Such Wicked Intent (12 page)

Animals draw close, sniff, and cringe back. A feral cat’s hackles rise; rats squeal and turn away. Nothing will go close to it, inert and defenseless as it is.

Faster and faster the creature grows, looking more human by the second. His skin is no longer muddy but the color and texture of proper flesh. And then, stretched on the ground is a man, the very same man I first saw dead and decaying—but now whole, reborn.

His eyes open.

I fall back from the wall as if pushed, and land hard on the ground.

“Victor, are you all right?” Elizabeth is asking. She reaches toward me but then stops, as though remembering what happened when our flesh last touched.

“What did you see?” she asks.

“Our time’s very nearly up!” says Henry urgently, extending his hand to me. Gratefully I take it, and he hauls me swiftly to my feet. I touch my head, which throbs like an overworked muscle.

“Go!” says Konrad. “Don’t wait for me!”

From the steep passage comes another distant moan, and I turn once more in its direction, drawn.

“
Now
, Victor!” Elizabeth says, and I take the lead back toward the entrance. I smile, suddenly giddy. I feel as though
I’m bounding through a dream. I gallop past stags and bulls, ibexes and horses. I smirk at the crouching tiger.

“Slow down,” Elizabeth tells me sharply. “We’re leaving Konrad too far behind.”

Heedless of my supernatural speed I turn to see my twin in the distance and can’t help laughing, for I remember all our childhood races where he outstripped me, and now he cannot even hope to keep up with me.

“Our time’s almost out,” I reply, noting that I’m not even out of breath.

“And whose fault is that?” Henry says, just behind me.

“We’re fine!” I say, my mind still throbbing with the cave writing.
The things I’ve seen
.

“He might get lost!” Elizabeth says.

“We blaze a trail of light for him,” I retort, “and we’ve marked the turnings.”

She stumbles on a rock, and I reach out to take her hand. It’s impulsive, yet I also know full well what I’m doing, and even before my fingers close around her wrist, our eyes meet, and I feel desire spark between us, see it in her face, like a hunger.

But Henry catches her first, steadying her.

I exhale in disappointment, and then anger, and start to reach out for her again, when I hear Konrad calling out, closer now.

“I said don’t wait for me!”

And we begin running again, though at a pace that allows my twin to keep up. When we reach the ladder, Henry says, “The claw’s tapping the glass! What happens now?”

“We still have time,” I assure him.

I feel my body in the real world tugging me back toward it. There is no arguing with it. I swiftly climb the rungs.

“Victor!” Konrad calls out to me from below. “Did you find what you wanted? Tell me what you saw!”

“I found it,” I tell him over my shoulder with a triumphant smile. “The way to bring you back.”

T
HE WAY YOU TELL IT,
”
SAID
H
ENRY,
“
IT SOUNDS A BIT LIKE THE
Egyptian cult of Osiris.”

We were on the water, bathed in sunlight, sailing close to the wind on the twenty-footer. The day had dawned with all the warmth and promise of a summer morning, and after our lessons and lunch, we’d had our cook pack a picnic hamper, and we’d taken the boat out. At the tiller, leaving the château in our wake, I’d finally had the chance to tell them in full detail what the writing on the cave walls had shown me.

“Someone murdered Osiris,” Henry continued, “I forget who, and cut his body into fourteen pieces and scattered them. His family found the pieces and buried them, and he came back to life as the god of the underworld.”

“A myth,” said Elizabeth. “How do we know these cave writings are any different? They were made by primitive, superstitious people. Do you really think they knew how to bring people back to life?”

“Ah,” I said, “they didn’t bring him
back
to life. That’s what’s so interesting. They
grew
him a new body. Prepare to come about, please.”

I pushed the tiller hard over. At the front of the cockpit, Elizabeth and Henry busied themselves with the foresail. Henry, never the most confident mariner, was sure-footed
now and winched in his sheet with a confidence I’d never seen before. And Elizabeth, I couldn’t help noticing, seemed to have regained the weight and bloom she’d lost in the past few weeks. There was enticing color in her cheeks and a new luster in her windblown hair.

