“What is it?” he asked.
She couldn’t answer. Her hair, unbraided, hung loose over her shoulders. He stroked her head. “What’s wrong, Miryam? Try to tell me.”
“It’s Carl,” she gasped. “In my mind. Twisting it. Ohh!” Her face contorted and she clutched her head. “So much pain.”
Her agonized cry tore at his heart. “I’ll stop him. I’ll find a way.”
“No.” She grabbed for him, pulled him against her. “He’ll hurt you.”
“He can’t do any more to me than he’s doing to you.”
She clung to him. “He can kill you. Stay here.”
“He won’t kill me. I won’t let him.” Les gave her a reassuring hug and rose to his feet. Muffled shouts led him to Carl.
He burst into the room to find Trevor rolling on the bed and tearing at his throat while Carl stood over him, laughing. He hurled himself at Carl, grabbed him, pinned his arms to his side.
“Stop it! Stop hurting them,” Les yelled in Carl’s ear. “I swear I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
Carl made no attempt to break Les’s grip or to fight back. He stood still and said quietly, “You can’t kill me without killing Miryam as well.”
Behind him he heard Miryam’s voice. “It’s true, Les. Leave him alone.”
Trevor sat up, rubbing his neck and glaring at Carl. “You’re crazy,” he said in a hoarse voice. Then his eyes met Les’s. “He’s killing her himself,” he said. “He’s absorbing all her power.”
Les released Carl and stepped back, poised to attack him again. “You’d do that to your own sister?” he said.
“Oh, come on. Don’t be so melodramatic.” Carl was smiling again. “It’s not that bad. Yes, I borrow a little power from her. She has plenty to spare. But if you’re so worried about her, the best thing you can do is help me get into the Community. There I’ll have plenty of people to borrow power from, so I won’t have to use so much of hers.”
“I’ve been helping you,” Les retorted. “You were the one who wanted to come back here instead of going to find Dr. Tenney.”
Carl adjusted his vest and smoothed his trousers. “Yes. Well, I’m ready now,” he said with another of his mercurial mood swings. “It seems we can’t rely on Doss Hamlyn’s help, so let’s go find this mysterious doctor.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
SMOKE
For the second time that day, Les descended from a hired carriage and walked with Carl to the front door of a large house. This house, however, was no mansion. The rambling structure of two stories plus an attic beneath a high, sloping roof reminded Les of the haunted houses in the ghost stories told around campfires on school hayrides. Loose shingles on the roof flapped in the wind; some had been torn off, leaving ugly bald spots. The windows were dirty and cracked, and some were missing panes of glass. Whatever paint had once graced the structure had long since worn away, and the boards had weathered to a dull gray speckled with leprous patches that looked more like mold than remnants of old pigment.
The house hadn’t been easy to find; it sat at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of town, with no other houses nearby. The carriage driver had grumbled at having to travel to such a desolate area where he’d have no hope of a return fare, but Carl had mollified him with a generous tip. Carl could afford to be generous; the money he lavished he’d stolen from Les and Trevor. But this time Les didn’t object, because the driver agreed to wait for them. Les did not want to be stranded out here with no way of escape from whatever lurked in such a house.
Trevor had told Carl the truth about what he knew of Dr. Tenney from Uncle Matt, but Les was all but certain he had not told Carl what he had learned from Veronica. Trevor might not believe Veronica, but Les did and felt apprehensive about meeting the “Doctor of Mischief,” as Veronica labeled him.
The steps leading up to the sprawling front porch were splintered and treacherous. Carl paused and regarded them thoughtfully. “I don’t like this,” he muttered, more to himself than to Les. “This place looks deserted. I’ll bet Hamlyn is playing some kind of trick on us.”
Les said nothing, merely watched with mild amusement as Carl struggled to decide whether to venture up the rickety steps and across the sagging porch.
“I’ll make Hamlyn pay, if this is a joke,” Carl said as he set his foot on the first step.
Les waited until he reached the porch before starting up himself, carefully stepping where Carl had trod, expecting the rotted wood to give way beneath his weight.
