This Broken Wondrous World (28 page)

“Too big or too dangerous,” said Claire. “As Boy and Sophie found out the hard way.”

“There's a whole wing of The Commune where they keep monsters who are just too wild to be allowed out among humans,” I said.

“So you think Moreau wants to recruit these monsters?” asked Holmes.

“We're talking nonverbal, completely feral,” I said. “Not even the Dragon Lady could really control them.”

“Then why are they kept at all?” asked Holmes. “It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.”

“They may be dangerous,” said my father. “But each of them is the last of their kind. Would you kill the last great white shark?”

“Okay, I see your point,” she said.

“It was the Dragon Lady's responsibility to look after them, to both protect them and protect others from them.”

“Where did it come from, this Commune?” asked Holmes. “How could it just . . .
appear
?”

“It's always been there,” my father said. “Kemp made it
invisible long ago so that humans wouldn't discover it.”

“Who's Kemp?”

“The Invisible Man,” said Claire.

“Of course he is.” Holmes sighed and shook her head. “So he made this building invisible, and then Moreau came along and made it visible again?”

“Probably,” I said. “That's how Stephen and Robert freed Moreau in the first place. His whole island had been invisible.”

“So what about the other monsters?” asked Holmes. “The non-crazy ones. Are they friendlies or do you think they've joined Moreau?”

“There's the banshee, the chupacabra, the centaur, and the gryphon,” said La Perricholi.

“Jesus,” said Holmes.

“I really can't see Javier joining Moreau,” I said.

“True,” admitted La Perricholi. “But what about the others?”

“Maybe the centaur and the gryphon,” I said. “I don't think they have much love for humans. La Llorona . . . well, she's more or less insane, so I don't think she would really even know what's going on. Just make sure you're at least twenty feet away from her when she wails.”

“Why, what would happen if I wasn't?” asked Holmes.

“Oh, your brain would probably hemorrhage,” said Claire. “And then you'd die.”

“Good to know,” said Holmes. “Anyone else?”

“Well, there's the giant Sphinx,” I said.

“The
what
?”

“Sure. He's . . . I guess . . .” I turned to Claire. “About fifty feet tall?”

“Yeah, I'd say about fifteen meters,” she said. “Well, maybe closer to twenty.”

“And you're only mentioning this now?” asked Holmes.

“You don't have to worry about him,” I said. “He's been in a catatonic state for over a decade. The Dragon Lady explained it to us once. The Sphinx is super wise and never forgets anything. But I guess millennia of accumulated knowledge was just too much to deal with and he sort of shut down. I mean, he's conscious. But his head is so full that he can't really process any new information.”

“And you're
sure
about that?” asked Holmes.

“We saw him in person,” said Claire. “Completely out of it.”

WE LANDED IN
the same field that Claire and I had once crossed on foot. It had been night then, and The Commune had been invisible. We'd walked right up to the entrance without realizing it and come face-to-face with La Llorona, who'd nearly killed both of us with a single scream.

Now The Commune was visible. I already knew it was big, but without actually seeing it, I'd never realized just
how
big. It was a baseball-stadium-sized structure just sitting out there in the middle of the New Mexico plains. The exterior was shaped in a gently sloping curve of smooth rock, like a wave of sandstone rising up out of the ground. The entrance was about the size of an airplane hangar, and the roof was dotted with opaque skylights, including a massive one right in the center.

A military cordon surrounded the building with Humvees, mounted guns, and even a couple of tanks. We stood just behind the line and stared at the building that towered over us.

“I have to admit, it looks like they've got Moreau trapped,” said Claire.

“That actually makes me more nervous,” I said. “He's been too good up till now to accidentally fall into a situation like this. I think he's up to something in there.”

“I agree,” said La Perricholi. “And the longer we wait, the worse it will be.”

“Have you heard from Ruthven?” my father asked me.

“Vi says he's on his way with a bunch of monsters, including Mom.”

La Perricholi turned to Holmes. “When do you plan to send soldiers in?”

