The Bones of Ruin

by Sarah Raughley

  “Thank you,” she said with an exhausted sigh. And when she waved Mary off, the girl didn’t waste any time. She ran from them as fast as she could.

  A few more agonizing minutes of waiting by a sleeping Jinn, and suddenly Iris heard footsteps approaching. Not a competitor.

  Fool.

  “The three hours are up,” he told them, probably grinning under his harlequin mask. “Good show, good show! Please make your way to your private car, if you have the strength to.”

  Fool bowed, indicating the way with a gentlemanly gesture. Iris could have spit in his face.

  She passed by him without a word instead. Max carried Jinn on his back after placing the two pairs of keys around his neck. She was glad to finally be rid of this place, this tainted zoo that played tricks on her mind.

  They began the slow march back to their train, neither of them saying a word. The weight of everything she’d experienced kept her pace languid as she trudged along. Her mind’s chatter grew fainter and fainter with each step.

  But then, once her mind was fully blank, her body began to move on its own.

  “Iris?” Max called to her, but she ignored him.

  The panic of battle had dulled it, but now with her body calmed by extreme fatigue, it flared up again inside of her—familiarity. Like when she had found Granny at Coolie’s.

  Anne appeared in front of her again, her hand outstretched, and Iris could no longer fight her. Anne wasn’t Anne. Now that Iris had let her mind go, she knew it deep within her soul. But whoever this was—whatever it was—it was something entirely close to her, compelling her, drawing her in. She followed Anne off the central path into another wooded area, this time filled with bright wildflowers and plants.

  “Iris? Oi, Iris?”

  She knew Max couldn’t see what she did. He sounded very far away as she passed the flowers, plants, and trees as if in a dream. She could feel it more keenly now. The sense that she knew this place. Yes, she knew this place. She’d been here before.

  “Belle Vue… in Manchester…,” she whispered. The lock in her mind began to open and ghostly wisps of a memory slipped out. A memory of three girls in an exhibit—well, two village girls… and the warrior who’d tried to kidnap them in a raid.

  “No.” She squeezed her head. “Stop it.” She tried to will herself to wake up, but her feet continued walking forward.

  “Iris!” Max called again. “What are you doing?”

  The smell of blood filled her nose, slipped down her throat, and flowered in her lungs. A strong scent. It wasn’t hers. Neither was the singing she could hear from the clearing.

  “Belle Vue,” she whispered again. But that wasn’t its original name, was it? As she approached the clearing, another memory flashed in her mind’s eye. An old memory of blood. Of pain.

  Of massacre.

  A massacre that had taken place in this very spot when the zoo had a different name.

  “Gorton,” she whispered, and looked up into the clearing. “Gorton Zoo.”

  In the clearing lay a heinous sight.

  The vampiric man she’d seen at the music hall was covered in blood, quivering in ecstasy. Body parts lay about him as he lapped at blood from the body’s open chest. The corpse was in such shambles, she couldn’t even tell who it was.

  Next to him, the dark-skinned man in a white priest collar and black cloak swung a golden, smoking thurible by its chain, but the incense rising from it was not strong enough to cover the smell of blood. Indeed, it was the blood that saturated her senses.

  “Iris, let’s go!” Max hissed, fear and urgency clear in his voice. “I said, let’s go!”

  But Iris was numb. Numb from shock and from strange, horrible feelings with no source but the shadow of memories. Gorton Zoo. This very spot now awash with blood had been home to a similar atrocity fifty years ago. The memory wasn’t clear, but the feeling was. Something evil had happened in this exact spot.

  Maybe that was what this creature who posed as Anne Marlow was trying to tell her. “Anne” stood behind the two monsters, though they couldn’t see her—her thick, bristly hair a beautiful moon around her head, a single hairclip shaped as a monarch butterfly pinned near her right brow just like in the photo. It was just as she thought: only she could see Anne, who looked as real as flesh and blood. But this Anne’s round eyes were white, her button nose gray, her plump lips cracked and dried. Though the air was still, her white dressed fluttered lightly.

