“She’s not here!” Archie said. “She hasn’t been here in weeks.”
None of the attackers had seen Catherine yet. Standing in the doorway, she silently flicked out her own whipsword. It felt good in her hand after so long unused.
“You’re lying,” the lead attacker said.
“She’s gone!” yelled Archie.
Catherine gripped her whipsword tightly. She’d spent most of the last three months lying in bed, and her muscles had been neglected, but she’d had years of training. When she was fit, she was a great fighter. Even now, she would be a good fighter. She was at the point of leaping through the open doorway into the living room to join the fight, when she felt the warm trickle down her thigh. She brushed a hand across her leg, and her palm came away smeared with bright red blood.
How could she be bleeding? All she’d done was run from the bedroom to the kitchen. But the doctors had told her, after that day in France, that her pregnancy was balanced precariously.
“Dammit!” she breathed.
Archie was grappling with one of the attackers, when he caught sight of Catherine and the blood on her hand. His eyes were wild, but their meaning was perfectly clear.
Go! he mouthed to her. Now!
She retreated back through the pantry and into the dining area, trying to decide what to do. Archie was a good fighter, but he would need her help. Catherine gripped the pommel of her whipsword tightly. She could feel the motions it would take to jump into the fray.
A gush of blood ran down her leg.
At that moment, one of Archie’s attackers flew through the living room doorway and crashed into the dining table, blood pulsing from his throat—a fatal wound.
One down. Was it possible that Archie could beat all three of them? It was possible, she granted, but by no means certain.
If she helped him, would the baby survive? Would she? Promise me, Catherine, Archie had said. And she’d promised.
“Dammit!” she whispered again.
Her whipsword still clutched in one hand, Catherine grabbed the journal from the nursery and the athame and lightning rod from the safe, then moved back into the pantry.
“Where is she?” one of the attackers said again.
“I told you, she left!” Archie spat. The pain in his voice made Catherine pause. “Only a fool would stay here with me.” The words were directed at her; he was begging her to go. Catherine heard him cry out angrily, the way he did when he thrust his sword in practice. There was a thump of a body against the living room floor.
“Are you going to dance around, or are you going to fight?” Archie said, baiting one of his attackers. Catherine’s hopes rose. He was still standing? He was still winning?
She lifted the door in the pantry floor. It opened onto a set of narrow, steep stairs. The building was an old one, owned by Archie’s family, who had believed firmly in alternate routes of escape.
Catherine moved down the tiny set of stairs in almost complete darkness. The passage was so narrow, she had to descend half-turned to the side, navigating her pregnant body carefully.
The stairs ended in a sort of hall. Dark and narrow and low, it reminded her of the tunnel beneath Mont Saint-Michel. She could hear her own breathing like the rhythm of a steam train. She was not used to moving. She was already tired. Her belly brushed the opposite wall as she moved along beneath the living room. A chink of light hovered above her, a crack between two of the living room floorboards. The sounds of the fight came down to her clearly.
She heard something else also. There was noise behind her, from the pantry stairs. Boots approaching. One of the attackers was following her.
“Where did your friend go?”
That was Archie, speaking almost directly above her.
“My brother’s gone to find her,” another voice said. “He’ll find her! But you’ll be dead by then.”
Archie bellowed in rage, and there was a sound of bodies colliding with each other, and then with the floor.
Catherine struggled to turn herself, so her right arm, her sword arm, was toward the back, between her and her pursuer.
“I hear you,” said a soft voice, only yards away. “Stop. He wants us to kill you. But I don’t have to. Give me the journal and your athame, and you can go.”
She could see the glint of a weapon in the sliver of light through the living room floor. Catherine dropped the journal, and her athame and lightning rod. She cracked out her whipsword and swept it upward. It collided with her pursuer’s own whipsword.
A shadow blocked the light, and she saw Archie’s face above. He was pressed into the floor, struggling.
“Archie!” she yelled.
He opened his eyes and found her in the darkness below. He was gritting his teeth.
“Go!” he hissed. “Go!”
Her own pursuer struck out with his sword again. Catherine struck back, but her arm faltered under the blow. She was weak. Blood was still running down her leg. She would die, her child would die, Archie would die.
She felt a crackle of electricity around her ears and noticed the high humming in her mind. The focal. She’d forgotten she was wearing it. She had to give herself over to it, let it help her, or this would be the end.
Immediately she felt her mind expand. Her attacker was striking again. She blocked him more easily this time, shoving his weapon into the wall. Archie was above her, grappling with his opponent, groaning. All she could see, through the crack in the floorboards, was a portion of his hair. She was aware of each individual hair, reddish brown, the odor of sweat and fear, the position of her arms and legs, the weight of the weapon in her hand.
Her pursuer struck down at her. She took three quick steps backward, allowing his whipsword to crash into the floor between them. Then she moved forward, her whipsword straight in front of her, long and thin and deadly. He turned at the last moment, realizing her intent, and her sword pierced his side, sliding between ribs.
He gasped.
