Penult Read online

  “Yes. There we put many saddles we salvage from those who fall in the fighting. Any one you can pick. It is yours.”

  “Alright. I’ll bring one.”

  She sat there, tall in her own saddle and smiled down at me.

  “Now is time for special fun. We need a name for your beast. It is tradition to name on molting day.”

  “Name?”

  “Yes. Your beast needs a name. How else will you call it?”

  I looked again at the young dragonfly. It was the prettiest thing, its body all rust and blue with opalescent eyes. It had wavy copper bands on its wings with clear patches and black accents. That striping was unusual for the dragonflies around her. He was a rare species, apparently. Less common, anyway, if not a mutant. Like me.

  “Um … how about … Tigger?”

  “Trigger?”

  “No, Tigger. As in … Tiger. As in Pooh.”

  Urszula looked puzzled, but she nodded nevertheless.

  ***

  The bluish sun had disappeared from the horizon by the time I entered the warren. I thought I knew where I was going this time but I soon proved myself wrong. I kept doubling back to the same little triangular park where a group of Old Ones sat staring at each other like statuary. I could only imagine what they thought of me the third time I went by, if they could even see me.

  I couldn’t ask for directions because this place had no addresses. I could not even identify a suitable landmark nearby to help folks help me navigate. It was just another living space in a maze of identical living spaces. I never should have let Urszula leave without showing me how to get there.

  As I wandered, longing to collapse onto that dense heap of mats that served as my bed, a familiar tingle scuttled down my arm, sending pins and needles into my fingertips. I looked down at my mottled hand in the early stages of a fade. Patches of translucent skin revealed nerves and tendon and bone. Finding my living quarters seemed a moot point now. I sat down on a plinth like some Old One and awaited my fate.

  ***

  Wherever I had come, it was way cozier than my little hooch in the warren, high thread count cotton encasing a cloud of down and a mattress topper of rapid-reacting memory foam that gave way to any pressure point before it ever had a chance to form.

  I could hear a broadcaster talking about shootings and terrorists. British accent. This was not Heaven. It was not prison. Some place in between.

  Glasgow.

  If this was a hotel, it was much fancier than any room I had ever booked, fancier than Wendell’s place in London or the Hilton Karla and I and stayed at in Inverness on Wendell’s dime.

  I surged up out of bed and nearly fell flat on my face. A swarm of ghost moths flew up to clutter and cloud my brain. I was hungrier than a goat tethered in a parking lot.

  I stumbled out the door of the bedroom, following the sound of the television. Four sets of female eyes popped wider than nature even intended and all four women sprang into action, catching me before I could collapse, leading me to a small sofa where they sat me down and took my pulse and checked the temperature of my brow.

  “Where are we?” I said. “What happened to the train?”

  “The train? That was yesterday,” said Helen. “We’ve been here a full day now.”

  “You went away to that place you go, didn’t you?” said Fiona.

  “He hasn’t eaten a shred in two days,” said Helen. “He must be famished.”

  “I’ll go get some takeout,” said Britt, rushing to the door. “Indian? Chinese? Any preference?”

  “Fish and chips,” I said. “With those mashed green peas.”

  “You got it,” said Britt, slamming the door.

  “Did you see Karla?” said Helen. “How is she?”

  “I … uh … no. I didn’t see her. At least I didn’t think so. I’m … not sure.”

  “Jessica’s been sharing some of your stories with us,” said Fiona. “Just fascinating. Gargantuan insects. Killer angels. Really?”

  “Um … yeah,” I said. “Can we change the channel, please?” The explosions and bloody scenes on the streets of some nameless Middle Eastern city disturbed me.

  Jessica switched over to that talk show where some middle aged guys goofed around and talked about cars. That, I could handle.

  “We’ve been out looking today, James,” said Helen. “Scoured the streets of Glasgow.”

  “Did you know there are three fundamentalist Catholic sects in this city?” said Jessica. “Some of the parishes are tiny. A few families each.”

