Dust + Ashes, page 37
So, they met and debated and bargained for your fate. It all came as shock after shock to me. I didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it, sat in denial of all of it while the people around me argued about whether to murder you, though in much more oblique terms. The Crows were never so blatant as to say it outright, at least not while I was in the room, but I heard the threat between their words. And there was so much mistrust for Blackwing in the room that I wasn’t sure what to make of them, except that they dabbled in dangerous things that might be just as bad as the family I had just escaped. I was scared. I didn’t want to trust these people. But they were the only allies I had. I had no choice.
I felt helpless, sick, overwhelmed. I held you, and it was all I could do to feel like I was protecting you. But you were so busy, so active and curious. I couldn’t hold you forever.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Tower
BLACKWING TOWER LOOMED into the churning, gray-green sky. Yet, despite the corruption warping the street and neighboring buildings, it looked almost untouched. Almost. The top few stories had been blasted out, its steel and glass twisted up into thorny points that pierced the low, swirling clouds.
“Well,” Marcus said as they stepped into the courtyard. “Here we are.”
Since leaving the diner, the dullness had returned to his eyes. The press of the Greater’s Will on her mind had also returned and, with it, the sense of her biological father far, far away. She knew he was still with them, though, through Marcus, and that made her nervous. Neither of them was safe from the Greater’s influence anymore, and Marcus’s small clairy power was the only buffer they had to keep focused on the task at hand. Be ready, she thought to Benjamin. We’re at the tower now.
“Here we go,” she whispered and started toward the doors.
Inside was deathly quiet. The lobby was deserted, the air stagnant and thick. Blackwing seemed abandoned, but Sarah knew that wasn’t true. There were people here, the few that had been trapped when the tower fell. She could feel them, all touched by corruption, some lightly, others changed to Lesser or abominations.
She also felt the Rend portal; a pinpoint compared to what it had been the last time she was here, but it was definitely active. And then there was the Greater itself. Its presence was all around her, suffocating and closer than it had ever been. It was in the building itself, oozing through the walls and manifesting in the patches of fungal growth that spilled over the balcony and blocked off the grand stairwell. Darklight radiated from these patches, making the air shimmer. The presence swaddled her, welcomed her, beckoned her deeper.
Going to the elevator, she pressed the call button, but it did not light up. She tried again and stepped back, looking around. The light in the lobby shone through the overhead windows, but none of the electric lights were on. The power was out, including the backup generators. It made sense. London was all but dead and had been for months.
Up, come up, up, up to us...
There was an unearthly wail from somewhere outside. It sounded far enough away not to be of concern, but Sarah went back to the entrance and glanced out. Beyond the courtyard, the twisted street was still empty. Nothing moved, but she felt what was coming.
“What was that?” Marcus asked.
“The abominations. They’re being called home,” Sarah said. “We won’t be leaving the way we came.”
Moving from the elevators, they found the emergency stairwell down the hall, and Sarah pushed open the door. It was pitch black on the other side, and she fumbled her flashlight out of her bag. The darkness retracted as she shone it around, almost like some subterranean creature flinching from sunlight. Then, it seemed to adjust and push back, pressing against the intruding luminance. The beam of light seemed tiny and compressed, barely brightening the floor immediately below her.
Sarah.
She held the light higher, seeing the foot of the stairs.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “Let me pass.”
A sensation like a relieved exhalation passed over her, and the light grew stronger in the gloom, revealing the full flight of stairs. As she climbed, an odd, giddy sensation built in her chest. Soon, one way or another, this would all be over.
Several flights up, the stairwell grew even brighter, though not in the sense that there was more available light. Blackwing Tower was not tall compared to some of the newer buildings in London, but she didn’t believe they were near the top yet, where the structure had peeled open to the sky. This was darklight. The higher they climbed, the brighter it shone and the closer to the Rend portal they drew. She turned onto the next flight and stopped suddenly, startled by what she saw above her.
