A Magic King (43 page)

He gave her a cocky grin, then supported her as best he could while she grabbed onto the rope. Like with the plastic slide, there wasn't really time to think. She was moving before she could even breathe, and eternally grateful for Steve's homemade gloves.

As it was, she zipped right down, and if it weren't for Daken catching her, she would have brained herself right there on the dirty factory floor.

Steve, of course, came down like he was part monkey, which given this population, was entirely possible. Even so, Jane began to feel totally inadequate for this little rescue mission.

"Where to now?" Daken asked from beside her.

Jane looked up from where she squinted into the darkness. "What?"

"Where to now?" Daken repeated, his annoyance making his words sharp. "Where are my people?"

Jane lifted her arms. "Here."

Daken looked around. "Here? In this filth?" He kicked at a rancid piece of meat, and together they watched it roll into a fetid pool of water.

Jane sighed. "This place is huge. I think it's a storage area of sorts." She pointed at piles of rotting fruit, another of some cured meat. All the different things the Tarveen must have scavenged from villages because they clearly didn't cultivate their own food. "Your people are probably hiding, doing their best not to become today's lunch."

Even in the murky light, Jane could see Daken's muscles twitch. "Those sounds, the crying, those are from my people? Hiding like rats in the darkness?"

She could see the pain etch its own horror into his face. She knew he thought about the men of Toedo or perhaps others he'd known. All strong fighters defending their homes. That they would be reduced to the sobbing wails that surrounded them was more than sad. It was a crime.

"Come on," she said. "Let's find them."

"How?" asked Daken softly, turning in a wide circle as he scanned the gloom. "How can I be heard over this din?"

Jane was also thinking the same thing when Steve's magelight exploded into a floodlight. One moment they squinted at shadows. The next, everything was buried in a whiteness so bright, she closed her eyes. When she finally ventured to open them in a squint, she saw more than half the entire assembly illuminated in the harsh lighting. From floor to ceiling, in nests and alcoves throughout the machinery, she picked out dark ovals of faces. Most were shielded by stringy hair, some were half covered in blood.

But all were silent.

The hush fell over them like the muting layers of dirt over a grave. Jane fought the chills creeping up her spine.

Only Daken seemed to keep his cool. He drew himself up like the king he was and spoke loud and clear into the room. His voice echoed up and down the passageway, reverberating in the old metal, echoing off the network of beams and rotting cables.

"My people. I am Daken, your King. I've come to rescue you. We have made a tunnel free of the Tarveen. You must come with me now, and I will lead you outside."

All along the rafters and the beams, the word "outside" spun and echoed around them. It was repeated in hushed whispers by a thousand voices until it became a wave rolling over them, crashing around them. Everywhere she looked, Jane saw movement. Creeping dirty bodies running along beams, crawling out from under filth too nauseating to think of, even sliding out of niches in the wall.

They came. Steve's magelight dimmed. Apparently he couldn't keep up the floodlight intensity for very long. Gradually, the harsh lighting muted to the soft brightness of a single candle, held high above Daken, showing his people the way to their king.

One of the first people to step forward was a huge, hulking figure of a man who, despite his size, still showed the signs of starvation in his hollowed out eyes and drawn face. Daken didn't see him at first. He was busy watching a pregnant woman, her body emaciated except for her bulging middle, as she walked on trembling legs out from behind the pile of rotting fruit. But Jane saw the man, and she worried about the strange gleam in his eyes, not knowing if it was excitement or madness.

She gripped her dagger.

Then he spoke, his voice booming over the noise of hundreds of people getting ready to escape. "You are not our king, little brother, but we welcome your rescue nonetheless."

Daken spun around, his eyes wide with hope. "Tev! You're alive!" He walked straight into the larger man's arms, and they hugged each other as only two bears can. "By the Father, you're thin."

"Bah," Tev said, spitting his disgust at the floor. "Tarveen aren't gracious hosts."

Now that they were next to each other, Jane could see the family resemblance. Though Tev was darker and thinner, they had the same body build, the same chiseled features.

Daken drew back, and Jane read the slight tremor of fear passing through his expression with his next words. "What about Mother and Father?"

"They're well. Or as well as you can get in this cursed place. Come on. I'll take you to them."

Tev started to draw him forward, but Daken held back, hesitating as he looked at Jane. She shook her head. "You go on. Steve and I will lead the people out."

She saw him stiffen, and his eyes grew cold. "Steve will show them out. You will stay."

She lifted her chin, glaring at him, defiance in every line of her body. He wanted her to direct him to the Tarveen nursery, but nothing he said or did would induce her to help him murder children. Even Tarveen children.

She turned her back on him, going to assist a brittle woman with a small child. Behind her, she heard Daken curse and move away. As he retreated, Jane looked up, focusing on a door barely ten feet from her.

It was the one to the nursery, and likely the first one Daken would try when he searched on his own. Jane looked away. There was nothing she could do.

Steve worked with some other men and women, quickly building a scaffold to the ceiling. From all around, they pulled out netting and ropes. No ladders.

"The Tarveen can't climb rope very well," explained one old crone.