“I'm not in charge of this operation,” she said. “That would be General Montgomery.”

“Let's go speak with him,” said La Perricholi.

Holmes led us along the military line until we came to a large tent set behind a tank. Inside was a table covered with aerial photographs of The Commune. Poring over them was an older human male with dark skin, short white hair, and a square jaw. He looked up at us, took us all in, and sighed.

“Holmes, what in Christ's name are you doing filling my tent with freaks and foreigners?”

“We came at the request of your commanding officer,” said Holmes. “And I think the word you meant was ‘allies.'”

“Oh yeah, sure, forgot,” said Montgomery.

“General, when do you plan to have your men enter the building?” asked La Perricholi.

“I'm not sending my men in there when we have no idea what we're up against,” he said. “We'll wait it out for a while until they're nice and hungry.”

“You do realize that this compound is completely self-sustaining, right?” I said.

He glanced at me, but then quickly looked away. “What do
you mean by that?”

“This facility is designed to survive entirely off the grid. Internal electrics, renewable food source, underground well. They could stay in there a long time. Definitely past Moreau's hostage deadline.”

A soldier stuck his head into the tent. “Sir! It looks like the doors are opening.”

Montgomery smirked at me. “Maybe this Moreau isn't as smart as you think.” Then he turned back to the soldier. “Have all units ready to fire on my command.” He pulled on his helmet and nodded to Holmes. “If you'll excuse me, I have a monster insurrection to quell.”

We followed Montgomery out of the tent just in time to see the massive doors slowly swing open. Soldiers all along the line trained their rifles on the dark opening. For a long, tense moment, nothing happened. Then a small creature slowly crept out from the darkness. It had a scaly reptilian body and wings like a dragon, but it walked on two thin rooster legs and it had a rooster head that pecked at the dusty ground in front of it. It stopped for a moment, and continued to peck at the ground.

“Cockatrice!” yelled La Perricholi. “Look away!”

I turned my head to one side just as the cockatrice began to lift up its head. To my right I saw a soldier who didn't look away in time. His eyes widened and his body began to shake as steam escaped from his mouth and nose. He shrieked and clawed at his own body as he was cooked from the inside. I could hear others shrieking as well.

Then I saw Holmes run over to one of the Humvees, her face carefully angled away from the cockatrice. She ripped the side-view mirror off the Humvee. Then she pulled out her sidearm and used the mirror to carefully aim over her shoulder. She fired
and the screaming stopped.

“Okay!” she shouted. “All clear.”

Some of the soldiers seemed to be recovering; others lay on the ground, little more than shriveled husks in uniforms.

Then a rumbling sound came from the entrance.

“Get ready!” shouted Holmes as the surviving soldiers struggled to bring their weapons back around.

A herd of monsters came pouring out of The Commune: a giant spider, bats as big as dogs, a three-headed dog as big as an elephant, a cyclops, a manticore, a seven-headed hydra, and things I couldn't even really describe. Soldiers opened fire, but the creatures were already on them, biting, slashing, tearing their way through human and metal alike. In minutes they were past the blockade and scattering across the countryside.

“After them!” shouted Montgomery. “I want every last one of those things dead before it hits a populated area!”

The soldiers began to mobilize, pulling away from The Commune.

“Wait!” said Holmes. “Moreau is the real threat and he could be in there! We need to move in!”

“This is my operation, Holmes!” said Montgomery. “Don't contradict my orders.” Then he climbed into one of the Humvees that was chasing down the hydra.

I turned and looked back at the now-empty entrance to The Commune. At first I thought I was seeing things, but then I realized there was one more creature coming out, but slowly, like it was in pain. It was a little larger than human-sized, and looked somewhere between a lizard and a kangaroo.

“Another one!” shouted Holmes, and took aim.

“Wait!” I yelled, running out into the open. “Hold your fire, this one's a friendly!”

I caught the chupacabra just as he began to fall to the ground

“Javier, are you okay?” I asked.

He turned his panther head. One eye was swollen shut and he was covered in dirt and dried blood. He muttered something weakly in Spanish.