It did not. He trailed Carl across the porch to the battered front door. While Carl knocked loudly, Les turned to be sure the carriage was waiting. Only an hour or two remained before sundown, and he did not want to find himself stranded here at night. He was reassured to meet the driver’s gaze and know the man was following their progress and could come to their rescue if they slipped through the rotting floorboards.
Or if whatever he heard approaching the door should be something other than human.
The heavy tread sounded ominous. Les stepped back as the door creaked open. The pungent odor of pipe tobacco flooded the porch. Les craned his neck to peer around Carl. The being in the doorway was obscured by a cloud of smoke. Les could see a bald head about level with Carl’s chin. Onyx eyes glittered through the heavy smoke. A pipe’s crimson glow pointed to the mouth.
“Dr. Tenney?” Carl sounded doubtful.
“Of course. I’ve been expecting you. What took you so long?” Without waiting for an answer, he leaned out to wave at the driver. “It’s all right, my good man,” his deep voice boomed. “You may go.”
“No, wait!” Carl shouted.
Too late. The man was already driving off, eager, no doubt, to be away from this place, and Carl’s shout was lost in the clopping of the horse’s hooves.
“I told him to wait for us,” Carl said angrily. “How will we get back into town?”
“That won’t be a problem,” the man said with a smile. “I believe you have a letter for me?”
Carl placed into his hand the letter from Uncle Matt. Dr. Tenney puffed on his pipe as he opened the envelope and read, but Les, standing beside Carl, could see more now through the smoky veil. The man had a short blunt nose and a pointy chin graced by a neat triangle of beard. A curly fringe of gray hair swept around the back of his head and up and around each ear. He was nattily dressed in a tan waistcoat and dark gray cravat. A gold watch chain hung from his trousers pocket. His appearance in no way fit that of the dilapidated house. He seemed, in fact, so out of place that Les also suspected that some trick was being played on them. He’d been expecting them, he said. Les wondered whether he was really Dr. Tenney or someone Hamlyn had sent to this deserted house to deceive them.
Whoever he was, he finished the letter, refolded it, and returned it to the envelope. “Hmmm. Well, come in.” He motioned them inside.
Les followed Carl through the doorway and down a dark and dusty hallway. They ascended a creaky stairway, Les with his hand on the wall, feeling his way despite the cobwebs snagging on his fingers. Hearing something scuttle past him down the stairs, he resisted the urge to bolt. If Carl was going to go through with this, he must. For the sake of Miryam and Trevor, he had to follow Carl’s lead.
They reached the top of the steps and proceeded some distance down a corridor past several closed doors, until at the last one their host stopped, took a key from his waistcoat pocket, and unlocked the door.
A sickly yellow light filled the room into which they were taken. Small tables cluttered the room, putting Les in mind of Veronica’s strange abode. But peculiar as that place had been, he had felt at home there.
The objects on the tables here were mostly made of metal twisted into odd shapes and sprouting wires and coils in all directions. As Les passed by a table, he brushed a protruding wire and it sparked, sending a jolt through his arm and into his shoulder. He jumped back, more surprised than hurt, and when he moved forward again, a coil off another device snagged his
sweater, unraveling threads to leave a long tear. Dr. Tenney tut-tutted but offered no apology.
Les had to stop, remove his sweater, and ease it off the offending coil. As he worked to free the sweater, a sharp-ended wire jabbed his wrist, drawing a bead of blood. It seemed to him that the wire had extended itself for the purpose, though he told himself that he’d imagined its movement.
Les held the sweater and kept his arms close in front of him as he moved on into the center of the room.
Here three cushioned armchairs were arranged in a circle. “Be seated, gentlemen,” Dr. Tenney said, plumping himself into the nearest chair.
Carl sat opposite their host, and Les lowered himself gingerly into the remaining chair. It squeaked despite his caution, and, as though in concert with it, an apparatus on a nearby table emitted a loud squeal. Dr. Tenney chuckled at Les’s startled jerk.
The strangeness of the place had no apparent effect on Carl. He leaned forward. “I gather that Mr. Hamlyn informed you of our coming and our purpose.”
Trevor’s attempt to grasp the initiative failed. Dr. Tenney merely puffed on his pipe, and studied the rising smoke as he spoke to Les. “So, Mr. Simonton, you hope to uncover your gifts. How old are you?”
