Julia Vanishes (28 page)

“Lala,” his voice is a whimper. I feel his heart against mine,
thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
When I struggle to see the room again, I can see only Casimir, wheeling and screaming words I do not understand. I lunge back to the world, to the hall where I hid Theo before, clutching him and his
thud-thud-thud-thud-thud
against me. We hit the ground and I pull away again immediately, trying to take myself to the very edge, to that place where I am nowhere and see everything, beyond my usual vanishing but before I disappear completely into that burnt Spira City. I move down the hall in wild, vanishing leaps, back down to the bottom of the castle, all the way to where Gennady lies, eyes wide, arms spread, on his back on the ground. I have Theo in my arms, the gun in my good hand, and it is my own hand now.

“We need you,” I plead.

His eyes find me, slowly.

“I cannot walk,” he murmurs thickly through bloodied lips.

I kneel at his side. His broken legs twist out from his body at horrible, impossible angles.

“My boy?” He lifts a great hand to touch Theo, who pulls away, buries his face in my neck. Gennady lets his hand drop to the ground again with a thud.

“Bianka?” he asks.

“Casimir has her,” I say. “Or, that woman, Shey.”

“Drag me there if you have to,” he says. “I will break him, and then Shey also.” Desperation brings some strength back into his voice, but the idea of dragging him is ludicrous. He is too large.

“I can't,” I begin.

He rolls over with a groan, starts to pull himself along the floor with his mighty arms.

I don't know why I think it possible.

“Hold on to me,” I say. I help him to put his great arms around me, Theo between us. He smells of blood and burnt skin. I wrap an arm around his thick neck. He is massive and heavy and it is hard to think of anything but the pain in my hand and wrist and face, but longing to be free of that pain is what saves me. I pull our three bodies embracing on the floor right out of the world. We are at the edge of the river Syne, but the river is boiling, and nightgowned figures fall into it from a burning boat, again and again, silent. They stare at us with black eyes that mirror the flames. I draw away from it again and we land heavy down the hall. Theo cries out.

“What are you?” Gennady asks me, his blue eyes amazed.

“I don't know,” I say truthfully.

“You can go farther,” Gennady says, and I think he must be right. I pull them with me. The pain disappears with me. The hot wind screams, the streets steam, and winged monsters wail above us. A transparent whore with maggots in her eyes beckons from a burning doorway, her dress singed. Something with antlers moves toward me down the street, calling out to me.

“This is Kahge,” whispers Gennady, and without knowing why, I know that he is right. I carry them both, half in the world, half out, back to the Terra Room. There I hang, bodiless.

Casimir, part man, part winged beast now, is pivoting slowly. I return us to the world just above him, effectively dropping Gennady on top of him. Gennady's giant arms wrap themselves around Casimir's neck, pull back, one hand over his mouth. The two of them fall in a struggling mass to the ground, and I land next to them, with Theo, with the gun.

Shey is holding one finger in the air and looking at me curiously. The kind of look someone might give you at a party if they wanted to strike up a conversation. This time I do not hesitate. I cock the hammer and shoot her in the neck. She falls to her knees, one hand clamped to the wound, blood pouring between her fingers, over her hand, over her shoulder. I was aiming for the head, but never mind—there are more bullets. I shoot again and she falls backward with a creaking sort of gasp. There is such sorrow in the look she gives me as she falls. I shoot her again, and then again.

With the fourth bullet, everyone in the room collapses, whatever had held them in place suddenly gone, like puppets whose strings have been cut.

“Mama!”

Theo struggles free and I let him go. He runs for Bianka and she scoops him up.

“Go!” she cries, shoving me toward the door.

Casimir, his head locked between Gennady's arms, Gennady's big hand clutching his mouth, stares at me with his deadly gray eyes. I run.

We make our way in a scrambling mob out of the castle. I've dropped the gun, I don't even remember when or where, but I yank the lever on the wall with my good hand and we all pour out through the rising door in the outer wall. Nobody in pursuit. Not yet, anyway.

“What about Gennady?” I shout at Bianka.

“No,” she says, not looking back. I hope Sir Victor will be all right, but there is nothing I can do for either of them.

Frederick, Dek, and the professor have got the new mainsail rigged, and Frederick is waving his arms at us as if we might not be able to spot the boat otherwise. Nobody pauses; nobody speaks to consult. Gregor and Esme push the boat deeper into the water, Frederick unfurls the sails, and the professor takes the helm while the rest of us splash through the dark water and scramble over the side. Bianka is weeping freely, covered in blood, collapsed against the lifeboat with Theo in her arms. The wind fills the sails and the boat begins to move swiftly through the water. I feel it fully then—the pain in my wrist, my hand, pain in my face, my arm, my side. Every part of me hurts, and unconsciousness beckons, a respite from pain and terror.

