by Amy Cross
“I don't want Kate to die,” Anna whimpered, with tears running down her cheeks.
“She won't,” Jennifer replied, her voice trembling with fear. “Someone will save her, I promise.”
“How's it still beating?” Nixon asked, with a sense of wonder as he watched Kate's heart. “I don't understand the mechanics. Humans have such simple bodies, but this time I genuinely don't see how she's holding together.”
“Pretty cool, huh?” Madeleine replied with a faint smile. “The thing is, I noticed something, and I'm pretty sure Edgar hasn't been entirely honest with us.”
“What do you mean?”
Reaching into Kate's chest cavity, Madeleine used her knuckles to gently nudge the beating heart aside.
“Stop!” Lassiter cried out, as all the color drained from his face. “My God, you people are all crazy!”
“Whatever,” Madeleine replied, watching Nixon's expression. “Explain how that got inside her.”
Leaning closer, Nixon peered at the space behind Kate's heart, before looking up at Madeleine. “That's not possible.”
“Bingo.” Hearing footsteps nearby, she turned just in time to spot Edgar rushing to the door. “And here he is right now, my big brother! The man who's got a hell of a lot of explaining to do!”
“Let me see her,” Edgar replied, hurrying past them all but stopping as soon as he saw the state of Kate's injuries. “Who did this to her?” he asked, turning to Madeleine. “Tell me!”
“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Before you go threatening to go and kill old Eversham, though, I should tell you that she's already dead. Yours truly took care of that, and you don't need to worry about Raven's Briar. I even had something of an epiphany when it comes to dealing with cold-bloods. Impressed?”
He turned to Nixon. “Fix her!”
“Edgar,” Nixon replied, “I'm not sure -”
“Fix her!” he shouted, grabbing Nixon by the collar and pulling him closer. “You will fix this injury and save Kate, or I swear to God I will tear your soul in two and send your wolf side running for the hills!”
“I'll do my best,” Nixon stammered, “but Edgar, someone has already got to her before me! Look behind her heart! How do you explain what's in there?”
“Will everyone just stop arguing?” Doctor Lassiter continued. “This woman's life is hanging by a thread! If we don't act fast, she'll die!”
“Again,” Madeleine whispered darkly.
He turned to her. “What did you just say?”
“Look,” she replied, reaching past and pushing Kate's heart to one side again, revealing a second, smaller heart beating frantically. “Ever seen a woman with two hearts, Doc? 'Cause I haven't, and I've seen a lot of crazy stuff, but never anything like this so...” As Doctor Lassiter fainted and slumped to the ground, Madeleine turned to Edgar and saw the shock in his eyes. “Come on then, Edgar. Why don't you tell us what's really going on here? I've got to admit it, for once you've actually managed to surprise me.”
Part Forty-Six
I
“She's a mess,” Nixon muttered, as he tried to pull the flesh closed on Kate's ravaged chest. “For God's sake, they butchered her!”
“Is she conscious?” Edgar asked, looking down at Kate's face. “Can she hear us?”
Reaching up, Nixon opened her eyes for a moment, but they closed again as soon as he let go. “I think she's out for the count,” he explained, “and that's probably a good thing. Judging from the size of her pupils, though, I'd say she was drugged at some point.”
“Was this Eversham's doing?” Edgar continued, turning to Jennifer and then to Madeleine. “Tell me!”
“She had a pretty weird set-up going,” Madeleine replied. “It's as if the whole point of getting us there was just so she could torture Kate. I broke free as fast as I could, but obviously the whole blind thing made it a little difficult.”
“Madeleine and I were surplus to requirements,” Jennifer told Edgar, whole holding Anna tight to keep her daughter from seeing the bloody mess on the table. “We were just a side-show. It was Kate they wanted.”
“I don't want Kate to die,” Anna whimpered, with tears running down her face.
“She won't,” Jennifer told her.
