“Nobody wants you here!” Blum cried. “It’s my turn, damn it. My turn!”
With these last words, his voice became ragged and bestial, and it was laden with so much anguish that Joe didn’t know which was the more pitiful creature, the one sprawled on the floor, or this thing masquerading as the father of Jillian Blum.
It grew taller and thinner as it came at him, but Joe only noticed the way its fingers had lengthened into wicked claws when it swung at him. He rolled with it, thinking a punch was coming, but the thing that had been Blum slashed him instead, and he felt the sting and smelled the metallic tang of his own blood.
It pissed him off.
The thing that had been Blum grabbed Joe by the arms and darted its mouth toward his neck, as if it meant to tear out his throat. Joe drove his head forward, smashing its nose and breaking teeth. With a roar, the thing shoved him backward and he struck the chair it had been sleeping in when it had been Blum. Both Joe and chair toppled with a crash that shattered a lamp and a side table, but a moment later he was up.
Joe grabbed the toppled chair and hefted it, intending to beat the thing to death with it, but by then the Blum-thing had reached Jillian’s bed. The girl shook her head in mute horror, glancing pleadingly at the hideous goblin which only now began weakly to rise from the floor. Rachael Blum’s pounding on the bedroom door matched the pounding in Joe’s head.
Reaching for the girl, the Blum-thing smiled a terrible, jagged, yearning smile.
Joe drew his gun and shot the Blum-thing three times, the first shot spinning it away from the girl’s bed, the second and third pinning it against a wall that was spattered with its blood. Jillian clapped both hands over her mouth as the Blum-thing’s legs gave out beneath it and it collapsed to the floor, small pools of black blood quickly spreading across the pine and running in little streams between the planks.
He didn’t like guns. Didn’t like killing.
Though lighter now by three bullets, the weapon felt heavier as he slid it back into its holster. He glanced at the goblin-creature as it staggered across the room to Jillian Blum’s bed. The filthy, withered husk with its oily toad skin should have terrified her, but of course she reached for it, and the two embraced, girl and monster both weeping. Daughter and father both weeping.
Joe went over and unlocked the door to stop Rachael Blum from pounding on the wood. Mrs. Blum hurried in, but made it only three steps before she froze, staring at the bizarre scene. Joe stood and watched with her as the dead Blum-thing on the floor began to wither, looking less and less like Steven Blum, while the goblin Rachael saw embracing her daughter filled out, gaining strength and vitality.
Jillian and her father turned and looked at them, both with those startling, almost hypnotic eyes, and Rachael Blum nearly fainted. She would have fallen if Joe hadn’t been there to hold her up. Filthy as he was, there was no denying that the man holding Jillian was her husband.
“Steven?” Rachael ventured.
“How…” he began, his voice a weak rasp. “How could you not have known it wasn’t me?”
Stricken, Rachael began to cry. She glanced at the crumpled thing bleeding on the floor and then back at her husband and daughter.
“I saw it. Your eyes. But you said…” she replied, and then shook her head. “He said it was part of the ritual, part of the life energy that he’d given to heal Jillie.”
Joe sighed, a tired smile touching his lips. So even Mrs. Blum had known more than she had said.
“It’s been a long night,” Joe said. “If you all don’t mind, I’m going to go home and get some rest.”
Steven Blum looked at him. “You have to understand, I didn’t ask for this. He…it found me.” They all glanced at the withered, dying thing. The goblin, or whatever it was. “Somehow it knew Jillian didn’t have much time left. It said it could help, that if I would give up half of my own strength and life, it knew a ritual that would give that life to my daughter. And it…it worked.”
Now Blum looked at his wife. “But it came that night, while we were sleeping. The ritual wasn’t done, it said. And it took the rest of me, leeched the life from me and into itself, and when it was done…”
“It had your face,” Joe said.
Steven nodded, glancing at the thing one last time before turning to look at his daughter, suddenly surveying her more closely than before. Joe knew what he sought—some sign that the effects of the ritual were wearing off. But no, Jillian’s skin still shone with that unearthly vigor, gleaming like burnished copper. Wherever she went in life, she would draw appreciative stares for her strange beauty and the vibrant energy that seemed to flow from her.
“Look,” Joe said, yawning, “I’m glad I could help. Really. But I’m stiff as hell from sitting in that chair and—“ he touched the gashes on his face “—I wanna clean these up. I heal pretty good, but still.”
Jillian leaped off the bed and ran to him, crushing him in an embrace. She looked up into his face with those beautiful, peculiar eyes.
“Thank you.”
Joe endured the hug. “Any time.” When she released him, he turned to leave. “Good luck, kid.”
“Wait,” Rachael Blum called. She pointed to the goblin thing amidst spreading pools of dark blood. “What about that thing?”
Joe arched an eyebrow. He’d just saved her little family and now she wanted him to clean up after them, too? Grumbling with irritation, he crossed the room, rolling up his sleeves. He stepped carefully, avoiding the blood as best he could.
Only when he crouched beside it did he see that the goblin-thing was not quite dead. It twitched, perhaps sensing someone near, and opened its eyes halfway, but whatever those pale, blanched orbs saw, it did not exist in this world. Joe wondered if, as creatures breathed their last, they might have a view into the afterlife.
