Ashtown Burials

by N. D. Wilson

  “Duck!” she yelled at Cyrus.

  Turning, Cyrus ducked as another diving viper grazed his ear. He dodged around two on the ground.

  “Tigs!” he yelled, slowing.

  “Go! I’m right behind you!”

  Cyrus’s bare heels stopped touching the cold marble floor as his strides lengthened. Ahead of him, a viper coiled and reared to strike, wings spread.

  Cyrus didn’t turn and he didn’t slow down. He vaulted, launching into the air and spreading his legs as the snake struck.

  His shins folded back the white wings. A fang caught in the thigh of his pants, whipping the snake around and spinning it across the dusty floor as he landed.

  “Tigs?” he yelled again.

  Dennis had reached the door. He was pulling it open. Cyrus was almost there.

  “Tigs!” Cyrus broke down his sprint and turned around.

  A big, four-legged shape slid out from the shadow of the mezzanine, rumbling a growl like distant drums. Cyrus froze. It was a bear, long-legged, short-faced, and with a body the size of a bull. It was black, but its belly was tiger-striped with white. White rings circled its eyes, and white fangs dangled beneath its heavy upper lip.

  Bounding forward, it rose onto its hind legs, towering twice Cyrus’s height, swatting at the vipers. The snakes climbed, circling out of the bear’s reach.

  Cyrus backed toward the door. The bear dropped to all fours and moved toward Cyrus, claws like flamingo beaks clicking as it came. He couldn’t see Antigone behind it.

  “Antigone!” Cyrus shouted. “Jax!”

  Small bells jingled beside him.

  “Gone if she’s in there, lad,” Sterling said. “Wish I’d gotten here sooner, but these legs aren’t made for sprinting.” The cook patted Cyrus on the shoulder as the bear bellowed, stringing drool from a drooping lip.

  “Let’s get this door closed and bolted behind us.”

  “No.” Cyrus shook his head. “Tigs!” He stepped forward, but Sterling grabbed his shirt and held him back.

  Cyrus wrenched himself free and staggered toward the bear. “Tigs!” he yelled. The big animal crouched, waiting.

  Cyrus took a step to one side and braced himself, preparing to run.

  “Hold, lad,” Sterling said. “You don’t have a chance. Ah, well, I hate to do it, may the animal gods forgive me.”

  Cyrus glanced back. The bearded cook extended a four-barreled gun. The gun belched, and a sphere of white fire corkscrewed forward, erupting into the bear’s chest. The animal leapt into the air and then bolted for the cages like an avalanche of smoking fur. But Sterling wasn’t done. Firing at the circling vipers, he jingled forward until he stood beside Cyrus, and then, with a quick jerk, he brought the butt of the gun down onto Cyrus’s skull.

  Antigone was standing beside an open window at the end of a long, curving hallway dotted with closed doors. The window behind her was three stories up. The doors went to … she didn’t know where.

  Her heart was still racing. It hadn’t stopped since she’d gotten out of the zoo. Her face was still flushed. Jax had just managed to pull her into a cage. The bars had kept out the bigger animals—the smoking bear and the four-winged vultures—but the snakes … A heavy bone had been her only weapon, and her arms ached from swinging. Her hands were blistered. She should have died.

  She slipped her Quick Water back into her jacket pocket. It still showed her nothing but darkness.

  She’d told Rupert everything. But she didn’t care about Sterling. Where was Cyrus? He’d been ahead of her. He had to have made it out. But then where was he? She’d been stuck inside with Jax for almost an hour. Another hour had passed since she’d gotten out and no one had seen Cyrus.

  A sick lump of worry sat in her throat. She shivered and slapped her arms, staring out the open window. She wasn’t cold. Even with the early storm wind, the air was warping with heat. The storm still hadn’t broken, but the sun seemed to be gone for good, swallowed by flickering clouds.

  She wanted Cyrus. She wanted Dan. She wanted to sit beside her mother.

  Behind her, a door opened and Jax stepped out beside Rupert Greeves. The boy’s face was still red, but rings of salt from his sweat had dried onto his cheeks and forehead. His clothes were soaked through, and he held a glass bottle full of water in one hand.