Anna tried to turn and look, but Jennifer pulled her away. “I have to get her out of here,” she said, turning to Madeleine. “I can't let my daughter see what's happening, and there's nothing I can do for Kate right now. Is it okay if I get the cart and head back into town?”
“Knock yourself out,” Madeleine told her.
As Jennifer led Anna from the room, Nixon continued to work on Kate's body. He felt for a pulse, and the color seemed to drain from his face as he realized that she was getting worse.
“You will save her,” Edgar said firmly, with a hint of menace in his voice. “Whatever they've done to her, whatever methods they've used, you will undo every cut, every incision, every horror. Is that clear?”
“I'm not a doctor,” Nixon pointed out, before glancing down at Doctor Lassiter, who was still passed out cold on the floor. “Not that he'd be much use, since he's not used to dealing with people who've got two hearts, but still...”
“Get the human out of here,” Edgar spat at Jacob, who hurried to Lassiter and began to drag him out. “Put him on the cart with the Kazakos woman and her child.”
“Of course, Sir,” Jacob replied.
“There's a lot of deep damage,” Nixon continued, as he examined Kate more closely. “Whatever else you might say about old Eversham, she certainly wasn't a delicate surgeon. From the looks of things, she seems to have been cutting for the sake of cutting. I'd say that torture was her main aim. If you look at the incisions, it's as if she was trying to cause the maximum amount of pain.” He turned to Edgar. “Without the second heart strengthening her system, Kate might not have survived.”
“The aim wasn't to kill her,” Edgar said darkly. “The aim was to hurt her.”
“I can stabilize her,” Nixon replied, “and that should buy me some time to work out what else might help. Can someone fetch my medical bag, such as it is? It's in my room.”
“I'm not going in that stinky old hole,” Madeleine told him. “God knows what you've got in there.”
“I will go,” Edgar replied, heading to the door. “Just make sure that nothing happens to her, Nixon. This is one time when I won't accept failure.”
“Hear that?” Madeleine asked Nixon. “That's the sound of my brother trying to scare you. Is it working?”
“I don't have time to talk,” Nixon replied, as blood flowed from Kate's chest and covered his hands. “It'll be a miracle if I can do anything at all.”
***
“So Kate Langley has two hearts,” Madeleine said as she followed Edgar along the dark corridor, “and somehow I feel like you know more than you're letting on.”
Ignoring her, he made his way to the foot of the stairs and stopped for a moment, before turning back to her.
“Or didn't you know?” she continued, with a faint smile. “I'm so used to you being ten steps ahead of everything, dear brother, that sometimes I forget to consider the possibility, however remote, that you're floundering like the rest of us.” She waited for a reply, but finally she realized that she was right: Edgar was as lost as the others. “You didn't know, did you? The second heart must have been beating so perfectly in synchronization with the first, we weren't even able to sense it.”
“I didn't know,” he replied calmly, “you're right. But clearly Quillian and Ms. Eversham did know, and that worries me a great deal. If the second heart was in Kate's chest since the moment she arrived here in our time period, that can only mean...”
His voice trailed off for a moment.
“It was placed in her body before she came to us,” Madeleine replied.
“Indeed.”
“So that means... Edgar, you could still be responsible. In the future, at least.”
“I believe so. The question is, why would I do s
uch a thing?”
“Perhaps she was injured once,” Madeleine suggested. “I hardly think you'd do something like that unless you had no choice.”
“Her original heart shows signs of damage,” he continued. “If I had to guess, I'd say that she was hurt and I saved her life. At the same time, I obviously chose to give her a second heart because I was worried she might not survive otherwise.”
“But then how did Quillian and Ms. Eversham know?” Madeleine asked.
“That's what I'm wondering too,” he replied. “There's something else going on here, Madeleine, something just beyond my understanding. I'm starting to think that Quillian is more deeply involved in this matter than I previously imagined, and that means he might have been working behind the scenes in the time period from which Kate reached us.”