“Not fair,” the dying thing said in a thin, reedy voice.
Rachael Blum let out a gasp when it spoke, but Jillian and her father only stared sadly at the thing. Perhaps they had seen the tears streaking its face.
“Tricked,” said the goblin. “Tricked me.”
“What?” Steven said, thinking he was being accused. “That’s—“
Joe shushed him.
“Who tricked you?” he asked.
The goblin’s lower lip trembled and its tears came faster. “It said it could…save Danny. Make him…better. Half a life to save…my son.”
“Oh, my God,” Mrs. Blum whispered.
“But he took it all…took them…and moved away.” The last two words held more anguish than Joe had ever heard in a human voice. A human voice.
“My turn,” the dying creature said, as blood began to bubble between its lips and its chest began to hitch. “My turn for a…family. My turn…for a…”
The man—not a monster; just another father—took rattling breath, eyelids fluttering.
“Life,” he rasped.
And then was still.
Joe stared at the dead man a moment, then rose to his feet. The Blum family watched him as if waiting for some bit of wisdom. He left them there, still waiting, because he had no words sufficient to express how much he wished that he had never met them.
The storm still raged outside, waves crashing along the canals of the Drowning City, more perilous than ever. Morning was a ways off yet, but he welcomed the darkness and the storm. It felt right to him.
Exhausted as he was, he would not sleep tonight.
FAULT LINES
by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon
Jane was the worst mother in the world.
She’d traveled halfway across the Pacific to find something precious, only to realize that she’d left the most precious thing left behind. Long weeks journeying from San Francisco to Hawaii, a handful of days on the islands, and then just before her departure home she’d received word that her daughter Franca had fallen dreadfully ill. Now she sailed for home, bearing the guilt of her absence at such a time. Franca might be edging closer to d
eath every day, but Jane was not there to hold her, to speak soft words of love and comfort, to pray over her.
She should have remained behind when Neville had summoned her, let him go and find his treasures and artifacts for the museum. Because she was a mother and her place was by her daughter's side.
I didn't know she was so sick, she reminded herself for the thousandth time. But no denial could erase the truth. She had known, somewhere deep down, even as Franca stood on the dock and waved farewell. Jane had known that something was terribly wrong and she had ignored it because Neville and his people in Turkey had found something remarkable.
Now, she was half a world away and she would have given anything to be home again. The ship was making all possible speed, but there were still at least six days remaining of their month-long voyage from Hawaii to San Francisco. They churned across rough seas, sharing their passage with people whom Neville increasingly suspected might mean them harm. Jane would have offered her soul up to the devil himself if that would transport her home, now, to sit by her dying daughter's side.
But not the jar. She could never give that up. Not when it might be the only thing that could save Franca's life.
Jane sat on her bunk and willed the minutes and hours away. Unlike some of the other passengers she did not suffer from sea sickness, but still the incessant roll and sway of the vessel troubled her deeply. She could not sleep, could not relax. The ship was never still, and neither were its contents. Doors swung open and closed when not latched correctly. Bulkheads creaked. Contents slipped and bumped against walls. The whole ship was alive, and every sound might have been someone making their move.
There are factions, Neville had said, as they boarded the ship for the return passage from Hawaii. He had already accompanied the artifact on its long journey around the globe, from the place of its discovery near Amedi in Turkey, through Asia by rail, and then across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii. That was where she and the three specialists had sailed to meet Neville, to collect and accompany the object on the final leg of its voyage. Some of the crew watch us with an interest I don't like. And those two men from the Turkish Museum in Constantinople…Halis and Saygin…I wouldn't trust them for an instant.
Jane had found the two Turks quite charming, and their knowledge of history gave her and them a comfortable common ground. But from the moment the ship had left Hawaii on its journey east to the USA, the two men had fallen silent, eyes hooded and sad.
Neville, she trusted implicitly—she had known him for over two decades, and there had been a time when they might have become more than merely colleagues and friends—and she knew the three specialists well enough. One of them, Bryan, she’d come to know quite well indeed. They had been companionable enough on the crossing to Hawaii, but now that they had collected Neville and the incredible thing he had found, the specialists were too focused on the acquisition to socialize.
A knock at the door startled her from her thoughts. A telegram telling me Franca has died! she thought, fear cutting deep. She jumped up and unlocked the door, and Neville pushed his way inside. His gray eyes were wide, scared, and he had evidently been up on deck. He was drenched and smelled of the sea.
"What is it?" Jane asked.
"One of the crew is dead," he said, running his hands through dark, wet hair.
"What?" She blinked, confused and scared. "What happened?"
"It looks like he tried to get into the hold."
Panic took her in its grasp. They've discovered––
"Don't worry," Neville said. "The door is secure, and the crate inside is untouched. He had a crowbar, but whoever killed him slit his throat before he could even begin."
"Who was it?" The words seemed to issue from her without her forming the question. She felt numb, distant, somehow both afraid and impatient.
Neville closed the door behind him. He even locked it.