A woman was standing on the next landing in front of the exit. Violet eyes glowed like a cat’s as Sarah’s flashlight beam fell upon her, her pale skin effervescent. She wore lace gloves, holding her hands clasped in front of a late Victorian-era dress, and her dark hair was twisted and pinned atop her head in sophisticated up-do. She was an apparition straight out of a penny dreadful, and Sarah knew her.
“Deguerre?” she asked, stunned. She recognized the viel more from the feel of her, though her outdated fashion was also a clue; Sarah had sensed Deguerre, a viel long since reduced to an abomination after being imprisoned at Blackwing in the 1890s, during her last visit to the tower. Like Dean Lafferty, the Greater had apparently deemed it fit to grant her back her human form.
“Ah, oui. Mademoiselle Sarah, the Greater bids you welcome.” Deguerre gave a polite curtsy before opening the door behind her. “S’il vous plaît, follow me. I will take you to your people.”
Sarah glanced at Marcus, then away. The dull look in his eyes betrayed no reaction to this turn of events. They followed the viel into a hallway between two open workspaces filled with cubicles. Save for the layered dust of four months without cleaning service, nothing looked out of place. They continued past the cubicles to another walkway that led onto the balcony overlooking the lobby before finally coming to a familiar hallway. They were outside Conference Room B—the room where the Rend had opened. They were so close now. Sarah could feel the malignancy in the next room like a hydraulic press against her forehead.
“Come along,” Deguerre said, pushing open the door. “Both of you.”
The conference room was a disaster zone, the floor cracked where the tiered rows of seating had been squashed down or pushed out as if something large had crushed them. The melted, plastic seatbacks stuck like jagged teeth out of the shattered, uneven floor. Black, fuzzy char coated most of the room’s surface, save for a spot on the stage at its head. Laying there was Andrew Edwards, Lord of the Blackwing Estate
Sarah gasped. The austere, older man seemed to be conscious but unresponsive. His eyes were wide and staring straight up, transfixed. Above him, the loathsome gash of the Rend glared down, oozing darklight into the room.
“Grampa Andy?” Sarah said and moved as quickly as she could toward him. She had to step carefully around the wreckage of the floor, but as she approached the stage, she slowed. Hair-thin filaments hung from the portal, one wrapped around each of his limbs, and several others piercing through his chest and head. The skin around these filaments looked blistered and burnt. Sarah whirled toward Deguerre. “What have you done to him?”
“He is clairy. The Greater wished to inspect his abilities more closely. Such an interesting family, the Edwards.” Deguerre gave a nasty, inward smile. “Long ago, they did something not so different to myself, so the Greater has allowed me the opportunity to be this one’s keeper.”
Sarah looked again toward Marcus. He was staring at his father, and, thankfully, he looked perturbed. Slowly, he shook his head and turned toward the viel. “Release him.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that,” Deguerre said.
“We came here for our people,” Marcus said. “He’s one of them. Release him.”
“You came here because the Greater Willed it.”
Marcus looked at Sarah. She held his gaze and gave a curt nod. There was still something dispassionate in his expression. He should be more horrified by this, she thought. By all of it. I should feel more horrified by it. But it was true; Eddie had been right. She was here because the Greater Willed it. It had led her on to believe she was following her own free will when, of course, she wasn’t. Now it was dulling her human empathy. It didn’t want such distractions at this point in the game. The Greater was part of her, was her, just as she was part of it. Its Will overrode her own, was her own. Anything else had simply been glamour.
She looked at the Rend and felt the rest of her whole through it. For the first time, it—the Greater—felt patient. At ease. It knows it’s already won. She was here, within reach. There was no escaping it this time; Marcus was a thrall, there were no Crows to fight, and Blackwing had fallen, laid low before the Greater’s supremacy. There was no need to rush. Everything was finally under control. It could allow itself to indulge her worldly desires, savor its final worldly quiddity, in the short time the world still remained. She looked around again.