There was blood now, on her arms, but it wasn’t hers and it wasn’t his. It was dripping onto her skin from above.
Archie’s face was at the crack in the floor, looking down at her, and he was no longer struggling.
“Archie!” Catherine cried. “I’m coming. Wait for me!”
Her attacker was grievously wounded, but he was still coming after her, bellowing like a cornered animal. He’d turned himself around and was using his other arm to wield his whipsword frantically, viciously.
“Archie…” Catherine said.
His blood continued to patter down around her. She could see individual drops, highlighted from above.
The focal was buzzing discordantly through Catherine’s head. The electricity was painful now, piercing. Her thoughts were tumbling against each other, as though her mind had divided itself into two camps and they were arguing.
I can save him. I will save him.
He’s already dead.
This is my fault. I tried to learn things I shouldn’t know.
I will know everything. No one can stop me.
They’re going to kill me.
No one will kill me. I will kill them first. I will make them pay. They will all pay.
Her attacker was within reach again. When he struck, she moved inside the blow. His fist crashed into the focal on her head, and the force of the impact sent his whipsword flying from his hand.
Catherine collapsed her own sword into something short and thick and deadly sharp, then plunged it forward into the boy’s heart.
He folded onto himself on the floor of the narrow space. Catherine leaned against the wall, her breath coming hard. When the boy’s body settled, his face became visible in the light through the ceiling. He was younger than she’d thought. He looked about fourteen.
I don’t kill children. I believe in justice.
I kill them if I have to. I kill anyone if I have to.
You must do anything to protect your family. Anything.
Above her was motion
. The last attacker was still alive. It sounded as though he were pulling himself across the floor, moaning as he went. Catherine crawled over the body of the boy—probably the youngest brother—and made her way back down the narrow passage, then up the stairs.
She emerged into the kitchen and saw her own trail of blood, which had led the boy straight to her down the escape passage. The second dead brother was lying on the dining room floor.
Archie was in the living room, his head against the floorboards, a pool of blood growing around him and trickling through the crack in the floor.
“Archie…”
She knelt and carefully turned him over. His face was hollow and gray. His skin was already cooling, and there was no heartbeat at his neck. An hour before, he had lain next to her on the bed and showered her belly with kisses. She had brushed the hair away from his handsome face, and had been foolish enough to feel happy.
She pushed the bloody hair from his face and held his head in her hands. The spark of life was gone from his eyes.
She sat that way for some time, until a noise roused her. She looked up to see the third attacker in the entryway, pulling himself toward the front door, a smeared trail of blood behind him.
Catherine crawled over to him on all fours. When he saw her coming, he rolled onto his back and held up his last weapon, one of their kitchen knives. He’d been grievously wounded in his lower abdomen, and the blood there was dark and thick and pulsing. He did not have long to live.
He might have been twenty years old, or younger, but the pain written on his face made him look ancient. He wore heavy boots, and these added to a resemblance to Briac Kincaid, a resemblance his brother Anthony had shared. Did the Middle think all of these boys were interchangeable pawns? She batted the knife out of his hand, and he put up almost no resistance—he knew he was finished. Catherine brought her whipsword to his throat.
“Did you kill Anna?” she asked him. “Did you murder my sister?”
He closed his eyes and slowly nodded, the skin of his neck pulling against the edge of her sword.
“Why?” she asked. “What did the Middle Dread promise you?”
“He said…he said there were not many Seeker families left. We were nearing the end…He told Anthony, we could keep two athames…if we got rid of the families to whom they belonged…”
“Don’t you think he…he would have killed you when it was all done?” she asked. “Or gotten someone else to kill you?”
“No. We’d helped him,” the boy whispered. “And we were going to run. Two athames between four brothers…we could hide, outsmart anyone who came after us.”
“Outsmart him?” she asked softly. This boy had known nothing of all the others the Middle had tricked. She felt something almost like pity for him.
“Anthony thought it was…worth the risk. Two athames…we’d be the most powerful Seeker house in history…” He licked his lips, his eyes locked on hers. His breaths were shallow but coming fast. “It sounds stupid now…now that you’ve taken care of us…”
“You killed my family out of greed,” she told him. Tears were running down her cheeks. “And Emile.”
“I was looking out for my own,” he told her, licking his lips again.
Catherine felt a thought form in her mind, almost as though it had fallen whole from within the focal itself, as though the thought had been living inside the helmet, waiting for her: I won’t trust anyone. I will kill them all before they get to me or my son. I’ll kill anyone who gets in my way.
“Are you ready for your end?” she whispered.
He nodded and shut his eyes.
She killed the wounded boy, the last of the four brothers of the house of the horse, with a quick cut of her whipsword.
Then she stumbled back to the secret passage, gathered up the athame and lightning rod and her journal. She made her way out to the street, covered in blood. She ripped the focal from her head, only because she thought it might raise questions, might make her appear something other than a pregnant victim of a crime. She stuffed the journal into the helmet and gripped it and her belly. The athame and lightning rod, which she’d shoved through the lining of her dress pocket, banged against her legs as she staggered away into London, calling for help.
