The sun glistened off his bald head as she landed behind him. The stiff wind caught at his clothing, rippling it like flags. He rubbed one hand over his scalp, brushing away beads of sweat.
He was watching a broad swell in the ocean. Something large glided under the waves—a shark, a large fish.
“Terkun’shuks’pai,” she said. “It is done. I have sent the report to the Council.”
He continued to watch the horizon.
A thin layer of white, crumbling powder had collected in the crannies of the rocks and broke off under her feet as she crossed toward him. She had never seen an island like this one—completely bare of vegetation or soil, almost a quarter-mile across. Unusual for life to ignore so big a foothold.
“Terkun’shuks’pai—”
She placed a hand on his shoulder. Despite the solidity of his appearance, her hand fell through: he was here only in spirit form.
Nevertheless he turned around to face her. Bowed, formally and low. The wind caught the front of his jacket, pulling it halfway off his chest before he tucked it back in place.
“Akllana’chikni’pai,” he said. “You have been a worthy opponent.”
She bowed back to him out of habit, a warrior’s bow that did not lose eye contact for a moment. “I recommended the isolation of humanity.”
“Of course,” he said courteously, straightening. Water flowed through his feet, pulling a few small stones off the island and down into the deep, green waves.
Akllana’chikni’pai squinted at him. “What do you mean, ‘Of course?’”
He grinned. For once it was not a cool smile filled with politeness, but that of a young human child, praised for its mischief.
“You knew I would make the recommendation,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “I thought you were on their side.”
“I know you did. Just as I know isolation is not all that you and the council have planned for humanity,” said Terkun’shuks’pai. “Did you tell the boy, or are you going to let him find out on his own?”
“The boy does not need to know,” Akllana’chikni’pai said, wondering when and where Terkun’shuks’pai could have found out the Council’s intentions. “Too many species on this planet could grow capable of astral existence to leave it in the hands of the humans.”
“I agree.”
“Then why are we here?” demanded Akllana’chikni’pai. “We could have just closed the Earth off and been done with it. Why did you argue at the council and insist we journey here together?”
“Humanity isn’t the greatest threat here,” said Terkun’shuks’pai.
“The tentacles.”
“Yes.”
“They aren’t sentient,” said Akllana’chikni’pai. “They’re reactive, and they may have some rudimentary intelligence, but they do not have enough to become astral.”
Terkun’shuks’pai nodded. “That is what the Council believes as well.” He smiled again. “I, also, have sent my report.”
“Recommending their destruction?”
He shook his head. “It would have been out of character. So I reluctantly agreed with you. I stressed the importance of sealing humanity away from the rest of the astral plane. Forever. There should be no contact with this world. Ever.”
“Then I ask again, why did we come here?” demanded Akllana’chikni’pai. “What could you possibly have accomplished by making that boy one of us? Or the girl, for that matter? He should have been allowed to die, and she should never have known about our existence.” Akllana’chikni’pai’s eyes narrowed. “What are your plans, Terkun’shuks’pai?”
His smile widened. “You have known me for eons, Akllana’chikni’pai. Have you ever known me to reveal my plans?” Akllana’chikni’pai watched the waves glimmer through his legs, his chest. The long swell of water had disappeared, sunk too low to be picked out amongst the other waves. “Now go and carry out the rest of your mission. And I look forward to seeing you explain it to the boy.”
With a slight nod, his image stilled, and the wind pulled it into long, cloudlike threads before it dissipated into thin air.
He knew all along, Akllana’chikni’pai thought. He knew all along, and he agreed all along. So what did he really want in coming here?
She looked down at the gray powder that covered her feet and every inch of the island. There had been no volcanic eruptions in the area recently, and there was no way such a thin layer of powder would survive a single tropical storm. She knelt, picked some up between her fingers, and let it fall. She watched it on a molecular level as it fell, analyzing every tiny piece to see what it had been before it had turned to powder.
Something had gone over this island very, very recently and had destroyed or eaten everything on it.
Nothing from the earth could do such a thing.
First, finish the mission, Akllana’chikni’pai told herself, as she stood. That has to come first. Then I’ll come back here and find out what, exactly, he is up to.
She reached inside herself, to the place where the essence of Scarlett was still trapped in a prison of her own guilt. With a thought, Akllana’chikni’pai was standing beside the girl. With another, Akllana’chikni’pai’s swords were in her hand. It would be a quick kill and a merciful one. Scarlett would be taken out of her misery, and the negative energy would be greatly weakened, perhaps even weakened enough that Akllana’chikni’pai could drive them permanently out of this body.
She stepped forward and cut with both blades at once.
And the thing she had thought was Scarlett disappeared.
Pax woke up alone in the ice dome.
Lana was nowhere to be seen, which was fine with him, because right now, Pax was feeling messed up.
It’s not like Scarlett’s my girlfriend, he told himself. We just had sex a couple of times—all right, seven times, but all in one day. But I didn’t say she was my girlfriend, and she didn’t say I was her boyfriend. We’re just friends. Who had sex.
