Flicker Blue 3: Momentum

by Brea Nicole Bond

  Chapter V

  Among Friends

  The dream was a bit different this time. Again, Jane was running—no, trying to run—from the army of green-eyed zombies. Their steps were deliberate, slow, but they were gaining on her, just as they had before. The monsters were a little more humanlike than she remembered, their faces half-illuminated in the light of the pale full moon, but they were far from human. Unmistakably, the creatures that followed her were monsters. And blood thirsty.

  Again, Dr. Sylfaen was the problem; Jane could have outrun her pursuers if not for the old man. What the hell is he doing? Last time, she had pulled and heaved his unconscious body toward safety, but tonight he was awake, pulling and heaving her—in the direction of the oncoming creatures.

  “Jane dear, have I introduced you to my colleagues? How rude of me…allow me to present a few of my dearest friends. Here, Jane, this is Moll, the oldest woman in the world.” He gestured toward the oncoming mob with the arm that was not holding on to the screaming girl.

  “Uncle Mederick, please!” she shrieked, wrenching her hand out of his so hard that she fell onto the damp mud of the wooded path. “Please! We have to get out of here!”

  The old man was oblivious to her mad struggle against him. “And this is Madame Antoinette, a great collector of fine dolls. She is most eager to meet you.” He grabbed her wrist and yanked her to her feet, his clawlike fingers forming a shackle around her arm.

  Jane couldn’t help looking back at the walking corpse leading the pack of zombies. It was hardly more than a skeleton with bits of torn skin stretched over bleached white bones, but she recognized the scraps of silk dress that had once attired it. The monster’s green eyes rolled in lidless sockets.

  “No! Uncle Mederick, let me go!” Her feet slipped and slid over the wet ground. I have to get away from him somehow, she thought. She looked in desperation at the road ahead of her—and there she saw it. A book lying in the mud, no more than ten feet ahead of her. The Book…the solution to all of this madness, if she could only escape her godfather and the rest of the monsters in time to reach it and carry it to safety. She turned her head back to her pursuers, and she saw that the zombie in silk was only steps away from Dr. Sylfaen now. Oh God, what do I do? How do I get out of this?! She had no time to plan. She acted on instinct. Jane threw herself toward the old man and bit down hard onto the arm that enslaved her. Bright blue blood sprayed onto her face as the brittle skin broke against her bared teeth, and the cold taste of steel that flooded her mouth gagged her, but the claw released long enough for her to pull away at last.

  She had no time to celebrate her freedom—she had to get the Book and run faster than she had ever run before. Her first two steps didn’t take hold, and she fell sprawling into the mud. Not stopping, Jane scurried on all fours toward the darkened shape of the Book. She scooped one arm around its leather binding and used the other to push herself upright.

  No sooner than she felt her feet take hold in the muck of the moonlit road, Jane felt the clawed hands seize her shoulders.

  Jane balled her fist and hit her attacker across the face, striking as hard as she could manage in the short space between them.

  “Oh!” The old man started, covering his nose with both hands. “Jane, calm down!”

  Jane’s eyes fluttered open and were immediately assaulted by the washed artificial light of the airplane cabin. They had grown accustomed to the dappled darkness of the woods. “What? Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Uncle Mederick, I was having a dream—”

  “Shhh…it’s okay,” he responded with his hands still concealing his face. His tinkling voice sounded strangely nasal. “I apologize for startling you.” There was a brief flash of blue light between his fingers, and he removed his hands from his nose several seconds later. “No harm done.”

  “I’m still really sorry that I hit you. I hate these stupid nightmares!”

  “I was not aware that you were having any strange dreams, Jane,” Dr. Sylfaen said, a hint of concern present in his voice.

  “Only sometimes. It’s nothing…. Hey, are we here?” she asked, eager to change the subject. Yeah, so sometimes I have these dreams that monsters are trying to kill me—only this time, you were one of the monsters, too. She wasn’t ready to have that conversation with her godfather.

  Dr. Sylfaen nodded. “We just landed. Don’t worry, Jane. You have every right to feel a bit more anxious than usual.”

  A bit more anxious than usual, Jane mused. That’s an interesting way of putting it. Scared stupid and confused as hell seems a lot more appropriate.

  Instead of hiring a cab, Dr. Sylfaen rented a car from a counter in the airport in Rome. Jane had never witnessed the old man driving himself anywhere, so she was a little relieved when he merely opened the passenger door for her, rather than climbing into the passenger seat himself. She was still too shaken by the attack in Cairo and the dream en route to Rome to concentrate on driving. She hardly even looked out the window during the two hour drive through the Italian countryside.

