Eximere (The River Book 4) (22 page)

And then, the thumping of the marchers resumed, startling
Steven. The eyes of the marcher centered on him, and he knew the marcher was
now intent upon capturing its next victim. One step brought it a few more feet
in their direction, and for a moment they all thought it would continue towards
them. They scrambled off the blanket, retreating backwards on their hands and
knees. But the marcher turned at the edge of the blanket, and walked back
towards the house, patrolling.

“Good job on the boundary!” Steven said, exhaling, returning
to the blanket.

“God, that was horrible!” Eliza said.

“She may have been scared of them,” Steven said, “but I think
we just did her a favor. I think we gave her the way to break her pattern and
end the torment James had arranged for her.”

“I would agree with you,” Roy said. “I think in the end she
was ready to surrender, to have it be over.”

“I’d hate to go via one of those things,” Eliza said. “There’s
nothing left of her, it’s like they devoured her completely. Is that what it
did to Marilyn?”

“Well,” Steven said, “it was dark, so I couldn’t see it
exactly. But I heard it. And the blood came down. And then her corpse. With
her, they only removed her flesh.”

“Apparently they find a ghost as tasty as flesh,” Roy said. “The
good news is that by moving the marchers down here permanently, upstairs is
free of them.”

Eliza sighed. “What’s next?” she asked. “Once the marchers go
dormant, we go back into the house?”

“Yes,” Roy said. “We’ve still got to shut down the device. I
don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to risk leaving this spot until
they’re gone – not after what I just witnessed.”

“Agreed,” Steven said. “But after we shut down the device,
what about Percival? Jonathan?”

“I don’t know about you two,” Roy said, looking toward the
house and observing the marchers moving back and forth, “but I think we’ve
landed on a goldmine here. Not for money, but for the gifted. I think we need
to plan this out and play it smart.”

“You’re intrigued by the library, aren’t you?” Eliza asked.

“Yes,” Roy said, “and the objects you found. These items were
all stolen from people like us. It was a crime. They have children and
grandchildren who need them back.”

Steven thought this over. “Are you saying you want to try and
return them all? That’s a big order.”

“I’ve been thinking about this,” Roy said. “I’d like to have
something worthwhile to do in my retirement. Returning these books would be
worthwhile. And you could help, Steven. We’d figure the books out, one by one,
and try to return them to the proper people. Same with the objects, if they can
be figured out.”

“What about Percival?” Steven said.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Roy said. “We’ll need
a plan to deal with him. Here’s what I’m thinking: he’ll be jarred by what
happened to Jonathan. That’s our opening to set up a story in his mind. We need
to convince him that we’ve switched to his side. We’ll tell him that we found
the device and broke it accidentally, but that it’s fixable, and we want to try
and repair it so he can continue his work.”

“Why would he believe that?” Eliza asked.

“We’ll tell him we’ve seen what James was trying to do,” Roy
said. “We give him some kind of proof that we found James’ inner sanctum, and
we’ve become converted to his cause. We want to step in where Jonathan left
off. But it’ll take some time to repair the device, because we’ll have to do a
lot of research to figure it out. Years of research. What better option will he
have?”

“Meanwhile, we work on the library, and returning things to
their rightful owners?” Steven asked.

“Exactly,” Roy said. “Percival can have the upstairs. With Anita
and the marchers gone, maybe the place will become more of a draw, for tours.
The fact that we removed the marchers and Anita should convince Percival we
have enough power to pull off what we’re suggesting. He thinks we’re about to
be drained completely; he’ll be shocked to see how the tables have turned. He’ll
be lucky to have us on board. I think we can set this up any way we want, as
long as we play it right.”

“Might work,” Eliza said. “But what about access? I hate that
ladder.”

“I wouldn’t want Percival to even know when we’re here,” Roy
said. “I think we should seal off the pantry access, and place a protection on
it. We’ll leave the metal screen that he installed over the passageway door,
and place a protection on that as well. We’ll come and go through the prohibition
tunnel, find a way to access those metal doors as our method of getting in and
out. We just have to leave every night to avoid the marchers. We tell Percival
we’ll give him an update once every three or four months. Percival will have
the house and the hope that his plan will eventually get back on track, and
we’ll have this place to ourselves. He’ll never know when we’re here.”

Steven looked at Eliza said smiled. “Like a lair?”

“Yeah,” said Eliza, smiling back. “Kind of like a lair.
Filled with amazing things.”

“And a house that never needs dusting,” Steven said. She laughed.
It was nice to see her happy again.

“I don’t know how much time I can devote to helping you
here,” Eliza said. “I have my obligations in California. But I’d like to do as
much as I can.”

“Steven and I can take this on,” Roy said. “And you’ll be
welcome to come and go as you like.”

“I’d come here just for a vacation,” she said, turning to
look at the house. “There’s something about it that’s so relaxing and
peaceful.”

“Except for the marchers,” Steven said.

“Well, yes,” she said, “except for that.”

“Is it agreed then?” Roy asked the two of them. “We find a
way to seal this place off, give Percival the bullshit story, and see what we can
do to right the wrongs James committed?”

“Yes,” Steven said. “Agreed.”

“I agree too,” Eliza said.

Their conversation drifted into speculation on what the books
and objects in the house might contain. Roy said that for his part, he was
thrilled just to have Thomas senior’s book to restore to his personal book,
extending the family information back another generation. Then they began
talking about their own personal histories, sharing stories from the past. They
had several hours to kill before they’d be able to leave the safe spot behind
the banyan tree.

