by JT Lawrence
Lumin beams at everyone. “I told you, didn’t I? I told you to trust in Celestia.”
“Praise the Light,” says Bongi.
The vehicle’s engine starts, and they move forward.
“Praise the Light,” says the Maistre.
Chapter 76
Death Song
Keke watches as the cardio surgeon slices open Marko’s chest for the second time in a week. The barely healed previous incision is simply cut away and discarded. Keke flinches as it’s tossed onto a tray, as if a piece of him is worth nothing. Themba inspects her face, which she can feel is pale and damp.
“Are you okay?” she whispers.
Keke nods and swallows her discomfort. To distract herself from the emotion rising in her chest she watches the director. He’s walking around the operating arena, adjusting cameras, changing angles, tapping in lens instructions. He, and all the recording equipment, are dressed in the same white scrubs. The medical team – Dr Gazongo and three assistants, are in Medical Mint. That’s what Kate had called the colour, anyway. Her stomach cramps with self-reproach when she thinks about Mally escaping her charge. If she had just been able to stay awake–
Something goes wrong with the surgery. Gazongo’s brow darts downwards and he yells some commands at his team. There’s a flurry of activity over Marko’s body and chittering in the gallery. The machines screech their now-familiar death song. Keke finds that despite everything, she is calm. She’s been through this before.
The blue-haired woman who had suddenly appeared in her life bearing the synthetic heart is on the other side of the room, behind the glass. She looks agitated, keeps wringing her hands and checking her Tile. In a way they are polar reflections of one another: one light, the other dark; one water, the other, earth. Keke reminds herself to breathe. The machines stop shrieking and return to their cool, consistent beats, and the clockologram ticks above them all. It’s twenty-eight minutes to midnight.
Chapter 77
Rat Hunters
They arrive at the huge gates of the Luminary, which sparkle with their golden paint even in the dread-dark of almost-midnight. The sentinels have bumped to expect them and the guards are already swinging the ornate metal gates open when the van speeds down the long, straight asphalt path. The vehicle barely slows down as it shoots through the entrance and into the vast property, and after a few twists and turns on the serpentine driveway, the mouth of the wide garage is already open to receive them. The van parks inside, and Kate feels as though they have been swallowed by a monster. The idea she used to have of the Luminary: the picture in her head of this giant white-and-gold monastery, has faded, has inverted to its shadow side: darkness where there was light. Evil where she had presupposed good.
Row upon row of people are shrouded in the dark. An army in arachnasilk and shiny face masks. It makes her feel so cold inside. Lumin was the Good Samaritan. He was the one who took all the urchins off the street. Fed them and trained them in combat: Martial arts, bomb assemblage, sword-fighting. Lumin had recruited the rat hunters as Resurrectors.
The engine turns itself off and the multivan doors roll open. There is the soft warm light of a naked bulb, and the parking garage smells of turpentine and oil. Fertiliser. Pesticides. Earthworm compost. Lumin is helped out of the car by his bodyguard, and Bongi follows, but Kate and Seth are held back by their restraints. Silver is still catatonic. Her eyes are closed, now, but she’s not sleeping.
The guard starts to unlock an inter-leading door to the inside of the monastery, but Lumin stops him.
“The boy won’t be inside,” he says. “He wouldn’t have made it past the security system. He’ll be in the grounds, somewhere. In the gardens.”
The open garage door reveals to Kate a night sky sparkling with danger. Seth squirms in his seat, trying to somehow loosen his binding. Lumin strides into the garden.
“Bring the bait,” he says. Bongi unclips Silver’s harness and carries her like a sleeping child. It’s a poignant image: a sinister Piéta. Two meaty Resurrectors grab Kate, sever her ankle restraints, and drag her and Seth out of the vehicle and into the cool moonlit lushness of the sable-leafed garden.
Chapter 78
Maze of Black Roses
Lumin and the Resurrectors stream into the garden. They’re on high alert with only twelve minutes to find their sacrificial lamb. They take turns pushing Kate and Seth to the front, passing hedges fragrant with blooms. Lumin speaks into his wrist and his voice is broadcast all over the property.
