“I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about what happened to Linval.”
Beyond the hedge, a police car with sirens on full came screaming up the main road.
“Good thing we pulled off when we did,” said Jessica.
“We’d better stay put … for a little while, at least,” said Karla.
“I’m not sure that getting caught would be a bad thing, necessarily,” said Renfrew. “It would put a stop to all this slinking around. Get the boy some medical attention.”
“Come on, Izzie,” said Karla. “Give me a hand. Let’s make him more comfortable.”
They slid James out of the seat and brought him to the pasture’s edge where the uncut hay was deep and soft. Below the slope, the late afternoon sun turned the peaty loch water cobalt blue.
Karla leaned over him and kissed his bristly cheek. He hadn’t shaved in over a week.
His pulse was getting thready. Every few beats it seemed to stop for a spell before lurching back into action.
Jessica wandered over. “Oh my!” She looked startled. “Why does he look so grey?”
“He’s okay,” said Karla. “See? His color’s already starting to come back.”
“I’m thinking, Ren might have a point. This kid needs attention, and soon.”
“He’ll be fine. He just needs a little rest.”
Jessica pursed her lips and went back to the car.
Izzie sidled close. “Maybe we should let Ren and Jess take him,” she whispered.
“And then what do we do? Wander the moors? I’m not leaving his side. No way. Not again.”
Isobel sighed. “We can’t just sit here and watch him die.”
Karla took his wrist. For a solid three count, there was no heartbeat at all. It did return and with a vengeance, but clearly his arrhythmia was getting worse.
She couldn’t deny it any longer. His heart was failing. Would there even be time to get him to a hospital?
Implications swarmed. If James died right now, with his soul in thrall of the Liminality’s core, he would be relegated to the Deeps. The only hope of seeing him again, would be to join him.
Could she abide such a harsh place? Maybe she had no choice if she ever wanted to see James again. Once he passed, the Deeps would be the only world left that their souls could share.
Izzie? I need to ask you a favor. Only, it’s not going to sound like a favor. But believe me, it will make me happy.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“James. When … if … he passes … I want to go with him. I want you … to kill me.”
“Say what?”
“Renfrew’s gun is in my purse. I want you to take it. When the time comes … shoot me … right here.” She touched the middle of her chest.
“Stop it La! Don’t talk like that.”
“I’m serious! Listen! If you do it, I get to be with James. Forever. And you … if you kill me. You’ll be out of Papa’s control. They’ll send you to some sort of prison for juveniles. You’ll be locked up, but you’ll be safe from Papa. And by the time you get out, you’ll be an adult. Emancipated.”
“You’re insane! How could you ask me … your own sister … to do such a thing?”
“Because I know you love me. I know that you want me to be happy. And this would do it. It really would.”
“And you would give up me without a second thought? Put the burden on me, for the rest of my life, to live knowing I killed my own sister?”
“Please, Izzie. You know better. All this we see before us, it’s just one facet of existence. Souls persist. There are other lives.”
“None as good as this one,” said Isobel.
“You don’t understand. This is my chance at forever … with James. If you don’t do it, I will lose him.”
“You’re not even twenty years old, La. Why are you chasing forever?” She snatched up Karla’s cloth purse, yanked it open, plunged her hand in and pulled out Renfrew’s black pistol. Her eyes met Karla’s with ferocity. She took two steps towards the loch, heaved the weapon as far as she could, and then went stomping off across the meadow.
Renfrew waddled over, his brow ruffled. “Good God! Don’t tell me that was my 9mm Browning that just went kersplash!”
Jessica stood by the car, her face stone sober, a phone pressed to her ear. When she noticed Karla staring, she turned to face the hedges.
“Who is she talking to?” said Karla.
Renfrew looked away, sheepishly.
“Who is she calling, Ren?”
“We’ll do our best to protect you from you know who. I promise.” He looked up. Isobel was already halfway across the meadow and picking up her pace. It was clear she did not intend to return.
Karla lay down next to James and took his hand in hers. His fingers felt clammy. This time, she didn’t bother to check his pulse.
She wished she had the power to summon her own death at will so she could time it to coincide with James. If only their souls could perish from this world in the same moment and reappear together on the other side.
As she lay, pondering the chaos of the clouds overhead she was seized by a moment of inspiration and clarity, and she bolted upright.
James didn’t have to go to the Deeps and neither did she! He was in Frelsi, a short walk from the glaciers. If she could tear him away from the Dusters and get his ass up that mountain, his soul could still be freed.
She only had to make him understand that his life on earth was frittering away. She had been denying it until now, out of a hope that they could salvage a life together in this world.
She struggled to dial down her excitement. These rays of hope would keep her out of Liminality if she let them persist. Years of practice had taught her how to whittle them down to the bitter core of doom that lay at their heart, to fog over any windows of optimism. Surfing, she called it, although sometimes it felt more like deepwater diving.
But if she failed to reach James in time and he was sent the Deeps, she wouldn’t need Isobel or Renfrew’s gun to take the next step. She looked out over the wind-ruffled depths of Loch Ness. She could swim out until she could swim no more and let the depths consume her. Suicide would land her in the tunnels, and from there she would be one Reaper’s maw away from eternity.