“Perricholi! I need a translation!”

La Perricholi ran over and knelt down next to me and listened for a moment. “He's not making much sense.” She shook him gently and said something to him in Spanish. “Moreau's in there. . . . He's about to let something loose that's even worse than what we just saw. . . .” She turned back to me. “That's about all I can get from him.”

“So basically that whole horde of monsters was just a
decoy
?” I asked.

“Sound like it,” she said grimly.

We turned back to look at the military cordon. Other than the tattered remains of Montgomery's tent and a few Humvees that had been destroyed during the stampede, it was empty. Off in the distance I could see clouds of dust rising as the soldiers pursued the feral monsters that had been let loose.

“It's just us,” I said.

“Somehow, I'm not surprised,” said La Perricholi. “Come on, let's get the others. It's time to face Moreau.”

Shock Therapy

W
E CARRIED JAVIER
back to our helicopter and left him with Bakru. Then we entered The Commune.

The hallways were all scratched up, like a lot of things with claws had come through, but otherwise it was the same as when Sophie and I had been here before: a wide, empty hallway with tall, vaulted ceilings.

“I suddenly feel very small,” said Holmes, a rifle held at the ready.

“The hallways are extra large to make room for all the really big monsters,” I said.

“That explanation did not help,” she said.

We continued down the hallway, Holmes and La Perricholi in the lead, their guns ready, Claire and me next, and my father walking silently in the rear. Every few minutes we'd come across a door and Holmes or La Perricholi would peek in. But we didn't find any living creatures. Most of the rooms looked like they'd been empty a long time. Either they had no furniture at all, or else the simple cots or mattresses were covered in a layer of dust.

There was one room that looked like it had been used. It had two sets of bunk beds, one on either side of the room, and several cots stacked in the corner.

“Recently, too,” said La Perricholi as she crouched down next to the lower bunk on one side. She frowned and pulled a long strand of white hair from the pillowcase. She held it up to me. “Trowe?”

“Could be,” I said.

“Maybe this is where that Liel of yours has been hiding out,” said Holmes.

“And her whole den,” said Claire from the other side. She pulled back the bedspread. There were lines carved into the post, like the kind trowe make when sharpening their claws.

“Boy,” Vi said from my pocket.

“Go ahead, Vi,” I said as I pulled her out.

“There's a lot of electronics in this building, but it's all broadcasting on conflicting Wi-Fi channels so it's coming across as a lot of noise to me.”

“That doesn't sound good,” said Holmes.

“And I can't seem to connect to anything outside this compound,” continued Vi. “We're completely isolated here.”

“That's definitely not good,” I said.

“Yeah, but it
is
the reason we came here the first time,” Claire reminded me. “To get away from Vi version one.”

“Good point,” I said. “So this probably isn't something Moreau is doing. He might not even be aware of it.”

“Or it's one of the reasons he chose this place,” said La Perricholi.

We could tell the next room had been recently occupied before we even saw it.

“What is that horrible stink?” said Claire.

“Smells like a zoo,” said Holmes.

La Perricholi turned into the room, her pistols raised. “Pretty close to one, anyway,” she said.

In the center of the room were about thirty long, thin mats made from woven reeds. Off in one corner was a big heaping pile of shit. Over in another corner was a stack of half-eaten rotting animal carcasses.

“Ugh. I'm guessing this is where Moreau's beast people stayed,” said Claire.

“They seemed so human when we saw them on the island,” said La Perricholi. “But this . . . nothing reminiscent of humanity could live like this.”

“They may be regressing,” said my father. “Moreau had that problem the first time, too. No matter how human he tried to make them behave, eventually they would revert, and there was nothing he could do about it. Perhaps it is still a problem.”

“If that's true,” said Holmes, “then given enough time, his army will disintegrate into chaos.”

“And he probably knows it,” said La Perricholi. “Which means he's working against the clock and liable to make increasingly risky choices. A desperate Moreau may be an even greater danger.”

“I guess we'd better find him, then,” I said.

That turned out to be easier than I expected. He was in the next room over.

