Kingdoms of the Cursed, page 3
“Let’s go, Errol,” she said. “We have things to do, you and I.”
“Are you out of your mind?” he said.
She took hold of his arm. Her fingers felt like they were made from steel, and she dragged him a few steps, as if he didn’t weigh much at all, before he started digging in. He knew Dusk was tough, and a great fighter, but she had never seemed this strong before.
His brain had been chewing at the word she’d said. Valyeme. May I have strength.
As he struggled against her, she turned.
“Errol,” she said. “Sekedi.”
She let go, and he watched her walk away. Then, suddenly, one of his legs moved. His body shifted forward. His other leg jerked along.
Sekedi. Follow.
So, he did. He didn’t want to, but he did.
She didn’t go straight out of the building, but went instead into the wing where temporaries were held. She broke down a door in the interview room and a moment later came out with the padded clothes she usually wore under her armor.
“Turn around, Errol,” she said.
It wasn’t a spell, like the command to follow, but he did it anyway. But then he turned back around, quickly.
He had been hoping she would start by taking off her pants. Then her legs would be half tied-up when he jumped her. Unfortunately, she had begun with her shirt. She hadn’t turned away from him, and it was pulled up just enough so he could see her belly. He jumped anyway.
He hardly saw the blow coming. It didn’t knock him out, but it sure knocked him down. His vision whited out and his ears rang.
“I am sorry,” he heard her say. “I hit you too hard. That body of yours is very weak. Not like the one you had before. Please do not fight me.”
He came up slowly to his hands and knees. By then she had on the gambeson and padded leggings. He noticed they were different from her last outfit, newer-looking, with different patterns.
“New outfit,” he said. “Where’s your armor?”
“I hid it,” she said. Then she laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to attract attention,” she said. “I did anyway.”
She started walking again, and his body followed, dizzy head, weak knees, and all.
Alberto was at the front door. He was nearly as big as Sam, and he had a night stick.
“Don’t fight her, man,” Errol warned.
But of course Alberto did, although it didn’t last long. As he stepped over the guard’s prone body, Errol hoped Alberto was okay. He had always been decent to Errol, and most of the other inmates liked him.
Moments later, they were through the gate, and Laurel Grove Hospital was behind him. He heard sirens in the distance.
“Constables,” she muttered. “In strange chariots. Yes?”
“You’ve met them before, I guess,” Errol said.
“Yes,” she replied. “I was not prepared last time. They subdued me.”
“This time they’ll shoot you,” he said.
“As with arrows?”
“Bullets,” he said. “You remember bullets?”
She smiled slightly. “Yes,” she said. “I remember you saved my life after I was shot with one.” Her mouth quirked to the side.
“I think we shall avoid the bullets,” she said, and started running. Then he was running, too.
They tore across a couple of yards, over a fence, crossed a couple of streets, and ran into Threefoot Park.
Errol had grown up in the country, about twenty miles outside of Sowashee, but he had an aunt who lived in town, near the park. In summer he had spent a lot of time there—taking swimming lessons in the public pool, catching soft-shelled turtles under the footbridges over the creek, watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. But the best, the coolest thing about Threefoot Park was the carousel.
His father had told him it had been built in the eighteen-nineties, and that it had been designed by a strange old guy from far away. That it was magic.
It had been magic to him. It was housed in a big white building that reminded him of a circus tent and always smelled like cotton candy. The carousel took up most of the building; horses hovered over its wooden deck on gilded poles, horses of all kinds—Appaloosas, bays, black stallions—but there were also tigers, lions, antelopes with twisting horns, giraffes, stags—all manner of beasts, all posed as if about to pounce or take flight.
After a bit of violence to one of the windows, he and Dusk stood in front of the carousel. But now it was dark, the animals in shadow.
“Come along,” she said.
She led him past the empty ticket booth and onto the platform, then swung herself up on one of the horses. He had always liked riding the tigers and had started toward them when she called him back.
“Get up behind me,” she said.
He was still compelled, so he did as she said. The animals were large, not kid-sized like some he had ridden in carnivals, but it was still uncomfortable sharing the rigid saddle with her. That was offset somewhat by . . . well, sharing the saddle with her. Dusk was beautiful, and at one point—before she chopped his leg off—he’d had kind of a thing for her. Now he was pressed against her. She was warm, nearly hot, and he couldn’t help liking it, even though he knew he shouldn’t.
She was the enemy.
“Put your arms around my waist,” she said. “But take no liberties.”
“Okay, I won’t,” he said, trying to cram as much sarcasm as he could into the words. “But listen, would you mind telling me what’s going on?”
“Later,” she said. Then she said a word or two he didn’t catch, and the platform beneath them suddenly lurched into motion. Lights came on all over the carousel, and music started up as the calliope chuffed to life, whistling out a familiar melody, its little mechanical drum beating in time.
The calliope hadn’t worked in years. The park had substituted a tape player. But now the ancient machine was going full blast, as it hadn’t since he was five or six. He remembered riding the tiger, his dad standing by him, grinning, holding onto the pole as it went up and down, his mother ahead on the gazelle, laughing.
