Promise: Caulborn #2 (26 page)

The screaming started a second later.

Chapter 12

Bargain 2 – Agreed to perform a transdimensional soul transfer for a renegade Chronicler so that he could escape the Tempus’s wrath. Procedure required displacing the soul through time using the Chronicler’s own chronometer, which was destroyed upon the process’s completion. Soul was transferred to a human fetus still in utero. Unclear on if process would be successful, so payment was provided in advance. Said payment consisted of a pocket dimension complete with structures and its own habitable atmosphere.

—From Keeper Laras’s Transaction Log

I spun around to see a lone, haggard Urisk scrambling toward me, tears streaming from his luminescent green eyes. My initial response to him was cut off by a sharp pain in my jaw. My tongue brushed up against a newly formed, fully re-grown tooth. Hooray for accelerated healing.

My attention snapped back to the wailing Urisk, and for a moment, I thought there may be lingering effects from the eclipse which had caused a chrysalis-zombie-Urisk apocalypse. Then I recognized him as Daimin.

“They are dead,” Daimin wailed. “Lord Corinthos, why didn’t you save them?”

“It was too late,” I said gently. “They were already gone by the time I got here.”

“But you’re a god!” Daimin exclaimed. “You can do anything! Bring them back, Lord Corinthos, please! Essa was just eight! Jerra was just five! My daughters, Lord Corinthos! My wife! Please, bring them back!” The light in his eyes rippled like stones thrown into a pool of water. His grief was all too palpable.

My heart broke. I could resurrect his family. In truth, it was such a simple task. But I wouldn’t. Because then every time someone died, people would want me to bring that person back, too. And it wouldn’t stop at people. Next they’d want resurrected pets. Commander Courageous had been very adamant with me about this. Don’t bring back the dead, he’d warned. You will be tempted, and that’s normal. You must resist the urge to do it. It will only lead to more heartache.

Pure self-loathing tightened in my chest as I looked at the heartbroken Urisk. I blessed Daimin and did my best to ease his pain as I laid a hand on his bony shoulder. “You wife and daughters are in Robac, Daimin. They run in the fields of paradise and are beyond pain and suffering now. Your family will be remembered as the loving and caring people they were, and will serve as an example of how Urisk should lead a good life.”

“And what did that get them?” Daimin demanded, pulling back from my touch. “They’re dead, Lord Corinthos. They’re dead!” Some of my priests heard the commotion and came running from the cathedral. Daimin fell to his knees, sobbing. One of the priests put his hand on Daimin’s shoulder, and Daimin leaned into him.

I was grateful for the priest’s presence; I couldn’t find the words to comfort Daimin, but hopefully he could. “Take care of this man,” I said to the priest, hating myself even more. “Give him whatever he needs in his hour of grief.” He nodded his assent. I kept my composure but inside I was berating myself. This man’s wife and children were innocents, and I’d failed to protect them.

Focus on the living, I told myself. There will be time for grief later. But I couldn’t quite drown out the voice saying, “You’re a failure, Corinthos. Nothing but a huge failure. And an asshole. What kind of god won’t use his powers for the simplest of tasks like this one?”

Sometimes, doing the “right” thing really sucks.

I’d fully healed and needed to get back to Boston. I left the Bright Side and leaned against the side of the Children’s Museum for a few moments. I was a wreck of tangled emotions. Well, mostly it was self-loathing. I was having a hell of a time thinking. Doc’s Caddy was just ahead, but I didn’t see him anywhere. My eyes started to itch. Something wasn’t right. My vision was narrowing. My legs buckled, and I hit the pavement. I couldn’t feel my legs. My head rebounded off the frozen pavement.

“Oh shit.” Doc’s voice. “Hang on, Corinthos. Don’t you die on me now.” He got his hands under my armpits and dragged me back to the Caddy. I managed a few clumsy telekinetic lurches that helped direct my nonresponsive body onto the back seat. Doc was breathing hard as he got behind the wheel. “This was a stupid idea,” he wheezed as he pressed a button on the dashboard. “Jake, have Medical prepped for an emergency reception. Corinthos is down. Again.”

I woke up in Medical. Again. I was starting to get a complex about this place. The clock said it was early afternoon, so I hadn’t been out for too long, thankfully. Doc looked at me over the top of his clipboard. “Oh, trust me, Doc, I’ll be totally fine. I’m a god, Doc,” he said in a falsetto voice.

