“You can’t do anything. She’s already moving out to sea.”
The ship was sailing out, slowly, the way she did when she had no crew and piloted herself, out into the dark water.
“I’ll kill them all,” she said. “She didn’t do anything to them.”
“The golems aren’t random. They must have had some reason to want to destroy her.”
“They certainly did. She’s a dragon, remember? The golems want to kill them all. And she’s a dragon with one of your time machines attached to her. She rips holes.”
The golems turned toward them and headed up the beach.
“We need to go,” he said, loosening his grip on Hazel to see if she would run off toward the golems or act with a bit of sense and flee with him. Thankfully, she seemed willing to do the latter.
Hazel had just reached the concrete stairs when Seamus was knocked to the ground. The sand blew in gritty gusts around him, clogging his eyes and nose and flaying his skin. He caught a glimpse of Hazel hanging onto the railing that ran along the stairs, her clothing and wet brown braid blowing out toward the sea.
He knew what things pulled all matter toward them, the thing that had to be behind him now. He crept toward the staircase, blinded, his mouth and nose choked with sand. The sand slid away under his knees and palms, leaving him unable to get a purchase, and he slid backwards a few feet. He tried again, digging his fingers in deep, keeping his body low and his head down, but amid the tearing wind and slipping sand, he couldn’t tell if he was moving forward or backward.
Hazel screamed, and a moment later pain tore through his left leg. His entire being was consumed in an electric sensation, pain, then surging terror and the need to escape. He tried to crawl forward, but couldn’t.
The void wyrm must have bitten him, and when he tried to move forward, his left leg refused to move properly. His insides were an acid bath of adrenaline and now he felt dizzy as well.
He tried again to crawl, but his left foot couldn’t dig into the sand. Through the sand and pain he looked down, knowing what he would see, but hoping it wasn’t so. His left leg ended just below his knee. The terrible head of the void wyrm was just behind him, stretching forward, reaching.
Then something surrounded him, squeezing, a dark thing, metallic but alive. He was lifted, and the wind and sand died down and there was only the pain and the feel of rain splattering over him and the dizzying sensation of flying.
He hung in the claws of Yelbeghen, who landed and carried him, the world swaying around him with each enormous step, blood pouring from his leg. The dragon set him down on the boardwalk. There was shouting and running around him, and he watched as the dragon turned and took off into the sky.
He tried to keep his eyes open. He did. He knew he was losing blood fast and he tried to stay awake. The sun was setting and the darkness came until there was only sound. His wife shouted something, then Luke’s voice and Hazel’s. His three most beloved, they were. And if voices were to follow him into this dark place, he was glad the voices were theirs.
Chapter 44
It didn’t take long for Neil to figure out how to operate his brother’s time ripping watch. After all, the thing was specifically designed for his kind. His mind grasped its structure and function immediately.
He wasn’t fool enough to use it, however. Firstly, it would mean leaving Elliot and Sister, who he was trying to keep alive. Secondly, he was only one while the golems were five. Five in constant motion.
He heard the yelling before he saw anything, and then Yelbeghen rose from the boardwalk, soaring into the sky.
“Something is wrong,” Sister signed.
“It’s all dying,” said Elliot.
Sister and Elliot crouched behind one of the concession booths on the boardwalk, and if Neil could think of a safer place, he would have put them there. But according to Astrid, the entire world was affected, and short of putting them in an underground vault, the only way to keep them safe was to keep them close. He tried to keep tabs on Hazel, but the woman was always moving.
Astrid flew past, then vanished through a Door, only to reappear a minute later. She landed near Neil for a moment to rest but didn’t speak, then flew off once more the moment his brothers appeared. Neil didn’t have to ask what was happening. They were chasing her, wearing her down, as persistent as the most focused predators.
“She’ll destroy everything, you know.”
Neil found March by his side. He was young and in a new body, the younger, stronger one. The older version must have been killed, just as Neil’s brother had said, and had come back. It could have taken him months or years, but time meant little to March since he could appear whenever and wherever he wished.
March glanced at Sister and Elliot, then turned away, uninterested. He looked out over the boardwalk and along the beach and up at the sky, at the human souls, the Seelie and Unseelie who were coming through the rip from their worlds, and at the other creatures Neil had never seen before. March’s movements were precise, insectile, from the top of his head to the movement of his fingers as he buttoned his dinner jacket. Neil had never seen him so inhuman.
“Astrid isn’t a drake,” said Neil. “She repairs the tears. You have to call off my brothers.”
“You have no idea what that woman is capable of. Also, she killed one of my sons. Perhaps two. I’m only able to find four of your brothers now.”
“The more you delay her, the worse the tears will get.”
“It’s already too late. My two brothers who can make Doors can only do so much. And Astrid is failing. So are the psychopomps and Yelbeghen,” said March. “It’s only a countdown now. We can only watch. Your abilities are useless against this.”