“Mally.” His voice is warm, welcoming. Kate pictures him as a leathery venus fly trap.
“You can come out now. There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your parents are here, and they need your help. They’re very anxious to see you.”
His voice echoes in the air around them.
“Your mother’s here, and your Uncle. Silver’s here, too! We’re all waiting for you. You can come out. It’s safe.”
“Don’t come out!” shouts Seth, and a masked man slams his fist into his cheekbone, knocking him to the ground. Another Resurrector kicks him in the throat.
Lumin broadcasts his message again, but this time with more urgency.
“I know you’re here!” he says, “It’s very important that you come out now!”
If Mally can just stay hidden for a little while longer, it will be midnight and the prophecy will crumble.
“Don’t listen to these people!” shouts Kate. “Don’t come out no matter what –”
Kate’s chest explodes with sparks. She’s on the ground, she can’t talk, the pain takes everything. She doesn’t know if it was a fist or a boot. The arachnasilk army drag her along the damp grass. She gasps to get the cold black air into her hollering lungs.
“We don’t even know if he’s here,” she hears Bongi say.
“He’s here,” says Lumin. “I can feel his presence. I can feel the reckoning in the air.”
“Shall we pray?” she asks, in isiXhosa. Cosmic cream.
Lumin replies in English, “This is not the time for prayer.”
“I just thought – ”
“Mally!” shouts Lumin, panic starting to fray his voice. “We need you to come up here now.”
The marching bodies wind their way into the maze of black roses.
Chapter 79
Alchymist, Folksinger, New Dawn.
Alchymist, Folksinger, New Dawn. The rose maze is a masterpiece of landscape design. More than a thousand different rose varieties grow together to form a circular maze: the shape of the sun. Carolinae, Bracteatae, Synstylae. In daylight it’s a multi-scented oil painting, at night it’s a barbed cage of black roses and thorns. The small, spiteful blades keep catching Kate’s coat and scratching her arms. The plants want to hook her, hold her back, but the Resurrectors keep pushing her forward.
The walls aren’t impenetrable, like traditional victorian mazes. Instead she can see flashes of movement through the canes and leaves, shadows of shadows. They get deeper into the heart of it. The rhythm of their dread is Lumin’s broadcast voice.
At last, the hedges open up to a vast clearing with a raised sundial in the middle. It’s the centre of the maze. With Lumin and Bongi so preoccupied with finding Mally, Kates wonders if she’ll be able to make a run for it. Seth’s face is bleeding and her own body feels broken. Would they even be able to run? And even if they manage to get away from the thugs on either side of them, would they be able to find their way out of this complicated maze? She looks around, tries to identify the best exit, and takes a tentative step away from her captor. He doesn’t seem to notice. She’ll have to reach Bongi to grab Silver and then –
A petite figure appears, blocking her way and drawing a large silver sword that flashes with starlight.
Jackson’s teeth, left naked by her wide smile, glow in the dark. Her scarf trips in the breeze.
“Not so fast,” she says, her voice a wounded whisper.
She slowly lowers and rests the blade against Kate’s neck.
Thirsty for vengeance, no doubt, thinks Kate, remembering in glass-shard detail how she had, just hours before, cut the woman’s throat. She wonders what it looks like, now, the wound. Delicate skin glued together with stem cells. No one would guess she was injured, with that scarf concealing the gash. The only clue is in the way Jackson moves, with a stiff neck, as if she had slept badly the night before.
She fixes Kate with her raisin eyes, and flicks the sword at the guard, warning him off with the glinting metal. Her message is clear: Kate belongs to her. No one but she will have the pleasure of cutting her down. Again the sword is pressed against Kate’s throat, harder this time, so that she can feel the run of the blade, the shallow incision. A warm drool of blood down her neck.
Lumin sees the new blood. “Don’t kill them yet.”
Jackson gives him a disappointed look.
“We need them. To lure the boy.”
