Ash Valley
Glyneth could hardly feel her feet now in the cold water. How far had she gone? Her back was aching from hunching over; her socks had gotten bunched in her shoes. Now and then something slimy and furry wriggled past her ankles, making her hiss with revulsion, but she kept on, afraid of something worse. Following the coursing of the stream.
She stopped and listened. Sounds came to her, down the culvert, distorted with reverberation. Ringing sounds, cracks, splashes—losing definition. She took a deep breath and went on, followed her weakening penlight beam around a curve—and cracked her head on a pipe.
Gasping with pain, she fell floundering back to sit dizzily in the water, on slime-coated concrete. After a few moments the throbbing subsided, and she gingerly felt the goose egg on her forehead—it was tender. “Ow. Fucking hell,” she muttered. Then a moment of panic. The flashlight! Where was it? There was a dim glow in the water, like a phosphorescent fish. She snatched at the flashlight with cold-clumsy fingers, pulled it from the water. It blinked, twice, three times—and she whimpered. But it didn’t go out.
Then she froze, fell silent, listening. There was a heavy splashing coming up behind her in the darkness. Or was it up ahead?
She stood carefully, mindful that there was a pipe above her and, not knowing what else to do, moved on. Slowly, the sounds receded. The fading penlight beam wavered over the dirty water; she caught the lights of yellow-pink eyes, small wet snouts regarding her more than once from small drainage channels oozing water. She swore softly at them, and the rats turned and swam away, naked tails rippling like agitated earthworms.
She began to feel sick from cold and realized that her core heat was draining away in the slow, cold push of the water. She started to shiver uncontrollably.
Another fifty steps, and she thought she could make out a light in the distance. She switched off the little flashlight and found there was still just enough illumination to allow her to make her way down the sibilating tunnel.
The culvert opened up a bit, so she could straighten, and she discovered that the light was coming from above: a rainwater grate and a manhole up there, side by side. The light was mostly coming through the grate. It looked like street light. She heard a car go whirring by.
She crossed to a metal ladder and climbed the rungs that were sunk deep into the damp concrete wall, thinking, This is it! I’m getting out of this stinking hole!
She reached the underside of the manhole and pushed. It didn’t budge, not even slightly. She tried again. It was utterly unyielding. She guessed that it must have been one of those manholes sealed in place by asphalt.
The sewer grate was bolted down—she could see the bolts. “Like to get hold of the genius who worked on that street,” she muttered through grinding teeth, descending the rungs, back into the damp darkness. “What is the fucking point of a manhole if . . . if . . .” She broke off, stopped on the ladder, peering downward.
There was something big, moving through the water, about a yard under her feet.
She squinted down in the dim light—her own shadow was obscuring whatever it was. She flattened against the ladder so the light fell on the thing.
It was a man, moving low through the water like an alligator, coming out of the tunnel that led toward Ash Valley—opposite the way Glyneth had come. He was dressed in a soggy sweatshirt and jeans, one shoe on, the other foot bare, and he was pulling himself through the water with his hands clawing at the bottom, and making excited babyish sounds as he went—cooing and sputtering and bubbling. The skin on the back of his neck looked bluish to her; she guessed he must be close to dying of the cold.
But he glided vigorously through the water to the branch she’d just come out of—there he hesitated, lifting his head to stare down the culvert.
Another man joined him, coming from the same direction. No, this was a woman. She was walking bent, crouched so low that her face was almost touching the water. She wore a torn dress, her wet hair plastered on her head, down her back, and dangling to trail in the dirty water.
The woman looked up, but not right at Glyneth; she seemed to be drawn to stare at the light overhead. Her eyes were milky, filmed over.
She returned her baleful attention to the opening of the culvert, cooing to herself, giggling now and then as she waited with the man, the two of them staring into the dark tunnel, teeth bared.
Glyneth’s arms ached. She shivered, and it was hard to keep her teeth from clacking together. But she was afraid of making any sound at all.
Another man came, a chunky guy in a white shirt and no pants. His shirt clung to him; she could see his naked ass, as pink as the tails of the rats. He was pulling himself along in the water like the first; he seemed to be keening like a lost cat.
He crouched alongside the other two, each making their own odd little noise, staring down the culvert the way she’d come.
And then a flashlight beam quivered from the opening. Someon
e said something. Maybe, “Who’s that?” Glyneth wasn’t sure.
The one she thought of as the alligator man seemed to dart forward, propelled up and out of the water. Someone yelled. There was a bang and a metallic echo; she smelled gun smoke, heard giggling. Then the other two moved into the culvert.
Now, Glyneth thought as a frightened yell and the sounds of thrashing came from the tunnel. She climbed down to the water and went into the tunnel the three had come out of.
Just as she entered, she realized the water was changing color around her knees, darkening, as if it were rusting, brown, red. Blood.
She heard a man scream like a small child.
She paused long enough to glance over her shoulder, only to see Dickinham, in the tunnel opposite, his face contorted with some terrible realization. He reached out to her imploringly, then the tunnel strobed as he fired the pistol again, into the ceiling. One of them had his wrist gripped in blue-white hands.