“Ah, there you are,” he said without turning around.

It was a small room with a single gurney in the middle.

“Boy . . .” Claire said softly.

I nodded. The last time she and I had been here, this was the room where they'd strapped her down because they thought she was a human. It looked like it had a real human body in it now, an adult male, his eyes closed, his mouth slack. His scalp had been peeled back from his head and left to dangle at the point where it met the back of his neck. Moreau was carefully sawing
in a slow circle around his exposed skull.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “This will only take a minute.”

“What are you doing with that body?” asked Holmes.

“Cutting through the calvarium, obviously,” said Moreau. He held out the bone saw and the hairless lemur in the tuxedo we'd seen on Noble's Isle scampered out of the shadows, took the saw, wiped it down carefully, and placed it in a large leather case with a lot of other tools. It then took out a small hammer with a hook curling at the end of the handle, and a chisel with a flat, T-bar handle. It handed both tools to Moreau. Moreau began to gently tap the chisel into the indented circle on the skull he'd made with the saw. “You can't just go cutting all the way through with a saw,” he explained. “You risk damaging the brain.”

“You need it intact for something?” I asked.

“Who was this man?” demanded Holmes. “One of your hostages?”

Moreau didn't respond. By this time, he'd come full circle with the hammer and chisel. He handed the chisel to the lemur. Then he turned the hammer so the hook end was facing up.

“Listen for it.” Moreau caught the edge of the cut in the skull with the hook and slowly lifted. The top of the skull came off with a sound like an eggshell peeling away from a hard-boiled egg. “Ah, the sound of success!”

He held up the skullcap. A thick film dangled from the inside. “If you've done it right, the dura mater adheres to the inner table. Of course if it doesn't, you can cut it away with scissors. But that elevates the risk of damaging the surface of the brain, which as Boy has just suggested, I need intact for a few moments more.”

He handed the skullcap and hammer to the lemur. The lemur carelessly tossed the skullcap on the floor, but carefully cleaned
the hammer and placed it back in the leather case. It then handed Moreau a large syringe with a thick, blue liquid filling half of it.

“Enough stalling, Moreau,” said Holmes. “Are you going to come quietly?”

“Yes, yes, in a second.” Moreau held the syringe in one hand and gently pried apart the two lobes of the brain with the other.

The body suddenly opened its eyes and gasped. He looked around, terrified.

“God, that man is still alive!” shouted Holmes.

“Where—where—” he said.

Moreau plunged the needle deep between the two lobes of the brain and the man shuddered and grew still, his eyes now staring vacantly.

“Not anymore,” said Moreau calmly. He pulled back on the plunger and red fluid mixed with the blue fluid in the syringe to make it a dark purple.

“That's enough, Moreau,” said Holmes. “Let's go.”

“Mmm-hmm, nearly ready.” He handed the syringe to the lemur and knelt down on the ground. The lemur shoved the syringe into the base of Moreau's skull and injected the purple fluid. Moreau closed his eagle eyes and sighed.

The lemur carefully withdrew the syringe, and Moreau stood back up. He turned to face us for the first time. “Thank you for your patience. No solution is perfect and we must keep the beast flesh at bay, mustn't we?” He gave his best grimace smile. “Now, I assume you want me to show you what I've been working on, yes?”

“What are you talking about?” asked La Perricholi.

“Come now, Perricholi. Freeing the feral monsters was just an act of kindness on my part. We all know it wasn't my purpose in coming here.”

“Kindness?” said Claire.

“The oppressed and imprisoned cry out to me,” said Moreau, one large bat ear twitching. “I am not deaf to their pleas.”

“So why did you come here, if not for them?” I asked.

“Finally, someone asking the right questions! I can always count on you, Boy,” said Moreau moving toward the doorway. “Follow me.”

Holmes cocked her rifle. “I don't need you alive
that
badly, Moreau. So don't try anything.”

“Obviously,” he said, holding up his clawed hands. Then he walked slowly out of the room. The rest of us followed behind him.

