Fate of Flames

by Sarah Raughley

  I shuddered at his grin. Luckily, Rhys tapped my shoulder to draw my attention away from him.

  “Saul,” he said, pointing at the observation window.

  Through the window was a dark, domed room. Saul was caged inside some sort of chamber. Dozens of cables connected to it from machinery lining the walls, streams of metallic blue crawling up and down their lengths. Though his eyelids fluttered, they stayed mostly shut, and yet he was standing, his shoulders slumped over as if some invisible force kept him upright. They’d probably drugged him. It would make sense to keep him sedated, given what he was capable of. But it was weird. Inside the chamber he looked helpless, almost frail. Mass murderers came in all shapes and sizes, of course, but it was the vulnerability that caught me off guard.

  “Maia, you’re here,” said Sibyl. “Good.”

  I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the window. “Why did you want me here?”

  “I want you with me during the interrogation,” said Sibyl. “While his mental defenses are down, he might tell us something. Anderson, is he ready?”

  “Almost,” answered one of the technicians at the monitors. “He’s sedated, and his abilities are being suppressed. We just have to wait for his readings to return to a steady state. Then we’ll be able to wake him up.”

  “Abilities,” said Rhys. “You mean his disappearing act?”

  “Yes. It’s amazing.” The technician shook his head. “To think that there could be other Effigies out there . . . and with abilities extending beyond the classical elements.”

  “So it’s true?” I stepped forward. “Saul really is an Effigy?”

  “Yes, it would seem so.” Sibyl folded her arms. “The technician used a dye to track his cylithium production to the pituitary gland—the same place you four produce yours. He’s an Effigy. No question.”

  A fifth Effigy. And there could be more out there. The very idea made me ill.

  “So what happens now?” asked Rhys.

  “We noticed something strange during our first day of experiments,” answered another technician. “He was mumbling to himself. Actually, it was more like he was fighting with himself.”

  “His accent kept switching between British and American,” said another. “And there were times when we couldn’t read his spectrographic signature at all.”

  Rhys frowned. “Spectrographic signature?”

  “Cylithium is a very strange element. It’s a mineral, but even though the normal human body can’t produce it, it’s found naturally in an Effigy’s pituitary gland . . . and in phantom remains. On top of that, even though it’s a solid at room temperature, we’ve discovered cylithium vapor existing in nature. Phantoms typically spring out of these cylithium-rich areas.”

  “Like ghosts.” Vasily winked at me. It wasn’t something I wanted to see again.

  The technician nodded. “Ghosts that suddenly grow bones and flesh and skin from seemingly nothing but black smoke. There are cylithium-rich areas around the globe; human populations are typically concentrated in areas where there’s a cylithium deficit, and antiphantom devices do the rest. But like I said, cylithium exists in Effigies, too—you produce your own. That’s where your abilities come from.”

  I nodded stiffly, though I was shifting from foot to foot restlessly. “Okay, and?” I said, impatient. “What does that have to do with any of this?”

  “Regardless of the state, cylithium gives off a frequency signal like other elements: its spectrographic signature. And when it transitions into other states, it gives off a stronger frequency. That’s what the Communications department uses to track both Effigies and phantoms.”

  I cocked my head, trying to process it all. “So then . . . if Saul is an Effigy, why haven’t you been able to track him?”

  “Exactly.” Sibyl walked up to the monitors, her hawk eyes fixed on Saul. “That’s the problem. Saul’s been using his powers, appearing in and out of the cities he attacks. The Sect should have been able to track him. So why haven’t we?”

  “Perhaps he can mask his frequency,” Vasily suggested.

  Rhys frowned. “Is that possible?”

  “At this point we have to assume that anything’s possible, as uncertain as that makes me.” Sibyl kept her tone level. “But his frequency comes and goes.”

  “Like his accent,” chimed a technician. “While you interrogate him, we’ll be monitoring his spectrographic signature and his brain wave activity concurrently. We might be able to figure out what’s happening after we see the results.”

  “Two minutes until he reaches steady state,” called a technician. “Keep in mind he’ll still be a bit disoriented.”