  “Anne,” Iris whispered. “No. You’re not her. What’s your name?”

  The girl only stared at her.

  Iris stumbled toward the scene, but Max, focusing only on the two bloody champions, dropped Jinn and grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her back.

  “What are you doing?” he yelled at her, because now the bloody vampire’s eyes were on them. But she didn’t care about the beastly man or his partner. Not when Anne was trying to tell her something. Not here in this place where she used to stand with the true Anne and her sister, Agnus, in a human exhibit, now long forgotten.

  Rebmemer Lliw Uoy Yad Eno Tub. Nettogrof Evah Uoy.

  Anne reached out to her, kindly. Waiting.

  Nekawa.

  “Iris!” Max yelled, holding Iris tightly in his arms, for she had started screaming.

  The two monsters began to move toward them, stepping over the bloodied body parts strewn about the clearing. Grabbing Jinn’s wrist and keeping Iris tucked in his arm, Max took a deep breath and disappeared.

  INSIDE THE LIBRARY OF RULE

  THE BRITISH MUSEUM WAS WILLING to provide as many secret areas as a powerful order was willing to pay for. The Enlightenment Committee liked to hide in plain sight. And since the museum’s directors had been members of Club Uriel since the start of the century, interference from the British Crown was not an issue.

  The directors did not share any information on the contents of these secret areas with the rest of the club. They also worked quickly: the Marlow display had originally been property of Paris’s Museum of Man. On Adam’s orders, its transfer was swift and covert, finished in time for Iris’s innocent eyes. All so she could remember. If Iris hadn’t taken the picture of the three Marlows with her, Adam would have destroyed it anyway to protect her.

  The directors liked to imagine that they were of a higher class than a normal member. Some were even foolish enough to believe that they were already part of the Committee. Since no one in the club truly understood what being included in the Committee entailed, it was an easy enough ruse to continue—a ruse fueled by men’s arrogance and desperation for status in equal parts.

  Such men annoyed Adam. Those who clung to status lost sight of the truth. The power they sought was a mirage, as weightless as sunlight. The Crown. The club. The Committee. They were all the same. Ironically, it was his father who understood his feelings the most. Which was why Adam still needed to hunt him down.

  Five among the Enlightenment Committee stood in the Library of Rule, deeper than the basement of the museum: Madame Bellerose, Gerolt Van der Ven, Luís Cordiero, Boris Bosch, and himself. With no windows, only lit candles hanging from candelabra on the wall brightened the glass displays showcasing the ruins of ancient civilizations kept safe from prying eyes. They’d been given the report from Fool: Most of the champions had survived the first round. Only Bosch’s, Van der Ven’s, and Adam’s teams had managed to secure multiple keys while the other teams finished with none. Among the dead: Both of Bellerose’s men. One from Benini’s team who once shape-shifted into beasts. And two of Cordiero’s champions—including Doug Waters, otherwise known as the Exploding Man. There wasn’t even enough of him left to bury, not after what Van der Ven’s men had done to him.

  Gram and Jacques. Though one of Bellerose’s men had been killed by Cordiero’s man Bately, all the other deaths had been at the hands of those two. Adam had known what Gram and Jacques could do, but the horror of their work still chilled him to the bone. And now, much to the annoyance of the others, Van der
Ven was boasting about his boars as he boasted of all his bloodied treasures.

  “Beasts, the two of them. I told you I would have the strongest team. Their assassin work for King Leopold made them prime agents for the job.” His thick chest bounced as he let out his rolling, gaudy laughter. “We should end the tournament now. Give me the Ark, and I’ll have more time to think about how to rule the New World.”

  Adam shook his head but held his tongue. Van der Ven was wrong. On the other side of the apocalypse would be no “New World” for them. Only beautiful nothingness.

  Adam closed his eyes and remembered attending the funeral of his sister and brother at the tender age of six. The caskets had been closed because what was left of them was too horrid to look upon. That’s what the priest had said, forgetting that Adam had already seen the insides of his siblings’ heads scattered upon the ground the night they were murdered.