They had been happy then, hadn’t they? Before his dad got sick. He believed they had been.
He was shaken out of his reverie as the pace picked up; the music, the spin of the deck. He was sure it was going faster than he had ever known it to, way quicker than it was supposed to go.
Yet it continued to speed up, until he started to get sick and dizzy. He realized he had a death-grip on Dusk because the ride was trying to fling him off.
Then they did fly off—the wooden horse, Dusk, him—the whole package. He closed his eyes, bracing for impact, but instead felt his belly go light. Wind streamed against his face, and the smell of cotton candy was gone.
He opened his eyes, but closed them again immediately when he saw the rapidly receding ground below them. Then he cracked them again, cautiously.
Here we go again, he thought.
Because they were not in Sowashee anymore.
Things had changed in the years Veronica had been dead. The clothes were odd and sometimes just weird. Nobody wore real hats, although she saw the occasional cap. There were a lot more cars and they were all ugly. Everything was brighter and tackier and moved too fast.
But downtown Sowashee was a lot like she remembered it. Most of the buildings had been built long before her birth, and although they looked more worn and rundown, they still retained a certain dignity and—in many cases—mystery. The Obelisk Theater still looked like something out of The Arabian Nights. Twin sphinxes in Egyptian headdress still flanked the steps of a building she had no name for but knew had something to go with Shriners and their fez hats. The Trevis Building—the tallest and only skyscraper in town—was still embellished with fantastical motifs that seemed at once sort of Biblical and utterly exotic.
She had a little money from Aster, so she ate lunch at a diner—meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and butter beans, followed by apple pie and ice cream.
Food was one of her favorite things about being alive.
As it grew dark, she made her way back toward Laurel Grove. She climbed up into the branches of a magnolia to watch the sunset.
When the light began to fade, and her heart stopped, she went to see Errol again.
THREE
JAIL BREAK
Well. Ms. Kostyena.”
Aster glanced up from her doodling to regard the woman in the rumpled gray suit who had just come through the door of the interrogation room.
“I don’t know you,” Aster said.
“No, we’ve never met. My name is Lisa Pierce. I’m your lawyer.”
“Nice to meet you,” Aster said. She wrote the name on the already heavily marked paper in front of her in a script she’d learned from her father’s books. “I was wondering if you would ever show up.”
“I’ve had a busy day,” Pierce said, taking the chair across the table from her. “Not enough public defenders to go around.”
“I’m sure,” Aster said. The lawyer looked young, probably no older than her mid-twenties. Her black hair was cut to her shoulders.
“You mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“I’ve already answered a lot of questions,” Aster said. “But sure, go on.”
“The police asked you questions? In here? Without me?”
“That’s affirmative,” Aster said.
“They shouldn’t have done that. Did you ask for a lawyer right away?”
“Yep,” Aster said. She didn’t point out that that had been more than a day ago, and that she had spent most of the intervening time in a cell.
“Okay,” Pierce said. “We’ll see about that.” She opened a folder and leafed through it.
“Until recently, you lived with your father, is that correct?”
“Yes,” Aster said. She tore the paper from the legal pad and added it to the others.
The lawyer noticed. “Did they give you that to write a statement?”
“Probably,” Aster said.
“Is that Russian you’re writing in?”
Aster shrugged.
“You and your father are from Russia, right?” Ms. Pierce said.
“That’s what Dad said,” she replied.
The lawyer frowned, then returned to her notes.
“It says here you went missing a few months ago.”
“I didn’t go missing. Dad sent me to stay with relatives in Boston.”
“A teacher from your school also vanished about the same time, after he and the school counselor paid a visit to your home. The counselor—Ms. Fincher—called in and requested an extended leave of absence. But nobody has seen her for months. Then you returned, and now your father is missing. Is that all correct?”
“That’s what the police told me,” Aster said. “What they haven’t told me is exactly what I’m supposed to be charged with.”
“You aren’t charged with anything,” Pierce said. “But you’re still a minor. Your father is missing, along with two other people last seen headed toward your house on the day you—went out of town. I think they’re concerned about you.”
“Concerned?”
“There are rumors that your father was involved in the Russian mafia. That he came here to hide out.”
“I see,” Aster said. “So I’m here for my own protection?”
“I think the police see it that way, yes. Is there some other way to see it?”
“Sure,” Aster said. “My father is a sorcerer. He’s under a curse, and he can’t remember anything for more than about fifteen minutes. He still thinks I’m nine. I went off to another world to try and find a cure for him. While I was gone, someone came here, tricked him into believing she was me, and took him away. I guess he took Ms. Fincher with him. Mr. Watkins, the teacher, he was a sort of spook who liked to do nasty things with young girls that wound up with them dead, and he basically got what was coming to him, so he won’t be back no matter what. Does that cover it?”