  “Hey, Aidan.” Vasily sidled up to Rhys with his hands in his pockets. “Remember the little ‘waiting game’ we used to play?”

  Rhys didn’t respond.

  “Come on, you remember—during our training days in Greenland?” His flicked his head at Saul, thin lips quirked into a lopsided grin. “If you had to kill him, where would you start?”

  He’d whispered it, his voice low enough to keep the conversation private, but I still heard him. I snapped my head up, shocked, watching as Rhys ignored the both of us.

  “Jugular? Or would you go for one of the major arteries? I seem to recall it was one of your favorite go-to answers.” When Rhys made a disgusted noise, Vasily smirked. “What? Not like we haven’t had these conversations before.”

  “Yeah,” replied Rhys. “Well, we were fucked-up twelve-year-olds then, weren’t we?”

  “But those were the best times.”

  “Stop.”

  Vasily chuckled, backing off just as the technicians nodded to Sibyl.

  “Maia,” Sibyl said, “come with me.”

  Gently, Rhys gripped my wrist, but his touch suddenly felt more alien than usual. “Remember, we’re all right here,” he told me.

  “That’s right, Maia.” Though I didn’t look to him, I could feel Vasily’s eyes on me as he spoke. “We’re all here.”

  As Rhys shot him a dark look, I slipped from his grasp without a word and followed Sibyl into the interrogation room. A wave of cold hit me the moment I walked in, and I wrapped my arms around myself. My breath dissipated into the frigid air, but Sibyl didn’t seem bothered by the polar temperatures. Not now, when Saul’s eyes were already fluttering open.

  Here we go.

  Cautioning me to stay back, Sibyl walked up to the chamber with measured steps, her heels echoing off the walls. “Saul.”

  It looked as if Saul would raise his head, but it flopped back down again, his chin pressed against his chest.

  “Saul,” Sibyl tried again.

  “Wh . . . o . . .” Saul’s dry, cracked lips twitched syllables I couldn’t understand. The effort seemed to drain him. He stopped, breathing heavily.

  “Saul!”

  He twitched. “Who . . . who is that? Saul? Who is that?”

  Finally I could see the blue of his eyes, but they were far less cold than the last time I’d seen them. And confused. And scared. As they darted from me to Sibyl, his body confined to its glass prison, he looked as helpless as if he’d been buried alive.

  “Tell me your name,” Sibyl asked.

  “Where . . . am I? What . . . year . . . ?” Saul swallowed, peering through the glass. “Why?”

  His British accent came through clearer now. It was unreal. The attitude, the evil was just gone. Despite having the same face, he was a completely different person.

  “Your name,” demanded Sibyl, more forcefully.

  “Nick.”

  “What?”

  His lips wobbled with each breath. “Nick. Hudson. I . . .” He gasped for air and gave up, letting his head hang as he gathered himself. He probably would have collapsed, but there wasn’t enough room in his little prison.

  Nick Hudson? I turned to the window behind us. Though I couldn’t see anything but darkness on the other side, I knew everyone in the observation room could hear every word.

  S
ibyl crossed her arms. “Hudson. Do you have any relation to Louis Hudson?”

  Louis Hudson. The man whose Argentinean grave I’d practically memorized during those excruciating minutes I’d waited for Saul.

  But he was a man who’d never seen the twentieth century.

  At the sound of his name, Nick lifted his head, eyes wide. “Louis. Louis? Is he here? I need to speak to him.”

  “Why?”

  “Louis.” With great effort, Nick shook his head. “No, no, I can’t. He’s already gone to the Americas. The railroad. No!”

  I never would have imagined I’d ever see those eyes well up with tears. Despite the stringy, unwashed silver hair spilling over his face and the deep creases lining his eyes, somehow, as Nick struggled with himself, he looked every bit the boy he should have been.

  “No, I can’t do this alone. Not against her. She won’t let me rest. God, she won’t let me rest. I try to be strong, but . . .” He let out a strangled moan.

  “Why are you alone, Nick?” Sibyl cocked her head. “What happened to Louis?”

