* * * * *
Susan sobbed into the man's arms, speaking with rehearsed and remarkable diction despite her tears. Good old Susan. Good old bewildered, post-coma, pregnant Susan, looking up at that man's sculpted chin and telling him that he was the father of the child, that he was the one she loved, that she remembered everything now.
"What a load of crap," I yawned.
Ghi snorted. We'd been watching the poorly scripted drama unfold for about forty minutes, and by then my body felt halfway fused to the couch cushions. The Luna Latum doesn't fool around with pain medication. They use the good stuff, the stuff that works fast.
"Agreed." Ghi picked up the remote and started changing channels.
I lifted my eyes lazily toward the ceiling, dangerously close to a comatose state myself. "That reminds me, though." I yawned again. "Whatever happened to that head case terrorist? You know, the one supposedly loose in Manhattan?"
Ghi smirked, still clicking away, allowing one channel to stay on just long enough to get mildly interesting before flipping to the next. I guess all men are virtually the same in some regards, even the ones who happen to be gods. He recited his answer laboriously, like he'd been asked to repeat it several hundred times before.
"Ghiyath Ayman had a seizure in New York and lapsed into a second fugue. He was identified by federal agents and deported immediately to Amman where doctors will probably take pictures of his brain and stand around shrugging until he dies."
I nodded. This apparently wasn't newsworthy enough to tear any media attention away from Jesse Cannon, or I'd have heard about it already.
I didn't bother asking Ghi why he hadn't opted for a fake death similar to Khan's. He hadn't because dead people don't get notified when someone from their past turns up looking for them. Ghi still wanted to know who he was. Or who he had been.
And how long did he have left to figure that out? Not for the first time, it hit me that the Vessel were still shouldering an unfinished and gruesomely heavy task. And while I could not help but wonder how soon they would be asked to repeat this nightmare, I did not dare ask my deepest store of intuition whether or not they could actually win round two. Or what would happen if they did.
If everything played out like it was supposed to, if they indeed destroyed Dahrkren next time, would the sisters step in again? Would the results be the same? Or would the Vessel all cease to exist, like the story said they would?
Out in the hallway, an irate and unfamiliar voice exclaimed, "Will someone please tell me why there are coffee grounds in this paper shredder?"
At least I could guarantee myself one thing: I wasn't going to be around next time, that was for damn sure.
With a great deal of sighing, I cleaved my body from the couch and stood up, stretching toward the ceiling. All the resting and morbid thinking was wearing on me, and I didn't want to sleep.
"Sounds like Jesse is somewhere close," I said, "but feel free to wait in here for him, if you want." I moved sluggishly toward the door, and Ghi watched me with rising alarm.
"Where are you going?"
I turned and shrugged. "I don't know. Just stretching my legs."
Ghi was already tripping over the corner of the couch on his way after me. "I don't think that's such a good idea."
I gave him an amused look and proceeded toward the door, at which point he pasted himself to it.
"Aren't ... aren't you supposed to stay in here?"
"It's just a little walk." I smiled, charmed by his overreaction. "I lost an arm, not a leg, remember?"
Ghi stared at me with something like terror.
"That was funny," I instructed. "You can laugh."
He didn't laugh. And he didn't get out of my way.
"Ghi." I narrowed my eyes. "Move."
When he didn't, I shook my head, turned the doorknob, and pushed. Ghi allowed himself to fall out into the hallway, where he commenced to panic. Perplexed but nonetheless determined, I stepped around him to get my first look at what I'd been missing, instantly feeling my spirits rise. Five days is a long time to stay in one room.
I hadn't been missing anything particularly exciting, it seemed. I knew that this place was a private facility, a small infirmary, basically, and that's exactly what it looked like. The floor was shiny, the walls were a cheerful mint. There appeared to be a small lounge at the far end of the hallway, dominated by a large but rather bland portrait of a tropical volcano. An odd choice, I guess, but it went well with the walls.
I wondered how cold it was outside, and thought about how heavenly it would feel to simply stand in some fresh air, even if it was the not-so-fresh air of Baltimore. A nearby door opened, and a bored looking man in scrubs stepped out into the hall, carrying a plastic bag full of paper strips and coffee sludge. I recognized him as an orderly who had been in my room almost daily.
"Hi," I said brightly. "Which way to the door?"
The guy noticed me and did not look bored anymore. His attention jumped to Ghi, who was bouncing up and down beside me and practically eating his own fingertips.
"Never mind," I muttered. The less questions I asked in this place, I thought, the better. Picking a direction, I trudged down the hall, acutely aware that Ghi was just behind me, moving with excruciating tediousness. Was everyone back home going to act like this? Like I was made of fucking glass?
The hall opened into the light-flooded lobby. There was no front desk, no soda machine, only a short set of wide marble steps dipping below the gigantic volcano portrait, leading down to the front doors.
I stopped dead.
I stopped because three little green birds―three darling little parrots―flitted across the volcano. Then I frowned.
The portrait's trees moved and rustled in a gentle seaward breeze, the distant water glinted and crested onto a white ribbon of beach, and I gravitated, stupefied, toward what was not a framed photograph, but a spotless pane of glass.
