Shadow Box, page 26
“Lakesh needs us,” she said, her voice muffled by the gas mask.
Domi stood on tiptoe to peer through the little pane of glass, and she saw Lakesh looking back at her, the rebreather covering the lower half of his face, tilting his head to look through the window.
“What?” she shouted before realizing that Lakesh couldn’t hear her. She reached up, fingers working at the strap of the gas mask to remove it, but she saw Lakesh shake his head vigorously, wagging a warning finger at her through the glass pane.
Domi looked at him, watching as he mimed movements. Lakesh placed his hands together as though to pray, then he rested his head against them at an angle, eyes closed as though sleeping. Suddenly he was moving, eyes wide, awake again, and then he pointed to where the creature lay on the floor of the storeroom.
“Lakesh says it’s waking up,” Domi said, waving for Grant and Donald Bry to join her. “The monster’s waking up.”
As she watched, Lakesh created a tube from his bunched fist. Then, with his other hand, he indicated something spraying from the end of the tube.
Domi nodded her understanding. “He says to use more gas,” she told Bry.
“I don’t think we have that much more to pump in,” Bry said thoughtfully. “We’d be hard-pressed to increase the feed any more than we have.”
Domi looked at Lakesh through the glass, reaching her hand to touch it. “Find a way,” she said. “Just find a way.”
In silence, Bry nodded before heading for the stairwell to speak to the scientists and engineers who waited there, out of harm’s way.
AS THE RIVER EUPHRATES flowed by their feet, Kane and Brigid took one last look at the world that the Igigi had created from their grouped memories. “The Earth was beautiful then,” Brigid said, marveling at the clear skies, the aromas of the flowers that grew along the riverbanks.
“It still is,” Kane countered.
“But this,” Brigid said, gesturing all around her, “it’s like new, like something untouched.”
Gently, Kane pulled her around until she was facing the towering step pyramid that nestled behind the high obsidian wall in the familiar pattern of oppressive Cobaltville, where the pair of them had been raised. “No, it’s not,” he told her. “It’s already been spoiled.”
Brigid closed her eyes, taking a long breath of the crisp air. “You’re right,” she said. “A memory is only a dream that we attach significance to. It’s no more real than that.”
When she opened her eyes once more, Kane was standing before her, his face very close to hers. “Look at me, Baptiste,” he said. “Look at me and tell me who I am.”
“You’re Kane,” she said firmly. “Kane, my truest friend. Kane, son of Kane. Once you were a Magistrate in Cobaltville, a protector of the system until you learned that the system was corrupt. And despite your rough edges, despite your gruff exterior, I know you. I know that you believe in the inherent goodness of man. That’s what you fight for, that’s what you’ve always fought for, and that is what you will continue to fight for, in this life and the one that follows.”
Kane nodded, feeling her words, her emotion, bolster his sense of self, feed his soul.
“Baptiste,” he said, “Brigid Baptiste. Librarian, archivist, knowledge seeker. Bravest of the brave. Knowledge is your weapon, and you would stop at nothing to gain it. A more loyal companion I could never ask for, in this life or any other.”
“Oh, Kane,” Brigid breathed, her voice cracking with emotion. “I can feel it, deep inside. It’s not them, it’s you. They’re departing, leaving me.”
“I feel it, too,” Kane told her, “anam-chara.”
Around them, the world of the ancients was fading, becoming insubstantial, like a dying candle flame. In its place, misted with white smoke, the storage room began to re-form, its white walls and tiled floor coming back into focus as Kane and Brigid watched.
Kane could see his hand once more, encompassing Brigid’s as they touched the hardened skin of the jet-black creature. Hand, creature, walls, floor. It was all coming back to him, normal once more, the knowledge so basic that it was hardwired in him as the most primal recall. The monster was shaking, but as Kane watched, the shaking became less and less until finally it stopped moving.
Kane looked up, examining the creature’s pained, awful face. The last wisps of green smoke were floating from its eyes, no more being emitted.