  His uncle Byron hadn’t much cared about what it had done to Adam. After Adam’s mother died and his uncle was given temporary custody of him while his father was out traveling the world, the drunk was quick to drink and quicker to beat Adam silly. It had taken Adam some time to get rid of Uncle Byron, but if his father hadn’t left him alone to indulge his adventurous curiosities, perhaps Adam wouldn’t have had to send his uncle to that asylum. Everything in Adam’s life had gone wrong so early, he didn’t know what was right anymore.

  Except this: The Committee didn’t deserve to escape to the New World. And brutes like Van der Ven were the reason the world needed to end.

  After receiving their reports on the sixth floor of Club Uriel, Benini and Cortez had gone home, one sulking, the other planning. But here, the rest of the Committee had summoned the museum’s director. It was the apocalypse that they wanted information on.

  On the front wall were stones excavated from the Black Sea four decades ago by an expedition led by Julius Temple, Adam’s great-grandfather and a former Committee member. Made of a substance that had the look of pure gold, each stone was only the size of baked bread, and yet together they seemed to tell a story—a tragic one, as evidenced by the chicken-scrawl drawings of faces in agony.

  Julius Temple’s team had estimated that the civilization the stones were made by existed twenty thousand years ago. According to Adam’s grandfather, Sir Isaac Temple, the stones Adam now looked upon, trapped in their glass display, were something of an amalgam of copper and quartzite. Plato had called it orichalcum, a metal theorized to have been used to build sprawling cities, palaces, and shrines as far back as 9000 BC and found in places as far spread as the North African Atlas Mountains, Morocco, and even deep in the Atlantic. This had once been an extensive, prosperous civilization indeed. And its people had a name: the Naacal.

  The Temples had spent their lives exploring, researching, and translating the strange writings inscribed upon these particular ruins. This civilization worshipped the sun—that much was clear given how prevalently solar symbols appeared on the heavy tablets, believed to be used in religious spaces. But what drew Adam’s eyes was the symbol that appeared on only two round tablets, joined together even after thousands of years. Faded, but still omnipresent. Two rings linked, one bright, one dark: a sun and its shadow. An eclipse. A nightmare, John Temple had once guessed, for a civilization that regarded the sun as the source of life itself.

  An eclipse meant the end of the world. Such was the tale the circular tablets told.

  “Have you been able to discern how much time is left?” Cordiero asked the director, who pored over an ancient scroll laid out on a wooden table next to a stone tomb. Adam’s father had believed that the dust inside the tomb had once been a high priest of the Naacal named Nyeth. It was his writings on the table being inspected under a magnifying glass by the director.

  “The Temples led the charge in deciphering the Naacalian linguistics,” said the director. It was not an answer. “But everything to do with this symbol”—he pointed to the sun and its shadow—“was written in code by the Naacal. It’s as if they wanted to warn future populations and yet keep what destroyed them a secret.”

  Madame Bellerose cooled herself with a luxuriously embroidered hand fan, exasperated. “Why on earth would they do that if they wanted to warn us of our own demise?”

  “To test us, perhaps.” Adam straightened his gloves. “To see if we’re a civilization worthy of being saved. Based on my father’s research, we know the Naacal were as arrogant as they were advanced. They were kind enough to warn us of the cataclysma. Just not kind enough to tell us when it would strike, or how.”

  “To think your father burned all of his research before he died.” Van der Ven glared at Adam as if he were the man himself. “He was a traitor.”

  Not all his research, Gerolt. John Temple still had his journal. Adam stepped closer to the scroll, eyeing the drawing of a skeleton key. After seeing it for the first time in the Library of Rule, Benini had fallen so deeply in love with its unique pattern that he’d ordered blacksmiths to create several replicas from every material that suited his fancy. After Benini lost a bet to Cortez, seven of those priceless keys became the central point of the tournament’s first round. But the one described here in the scrolls—that was the true treasure.

  A skeleton key partly of pure white crystal. “The Moon Skeleton,” it was called. Now in John Temple’s possession.

