Council of Peacocks (47 page)

Jessica’s lips turned up slightly. “Yeah.
Tomorrow. It helps to remember there just might be a tomorrow.”

Elaine opened the dark metal door and led the
way forward. The tunnel, carved roughly out of earth, measured at
least fifteen feet wide and nearly twice as tall. It seemed to go
on forever. Glowing crystal orbs, nearly identical to the ones in
Echo’s underground apartment, filled the space with a soft but
pervasive light. The air smelled of fresh mud and earthworms even
though the floor was covered in pristine tiles. The only sound was
the soft click of their footsteps.

Josh felt his body tense, ready for a fight.
Sweat dripped down his forehead, nearly blinding him as it slid
into his eyes. By the time they reached the first intersection, he
was panting.

Elaine held up a hand, signaling them all to
stop.

Silence.

Josh strained his ears, listening for a sign
of whatever Elaine had heard. There it was – the mumble of distant
voices. Jessica bit the side of her left index finger to keep her
teeth from chattering. Garnet looked down at her and smiled weakly.
Jessica threw her hand forcefully to her side and squared her
shoulders. Elaine knelt down, lifted her Mariner shotgun and braced
for fire.

Then the lights flickered. An invisible power
hissed through the air and the glowing orbs dimmed. Darkness poured
out over the floor, seeping like sewer water through the cracks in
the wall. Shadows dripped from the ceiling, filling the air. Josh
ignored it. His attention was focused on five tall figures ahead of
them.

He bit into his lower lip as they turned a
corner and walked slowly and deliberately toward the Anomalies.

As the shadows grew, the approaching figures
spread their wings.

Chapter Thirty-Five

David was alone in a dark place. His sense of
balance faltered. Tiny slithering things crawled over his skin, but
he knew they were not really there.

‘Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it! Is this
where the crazy people go?’ As the thought echoed in his mind, he
found he was no longer alone. He opened his eyes and saw a young
man in a light blue t-shirt and faded jeans. His hair was nearly
the same shade of red as David’s, his eyes luminous yellow like
candlelight from a jack-o’-lantern. All over his body, orange and
blue flames danced without consuming flesh. Dane Houghton, his
third murder.

“Still haven’t taken that shower, have you?”
Dane had a smile on his pale face.

“Go away!” David screamed as loud as he
could. The sound hit his ears muffled and distant, like someone
else’s voice in a neighboring room.

“Or what? You’ll kill me? That only works
once, even for a monster like you.”

David closed his eyes and covered his face
with his forearms. “Not real! Not real!”

Even with his eyes closed, there was no
escaping. David could feel the heat from the flames more than ever.
Flames crackled and he listened to sizzling sounds like bacon on
the grill.

“What’s the matter, David? Can’t deal with
what you are? A monster. That’s what you are. Monster. Deny it all
you want. Avoid it as long as you can. You can run away to Toronto,
Hong Kong or Greece. It won’t change what you are.”

“No.”

“A loser.” The air grew hotter.

“Get away from me.”

“A murderer.”

David felt pain on his arms and face. The
crackling of the flames seemed very close to his head now, as if
Dane was leaning down.

“I. Am. Not.” David shook his head. The smell
of burning hair and fat hit his nostrils like a hammer. He knew it
was human flesh.

“Of course you are. Three strikes, you’re
out, bud. It’s time you just admit what you are. You, David Ross,
are a cold-blooded murderer and a monster to boot. I mean, you set
me on fire for saying you smelled bad. Over-reaction, much? Made
you see a part of yourself you don’t want to deal with. Well, you
are dirty, Mr. Ross, filthy dirty, and no amount of showers or
running away is going to change that. It might best for everyone if
you just stayed in this little corner of hell.”

“Hell?” David opened his eyes and let his
hands fall down to his side. Only a few inches away from his face
was a burning cadaver, raw flesh over off-white bone. The only
thing human about it now was the way the eyes glistened with
hatred. “You just took one step too far. You’re right about one
thing, though. I have been a loser. All this time wasted feeling
sorry for myself. No more. If I’m damned for what I am, so be it.
You think this is hell? Let me show you what HELL REALLY IS!”

