“Do you hear music?”
“Faintly. Some kind of cheap organ. One of those Casios or something.”
“Hmm. That could be several places. Papa’s sect is buying abandoned churches all over Scotland. Do you hear street sounds?”
“Well, occasionally, there’s some rumbling.”
“A train?”
“Can’t tell. Could be trucks.”
“James. In our main church, the casement windows are rusted and the latches are loose. I used to go out this way sometimes. Have you tried—?”
“There’s no window.”
“No?”
“It’s just solid stone.”
“Then … I don’t know this place. Unless … they put you in the sub-basement. I was never allowed down there.”
The Reaper bellowed, from farther off this time. Its call sounded almost like a whale.
“James. I will come find you. I promise.”
“No. It’s way too risky. I don’t want you going anywhere near your dad. You keep on running. I’ll figure something out.”
“You ever find out where you are, son, you let me know,” said Bern. “Some people in that prison of mine owe me favors. They have contacts on the outside who could bust you out.”
“Will do,” I said, as I listened to the wind whip across the wastes.
“If anyone wants to rest, we can set watches,” said Karla. “I am happy to go first.”
“Don’t think there’s any need, love,” said Bern. “I doubt there’ll be any nappy time for me tonight.”
“Yeah. Me neither,” I said.
“I wish we could have a fire,” said Karla.
“Not unless you want some uninvited visitors,” said Bern.
Urszula writhed on the ground in front of us, drifting in and out of sleep. She was obviously in great discomfort, unable to find any position that eased her pain.
Bern stood and gazed through his astrolabe at the newly arisen stars in the East. “First light, once I get my bearings, I’ll get us home forthwith. We can’t be more than an hour away.”
“My brothers and sisters will come looking with the dawn,” said Urszula. “They will find you.”
“Is that a promise or a threat?” said Bern.
“It is a warning. You should not walk on the surface. You should go straight into the nearest pit. Depending who comes, I may not be able to protect you from their vengeance.”
“Protect us?”
“You have shown mercy to me. That is more than any Frelsian would have done. They would have bashed my skull with a stone and left me to be eaten by the slugs.”
“I take it, you and Frelsi don’t get along,” said Bern.
“Frelsi wants us eradicated,” said Urszula. “And if they get any stronger, they may get their wish. Our numbers are few. We were once a million strong, but the long sleep has taken the Old Ones. The Frelsians, their numbers still grow. When the first bands came from the tunnels, we tolerated them. They should have been nipped in the bud. They have become … an abomination.”
“Who are you people?” said Karla. “Where did you come from?”
“We came from the Deeps.”
“Are you … a fallen angel?” said Karla.
“Uh … risen hell spawn is more like it,” said Bern, under his breath. “Demons.”
“A soul is a soul,” said Urszula. “I was once just like you.”
“But in Frelsi, souls are free,” said Bern. “Unbound to anything. At least, that’s what they say.”
“I am also free,” said Urszula. “By a different path.”
“Yes, well,” said Bern. “Pardon me if I don’t care to follow in your footsteps.”
“You are so lucky to have broken free from the Deeps,” said Karla. “I didn’t think that was even possible.”
“The Deeps?” I said.
“Where souls wind up when they’re Reaped,” said Bern, nudging me. “Go directly to jail. Do not pass go.”
“Is it … Hell?”
“It is nothing. A vast, bleak nothingness,” said Urszula.
The Reaper came galumphing by the far side of the nearest pit, retracing its path, as if it too were lost. Karla gripped one hand tight. I kept my free hand on my sword.
“How did you all get out?” said Karla.
“Our founders rebelled. The powers that be never expected leaders or unity or weapons—our spell craft. But it has been a thousand years. I am a Latecomer. I simply followed in their path. The breach is mostly closed now. A few souls still come, but only a trickle.”
The Reaper bellowed. It was creeping around the edge of the pit, closer than it had yet come. None of us moved.
