Thirst.
She could not remember the last time she drank, probably because the water was drugged. Regardless of when she had last tasted water, her throat ached and every breath burned, as her insides shriveled and her blood thickened. Her pulse was ragged, her mind an endless cycle of banishing thoughts of her terrible thirst, only for her attention to wander back to her body’s overwhelming need moments later. The worst was swallowing, as she was unable to entirely suppress the reflex. It triggered coughing fits that felt as if they were tearing her sinuses apart from the inside. The dull throbbing in her head drove every consideration from her mind other than thirst, and conspired with the drugs to prevent her from holding on to any semblance of awareness of the passage of time. Maintaining the regularity of the intervals between sips from the tainted pool was crucial to her survival. If she had been able to judge the slow death of her desiccated body dispassionately, Anastasia would have had sufficient will to force herself to drink only the bare minimum necessary to survive, but the hallucinations made that impossible.
Had it been one hour, a day, a handful of minutes? She could not judge by the sluggish pulsating of her heart or the ragged ebb and flow of her fractured thoughts. There was no change in lighting, no pattern of sounds, no movement to observe. Only the uniformity of her surroundings, the maddening music of water from the fountain trickling into the pool, the occasional drop that landed on her bare skin only to disappear like rain on parched earth.
When they first placed her in her prison, naked and without resources, it had been utterly dark, a sealed room with fluted stone walls carved in gentle curves, with adjoining rounded passages and alcoves along the perimeter. Anastasia attempted to walk the boundaries of the room, and estimated it to be large, tens of meters in either direction, but there were interior walls and long, subtle curves that made a true measurement impossible. There may have been a sequence of interlocking chambers, or it could simply have been a trick of the architecture, but whatever the case, any path she took, guided by placing one hand on the shifting wall, she inevitably found herself back at the pool. It was shallow, inset in the floor, carved from something that felt like soapstone. There was a delicate fountain in the pool, shaped like a column and inlayed with a metal filigree that was frightfully cold to the touch. The stone and the fountain were engraved with intricate designs that followed grotesque and indecipherable contours. The fountain alternated between a spray of heavy droplets and a fine mist that brought a pleasant coolness to the air. The carved spout was taller than she could reach and was set in the center of the shallow pool.
She was not sure how long they had tormented her, in that medical room, but it had been days, at the very least, and her thirst was already monstrous. She suspected the waters of the pool at once, and assumed that they were most likely poisoned, but there was no possibility of allowing herself to die of thirst beside it. She debated for what seemed like hours, licking cracked lips with a dry tongue and tasting blood every time she swallowed, before she relented and drank a very small amount, little more than a mouthful. Then Anastasia sat back against the furthest wall she could find from the pool, rested her head on her knees, and waited for pain or death.
It is possible that she slept. There was no way to be certain in the unwavering blackness. When she woke the air was warm and humid, and the dark around her was occupied with the sounds of rushing, blood-red ghosts, the echoes of some quick and sinister thing. Her abdomen was twisted into an agonizing knot, and tremors migrated along the course of her spine, her skin caressed with the ceaseless movements of innumerable insects that eluded her hands but never let her be. It was possible that she cried out, possible that she held congress with the ghosts in the darkness and the things that writhed just beneath her flesh, but even in that extreme, her discipline held, and no secrets passed her lips. If she was observed, then her observers gained nothing but the satisfaction of viewing her distress.
There might have been sleep, or unconsciousness, or simply a lapse of memory, time lost to horror and unfathomable anxiety. The next time she remembered to open her eyes, the room was so bright that she had to bury her head beneath her arms to keep the horrible stark white from purging her mind of everything from which she was composed. In minutes or hours her eyes adjusted, and she began to make out the dimensions of her prison – white halls carved from a stone that was like coarse marble, spiraling and overlapping in an organic and inverted design.
Not content with polluting her mind with the hallucinations that came and went with a casual concreteness to which she inevitably succumbed, the drug deprived Anastasia of her ability to see detail. From across the room, the walls appeared to be carved with details and frescoes describing fantastic and crawling shapes, one melting into the next, implying tales of such inspired grief and beauty and madness that she was nearly moved to the personal failings of tears or prayer. When she tried to inspect these designs from up close, however, she saw nothing but a brilliant white blur from which things emerged to torment her – names of the dead and sharp-edged memories, dull suffocation and colorless amnesia.
From time to time, she returned to the pool to drink, driven to desperation by her thirst. She forced herself to drink sparingly, to limit the frequency of her trips, but the drug dilated time and dislocated her from her sense of self, so it was impossible to say whether she succeeded. Sometimes, the darkness returned, while at others she was tormented by a uniform light so brilliant that she could feel the layers of her mind peeling away beneath its radiance. Despite her best efforts, she was never aware of the moment of transition.