Neil hated that he was right. Unless there was a void wyrm or something he could overcome with strength and force, he could do little.
“Why are you here?” asked Neil.
“To say good-bye. I don’t imagine you’ll survive this.”
He was afraid to ask the question, but it rose in his mouth anyway. With March dying, he had to wonder. “Will I die free?”
March regarded him. “Yes.”
And then he was gone.
Elliot sobbed quietly and Sister rose and tugged at Neil’s sleeve.
“Huginn gave me an idea,” she signed. “We’re not as helpless as that man says. I can put on Astrid’s clothing and tie up my hair so it looks as short as hers. Elliot could tell Astrid to put on my clothes. The golems will not be able to tell us apart.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Not if you keep me alive. We can buy her time. Maybe you can even kill a few.”
He glanced at Elliot.
“You can go,” Elliot said without turning towards him. “I won’t leave. I can see you anyway. I can see all of you at once.”
Yukiko knew she was no fighter. And though she might be a thing of the shadows, of secrecy and illusions, she could still be useful in her own way. The golems and void wyrms, the Seelie and Unseelie, were not immune to her illusions, and she did what she could to keep the Time Corps safe.
The struggle might be futile, she thought. It probably was. The rips were growing more numerous, and while Hazel was using the Professor’s machine, and Astrid, Yelbeghen and the psychopomps did what they could, it did not take a far-seer to know what was coming.
The many worlds may be ending, but she would fight to the last moment. Her god, Inarri, might have been proud. Tailless and disgraced as she was, she was still a Kitsune. And she would die as one.
The black drake was skilled at closing void wyrm holes, but while they were open, Yukiko placed illusions of people nearby for the void wyrms to attack. At first, she was shocked that the mindless things could be fooled. Only sentient beings were susceptible to her trickery. But once she understood
that they were immature drakes, it made more sense. Even children could be fooled by illusions.
Felicia and her son crouched over Seamus, applying a tourniquet and trying to keep him from bleeding to death. The boy was surprisingly calm, following his mother’s orders, squinting through the rain. Seamus was already unconscious, and Yukiko had seen enough of death to know that it was near for the man.
The golems chased Astrid, who alternated between owl and human, sometimes naked, sometimes clothed. Sister made a decent decoy, especially while Yukiko could remove some of her facial scarring. Neil kept the girl close by, using the little black device on his wrist to escape his brothers. By Yukiko’s count, only three golems remained, but she might be mistaken.
She checked on Elliot who lay alone behind a concession stand, moaning and mumbling to himself. It hurt to see him so tormented. Although he was a good man and her friend, his mind had always been a little loosely wired, and his time in the Library had not helped matters. Such a pity.
Huginn landed on the counter. “You can go. I’ll stay with him.”
“I wasn’t planning on staying anyway,” said Yukiko. “Where’s Pangur Ban?”
“With September,” said Huginn.
“Are the Twelve doing anything? Or are they watching us like a child observes a kicked-in anthill?”
“Can’t say.”
Huginn hopped down in front of Elliot just as Neil and Sister appeared from wherever he had taken the two of them. Sister looked exhausted, and Yukiko made seven copies of her, all wearing Astrid’s clothing, all running beside copies of Neil.
Three golems appeared and gave chase. Yukiko bent the last remaining sunlight, shining it into their eyes, doing her level best to confuse them, simultaneously concealing herself.
The three golems were well down the boardwalk, chasing the pairs of false Sisters and Neils, when Yukiko hit the ground, something huge and strong on top of her. It breathed into her ear and she knew what it was. The fourth golem.
She twisted beneath him, changing into her smaller tailless white fox form, slipping away and leaving his hands grasping at her empty clothing. She ran, but knew he had a gun. They all did. And they all were perfect shots.
She ran at full speed, leaping and zigzagging, bending sunlight and creating a chaotic mass of white foxes around her, trying to be a difficult target, when she heard the shot. It took a moment for her to register that it had not struck her. She darted behind an empty midway booth and peeked out.
She saw Santiago in his Coyote form attached to the golem’s right wrist, snarling. The golem grabbed the handgun with his left hand and smashed the butt into Santiago’s skull. But the old Coyote was tougher than he looked, and he glared at the golem through slitted yellow eyes.
Huginn was on the golem an instant later, pecking and clawing his face, and then Elliot gave a cry and leaped onto him as well. His weight was enough to force the golem to stagger forward, and Yukiko saw her chance. She changed into a woman and snatched the gun from his hand, leaping nimbly out of his reach.
She raised the gun, leveling it with the back of the golem’s head and fired. He fell. She turned aside and set the handgun on the concession stand counter.
“He’s still going round and round,” said Elliot. “They all are.”
“Well, aren’t we all?” said Santiago.
Yukiko changed back into a fox. Elliot and Huginn retreated back behind the concession stand while Yukiko and Santiago ran down the boardwalk to a spot where a void wyrm rip had appeared.