“If I had my scepter I would put it in its place,” said Urszula.
“What’s that thing doing up here, anyway?” said Karla. “You’d think there would be better hunting down in the tunnels. It’s not like there’s any shortage of pods waiting to be plucked.”
“That one is a domestic,” said Urszula.
“What do you mean?” said Karla.
“The Frelsians tame them, employ them as beasts of burden.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. “Tame Reapers?”
A belching growl erupted behind us, away from the pit. It seemed impossible that Reaper could have moved so fast.
“Oh my God! There is two!” said Karla.
Urszula got up and tried to walk. She collapsed.
“Stay down!” said Bern. “You should not be up on your feet.”
“The slugs! They are coming! We must flee!”
“No!” said Bern. “We should stay put and stay together. They would pick us off one by one out in the open, in the dark.”
Urszula lunged at Karla, reaching for the bundle that swaddled her scepter. Karla wrested it out of her grasp, but she kept on coming. I dove into the scrum and pried her hands away. Even with only one good arm, she had a wiry strength that would not be denied.
Bern reached down and whisked the bundle away. Urszula started after him as well, but I grabbed onto her leg as he fended her off with his cane.
“Give it to me! I will defend you!”
“Think we’ve never tangled with Reapers before, love?” said Bern. “I’ve had my share of scraps.”
I held my sword at the ready. An awful stench wafted over us. Twigs snapped. Gravel scraped. A dark hulk reared up behind us and blotted out the stars. Another surged towards us from the pit side.
My sword came aglow and began to vibrate with a hum that rose steadily in pitch. I had little conscious control, but I had learned to let things happen and embrace the good that would come.
Bern turned his cane into a wicked, multi-bladed lance about twice as long as he was tall. Karla wielded the scepter, but I feared in her hands it was no better than a stick.
Urszula cowered on the ground, snuffling and whimpering.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll drive them off. Together, we’re strong.”
Someone barked a guttural command. These Reapers had riders! Another command and they belched in unison. A sticky web came raining down, adhering to our flesh like a thousand toads’ tongues, squelching all movement. The sword knocked loose from my grip.
They moved in for the kill.
Chapter 19: Rendezvous
“Halt!” someone shouted, and the Reapers slumped to the ground. Their betentacled muzzles probed the sticky netting that pressed us flat. Green floodlights washed over us, their glare obscuring the figures moving across the jointed and hinged decking strapped to the Reapers’ backs.
It wasn’t glue that made the net sticky but a million microscopic hooks that latched onto every hair and pore in my skin and every fiber of my clothing, fixing my arms and legs in place. I could see Karla’s hand only inches from mine. I tried to reach it, but the netting held me as firmly as any spider web ever held a gnat.
These Reapers were larger than any I had ever seen—as big as whales. They were heavily scarred, with great di
vots taken out of their flesh. Multiple eyes of diverse size, shape and color were arranged in an arcing ridge atop their heads, some open, some closed, the open ones blinking out of sync. They grumbled and growled. Their stomachs whined.
“What’s happening?” said Karla, her voice all muffled. She lie face down, her chin pressed into the dirt.
“Frelsians,” said Urszula. “It is over. We are headed for the Deeps.”
Figures clambered down from decking. A man slammed the end of his staff against the ground and the entire web glowed orange, revealing our captor’s faces.
They were all youngish-looking men, some with facial hair, some without, all Caucasian. They wore helmets that rode high on their heads like oversized yarmulkes. A membranous fringe undulated along the bottom rims as if their headwear were alive.
Some kind of padding or armor in their canvas jackets broadened their shoulders and inflated their chests. Their knicker-like leggings had built-in kneepads with flanges that extended down to protect their shins.
A man with a neatly trimmed goatee who seemed to be their leader. He came up to the webbing and crouched over Urszula.
“Well, well, what do we have here, a female Duster?”
Urszula spat and tried to claw at him with her one good hand, but the webbing held her firm.