The boom swung overhead, and the mainsail filled with a satisfying
whoomph
. I adjusted the tiller and turned my face into the breeze, inhaling happily. From the moment I’d woken this morning, I’d felt remarkably well—bursting with energy. Hopeful, even. For the first time since Konrad’s death, I’d actually
wanted
to get up and face the day. And I hadn’t yet had a single jolt of pain in my maimed right hand.

It seemed our visit to the spirit world had helped all of us in some way.

“A body part and a bit of mud,” said Elizabeth reflectively.

“Surely creating life can’t be so simple,” Henry added, pushing his spectacles back on his nose but looking at me with a hint of challenge.

Elizabeth surprised me with her quick reply. “Is it so different from the way God created Adam, fashioning him from the mud?”

“Well, no,” Henry said. “But you’re also forgetting the black liquid Victor described. That was one of the ingredients.”

“It wasn’t liquid,” I said. My mind still felt seared by the ancient words and images, as though I’d stared too long at the sun. “What came out of that sac was alive. It didn’t just flow; it moved of its own will.”

“Right,” said Henry, “so all we need is mud, a body part, and a magical liquid we don’t have.”

I shook my head, suddenly realizing something. “No. Even then it wouldn’t make life. The body’s just a shell. It has no
spirit
. The body must first be grown in our world until it’s ready for Konrad to inhabit.”

“This was all in those writings?” Henry asked, incredulous.

I nodded. “In the end it all came in such a rush.”

I saw Henry glance at Elizabeth before returning his gaze to me. “And you’re certain, absolutely certain, that this is what you read—or saw in those cave symbols? It can’t have been an easy translation, even with the butterfly’s help.”

Firmly I said, “I’m sure, Henry.”

“And you’re already imagining going ahead with this?” he asked. “It seems a primitive, barbaric thing.”

“What other choice do we have, Henry?” Elizabeth said to him impatiently, and I was startled—and delighted—by her fervor. “If I’d merely read it in a book, yes, I’d say it was outlandish. But we’ve entered the land of the dead, all of us, and seen what it holds. And we need to get Konrad out of there as soon as possible. That noise…”

I saw Henry suppress a shudder as he remembered the weird moan lifting to us from the depths. But I also remembered how Analiese had said she’d never seen anything—which meant that, whatever it was down there, it hadn’t stirred for a long, long time. I didn’t see why it necessarily had to be evil. A greater part of me wanted to know more about it. But if Henry and Elizabeth feared it and thought it would harm Konrad, all to the good. It would keep them focused on the urgency of our endeavor.

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t think we should waste any time.”

“That liquid,” she said, “or whatever substance it was. We need to know how to get it.”

“Why didn’t the hieroglyphs tell you?” Henry asked.

“There may be other writings in the cave,” I suggested. “Or elsewhere. We’ll need to go back.”

She nodded reluctantly. “Though, I don’t like the place.”

“Henry does, I think,” I said.

He leaned back with the look of someone remembering a fleeting and guilty pleasure. “I can’t deny it,” he said. “There was something… Can ‘liberating’ be the right word?”

“You’re the expert with words,” I said, and grinned.

“I’m different when I’m there,” said Elizabeth. “I don’t like myself.”

I laughed. “You are
more
yourself. That’s the wonder of it. We all are.”

She blushed and set her gaze on the shoreline. “Well, if that’s true, I’d be very worried if I were you. You’re even more reckless and arrogant inside.”

I was indignant. “How so?”

Henry snorted. “With those butterflies on you, you carry on like you’re a demigod. And what you did with the spirit clock—”

“Didn’t we all return safely?”

“Well, yes,” he said.

“And how long were our bodies without us?”

“A minute and two seconds.”

“An extra second only!”

“There are limits to what the human body can endure!” Henry exclaimed.

“I think you’d be amazed, my friend.” They clearly had no idea of the kind of power and vitality I felt in the spirit world, how my senses and experiences there seemed even more real than the sunlight and wind and water that surrounded me now. I realized that, more than anything, I wanted to return.

“Victor.”

I was expecting Henry to chastise me further, but I saw him staring fixedly at the tiller. He pointed.

“There’s something on your right hand.”

I glanced down quickly and in amusement said, “That, Henry, is called a
shadow
.” I was remarkably glad to see that familiar look of worry etched upon his pale brow. He was not yet so transformed by the spirit world.

