“Who is it?” Julie’s fingernails scraped against the top pages of the report in front of her, creasing them. And what the fuck do you want?
The fake wood door swung open.
Dr. Villers, handsome in a daytime-TV kind of way, dark-skinned and not from India but she’d be damned if she could remember where, knocked again against the open door of Julie’s office. And then cleared his throat. And tapped on the doorframe with his fingernails. He was here to tell her off for being out of bed.
“Yes?” she snapped.
“Julie,” he said, “I want to discuss this chart with you.”
“I’m not going back to bed. I’m just doing paperwork. Not straining myself.”
He frowned at her. “You know the risks you’re taking by being up and about.”
“I’ll go back to bed as soon as I have the papers I need,” she said. A lie. She’d be here until they dragged her off. She might have an hour before they found her, and she didn’t intend to waste it.
Dr. Villers waved his hand, his long fingers brushing her words aside. “Have you seen the chart? Not yours. Pax’s.”
She shook her head. She hadn’t had the chance. This was the first time they’d allowed her to be anywhere other than her hospital room and much as she wanted to know more about what happened to Pax, she had too much to do. He was fine. After years of being sick. How he was fine and why he was fine were questions she’d hidden away for the moment. Today, she’d made it to her desk, and that had been a victory.
“The readings are impossible, Julie. Incredible. As if they’d been written in by someone who knew nothing about medicine.”
She held out her hand and flipped open the manila folder, riffling through the pages below.
Average heart rate: 307 beats per minute
Maximum heart rate: 600 beats per minute
The heart rates of a hummingbird.
Oxygen levels: 6 percent
Impossible.
Temperature went from 150 degrees Fahrenheit to 69 degrees Fahrenheit and stayed there for a full minute before zeroing out as the machine rebooted.
Dr. Villers was right. These results were insane.
“Something wrong with the equipment?” she asked, as casually as she could.
“No,” he said. “I’ve calibrated all of it again. Nothing unusual.”
“I wonder…” she said.
The image of Pax’s dead body, leaking silver-white fluid, flashed in front of her eyes. It’s just my imagination. He had had a heart attack; that was all.
“You should call him back in for more tests,” Dr. Villers said.
“I should,” she agreed. “I wanted to see how things were going at the apartment anyway. Make sure he eats lunch.”
Dr. Villers smiled. It wasn’t a real smile, just a quick flash of lips and teeth. Like a shark, she thought.
She nodded to him and dialed her apartment. There was no answer.
Julie wasn’t surprised. Pax was healthy for the first time since he was a child. He wouldn’t be staying around in the apartment. It was—she glanced out the window, not really seeing anything other than the blue sky—a beautiful day.
He was looking at her, looking right at her. No, no, no! This couldn’t be happening, couldn’t—
Terkun’shuks’pai leaned back on his knees, settling his weight over his feet. The pacha around him was a molten mass of swirling paint; it was as though it were half a dream, melting from being brought too close to the waking realms. He had simply been too distracted to maintain it properly.
With painstaking care, he began to repair it. First, he repaired his robes, layering the silk and folding it carefully. After a moment of consideration, however, he changed them until they were no longer silk robes—the dress of a nobleman—but the hakama and haori jacket of a warrior. Formal clothing, still, and without armor. The crests were of a many-rayed sun, but centerless, the rays leading only to the dark silk of the jacket. He did not yet feel it appropriate to give himself weapons.
Next, he smoothed the rice mats on the floor, giving them texture, weaving and twisting the thin threads between the stalks of rice. He gave them the smell of harvested wheat, of cotton thread, of dust, of the slightest amount of oil and sweat from human skin. He had no need of hurry: it was done. Not the entirety of his plan, but the first, most vital step. Now he could focus more on the externalities; the major part of his work would take care of itself. Now was the time for the delicate details he enjoyed so well.
The golden, wooden walls regained their grain, now seeming as if they had been burnished over the years with wax until they shone. The paper screens on the paneled doors diffused the brighter light coming in from outside. Shadows rippled across the paper. Memories. Illusions. Leaves.
The pacha outside the room reformed, too. Slowly. The leaves turned from flat, unsubtle green paint to a shimmering, translucent loveliness, each leaf having its own delicate array of hues. Insects crawled on the undersides of leaves, chewing, biting, laying eggs. A breeze rippled across the leaves, and the sun—his new sun—broke through the clouds and dappled the forest below the mountain in the lovely valley.
The sun throbbed, and a shadow covered it. Not a cloud crossed the sky—he hadn’t remade them yet. The sun threw down blistering heat, briefly—and then black smoke rolled down the valley, covering the forest.
It had, of course, already begun. While he was toying with his illusions inside the pacha, the children had already been putting his plans into effect, swelling his sun, feeding it.
He hoped they weren’t finding the burden too difficult to bear.