The lawyer frowned. “There’s no need to be sarcastic, young lady. I’m sure you’re scared, and you’re just acting out, but I’m here to help you.”
Aster leaned forward.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.
“What?”
“I don’t need your help. And you didn’t close the door all the way.”
She picked up the last piece of paper. “Lisa Pierce,” she read.
“What—”
That was as much as she got out. The paper flew out of Aster’s hands and stuck to Ms. Pierce’s face. Aster quickly read the names on the other sheets, standing up as they, too, sailed off. She hurried past the eight employees of the sheriff’s office, including the sheriff, who were all now—like Ms. Pierce—grasping at their faces, their shouts of surprise and panic muffled by the yellow legal-pad pages plastered across their features. She stopped only to collect her backpack from the receptionist and then was out the front in the heat of the evening.
She nearly ran headlong into Veronica.
“This saves me some trouble,” Veronica said. “I was coming to bust you out.”
“I told you to keep out of sight,” Aster said.
“You did,” Veronica acknowledged. “But Errol is gone, and I thought we’d best go look for him.”
“Gone?” Aster said. “What do you mean, gone?”
Veronica looked over her shoulder at the sheriff’s office. The commotion inside was getting louder.
“Maybe I should tell you later?”
“Follow me,” Aster said.
Veronica did explain, on the way. How she had seen Errol the night before, but when she went tonight he hadn’t been there. How she had snooped around and heard one of the guards joking about how some girl on PCP or something had beaten up three guards and a psychiatrist before busting out of the place, taking Errol with her. A crazy girl with a star on her forehead.
“I thought it might be you,” Veronica said.
“Not me,” Aster said. “Dusk. Or another relative of mine, maybe.”
“There was more about it in the paper today,” Veronica said. “It said there was also a break-in at the carousel in Threefoot Park. That’s close to Laurel Grove, and the police think there’s a connection.”
By that time, they were across town and it was well past midnight. Police cars were on the prowl, but it was a simple matter to hide in the shadows and do a Whimsy of Secreting.
“The carousel,” Aster said. “That might be a way through the Pale—to the Marchlands.”
“You mean, like where you found me,” Veronica said.
“Yes. There are lots of ways into the Marchlands, if you have the power. But most of them are dead-ends or go off to pointless places. The trick is finding one that goes through to the Kingdoms.”
“You think Dusk kidnapped Errol and spirited him off to the Kingdoms?”
“It might not have been Dusk,” Aster cautioned. “If she and I have the same birthmark, there are probably others. Maybe everybody from wherever I’m from has one.”
“But why would they want Errol?”
“I don’t know,” Aster said. “But I’m going to find out.”
FOUR
THE GYPSY
The door to the carousel was padlocked and decorated with yellow police tape, neither of which presented Aster with much of an obstacle. The alarm that went off was much more of a concern, so she tried to size the situation up quickly. She could feel the itch of magic on her skin.
One of the animals was missing—one of the horses, she thought. And beyond the empty space, in the shadows near the calliope, something glimmered, something familiar.
She bent and picked it up. It was an iridescent orb of silver about the size of a large marble.
“What’s that?” Veronica asked.
“It’s mine,” Aster said. “Remember when Errol and I came to get you from the vadras? He chased us, and I threw this at him. It slowed him down.”
“Some of that is a little fuzzy for me,” Veronica said. “After all, I had just gotten my skin back. It was all a little confusing.”
“I thought it was gone for good. And now here it is.”
“What a wild coincidence.”
“Or not a coincidence at all,” Aster said. “A message. Whoever took Errol wants us to follow them.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Veronica said. “Let’s go.”
“Right,” Aster said.
“But, um—how?” Veronica asked.
Aster turned back to the merry-go-round.
“I think we ride it,” she said.
“I remember this thing,” Veronica said. “Mom and Dad brought me here—well, I guess it was a long time ago. It’s hardly changed.”
“That’s the point,” Aster said. “Pick an animal. Quickly.”
She ran through the Whimsies she knew, trying to figure out which one might work, and settled on the most obvious.
“Geiyese,” she said, the Whimsy of Brief Life.
Nothing happened.
She heard sirens in the distance. Veronica was sitting up on one of the tigers, looking pleased and not at all concerned.
It struck her, then. It wasn’t life the carousel needed.
“Zemeryese,” she said. Suddenly all of the lights came on, and the music started blaring.
Not life, but remembrance.
She swung up onto the nearest beast, a giraffe, as the carousel picked up speed. Through the door, blue lights of police cars were flashing, but Aster knew it didn’t matter anymore.
Veronica woke to find herself riding a tiger. The last she remembered, the merry-go-round had been whirling wildly, and she had laughed, and then she had become very, very sleepy, closed her eyes for a moment . . .
Also, the tiger had been made of wood. Now it was not. Its fur was stiff and warm; powerful muscles pulled beneath the beast’s skin as it padded along, very quietly, apparently unaware it had an entrée on its back. The stars were out and a sliver of moon, so she could see they were on a dirt street with houses on either side.