  Greeves filled the hall. He scratched his bandaged jaw, eyeing Antigone.

  “We need to go back,” she said. “Right now. Cyrus and Dennis might still be in there.”

  Jax shook his head. “I looked everywhere. They’re gone.”

  “What about the fireballs? Who was shooting those?”

  “I was busy saving your life at the time,” Jax sniffed. “I was unable to locate the source of the fireballs.”

  “You know,” said Antigone, “you don’t talk like a twelve-year-old.”

  “Thank you,” said Jax, and he took a swig of water.

  Rupert Greeves sighed. “Mr. Axelrotter, you’re free to go. I may speak with you again. Miss Smith, the Brendan has asked to see you. Walk with me.” His hand closed around her arm.

  Rupert led her down the hallway and past the flight of stairs she and Jax had ascended.

  After a few bends and a long curve, the hall dead-ended in a white paneled wall. Rupert pushed the paneling in and slid it to the side, revealing what looked like an elevator’s strange and distant cousin.

  “You didn’t see that,” he said, “because I wasted time we don’t have following protocol, blindfolding you and spinning you around seventy-seven times before leading you here. Remember that if anyone asks.” He stepped in.

  The sides and floor were brass wire mesh. Two thick cables ran down through holes in the ceiling and out of the floor. There were no buttons—only a large needled dial on one wall and a small lever beneath it.

  “I thought we were in a hurry,” Rupert said, looking back at Antigone.

  She stepped in beside him, and he slid the paneling closed. The needle on the dial bounced. Rupert twisted the casing around it, and then he pulled the lever.

  The elevator—and one of the two cables—began to rise smoothly.

  After a few moments, the cage bumped and began to climb diagonally. It shifted again, rocking gently as it moved horizontally, finally bumping again and ascending up another vertical shaft.

  Antigone didn’t say anything. She was staring through the brass mesh, watching the overmortared backside of stone walls creep by, broken up by the occasional boarded-up door.

  Rupert glanced at Antigone and then looked back through the ceiling and up the shaft. “Show respect and speak truth. And his name isn’t Brendan. That’s his title. His name is Oliver Laughlin.”

  Greeves slid a panel open and stepped out of the elevator.

  Antigone held back. “What do I call him? Mr. Laughlin? Mr. The Brendan?”

  “Call him sir.”

  Antigone followed Rupert Greeves down a polished hall with a black-and-white mosaic floor, into a sprawling room dotted with thick carpets and couches. There were no bookshelves. No books. No pictures. Intricately carved beams held up the low ceiling. A wall of paned windows looked down a sloping roof, past a row of titanic stone statues guarding the gutters, and then out over the lake. The glass panes quivered in the wind.

  Rupert led Antigone away, around a long table and into the far corner of the room, where two walls of windows met. An old man was lying on a couch, piled beneath blankets. His empty eyes were focused on the ceiling. Two chairs sat across from him. His hair was thin and white, but long, reaching just below his pointed jaw. His skin was blotched and carved with deep creases. He was unshaven and had been for some time.

  Beside the window, a boy with a sharp, freckled face stood with his back to the glass and his arms crossed. The boy. The boy from the Galleria, from the picture—the boy who nodded and everyone obeyed.

  For a moment, his eyes were on Antigone’s, and then he turned to Rupert.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Greeves,” the
boy said. “He will hear you.”

  Rupert quickly reported what Antigone had told him. Antigone watched the boy’s face sharpen and his brow furrow. When he spoke, his voice was crisp.

  “Sterling and Rhodes are condemned because of what an Acolyte says that a porter said that he overheard?”

  “No,” Rupert said. “Not condemned. Not yet. I will speak with them both when they’ve been found.”

  The old man on the couch shifted, but his eyes were still on the ceiling. “Phoenix is coming.”

  Greeves faced him quickly. “Yes, sir. Maybe. But the gates have been strengthened, the guards have been doubled, and the Keepers have been warned. All of my hunters will be out tonight.”

  The Brendan waved at the chairs in front of him. “Sit.”

  Rupert nodded Antigone into a chair, and then he sat.

  The old man coughed, and then spoke. A rattle in his throat roughened his smooth drawl—like sand in butter. “It has been more than two decades since my brother defied the Order, two years since he last raised his voice to me. He is now ready, and he is unafraid. What of the tooth? What of the Smith children?”