And then I fucked someone else wearing Scarlett’s body.
It was that, more than anything else, which was bothering him. No, he and Scarlett weren’t a couple, and yes, she had been restrained and probably didn’t even know he and Lana had fucked. Even so, the idea that she might have been somewhere inside that body, trapped and watching, made Pax feel very uncomfortable.
The whole thing was a mess. Pax sighed, stood up, and stretched. He looked down at his body, metallic once more and still naked. Too bad I can’t make clothes from astral material.
It occurred to him to wonder why not.
Better be somewhere where I can get sunlight for energy before I try, Pax decided.
He walked around the dome, found an opening in it, and walked out into the bright arctic sunlight. With luck I won’t need anyone to buy me clothes anymore.
Which brought back memories of Scarlett and the fact that he’d fucked Lana in Scarlett’s body and that Lana wanted Scarlett destroyed before she did more damage.
Pax shook his head, closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on building clothes out of nothing.
PAX!
It felt as if Lana had shouted directly into his head. The sound of it nearly sent him reeling.
PAX! SCARLETT IS NOT IN THIS BODY! SHE HAS ESCAPED SOMEHOW! YOU MUST FIND HER!
Escaped? Pax didn’t know whether to feel horrified or relieved. Lana couldn’t destroy Scarlett if she didn’t know where she was. Maybe there was hope for her. Hope that she can live long enough to destroy another school? Pax asked himself. Or maybe destroy an entire city this time.
FIND HER, PAX! Lana commanded. If you care about the rest of humanity at all, you need to find and contain her until she can be stopped.
I will, sent Pax, knowing Akllana’chikni’pai was right. He looked at the vast w
asteland around him. I think.
LOOK FOR NEGATIVE ENERGY, Akllana’chikni’pai sent. FOLLOW IT AND YOU WILL FIND HER.
Pax nodded to himself. He forgot about the idea of clothes and wrapped the force bubble around himself. With it, he could move far faster than just running.
The northern lights shone down on the black, light-sucking skin of Scarlett’s hand. She was holding a piece of negative energy so light and delicate that it felt more like a lock of hair than a tentacle. One end twined between her fingers; the other led off across the snow. Basically, it was a screaming hint to follow me.
It was nice to be wanted.
She wrapped a loop of the negative energy around her fist, then another, letting it slowly lead her away from the dome where Pax and Lana were doing the nasty. Fucking like weasels.
And leaving her utterly and completely alone. Except for the strand of negative energy in her hand.
It led her across ragged, groaning, cracked snowdrifts toward what she hoped was a) the south and b) someplace that wasn’t pure ice and snow. The northern lights were beautiful, but she was pretty much done with them. As much as she wasn’t a fan of a massive city filled with assholes, she missed it now. Was hungry for it.
Probably because—ugh—she wasn’t getting enough negative energy to eat up here at the North Pole.
Gathering loops of negative energy around her as she went, she followed the trail to the top of what looked like a city block made of icebergs. A hundred feet below her, the little snow lumps could almost be cabs and delivery trucks and fire hydrants and front steps. No people, though.
She shook the strands of negative energy off her arms. It made a big, tangled pile on the snow. If only it were that easy to get rid of what she’d done to her school. Or the hate she was feeling for Pax and Lana right now.
She took a step back, aimed, and kicked the pile of negative threads as hard as she could off the top of the iceberg.
It slid across the ice and tipped over the edge and disappeared.
She looked over the cliff. The threads had flown across a gap in the ice, landed on the cliff on the opposite side, and were hanging off a broken shard of ice like some spider’s abandoned egg sac.
The wind changed, making the loops of glistening black thread roll along the cliff until they disappeared into a deep crack in the ice.
Scarlett peered down the long, straight crack.
At the end was a strip of something black shimmering under the northern lights like a giant oil puddle.
Holy shit.
Scarlett backed up, ran noiselessly over the ice, and kicked off right before the edge. Arms and legs flailing gracelessly, she biffed it, and slid forward with her face dragging against the ice. She dug in her hands and barely kept herself from sliding completely over the edge.
When she stopped, she was looking over a wide, glimmering lake of negative energy.
The oily, black fluid reflected the northern lights clearly but seemed to ignore the rest of reality. The fluid gave no reflection of the cliffs surrounding the lake, the chunks of ice floating in it, or the pink, glittery snowdrifts that were building up on top of the liquid, near the bottoms of the icebergs. Or of her.
Scarlett could feel it calling to her. She wanted to dive right in.
But if her superpowers had taught her one thing, it was that being more powerful just meant that everything she screwed up, she screwed up a thousand times worse than she could have ever imagined.
Slowly, she started picking her way down the cliff.
It was a stiff, bladder-bursting hour somewhere past midnight when Ms. Grace finally pulled alongside a mid-rise building of darkened glass and red brick. Ms. Jance slipped out of the back seat and silently unloaded the wheelchair from the trunk.