“I do not sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks,” I said, pulling myself into a sitting position.

“No, they sing better than you, and they’re smarter.” He jabbed a finger at me. “You are off active duty until you heal, got that?”

“I don’t understand,” I said as I tried to push my frustration aside. “Going to the Bright Side always fixes anything that’s wrong with me. I felt great while I was there. I regrew a tooth for crying out loud.”

“If that poison is as smart as I think it is, it’s possible it altered itself at the molecular level when it sensed your power increasing. Think of it like when a bacterium goes inert in cold weather; it doesn’t die, but instead goes into a sort of hibernation. Your temperature has gradually been increasing over the last twenty minutes, so I think the poison’s run its course. I’ll need to run some more tests to know for sure, which means I’ll need to keep you here for further observation.” He fixed me with a stern glare, and when I didn’t argue, he gave a little nod. “Now then, I’m going to get a carton of cigs. You stay put.”

“Yes sir,” I said. I counted to sixty and got out of bed. I was still woozy, but the world didn’t spin too much as I pulled my clothes on. That the poison had remained in my system after going to and from the Bright Side was bad, but it must be just about done. Doc had even said so.

I got into the elevator, leaned against the wall, and stabbed at the button for my office’s floor. As the doors closed, I pulled out my phone and dialed Cather. “How you feeling?” I asked him when he picked up.

“I loathe complaining, old friend, but I must say that I have been better. The kobolds say that there was some rather nasty poison on that blade, and it’s taking them a bit to concoct an antidote. That said, they have been most helpful with their ministrations.”

“I bet,” I said, happy that Cather wasn’t seeing the kobolds as an inconvenience anymore. “Are they teleporting beautiful women to your bedside?”

There was a pause. “Teleport?” He chuckled. “Ah, I suppose I can see how it would look like that. They can turn invisible, Vincent. Then they move around while they can’t be seen. It’s something they learn to avoid predators.”

“That makes sense. What about their telepathy? Do you find it strange to have voices pop into your head?”

A longer pause this time. “Kobolds can’t communicate telepathically, old friend. I think you might have them mixed up with some other fairy creature. They can turn invisible, perform minor magical healing, and can control fire. I’ve heard some of the more talented ones can even turn into small dragons, but I don’t believe any of the lot you brought here can do that.”

Had I inadvertently opened telepathic contact with Kleep? It didn’t seem likely. Just the same, I chose not to speculate any further with Cather. “Hmm. Maybe I am confusing them with something else. Anyway, do you need anything?”

“You just find the bastard who did this to me and kill him,” Cather said, his voice dropping an octave. “You do it before I heal, because no matter how you kill him, Vincent Corinthos, it will be a hundred thousand times more merciful than I will be.”

After hanging up with Cather, I tottered upstairs to Gearstripper’s workshop and found the gremlin putting screws into a metal cylinder just bigger than a roll of paper towels. “Hey, Gears,” I called. “How goes it?”

“It’s done,” he said, setting the screwdriver down. Gears reached into a drawer, pulled out a Whatchamacallit bar, peeled its wrapper like a banana, and snarfed half of it in a single bite. While he chewed, I took in what he was working on. The cylinder was made of a dull, smooth metal. Tiny LEDs flickered along the top, while dark bands of a different metal wove around the edge in a spiral pattern.

Gears swallowed. “You can touch it; it’s not powered up yet.” He stuffed the rest of the candy into his mouth.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe for the cylinder to be ice cold or blazing hot, but it was just like touching a giant can of warm soda. I gently lifted it and was surprised at how light it was. I resisted the urge to rattle it and instead set it down gently.

Gears finished his second mouthful of Whatchamacallit. “The ion accelerator is good to go in my other workshop,” he said as he tore open another candy bar. “It’s ready when you are, Vinnie.”

“Great. Let’s go. Now.” I couldn’t waste any more time. The Keepers had taken liberties with our agreement, so who knew what else they might pull. For all I knew, they had some alien technology that would pull Caulborn secrets right out of Megan’s head that they could then sell to the highest bidder. There was no time for anything but immediate action. Plus, I needed to get out of here before the good doctor realized I was gone. I pulled out my phone. Herb answered a moment later. “We’re ready, Herb.” I gave him the address to meet us.

“Antonio and I will be there in fifteen minutes,” the necromancer said.