“No,” he said, moving closer. “Where your fingers
used
to be.”

I looked and gave a rueful grunt, for, by some trick of the light, it did indeed look as if I had a fourth and fifth finger, gripping the tiller.

“It’s just shadow, Henry. Look.” And I moved my hand along the tiller. The two phantom fingers elongated and then seeped back beneath my hand with a fluid speed that was not at all shadowlike.

I jerked my hand off the tiller.

“It’s still there!” Elizabeth cried, pointing.

I turned my hand over and saw something dark and slick against my flesh.

“What is it?” gasped Henry.

“Some kind of beetle!” Elizabeth said.

I gave my hand a violent shake, but it clung. I swiped it off with my left hand. “Where’d it go?” I said, looking about the cockpit floor.

“It’s on your other hand now!” shouted Henry.

I saw it slyly squeezed into the fold between my thumb and palm. In growing alarm I stood, striking at it.

“I can’t get it off!” I cried. “I can’t even feel it!”

Unmanned, the boat strayed into the wind, and as the sail luffed, direct sunlight washed over my hand, and instantly the shadowy insect seeped up my shirt sleeve.

Horrified, I tore off my jacket, threw it to the deck, and desperately began ripping open my shirt, popping buttons.

The boat swayed, and the swinging boom nearly brained me.

“There it is!” cried Elizabeth, and I caught just a glimpse of something scuttling into my armpit.

“Gah!” I lifted my arm high, staggering off balance, and turned to the sun so I could see better. The thing oozed from the tangle of my underarm hair around to my back so that I lost sight of it.

“Where’s it gone?” I demanded, lurching about so Henry and Elizabeth might spot it.

“It doesn’t like the light!” Henry said. “It rushes to hide.”

“Just get it off me!” I cried.

“It’s too quick!” Henry protested, hands slapping at my skin. “It flows like mercury!”

I was in a near frenzy to rid myself of this pest, and whirled about, looking back over my shoulder.

“Victor,” Elizabeth said with frightening solemnity, “it has gone into your pants.”

I tore my waistband loose even as I kicked off my shoes. I yanked one leg free and saw the shadow crawler dart down my second pant leg. When I finally rid myself of the pants, the diabolical little creature stretched toward my underpants and disappeared.

I hesitated only half a second before dragging my underpants off. I was stark naked now and didn’t care one bit, so frenzied was I.

“Get a jar from the picnic hamper,” I shouted, “and catch it!”

Elizabeth’s eyes traveled all over me, tracking it. I didn’t care. All I could think was,
Would it get inside me somehow?
I clenched my buttocks tightly together.

As the boat swayed and turned, sun and shadow played across my body, and the shadow creature now bolted from my privates to the back of my thigh.

“On my right leg!” I cried.

Henry dumped out two jars of water and tossed one to Elizabeth. I turned my front to the sun to keep the thing behind me.

“Can you see it?” I bellowed.

“Yes, it’s on your back now. Try to stand still, Victor!” Elizabeth said, drawing closer.

I felt their jars buffeting me as they tried to catch the thing.

“I’ve got it!” cried Elizabeth as she drove the jar into the small of my back with such force that I yowled in pain. “It’s caught! Henry, where’s the lid!”

“Here, here!” he said.

I watched over my shoulder as Elizabeth very swiftly tipped
the jar away from my skin, slipped the lid over the top, and screwed furiously.

“There!” she cried triumphantly.

My relief was immense, and yet immediately, bizarrely, I also thought:

I want it back. Now.

I felt a stab of pain return to my hand. Forgetting my nakedness, I turned to look at the thing, battering itself against the glass in vain.

Henry cleared his throat. “Victor, you need clothes.”

Elizabeth, I noticed, seemed to have no trouble with my nakedness and merely smiled, her gaze level with mine, holding out my underpants.

After I’d hurriedly dressed, I grabbed the jar and held it to the sunlight to better get a look at the little fiend. With no shadow to offer it refuge, the thing hurled itself hysterically about the jar, and I feared the glass would shatter.

“This is no normal animal,” I said. “Where is its head, its limbs? It changes shape every second!”