  “I thought we were going to Rome,” she said as she slunk further into her seat.

  “Ahmose brought the Book to Rome, yes,” he responded.

  Jane shuddered at the Egyptian’s name. “Then why are we going so far from the city? We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  Dr. Sylfaen smiled and pulled his cell phone from the inside pocket of his coat. “Hello, Marcus,” he said after someone answered on the other end of the line. He listened to a question Jane could not make out. “No, no, our flight was uneventful.” The old man’s eyes flickered to the rearview mirror as Marcus asked another question. “No, we haven’t been followed…we should be there before dark.”

  The light was already beginning to fade, and Jane was glad to hear that they were nearing their destination. The rolling hills of tall grass and scrub trees looked nothing like the woods in her dream, but she had no desire to be out after dark tonight.

  Abruptly, Dr. Sylfaen began to laugh into the receiver like Jane had not heard since before their episode in Cairo. The bell tone had returned to his voice, and she felt her shoulders drop an inch or two farther from her ears.

  “Yes, Marcus! I do not believe that you should delay telling Octavia any longer—do not leave me the task of explaining everything, old friend! She is your wife, after all.”

  Jane’s shoulders tensed upward again at the mention of her godfather’s friends.

  “Soon then.” He clicked the phone closed with another pealing laugh and turned to his goddaughter in the adjacent seat. “This has been a terrible day, Jane, but you can relax now. We will be safer here than nearly anywhere else in the world. This is a lucky coincidence.”

  No such thing, Jane thought as she spied the ancient villa in the distance.

  “Come in! Come in!” barked the withered man in the wood-framed doorway. “They are arrived, Octavia!” The last was called over his shoulder, to someone inside of the old house.

  Jane approached the villa hesitantly, keeping herself half-hidden behind her godfather. He strolled from the driveway over the cobbled garden path to the front door as if his feet had trodden the same path many times before. “You know these people, Uncle Mederick?”

  He nodded in response, a light smile tilting his lips. “They are practically family. As I told you, we are safe here.” His hand stretched for hers, and she hoped that her recoil was not too obvious in the growing darkness.

  “Then why didn’t we come here first? We would never have had to go to Paris—or Cairo!—if they’d told us they had the Book!”

  “Because I am an old fool.” Dr. Sylfaen looked at her with apologetic eyes.

  “They don’t know about me, do they, Uncle Mederick?” It was the only explanation Jane could imagine.

  “They do now.”

  “Octavia! Get down here, you old crone!” The voice coming from the doorway was like laughing liquid honey, too sweet for the words to sound like anything but affectionate teasing. �
�Come in, Mederick! I have been waiting for you all day!”

  The two old men reached each other in an outstretched handshake that transformed into an easy embrace as Dr. Sylfaen closed the last step to the open door.

  “It is good to be here, Marcus. You are well?”

  Marcus, obviously the older of the two, answered with a snort. Even that sounded musical coming from the withered man. “Of course I am! You’re the one hobbling through my garden like a geriatric! Don’t think for a second that I didn’t notice that limp.”

  “Ah well, it’s been a long and trying day.” He turned to Jane, who had watched the exchange in silent awe. “Marcus, this is Jane.”

  So it’s just plain Jane again. No Jane Thomas Sylfaen, no formal introductions.

  Marcus leaned down from his already hunched position to look her over. He must have been a giant when he could stand upright, Jane thought. Even twisted forward like he was, he was several inches taller than her godfather. “I am so pleased to meet you, Jane. We would have come to visit with you sooner, of course, but your godfather is a bit of an ass.”

  Jane broke into a laugh at that.

  “Well, you are, Mederick!” Marcus continued before his friend could interject. “You call me out of the blue last night to tell me about this girl, and only because you need my help! I’m hurt!”

  “No, you’re not,” Dr. Sylfaen countered. “And, if I am correctly informed, you did not mention Jane to Octavia until today, and only because we were on our way to your home.”

  “Oh, details….” Marcus groaned, laughing again. “Where is that old woman? Octavia! Here, come on in. I’ll be hospitable, even if she won’t!” He beckoned them into the large sitting room, where Jane sat with her single surviving suitcase at her feet.

  “Is she terribly upset with me, then?” Dr. Sylfaen asked, obviously concerned about the answer to his question.

  The answer came in the form of the robust white-haired woman who descended the staircase that opened into the sitting room. She wore simple, earth-toned clothing like her husband, and no jewelry at all except for a bracelet, a single wide band of gold, below her right elbow.

  Dr. Sylfaen climbed the first three steps to assist the old woman the rest of the way down. “Octavia,” he said in a whisper.

