Happy nodded, grasping the chain around Fiona’s neck and giving it a good yank.
“The bitch tried to bite me,” Happy said, as she pocketed the key, then looked down at her hoodie, which was streaked with Callie’s blood and Fiona’s saliva.
“That’s disgusting,” Callie said, reaching into the pocket of her dress and pulling out a moist towelette. “Moist towelette?”
Happy stared at the neat white package, disbelief in her eyes.
“You gotta be kidding me.”
Callie shook her head.
“I never kid about hygiene. Here, take one.”
Happy accepted the packet, tearing it open and fishing the moist towelette from its innards.
“What about you? You’re losing a lot of blood,” Happy said, pointing at Callie’s throat.
“I’m . . .” She paused, not sure what to say—a last-minute impulse brought out the truth.
“I’m immortal and I’m pretty sure I come from an alternate universe. Just FYI.”
Happy snorted. “Of course you are and of course you do.”
“Now I’ve told you all about me so we’re even-steven,” Callie said, starting to laugh a little hysterically.
“It’s not funny,” Happy continued, helping Callie to her feet. “I think there’s a powerful telepathic illusionist running this show—someone we’ve dealt with in the past. And if that’s the case, then Agatha’s in a whole heap of trouble.”
“A telepathic what?” Callie asked as she followed Happy back down the hallway.
“Illusionist. Someone who can manipulate matter, affect people’s minds,” Happy replied. “And they can wreak all kinds of havoc if left unchallenged. Especially this guy. He’s obsessed with Agatha and has a serious bad attitude to boot.”
“That’s not good,” Callie said, shuddering.
“No, it’s not.”
When they reached what they thought was the door Agatha had disappeared through, Happy thrust the key into the lock, but it jammed, not wanting to go in.
“Wrong door,” Callie murmured. And then she slumped forward, grasping for the wall as her body went limp and rubbery.
“Callie!” Happy cried, grabbing the other girl around the waist and slowly easing her to the ground.
“I feel so . . . woozy,” Callie said, eyes fluttering as, for the second time in her life, she realized she might actually be dying.
It had almost happened once before, when she’d been poisoned with promethium—every immortal had a killing weakness, one that was totally unique to them, and Callie’s just happened to be promethium—but she’d been careful to stay far, far away from the stuff since then.
“Is there . . . promethium?” Callie choked out, fear etching her gut like acid.
“Promethia-what?” Happy cried, confused. “I thought you said you were immortal. You’re still bleeding like a stuck pig!”
With a shaky hand, Callie reached up and put her fingers to her neck. Sure enough, the wound had not closed, but, instead, was continuing to leak her lifeblood out onto the rug.
And then it dawned on her.
“It’s you, Happy,” Callie said, finally understanding why she hadn’t been able to call up a wormhole while she was in this alternate universe. “You inhibit psychic ability . . . what we call ‘magic’ in my universe. And it means that you’re blocking . . . my immortality.”
“Shit,” Happy said, backing away from Callie.
“No, no . . . come back,” Callie said. “I just need to stop the flow of blood for now. Give me . . . your hoodie.”
Happy unzipped her jacket and slid out of it, handing it to Callie.
“Pressure,” Callie breathed, lifting the hoodie to her neck. “Put pressure on the wound.”
It was obvious she was much weaker than she’d realized because Happy had to take the jacket and wrap it around the wound for her, securing the makeshift tourniquet in place by tying the sleeves into a tight bow.
“I think that should work,” Happy said, sitting back on her heels to admire her handiwork.
“Feel better . . . already.” Callie sighed, giving Happy a weak smile as the other girl helped her to her feet.
“God, I hope so,” Happy said, her face wan. “Now let’s find Agatha.”
With Callie holding on to Happy’s arm for support, the girls continued down the hallway. This time it seemed luck was on their side, because the next door they tried was the right one, the key sliding into the lock and turning with a satisfying click.
“Okay,” Happy said, grasping the doorknob with her right hand. “One, two . . . three!”