The sun had gone down, but the clouds had broken and the sky was still bright with afterglow. Shinobu had used the coordinates from the Middle Dread’s body, and now an open, humming anomaly hung before them above the barn loft. Quin stood at his side, a hand on his shoulder. They’d lit the old gas lantern from the corner of the loft, and Shinobu held it up to cast its light into the darkness beyond the borders of the anomaly.
“You keep up with your chant,” he told her, “and keep your eyes on me.”
“I will.”
She squeezed his shoulder, and together they stepped across the threshold into the darkness. Shinobu had written the numbers and directions on his arm, and he looked at them in the lantern light.
“Fifty-three steps straight ahead,” he said.
He began to walk, counting off each pace in his head. Behind him, Quin recited the time chant:
“Knowledge of self, knowledge of home, a clear picture of where I came from, where I will go, and the speed of things between will see me safely back. Knowledge of self…”
He focused on the steps he took and on the pressure of Quin’s hand. She was here with him.
He reached fifty-three paces and turned sharply to the right. He glanced at the instructions on his arm. Fifty-nine paces now. With the focal on, it was remarkably easy to keep his focus and count. But the helmet was whispering things to him, at the edges of his awareness: Why are you with her? She’s using you…She’ll never let you succeed…
He ignored those thoughts entirely. He knew they didn’t belong to him.
He looked back at Quin. Her eyes were fixed on him as she continued the time chant:
“Knowledge of self, knowledge of home…”
Here and there, in the darkness around them, were shapes, huddled mounds off to one side or the other that could be human forms—perhaps the bodies of others who had tried to follow this path and hadn’t made it. Shinobu wanted to look at them more closely, but he didn’t let his eyes nor his mind deviate from their path. He must count and walk properly. He reached the fifty-ninth step and turned to the left. Quin was still gripping his shoulder, her hand warm and reassuring. He paused to listen to her chant and discovered it was slowing down.
“A clear picture…of where I came from…where I…”
He couldn’t waste time. She was good at keeping her focus, but she wouldn’t be able to do it indefinitely. Fifty-four steps now, then turn right.
Who cares if she loses her focus? the focal whispered to him. What if she doesn’t matter as much as you think she does…
Shut up!
He came to the end of fifty-four steps and turned to the right. Thirty-four steps for the last leg. He began to walk. They were almost there.
“…the…speed…of things…between…will…see me…”
Quin was still chanting, but her words were slow.
All this while, the light from Shinobu’s lantern had hung before him like a perfect yellow sphere in the blackness. But now, when he reached the final twenty steps, the lantern’s rays met something up ahead, directly in his path. After a few more paces, he could see the outline of standing figures, their blinking eyes reflecting the lantern’s glow. This was both frightening and exhilarating; they had discovered the Middle Dread’s secret place.
The focal murmured more insistently: My Watchers, waiting for me; all of this, waiting for me. Shinobu pushed these ghostly thoughts away and concentrated on the weight of Quin’s hand.
Four figures were now clearly visible, two on the right and two on the left. He could see, in the flickering reach of the lantern, wool clothing and cloaks and young faces.
They’re waiting for me…
They walked between the two sets of Watchers, the smell of d
eath hanging heavy around them. Shinobu had no need to count anymore. The lantern illuminated a great pile of objects ahead. As he pulled Quin onward, these became recognizable. There were disruptors, a great row of them, there were whipswords, there were athames…and there were countless other objects that looked dangerous and valuable.
All of this is for you. Quin is slowing down…Let her slow down…
No!
He walked with Quin to the very center of this collection and held up the lantern. Faintly, at the edge of its reach, he could make out other pairs of Watchers, forming a circle around the treasure.
He shut his mind to the focal, held its whispers at bay. Yet he could feel them trying to seep back in. One thought came to him, so gently and irresistibly that he was not sure if it was his own or not: What if she’s safer here?
What would happen if he and Quin woke these Watchers and tried to use them for their own ends? The stone medallion should give them authority over the boys, but even if it did, Shinobu didn’t believe that gaining control of them would happen easily or smoothly. All on its own, his mind ran through every time he’d seen Quin’s life in danger: John galloping after her on the estate; John and his men beating her on the Bridge; Briac attacking her on Traveler; the Watchers in the hospital room, and jumping through the anomaly, and on the estate, and on the Bridge canopy. Each time had felt like death to him, but worse than his own death would be.
Anyone who’d followed the Middle—the Watchers, Briac, Seekers who were willing to kill each other—was a danger to Quin, whether she had the Middle’s stone medallion on her side or not. Yet here she was, with Shinobu, walking in the Middle’s very footsteps. They were surrounded by Watchers, sleeping in the darkness, waiting to wake up. What else might be hidden here, between, ready to attack?
Is she safer here? came the thought again, stronger now, almost like a physical blow.
Without any awareness that he was doing so, he had slipped a hand into a pocket of his cloak, and he was gripping the stone medallion there. He felt the cool disk in his palm, and his thumb and the tips of his fingers clutched its smooth edges.