Because of Steve's neon trail, the boy wasn't needed to lead the way out. Like Jane, he stayed behind to help the weaker ones. Jane picked out the strongest-looking man and told him to go first. She explained about the boat, warned him about the squirrels, gave him a big smile and pushed him on his way. He didn't need any more urging. He scrambled like a large, furless monkey up the rope network, then disappeared into the shaft. A moment later, she saw him reach down for an infant, before helping the mother.

Behind the little trio, a long line of people waited for their turn. Like spiritless refugees too shocked to absorb their rescue, they stood waiting without moving except to maintain a loud humming noise.

Like the people of Toedo, they knew the Tarveen didn't like noise. It would no doubt be years before any of them grew used to silence once again.

Glancing up, Jane saw more and more people disappear on their way to safety, and she felt a surge of joy. It had begun. The rescue was underway.

Still, she felt a vague unease, growing stronger with every minute in the factory. She wandered to the edge of the light, letting the gloom surround her even as the horror began to well up. She was close to Dr. Beavesly's memory. Whatever he suppressed grew stronger as the light grew dimmer. She almost had it. All she needed was to immerse herself more and more in the world of the Tarveen.

But the memory skittered away.

Then it happened. Not more than eight feet from her, a Tarvite appeared from a side door, scuttling in on all fours before rearing up on its hind legs. She heard a scream, and for the first time, she got a close-up look at Daken's enemy.

It didn't look human. That was her first thought. Except for its size, about five feet tall, it didn't look human at all. It looked like a cockroach. Its body was black, its limbs covered in dirty, thick hairs. Its torso had the oblong shape of a beetle with a heavy, leathery casing nearly three feet wide in the middle. Just above the thickest part, there were two coiled protrusions of unknown purpose, one on each side. Its head was small in comparison. A little round circle with bright bulging beetle eyes, and from its jaws extended claw like mandibles clicking ominously.

She absorbed the sight in a second, barely having time to register the Tarvite's presence, but the people around her were more familiar with it. They scattered like leaves in the wind, but one poor girl wasn't so fast. She'd been hurt, her leg gashed and infected, and the Tarvite turned to her as she tried to limp away.

Jane was already moving forward to intervene, though what she planned to do was beyond her. There wasn't even time for her first step before it happened. The coiled protrusions at the Tarvite's belly snaked out. Like twin whips, they wrapped around the girl and reeled her in. There wasn't even a moment to scream before the Tarvite landed full body on top of its victim, its mandibles ripping out her throat. Blood spurted out, covering the Tarvite and the dead girl, but the thing didn't notice. It ate on top of her, its heavy mandibles making short work of the body.

Jane covered her mouth against the scream coiled in her throat. No human ate like that, cannibal or not, but from somewhere deep within her came the awareness of human life within the Tarvite. The thought was irreconcilable with the sight before her, but from somewhere—from the core of Dr. Beavesly's knowledge—was the certainty that he had a kinship with these horrible Tarveen.

Dr. Beavesly's memories were thick and heavy against her mind. What she struggled so long to find suddenly became an overwhelming vomit of emotions and impressions she fought against. She was suffocating beneath their weight.

She fell to her knees, fighting an inexorable pull like a lead weight, dragging her under the sea of these memories.

From somewhere to her right, she heard a scream.

Looking up, she saw the door to the nursery open. Another Tarvite, this one larger than the other, reared up onto its hind legs. Not more than two feet away from it stood Steve, his eyes still transfixed by the remains of the young girl.

He was oblivious to the danger beside him.

The new Tarvite swiveled its beetle head, focusing on the boy.

"Steve!" she screamed.

He turned too late. The protrusions snapped out, wrapped around him, and drew him in.

Chapter 17

She didn't think. There wasn't time. She simply reacted.

She didn't even realize she'd pulled out the Beretta, snapped off the safety and shot all in one quick move. And then shot again.

She didn't know what she'd done until she saw the Tarvite on its back, its head blown into a thousand pieces, a thick ichor draining from its body onto the wall.

Steve hauled out a knife. Even from this distance, she could see his hands shaking. He cut away the protrusions and stepped away from the Tarvite.

Then the relentless pressure of Dr. Beavesly's memories drew her under.

* * *

Pulling. Something pulled her away. Far, far away. No, she told herself. Dr. Beavesly was being pulled. This was his memory, but even knowing that, she relived it, every nerve-curling agony, every mind-numbing pain, she felt it as he had almost a century ago.

Dr. Beavesly was content with his computer. Even as a spirit, he managed to set up the solar cells, giving power to the millions of microchips that had become his world.

Until he felt the call.

It started out like an itch, and he hadn't felt an itch since he'd been alive. But within moments it was a passion, a need so strong he'd never felt the likes of it before. He needed to go, needed to find out where and who called him. It possessed his thoughts, ruled his mind, this all-consuming need.

He skimmed through the optic lines, and when they were broken, he hopped over to the power cables. He zipped along at the speed of light, pulsing with a drive that climbed exponentially the closer he came to his destination.

Barely registering the distance he traveled, he guessed he was somewhere in Detroit, maybe a university or a factory, given the computer equipment through which he raced.

He was nearly there. Nearly—

Then he saw her. A beautiful woman with a strange light in her eyes. She looked young, her blond hair glistening in the candlelight of the dark room, but when he looked at her face, into her eyes, he saw great age. Not her physical age, but of the knowledge she held, the spell she wove about her as she used a power different than the surrounding radiation. Or rather it was and it wasn't.