“Where’s my mother?” she asked.
“Lil...” Marcus said, and there was an iota more emotion in his voice.
Deguerre gestured again for them to follow. She led them back into the hall and up another flight of stairs. On the next floor, they followed the same general path they had below, but instead of a conference room, they came to a large, open space. Once, it had been filled with cubicles, but most of them were gone or half-collapsed into the Rend’s gaping maw. They were above it now, but instead of seeing down into the conference room, an abyss sat in the center of the floor. The corner walls opposite them had been blown out and shaped into the thorn-like structures she had seen outside. Beyond it, Sarah could see the rotting city: the Thames and the London Eye swamped by sargassum, Parliament and Big Ben covered in caustic fungus across the water. Once, she had dreamed of visiting this city and sightseeing all these locales. Seeing it twisted made her heart ache.
But that was a minor discomfort compared to the horror she felt when she peered into the Rend and saw its sides writhing with tendrils all lashed toward a twisted, vaporous spire that jutted up from the darkness beneath. Suspended there, impaled on that spire, was her mother.
Sarah’s stomach dropped.
“Lil,” Marcus repeated, voice cracking. For the first time since they’d left the Nest, he sounded like himself. Slowly, he sank to his knees, staring across the abyss. It had to be a good thirty feet across. Even if they could get to her, how could they remove her from the spire? “Is she in pain?”
He glared at Deguerre, but the viel woman looked nonplussed. She shrugged. “Perhaps, if she were aware of her surroundings, she would be. But her mind is elsewhere. Fleeing reality, I suppose.”
Sarah hoped that was true. Her mother’s face was slack. Despite her gray eyes open wide, there was no sense of recognition there, or even one of urgency. Lilian just gazed blandly at the broken ceiling and turbulent sky peeking through it, a point of placidity caught in a whirlwind of shadow.
“Oh, Mama...” She felt like crying. Moving toward the opening, she sank to her knees beside her stepfather and leaned forward over the edge. “Please, let her go. Please. It’s over. You have me. Just let her go.”
The Greater’s mirth rolled over her, and Sarah fell back gasping for air between cackles. It was over. What would be the point of letting Lilian go now? She’d have only seconds to enjoy her freedom before being reduced to a steaming pile of biological slag. They probably wouldn’t even be pleasant seconds, considering how frail the human body proved in situations like these. The hilarity of the very notion oozed from the Greater through her.
“Sarah,” Marcus said, voice low and stern. Pain hollowed his face as he stared at his wife. “Do something. Don’t let her stay like that. Do anything.”
The amusement fizzled out of her, reacting to Marcus’s tone. How many times had he used Stern Voice to lecture her? She scrambled to regain her sense of self and fortify her mental faculties. She reached into her pocket, tapping on her iPod as she withdrew it. However, before she could shove the earbuds into her ears, Deguerre grabbed her hand.
“How did you recover this device?” she demanded, shaking her hand.
Sarah flushed with anger, both her own and that of the Greater’s. It was unacceptable; respectively, that the Greater should try to remove her only weapon and the realization that she was still so futilely defiant. The mirrored emotions clashed against, yet amplified, each other, trapping her mind in a tug-of-war of Wills.
Not yet, she thought, pushing against that other influence. There was a jarring sensation. Then, to her surprise, the Greater yielded and her mind cleared somewhat. She staggered as she recovered, once again focusing on her mother. Beside her, Deguerre went still, expression slack. Sarah yanked her hand back. She gripped her iPod, tensing for another psychic blow.
What will you do? There was sincere curiosity in the Greater’s question. Now, it seemed almost pleased by her resistance. Can you save her? How will you do it?
“Maybe there’s something we can use to bridge...” She trailed off as she saw Marcus.
His eyes had glazed over again, his face blank to match the other two women in the room. When Sarah waved a hand in front of him, he didn’t react. What will you do now, on your own, alone? One by one, I will seize your entire family. Then, you will have no choice but to turn to me.