  “I never would have imagined,” said Helen. “In Scotland of all places.”

  “Sedevacantists. You want Sedevacantists.”

  “Yes. None of these recognize the Pope,” said Jessica. “That’s the definition, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but there are other sects. SSPX. SSPV. They’re different.”

  “Karla’s dad. Edmund. You were right, James. He is out of jail,” said Jessica. “We found a news report on Google saying he got time off for good behavior. After less than one year. And the man was convicted of manslaughter!”

  “We’re not sure yet if he’s actually in Glasgow,” said Helen. “I couldn’t get those church people to talk to me. They kept acting like I was from Mars. And I was dressed quite conservatively. Used my best manners.”

  Fiona fetched me a glass of water. I thanked her and drained it, and so she fetched me another.

  “What’s the trick James?” said Jessica. “How do we get ourselves into those churches?”

  “You don’t. Stay away. Those people are nuts. They’re dangerous. I wouldn’t go anywhere near them. I would watch the entrances maybe. See who goes in and comes out. They might have drugged her like they did to me and Linval.”

  “At what point do we call the authorities?” said Helen.

  “Only when you’re certain they have her,” I said. “We don’t want them to know we’re out looking.”

  “This is so exciting!” said Fiona. “I mean, no for you, of course. Not for poor Karla. But … this kind of adventure doesn’t happen every day.”

  Helen rolled her eyes. “I could do with a little less of it, thank you. I just want to know if these are the bastards who burnt our farm.”

  Knuckles rapped on the door and the latch released. Britt let herself in.

  “Food!” she said, holding up a paper sack.

  ***

  Those fish and chips were about the best I ever had. And the shower I took afterward was simply glorious. I gave my special credit card to Jessica to pick me up some new clothes, and whatever odds and ends the ladies all needed. It still worked like a charm and I had a crisp set of boxers, blue T-shirt, black jeans and grey hoodie waiting for me when I slipped out of the bathroom wrapped only in a towel.

  I snatched them up and slipped into my room. The ladies had booked a three room suite at the Blythswood Square hotel, also paid for with my ivory credit card. I wondered how long the Friends of Penult would extend me credit once they had learned I had returned to the Liminality and had already struck down a Seraph from the sky. Until then, I would spend and once they cut me off, I had a case to go to Wendell for support.

  Dried, dressed and combed, I went back out to sit with the ladies who were sketching out their surveillance plans for tomorrow. They planned one more full day of watching the churches before we would move on to Inverness, and after that, Aberdeen if necessary, both apparently harboring bastions of Edmund’s cult.

  I was in no rush to go back to Root. My emotions were not in the greatest shape, so I was feeling pretty vulnerable. Thankfully, the comforts and companionship of this evening kept the roots at bay.

  “Are you sure there are no angels where you go?” said Helen.

  “Nah,” I said. “There are people … souls … who pretend to be, I guess. But they’re just people. Misguided, mistaken people who think they’re better than everyone else.”

  “Just like here,” said Britt.

  “Yeah,” I
said. “Just like here.”

  We stayed up and played cards until Helen got sleepy and triggered a chain reaction of yawning and the consensus that it was time to retire to bed. I raided the mini bar for a tiny bottle of vodka and a beer to chase it, hoping it would tamp down my frazzled nerves.

  Considering I had been unconscious for most of the previous twenty four hours, at least in the other world, I wasn’t sleepy at all. I went into my room anyhow and laid down, studying the shifting lights on my wall from the street below, listening to the sound of the city at night, drunks singing, garbage trucks emptying dumpsters, street sweepers.

  I became aware of a familiar flow that regularly invaded my dreams in the Liminality. It found and buffeted my soul like a strong current, trying to sweep it away, but not to Root.

  The stream flirted with me, beckoning me to join it until I relented and let it was over me. I wasn’t even sleeping this time. Fully alert and awake, it took me. This was something new and amazing to me. The barriers between me and the Singularity were getting weaker and weaker all the time.