“Who’s Antonio?”

“The spirit attached to that skull,” Herb replied. “He’s very anxious to find these coordinates, says he hasn’t had a decent challenge in centuries.”

“Is Herb ready?” Gears asked as I hung up.

“Yep. The skull’s name is Antonio.”

Gears pursed his lips. “Riiiight. Okay, then,” he said as he climbed into the backpack. “My secondary workshop is just down the street. It’s got an old-style metal mesh fence around it. You can’t miss it.”

“I thought you said there was a tunnel to the other building.”

“It’s twelve inches wide and eighteen inches high, Vinnie.”

Wow, that was like
Shawshank Redemption
small. “Down the street we go, then.”

With Gears’s portable Taj Mahal slung over one shoulder, I snuck out the back door and walked down the street. As I got to the building with the metal mesh fence, Herb’s Taurus pulled up to the curb alongside me. Herb got out with a backpack of his own, and we wordlessly descended a set of concrete stairs to a heavy metal door marked with a faded bomb shelter placard. A pair of padlocks held the doors shut with a shiny steel chain. I moved to Open them when Gearstripper began thrashing around in the backpack.

“No, Vinnie, don’t do that!” He scrambled out of the pack onto my shoulder and perched there for a moment like some demented pirate’s parrot. I withdrew my hand, stuffed it into my bomber’s pocket, and raised an eyebrow at the gremlin.

Gearstripper looked at me with wide eyes. “Do you really think I’d trust my workshop’s security to padlocks?”

I pursed my lips. “Actually, now that I think about it, that doesn’t make sense.”

Gears rolled his eyes. “You need to think first, Vinnie.” He scrambled down my leg and pried open a small panel toward the base of the door. This one had a numeric keypad and a keyhole. Gears withdrew a small brass key from his coveralls and slipped it into the keyhole. He tapped out a series of numbers on the pad so fast that I couldn’t follow them, then turned the key right. He entered a second sequence of numbers and then turned the key left. Another sequence, another turn of the key, and the entire door slid up. The locks I’d been about to open were just for show.

“What would’ve happened if he’d opened the locks?” Herb asked. In reply, Gears pointed up at a machine gun that was mounted on a rail above the door, aimed right at us. Herb nodded. “Got it.”

Gears flipped a switch and the door slid shut behind us. A second switch flip, and bare bulbs covered in dust flickered on. The room was huge and smelled like a damp basement.

“Wow,” Herb said. “Two mad scientist labs in one week. Is this normal for you?”

“Pretty much,” I replied as I set the backpack down. “At least this place is cleaner than Gears’s other shop.” Instead of the haphazard collection of electronic knickknacks strewn about the room, this workshop was immaculate. Metal racks lined one wall, each one filled with meticulously labeled jars and canisters of various chemical and electrical components. A large workbench dominated the center of the room. Sitting atop it was a large glass and metal cylinder about five feet long, lying on its side. A pair of complex-looking electronic devices bookended the cylinder.

Gears headed for the racks. He grabbed two canisters and scampered over to the workbench. He emptied one canister into the first bookend, the second into the other. “All right, Vinnie,” Gears said. “I’m going to use this accelerator,” he gestured at the cylinder, “to bombard the lead with the zinc. When the reaction is successful, we should get enough copernicum to power Hammond’s device.”

“That’s all there is to it?” Herb asked.

“Heck no,” Gearstripper replied. “I’m keeping this high level because Vinnie’s an underachiever.”

“Love you, too, Gears,” I said.

Gears smiled and pressed a button on the accelerator. It hummed so loudly that it vibrated in my chest. The lights dimmed a bit, and Herb and I both took a step back. Gears looked at us and raised his voice to be heard over the machinery. “Remember, we’ll only have twenty-nine seconds before the copernicum winks out.” He looked at both of us. “Are you ready?”

Herb and I both nodded. Gears set Hammond’s device on the bench near the accelerator. “Here we go.”

We stood there in a tense silence for I don’t know how long. Finally, Gears yelled, “It’s happening. Houston, we have copernicum. Clock’s ticking, Vinnie, go!”

“Herb,” I hustled over to the table and gestured for the necromancer to follow me.

Herb held the skull in the crook of his left arm. His eyes glowed orange. “Wow. Antonio here is a feisty one. He’ll show you where those coordinates lead, and believe me, he’s absolutely raring to go.”