  The Committee was still hunting for it. Adam needed to get it first at all costs.

  “Your late father was probably best suited to deciphering this text, Lord Temple,” said the director, scratching his snow-white beard. “But I have been able to decipher the name of this symbol—the one that appears on those circular tablets behind you.” The sun and its shadow.

  Adam’s eyebrow raised. He’d been confident that nobody but his father had been able to make sense of those symbols—a code within a code. If he hadn’t had access to his father’s research notes growing up or the acuity to understand them, Adam wouldn’t have known either.

  “And that is?” said Cordiero on the other side of the table, his arms behind his back. Adam knew that with his old body, Cordiero wouldn’t be able to stand for too long.

  “The Hiva,” he answered.

  Adam’s fingers twitched, but he remained very still as the director explained his theory as to the word’s meaning. It wasn’t accurate, but he’d come close enough to worry Adam. He would have to keep an eye on the situation—or even have the director “replaced” if needed.

  “We’re sure the Crown is still clueless as to these developments?” Van der Ven demanded, and turned to Bosch, who stood in a dark corner of a room. “Well?”

  Bosch was a quiet man. If Van der Ven hadn’t turned to him just there, he might have gotten away with spending the duration of the meeting not speaking a single word. Sometimes he did. His words were precious—tools he used for the primary purpose of selling weapons and making his riches. He did speak, though, this time.

  “It’s going according to plan: The Crown believes I’m working with them. For them. All the while, whenever Malakar visits the Crystal Palace to inspect the wares I’ve sold them, she gives them false information. False information on that Helios of theirs.”

  The word “Helios” sent a chill through Adam. The tension in the room became thick. The greatest of the Naacal’s treasures.

  A doorway to the impossible.

  “Their Helios?” Van der Ven scoffed.

  “It was the Crown that found that ancient machine in Lake Victoria,” Adam reminded him. “It’s in their custody, so it’s theirs. But without the key, there’s no way to use it. And as long as Malakar continues to mislead them, they’ll never figure out how.”

  But what if she one day figured out how? Uma Malakar, the head of Bosch’s Weapons Development Team, was not to be trifled with. She’d been studying the Helios under Bosch’s and the Committee’s orders based on the specifications she’d received from the Crown. If she somehow figured out a way to operate the Helios without need
ing the Moon Skeleton, then Adam wouldn’t need to search for his father anymore. Malakar would be the new threat he’d need to snuff out.

  But except for her periodical visits to the Crystal Palace, the genius worked outside the country in secrecy and seclusion—and under intense security. It wasn’t easy to get to her.

  He was getting ahead of himself. For now he’d continue to keep his eye on the situation.

  As Van der Ven pushed for more information from Bosch and the director, Madame Bellerose pulled Adam aside.

  “What is it?” Adam watched Bellerose touch the white frills of her fan against her lips.

  “Just a question, my dear Adam.” Bellerose tilted her head. “On your request, we changed the location of the first round at the last minute.”

  “This is true.” Adam folded his arms. “And? Were you unsatisfied with the results?”

  “Not at all. I was just curious as to why.”

  Adam showed Madame Bellerose a tiny smile. She liked to be challenged. “Why, madame, had I noticed you’d fallen asleep at the meeting, I would have woken you up immediately. You’ll have to forgive me.”

  Bellerose smirked. “Oh right, you mentioned something about the obstacles, cover, and mayhem a zoo would provide.”

  “And wild animals,” Adam reminded her. “Much more interesting than an empty field.”

  “But why not a zoo in the city?”

  “Having them take the train, randomly drawing their turns.” He shrugged. “It was a nice bit of theater. Plus, I’d been to Belle Vue as a boy. Fond memories. And the Committee accepted. So… any other questions?”

  Madame Bellerose gave him a look he knew all too well, as if she were calmly assessing which wing to pluck off a trapped fly. “You went there as a boy. But your father went there as an adult—for his research, did he not?”

  She’s watching for a reaction, Adam reminded himself. Don’t give it to her. “I didn’t know you studied my father’s work so closely.”