“I thought you cleared out,” she said to Santiago as they ran.
“I did. But then I realized I’d miss all the fun. Besides, I think it’s about time for me to die anyway.”
She glanced at him, surprised. It was the most honest thing she’d ever heard him say. His canine face was unreadable, and his pink tongue hung out the side of his mouth.
“I think you may be right,” she said.
“Of course I’m right. But since I have to die today, I’d rather do it at the side of a friend.”
“We’re not friends.”
“Still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
Santiago created an illusion of a row of children, and the void wyrm leapt for them, clamping its jaws on air. Yelbeghen must have sensed the door, for high above, he circled back toward them.
Astrid appeared in her owl form, and Yukiko created the illusion of multiple owls in anticipation of the golems she knew would be following her.
Three more rips opened and void wyrms stretched their terrible heads from all three. Santiago grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and pulled her just out of reach of one.
Thunder crashed, just once, and the ocean waves calmed to nothing and the constant sea wind grew still. Even the rain stopped. The void wyrms ceased their attack, the souls in the sky slowed in their flight and quit their howling. Even Yelbeghen landed and was still.
Yukiko felt her own heart beating and the air moving in and out of her lungs. She could feel the stillness of all creation. The sky tore open from east to west, and beyond it stretched endless black and purple and blue and pale orange, yellow and more blue. Too many skies, too many worlds.
Everyone, even the golems, looked up in horror. The only sound was Elliot in the distance, screaming.
Chapter 45
Astrid felt the void beyond the tear, the void and everything else. Everything. And she understood.
It wasn’t simply the worlds being merged, it was everything: planets and space and universes, the places of the living and the dead, the human and inhuman, all becoming one.
But not people. No, for each person was always unique. In every world, there were never any duplicates. Even key historical people were never exact duplicates, but similar people with similar names. And now, everyone was going to die. Every last one.
Elliot’s scream broke through her thoughts.
Elliot, her cousin, the epitome of optimism through their years of poverty and struggle through their childhoods. Elliot, the unfailing light who had never turned away or given up on her, no matter how mad things became. She had seen him go from a boy to a young man and then grow up. From a surfer in a trailer to one of the most reliable members of the Time Corps, skilled, resourceful and brave.
She saw him as the Time Corps could not, because she knew what he was. Like her, he was a wounded thing, a damaged being. But while her own damage lay in her heart, Elliot’s resided in his head.
She flew to him, the only one to break free of the magnetic hold that the tear had on everyone. The tear held so many things, but with the multitude of everything, it also held the void which was the absence of everything. It might be a paradox, but it was a true one. Only Yelbeghen turned his head to glance at her, and she thought she saw Gopan stir. Yes, the void things were not mesmerized so easily.
Elliot squatted on the concession stand counter, like an ape, staring at the sky.
“It’s you,” he said to her.
She landed beside him. “Yeah.”
“Can you see it too?”
“I can.”
“And do you see it the way I do?” His voice shook.
She wanted to change into a human and take his hand, but she would be nude, so she stayed as an owl. Instead, she reached gently into his mind, knowing it was breaking the rule that she must never use her abilities on the living, but hoping that in these last moments that they might face their end together.
Elliot’s mind, once only erratic, now was a squirming mass of chaos. But within that was more.
The other members of the Time Corps thought Elliot’s words were only the product of insanity, but she now understood that they were beyond that. He saw the worlds, all of them. Together and separate.
Both.
Together and separate.
The golem that Yukiko killed lay on the ground in a puddle of his own blood which ran down between the boards of the boardwalk.
She thought of the golem she had killed using her Doors. Her Doors were her only defense. Her Doors and the void.
So much death. Everything around her was death.
Elliot whimpered, and she reached further into his mind, telling him she was there, that she would not leave him.
And then she saw it, the threads that went from one place to another in his mind, connecting things. The things were all in motion, like spinning planets or electrons orbiting around an atom’s nucleus, and Elliot’s mind connected them together.
He had an idea, and her mind leapt to another thought with him. The seven earths were one. Their merging had already occurred. But the void, the Seelie and Unseelie worlds, Purgatory and Hell, the other rips to nameless places were only rips. Those places were not yet merged with her world. Together and separate.
Like the golem’s arms around her, they pressed in, but they had not yet crushed her world.
That meant something. Inside his mind, she felt Elliot draw closer to her.
You’re here, he said.
I didn’t want to leave you all alone.
Can you see it now?
I think so. But there’s something missing.
She felt him sink farther away, pulled down by his own interior gravity. Or maybe he was pushing her upward. Yes, that was it. He lifted her. She soared.
There were the Twelve. She saw them now, the ones who wanted order and the ones who wanted chaos and the ones between, the ones who had never chosen a side. Angels and demons. Heaven’s war.
The kinder ones of the Twelve would not help her.
Would you like me to show you?
She told him that she would.
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 140