David backhanded the burning skull. As the
corpse fell to its knees, David stretched his arms out above his
head. Thin streams of white and blue flame cascaded from his palms,
twisting in the air like whirlpools, and swam in curved lines
toward Dane. Even though the body was already on fire, the wave of
flame that came from David created a new level of consumption.
Within seconds, the whole body had been consumed, little but pale
ashes left in the shape of a skeleton.

Then the darkness returned.

David felt the grin that had settled on his
face slip away. He lowered his arms and stared at his palms. For a
moment he felt absolutely nothing. Then he remembered. He thought
back on each of the lives he had taken and remembered how much he
had enjoyed it. Murder and destruction came to him easily. It was
the after-effects he had the difficulty with.

“I really am a monster, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

David’s eyes went wide at the voice. It was
grating and ephemeral, not in the least bit human. If ice and stone
could speak, it would sound like this.

“Who are you?”

From out of the darkness came another
figure.

***

Todd opened his eyes and found himself
speechless. He was back in Alaska at the oil company work yard.
Dozens of trucks, doors open, burned. Oily black smoke rose from
orange flames. Charred bodies lay everywhere, still smoking.

He looked down at his hands.

They were covered in blood.

‘
It wasn’t like this,’
he thought.
‘It wasn’t this bad.’

“Of course it was.”

Todd turned quickly at the voice. Even though
he recognized it, he refused to admit what his eyes were
seeing.

“Bethany,” he said. “You’re dead.”

“Not in this place.” Her slightly-wrinkled
face broke open in a smile. She was dressed in a loose grey gown.
Her hair flowed impossibly long behind her in a gentle wind that
Todd could not feel.

“I have to get out of here, Beth. Wisdom
needs me. Wisdom….”

“Wisdom can suck my arse.” Her hands slid
slowly down her dress until they reached the hem. “Or even better,
maybe you can.” With a deliberation that was uncomfortably
seductive, Bethany pulled the gown up over her body until she was
naked to the neck. Todd wanted to turn away from her grey pubic
hair and wide hips but found himself stuck. He started to shake as
she turned around and bent over.

Todd took a step forward.

“Come on, Toddy.” Bethany reached behind her
and spread her butt cheeks. “I know you want this as much as I do.”
Then something gushed out of her behind – a dark green liquid shot
through with gold flecks. Todd screamed but found himself still
walking forward. When he was next to Bethany, he knelt down. The
green liquid splashed into his face. He opened his mouth to scream
and it poured into him.

‘
Not like this, not like this, not like
this.’
Something inside him started to gurgle, then things
blurred and the darkness returned.

***

Echo looked down at herself.

“What the hell?” She found herself in a
frilly hoop skirt, her torso choked by a corset. Her hair was done
up in an impossible mockery of the style of the Southern states
during the War of Independence. She was in a ballroom, immaculately
decorated in rococo gaudiness. Dozens of crystal chandeliers shone
candlelight down on a ghostly orchestra and delicate phantom women.
Transparent shades of men in British uniforms drifted between
marble pillars that went on as far as she could see.

“Wisdom, is this your idea of a joke?”

The sky darkened. “Wisdom isn’t here, little
Andromeda. Or should I call you Echo?”

She looked around and saw nothing but ghosts.
Even though she had never met the owner of that voice, she knew who
it was.

“Oh my. I…”

“Silence.”

Echo licked her lips and looked around for
some sign of help.

“Like I said, little Echo, my son is not
here. This little conversation is just between the two of us.”

“What do you want with me?”

The sky darkened even more.

“It’s unnatural. You. Wisdom. The others. You
shouldn’t exist. I’ve allowed you to go on for a time because it
amused me. But I’ve been told that I can’t allow you to exist any
longer.”

“Told by whom? I thought you were like….”

“The end of the chain?” The temperature
dropped and everywhere she looked, Echo saw the world taking on
more shades of blue. It was as if the air itself was freezing. “Is
that what Wisdom told you or did you just think of that one by
yourself? I’m still accountable to my superiors. Nothing of the
Djinn can be on Earth much longer. It is too dangerous. Tell me,
child, what is it about you that makes you so special? Why is
Wisdom going to all this trouble just to...?”

