by Oliver Atlas
“I’ve heard of this place,” I yell over the biting gales. “Pittock Mansion?”
Skiss nods, dismounting and leading her stallion to a stablehand who has appears from the servants’ cabin. Milly and I follow her lead.
Trust, I remind myself as we follow her through the mansion’s back entrance, unsure how visiting a historic house has anything to do with pursuing Zoe to Sumpter Dredge. The parquet floor and double marble staircase that greet us do nothing to soothe my sense of urgency. The portraits and landscapes and woodwork don’t either. They all scream stately patience and unhurried dignity. But when we’ve entered far enough to peer into the front room, I understand. In front of a giant window overlooking the river stands an attractive blond woman in a black flapper dress. Madame Rogger. And behind her, whipping about on the front lawn, I can see a hot air balloon—no doubt the flight service won by my idiotic Hero’s Crossing.
With a burst of laughter, I cross the room and pick her up in a hug.
She laughs saucily in response. “My dear boy,” she remarks. “Don’t pretend it’s me you’re excited to see. I’ve learned to read men’s eyes in an instant. You’re smitten with my balloon!”
“We are, mum,” says Skiss. “Could we borrow it?”
Madame Rogger stamps her foot jovially. “It’s about time you joined me for a pleasure ride. I’ll order some strawberries and champagne and . . . and why now, dear? Have you looked outside? It’s miserable! You’d toss up everything I—wait a minute.” Her eyes fasten on Milly and take on a new light. “You want the balloon for more than a pleasure cruise, don’t you?”
“Yes, mum.” Skiss lowers her eyes. “We need to rescue someone, a little girl. She’s been kidnapped, taken to Sumpter Dredge, and we don’t have much time.”
“You keep saying ‘we,’ girl.” Madame Rogger folds her arms. “I think the Ranger here can handle this kind of thing himself. He doesn’t need to go and keep risking my daughter’s life. And what about your father? He can get places a lot faster than any balloon.”
“He . . . ” I catch Skiss’s eyes dart toward Milly. “He has his hands full elsewhere.”
The Madame snorts. “Fine. Mr. Prose may borrow the balloon, since he was so good enough to gift it to us, but I won’t have you going away on some fool suicide mission.”
“But mum—”
“Skiss, I can’t stop you. But you can’t stop me either.” She folds her arms and raises her chin. “If you go, I go.”
Now it’s my turn to object. “But Madame Rogger, you—”
“Don’t even try it, my boy,” she snaps. “I already let you take my Skiss away, and now if she insists on accompanying you to Sumpter Dredge, of all places, then I’m going along to protect her. I know how well you faired in protecting her the last time. Come on. Don’t argue. Let’s start loading supplies. It’s a good day and a half’s trip. In this wind, it could take three.”
An hour later, we’re above the Columbia, dipping and soaring and rocking and I’m consoled by the knowledge that if we die, at least it will be with plenty of fruit, chocolate, and bubbly. At first, we streak west at twenty knots, in exactly the wrong direction, but Madame Rogger—who is apparently our pilot—assures me the higher drafts will be eastward.
Eventually, that proves true. Even though the going is far slower than I’d like, and even though I wonder if we shouldn’t simply have waited for Lancaster Moon, at least this way—floating southeast toward Sumpter Dredge without any real heroes—I feel a small sense of control. This way when we find Zoe, I don’t have to wonder if Yaverts or Moon will simply take her right back to Schlozfield for a life of experimental sacrifice. Skiss and Milly may have remained silent during my confrontation with the doctor, but I’m sure that given a clear choice they would side with me. Cure or no Cure: Zoe shouldn’t be anyone’s lab thing.
At higher altitudes, the ride smooths and the air turns colder. Madame Rogger sets the blimp to autopilot and the four of us pile together in blankets, trying to keep warm while I track our progress on the GPS. I learn that while Milly and Skiss were both recovering after our last trip to Sumpter Dredge, they started reading aloud to one another from The Wind in the Willows, and Milly now picks up the story at the marvelous chapter, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn. She reads until both Skiss and our pilot are asleep, then sets aside the book and starts blowing on her cold hands.