  “If Louis were here, it wouldn’t be so hard. I wouldn’t be alone . . . ,” he moaned. “Brother . . .”

  “Brother?” I clasped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. Nick noticed me.

  “Marian?” Even in this chill, warmth flooded Nick’s face. “Marian . . . is it you? God, I’ve missed you.” One by one the tears leaked from his eyes. “Marian . . . Marian . . .”

  “What? No, my name is—”

  Sibyl put up a hand to silence me. “I’ll let you talk to Marian, but you need to talk to me first. Where are you from?”

  “Yorkshire. But, Marian . . .” He looked at me urgently now, blinking away his tears. “She hasn’t stopped looking for you. She needs something from you. She won’t stop—”

  Sibyl snapped her fingers to draw his focus back to her. “Who won’t stop? Nick, who won’t stop? And what does she want with Marian?”

  “She needs to know where the other ones are.” He pressed his hands against the glass, desperate to reach me.

  “Other what?” I asked, ignoring Sibyl’s glare. “She needs to know where what is?”

  “It’s why she’s been murdering for so long. Sacrifice. They demand sacrifice.”

  “Other what?” I stepped forward, and though Sibyl held me back, I’d already won the battle for Nick’s attention. “I don’t understand. What does ‘she’ need Marian for? Who is ‘she’? Why are you so scared of her?” My hands trembled. “What has she been killing all those people for? Why?”

  “My dear poupée, I told you before, didn’t I?” He grinned. “Isn’t there something you want more than anything? Something you’d give anything for?”

  His voice had changed. His accent was gone. His body no longer quivered, and his eyes were no longer wet. Despite the exhaustion in his body, despite the wear etched deep in his handsome face, graying his skin, the arrogance in his grin had returned.

  “You’re not Nick.” Sibyl pushed me back before peering up at him. “Who am I talking to now?”

  Saul tilted his head. “Not telling,” he said, his voice light and teasing.

  “How childish.”

  “Well, I am quite young.” He looked down at his hands. “Did you take my ring?”

  “It’s safe.”

  “Safe?” Saul smirked. “Well, I suppose that depends on who has it now.”

  Sibyl’s expression remained inscrutable, but one thing was certain: She wasn’t at all interested in playing the games Saul so clearly loved.

  “Moscow,” she said. “Incheon, Bern, Brooklyn.” She listed them off with her fingers.

  “And others as test runs. Though Seattle did get out of hand, I admit. I certainly didn’t plan on destroying the entire city. Oops.”

  Saul’s laughter, though restrained from the effect of the drugs, still hit its mark. Sibyl’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Why?”

  “I could tell you that, but the question you should be asking is, How? All those cities. Plenty of security. How could it happen? That was the question Natalya had asked, not so long ago. But where is she now?”

  Saul stared past us, at the window where members of the Sect stood and watched unseen. He sounded almost spiteful as he turned his gaze on me, lips twisted into a cruel smirk. “Tell me: Where is she now, poupée?”

  He said nothing more.

  “MAIA!” I’D PLUCKED THE PHONE straight out of Lake’s hand. As I clicked it off, Lake hopped off her bed. “Are you mental? That was my manager!”

  I tossed the phone back to her. “I need your help.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” Lake said as she watched me pace back and forth. She smoothed her skirt over her long legs. “Well, I could use a bit of help too—thanks for asking. This bloody training is totally screwing up with my comeback attempts. Already I’ve had to cancel two mall appearances, a fan signing, and a promotional guest spot on that awful American version of Britain’s Too Talented.” Sighing, Lake checked her messages. “Actually can’t complain about that one—”

  “Lake!” I stopped pacing. After pushing out a short, exasperated huff, I paused, pointedly, before taking the plunge. “I think someone killed Natalya.”

  The phone slipped from Lake’s hands. “Pardon?”

  “I think . . . someone killed Natalya.” I watched Lake’s expression carefully. “And I think it has something to do with Saul and his attacks.”

  Slowly, Lake slid off her bed. “Why . . . why would anyone kill Natalya? Over Saul?”