—and the look on his face, he knew, he knew she’d killed everyone, he’d never believe it wasn’t her fault, he had this look on his face like he wanted her dead, he couldn’t see this couldn’t see it can’t be happening—
The ball of smoke with Scarlett in the middle rose higher in the sky and drifted toward the East River, bobbing like a black, tentacled balloon of death. She was getting the fuck out of here. Good. He didn’t want to have to try to take her down over the city. She’d do too much damage.
The only problem was that the smoke along the ground was coming with her, creeping along the streets toward the citizens standing around and gawking in its path.
At the last second—too late—they started to run. The smoke swept over them, and fresh screams rose up. Behind her, she left eerily silent streets, empty streets. A few cop cars and ambulances remained, but the bodies were gone, as if they had never existed, and the emergency lights had all gone still. The leaves had been stripped off the few trees, and the ground-floor shops were all dark. People huddled on rooftops or looked over balconies. That was all.
He had to fix Scarlett. Stop her. Maybe even kill her.
And, he realized, he had to do it here.
He couldn’t afford to think of her as his only friend. He could only afford to think about the people he might save.
Pax crouched down, feeling his shoes grit on the tarpaper rooftop tiles under him. He should probably change into some kind of superhero outfit to protect his identity, but he didn’t have time.
Got his balance.
Aimed toward Scarlett.
And jumped.
—no no no no No!—
Akllana’chikni’pai felt Scarlett retreat into her own mind and watched the girl trap herself in a small, featureless pacha of her own. A swirling black mass of smoke surrounded the girl, twisting and turning, and in the midst of it Scarlett stood, her mouth stretched absurdly wide as though she were witnessing the horrors of the school again and again. The black smoke seemed to bind her, holding her to face the horrors, no matter how violently the girl struggled.
Akllana’chikni’pai took control of the girl’s body just in time to see the boy jumping tow
ard her, flying through the air with his arms outstretched to grasp her neck. From his face, it was clear he intended to harm her. Instinctively, she drew her swords and used them to knock the boy aside with the flats of her blades, flinging him away.
Before she could react further, black clouds of smoke rose up around her—the same smoke Scarlett had been trailing—swirling in an unnatural, mesh-like pattern, sealing her away from the world in a kind of blind shield. Negative energy swirled in the clouds, giving them form and strength.
Another cage, Akllana’chikni’pai thought. She used her sword blades to cut through the energy, moving through one of her oldest kata, an elementary dance that was meant to bring the student awareness to threats from all sides. The smoke dissipated in a sudden puff of cool, moist wind, foul with the scents of smoke and machinery but welcome nevertheless because it indicated her freedom once again.
She raised her chin to the sky and soaked in the power of the sun with her blades extended and her arms outstretched for a moment. For an instant, there was only the light of the sun.
She opened her eyes.
She floated hundreds of feet above the square buildings, the grinding engines of human filth far below her. Her shadow fell across one of the buildings, a hovering shadow among gray billows rising below her. Human machines swarmed the air around her, roaring with threat. One of them approached perilously close, tilting its whirling blades at her, and she used a sword to superheat a wave of air and push it away. The streets were a kicked anthill of activity; a thousand worker ants rushed toward her with shrieks and warning lights, as though she were an invading mammal come to feast on their young.
Directly below her lay ruin.
The building underneath her had been blasted almost entirely out of the ground. Jagged brick walls fell in on themselves, black with soot. Smoke rose from small fires buried deep within the collapsed inner walls of the hive. The last traces of the children’s dissipating spirits howled from their shattered nests of burning paper, blood, and floor tile.
They would not rest easily, but Akllana’chikni’pai was of no mind to quiet them. She had not meant to destroy the school, but she would not let the tentacles take her. No matter what.
“Scarlett!”
The boy stood on the roof of a nearby building, whose broken windows looked like dozens of mouths filled with broken teeth. His dull clothing smoldered and streamed black smoke. It was falling off him, leaving behind the silvery sheen of his astral flesh. His eyes glowed blue, and his face reflected the red sparks and black streaks rising off his clothing. The sun sparkled off his tousled silver hair.
He will not accept the truth of what I have done, Lana thought. Nor the necessity. “I have restrained Scarlett,” she said. “She is no longer a threat.”
“Lana?” Pax sounded shocked. “Is that you?”
That childish name. She would have to speak to him of it later. “Yes.” A jet of water streamed below her. The yellow-and-black caparisoned insects were trying to hit her with it. She looked down at her body and realized she was once more blazing with heat and light.
In a few moments, they would be using other, possibly more harmful projectiles to try to knock her out of the sky; never considering the damage a thrown weapon must do upon its return to the ground. “We must leave, child. Before the humans below us do themselves further damage.”
The boy turned his head toward his shoulder, trying to conceal tears. No doubt he wept for what he thought were the sins of the girl.
Akllana’chikni’pai floated toward the boy, using the clean energy of the sun. The last tendrils of smoke fell from her. She returned her blades to the small corners of her soul, where they would burn quietly, the flames of righteous anger tempered by wisdom and peace. She stepped gently onto the boy’s rooftop and wrapped her arms around him. She felt the flesh she was wrapped in responding to his, even in his moments of grief.