When she was cognizant enough for a moment or two of reasoning, Anastasia thought it likely that the water was laced with a derivative of datura, or something of that order. Whatever the nature of the toxin, after an indeterminable time, Anastasia started to become aware of the waxing and waning of the poison in her system. Generally, as it receded, her thirst came to the fore, which was as consuming as the drug itself. But after drinking, allowing herself only a few small sips, holding the water in her mouth as long as possible to get the maximum reduction of her terrible thirst, there was a brief period of, if not lucidity, at least reduced impairment. Whether this was due to a habituation on the part of her body to the drug’s effect, or simply because it needed time to take hold and overwhelm her consciousness, she did not know.
Taking advantage of that interval between hallucination and the circular contemplation of her relentless thirst, which she believed to be only a handful of minutes, Anastasia took the opportunity to gnaw methodically at her fingers until she drew blood, one each time, a dreadful reminder of the passage of time.
***
“That was quick.”
Eerie nodded her agreement and then wedged herself between Vivik and Alex, putting an arm around both of them and leaning her head on Alex’s shoulder. Vivik flinched, and turned his attention unnecessarily to his beer, but Alex noticed that he didn’t move away as he might have previously.
“Yeah,” Katya agreed sourly, regarding them with her hands on her hips. “As it turned out, we didn’t have much to say to each other.”
Alex glanced from one girl to the other. Eerie offered him nothing but a slight smile, while Katya’s expression was unreadable in the dark. From her body language, however, Alex got the feeling that Katya was angry.
“Did something happen?”
“Girl stuff,” Eerie offered softly.
***
Despite the size of the bed, Michael inhabited only a portion of the right side. With his arms folded behind his head, his elbows touched the edge of the mattress. He was illuminated by an LED reading light that was attached to the wooden headboard, bare-chested, the blankets kicked off and the sheet pulled up around his waist. He put aside the technical manual he was studying when Alice came through his door and smiled. She had found the key taped to the inside cover of one of her diaries a few weeks before, and was amused to discover that, even after everything that ha
d happened between them, he had never changed the locks.
“Hey. How’d it go with Gaul?”
Alice sat down on the opposite side of the bed, which she had secretly already begun to think of as hers, and started the relatively involved process of unlacing her calf-high boots.
“Not great,” Alice admitted with a sigh. “He’s a stubborn bastard. He used another bureaucratic delay to avoid the Inquiry for a few more days while he requisitions records from the archive, or some such nonsense. And he’s cooked up some sort of assignment that’ll take all of Audits into the field for the better part of a week, maybe more.”
Michael frowned.
“Do you really think the mission isn’t legitimate? Because if you are certain that it is a stalling tactic on his part, you are within your rights to demand an immediate Inquiry...”
Alice froze, then glanced over at him with her trademark smile.
“Mikey, dear, I’m very fond of you. You’re a capable guy, and you have all sorts of uses that I am happy to take advantage of. One thing I will never – ever – need from you, though, is a reminder on how to be an Auditor.”
“Noted,” Michael acknowledged, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
“Or a demanding bitch, for that matter,” Alice continued, removing one boot and throwing it aside before she started on the other. “For the record, I don’t think he’s stalling, as much as I suspect him of having conveniently arranged matters so that events occur on a time frame that happens to suit him perfectly. Hazards of dealing with a precognitive, I suppose. The Director is a pragmatist above all things, Mikey. He’d never send Audits on a wild goose chase. He’s got too many other errands for us to run.”
“You sound bitter.”
“Surprised?”
“More bitter than usual.”
Alice tossed her other boot aside and then shed her leather jacket, along with the complicated arrangement of holsters and pouches that attached to her belt, kicking all of it into a crude pile near the wall. She collapsed on her back on the other side of the bed, stretching her arms above her head and yawning.
“Maybe I’m just getting old,” Alice suggested playfully.
“Not possible.”
“Careful answer. I’m going to choose to interpret it in the best possible light. I think I’m just feeling wary. I don’t like the idea of getting intelligence from Witches. No – let me rephrase that. I don’t like the idea of being given intelligence by Witches. If we had tortured it out of them, I’d feel a whole lot better.”
“You have such a unique outlook on life,” Michael observed, shaking his head. “Not that I disagree, as much as I object on moral grounds.”
“Stow it. You’re an Auditor now, Mikey. The only morals you are allowed are those that I delegate to you.”
“You suspect the information?”
“No.” Alice rolled onto her side to look at him. “It checks out. Analytics has been running it down every which way since Mitzi got back from the field, and they can’t poke any holes in it. As a matter of fact, one of the Analysts said that it actually explains a few things that they’ve never understood. Fills a hole or two,” she remarked, eyes sparkling, “as it were.”
Michael grinned and stroked her arm.
“You’re awful.”
“That is the general consensus. The precognitive pool just finished the probability matrices regarding the intel. I stopped by to check it out before I came here. Everything lines up perfectly. They think this could be a big break for us; a paradigm shift, even.”
Alice frowned briefly. Michael’s concern was obvious in his expression.
“What’s bothering you?”