  “Saul’s an Effigy. He’s a terrorist, but he’s an Effigy. He’s an Effigy terrorist.” I tried to grasp the thoughts as they popped into my mind, but it was a bit like playing whack-a-mole. “But it’s like he’s got a split personality. One of them had to have been born sometime in the nineteenth century, because his brother died in the 1800s; I saw his grave in Argentina. And the other one . . . I don’t know. I think that’s the one that’s been attacking everyone. Like, the evil one. It’s like there are two people living in his head and one is super afraid of the other.”

  It sounded even crazier out loud. I pressed a hand against my forehead. Natalya. Marian. Each living Effigy came equipped with their entire Effigy line already programmed into their brain. Did that mean there were more dead Effigies milling about inside his consciousness?

  “Maia? Oi!” Lake grabbed my shoulders and gave me a much-needed shake. “You need to relax and tell me what the bloody hell is going on in plain English!”

  Though it took a lot of effort, I calmed down and explained everything as thoroughly as I could: my unstable scrying into Natalya’s memories, Saul’s interrogation. I told Lake as much as I could remember.

  “Brilliant. Well, it’s all very Jekyll and Hyde, isn’t it?” Lake cocked her head. “You think they fight, the two personalities? Like over day-to-day things, like who gets to watch what on the telly and when?”

  “Is that all you got from this?” I plopped down onto Lake’s bed with a groan.

  “It’s just so mental.”

  “Tell me about it.” I remembered what the technicians had told us after the interrogation had ended. “The techs explained it this way,” I said. “When we use our powers, we send out these radio frequencies that the Sect can pick up on. Saul can hide his, but only when one of his personalities is dominant—the mean one.” I thought back to his vicious grin and shuddered. “He said something about Natalya, too. Like he knew something about her. But what do they have to do with each other? I can only get bits and pieces from her memories. . . .”

  “I don’t know about you scrying right now, Maia. I think you should be careful.” Lake pulled up a stool at our dresser and crossed her legs. “I mean, I personally wouldn’t know; I don’t scry usually . . . or, well, ever. But isn’t scrying pretty dangerous to do while you’re not, you know, trained up to handle it?”

  “It’s hard to control. I can’t really help it.” With my head on the pillow, I grabbed Lake’s kitty
alarm clock off of the night table and raised it above my head. “Last night I saw a memory while I was asleep. Natalya went to some secret room somewhere in a museum.”

  “Ooh, was it hidden behind a bookshelf?”

  “No,” I answered shortly, annoyed. “But there was a bookshelf involved. Natalya hid a note for Belle in one of the books. She looked really anxious, like she thought someone might be following her.”

  “And you think the Sect might have been involved?”

  Above me, the kitty clock’s beady black eyes stared at me incredulously as the second hand ticked away. “I know it sounds stupid. The Sect told everyone Natalya committed suicide, but I clearly saw her die, and she definitely didn’t do it herself.”

  “You see who did?”

  I lowered my arms. “No. But during the interrogation, Saul said Natalya was investigating him before she died. And . . .” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Why would the Sect lie about her suicide?”

  “If she was killed, the murderer could have made it look like a suicide and fooled the Sect. But you said Natalya’s own dad warned you not to trust them.” Sighing, Lake tapped her rainbow-colored nails on the dresser table. “Oh!” She flapped her hands. “The note!”

  I sat up. “What?”

  “The note! You said Natalya put a note for Belle in a book in a secret museum room, which was regrettably not hidden behind a bookshelf. You remember what it said?”

  Pulling my knees up to my chest, I buried my head in them and thought. “Something French.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Morte? Merde. Merde . . .”

  La maison du merde

  Floorboards

  “La maison du merde!”

  Lake cocked an eyebrow. “The house . . . of shit?”

  “Is that what it means?” I gripped my knees. “It sounds familiar, but . . .”

  “This can be easily solved.”

  Lake whipped out her phone and started typing. “La maison du merde,” she repeated as she swiftly clicked the letters. “Another key word or words: Belle Rousseau? Let’s see what we get.”