The voice stopped.

“To do what?” Echo stared up at the sky, not
sure she wanted the answer.

“Of all the nerve,” the voice answered. “The
boy has gone crazy.”

“The boy?” Echo swallowed. “Wisdom? What is
he…?”

“Leave me. I’ll deal with you later.”

Everything around Echo whirled and melted
together like a fresh oil painting submerged in boiling water.
Before she could react, the sensations stopped. She was back in the
storage room.

“What the hell?”

Echo turned at the voice. Todd, his face and
chest covered in green goo, stood next to David. The others were
gone. She looked down at herself and saw she was back in her
pantsuit.

“I think Wisdom just bought us some time,”
she said. “Let’s put it to good use.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to
the dark, but Wisdom knew immediately he was in the right place. He
was back in the forest where the stranger had transported Josh and
his cousin to another world.

The air smelled different now. Without the
influence of his father to cover up the natural scents, Wisdom
sensed within seconds what had never occurred to him before.

“There’s a doorway here.” With an exertion of
will, he altered his perception. Not only could he see perfectly
well in the dark now, he could also make out lines of energy and
force beyond human sight. Many of the lines were magnetic in
nature. Like veins of the planet, they pulsed and flowed with life.
But there was another system here too, a subtle network of power he
had seen in few places on Earth. “That’s why the stranger chose
this place. The walls between worlds are thin here.”

There are many ways you can spend your life,
especially if you are immortal. Wisdom had spent his life amassing
every kind of power. In a civilized world, the greatest source of
power is information. Aside from military strategies and the secret
world of finance, over his long life Wisdom had learned quite a bit
about the nature of things. He had learned most of it only after
coming back to Earth. Whatever knowledge the Djinn had, he never
bothered teaching it to Wisdom.

Parts he had gathered from the Akashic
Records; others by talking with mystics and scholars around the
world. He knew that, for the most part, solidity was an illusion.
True reality was made up of energy. Thought patterns and the
collective consciousness of all living things maintained the
illusion of reality.

Like pressure points in a human body, certain
locations were naturally weak. A small exertion of pressure in the
right spot could split open the whole thing. Others, like
Stonehenge or the Vulture Antechamber, were manufactured weak
points: piercings like a badly healed break.

Wisdom followed the lines of energy through
the woods. To his eyes they looked like interchanging webs of mauve
and navy blue lights. The scent of the stranger was strongest where
the light of the web was brightest.

He walked further into the woods through
knee-high grass. The trees, lush and green, filled the sky above
with healthy leaves and branches. The air was warm and humid but a
cool breeze blew shadows under the trees.

He saw the opening long before he reached it.
The mauve and blue streams of lights converged on one spot. “It’s
like my portals,” he whispered to himself. “It’s a rupture in time
and space, but it spreads out nearly a kilometer in all directions.
And it’s permanent. Lines of force anchored it like the roots of a
tree. Judging by the thickness of the lines, this doorway’s not
new. It must be centuries old.”

He approached the center of the door and ran
his fingers along the surface. Nothing happened, which confirmed
his knowledge of this type of portal. Mere contact was not enough
to travel through it. It would require an exertion of will.

“Here goes,” he said. He channeled his
willpower down through his arms and out through his fingertips. The
portal and its roots responded immediately. They swirled. Wisdom
stood back to watch the change. The colors intensified and the air
under the trees became slightly cooler. Wisdom touched the surface
again and his hand disappeared. He quickly withdrew it and centered
himself. “Here’s hoping he’s nearby. I’d hate to have to search the
entire planet.”

He stepped through the portal and noticed the
difference immediately. The trees on the other side were taller,
their leaves and bark different from any tree he had ever seen. The
quality of light changed, too. The forest in Windsor had been dark,
deep in the middle of night. Here the sun shone, its light more
orange than anywhere on Earth. One thing this place had in common
with the other forest was a complete lack of animal life. The only
thing that moved in the trees and underbrush was the wind.