“Identify yourselves, please. And tell me, why is this Duster with you?”
“Cummings is the name,” said Bern. “Mr. Cummings.”
“I’m … uh … James Moody.”
Karla mumbled into the dirt.
“What did she say?”
“Karla,” I said. “Her name is Karla Raeth.”
“And why is there a Duster with you?”
“She … attacked Karla,” I said.
He poked at the wrap on Urszula’s ankle with his staff. “Did you people do this? Did you render aid to this creature?”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “She was hurt.”
“Since when are we charitable to those who attack us?”
“She needed help,” I said. “She was suffering.”
The leader shook his head. “Clear the web,” he said. “Wrap the Duster. We’ll bring it back for an extraction.”
A shorter man took his staff and traced a circle around Urszula. Every bit of web outside the circle withered and disintegrated into wisps of ash. He swooped in and retrieved the bundle bearing Urszula’s scepter.
“I don’t know what you were thinking,” said the goateed man, holding up the rod, shaking his head. “But you people were playing with fire.” He tossed it to a man on a platform that bracketed one of the Reapers’ heads like a yoke.
I helped Karla to her feet.
“I find this all very curious. Why did you stray from the rendezvous point? Were you not briefed?”
“What … rendezvous point?” I said.
“You are at the wrong pit. You were to meet us three pits to the west. You’re very lucky that we found you. If our Reapers hadn’t caught your scent, we would have—”
“Master Felix, sir. This one has no mark,” said a wiry man examining the underside of Bern’s forearm. He bustled over to me and Karla and brusquely twisted our arms. “In fact, I don’t believe any of them do.”
“Have you people not been vetted?”
“Well, I have,” I said. “I think. By Victoria.”
“Then, where is your mark?”
“She didn’t … I don’t have one.”
“They’re all mavericks!” said the short man.
The goateed one—Master Felix—stood and ruminated. “Well, that explains a lot. You all don’t have a clue what you’re tangling with here, do you?” He pointed his staff at Urszula.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’ve got a pretty good clue.”
Master Felix shook his head. He turned to the others.
“Get them on board.”
“But sir, they are not vetted,” said the short man.
“I said get them on board. We are late for the rendezvous. We will sort it all out back home.”
“Restraints?”
“For the Duster, of course,” said Master Felix. “But for them, there’s no need.
The short man tapped his staff against the remnant of web covering Urszula and it curled beneath her. She gave out a piercing cry as it retracted around her flesh like shrink-wrap. One of the Reapers surged forward and probed her midriff with its feelers.
Master Felix shooed the Reaper back with his staff. He and another man picked Urszula up and lashed her to the side of the nearest Reaper’s decking.
“Hey, go easy,” I said. “She’s hurt.”
“Shut up and get on board. We have to go.”
***
I was leery of walking up to the Reaper, but the beast looked as placid as a manatee, its feelers caressed the ground, wrapping around the broken stems of bushes, sampling the sap that leaked.
We climbed up a ladder onto the articulated decking, sitting on plain, hard benches below what looked like a harpoon launcher, one of two mounted fore and aft. Green glowing globes were mounted on swivels beside each. One of the men touched one and the opposite hemisphere brightened and cast a beam over the landscape.
“Never thought I’d find myself on one of these devils’ backs,” said Bern. “These don’t smell quite as bad as the ones in the tunnels. But don’t get me wrong, they still smell pretty bad.”
Karla slid close to me and buried her face in my shoulder. I put my arm around her and kissed her cheek, finding it slick and salty. She had been crying.
I patted her back. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re with the good guys. We’re going to Frelsi!”
“James. I feel it … it is coming,” she said.
“Feel what?”
“I am getting the aura. I can tell, it is coming soon.”
“Fading? Jeez! Already? You just got here.”
I ran my fingers over her hands. In the green glow reflecting from the search beams, I looked for empty spots on her skin. There were none.