Ms. Grace said, “Normally we park at the garage and walk in. But we do offer front-door service for our seriously ill visitors. Wouldn’t want to put any more strain on your ticker than we already have tonight, ain’t that right?”
Julie didn’t answer. Ms. Jance had opened her door and was offering her an arm for support. The arm was stronger than its stick-thin appearance indicated. Julie clung to it as it lifted her out of the Cadillac’s deep seats.
Her toes stubbed against the end of a curb, and she almost pitched into the black nylon back of the wheelchair. Suddenly Ms. Jance was lifting her under the arms and carrying her bodily to the seat. Julie seethed. She wasn’t infirm. She was just clumsy in her stocking feet. She should have put her shoes back on first.
A second later, Ms. Jance popped the wheelchair brakes and pulled Julie backward, a welcome retreat from that damned car and its earsplitting driver.
“Y’all forgot the shoes,” Ms. Grace said. “And close the door while you’re at it!”
Julie’s beige nursing clogs flew from the open doorway one at a time. Ms. Jance give a slight sigh and walked around the wheelchair, bending over to pick up the shoes and hand them to Julie.
Ms. Jance closed the car door calmly and returned to the wheelchair as the Cadillac peeled away from the curb. The woman put her palms along her back and twisted, sending up a long, steady series of cracks as she twisted right and then left. She let out a long, soft sigh.
Ordinary. These were ordinary women. Too bad Julie had never picked up the trick of talking to “ordinary.”
“What’s going on, Ms. Jance?”
“We will discuss that inside, Dr. Black. One never knows when one is being watched.” The woman’s voice was almost as deep as a man’s and sounded exotic, like she was British, or not quite. From the Caribbean, perhaps.
The brakes popped, and the wheelchair moved backward briefly, spinning in a half-circle that faced Julie toward the building.
It looked bigger now. Full of secrets.
The Virginia night was warmer than New York, and the air fresher. Pollen gathered at the back of her throat and hung heavy in her sinuses. That was the problem with leaving the city: the fresh air was liable to kill you.
“Where’s my purse?” she asked. She wanted her sunglasses. She needed her meds.
“Ms. Grace will check it in for you. You will not be allowed to have your cell phone, or any recording devices, inside the secure area. They will be kept at the visitor’s reception area in the lobby. The rest of your things will be brought up to us in the surgical theater as soon as possible.”
“My meds are in there.”
“Yes, I know.”
The front entrance was adorned with some architectural flimflam that was probably supposed to symbolize something having to do with engineering, but the important part was that no ramp led to the front doors, only a series of shallow brick stairs.
Ms. Jance slowed as she approached the steps, turned the wheelchair backward, and bumped slowly up each stair. The front wheels flapped into Julie’s heels.
Except for the insects swarming the lights, the night was quiet. The sound of motors echoed in the distance, but no sirens were going off, no delivery trucks were jostling for space along the streets. Nobody honked. A lone white van was parked at the curb about a block away.
She still felt like a thousand eyes were watching her from the buildings nearby.
Ms. Jance lowered the front wheels onto the brick.
“Isn’t this supposed to be a secret agency?”
“Oh, it is,” Ms. Jance said. “Full of secrets, full of paperwork. Full of people who are delighted by dangerous equipment and who have to take safety courses every year because they don’t often stop to think about where their fire extinguishers are and whether or not aliens could carry diseases.”
“You have aliens here?”
“I am joking. What we have here is even stranger than aliens. We have engineers.”
The front doors opened in front of them. A s
kinny, retirement-age, black security guard peered out at them from inside, unnecessarily holding open the inner door. “Y’all come in now, I got you all set up. Been waiting for you. Bobby run the purse all the way acrost the building for you.”
The wheelchair bumped over the doorways and purred over the thick, new-smelling plastic floor mat. The lobby passed by in a flash of brick-colored paint and agency symbols. They stopped at a receptionist’s counter, where the guard handed Julie her purse and a clipboard.
“Sign here, please.”
She unzipped her purse and looked through it. Her phone was gone, and her planner.
“My planner,” she said. “I’m missing my planner.”
“It kept beeping when I tried to run it through,” the guard said. “I’ll return it to you when I’m finished examining it. I figured you all wouldn’t want to wait on it, though.”
“Fine.” Julie scribbled her name near a place marked X and shoved the clipboard toward the guard.
He took it, and handed her a white badge marked with a red V and a numerical code. “You stay with your escort now, hear?”
“Even in the bathroom?”
“Even there, yes,” he said. “Ms. Jance’ll give you the rest of your briefing when you get inside.” He clipped the badge to Julie’s shirt and waved them through a pair of tall white gates that looked like they belonged at an airport.
Ms. Jance parked the wheelchair at the gate. The guard jogged around through the other gate and grabbed a wheelchair from the other side of the tall desk.
“Let me help you—” Ms. Jance said.
“I can do it.” Julie waved off the woman’s arm, kicked up the pedals, bent over, put her shoes on, hooked her purse over her arm, hobbled through the gate, and sat in the other wheelchair patiently. It never paid to argue with bureaucracy.