She purses her rubies, but doesn’t move the sword.
Fifty Resurrectors, a hundred.
“Six minutes to go,” says a sweating Sebongile.
Lumin gets a pair of men to move the top of the sundial and help him on to the plinth. Although he requires assistance, he is nimble despite his heavy robe, and his age. He stands there, surveying his estate of shadows. “This is your last chance, Mally.”
There is a kind of fever in his face. Kate’s hatred of him is deep and burning, but she does see in that moment that he truly believes in what he’s doing.
As if sensing her thoughts, he looks straight at her, his eyes gleaming with purpose.
“Bring her to me.” He has the golden secateurs in his hands.
Kate flinches, tries to move away. “No.”
“Don’t you touch her, Lumin,” growls Seth, “or I swear to God I’ll kill you.”
“That may prove to be difficult,” says Lumin, motioning at his tied hands.
Jackson grabs her arm and forces her forward, towards Lumin. He hops down from the plinth, then turns his attention from Kate and gestures for Bongi to place Silver on the altar and hold her there. The girl doesn’t cry or resist: she is a shell.
“Mally!” shouts Lumin. “Mally if you don’t come out right now I’m going to hurt your sister!”
“No!” screams Kate.
Seth struggles with his binding. “Lumin! Lumin don’t you dare!”
“This is your last chance!” shouts Lumin, lifting the secateurs and shearing the crisp night air. He takes a step closer to Silver.
Bongi frowns, is about to say something, then stops.
Lumin advances. “It’s the only way.”
“Don’t come out!” shouts Seth. “Stay where you are, Mally! Don’t come out for anything!”
“Last chance, Mally!” shouts Lumin. “Last chance to save your family. To protect your little sister!”
No one breathes.
Maistre Lumin scissors the secateurs. The evil rasping sound sends a frozen hook into Kate’s chest.
“Ready?” Lumin says, and picks up Silver’s hand off her lap.
“No!” screams Kate, trying to throw Jackson off, but the woman’s grip just gets firmer and the sword cuts deeper.
Lumin holds Silver’s hand, and with a hard snick he cuts off her little finger.
Absolute shock silences them all for a moment. Kate’s whole body turns into cold water. Seth starts shouting words that she doesn’t understand. The pain catapaults Silver out of her stupor. As the blood starts spurting she opens her eyes and jaws and screams. Her wide open mouth is a hurricane. It’s a sound Kate has never heard before. The combination of her own horror, her futility, and the piercing sound drilling into her temple, something short-circuits in her brain. and even though she tries to hang on to reality, a noxious grey fog comes and steals away her consciousness.
Chapter 80
Small White Starfish
The sound of a child screaming pulls Kate up from murky depths. Her thoughts are muddled. As she gets closer to the surface, she recognises the scream. Silver. The memory of what has just happened assaults her, kicks her in the stomach, and she retches, there, where she’s lying. She moves to wipe her mouth but her hands are still bound. Vomit and saliva paints her hair sour. The screaming continues. It’s the most awful sound Kate has ever heard in her life. It cuts across her vision like a rusty handsaw and she’s in danger of passing out again, but she forces herself to stay there, with her baby who needs her. She blinks hard to try to dislodge the serrated blade that’s blinding her. She can hear Seth now, he’s also shouting. Struggling. Telling Silver that she’s okay, that she’s going to be okay. But how can she be, after this? Silver’s screaming tells them all she knows it’s a lie. The little girl is still pinned down by Bongi, grasping her injured hand with the other. A small white starfish turned in on itself.
“Silver!” she finally manages to say then retches again. “I’m here. Mom’s here.”
But her words are as futile as her trussed-up arms. The cold ground leaches what is left of her warmth.
Finally the shrieking starts to lose volume, and turns into sobbing. Bongi is still there with them, but there’s something different about her now. That mesmerised look has gone out of her eyes as she looks at Silver’s leaking hand with horror. Silver’s weeping fades; Kate guesses she’s entirely in survival mode now .