“Did we kill it?” Kane asked aloud, and his voice came to his ears as though from miles away.
He turned then, as full awareness returned, and he saw Reba DeFore working a new IV line into Brigid’s arm, frantically tapping for a vein.
Letting go of Brigid’s hand, Kane stood, facing the beautiful woman lying on the gurney. “What happened?” he asked, his voice still coming to him as if down a tunnel, its usual resonance lost.
DeFore glanced at Kane for a moment before returning to her work. Her mouth moved, and Kane could make out the words with effort: “She’s crashing.”
For a moment, Kane couldn’t understand. Crashing? What did she mean by crashing? Then understanding dawned, and in a second he had pushed the medic gently aside and taken Brigid in his arms, pulling her into a sitting position on the gurney.
“No, she’s not,” he said, his voice a bark through the filters of the gas mask.
Kane shook Brigid’s limp body in his arms, shook her with increasing violence until her eyes opened. They were yellow, like a cat’s, peering out at him like alien things in that beautiful porcelain face.
“Brigid Baptiste,” he said. “Brigid Baptiste.”
Brigid blinked, a long, slow movement of her eyelids, long lashes closing like curtains over the windows to her soul. “Kane,” she said, the single word muffled by the mask.
As she opened her eyes, Kane knew it would be all right. Her eyes were glistening emeralds once more, that wonderful, beautiful shade of green that was etched into his very being, the eyes that had watched over him, guarding his soul throughout eternity.
Chapter 19
Kane and Brigid had found a quiet corner of the canteen, and they sat together, eating pancakes and maple syrup and drinking strong cups of black coffee.
“I’m so hungry,” Brigid admitted between mouthfuls. She was wearing a loosely fitted shirt, white and left unbuttoned, over a vest top and loose pants, and Kane was dressed similarly, in the nonconstricting gym clothes he had found in his wardrobe. Lakesh had suggested the pair of them take leave from duties until they felt fully recovered from their ordeal.
“Me, too,” Kane said, gulping down the piping-hot coffee. “Whatever that thing did, it took a lot out of us.”
“Gave us a lot, too,” Brigid told him after a few seconds’ thought. “Reminded us of what we are to each other. Anam-chara.”
Kane just nodded, pouring more coffee from the tall carafe he had brought from the service area of the canteen.
As they worked their way through more pancakes, Domi and Grant came through the canteen doors. Seeing them, Domi waved and rushed across the room to join them at their table. Grant followed a little more sedately, but he was clearly pleased to see his friends up and about.
“So?” Domi asked. “What happened? In the storeroom, I mean.”
Kane waited for Grant to join them, carrying a cup of coffee for Domi and a little cup of steaming, watery liquid for himself.
Grant shrugged as Kane looked quizzically at the little, steaming cup in his hand. “Green tea,” he said. “Something Shizuka got me into.”
“Well,” Domi said impatiently as she dropped into one of the molded seats at the plastic-covered table, holding the coffee cup closely in both hands. “What happened with the monster? Spill.”
“Lakesh had this theory,” Brigid said as she reached for more syrup for her pancakes, “that went all the way back to Decard’s initial description of the people he had originally found. ‘Mindless, soulless wretches,’ he had called them.”
“Emphasis on the ‘soulless,’” Kane chipped in.
“Whatever this thing was, Lakesh figured it was feeding on the souls of its victims, using them up,” Brigid explained. “So, he needed to find a soul that was somehow impenetrable to the attack. And that’s where Kane and I came in.”
“Plus,” Kane said, “Baptiste was already infected by then anyway. So, it was pretty much a fait accompli that I was going to help.”
Grant shook his head. “Well, that’s a load of horse crap,” he muttered, looking uncomfortably at the contents of his cup.
“The way that Lakesh explained it,” Kane continued, “is that the Igigi souls were looking for escape. But when they met with two souls that couldn’t be overwhelmed, they found themselves with nothing to take over and nowhere to turn back. They couldn’t go back into the monster.”
“But why you two?” Domi asked.