“It’s all too damn convenient, for one. Here we are, stumbling around half-blind, kicking over the occasional Anathema op by chance, uncertain what it is they might be getting up to, and then our oldest enemy just decides to drop some key intelligence in our laps that breaks everything wide open? I’ve had my entire department working the Anathema for months, ever since the raid, and they haven’t made much progress. It’s like the Witches waited until they knew we’d be desperate enough to act on the information before they handed it to us. Makes me think they know more about what’s going on in Central than I am comfortable with.”
“I can understand that.”
“That’s not all. The precogs gave the data a pass, but the results of an operation based on it were mixed.”
“I thought you said...”
“Success? Oh, yeah. Practically guaranteed it. We do this, we get some real insight on what the Anathema have planned. Maybe even confirmation on what that Witch told Mitzi, that there’s some sort of secondary conflict going on between the Witches and the Anathema, something we can exploit. But there were also premonitions of major unintended consequences as well.”
Michael winced. That was news that Audits never wanted to get from the precognitive pool. Unintended consequences were the bane of any Auditor’s existence. There was no gain in reconciling one account, after all, if the entire ledger was thrown out of balance in the process.
“What kind of consequences?”
“Unclear. Bad juju. Mayhem and loss, bitter truths, chaos and upheaval. Exactly the sort of thing I’m trying to prevent.”
“If this operation is as significant as Analytics claims, then it could well shift the strategic balance,” Michael reasoned. “There are as many as three factions involved, potentially more, and the balance of powers between them is uncertain at the moment. Maybe this Audit has the potential to set off a chain reaction, ripple effects that could account for what the precognitives are anticipating.”
“Could be. We could also be the recipient of that upheaval. Maybe the Audit is successful, but the Anathema return to Central while I’m not minding the shop. Maybe the Anathema are weakened just enough for the Witches to exert control over them, creating a unified front from two feuding enemies, and we are in a worse position. Or maybe...”
Alice trailed off and her eyes lost focus.
“What?”
“It’s possible that what we learn about the Anathema, the Outer Dark, is so bad that Central spirals out of control. What if the Anathema have such an enormous strategic advantage that public knowledge of it tempts the cartels to defect rather than fight?”
“I doubt it. After the raid, I think there are too many fresh graves and recent wounds for most of the cartels to consider switching sides.”
“It would be nice to think so,” Alice said, rolling to his side of the bed. “But that isn’t always the way things work, Mikey. Loyalty is a fragile and mutable commodity. Enemies can become bedfellows overnight.”
“I see your concerns, even if I think you are worrying too much. That said, what will you do? Audits can’t just sit on the information and not do anything for fear of the consequences.”
“Of course not,” Alice said, wriggling out of her jeans. “Even if we could, that’s not my style.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“I have some tension I was planning on working out.”
Alice threw her jeans into the pile that had accumulated by the side of Michael’s bed.
“That’s not what I...”
Alice put a finger to his lips, then peeled her shirt off and tossed it aside.
“Tomorrow we start logistics,” she said, slipping beneath the sheet and into his arms. “By the end of the week, we’ll pack up the kids and head for the Ukraine.”
Michael paused in the act of kissing her neck.
“We’re bringing the students? Are you sure? This could be ugly...”
Alice shushed him again.
“Of course it will be,” she said earnestly, looking straight into his eyes. “That’s exactly why we will need them.”
Thirteen.
“I’m not so sure about this.”
“Not sure about what? It’s a beach. You have a bonfire on the beach at night. It’s the rules.”
“Whose rules?
”
“Don’t be a grouch,” Rebecca said, sitting down on the sand beside Alice. “You’re always so grumpy when we do something that doesn’t involve murder. This will be fun.”
“It just doesn’t seem right,” Alice muttered, resting her chin on her arms. “There isn’t even a fucking ocean, you know? Just a bunch of Ether. What are you going to do if one of the kids runs off and gets disintegrated?”
“That’s not going to happen,” Rebecca countered, taking a tightly rolled joint in the shape of a cone from the breast pocket of her flannel. “Now cheer up, or I will make you cheer up.”
“Make me.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously. Otherwise I’m just going to bed.”
“Your choice,” Rebecca sighed, the unlit joint hanging out of the corner of her mouth. She leaned across the gritty sand that separated them and put her hand to Alice’s forehead as if she were checking to see if she had a fever. There was a brief exchange of energy, not unlike a discharge of static electricity on a windy day. “You know, Michael was looking forward to this. You could at least try not to ruin it for him. He misses the kids, and they miss him. This is a good opportunity to remind everyone that they are still human.”
“Fine, fine,” Alice grumbled, smiling despite herself as she stood and brushed the sand from the back of her jeans. “I’m gonna get a beer. You want something?”
“Fuck yes,” Rebecca affirmed, lighting the joint and inhaling with obvious pleasure. “I think there was a white wine. I’ll have that.”
Alice nodded and wandered off in search of the cooler.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 34