“Eighteen, sir,” Les answered, disliking having to impart even that innocent piece of information.
“When a gift remains hidden for so many years, there’s always a good reason. Sure you want to stir things up?”
“I—I’m not certain,” Les admitted. He dared to ask, “Are you a medical doctor, sir?”
“Not sure I’m qualified to help you, eh? I assure you that I am a doctor, although not of medicine but of engineering.” He puffed thoughtfully and added with a sly smile, “Yes, indeed, of engineering.”
“Mr. Hamlyn said Les couldn’t enter the Community unless his gift was known,” Carl said, clearly uninterested in Tenney’s credentials.
“Ah, and you wish to enter the Community.” Dr. Tenney directed that statement at Carl with a hint of suppressed laughter.
“I do, sir, very much. And so does Les. But he will defer to the Community’s judgment.”
“But will the Community defer to my judgment, that is your question, is it not?” The man jumped to his feet. “No doubt it will, but only if I’ve tested you both.”
“But my power is evident,” Carl protested. “My gifts aren’t in question.”
“Maybe not. But things are not always what they seem. Your uncle expressed confidence in my abilities. You surely can have no fear that I will do you harm.”
“Sir, my uncle had not the privilege of a personal acquaintance with you as he had with Doss Hamlyn. He knew you only by reputation, and that based on information garnered many years ago. I must know more about you and your place in the Community before I allow you to test me.”
“You are willing for me to test your friend, but not to undergo the same test yourself?”
Carl tugged nervously at his collar. Les enjoyed watching him squirm as he said, “I’m only willing for Les to be tested because he’s come so far to enter the Community. I don’t want to see him disappointed.”
“You’ve come equally far, have you not?” Laughter lurked behind the doctor’s words.
“Of course. But Mr. Hamlyn assured me I would be welcomed by the Community.”
Hamlyn had said no such thing.
While Carl assumed the attitude of righteous injury, Dr. Tenney circled Carl’s chair, puffing furiously on his pipe. Smoke gathered around Carl, concealing him within a blue haze. The acrid smell made Les cough.
Coughs came from within the cloud as well, followed by a sudden, ominous silence. Dr. Tenney laughed aloud.
“What are you doing?” Les demanded.
“Reading,” came the puzzling answer, followed by a triumphant “Aha!”
Dr. Tenney bounded across the room and snatched from its table a tall, slender metal cylinder with wires poking from its top and squiggling all about it. He set it on the floor in the midst of the three chairs. The cylinder sat on a base that was a shorter, wider cylinder of opaque glass. Lights sparked within the glass.
Les regarded it with apprehension. “What is that thing?” he asked.
“You’ll see, my boy. You’ll see.”
A black void formed above the device, a horrid gaping emptiness that grew large enough to swallow a man. Dr. Tenney clapped his hands together. At the sharp sound the smoke swirled away from Carl and was sucked up into the void. Carl sat with eyes open, staring after the smoke. He seemed dazed.
Dr. Tenney wandered over to a nearby table and knocked the bowl of his pipe against a ceramic dish, emptying the ashes into the dish. Ignoring Les and Carl, he picked up a pipe cleaner and slowly and methodically cleaned his pipe. When he finished, he laid the pipe carefully on the edge of the dish and wandered back to stand before the void.
“You know your friend’s uncle well, boy?” he asked in an offhanded manner, not looking at Les, but peering into the void as though something in that inky blackness was visible to him.
“Not really,” Les said, unsure how much to tell him. “I spent a short time in his home when I was a child and didn’t see him again until Trevor and I visited his aunt and uncle before making this trip to Port-of-Lords.”
“Haven’t been here long, have you?”
“Only a few days.” Les spoke the words with some amazement. So much had happened since their arrival that it seemed they’d spent years in Port-of-Lords.
Dr. Tenney turned and bent toward Les. His hands clasped behind his back, he thrust his face near Les and sniffed, his stubby nose twitching like a rabbit’s.
