MORTAL COILS (65 page)

The
only evidence of cutting through his body had been a faint thrumming in the
rubber band.

He
grabbed her arm and brushed her hair, singeing it. His other arm grabbed her
shoulder, burning through her shirt and leaving blisters . . . before his arms
had fallen away—his top half cleanly severed from his bottom.

Blood
gushed from his body and extinguished his flames, but Fiona only vaguely
remembered that part.

What
had been burned into her mind more than anything else was his smile. As if he
were one of those stupid clowns at the entrance. As if he’d been happy to die.

Fiona
tore off her rubber band and flushed it. She never wanted to see it again. It
had killed someone.

No
. . . she had killed someone.

The
Council had been trying to get her to do that all this time. They’d changed her
from a pawn into a killer. But the final decision had been hers, hadn’t it? It
had been a simple choice: become a murderer or be killed.

Her
hands trembled. All the color had drained from them. She’d never seen her skin
so pale before.

She
wanted to pass out and forget everything, but her body wouldn’t let her. She
turned back to the toilet and more chocolate came from somewhere deep inside
her.

Eliot
knocked again gently on the door

Fiona
gasped for air. “Go away!” she screamed. “I never want to see you again.”

50

BEING
THERE

Eliot’s
hand hovered over the bathroom doorknob. His sister needed him. She was sick
and crying. But he’d never heard her so angry before.

Who
could blame her for being angry? Grandmother had barely batted an eye when they
had returned with Amanda . . . with the entire carnival burning to the ground
behind them. She hadn’t asked how they got away. She hadn’t asked about Mr.
Millhouse, either. She probably already knew everything.

Grandmother
and Cee had left them at the apartment. Amanda had to be taken to the hospital,
then probably reunited with her parents. He wondered if he’d ever see her
again. She had clung to him and Fiona all the way on the ride back—and had to
be torn away by Cee.

And
while Cee took care of Amanda, Grandmother was probably halfway to the Council
by now to report that they had passed their bloody second trial.

A
leaden feeling settled in Eliot’s stomach as he realized that meant there’d be
a third trial. He didn’t know how they’d make it through another one.

He
remembered how Fiona had stood up to Millhouse at the last moment. He should
have faced him with her. He was ashamed that he’d just stood there, frozen,
terrified, like a complete dork.

While
Fiona had cut Millhouse in half.

He
was sure that’s what he had seen; that wasn’t an optical illusion. He hadn’t
lingered afterward because the place was burning, but it was obvious that the
top half of the guy had fallen one way and his lower half had fallen the other
way.

And
the blood . . . there was so much. Enough to finally extinguish his fire.

Fiona
had cut through the carousel, too. He hadn’t seen any knife. Although now that
he thought about it, it would’ve taken a blowtorch or buzz saw to slice through
as fast as she had.

He
had a million questions for her. Again his hand rose to the bathroom door, but
inside he heard her crying.

Not
yet. She needed time.

He
turned to leave and give her some privacy, but halted. It felt wrong to leave
her alone, too.

Eliot
sighed and sat quietly on the floor

“I’ll
be right here if you need me,” he whispered. There was no way she could have
heard him, but just saying this made him feel a little better.

He
couldn’t leave his sister when she needed him so much. As Cee had said, they
were stronger together. Maybe it counted even if Fiona didn’t know he was here.

He
crossed his legs and inspected his backpack. There were scuffs on the canvas
where the black horse had almost trampled it. He checked the violin again. Yes,
she was reassuringly intact.

He
then pulled out the heavy Mythica Improbiba.

Eliot
glanced over his shoulder. The apartment was empty, but he checked anyway. If
Grandmother came in and found him with this particular book—successful trial or
not, it would have been confiscated. And he needed it. It had answers about the
family.

He
flipped it open and reexamined the medieval woodcut of the devil. It seemed to
be grinning at Eliot as it poked peasants with its pitchfork. Creepy stuff.

He
turned the page and found the next entirely covered with strange lettering.
Each character was composed of fine lines and tiny open circles and squares and
little curlicues. It wasn’t like anything he had ever seen before.47

47.
This passage in the Beezle edition of Mythica Improbiba is a variant of the
sixteenth-century artificial language developed (discovered?) by magicians of
the era, often called the Alphabet of the Angels. The lettering in Mythica,
however, does not match any previous version of this code and remains to this
day undeciphered. Victor Golden, Golden’s Guide to Extraordinary Books (Oxford:
1958).

There
were more pages of this weird lettering so Eliot quickly flipped ahead. As he
turned the vellum, he smelled the dust of a thousand miles and the sweat of all
the hands that had turned these leaves before him.

His
thumb brushed the edge of one page that was warm to the touch.

He
backtracked and found the page. The body contained Latin that ran together in
one long stream of letters, no spaces or punctuation. It had been illuminated
with crying saints, their halos tilted.