She threw the door open and Callie screamed as she realized they were teetering on the threshold of a yawning abyss.
“It’s not real,” Happy said calmly, reaching out a hand so that it hung in the empty air before them.
Suddenly the yawning abyss disappeared, almost as if it had never existed at all, and in its place, they discovered a bare octagonal room with an army cot in one corner and a chamber pot half hidden underneath it.
“Happy!” Agatha cried, jumping up from the cot and racing over to them. “I knew you’d rescue me! Count Orlov never came—I don’t even think the invitation was really from him—and then the door was locked and I couldn’t get out . . . Ew, what happened to your hoodie?”
Happy, who was used to Agatha’s one-track mind, brushed off the hoodie comment with, “Harold’s here.”
“What?” Agatha said, her blue eyes wide with disbelief.
Happy looked grim.
“I think he’s orchestrated this whole thing in order to make good on his promise to turn you into a collectible.”
All the color drained from Agatha’s face.
“Oh, no,” she said, looking ill.
“This isn’t like an ex-boyfriend thing, is it?” Callie asked.
“No!” Both Happy and Agatha shouted at the same time.
“Sorry I asked,” Callie said, glad her snarkiness was returning because it meant she wasn’t gonna be dying anytime soon.
“He’s a film producer whose career was ruined by a film that Agatha happened to star in—” Happy began.
“I told him it was a bad script,” Agatha chimed in.
“He blames her completely for the failure,” Happy continued. “And he promised to turn her into a collectible doll because he said her performance in the film was as stiff and fake as one.”
“He’s working all this stuff from a remote location so you can’t zap his psychic powers, Happy,” Agatha said angrily.
“I would expect so,” Happy agreed, and at those words, the floor beneath them started to shake, the army cot flipping onto its side as the chamber pot went flying.
“All right, time to get out of here,” Callie said, gripping Happy’s arm for support.
“But what if we’re trapped?” Agatha moaned, tears springing to her eyes.
“Agatha!” Happy said, her brow furrowed in consternation. “Stop trying to create unnecessary drama.”
Agatha’s eyes instantly cleared and she shrugged.
“Well, drama seemed appropriate for the situation, but if you’d rather I not—”
“I’d rather you not, actually,” Callie said as she followed Happy through the door that led back out into the hallway, the house beginning to disintegrate around them.
At first, Callie thought she was imagining the house’s destruction, but as they ran, she saw the ceiling and walls starting to flake into charred black bits that rained down on their heads like volcanic ash.
“The house is a telepathic illusion from Harold’s mind,” Happy said. “So it can’t hurt us.”
She was right. As soon as they reached the front foyer, the final bits of the false image dissipated and they were met with a wash of black soot that settled onto their heads in soft, delicate clumps. . . . Only when Callie brushed the stuff away from her face, she realized that it wasn’t soot covering her head. It was snow.
And then she started
to shiver.
—
The remains of the abandoned mansion were skeletal. Curved wooden beams reminiscent of a naked rib cage exposed the rotting interior to the snowy sky, while corroded siding sloughed off its exterior in swaths like dead skin from a corpse. The red shag runner Callie had snuggled her feet into proved to be nothing more than decaying dirt and leaves, the front foyer merely an empty room without a front door.
The woman they’d called Fiona had managed to make her escape during all the craziness—and Callie wondered if there was any truth to the story she’d told about the daughter and the autograph. And if so, was the address she’d given Happy real?
Once they’d surveyed the decaying house, it hadn’t taken a genius to understand why Fiona had been so adamant that Callie and Happy leave by the back exit: If they’d followed her directions, they’d have plummeted to their deaths via the deep ravine that lay directly behind the property.
As the girls trudged back to the Waldbaum’s parking lot clearly the worse for wear, Callie realized it was just dumb luck that no one had gotten killed. Harold—or whoever the mastermind was, if Happy’s hypothesis was incorrect—had been very clever in using the house as their staging ground, luring Agatha and Happy into a trap via an invitation to a master acting class with the great acting coach Count Orlov—something Agatha’s ego couldn’t resist. It was only by the most random of coincidences—asking the wormhole to take her to a “happy place,” which the universe translated as “take me to a place where Happy lives”—that Callie had stumbled into the story and wrecked the bad guy’s plan.