“The anam-chara bond,” Brigid said. “Soul friends, eternally. We somehow complement each other, reinforcing the other’s soul.”
Grant snorted.
“Something wrong, partner?” Kane asked.
“I’m sticking with my previous statement on this,” Grant said. “Horse crap.”
Brigid looked at Kane, resting her hand on his forearm for just a second. “I think someone’s jealous,” she said, and they both laughed.
Grant sniffed at the green tea, then put the steaming cup down. “You two are going to be impossible about this, aren’t you?” he said before pushing himself up from the table. “I think I need a proper mug of java.”
As they watched him go, Domi pressed Brigid for more information. “So how did your anam-chara bond thing stop the attack?”
“Lakesh said it was like holding up two mirrors against each other and trapping the light between them,” Brigid said.
“Only with souls,” Kane added. “They can bounce between us, but they can never get free.”
“So they’re inside you?” Domi asked, clearly intrigued. “Can you feel them?”
“No,” Kane said, and Brigid shook her head, as well.
“I don’t even remember them,” Brigid admitted. “All that knowledge, all those incredible things we saw, and they’re all like a half-remembered dream. I can feel emotions, things calling to my heart, but I can’t really recall them anymore.”
“But you remember everything,” Domi said, astonished. “It’s your whole thing, Brigid.”
Brigid closed her eyes, their emerald luster back in place after those hours where she had been possessed. “Sometimes it’s better to forget,” she concluded, and Kane nodded in silent agreement.
ROSALIA HAD WALKED across the California desert for most of the morning, creating distance from the smoldering ruins that had been Tom Carnack’s base. Her limbs ached, and her stomach felt empty. She had gone too long without food, and spending the night on the cold, windswept desert floor had done nothing for her temperament.
As she made her way toward the little settlement where the monster had originally appeared, attacking Kane and Decard and the group of warriors in their ludicrous fairy-tale masks, she stopped, gazing at the churned-up sand where the monster had burrowed its tunnel. The tunnel had caved in on itself now, just a heap of sand to show where a hole had once been excavated.
The five-shack hamlet was empty, the buildings abandoned now that their owners were deceased. Two of the shacks had taken massive hits, and one was just a jumble of fire-damaged wood where a grenade had felled it since Rosalia had last been here. To one side of the little settlement, a tiny marker had been placed in the sand—a gravestone.
With her long, dark hair catching in the wind, Rosalia stepped into the shelter of one of the shacks and made her way into its main room. Swiftly, professionally, she opened the cupboards, looking for supplies, for something to eat. There were some strips of cured meat, and some vegetables that had been pickled in brine, and Rosalia took these to the little wooden table and sat there, eating them between swigs from the water in her hide flask.
As she sat quietly, gnawing at the cured meat, the beautiful dancing girl became aware of another presence, and she looked up to see a dog, some kind of mongrel that looked as if it had some coyote in it, looking up at her from the doorway, its ears back and its head tilted inquisitively. It had the palest eyes of any dog that Rosalia had ever seen.
“Here, boy,” she said, holding her hand low to the floor, smiling with encouragement. She had seen the empty kennel outside, and she guessed that this hound belonged to the previous owner. It had probably been in hiding ever since the monster attacked and killed its master.
Warily at first, the pale-eyed dog sniffed Rosalia’s hand. Then, it nuzzled at her, and Rosalia tore off a strip of the cured meat and held it out for the hound.
“Nice little dog,” Rosalia said soothingly, watching as the mutt worked the hard meat strip around with its jaws, trying to bite into it, salivating in great gobs on the floor. “Nice little dog.”
The dog looked back at her with those pale, intelligent eyes, and Rosalia wondered at what her new companion was thinking.
Stupid, ugly, furless ape-thing, the dog thought with the Igigi soul that had invaded and overwhelmed it. Soon, you and all your kind will make room for your new deities.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3289-5
SHADOW BOX
Copyright © 2009 by Worldwide Library.
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James Axler, Shadow Box