“I thought she told you that Quillian wasn't there?”
“She did, but perhaps she simply wasn't aware of him.” He paused. “Time is running out. I must prepare to face him.”
“I'll come with you.”
He shook his head.
“Edgar, you need me.”
“I need to do this alone.”
“Come on, you know I'm good in a fight,” she continued. “Sure, my eyesight's still mostly gone, although I'm starting to get glimpses now. I actually managed to see Kate's second heart.” She tilted her head slightly, allowing the hallway's low light to pick up the small, shriveled eyeballs that were starting to grow in her sockets. “Face it, brother, you need me in a fight.”
“Perhaps,” he replied, “but I don't believe there will need to be a fight. When I warned you not to go to Raven's Briar, it was because I felt you were falling into Quillian's trap. I was right, and now the consequence of that trap has been made clear to me.” He paused for a moment. “The return of Kate, in this condition, is a message to me, and it's a message I cannot ignore. I must take heed.”
“But -”
“Tell Nixon to heal her,” he continued, turning and heading up the stairs. “Tell him to do everything in his power to ensure that she recovers. I shall take care of the rest myself.”
Hearing footsteps nearby, Madeleine turned and realized she could sense someone over at the main door. A second later, a familiar face stepped into view.
“Benjamin?” she asked, with a faint smile. “Wow, I'm glad you finally made it. You have no idea what you've been missing!”
***
“Come on, Kate,” Nixon whispered as he reached into her chest and used two fingers to clamp a broken artery shut. “This is as close to the wall as I'm comfortable getting. If you die, my hide is history.”
Looking over at the door, he realized that Edgar still wasn't back. He began to look around the room, hoping to find something he could use to seal one of Kate's many wounds, but there was nothing. A moment later, however, he felt a hand on his arm, and he looked back down to see that Kate's eyes had begun to open.
“It's okay,” he told her. “I know what I'm doing. Well, almost. Well...” He paused for a moment. “You know I always do my best, don't you?”
“Anna,” she whispered.
“Anna?”
“Anna... Please...”
“Anna Kazakos is quite alright,” he continued. “Her mother took her home a little while earlier.”
“Home? Thaxos?”
“Yes, Kate, home on Thaxos. You're all back, you all made it in one piece. I don't quite know what happened to you all at Raven's Briar, but my understanding is that Ms. Eversham is permanently out of the picture. I think Madeleine might have put on quite a show.”
“Where...” She paused, as if she was struggling to stay conscious. “Where's Edgar?”
“Up to something, as usual. Kate, listen, you're not in the best state right now, I think -”
“I need to speak to him,” she whispered.
“I'm sure you do, but right now -”
“Get him. Please.”
“Kate...” Pausing for a moment, Nixon saw the fear in her eyes. Glancing down into her chest, he saw her two hearts still beating furiously. “All in due course,” he continued, looking back at her face. “Kate, I won't sugarcoat this for you, okay? You're in a bad way. Such a bad way, in fact, that it's hard to believe you're still alive. I need to ask you something about the future, and I know you always refuse to talk about things that haven't happened yet, but this time it's a matter of life and death, and I promise it won't affect anything beyond these four walls.” He paused again. “Kate, when did Edgar do this to you?”
“Do what?”
“Your heart, Kate...”
“He...” She paused, clearly struggling for breath. “On one of my first nights on Thaxos, I was attacked,” she told him. “I don't remember exactly what happened, but Edgar saved me. He told me he put my heart back together and held it with his thoughts, to keep it from bursting. When I arrived here, I assumed it must have healed enough for it to continue beating without his help.”
“There are certainly some scars,” Nixon replied, looking down at Kate's heart and seeing where it had once been torn apart, “but there's something else.” Reaching into the cavity, he pushed the heart aside so he could once again see the second, smaller heart at the back. “Did Edgar tell you that he'd put anything into your chest?”