When they reached the parking lot, Agatha’s red Maserati was the only car left in the lot. As Happy unlocked the doors, Agatha threw her arms around Callie’s shoulders and gave her a pythonlike squeeze.
“I’m so glad we met you. If you’re ever in New York or L.A. and need a place to crash . . .”
Agatha released her, and Callie smiled.
“Agatha, like I tried to explain before,” Happy said, exasperation thick in her voice, “Callie comes from another universe—”
“Whatever,” Agatha said, rolling her eyes as she climbed into the driver’s seat and snagged the keys from her assistant. “Like I said: My casa is your casa.”
Smiling, she jammed the keys into the ignition, the car roaring to life underneath her nimble fingers. As Agatha gunned the engine, Happy rolled down the passenger window and Callie hobbled over, trying not to let her teeth chatter as the snow settled all around her like dew.
“If you hadn’t dropped out of the sky when you did . . .” Happy said, but she didn’t need to finish the thought. They all knew Callie’s surprise arrival had stacked the cards in their favor . . . at least this night.
“It was just dumb luck,” Callie said, shrugging.
“Are you sure we can’t drop you somewhere?” Happy asked, but Callie shook her head.
“I think the sooner you get out of here, the faster I can heal myself and get where I need to go.”
“Well, thank you for everything. Seriously,” Happy said, giving Callie a warm smile. “And good luck getting ho—”
Happy didn’t get to finish her good-bye because Agatha chose that moment to jam her foot on the gas, the candy-red Maserati speeding off into the shimmering white night in a cloud of exhaust.
As the car rounded the bend and disappeared into the darkness, Callie’s wounds began to close.
—
Callie took a deep breath and then a blinding golden light filled her soul and she was gone. With a sigh, she wondered why it’d taken her so long to figure this whole wormhole thing out in the first place.
Oh, well, Callie thought. At least I’ve got the hang of it now.
Callie opened her eyes to find herself back in Mrs. Gunwhale’s modular classroom, her classmates staring at her, gape-mouthed. She knew she must’ve looked like a bloody mess, but she didn’t care. She’d started this Remedial Wormhole Calling class with zero hopes of ever learning anything, and now she’d found that she’d conquered the entire syllabus.
It was a thrilling feeling—and she could go back to Death, Inc., tomorrow with her head held high and her ego ten times bigger than it’d been the day before.
Mrs. Gunwhale opened her blowhole to speak, but Callie raised her hand for silence.
“I just want to say thank you, Mrs. Gunwhale, and thank you, fellow students, for absolutely nothing.”
Callie smiled, her strength returning in leaps and bounds.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she said, grinning, “I’m going home. I’ve got a business to run.”
And without another word, Callie called up a wormhole and disappeared into the night, never to see the modular classroom at PS 181 again for as long as she immortally lived.
Iphigenia in Aulis
MIKE CAREY
Mike Carey is the author of the Felix Castor novels and (along with Linda and Louise Carey) The Steel Seraglio. He has also written extensively for comics publishers DC and Marvel, including long runs on X-Men, Hellblazer and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He wrote the comic book Lucifer for its entire run and is the co-creator and writer of the ongoing Vertigo series The Unwritten.
Her name is Melanie. It means “the black girl,” from an ancient Greek word, but her skin is mostly very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list: new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.
Melanie is ten years old, and she has skin like a princess in a fairy tale: skin as white as snow. So she knows that when she grows up she’ll be beautiful, with princes falling over themselves to climb her tower and rescue her.
Assuming, of course, that she has a tower.
In the meantime, she has the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.
The cell is small and square. It has a bed, a chair and a table in it. On the walls there are pictures: in Melanie’s cell, a picture of a field of flowers and a picture of a woman dancing. Sometimes they move the children around, so Melanie knows that there are different pictures in each cell. She used to have a horse in a meadow and a big mountain with snow on the top, which she liked better.