On
the edge of this passage, however, was something entirely different: a line of
seven tiny, stamped images. These weren’t like the fine woodcut he’d seen
before; these were rougher, like ancient pictograms one might find on a
Neanderthal’s cave wall.

In
the first one, stick figures huddled together, obviously cold. In the others, a
man left the group and headed up a mountain . . . up to the sun . . . he
reached out and touched it . . . his left hand ignited . . . he ran back to the
group. In the last pictogram all the figures sat around a campfire.

As
Eliot ran his finger over these pictures, the ink warmed. Or had they been
warmer than the surrounding pages to begin with? The one where the man reached
out and touched the sun was particularly hot.

It
had to be his head playing tricks with him.

He
turned the page and the pictograms continued.

Unhappy
faces appeared in the sky over the group . . . the one man with the burning
hand stood alone before them.

Eliot
knew how the man felt, because this reminded him of how he and Fiona had stood
before the Council.

The
next block showed the man tied to a rock . . . a large blackbird landed upon
him . . . and fed. Strangely his hand still burned.

Just
like Mr. Millhouse.48

Eliot
closed the book.

It
was just a fairy tale, but part of it felt real: the part where the gods were
cruel.

48.
The fire-bringer legend is ubiquitous in many cultures, in which heroes/gods
endure trials or engineer trickery to bring the gift of fire to humanity. Many
of these heroes are revered, but many others are punished. In Greek mythology,
Prometheus for his crime was chained to a rock and every day an eagle would rip
out his liver, which regrew overnight, which was to repeat throughout eternity.
It is considered an apocryphal lesson to teach primitive man not to meddle with
the gods. Yet without the gift of fire, where would mankind be? Many
anthropologists wonder if this tale is not actually a propaganda piece,
martyring those who have defied the gods. Gods of the First and Twenty-first
Century, Volume 4: Core Myths (Part 1), 8th ed. (Zypheron Press Ltd.).

Would
something similar happen to him and Fiona if they failed the Council’s last
test?

Just
a few days ago he was daydreaming of adventures and heroics. He ran his hand
over the rough rhinoceros-hide cover of the book. There was a lot more to being
a hero than he had ever realized. Right now, he would have given anything to go
back to his old life.

Eliot
hadn’t heard any noise from inside the bathroom for a while. He reached for the
door to knock, but he didn’t have to.

From
under the door, fingertips reached out to him.

Somehow
Fiona had known he was there.

He
touched her fingers. They were ice-cold. He squeezed them and their warmth
returned.

“I’m
here,” he whispered. “I’ll always be here for you.”

Behind
the door, Fiona quietly started to sob again.

Eliot
didn’t let go.

51

EVOLUTION

Henry
was worried. The world was changing. And while he enjoyed change (in fact, he
lived for it), this was the kind of change where people died. He could feel it
coming in his bones. Heightened security, no one smiling, and worst of all—no
one was drinking.

Well,
one person was drinking: Aaron. The one among them who shouldn’t be.

They
had decided to meet this time on Henry’s ship, Wayward Lost. She was a
sixty-foot yacht of teak and polished brass, powered by sail, and crafted with
love.

He
settled next to Aaron on the stern and asked, “Do you have a glass for an old
friend?”

Aaron
glowered and thrust a bottle at him. “No glasses.”

Aaron
had not changed clothes, or his sour mood, since the last meeting—quite the
binge he had embarked upon.

Harry
sighed and took a delicate swig of the 1890 Napoleonic brandy. It was a crime
to not let it breathe properly, but also a crime to let Aaron drink alone on
such an occasion. After all, if the end of the world was nigh, one should not
face it sober.

The
Wayward Lost rolled gently up and down on the waves inside an iceberg. This
particular ice hollow bobbed in the waters near the Diomede Islands between
Russia and Alaska. It had been carved by wind and water into delicate scallops
that towered over them more glorious than any man-made cathedral. Intense
arctic summer light filtered through—golden and blue and wavering with
reflected water lines.

They
were completely hidden here from spy satellites and prying eyes.

The
waters nearby bubbled, and Gilbert’s finned submarine, The Coelacanth,
surfaced. The craft could have sailed directly out of the pages of a Jules
Verne tale. This submarine, however, was powered with a real nuclear core.

Hatches
opened, gangplanks extended, and the Council came aboard.

Dallas
wore a dainty sailor’s uniform. Kino had donned a black suit, overdressed as
usual. Cornelius looked as if he had not slept in days, eyes ringed with
shadows and his MIT T-shirt rumpled. Lucia wore red capris and a white halter
that accentuated her graceful motions. Gilbert wore jeans, a sports jacket, and
thick chains of gold about his wrists and throat, just as he had in the old
days.

They
took their places next to Henry and Aaron on teak benches.

Lucia
settled on the center seat and rang her tiny silver bell.