“We should just shoot him now,” muttered La Perricholi.

“No,” said Holmes. “He's got something up his sleeve. I can feel it. If he has a bomb or something, we might need him to defuse it.”

A little farther down the hallway, we came to a set of massive wooden doors on the inside wall. Instead of door handles, it had large iron rings.

Holmes tilted her head toward it. “What's in there?”

“That's where the Sphinx is,” I said.

“You first, Moreau,” she said.

Moreau pulled on the right iron ring and the door slowly swung open. The room was just as I remembered it, easily a hundred feet across and sixty feet high. Sunlight streamed down from skylights to illuminate the Sphinx. He loomed over us, a giant human head on a giant lion body, feathered wings lying so flat along his broad back that I hadn't even noticed them the last time I'd been here. As before, he stared off into nothing, seemingly unaware of our presence. There was one difference, though.

“What's with the wires?” asked Claire.

There was a thick cable stuck to each temple with big patches of black electrical tape. The cables ran down to the ground and over to a large power generator on a wheeled cart.

“That's what I wanted to show you,” said Moreau. He walked over to the generator. “Now, if I may beg your patience once again, I have some final adjustments to make before we get going.”

“Step away from the generator, Moreau,” said Holmes, lifting her rifle.

“Or what? You'll shoot? I don't think so. Not if you want to meet your grandfather.”

“Nice try, but my grandfather's been dead for twenty years.”

“Is that so? You attended the funeral? You saw the body?”

Holmes said nothing. The tip of her rifle sank slightly.

“Oh, come now, it's not like this was the first time he faked his own death.”

“No way. He'd be a hundred and twenty-five years old now.”

“You'd be amazed at the number of ways an intelligent person can find to stave off old age and death. My solution is but one of many.”

“You know what? It doesn't matter,” said Holmes, bringing the point of her rifle back up. “I'm not negotiating with you. Step away from the generator. Now.”

A metal pipe whistled into the back of her head and she dropped to the ground.

“Why thank you, Kemp,” Moreau said to the floating pipe.

“No!” said Claire. “Fuck you, Kemp. I
trusted
you!”

“I'm sorry, my dear,” came Kemp's voice. “I truly am. But Moreau has offered the one thing I can't refuse. He can cure my wife.”

“You have been helping Moreau all this time?” asked my father.

“For years,” said Kemp. “I'd been shipping him all the equipment he needed. I'd hoped I could get the cure out of him without actually letting him off the island, but then Robert and Stephen discovered what I was doing and took it upon themselves to free him. I had no choice but to continue helping him.”

“You had a choice,” my father said. He stepped toward the pipe, his hands balled into fists the size of bowling balls.

“I don't think so, old friend.” The pipe dropped to the ground with a
clang
and there was nothing else to follow him by.

“Speaking of family obligations,” said Moreau. He turned to La Perricholi. “Camilla, I am truly sorry about your father. I hope your mother is coping.”

“Father?” I asked.

“Yes, Boy. Didn't she tell you? Mozart and Maria are her parents.” He smiled as he looked at our stunned expressions. “Oh, dear, I've let the cat out of the bag. Or should I say the wolf?”

Suddenly, the little lemur creature in the suit leapt out from behind the oak doors and sprung at La Perricholi. She shot him point-blank in the chest, but before he collapsed, he stabbed her in the leg with an EpiPen.

She yanked the needle out of her leg and pointed her gun at Moreau. “What the hell did you just do?”

“It has been my experience that to perform at its peak, Nature sometimes needs a bit of a push.”

La Perricholi gasped and hunched forward. She dropped her gun and grabbed her leg with both hands.

“As I'm sure you're all aware,” continued Moreau breezily, “lycanthropy, or werewolfism, is not a disease, as it is depicted in popular entertainment. It is a genetic disorder, passed down
from parent to child. In nearly all cases, it is a recessive trait. Most people who possess it are merely carriers, with no knowledge of what lurks within and no outward effects. Generally, it is only those rare individuals who have the gene on both sides who spontaneously become werewolves.”