She laid her head back down on the grass, staring up at a herd of puffy clouds hurrying east, borne by an unfathomable wind.
When the feeling finally settled in, she had been away from it so long; it was like stumbling across an old, almost forgotten friend. She felt it mostly in her mid-section, a heavy, inward pressure, as if a growth were impinging on her organs. It sent its hooks in deep and hauled her down, like an anchor tossed into a bottomless sea.
She closed her eyes and rode the vortex down to the Liminality.
***
No roots came to claim her this time. She was well beyond their reach. She found herself right where she had left off: in sight of the glaciers, outside the destroyed Frelsian security compound where she had been detained with James and Bern. The place was vacant, the stockade still damaged from the tussle with the Dusters.
She got up and made her way out to the road. Huge clouds of brown dust billowed up over the walls of Frelsi below her. A giant, balconied tower toppled and took another down with it as it fell. Dull explosions reverberated off the moraines.
A small crowd of Hemis had gathered on the road looking on in horror. A Freesoul was trying to organize them into an assault party, but the Hemis, greenhorns by the looks of their freshly woven clothing, were too frightened to budge.
Karla below right by them and started down the road.
“Hey you! Hemi!” said the Freesoul. “Where do you think you are going?”
Karla ignored him and picked up her pace until she was sprinting towards the city.
More towers fell. The squeals of injured beasts ripped across the landscape.
It was all downhill and easy running. She found a rhythm and a pace she
could sustain. When she reached the open portal of the outer wall, she clambered over the wreckage of a destroyed wagon and into the wide, open lot that curved inside the wall of the Sanctuary.
The jagged stub of a broken tower jutted above the inner wall. The scale of the damage that had been done to the Sanctuary shocked her. Why would James be party to this? What was the point?
She crossed the space between the walls and slipped through a part in the gates.
A bulky missile with stubby wings glided down from one of the intact towers and crashed into the wall, scattering its writhing contents all over the bare dirt—stiff little snakes, coiled like corkscrews.
A scrawny band of withered-looking Dusters emerged from a dust cloud. They took a wide berth around the coiled things, as they made their way to the gate.
And there was James among them, naked but for a sword!
Their eyes met. Karla ran.
Chapter 45: Fellstraw
“James!” A giddy smile bloomed on Karla’s face. She had no clothes on, but then, neither did I.
“Your woman,“ said Urszula, flatly.
Startled, the Old Ones around me paused and leveled their scepters. “Tell them it’s okay. She’s with me.”
Karla took off running towards me, her arms swinging wildly.
“No! Wait! There’s Fellstraw!”
Either she didn’t hear me or the term meant nothing to her because she kept on running.
A coiled worm leaped at her like a wooden spring un-sprung. She cried out and lurched aside, nimbly, but blundered close to another and set it off as well, forcing her to hop back the other way. The creatures, though blind, could sense her. They bounced and squirmed excitedly, triggering each other in a chain reaction.
“What are these things?” said Karla.
“Stay put, right where you are,” I said, charging at a nearby clump of worms which had come together, inching along like caterpillars, and was organizing into a swarm. I swung my blade, aiming to clear a path for her, but slashing the headless creatures only made things worse. The cut ends reshaped themselves into bullet-shaped tips and then there were two worms.
A transparent pulse burst forth from Urszula’s scepter, rippling the air like heat waves over blacktop. It slammed broadside into the cluster, knocking them over. Unharmed, they picked themselves up, juiced with an extra smidgeon of agitation and aggression. They reared up and panned their tips around like periscopes, seeking the source of their insult.
Urszula seemed shocked that her pulse had not obliterated them. “These beasts are potent. No ordinary mage created them.”
Several clusters of worms joined together into a single swarm and formed an arc between us and Karla. She tried to backtrack towards the gate, but the worms sent two arms rushing out to cut her off before she could escape. Now that they had her trapped, they circled her warily.
They sure acted way too intelligent for a bunch of worms. Together, they had some sort of communal intelligence. Either that or someone was controlling them remotely.
Inexorably, like a camera’s diaphragm contracting in slow motion, the worms tightened the ring around Karla, who stood straight and tall in the very center, arms tight against her sides.
“What’s happening?”
“Don’t let them touch you!” I said. I held out my sword and mustered the bitterest thoughts possible, cultivating a hatred for all things wormy, drawing from sources as varied as my early disgust with a three-year-old neighbor girl who used to eat them, and fishing with Dad, the damned sandworms that used to pinch my fingers when I tried to bait my hook.
I was committed and confident that I could make something happen. I had summoned powerful spells before that had taken out Reapers and spikers. This should be as easy as squishing maggots.
I narrowed my eyes at the thick swath of worms between me and Karla, and conjured that loosening in my core that foretold the imminent unleashing of my bizarre powers. Deep in my torso, energy swirled, building to a critical mass that could no longer be contained. It tore loose and poured out through my arms and out the point of my sword.
A blast screamed out of the blade with the force of a fire hose. It barreled into a batch of worms and pressed them flat to the ground. When the pulse was spent, and my arms were shaking from the strain, those damned worms were still there, entirely intact. They just picked themselves back up and resumed their creeping.