“Milly?”
“Yes?”
“What is it about Lancaster you’re not telling me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. It’s pretty obvious. Two times now—once with Malcolm and once with Skiss—you’ve tensed up when he was mentioned. Is everything okay?”
She shakes her head, “Yeah.”
Oh, how I love mixed signals. I reach over and take her hand. It is cold. And tense. “Clearly everything’s not okay, Milly. But you can trust me.”
Gently, she withdraws her hand and hugs herself. “I know,” she murmurs. “It’s just that . . . I wanted to tell you, but . . . ” Although the sky is growing dark, I can see a wet gleam on her cheek. She sniffs. “Can I tell you after we have Zoe back?”
I mull on the request for a moment, weighing whether or not I’ll be able to put the matter out of mind for a while. “If you think that’s best,” I reply at last.
She sniffs again and nods. “Thank you.”
We sail in silence after that, through changing watches in the night, through a miserably cold morning rainstorm. At midmorning, Milly tries to read another installment to us, but Sumpter Dredge is too close, our minds too full of the danger ahead. The greens and browns of the mountains and forests are all blending gray with the early approach of winter. Some of the peaks already boast a dusty crown of white. We watch the land slide by below as though another system of passing clouds.
Around dusk of the next day, Sumpter Dredge comes into sight. Madame Rogger wants to land in the adjacent valley and sneak our way across. I tell her I don’t have the patience for sneaking.
“They’ll know why we’re here,” I say, preparing my weapons. “And they’ll assume we have amazing collateral for making such a bold entrance.”
Milly catches my eye. “Do we?”
I shrug. “I hope so.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The Duchess
We swoop south-to-north into Sumpter Dredge, gliding over the mile long swathe of black zombie grass. In the twilight, the writhing sea glows with an unworldly menace, and my heart ices over a little. The thought of losing our draft and sinking into that field . . . the grass has already doubled in height since we were last here. But Madame Rogger insists she’s reading the drafts properly and that a prompt arrival to the north of the valley means a closeup tour of the dreadful field.
I’m in no mood to argue or micromanage. If I can’t trust the women I’m with—if I don’t trust that our purpose will unlock unseen dimensions of help in our quest—well, then it doesn’t really matter much what we do. We should all go back to Portland and pretend we never knew about Zoe or the Cure or anything. We should wrap ourselves with walls and distractions and worldviews that facilitate and justify our cowardice.
But of course we can’t do that. We’re committed. We’ve passed the point of no return. I have, at least. I passed it long ago. Was it when I entered the Library? Was it when Zoe wouldn’t let go of me? Was it when I decided to follow Milly to Union Powder? Was it when I stood up to Yaverts in the train station? Or was it before Oregon? Maybe my rubicon was when I decided to hope more for the world than it seemed to hope for itself. The thought takes some of the ice out of my veins and I sigh.
“’I don’t care if they eat me alive,’” I whisper to myself, an old song coming to mind. “’I’ve got better things to do than survive.’”
“What was that?” asks Skiss.
I shake my head, managing a smirk. “You’ve been in Portland more than a week and you don’t know your Ani DiFranco?”
She smiles with
a sad, sweet playfulness. “Maybe you can acquaint me when we get home.”
After clearing the black grass, the balloon skims over the berms of the Dredge, bumping down into a wide, muddy plain. We’re all armed like commandos, each of us packing at least two guns. Madame Rogger spits, swears, and drops the door of the basket.
“Let’s do this,” she growls, clutching a shotgun with a flash-lamp beaming down its barrel.
A dozen fiercer growls answer her from the gloom surrounding the basket.
Tall figures arise all around us, as though from the mud. There are dozens of them, with enormous shoulders, glinting eyes, and hands sprouting wicked claws. Vargulf. Apparently, we need more silver bullets than we were able to find. I glance at Milly, who now has the specialized shotgun full of melted down silver candelabra from Pittock mansion. She knows what to do, taking the lead.
One of the vargulf steps forward. “Come to die cleanly?”