“Do you hear that, boy?” echoes Lumin’s voice all around them. “Your sister needs you!” They keep quiet and listen for him. Twenty guards must be surrounding them, their dark uniforms bleeding into the night. Lumin motions for some of them to hide, and they do.
“You’ve always been her protector. Her superhero. She told me so. She needs your help now more than ever. Are you going to come and save her?”
All along. All along Bongi had been grooming him for this moment.
The secateurs flash. They make the sound of walking on dead leaves. He approaches Silver again and she starts flailing and screaming.
“I can keep going,” Lumin shouts above her. Kate fights the grey fog. There is a whisper of a movement out in the elaborate garden. Automatic guns swivel in the direction of some cream-petalled roses. “Come out and join us.”
Seth is about to shout again but he’s knocked out cold by the butt of a rifle. More Resurrectors stream into the quad. They’re outnumbered twenty to one – and those are only the rat hunters she has managed to see. Her neck sears under the sword.
“Last chance, Mally,” Lumin says, eyes trained on the spot in the maze. His guise of sunlight and charm is replaced by seething dry ice. “Or we kill your family.”
Everyone holds their breath. After a few beats, there is the sound of a small movement within the dark bushes. Such a soft, gentle sound. Lumin sends his people in the direction with two fingers pointed like a pistol. Go, go, go, his heavy-knuckled gun is saying.
“Run!” screams Kate. “Run!” Her squall rises and breaks in the air around them. The sword is jammed harder against her neck.
The man who gets there first shoots at the small shape – they all jump at the sound of the gunfire in the still night – and heavy blooms explode into fresh confetti. The man curses under his breath, and, lost for words, picks the shuddering body up by its ears for the Maistre to see. Lumin lets out a cry of frustration at the sight of the dying rabbit. The creature kicks his blood onto surrounding petals, painting the roses red (Mad Hare).
Lumin mutters and marches, but Bongi holds him back, motions for him to be quiet. She’s got her eye on a different spot, just behind them. She puts Silver down on the grass, who squirms her way to her mother’s lap. Sebongile silently inches towards the row of bushes. The night is hushed. Kate holds her ragged breath.
Bongi puts her fingers to her lips and whistles, loud and clear, and there is a high-pitched beeping sound from just behind the roses. She hurls herself through the thorny canes and grabs Mally by the arm with such a firm grip he has no choice but to melt under it.
Chapter 81
Night-Chilled Sword
Sebongile drags the kicking boy towards the blood-stained altar. It’s time to make the sacrifice. There’s not a minute to waste. She hauls him up and onto the glittering plinth, and tries to keep him from hitting her and sliding down as he flails. Jackson takes off her scarf and hands it to a nearby Resurrector, who uses it to tie the boy to the sundial stand, tucking the end into his mouth to stop him from screaming. Mally chokes, his body shunts and his eyes roll in panic.
“Three minutes.”
The air is charged. Lumin walks up to Mally and puts his hands on either side of his blonde head, as if he is blessing him. He screws up his face and mutters under his breath, anointing him with his thin skin and slithering words. Mally cries and chokes, and doesn’t take his eyes off Kate, who has one arm wrapped around Silver’s back and the other extended out towards him, held back by the night-chilled sword held hard against her throat.
Lumin’s mutters become louder and his face starts to smooth out, his skin seems to catch more moonlight. Mally kicks and kicks and Kate cries out for him with a panic-slack mouth.
“Two minutes,” says Bongi.
Lumin then firms his hold on the boy’s head, old palms on tender cheeks, and looks into his eyes, and with a quick crack no one sees coming, he snaps Mally’s neck.
Kate squeezes Silver and screams. There’s an immediate sorrow so keen it threatens to slice her in half. She tries to push forward but Jackson keeps her back with the blade. She’s obliterated by the horror; that furious monster that’s inside her that means to destroy her on the way out. Mally’s eyes close and he lists soundlessly to the side, but the scarf keeps his small body upright. Seth is roaring, Silver is wailing, and Lumin, arms raised to the black sky, is struck silent with ecstasy.