“Stop,” Sarah snarled. She whirled, the voice booming in her head coming from everywhere. She could see their images: RJ, Marcus, her mother, both Grams and Melanie, Andrew, and even Benjamin, all rippling in the oily corruption that coated the walls. All of them tainted by the Greater’s influence.
She grabbed Marcus’s shoulders and shook him, trying to rouse him. He couldn’t be under the Greater’s control—Eddie had promised he’d be protected. But, then...
All of them, mine. All touched by my power. Our power. All within my grasp. Tia’s the only one left, and here she comes now with her cavalry of Crows.
“No,” she whispered, feeling the Greater’s probes drilling into her consciousness, taunting her as the images on the walls flashed faster. She saw Tia in a car, holding Benjamin’s hand. If Eddie couldn’t shield Marcus, how could she protect Benjamin? How could she protect Tia from Benjamin?
She couldn’t.
She was a part of the Greater and had shared her power with the young man. Thus, he was a part of the Greater. He had trusted her, and she had handed him to the enemy, all but betraying her little sister, her whole family, the whole world.
They are mine. You are mine. In the end, it is better this way, is it not? It’s the bargain your pathetic father made with me in the end, when he finally understood the futility of resistance, of denying his own nature. For so long he tried to fight, going so far as to run to Blackwing for help, too. But in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to cross the threshold of this tower. He fought with such fervor. You’re more like him than you realize. But, that fervor won’t save you anymore than it did him. We are one. We are us.
Sarah lay down and curled up on the edge of the abyss. She gazed at her mother suspended below. At Marcus and Deguerre, a pair of flanking statues above her. All were still. All were blank.
He bargained with me so many times to protect his precious Lily. To leave her out of our plans. I obliged, for a time, but he knew his fate was absolute. The paradise I offer is not for everyone, but it could be, so long as they have absolute faith and loyalty. He finally asked, if I wouldn’t spare her, then at least could I take her and her new family, all of them, into my power and let them be servants, regardless of their faith? He knew how I punished those who defy me. I agreed but left it up to him to convince them to take the Sacrament so they might be protected from transfiguration. He failed.
There was the feeling as if the Greater had shrugged, passing this off. It meant nothing to it if her family was saved or not. If anything, it seemed like a minor inconvenience, nothing to sweat over. Sarah frowned. It was as Eddie had said.
“Why let me escape then?” Sarah asked. “Why let me run free all this time? If you’re so powerful, if we really are the same, then why didn’t you just have me come back to you whenever?”
There was a pause, a weighted consideration.
Curiosity, came the eventual reply. Not one she had expected. She prodded it to elaborate, but no explanation was forthcoming. Instead, she felt scrutinized, stripped bare before its attention. After a time, even that sense grew distracted, the focus shifting away from her to something distant, and she wondered what was happening in Hope Falls. She tried to sense Benjamin’s mind, any viel mind, but a partition had been installed between her and the rest of the hivemind, like a warding in reverse—she was blind to what was happening beyond her own mind. She was still directly connected to the Greater, but, in its distraction, she felt very much on her own. She sat up and looked at the others in the room, unable to sense even them. Effectively, she was alone. For the first time in so long. Alone. By herself.
She wanted to cry. That was something she could indulge in while alone, while feeling this low. Usually, it made her feel better, but things had certainly taken a turn for the worst. There would be no better after this. If these were to be the final moments of existence...
No.
She wiped away her budding tears. She would not sit down and cry. She would not give up. She had to do something. If her placement here was out of curiosity, then this was another test of some sort. What would she do? What could she do? She could try to free her mother, somehow, without falling into the Rend and being seized. This was Blackwing Tower. Perhaps there was some tool, some spell she could find to break the Greater’s hold on her parents. She started to get up, but froze, suddenly aware that something in the room had changed. Across the void, a pale, alien face was watching her from the doorway.