I recognize the voice. Though deepened and distorted, I hear the timbre of the man from Powell’s, the man from Durkadee. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re the one who took Zoe.”
He answers with a snarl. “I remember your smell. You’re the one who ruined my ambush of the balloon.” The creature approaches with slow menace. “Did you know that before that day, I was just a man? Just a man, got me? But thanks to you, the Duchess decided to make me this.”
The creature steps into range of Madame Rogger’s light. His face is a wreck of features—a protruding maw with snaggled fangs, oversized human eyes with bulging sockets, large pointy ears rising from the sides of his head to well above its top. The one thing uniting the mess of his face is rage. Clear, unmistakable rage. In zombies I have seen the mindless rage of hunger, but in the vargulf I see the mindless hunger of rage. He wants nothing more than to make me suffer.
“We’re here to offer the Duchess a bargain,” I say, lowering my rifle. I’ve always been a fan of ignoring rage and resentment. If it doesn’t defuse it a little, it helps turn it hot and reckless instead of cold and calculating. Plus, I’m curious if he still fears what the Duchess might do to him next. Then again, I suddenly feel a new blast of fear. Who is the Duchess that she can control such creatures? And if this is how she treats her loyal servants, how will she treat brazen bargainers like us?
The vargulf’s contorted face tightens. Maybe I pushed him too much and too soon by ignoring his anger. Maybe he’s going to attack now, the Duchess be damned. I can imagine him leaping for my throat. Instead, he says, “Drop your weapons.”
“Sorry,” I reply, fighting to keep an even voice. “We’re keeping them. So you can either take them by force now, or trust us that we won’t attack unless attacked first. It should be pretty obvious we came here prepared to die. The question is whether or not you want to be the one who makes the call about how and when that happens.”
The vargulf sneers. “Oh, I want to make that call,” he says. “But I won’t. Not yet. The Duchess has a far better imagination than I do. Who knows? Her when and how might please me better than my own.”
With that rosy prospect, he turns and the band of wolf-men herd us north through the sulfurous mud.
Before long, a small outpost of light comes into sight. It turns out to be a ghost town built along the banks of canals and ponds. There are probably twenty buildings in all. Each is modest, wooden, dilapidated. To the north of them sits a giant half-domed building, the size and shape of an aircraft hangar. I can’t believe we never spotted it from the air. Then again, if it had a brown top it probably would have looked like just another of the valley’s strange berms. I assume this hangar must be where we’re headed, but midway through town, we take a hard left and march toward a strange, squarish building sitting in a large pond. A crane juts from one end. A giant conveyor belt ramp descends into the water from the other.
It’s the dredge. We’re headed for the old gold dredge itself.
When we arrive, every vargulf but the leader steps aside. He ducks through a short doorway, and we follow. Milly tries to go through first but I hold her back and take the lead. I can tell she doesn’t like the move, but if anyone gets ambushed, I want it to be me. This rescue was my bright idea, after all.
Inside, we’re swallowed in smoke, shadows, and a dim red light. The air is hot—even stifling—spicy with sandalwood, rose, human sweat, rotten meat, and smells I can’t begin to place. The vargulf leads us through several rooms full of shadow-cowled figures. Some are lounging about with hookahs. Others are swaying and dancing to a faint, scratchy violin. We climb a steep set of stairs and turn into a room lined with round ship windows. Hundreds of candles line the room, each spouting fleshy red fire.
At their center, on a low-riding couch, sits an Amazon of a woman with wide cheeks and imperious eyes. Her black hair drapes over her shoulders and down her bare arms like a cloak. On either side of her sit two bare-chested, dreadlocked Bokor. One has white skin with black dreadlocks and tattooed tendrils covering his body. The other is the opposite, with huge white hair and bright white lines scrawled over his ebony muscles.
The woman stands. She must be over seven feet tall. Her hair is so long it nearly touches the floor. “The horse,” she says, her voice dusky and imperious.
I cock my head in surprise. “The horse?”