◊

“It’s time,” Roy said. He’d been pacing for the past several
minutes, waiting for dawn to arrive. “I’m sick of this blanket.”

“Help me with this, will you?” Eliza said to Steven, grabbing
the edges of the blanket and lifting it from the ground. They gave it a good
shake and folded it up.

Roy saw light slowly begin to spread. The marchers faded from
sight, and Roy began walking back to the house. He walked inside and went up
the stairs, heading to James’ bedroom. The others followed.

Inside the bedroom, Roy began looking over the items in the
room. “We need something that will help us convince Percival we know what we’re
talking about,” he said, opening the drawers of a dresser.

Steven walked over to the body on the bed.
James’ right
hand held the soul trap
, he thought.
I wonder if his other hand is
holding something?
James’ left hand was under the covers. Steven pulled the
covers down, exposing the right hand.
Not holding something
, he thought,
but wearing it
.

“How about this?” Steven said. Eliza and Roy walked over to
the bed and looked at the part of the body Steven had uncovered. On a finger of
James’ left hand was a ring, and on the ring was a golden oval.

“Same as the symbol on the door,” Eliza said.

“That’s it,” Roy said. “That should convince Percival. Can
you get it off?”

Steven had never removed a ring from a skeleton before. He
raised the finger from the bed and slipped the ring off. He felt a little like
a grave robber. He dropped the finger back onto the bed, feeling the willies go
up his spine.

He showed the ring to Eliza and Roy. It was gold, and had
intricate carvings surrounding the oval. “Looks about my size,” Steven said,
slipping the ring on his left finger where his wedding band used to be. It fit
perfectly.

“OK,” Roy said. “Time to find the device. Let’s go
downstairs.”

Steven pulled the bedcovers back to their original position.
It made him uncomfortable to leave them down, exposing more of James than they
had originally encountered. Then he followed Roy and Eliza downstairs.

In the library, Eliza once again found the bookcase lever and
tripped it. The bookcase slid back and to the right, exposing the stairwell.
They went down.

“Any idea how much of our abilities remain?” Eliza asked. “I
don’t think I could trance right now if I wanted to. Maybe enter the River, but
even that would be hard.”

“I don’t think we have much time left,” Roy said. “We’ve got
to find it quickly.”

Once they entered the basement room, they began searching the
tables for the device.

“There should be two spinning discs,” Roy said, “each going
in the opposite direction.” They walked among the tables, examining the
objects.

“Any idea how big it is?” Steven asked.

“No,” Roy said. “Might be very small; we don’t know.”

“Anything else the book said about it?” Steven asked,
examining the table in front of him. There were dozens of objects, all in
various states of assembly and operation.

“Guys,” Eliza said, “since I assume he would consider this
device his most important possession, maybe it’s not out here with the other
projects.”

Roy and Steven stopped where they were and looked up at
Eliza. She was standing by a door towards the back end of the room.

“Perhaps he segregated it from the others,” she said, “as an
additional way to protect it.”

Steven and Roy joined her at the door. It was locked, and by
the time they reached her, she had already begun to pick it. After a few
moments the lock clicked and she opened the door.

The room was small and plain, about ten feet square. Inside
was another work table, exactly like the ones outside. On it were three
objects. They immediately knew the middle one was the device. It was a clear
sphere, and suspended inside were two golden oval-shaped discs, slowly rotating
like a power meter. The top disc was rotating in a clockwise direction, and the
lower counter-clockwise. A thin rod, rising from the bottom of the sphere, held
them in place.

Surrounding the sphere was a black rim that held several
inscriptions. “So that others may be free,” Eliza said, reading one of them.

Under the sphere was a clear base, with several small
recesses. In the largest recess was a small glowing ball, about the size of a
quarter. Its edges were fuzzy and at times it appeared transparent.

“That’s where it’s collecting what it’s draining,” Roy said.

“
That
,” Steven said, “is your ability? That little
glowing ball?”

“It’s what this machine makes it into,” Roy said. “That’s
what Anita was using to increase her powers. I’m guessing James would store
these somewhere, once he was done draining someone.”

“That glowing ball,” Eliza said, “contains more than one
person. That’s all of us who were tagged. Five people’s abilities are in there
– well, four, if you don’t count Marilyn.”

“Here,” Roy said, pointing to one of the other objects on the
table. “This is where he stored them.” The object looked like a crystal cube,
with dozens of square sections inside. There was a metal handle sticking out of
one of the squares. Roy pulled it, and it removed the square from the cube. The
cube was cracked and broken. “Once that device completed its job,” Roy said,
demonstrating by moving the handle over to the device where the glowing ball
continued to pulse, “he’d use this to transfer it to the cube. Like a storage
container.”

“They’re all broken,” Eliza said, examining the cube.

“And the abilities they held gone,” Roy said. “Taken by
Anita.” Roy replaced the handle in the cube and returned to the device,
inspecting it. “Wish we could just pull a plug.”

“This isn’t going to be as simple as the book made it sound,”
Steven said. “I can’t see any way to get inside that sphere to stop the discs.”

Steven felt something warm on the top of his hand, which was
resting next to the device. He looked down and saw that it was blood. At first
he thought he was bleeding somehow, but then he saw another drop hit, and he
realized it wasn’t his blood. Roy was leaning over him, trying to inspect the
device. It was coming from Roy.

“Dad!” Steven said, “You’re bleeding!”

Roy stood back and raised his head. Blood was coming from his
nose.

“Me too!” Eliza said, staring down at her own hands, which
were covered in blood.

“You two will have to go back upstairs,” Steven said. “You
can’t be this close to it. I’ll figure it out.”