  “Mederick,” she acknowledged him with an incline of her head. He obediently kissed her on the cheek. She glanced first at her husband, who seemed abashed, and then at Jane. “This is she?”

  Jane rose, and Dr. Sylfaen moved into the space between them. “Yes. Octavia, this is Jane.”

  “Well, what’s done is done,” she sighed. “But Mederick, how can this be? We are…you are a Compassionate. You have been nothing if not loyal to our cause.”

  “Octavia, my love, I explained,” Marcus interceded. “This was not intended.”

  The old woman did not seem convinced, but she managed a resigned nod. “Perhaps it was fate, then. And have you come out of retirement then, Mederick?”

  “I have,” he answered, and Jane noticed the strain around his eyes.

  She laid a hand over one of her godfather’s. “Don’t say anything else to them. It’s not worth it. You don’t owe them any explanations.”

  He smiled as Marcus and Octavia donned identical expressions of surprise. These were the first words Jane had spoken since arriving in their home.

  “If I owe anyone an explanation, it is Octavia,” he spoke softly as all four of them seated themselves on the coarsely-upholstered sofas. “Yes, I have come out of retirement,” he repeated. “I felt it necessary for the time being.”

  Their hosts seemed to understand, but they were clearly saddened by Dr. Sylfaen’s revelation. Jane, on the other hand, didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. If he’s out of retirement, then who the hell does he work for?

  “You’ve come for the Book, then?” Octavia asked.

  “Yes.”

  Marcus asked the next question. “How much does she know already?”

  Not a damn thing, Jane thought as Dr. Sylfaen answered, “More than I could have expected so early, but nothing compared to what she will need. She is starved for information that I cannot give her, and not because I have not tried by all means possible.”

  Octavia clucked reproachfully.

  “Oh, come now, my love,” Marcus chuckled, breaking the tension in the room with his teasing laughter. “Though it has been many, many years now, surely you can remember how terrible not knowing can be.”

  “Easy on the manys, old man. You’re nearly as ancient as me, you know.” Octavia’s wide face relented a small smile, but Jane was sure she saw her catch her breath awkwardly when she spoke.

  Marcus changed the subject. “Has she…can I say it? Does she…possess any talents?”

  Dr. Sylfaen suddenly looked proud, as Jane knew he was of her abilities, but his smile never fully materialized. He can’t tell them about me—I have to show them. She eyed her godfather, who nodded firmly.

  Jane stood and thought for a moment, then decided on a spot in the kitchen behind her. The space was clearly visible through a large archway. She unfocused her eyes and looked to her destination with her mind—this was getting easier every time. The blue came first, then the metal on her tongue (she had to shove the memory of bright blue blood from her mind), and finally the flickers that foretold her travel. With a loud snap, Jane teleported into the kitchen.

  “Bravo!” Marcus was on his feet, applauding Jane’s feat.

  Octavia, however, had a very different response. “Damn you, Mederick, how dare you bring this into my home. I was free—do you understand? We were free from all of this!”

  “Peace, Octavia, Mederick meant us no harm,” Marcus spoke, his voice suddenly firm as he laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It is not his fault that the Book came to us. Though we were surprised when it did, having lived so long outside of…everything.” He winced, as if the pain threatened to overtake him before he could say too much. “I have to say, Mederick, it is a joy to see you again after all of these years, but I must admit that I’ve become unaccustomed to speaking around matters. Perhaps you were right not to tell us about her sooner.” He looked at Jane, whose face was bewildered. “Please don’t misunderstand. I am glad that you are here, Jane. This is more difficult than I expected, but I ardently hope that we will all meet again in the future, when your circumstances have changed.”

  Jane wasn’t sure if or how she should answer, but Dr. Sylfaen spared her the decision with his own swift reply. “If you will tell us what we need to know, we will continue without delay, Marcus.”

  “Nonsense. We have no need to be as hasty as that. The child is half-dead from the mad pace you have set for her. You must rest here for at least one night, as you will both need to be sharp for the next piece of your journey.”

  Dr. Sylfaen cocked an eyebrow.

  “Yes, you must stay,” Octavia echoed. “I apologize, Mederick. And Jane. I am outraged at this situation, but that does not change our friendship in the least. We will do everything in our power to help you.”

  “I have never doubted your friendship, Octavia. We will accept your hospitality, of course, but we must depart in the morning. The transfer will occur soon,” he winced hard and then peered toward the open window. Jane followed his gaze, and she could make out a sliver of moon in the sky. “We do not wish to complicate our mission by adding yet another destination to our itinerary.”

  “As you wish, old friend,” Marcus answered, bobbing his head in agreement. “The transfer is approaching, as you say.”