Interesting.
This building burned from a dozen small fires lit within its walls. She was burning, too. The heat of her was melting the ground beneath them and threatening to spread the flames farther. She could not stay and do more damage. She regretted the casualties she had already caused. There was no need to cause more.
But to go where?
The boy still wept into his shoulder, as though ashamed she should see him cry. The men of Earth had not changed so much over the centuries. His arms hung limp and unresisting in her embrace. His fingers were as motionless as the dead. Burning patches of ash fell from his clothing.
“We must go,” she said.
But the boy did not respond.
Akllana’chikni’pai lifted the boy in her arms. He weighed little enough. She carried him like a child. He sobbed into her fiery skin, all pride gone.
They flew north to the polar ice, to a place where humans had not settled or destroyed yet. And there, because she was still burning with heat and because the body she was in longed for him and because she needed him to set aside his grief and sleep, she laid him down and stripped the rest of his clothes. She guided his hardness into Scarlett’s body and rode Pax until his pain and grief faded and he slipped out of consciousness.
Three hours later, Akllana’chikni’pai stood inside the new pacha Terkun’shuks’pai had built where the astral plane touched Earth. The small, windowless room was a pale reflection of his pacha on the astral plane. No windows faced Terkun’shuks’pai’s precious mountains. No breeze carried the soft scent of pine sap or the sound of flowing water. No elegant robe wrapped Terkun’shuks’pai’s astral form.
He served her tepid tea she had touched to her lips but not drunk. It smelled of nothing in particular and no doubt tasted of less.
“You cannot fight the darkness in the girl’s soul directly,” Terkun’shuks’pai said. “It is too intricately interwoven with the energies that keep her human.”
“I will fight the darkness however I choose.”
“You nearly destroyed an entire city. Was that your intention?”
She put the tea down in front of her. The tea slopped over the side and vanished. Another flaw. “No. My intention was to escape the negative energy creature that lives in symbiosis with the humans. How long have you known about it?”
“That it was here?” Terkun’shuks’pai shrugged. “A hundred years or so.”
“And you did not tell the council this, why?”
“Because I needed you to see it for yourself.”
“And you still think the humans should not be isolated?”
“I think,” said Terkun’shuks’pai, “that you and I needed to be on this planet, at this time.”
Akllana’chikni’pai waited for more, but none came. “I will be filing my report today,” she said. “In the short time I have been here, I have seen enough.”
“Perhaps you should wait a little longer,” said Terkun’shuks’pai. “There is much more to see.”
“Now that concerns me.”
Terkun’shuks’pai lowered his head. No light reflected from his bald head, as it once would have. There were no wrinkles. When he looked up, he was smiling. A subtle smile. “Very well,” he said. “Please continue with your mission, Akllana’chikni’pai.”
“I do not need your permission, Terkun’shuks’pai,” she said coldly and took herself out of his pacha, out of his world, and back to the cold arctic ice where Pax was sleeping.
Chapter 11
Pax opened his eyes to the world’s biggest igloo: he was inside some kind of snow cavern of smooth, melted ice, as if Lana had melted the cave out of a mid-sized iceberg. The otherwise bluish ice was hazed with orange and red in places from some kind of algal bloom, and a soot-colored crack ran almost directly overhead, like a meridian. A faint, constant moan of wind echoed around the dome, interspersed by distant cracks and creaks. The ice even seemed to vibrat
e a little. The air tasted faintly of salt.
He’d lost his shit for a while. He remembered seeing the sunset over the ocean, orange and gold painting the cold, white icebergs as they flew. He remembered the smoking brick shell that was Scarlett’s school. But that was about it.
Either it wasn’t very cold under the dome or he wasn’t at his normal body temperature because when he bothered to breathe, his breath didn’t steam in front of his face. A small ball of fire burned next to him, melting a shallow pit in the floor, and throwing up a thin line of wavering heat. Several fireballs had been tossed around the floor. They threw dancing reflections across the dome as they melted down into the ice.
In the center of the dome, Lana stood at a waist-high, flat table of white ice. He was certain it was she. Not just from the way her skin burned with a clean yellow fire, but from the straightforward way she stood. She didn’t lean on one hip, or flip her hair over her shoulder, or tilt her head to the side. Her hands moved with confidence and purpose instead of fluttering in the air or hanging at her sides. She didn’t chew her hair. Scarlett always managed to look like she was about two seconds from falling apart. Lana stood as if the earth itself was a part of her.
“Where are we?” he said.
Her hands paused. Then they started moving again. She seemed to be making something, sculpting it with her hands without actually touching it.
“We are in a cave on the ice cap near the North Pole. Before you ask, I am unsure of the current political designation. It’s deserted for several hundred miles in all directions and is as isolated as I could manage on short notice.”