“Hmmm,” he said, drawing out the sound like a dying note on an organ. “I wouldn’t think—no, I’m sure that’s been too long. Wouldn’t last that many days; not so strong, anyway.” He frowned and his gaze probed Les’s face. “You’ve got a strong smell of magic about you, boy. Not your own. Your gift, whatever it may be, is too deeply hidden to give off a scent. And it’s not your friend’s.” He nodded contemptuously at Carl, who hadn’t moved. “Want to tell me who else you’ve spent time with recently?”
This man could smell power? Les thought quickly. Instinct warned him not to mention Veronica. Or Miryam. “We visited Mr. Hamlyn this morning, sir.”
The doctor’s eyebrows dipped and rose. “Hmmm,” he murmured again. “Maybe. But I think not. Well, we’ll know soon, won’t we?”
Dr. Tenney turned back to the void and again peered into it. “Come, come,” he called, the words muffled as though the hole was drawing them deep within.
Suddenly Dr. Tenney smiled. “Ah, here we are at last.”
He reached into the blackness, his hands disappearing as they entered the void. When he pulled them out, they clasped two other hands. Arms followed, then a white-gowned body, a terrified face.
Dr. Tenney swung Miryam down and over the device below the void, helped her to stand uncertainly on the wooden floor.
“Miryam!” Les leaped to his feet.
She stumbled forward and fell into Les’s arms. He eased her into the chair he’d vacated and turned to confront Dr. Tenney.
But Carl, released from whatever spell he’d been under, was also on his feet and facing down the smaller man. “Why’d you bring her here? What’s this about?”
Carl could be extremely dangerous with Miryam available to draw power from. Les stood protectively in front of her. She grasped his hand, her fingers icy.
“Is that Dr. Tenney?” she whispered.
He nodded and massaged her hands to warm them. In his concern about Miryam, he’d missed what Dr. Tenney had said to Carl. Whatever it had been, it had caused Carl to back down, though he looked ready to explode at any moment.
Dr. Tenney gazed back into the void. “Ah, I believe my seeker has found something else,” he announced. “Let’s see what it’s sending me this time.”
Trevor glowered at the faded wallpaper on the four walls of his prison and plotted how he mi
ght defeat Carl. He would first have to separate Carl from Miryam.
He didn’t understand how Carl drew power from his sister, nor did he care. If Miryam was too weak-willed and frightened to break the link between her and her brother, that was her problem, not his. What he had to do was to keep her away from Carl for a while. Les seemed drawn to her; maybe he could use that—persuade Les to lure her away. When Les and Carl got back from their visit to Dr. Tenney, he’d find a way to talk to Les alone. He’d need no more than a couple of minutes. He lay back on the bed, eyes shut, planning a ruse that would get him those minutes.
An odor of pipe smoke filtered dimly into his consciousness. His eyes popped open; he saw no one else in the room. Someone must be smoking a pipe outside his door. Carl must have returned. He’d never seen the con man with a pipe, but he hadn’t really known him long. If it wasn’t Carl, someone else besides Miryam was in the house.
He got up, crossed to the door, and sniffed. The smoke odor was no stronger. He pressed his ear against the door, heard nothing.
A curl of smoke drifted past his face. Another. The building could be on fire. He beat on the door.
More smoke swirled around him. He coughed and pounded harder. The smoke spun around him like a cyclone. He waved his arms, trying to beat it away, and shouted hoarsely for help. He could no longer see the door. His eyes smarted; his throat ached. Waves of dizziness swept over him.
Suddenly someone caught hold of his arms, yanked him forward, and swung him outward. He landed with a jolt.
He didn’t recognize the stout, bald man who helped him out of the darkness, but he spotted Carl standing near him, and then saw Les standing not far from Carl. In a chair behind Les sat Miryam.
“Well, now, the gathering is complete. I’ll close down the seeker, and we’ll have a chat.” The man bent down and did something to the contraption at his feet. The blackness above it vanished. He lifted an assembly of glass, metal, and wire, carried it to a table, set it down, took a pipe from another table, and returned to the group. It dawned on Trevor that he was no longer in Carl’s apartment but had been transported somewhere else. The presence of Les and Carl convinced him that this was Dr. Tenney’s house, and the doctor himself had brought him here.
A Perilous Power (Arucadi Series Book 5) Page 11