“Hey. There’s nothing to worry about. You look fine.”
She closed her eyes. “I know this aura. My skin is buzzing. I know what it means.”
“Well, try and hold off till we get to Frelsi. Can you?”
“I don’t know if I can,” she said. “I don’t control it.”
I held onto her tightly, but I knew that I didn’t have any more power than her to hang onto her soul.
“Ho!” Master Felix shouted and the Reaper rose off the ground, extruding dozens of clawed limbs from either side. It bent its body back around the way it had come.
We cruised over the dark plains. The decking heaved like a boat, except the beast generated its own waves. Greenish beams washed over the barrens like prison searchlights.
We came to the rim of a large pit that Bern and I had surveyed earlier that day, the one with all the footprints leading out of the tunnels. I recognized the extra tall cairn with the chunk of rosy quartz on top.
About a dozen souls waited by the edge. Several cowered as the Reapers approached. It looked like they might run away, but they stood firm. A beam panned over their faces, some grim, others calm and hopeful.
One guy, on the more confident side of the spectrum, looked familiar. He had dark, tousled hair and an un-tucked dress shirt worn over a pair of well-worn blue jeans, holed at the knees, apparently replicated from some favorite pair he owned in life. Where had I seen him before? Life? Root?
I expected to find Victoria here, but there was no sign of her. Instead, a young man with a mane of flowing, blond hair tended this small herd of souls like a shepherd. Apparently, Victoria wasn’t the only recruiter that Frelsi sent into the tunnels.
The short guy hopped off the decking and went down the row, checking everyone’s right arm, one by one.
“All vetted,” he said.
“Get them up here,” said Alex. “We need to get moving, if we want to avoid a skirmish. As it is, the sky will be lightening
before we get to the gates.”
Like me, some folks were understandably reluctant to approach the Reapers. Who knew what kind of traumas and terrors they had experienced in the tunnels? None of the escort crew was the touchy-feely type, so they weren’t too sensitive to their fears. A few trembling souls had to be dragged forcibly to the ladder.
As that guy I sort of recognized came closer, my memory returned. I waved my arms at him.
“Hey! Jeffrey!”
He looked up at us and his face went all bright.
“James? Bern? Holy shit, man! Long time no see!”
Ignoring the ladder, he hauled himself onto the decking and took a seat beside us on the benches.
“What a fucking trip this is, huh? Did you ever think we’d be sitting on a Reaper?”
“You remember Karla?”
“Bet your ass I do. This is unbelievably great. You don’t know how long I’ve been looking for you guys. Every time come back I try to make my way up top. I thought for sure you guys had moved on.”
“Jeffery, I have to ask,” said Bern. “Have you seen my Lille?”
“Hmm, nuh-uh,” he said. “But then again, I’ve stuck in a fucking maze of tunnels I had never seen before. It’s taken me forever to get back up here. I ran into Kip and these others by sheer luck.”
“Kip?”
“He’s the guy that did our vetting. You know….” He showed us the raised C-shaped scar on his forearm, perfectly smooth and raised a quarter of an inch above the skin. Reluctantly, I showed him my arm.
“Holy crap. You guys … don’t have them? But I thought—”
“I guess we must be special,” I said.
“No shit. Kip told me only those who pass the vetting go to Frelsi.”
“Apparently they made an exception in our case.”
“Whoa, you guys are like fucking rock stars, bypassing the line. That’s pretty awesome.”
“Yeah. Awesome.”
Karla squeezed my fingers. “James, it’s getting worse. I am feeling the cold from the other side. People calling my name. We don’t have much time. You need to tell me how to find you.”
I still saw no signs of her fading.
“Tell me!” she said, with desperation in her voice. “This is our last chance.”
“I honestly don’t know what to say. I have no idea where I am. I supposed I should have asked those kids. What was I thinking?”
“What kids?”
“Two boys came down into the basement where I was. Little guys, maybe eight or nine at most.”