"Ghi," I said gravely, pausing at the top of the steps. "This is not Baltimore."
A solitary white cloud scooted by above the volcano. No, not a volcano, I realized with a wave of nausea, but a building. The most mind-boggling building I had ever seen, perched on the horizon against a dual-blue backdrop of ocean and sky. A creamy golden goliath carved of stone, with five bevelled towers set in an ascending spiral, the highest one capped by a dazzling dome of crystal. More acreage than the Taj Mahal. More curves than the Sydney Opera House. More helical, ornate beauty than the La Sagrada Familia―on steroids. No one had to tell me where I was.
Elysium.
I spun and jabbed a finger back toward the window, repeating myself very loudly, and very shrilly. "This is not Baltimore!"
Ghi cringed.
"Jordan, wait," he pleaded, ducking down the steps in front of me, descending them in reverse with his hands held up beseechingly. My ears were too full of static to even hear him, and all I could see in front of me was the image of my own hand, heartily wringing Jesse's neck. I barely registered Ghi tripping, falling ass-backwards down the remaining steps and then sprawling his arms toward the door in some ridiculous attempt to block it.
I jumped over him and exploded into a balmy, tropical garden.
My microscopic shred of hope―that I was simply seeing things, that I was suffering some drug-related illusion―vanished instantly in the hot, floral-sweet air. Shock kicked into high gear. Details snapped into focus. I heard the distant lull of ocean waves and the screaming of gulls. I smelled the salt. But I did not see the ocean.
I saw instead an elaborate brick courtyard spreading out before me, connecting a series of odd, disassociated buildings―a dome of tight mesh, a ceramic-lined crater, a pillowy white tunnel―all surrounded by a dense, tropical forest of waxy palms and bright ferns. The swath of vegetation seemed to stretch all the way to the distant palace I'd glimpsed earlier, which loomed commandingly in its monstrous majesty, sun-bleached and streamlined, like something from an outer space Renaissance.
My s
cathing inspection then fell upon something much closer. In the center of the immediate courtyard, standing alongside Abe and a pair of men in lab coats, were Jackson and Corin.
They were playing shuffleboard.
"What the hell is going on here?" I roared. A flock of parakeets took collective flight from a nearby fountain.
Jackson waved excitedly at me with a two-pronged shuffleboard cue, all smiles. "Only the best game ever!"
I stormed toward them. Even my shadow looked pissed. "I want to know why no one bothered to tell me that I'm on a fucking island."
Corin had dropped his cue and was rushing to meet me. "We worried it'd upset you―"
"It does upset me!" I yelled. "I am upset!"
The infirmary door burst open behind me and out came Jesse, clutching at a ceramic carafe. Ghi followed on his heels.
"Jordan!" he panted, bounding toward me and shouting generics. "It's okay! Coffee! Look! Let's just settle down, and talk, and―"
I snatched the carafe from him and, gripping the handle fiercely, thrust it at his face.
Jesse ducked. Scalding french roast splashed over Ghi's head, and he howled. I threw the emptied carafe down, and it bounced unsatisfactorily against the brickwork instead of shattering. "You lied to me!"
"I'm sorry!" Jesse wailed.
Not sorry enough. I lunged at him, but didn't get far. Corin looped an arm around me and dragged me backwards, hanging on until it seemed certain that my compulsion toward physical violence had passed.
"I want to go home," I said, after he'd let go of me. "Now. Today."
No one said a word. Jackson had wandered over with Abe, whom I consulted immediately.
"Who do I need to talk to about getting home?" I demanded. "Who's in charge here?"
Abe leaned forward on his crutches, regarding me with sage patience. He didn't sugarcoat it, I'll give him that. "It won't be possible for you to leave, Jordan. Not for a while."
What?
Excuse me?
"Look, I have outstanding health insurance," I stammered, jabbing at the surprise ending of gauze and stitches that was now my left shoulder. "They can take care of this just fine back in Los Angeles, alright? So just tell me who can get me there."
But I already knew it was useless. I knew that my arm was not the issue here. I could see where this was going, even before Corin, as he was so prone to doing, appointed himself diplomat.
"Jordan," he said. "You know this whole thing isn't over. The Hollows are still out there, loads of them. Elysium is just about the only place they won't be able to get to you."
My entire body turned to lead. In my mind, I saw days, weeks, months ... all stretching out ahead without a certain ending. My heart started pounding.
"No." I shook my head in total denial. "No, I don't care. I won't. I won't stay here."
"What do you mean, you don't care?" Jackson cut in sharply. "Those things'd hunt you down in a second. It'd be suicide to go anywhere else right now."
"Suicide!" I blurted, pointing at Jesse. "Suicide? Keep me here with him, with you freaks, for one more day, and I'll show you suicide! This is a mistake."
And it was a mistake. It was a joke, a bad dream. Someone would help me. Someone had to. I looked all around, seeking anyone else, and spotted only the two guys in lab coats, who had gone back to playing shuffleboard as if a hysterical kidnap victim was a daily occurrence on their island.