"Neville?"
"The crew is blaming the Turks. And the Turks blame me. They say I'm obsessed with the thing, and now that we're almost at the end of the journey, I'm trying to take it for myself."
"But that's ridiculous! They know the arrangements, this trip is sanctioned at the highest levels." She did not mean governments. It was the academics, the archaeologists, and those who knew the potential power of what they carried who had made the arrangements. The whole point was to keep governments out of it.
"There's something else," he said. He sat on her bed and groaned, holding his stomach as the ship dropped and lurched. The captain had promised stormy times ahead, and Neville never had found his sea legs. "There's someone else on the ship."
"Another passenger?"
"No, a stowaway. Bryan overheard the crew talking about it. And no one seems to know who it is, or even where they are now."
"You think this stowaway is the killer?"
"I don't know. But whoever murdered the crewman, I'm willing to bet it's the same person who killed those two at the dig." Two local people, a husband and wife helping with the excavations, had been brutally murdered days before Neville and the others had departed. He had told Jane about it in a telegram, expressing his terror at what had happened, and his concern that he might be held accountable. But local authorities were not as thorough as they might have been in the United States. He had been saddened by such a tragedy, but pleased to leave it behind.
"And now we've brought the murderer with us."
Neville sighed and tried to smile at Jane, but it did not touch his eyes. He was tired and looked sick, and the pressure of what they had found bore down upon him. Jane worried that it might prove his undoing.
"So it seems," he said. "And we’ve six or seven days left of this wretched journey." He sighed again, then glanced up guiltily. "No more telegrams about Franca?"
Jane shook her head.
"She'll be fine. We'll get back in time."
In time for what he did not say, but Jane could only pray that he was right. On her journey to Hawaii, her mind had been filled with excitement and adventure, the chance to make history, and the staggering idea that she might be about to set eyes upon a mythical object. Popular culture knew it as a box, though it turned out to be more of a small jar, and legend said it had belonged to Pandora, whose very name conjured up grand imaginings.
Now, everything was about Franca. To hell with Pandora.
They had to get back in time to save her.
Captain Gavriil called a meeting in the mess. He and his chief mate carried side arms, and that did not make Jane as comfortable as it should. All but two of the Greek crew––those required to steer the ship––were there, along with the Turks, Neville and Jane, and the three specialists working for the Golden Gate Museum of History. Bryan and the others, Patrick and Cesare, had been shut away in their large shared cabin, trying to translate ancient writings and hieroglyphics, and they all looked as though they had just woken from a trance and remembered that the rest of the world existed.
The captain spoke reasonable English. The Turks understood, but some of the crew remained blank-eyed. Jane assumed it was because they did not understand. Or perhaps they simply didn't care.
"Somebody in this room is a killer," he said. He glared around at the assemblage, gaze flitting over the crew and lingering on his passengers. "It has something to do with the cargo. That small box. One single box." He was fishing, she knew. Maybe he himself had sent the now-dead crewman to discover just what that solitary box contained.
"What about the stowaway?" Neville asked. A few of the crew stirred, though no one but the captain spoke up.
"There's no proof that we have a stowaway."
"Your crew seems to think we do. This isn't a large ship, Captain. Shouldn't it be easy enough to discover whether there is one or not?"
"As easy as revealing what the cargo is."
"You have been paid very well not to know," one of the Turks, Saygin, said.
The captain stared at him for a loaded moment, then smiled. It was
a slick, confident expression, one that Jane suspected had frightened a lot of men and lured a lot of women into his bed.
"My overall concern is the safety of my ship and crew."
"And your passengers, of course," Jane said.
"I am paid to give you passage," he said, the implication clear. "From now on, no one will be left alone, either around the ship or in their cabins. The hold is out of bounds until we reach port. And Yanni's funeral will be held tomorrow at midday."
The mess was quiet but for the constant creak and groan of subtle movement. When Captain Gavriil left the room his crew followed, whispering amongst themselves and casting suspicious glances at the passengers. One of them looked Jane in the eye and she flinched, but did not turn away. She had seen the man before––small, wiry, strong, and rarely without a smile on his face. Now he looked stern. Worse than that, he looked scared.
When the last of the crew had left, it was Neville who stood and took control. Jane thought he would have made a natural captain. Her friend's character always filled a room, his staggering intellect a large factor. She knew that seasick though he was, he would be feeling so constrained in this ship, as if his life was paused between one shore and the other. Even with what they were transporting.
This jar that might once have belonged to Pandora.
It had been discovered in a subterranean chamber, on the walls of which were ancient writings that had taken weeks to decipher, with some still being translated, even now. What had already been determined was that the writings told a variation on the story of Pandora and identified the jar as having been in her possession. The location of the chamber, the historical descriptions of the jar, all made sense. But there was so much more they did not know, and that was why the team was working around the clock. Rumors and whispers down through the centuries spoke of two vessels, one containing all the ills and diseases and bad things of the world, the other filled with goodness and light. The writings in the chamber confirmed this variation. But while one jar might already have been opened, the other––the lost jar, mislaid millennia ago and perhaps now found again––remained sealed against the world.
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