“Like what?”
“Like...” He paused again, as he tried to work out whether he should tell her the truth. “You have a second heart, Kate. Not a full one, just something partial, it seems to be designed to take the load of the main heart. You could probably survive perfectly well without it now, I imagine Edgar placed it there to help you heal.” He swallowed hard. “When you say you were attacked on one of your first nights here... Did you see what attacked you?”
She shook her head.
“But you must have got an impression of it, surely?”
“I -”
Before she could finish, she saw it in her mind's eye, that moment in the maintenance shed. She saw something lunging through the darkness, coming closer.
Fast.
Racing straight toward her.
Before she could react, the entire window shattered and the wooden frame came crashing down. She turned away as pieces of glass came slashing into her like a shower of stars, but as she fell she felt something sharp slice into her arm, sending a searing jolt of pain through her body. She half-landed against a bench with such force that she felt another piece of glass dig deep into her side, but she ignore the pain and immediately turned before crawling to the other side of the hut, not even daring to look back.
“Are you okay, there?” Nixon asked, as he saw her hearts starting to beat faster.
Still, she remembered:
Seconds later, she heard something on the other side of the wall, and suddenly there was a loud thump as the creature, whatever it was, smashed itself against the wood, causing the entire hut to shake.
“Kate?” Nixon asked.
Her eyes filled with horror, Kate was reliving every agonizing second of that night:
Backed into the far corner, she reached up and felt warm blood run down her arm as she heard the creature making its way back around to the gaping hole where the window used to be. As she turned stared in horror, Kate she tried to scream, but her body was frozen with fear as she finally saw the creature's face.
“No,” she whispered.
“Okay,” Nixon replied, clearly worried, “I'm going to give you a sedative, just something to calm you down...”
The creature had been large, the size of a man but filled with a burning rage and power that threatened to shake the entire maintenance hut apart. She finally remembered seeing it roaring as it lunged at her, and she relived the fury of its claws as they sank into her flesh. Every moment of the pain came back to her, and she let out a gasp as she remembered seeing a hint of familiarity in the creature's horrific face.
“Edgar,” she whispered.
“There,” Nixon said, sliding a needle into her arm and pushing th
e plunger down. “Kate, I don't know what's happening to you right now, but you're in danger of going into cardiac arrest.”
“It was Edgar,” she continued, leaning her head back slightly. “He -”
“Kate!” Nixon shouted, watching as her hearts started to spasm. A few seconds later, she let out another gasp, and her hearts fell still. For a moment, Nixon had no idea what to do. He merely stared in horror at the hearts, before finally realizing that he only had one choice. Reaching into her chest, he began to desperately massage the hearts, trying to bring her back from the jaws of death itself.
II
“No!” Anna screamed. “Stop! Don't touch me!”
“Anna?” Bursting through the door and hurrying across the dark room, Jennifer dropped to her knees next to the bed and reached out to take hold of her panicking, flailing daughter. “Anna, what's wrong?”
“She's here!” Anna shouted, looking around with wild, terrified eyes. “She's in my room!”
“Who is?” Pulling Anna closer, Jennifer hugged her tightly. “You've been having a nightmare, that's all.”
“I saw her,” Anna whimpered, with tears running down her face. “I saw Ms. Eversham, she was right here, and Constant too, and the other girls. They were all around my bed and they were going to hurt me!”
“They really weren't,” Jennifer replied.
“They were,” Anna replied, burying her head against her mother's shoulder. “It wasn't a nightmare. They were here.”
“It was a nightmare,” Jennifer told her, “but that doesn't mean it wasn't scary. And it doesn't mean we can ignore it.” She paused for a moment, before looking over at the window. “Don't worry. I think I know a way to make sure it doesn't come back.”
***
“Me?” Estella replied, with a hint of shock in her voice as she stood in the hallway of her father's house. “I'm sorry, I don't understand. What exactly do you think I can do for the child?”