  Leaving my body on the bed, it carried me outside the hotel to the streets of Glasgow, to the drunken man I could hear singing, to his wife four blocks away in an apartment, watching a DVD and waiting for him to come home.

  And then I was in the train station sampling the mind of one of those lonely young men I used to see everywhere, convinced they were all Sergei’s bounty hunters, but this was truly just a lonely and troubled young man, both pining and dreading to go home.

  And then I was in a train far down the tracks. It looked like the same kind of train we had ridden north from Pontypool. And I recognized a passenger. Belinda. The woman who had met me at the airport in Rome. Who first warned me against returning to the Liminality. She was coming north. Coincidentally?

  And then I was flying, flitting from head to head across a rural landscape, through small towns, big towns, nameless cities. Spiraling around its neighborhoods, homing in on a person sitting with her back against a road embankment, feet propped against a light post as she snacked on a hunk of baguette.

  Karla. It was Karla. Yes. This time I was a hundred percent sure.

  She leapt up. Alarmed. She whirled around, facing an unseen accoster. She began to run, but I stayed with her, holding on as long as I could, even though the stream was already tugging at me, trying to carry me away.

  “James?”

  Her voice loosened my grip and I was torn away, caught up in the torrent, bouncing over souls like so many stones in a riverbed.

  And I was back in my room, feeling leaden and inert. I should have been happy. Karla looked fine. She looked healthy and free. By no means a prisoner or a hostage. Just … homeless. But what did that mean?

  When the roots came, they came hard and fast. I could not keep them at bay. They took me like a fox takes a vole.

  Chapter 41: Cracker

  I found myself prostrate and naked in a walkway in the middle of the warren next to the vacant plinth where I had faded. Little strips of glowing root had been placed here and there to mark certain entryways, but it was way too dark for me to make sense of this maze and find my way to my quarters.

  Something slithered against the paving stones across the way where it was too dark to see. I noticed my sword glinting on the plinth. I grabbed it and hopped to my feet, stalking the critter before it could get away. I pounced and impaled it with my sword.

  “Gotcha! You fucker!

  It was my hoodie, which had half reverted back to roots and was crawling around the corner, attempting a getaway. I snatched it up and went a little farther down the alley where I found my pants attempting to climb a wall like some octopus trying to escape a fishing boat. I wove both back into submission with a few twirls of my sword tip and pulled them on. With the chill breeze and all, I was grateful for some clothes.

  I left the warren and skirted its outer wall, heading down towards the rim and the main stairway. Down there would be the mats that Olivier had set up for me to nap. I could catch a few winks and then choose a saddle for my new dragonfly in time to meet Urszula up at the meadow for my flying lesson.

  I was looking forward to riding Tigger, but also a little nervous about what would come next. The sooner I learned to fly the sooner we would leave for Penult, the place that spawned all these Cherubim and Hashmallim and Seraphim that were tearing up this place. I couldn’t help but feel a little bit afraid.

  My glimpse of Karla in that Singularity dream—if indeed it was a dream—still unsettled me. I should have felt relieved that she seemed healthy and uninjured, that she was free, not under any kind of threat, but I couldn’t help but be unnerved.

  What was she doing? Where was she? Had she been taken and escaped? Was she looking for me or running from me?

  Something about it made me all queasy inside. I felt somehow betrayed. Why was I risking my butt going to Penult? She had wanted me here and now here I was. Why hadn’t she come and found me? Was she too happy now for the Liminality? Being away from me? I mean, what the fuck? How was that supposed to make me feel?

  This was one of those times that made me relate to those lonely young men in those train stations. No place to go. No one coming to meet them. No one awaiting their arrival.

  I was feeling as low as I ever did in this place. If I could have crawled into a pod and fed myself to a Reaper, I would have at that moment.

  The Old Ones manning the stony fortifications at the rim barely glanced at me as I passed. Their stony silence should not have surprised me but it spooked me nonetheless. These souls had ways of communicating with each other that went beyond words. I could feel the probing of stray wisps of consciousness, but I was not quite receptive enough yet to engage them.