“You all in one piece, Brown Eyes?” Wyn's hand is on my shoulder. I nod, though I don't know if I am or not. And there is Dek, smiling in spite of his swollen jaw and a long day of being soaked and trapped in the belly of the boat.

“I can't believe you pulled it off,” he says. “You look like you've been to Kahge and back, though.”

I hug him, squeezing my eyes shut. For a moment, holding my brother tight, I let myself imagine that yes, we've pulled it off, it's over, we're safe—Kahge and back is only an expression. But when I open my eyes, I see under the rising moon five sleek boats setting out in pursuit.

W
e do not speak. What is there to say? The boats are fast, and none of us are experienced sailors.

“Chalk,” rasps Bianka. The professor scurries belowdecks to get her some more. Esme is bent over her and is trying to do something about the knife and bullet wounds. Bianka ignores her, watches the boats, Theo clutched to her breast.

Gregor hands out pistols. Dek readies his little cannon. Frederick has the telescope, but he hands it to me when I go to his side. His eyes are all questioning concern. It is not easy to see anything in the dark, even with the moon nearly full, but through the telescope I can more or less make out the figures on the boats. These are not the guards we encountered on the island. I do not know what these things are. White-skinned, white-haired, naked, covered with tattoos. I can see Casimir on the deck of the nearest boat, arms behind his back, fur coat flapping in the wind. I wonder what has become of Gennady. I give the telescope back to Frederick and wipe blood from my chin with the sleeve of my dress. I know my nose is bleeding too, but it is throbbing too much for me to touch it.

“You ought to have Esme look you over,” he says. “Great Nameless, what happened to your hand?”

“He broke my wrist and every finger,” I say. I mean to sound cavalier, but it comes out a sad little bleat. My hand doesn't look like a hand at all anymore, rather a swollen, bloody mitt. Every time I move, the pain rips up the length of my arm. Frederick touches my other arm, about to say something, but then Gregor shouts out: “Everybody stand back; here it goes!”

Dek is peering through the eyehole at the top of his little homemade cannon. He swivels it slightly, then pulls a switch. A hiss, and one of his canisters goes shooting out in a great arc, a trail of yellow gas billowing out behind it. This is not capsicum, but sleeping gas. The aim is true, and it lands with a thunk on the deck of Casimir's boat. Casimir surges up on great wings and spirals above the boat. The ghostly, tattooed savages fall to the deck, unconscious and soon hidden by the cloud of yellow smoke turning brown.

“Remarkable!” cries Professor Baranyi. “Surely the Crown would pay you a fortune for this?”

“I've never approached the Crown,” says Dek. “Not sure I'd trust them to pay me, though.” He calls out to the rest of us: “Masks in the bag here by the lifeboat! If we end up too near the smoke, put one on!”

“How many do you have left?” asks the professor.

“Six,” says Dek.

He hits a second boat, and it too falls out of the line, drifting away in a brown-black cloud. I am watching Casimir above, circling higher and higher, a dark shape against the dark sky.

“Are you a good shot?” I ask Frederick.

“I'm fair,” he says. “Not as good as you.”

“That…thing,” I say, pointing. I don't trust my own aim right now. “Keep your gun trained on it and shoot it if it gets close enough.”

Frederick nods and looks up. The stars are coming out now.

A third canister just misses the next boat, lands hissing in the water next to it, smoke pouring off the waves and then extinguishing.

Bianka is trying to write something on the deck, but her chalk breaks and she falls against the lifeboat, her breath fast and ragged.

“Let Esme take care of you, by the holies,” I tell her. “You're going to die if you keep trying to fight with those injuries.”

Bianka gives me a lopsided little smile. “Not unless you throw me overboard,” she says.

“Well, you're too weak to do magic,” I tell her.

“And I don't know what happens to witches who've lost as much blood as you're losing, but I don't think even a witch can walk around with no blood in her,” says Esme sternly. Bianka is too weak to resist. Baby Theo clings to her, hiding his face against her.

Bianka stares at me over Esme's broad shoulders and says, “Whatever happens, don't let them take Theo.”

I hold up my gun solemnly, like a promise. Bianka nods her head, eyes drooping.

A fourth canister, a third boat out of the pursuit. I see another winged shape in the sky. It tangles briefly with Casimir, way up above us. Then he breaks free and dives.

“Shoot!” I shout at Frederick. “Shoot!”

Casimir is a great shadow overhead, his wingspan nearly equal to our boat's width, when we both fire on him. He veers off to the side, circling up again.

A fifth canister is shot out of the air and falls, billowing smoke. I can see wide white eyes now in the blank faces of the creatures on the nearest boat. There are six of them, rifles in hand, taking aim.

“Everybody down!” I cry. I throw myself down on the deck, and for a moment it hurts so much I think I've been shot. Wood flies here and there as bullets pepper our boat.