“What the fuck?” I dropped to my knees, exhausted and anguished. How could this be? I cared more for Karla’s well-being than any soul in the universe, including my own. How could my powers have failed?
One of the Old Ones had been watching me intently through all this. He was a tall and lanky guy with a scepter made of knotty and burled wood. He came striding up to the edge of the circle, holding his weapon low like the wand of a leaf blower.
A greenish aura spread from the knot at the end of his scepter and flickered like a flame. He touched it to a worm and it blew apart into flakes of ash. The worms recoiled and scrambled to get away from him. He moved into the ring, swinging his scepter in broad arcs, parting their ranks like an old-timey farmer reaping rye with a scythe. He was a powerful dude. He walked right up to Karla and hoisted her up, tucking her under his free arm.
My eyes teared up and I cheered, awed and grateful for his bravery and sacrifice. I tossed a glance to Urszula, but she was staring up at the Sanctuary, looking all anxious about something.
As the Old One turned to come back our way, the worms took advantage of his inattention and counterattacked. A loose column squirmed out of the main body and formed a spearhead aiming straight for his heels.
“Watch out!”
He spotted them just in time to smite the vanguard with his scepter, dividing the attack into two streams that circled back to the main body. I tried again to assist, summoning every ounce of energy I could channel through the tip of my sword but all of my attempts were impotent. The best I could do was knock a worm aside here and there.
By now, the Old One had obliterated scores of worms, but there were so many and they kept on coming. He drew them towards us like a Pied Piper, forcing me and Urszula and the other Old Ones to back away.
A blob of energy flew down from the remains of a tower, smacking into the Old One’s side, knocking him to one knee, nearly losing hold of Karla.
I wheeled around and without even having to think or aim, sent a pulse flying up to the broken tower where the sniper, a Freesoul, was slinking back inside from one of the balcony platforms.
My blast expanded into a jagged loop that tore into the side of the tower like an electrified chainsaw, gouging a huge chunk, balcony and all, that went crashing to the ground before the sniper could find refuge.
The Old One, in the meantime, had gotten back to his feet, but a sneaky bunch of worms had taken advantage of his stumble to come springing after him. Before he could swing his scepter, they had latched onto his leg and were drilling into his ankles. My stomach sank.
What was left of the main mass of worms came after him, no holds barred, as if encouraged by the success of their kin. He did his best to fend them off, but his calves became draped with so many worms it looked like he was wearing a pair of shaggy mukluks.
It was so frustrating to just stand there and watch, helpless to do anything. I tried to make another spell pour out of my sword, but I had nothing.
The Old One’s strides become labored. He had managed to burn most of the worms off his legs with his scepter, but it was clear that some had gotten into his body. His eyes betrayed enormous pain.
“What’s his name?” I asked Urszula.
“Yoric,” answered one of the Old Ones standing behind me, in a voice that sounded like wind rustling sagebrush.
Yoric stumbled the last few paces and collapsed to his knees, placing Karla gently down before he crumpled completely and began to convulse.
The remaining worms kept their distance, wary perhaps, that one of us might possess the s
ort of spell craft that had done in the others.
I ran over and pulled Karla away. She flew into my arms and kissed me. Neither of us was clothed, but I barely noticed.
“Why did you come here?” I said. “I told you, there’s a war going on.”
“What? You’re not glad to see me?” she said, her voice cracking.
“Of course I am. It’s just dangerous right now. I told you—”
“Listen, James. We have you out of the church, but you are gravely ill on the other side. I don’t think you are going to last much longer. We need to get you up to the glaciers.”
A movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. A worm was snaking out of Yoric’s mouth. It seemed fuller, reconstituted. The woody, wrinkled texture of its skin had become slick and smooth. It had lost the shifty, jerky motion of the other worms, moving with grace and power.
“Watch out!”
Before I could yank Karla away, it slithered across the ground like a living lightning bolt, wrapping around Karla’s leg, wriggling up her back. I grabbed at it frantically, but it slipped through my fingers. Before I could seize it again, it was burrowing in, parting her flesh as if it were clay.
“Nooooo!”
Karla screamed. Her legs went limp. She crumpled to the ground. I dragged her away from Yoric and rolled her over onto her side. A small, perfectly round hole had been bored into the small of her back. Fragments of bone littered her skin around the opening. There was no trace of the worm.
Karla gasped, her eyes bulging. She mouthed words, struggling to speak, but unable to shape a coherent phrase.
Urszula stood a few paces back with Bern and a few of the Old Ones, keeping the rest of the worms at bay with their scepters. I looked over at her. “We gotta help her get it out!”
“There is nothing to be done,” she said, not even looking at me. “It has her.”
Karla cried out again. She squeezed my hand.
“Find me, James. Promise, you’ll come and find me.”
“Shush. I’m right here. And you’re not going anywhere.”
Her eyes rolled upward. She started to shiver. “I’m afraid, James. I don’t want to be alone. The place I’m going … I see it. I’m going—”
“Going where? Where are you going?”
But Karla had gone still.
“To the Deeps, no doubt,” said Urszula.