"I have rights, goddamnit!" I shrieked in their direction. I hope to god it cost one of them a point. "I'm an American!"
Jesse took a careful step toward me, his amber eyes dripping sympathy. "Honey, this is the best possible outcome, really. Just be glad we stepped in. Stella wanted to send you off to some stuffy mansion where you wouldn't know anybody. Wouldn't you rather be with us? With me?"
There weren't words. There just weren't any.
I backed away from them, turning automatically to face some new commotion, a sound I hadn't even noticed above my own shouting. A pulsing, dull white noise was beginning to drown out the birdsong and crashing waves. Beyond one of the irregular buildings nearby, treetops thrashed wildly, kicking vivid green debris into the air. And then, like some mechanized angel, a helicopter lifted into view.
Pure animal desperation propelled me forward. Not toward the helicopter itself, but in the direction it seemed to be headed. I sprinted around the infirmary and came to an abrupt ocean overlook, an apparent dead end.
It was neither a fright nor a relief to see Khan there, curiously in his element against the Pepto-colored sunset, indulging joylessly in a cigarette. A short, wiry woman with blond hair stood nearby, also smoking, also silent. They appeared to be having the kind of interaction two strangers normally have over cigarettes: the non-verbal kind. With equal disinterest, they watched the helicopter glide by overhead, and only after I'd come to a frenzied halt between them did they seem to notice me at all.
"I have to go―," I heaved. "I need to get―"
"You and me both," Stella muttered, flicking her ashes over the wall, where a zig-zag of ramps led down to the beach.
I was at the bottom in another thirty seconds, hurtling across the white sand, waving a useless hand and pleading in a hoarse, equally useless voice after the retreating helicopter. Its bulk drifted effortlessly above the ocean, fifty yards out, then a hundred yards, two hundred yards. Higher and higher, farther and farther, until I couldn't have been more than a speck to the pilots. One very powerless, very exhausted, very pissed off speck.
Knees hit sand. Face hits sand. Ocean hits face. Face begins to sob.
It was a feeling more horrible than anything I could dredge up from the past week. It was like waking up at the end of something co-written by Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan―and there was nothing I could do about it.
"You okay down there?" Jackson shouted from above.
I looked up, feeling at once shameful and furious to see just the five Vessel, standing together on the overlook. Stella had vacated. I didn't blame her.
"Fuck off!" I rose up, rubbing sand off my face. "All of you, I mean it! I will not stay here!" For no other reason than to be out of their sight, I began marching down the beach.
"It's an island, Jordan!" Corin called out. "You're not going to get anywhere!"
I darted a choice finger at the sky and kept walking.
The funny thing about walking away in sand is that you can do it neither gracefully nor quickly. Walking closer to the water helps. Two arms for balance is a plus, I guess, but you still don't get anywhere very fast.
So when I turned around again, just to make sure they weren't going to follow me, I could still see their faces. They were all looking out at the ocean, watching that same helicopter glide off. Even from a distance, it was unmistakable:
None of them looked happy.
I understood. They were gods. But they were specks, too.
Not that it changed anything. I turned bitterly and trudged on, knowing it was a very small island. Knowing it was only a matter of time before I came right back around to them again.
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About the Author
Tominda Ann Adkins lives, writes, works, and loves in Seattle, Washington, though she would like you to know that she is from West Virginia. She fears marriage and spiders but not much else. The Vessel series is her first major work of fiction.
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
I owe the existence of Vessel to a number of people, not the least of whom being Lindsey Strain, who has been with us since the days when Corin's name was spelled with a 'K' and everyone in my head rode dragons to work. My sister, without your input, your encouragement, and your honest love, this
could not have been done. Thank you for never letting me quit. And thank you most of all for the sharing of stories, which makes me happier than anything else in this world. May it never end.
To those who offered their time and talents to the bettering of this book, my deepest gratitude. To Beau Prichard, for his gentle brand of editing and his powerful brand of gusto. To my tireless proofreaders: Bryan Cook, Max Biringer, Erica Clark, and Austin Roberts (to whom I hereby dedicate any and all semicolons). Thank you for putting up with my fragments, and for caring enough to do such tedious and excellent work. You guys are the cat's pajamas.
Special thanks to: Carey Dunn, for his daily enthusiasm at each new chapter―and for his nightly patience as I wrote them under our roof. To Christina Jackson, who stumbled across sample chapters of Vessel in the Fall of '09 and wrote just to tell me she loved it. That was the first message from a stranger I ever received, and I never forgot it. Last but not least, to Lady Gaga, who reminded me before it was too late of this vital fact: that I am a tiger in my prime―fabulous, unstoppable, and covered in an armor of flaming sequins. I will thank you in person or die trying.
Endless love and gratitude to my wild and wonderful family, most especially to my parents, who have always pushed me to reach for great heights (even though I often frighten them on my way up). To everyone who has read Vessel or shown support―in Poca, Shepherdstown, Seattle, and beyond: you are too many to name, but please know that you've had an individual part in making this book a reality for me. I thank you all from the bottom of my leopard-printed heart, and I can't wait to do it again.
Love,
Tom
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