  “I have brought one of them with me, sir. Antigone Smith is seated across from you.”

  The old man sat up quickly, easily, and turned suddenly sharp, pale-blue eyes on Antigone. The blankets fell onto his lap.

  “Miss Smith,” he said, taking in her skin, her hair, her hands. She was wrapped in a damp leather jacket, and she still felt undressed.

  “My father was an evil man, Miss Smith. My brother Edwin—Phoenix by his own naming—is an evil man. Do you hold them against me?”

  Antigone glanced at Rupert for help. Hard creases were set into his dark face. His eyes were on the Brendan.

  “Should I?” Antigone asked.

  “No,” the Brendan said. “But if you are alive tomorrow, perhaps you will. Where is the tooth, Miss Smith? The shard of the serpent’s fang, left to you by William Skelton, the thief and liar.”

  “I don’t know where the tooth is,” Antigone said. “My brother is missing. We should be looking for him. He has it.”

  The old man sniffed and ran a bony hand through his long, thin hair. His eyes drifted out of focus. “You are now searching for two brothers. And I dearly wish never to see mine again. But wishing is useless. He is coming, Miss Smith. Tonight. Your time at Ashtown will be short. This Estate nears its end.”

  Rupert stood, his fists and jaws clenching. The Brendan sighed. “Wait a moment, Greeves. Do not rush off to war so quickly. There is something she should see.”

  He pointed behind his couch to a half-opened door. “Inside.”

  Antigone followed Rupert across the room to the door. She glanced back at the boy. His arms were still crossed. His lips were tight.

  The door opened into a dim, strange-smelling room. A large bed was crowned with a tangle of rumpled sheets. Bowls of burned-down incense sticks lined a shelf on the headboard in front of small, tarnished metal images.

  In front of a closet, Antigone’s movie screen had been set up. Her projector sat propped on a stack of books on a small table, positioned and ready. Her two cameras sat in their open cases beside it.

  “What’s going on?” Antigone jumped forward. “How did these get here? Someone fixed the lenses. They’d melted.” She looked at her half-molten projector. “There’s no reel. There’s nothing to play.”

  Rupert flipped the switch, and the empty spools began to turn. Light beamed through the air and danced on the screen.

  Dan was driving. The wipers were beating silently.

  “That’s my movie,” Antigone said. “Where’s it coming from? How is this happening?”

  “The lens,” Rupert said. “He’s trapped it all in the lens.”

  Antigone crouched to examine her projector. Rupert pulled her back to her feet.

  The images jumped.

  Dan was lying on a bed. His eyes were closed, his legs and chest were bare. He was thin. Pale. Underfed.

  Antigone bit her lip and covered her mouth with her hand. “What’s he—”

  Dan changed. His shoulders grew. His chest and arms and legs thickened. His legs lengthened in jerks between frames. His hair grew long, and then black, and then blond again. Shaved patches appeared on his scalp. Wires dotted his body and then disappeared. His ribs sprouted a regiment of small muscles. And suddenly, bruises appeared across his body, a bloody laceration above his eyebrow, and a bite mark on his neck. His lips were split, and his left eye was swollen shut. His right eye was open but staring into nothing.

  “Is he alive?” Antigone asked. She grabbed Rupert’s arm. “What happened? Is he alive?”

  Rupert was as stiff and motionless as a statue.

  The image jumped. It was one of Antigone’s movies again. Cyrus smiling beside his mother’s hospital bed. Antigone smiling, brushing her mother’s hair, kissing her head.

  “No,” Antigone said. She shook her head, looking away. But she had to look back.

  Her mother was in a different room, and it wasn’t the hospital. Sunlight poured through the window. Curtains were blowing.

  Antigone’s whole body clenched. Rupert’s big arm hardened in her hand.

  A tall, thin man with thick black hair stepped in front of the camera. He was wearing a brilliant white suit beneath a dingy and battered lab coat. He looked like the Brendan but much younger. And longer—stretched. He stepped forward and his face filled the frame. Antigone wanted to duck or dive away from his pale eyes.

  “The cloak,” Rupert said quietly. “Nolan was right.”