“Get belowdecks, all of you!” Gregor roars as soon as they stop to reload. “I'll hold them off!”

Wyn is at my side, and with the arm I can use I shove him toward Theo. “Take the baby down!” I shout at him. He gives me an entreating look, and I scream with what little voice I have left, “The bleeding
baby,
Wyn! I'm right behind you!” He takes Theo from a half-conscious Bianka. The professor and Esme lift Bianka between them. Dek is putting another canister into the cannon when a rifle shot rings out and he falls to the deck screaming. It is raining bullets again. I don't know where he's been hit, but Frederick has him already, good fellow, and is taking him below.

Casimir is circling closer and closer again, and I've lost the other winged creature, which I can only hope to be Mrs. Och, come from whichever island she'd waited on. I scramble for Dek's cannon and take shelter by the wheel. I find Casimir through the spy hole. Circling, circling, then diving, and he is out of my sight. I find him again, horribly close, fix him in the crosshairs, and pull the lever.

The canister shoots straight up and lodges itself in his chest. He falls straight onto our deck, so fast I barely get out of his way before he lands, feathers flying. I scramble for the bag of masks by the lifeboat as the yellow smoke pours right over our boat. I taste it, acrid and hot, and for a moment there is no up or down—I feel myself floating quite painlessly. Then the mask is over my head. I take a sharp, metallic breath, my senses returning to me. Casimir thrashes weakly and then falls still, his wings collapsed on the deck. I push my way through the smoke, breathing hard through the mask. The air feels thin and strange. I drag him with one arm toward what I hope is the side of the deck. He is not as heavy as I would have expected, but still it is slow going. Through the goggles of the mask I can see the smoke turning brown. My back hits the edge of the gunwale and I nearly tumble into the water myself. I don't know how I will lift him. Perhaps with both my arms I could do it, but not with one arm. I heave and heave, uselessly. Then suddenly his body lifts, tilts, falls into the water with a splash. I see another wicked-looking mask next to me as the smoke begins to clear, the boat moving out of the cloud of gas. She pulls the mask off as soon as we are in open air: Mrs. Och. Gregor is out cold on the deck, his pistol beside him.

She points at the two boats still in pursuit, closing on us.

“I want to call the wind,” she says. “Give me your strength.”

She takes my good hand in one of her furred, leopard-spotted hands. She begins to speak words I don't recognize. My vision narrows suddenly and then widens, spreads out an alarming 360 degrees. I try to pull my hand away, but she doesn't let go. I cry out and struggle uselessly. Not because I do not want to help her, but because I feel as if my life is being pulled out of me. It is painful, but not only painful. It is not just energy or strength being sapped, but something more elemental than that. Thought. Self. Breath. My very pulse pulling away from me. I am begging, though I am not sure for what. For it to stop. For my life. For forgiveness.

And so I remember later, but barely register at the time, the wind that rises behind the boat, the wind in our wake, a great roaring gale. I see the remaining two boats pursuing us tossed aside, capsized. I see Casimir emerging from the waves, wings outstretched, but he is blown back, out of sight.

It seems to last forever. When Mrs. Och lets go of my hand I fall limp to the deck, my vision closing to nothing, the world spinning into darkness. It occurs to me from a very great distance that I am dying. I am terribly sad but can do nothing, and I am sorry but cannot say so.

When I wake up, Wyn is there. His face looks unnaturally large, and he says, “A man can change, Brown Eyes, if he finds something worth changing for,” and I say “ghhhhrg” and he says, “Have I really lost you, Julia?”

The answer to that is more complicated than I have the strength for. It occurs to me that I might be dreaming or hallucinating, but I reckon I'd better say something anyway, in case I'm not, so I just say, “Yes.” Overlarge Wyn-face starts to cry, and it is all too much, so I pass out again.

The next time I wake, Dek is beside me, his own regular size, and I am in a bed. My broken hand is bandaged, each finger like a great gauze sausage. The first thing I do is lean over the side of the bed to retch. Nothing comes up. The world is swaying. Gradually I realize the movement beneath me is the movement of the boat. I recognize the room, the narrow bunks.

“Thank the Nameless One,” says Dek. “Have some water. Or some broth.”

I make a rasping sound, which alarms him slightly, then manage to say, “Water. Please.”

I force myself up, and he holds the cup to my lips. My throat is very dry and the water feels good, at least until it hits my stomach and then comes straight back up. A splitting headache takes hold, wrapping around my skull like a vise. I weep with the pain, but when it passes I am able to drink some water and some broth and feel somewhat restored.

“What's happening?” I ask Dek.

“We'll be landing in Naripi soon,” he says. “A Sirillian port town. You haven't missed much. Repairing the boat, tending to the ill and wounded, keeping a lookout for that mad fellow with wings.”