“You want the girl. I want the horse.” Duchess Desreta sweeps forward. She crosses the five yards between us in a few steps. The ladies around me raise their weapons, targeting her head. The two Bokor leap up and the vargulf’s hackles rise. The giant woman ignores everything and bends down toward me, as if for a kiss. “The horse,” she hisses.
When she steps back, I decide to bluff. “All right. Where is the girl?”
“Where is the pale horse?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And besides, I didn’t bring you a horse. I brought you blood. I brought you the Cure. I have a vial of it in my rifle barrel—the only one in existence. You could experiment forever and never replicate it without Schlozfield. Give us the girl, and it’s yours. Refuse, and I send it splattering into oblivion.”
The Duchess reaches out a spidery hand and caresses my cheek. I can’t tell if her palms are covered in callouses or a sticky stubble of hair. “I don’t want the Cure,” she whispers. “I had the girl taken to make sure the Cure dies with her.” She pats my cheek, mocking the stupefied surprise that must be spreading across my face. “Now, unless you can get me the Banshee’s horse, I will have Molner escort you to our workshop and command him to do what he will.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
The Long Shadow
Before Molner gets his chance to bite my ankles off, I insist that the Duchess show us Zoe. Only then will I consider giving her Abe. It’s a bluff, of course. But it seems that outside of raw prayer, at this point, bluffing and stalling is all we’ve got.
The Duchess doesn’t care that the slender vial in my rifle barrel is practically mythical. She doesn’t care that for millions of people all around the world, finding a real Cure to the Infection would be like finding a stairway to heaven. Well, I guess she does care, but in reverse. She likes the power structure the way it is, with herself on top of the pyramid. And now our lives—and maybe the lives of everyone my precious vial could save—are only worth whatever little extra power they can give her.
As we cross through the ramshackle cluster of buildings, I feel Molner’s stare drilling into the side of my head. His eyes and fangs gleam with lamplight, accusing me for what he’s become. I barely suppress a sardonic smirk. Here is a mercenary who chose to join up with a sadistic gang in the middle of zombie country, whose own boss turned him into a werewolf, who stuck around serving that same boss like a lapdog, and who has now decided that the whole dismal string of his own asinine choices is my fault. One of the most amazing things about humans is how consistent we are at blaming everyone but ourselves.
“You find something funny?” rasps Molner.
“Pride, my dear wolfy,” I reply.
“Pride.”
Graced with brains enough to be incensed, Molner lunges at me with a snarl. But the Duchess is quicker. Her hand whips out, catching his throat, and without breaking stride, she flings him aside.
“Patience, my dear wolfy,” she says dryly. “I have a feeling you’ll be able to play with him soon enough.”
The aircraft hangar: we’re suddenly under its looming form, and I’m reminded of the great Oregon Wall. Despite being on the edge of unimaginable torment, my heart still manages to marvel at the experience of space, to feel what it is to be small, to be tiny. And in that moment, as we pass into the gargantuan structure and I behold three black zeppelins lit by hundreds of floodlights, I’m reminded to be confident. For many folks, tiny means insignificant. It means we’re all specks, fleas on the back of a blind cosmic dog. But for me, tiny translates to everything childlike—truly childlike—not the sheltered sugariness of my own upbringing, but to a sense of awe at being itself, an audacious hunch that the universe is meant to wow and woo me. I am to behold and reflect limitless wonder. I am meant for mystery, and mystery is meant for me.
“When I consider the stars and moon,” I murmur, recalling a prayer I learned as a child. “How can I be afraid? How can I cower with such glory in my eyes? Who can really threaten me?”
Molner has apparently caught up with us, because I can feel his hot breath on my neck. “I can threaten you,” he huffs. “You got me? I can. I can.”
“Only when mommy lets you off the leash,” I reply, although I’m instantly sorry for the remark.
I should be kinder to my enemies, even the tartare loving mutant kind. But after a lifetime of cheesy, devil-may-care action movies, it’s only natural that I have a planeload full of smart-ass baggage to work through. And who knows if the Duchess is fast enough to stop an enraged vargulf every time he wants to tear me apart? I need to remember that my own pride is alive and well, fully able to push my own dark buttons if I’m not alert.