  A detachment of Frelsians guarding the stairway to the lower terrace were more receptive to my presence. They were clad in that soft and clingy armor of theirs. Their root lanterns were dimmed to near imperceptibility, a mere suggestion of light than any functional radiance.

  “And where might you off to at this hour, young man?” said a barrel-chested man with a weapon that looked like a cross between a pole axe and a ridiculously long shotgun.

  “Grotto,” I grunted, almost inaudibly.

  One of the guards nudged his comrade. “This is the Moody fellow, mate,” he whispered.

  “For true?” said a third guard. “The James?”

  The first guard clasped my shoulder.

  “So good to have you with us, son. You take care down below. Word is the Pennies are sending bands of infiltrators up the cliffs. Cherubim. Hashmallim. Snipers and raiders and such. The armory is well guarded and we have patrols all through the viny woods, but some still manage to get through. That’s why we’re here. Can’t always depend on those Old Ones. Doesn’t seem like they’re awake much. What’s your business down there? If … you don’t mind me asking?” He scrunched his brow.

  “Well. I’m supposed to go and get myself a saddle.”

  “Oh. Mantid rider, are you?”

  “Dragonfly.”

  “Really, now?” He seemed impressed.

  “The quartermaster can help you,” said the first guard. “Just tell him what you need and he’ll hook you up. He’s supposed to be on duty 24/7 with the siege and all underway. Though, he might be busy. Miss Victoria’s down there right now getting her fighting gear in order.”

  “Victoria, huh?”

  “Oh yes. It’s so nice to have her back. She’s a battler that one. A true sorceress. She turned the tide for us in the battle for the basin. Wasn’t for her, we never would have reached this refuge. The Pennies had us in full retreat. It was not a pretty sight.”

  “No worries,” I said. “I won’t get in her way. I couldn’t sleep. Thought I’d go get that saddle. I just wanted some place to go. Get out of the dark.”

  “You’re always welcome here, son. There is always someone on duty here, and most of us are Fullsouls.”

  “Thanks.”

  I
started down the stairs. A few glow worms tucked here and there marked the edge of the stairs, but the utter darkness everywhere else conspired to amplify my sense of vertigo. I knew about the unseen void looming only a few feet to my right.

  The stairs lacked a rail. The retaining wall ended below my knee. One wrong turn and I would plunge a thousand feet with no return. I kept as far left as possible, fingernails skimming the side of the cliff.

  The precision and utter evenness of the stairs at least made the descent predictable. I counted two hundred and fifty six steps down to the middle landing. The place was silent but for the drip of a spring and the wind buffeting the cliffs.

  I paused. Where were the guards? Why weren’t they challenging me?

  I took a step and my foot struck something soft and heavy. I tripped, barely keeping my feet. When I caught myself I reached down and felt around, my hand falling straight on someone’s mouth and nose. They were cold and dead, with not a trace of blood.

  I panicked, certain that infiltrators had come up the stairs and were lurking in one of the rain shelters carved into the cliff. I gripped my sword and cast my will against the stone in each cavity, making it fluoresce, intending to silhouette whoever was hiding.

  The rock glowed. There was no one hiding in the shelters, but there were three more bodies strewn about the landing. I wanted to shout up to the guards up top, but it was a long ways up. Better I not expose my presence to whoever had done this.

  I waited for the glow to fade before moving on to the lower stairs. If a Cherub had come up this far, there was no way I had passed him on the stairs. Whoever had done this probably remained below me.

  My heart thudded out of control, losing its rhythm the way it usually did when I went into a panic. I scurried to the end of the landing and started down, sword at the ready, casting my will every now and then to illuminate a tread. But I heard no breathing, no footsteps but my own, encountered no other souls all the way down to the mouth of the grotto.

  At the base of the stairs, I stumbled over two more bodies. Neither had any sign of wounds. Their weapons remained at their sides. They were both still warm but as limp as wet towels.