  The image on the screen shook. The projector’s lens was vibrating. Somehow, someway, he was speaking. His mouth wasn’t moving.

  “Smiths,” the man said slowly. “I seem to have what is yours, and I believe you have what is mine. But I see no reason for us to quarrel. I’m sure some—friendly—arrangement can be reached to avoid the extremely unpleasant. As for you, my brother Brendan, there can be no arrangement.”

  Phoenix moved out of the frame.

  Antigone’s mother had vanished from the bed behind him. A dead blackbird lay on her pillow with wings spread. And then the image jumped to old black-and-white film. Two cowboys pulled guns and fired. German tanks rolled through Paris.

  The screen went white, flickered, and then jumped to the beginning. Dan in the car.

  Rupert clicked the projector off and walked out of the room. Antigone hurried behind him.

  “Miss Smith,” the Brendan said quietly. “No one can blame you. Give him the tooth. Save your family if you can. The rest of us may be beyond saving. Greeves, dissolve the Estate immediately. Scatter the members. Go. Leave Phoenix an empty Ashtown. I will wait for execution alone.”

  Rupert stepped around in front of the Brendan, his chest swelling. He jerked off the old man’s blanket and hurled it against the window. Jaw clenching, hands flexing, he looked down at the feeble shape, and his lip curled. “You betray the people beneath you. You betray the people who lived before you. You betray the world the Order serves.” His eyes were razors. “Graves will be opened. The Burials will be emptied. A millennium’s imprisoned curses will walk free. How long until the nations are on their knees?” He shook his head. “I would rather be the first to die than survive and murder others with my cowardice.”

  The Brendan’s eyes sparked, but the spark died quickly. The old man drooped back into his couch. His eyes found the ceiling.

  Greeves looked at the boy. His eyes were wide, his arms uncrossed.

  “Come with us now, Oliver, or not at all.”

  Turning, Rupert strode across the room. The boy, Oliver, jumped to follow him.

  Antigone stepped slowly in front of the Brendan. Her body was shaking. Her veins were pumping fear, not blood.

  “You’re just going to give up? Can’t you stop him?” she asked. “Can’t you do anything at all?”

  “Once upon a time,” the old man said quietly. “But no longer. Lie low and the lightnin
g may overlook you. Phoenix will stumble in the end.”

  Antigone could hardly stand. Blinking, with images of her brother and mother swirling in her head, she made her way to the elevator.

  As they descended, she sniffed, fighting nausea. Oliver moved into the far corner.

  Rupert stared at the ceiling. When they reached the bottom, he spoke. “Neither of you will mention him. You will say nothing of his nonsense.”

  He slid the panel open and Antigone stumbled into the hall. Oliver stepped out beside her. With a single angry jerk, Rupert ripped down the elevator’s ceiling and reached up into the cables. A long pin came free and rattled to the floor. He stepped out into the hall.

  A moment later, the brass cage groaned, slipped, and plummeted. The three of them watched the cables racing, unspooling in the empty shaft.

  When the crash came, Greeves slid the panel closed and turned away.

  “Oliver,” he said. “We have much to prepare, and we must find Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Sterling.”

  “What about Cyrus?” Antigone asked. “Will you look for him?”

  Rupert Greeves, Avengel of the Order of Brendan, stepped back to her, bent down, and looked into her eyes.

  “Antigone,” he said. His breath smelled like leather. His face was stone. “My blood belongs to the Smiths. I am ready to die for your mother, for your brother, for Cyrus, and for you. I will die before that creature controls even the sewers of Ashtown. Soon I will send some of my hunters in search of your brother. You will follow them. Stay close to me. I must move quickly. Can you do that?”

  Antigone nodded. Oliver was looking at her, pale behind his freckles.

  A moment later, Greeves was striding away, Oliver at his side. Hurrying behind them, Antigone dug into her jacket pocket.

  Her quaking Quick Water glowed faintly on her palm, no longer dark but far from bright. She raised it to her face.

  twenty

  WE ALL FALL DOWN

  CYRUS HAD SEEN his sister. He knew he had, but only for a moment, and her features had been hugely warped in fish-eye—she must have been holding the ball close to her face. But it had definitely been her.