The corridor has twenty doors on the left-hand side and eighteen doors on the right-hand side (because the cupboards don’t really count); also it has a door at either end. The door at the classroom end is red. It leads to the classroom (duh!). The door at the other end is bare gray steel on this side but once when Melanie was being taken back to her cell she peeped through the door, which had accidentally been left open, and saw that on the other side it’s got lots of bolts and locks and a box with numbers on it. She wasn’t supposed to see, and Sergeant said “Little bitch has got way too many eyes on her,” but she saw, and she remembers.
She listens, too, and from overheard conversations she has a sense of this place in relation to other places she hasn’t ever seen. This place is the block. Outside the block is the base. Outside the base is the Eastern Stretch, or the Dispute Stretch. It’s all good as far as Kansas, and then it gets real bad, real quick. East of Kansas, there’s monsters everywhere and they’ll follow you for a hundred miles if they smell you, and then they’ll eat you. Melanie is glad that she lives in the block, where she’s safe.
Through the gray steel door, each morning, the teachers come. They walk down the corridor together, past Melanie’s door, bringing with them the strong, bitter chemical smell that they always have on them: it’s not a nice smell, but it’s exciting because it means the start of another day’s lessons.
At the sound of the bolts sliding and the teachers’ footsteps, Melanie runs to the door of her cell and stands on tiptoe to peep through the little mesh-screen window in the door and see the teachers when they go by. She calls out good morning to them, but they’re not supposed to answer and usually they don’t. Sometimes, though, Miss Justineau will look around and smile at her—a tens
e, quick smile that’s gone almost before she can see it—or Miss Mailer will give her a tiny wave with just the fingers of her hand.
All but one of the teachers go through the thirteenth door on the left, where there’s a stairway leading down to another corridor and (Melanie guesses) lots more doors and rooms. The one who doesn’t go through the thirteenth door unlocks the classroom and opens up, and that one will be Melanie’s teacher and Melanie’s friends’ teacher for the day.
Then Sergeant comes, and the men and women who do what Sergeant says. They’ve got the chemical smell, too, and it’s even stronger on them than it is on the teachers. Their job is to take the children to the classroom, and after that they go away again. There’s a procedure that they follow, which takes a long time. Melanie thinks it must be the same for all the children, but of course she doesn’t know that for sure because it always happens inside the cells and the only cell that Melanie sees the inside of is her own.
To start with, Sergeant bangs on all the doors, and shouts at the children to get ready. Melanie sits down in the wheelchair at the foot of her bed, like she’s been taught to do. She puts her hands on the arms of the chair and her feet on the footrests. She closes her eyes and waits. She counts while she waits. The highest she’s ever had to count is 4,526; the lowest is 4,301.
When the key turns in the door, she stops counting and opens her eyes. Sergeant comes in with his gun and points it at her. Then two of Sergeant’s people come in and tighten and buckle the straps of the chair around Melanie’s wrists and ankles. There’s also a strap for her neck: they tighten that one last of all, when her hands and feet are fastened up all the way, and they always do it from behind. The strap is designed so they never have to put their hands in front of Melanie’s face. Melanie sometimes says, “I won’t bite.” She says it as a joke, but Sergeant’s people never laugh. Sergeant did once, the first time she said it, but it was a nasty laugh. And then he said, “Like we’d ever give you the fucking chance, sugarplum.”
When Melanie is all strapped into the chair, and she can’t move her hands or her feet or her head, they wheel her into the classroom and put her at her desk. The teacher might be talking to some of the other children, or writing something on the blackboard, but she (unless it’s Mr. Galloway, who’s the only he) will usually stop and say, “Good morning, Melanie.” That way the children who sit way up at the front of the class will know that Melanie has come into the room and they can say good morning, too. They can’t see her, of course, because they’re all in their own chairs with their neck-straps fastened up, so they can’t turn their heads around that far.
An Apple for the Creature Page 18