Eximere (The River Book 4)

by Michael Richan

  Steven felt better, but stupid. “Yes,” he said sheepishly. Eliza’s calming influence apparently worked with him, as well. Like father, like son, he thought.

  “Found it,” Roy said, pulling a book and turning to the others. “Jesus, this really is it,” he said, turning the pages. “Look at Thomas’ handwriting…and it’s thick – gotta be three or four hundred pages here.”

  Eliza left Steven’s side and walked over to Roy. She glanced over his shoulder at the writings in the book.

  “Do either of you remember any of those references I mentioned?” Roy asked. “The ones from Thomas junior’s book? The ones we couldn’t find?”

  “Wasn’t it page 90?” Steven said.

  “And page 147,” Eliza added.

  Roy flipped through the pages. “Yes, this is it,” he said, scanning the first page he found. “Oh boy, this is it!” Roy settled into a chair, and both Eliza and Steven stood behind him, reading over his shoulder. They didn’t say anything to each other, preferring to soak in as much of the writing as they could. Steven found some of it slow going, and other parts didn’t make sense, but his experience with the graves and Thomas made some of it clear to him.

  “So it’s discs?” Eliza asked.

  “Apparently, two discs rotating in opposite directions,” Roy said, still reading the book. “Each time a point on the discs meet, pulses are sent out. The pulses drain and retrieve.”

  “Does that mean it’s collecting our ability,” Eliza asked, “not just draining it?”

  “Could be,” Roy said.

  “What about stopping it?” Steven said.

  “Nothing here,” Roy said. “Let’s try the other reference.” He flipped through the pages, pausing occasionally to appreciate a drawing that drew his attention, and finally landed on page 147.

  Silence descended on the three again while they studied the page, looking for any reference to discs or draining.

  “There it is,” Eliza said, pointing over Roy’s shoulder to a section. “Couldn’t be easier. You just stop them from spinning.”

  “How?” Steven asked. “With your hands?”

  “Maybe,” Roy said.

  “Well, it took a focus to get them started,” Steven said. “If it takes one to stop them, we’re screwed. You’re both losing your abilities by the hour.”

  “It took a focus from upstairs,” Roy said. “Who knows down here.”

  “Any mention of where the device is?” Steven asked.

  “No,” Roy said, “not that I can see. I wish we had more time to review the whole book. Perhaps we could take it with us, and disguise the fact that it’s missing? Rearrange some books, maybe?”

  “No way,” Steven said. “Thomas’ words were ‘hunt you down.’ I don’t want to test that.”

  “I think we need to explore the rest of the house,” Eliza said. “I just jumped in, and I saw all kinds of things are in other rooms. We’ve still got to figure out how to deal with Anita before we stop the device.”

  “Dad, why don’t you stay here with the book?” Steven said. “Find out as much as you can while we go through the rest of the house. When we’re done, we’ll come back here and find you, then we’ll go back upstairs to the house.”

  “Fine, fine,” Roy said, still engrossed with the drawings and writings he was thumbing through. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  Steven and Eliza left Roy to the book and walked out of the library. “Where do we start?” Steven asked her.

  “Across the hall,” she said. “There’s a ton of stuff in a room over there.”

  They crossed the entryway and passed the staircase. “Did you see anything upstairs?” Steven asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, “there’s stuff up there too.”

  They walked into a hallway on the opposite side of the entryway, and Eliza took the lead. She stopped at the first door on the right, which was open. The room was filled with glass cases containing ordinary objects.

  “They’re special,” she said. “Jump in and see.”

  Steven walked into the room, then slipped into the River. The objects changed shape. What had appeared as a candle outside the River now appeared as a small pyramid. A tarnished silver tray had become a round silver sphere with lines etched laterally. They all glowed with some type of power.

  The library is where James kept the books of the people he killed, Eliza thought. This is where he kept their objects.

  Safe down here where they could never be used again, Steven thought. What a twisted mind. Why didn’t he just destroy them?

  These objects are difficult to destroy, Eliza thought. He might have tried, and reasoned it was easier just to put them in storage.

  They walked through the room, observing the cases, slipping in and out of the River.

  “Any idea what these do?” Steven asked, pointing at a bowl full of small round rubber balls.

  “I have one back home,” Eliza said. “It alerts me whenever the boundary is crossed.”

  “The one you set up to protect artifacts?” Steven asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “It doesn’t maintain the boundary, but it alerts me. Gives me a little jolt in my right shoulder whenever there’s trouble. Looks like a little child’s ball, doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t change when I looked at them in the River,” Steven said.

  “They have to be tuned first,” Eliza said, “so it’ll work with the person who’s using it. It’s got several wires that are all twisted. Some are gold, others silver and bronze. I’ll show it to you the next time you visit.”

  “It would be interesting to see,” Steven said, still walking around the cases.

  “I got it from my mother,” Eliza said. “These objects are hard to come by. You realize we’re looking at a treasure? There must be hundreds of them here.”

  “People sell them?” Steven asked her.

  “Yes, they do,” she replied, “sometimes for thousands. Tens of thousands, depending on what the object does. Knowing what it does can be half the problem.”

  “You mean James might have stored them here, not knowing what they do exactly?”

  “Yes,” Eliza said. “I have a friend in Spokane who is a bit of a time freak. He studies anything related to time, and he has collected some objects that he thinks are time based, but he’s not a hundred percent sure. One or two he knows what they do, but the rest sit on his shelf, kind of like these, waiting until he figures them out.”

  “Any chance one of these objects would help us take out Anita?” Steven asked.

  “Sure,” Eliza said. “But which one, and how does it work? Could take years to figure it out.”

  “Surely someone has catalogued these things, at some point,” Steven said.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone has tried, or at least started.”

  “Perhaps one of the books in the library?” Steven asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You seem skeptical,” Steven said.

  “I am, a little,” she said. “These objects usually take years to master. Even if you found such a book, it doesn’t mean we’d be able to get the thing to do what we want it to. My mother showed me exactly how to use the one I have. Without her instruction, I don’t think I would have ever figured it out.”

  Steven noticed a tear forming at her eye. “How stupid I am,” she said, wiping it away.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Thinking this place was wonderful and carefree,” she said, wiping another tear. “All these items stolen from children, their parents robbed of the opportunity to explain how they work. Graves of murdered innocent people outside, their histories locked away in that library. It’s horrible.”

  “Come on,” Steven said, turning to leave the room. “Let’s keep checking.”

  They explored through the remaining rooms on the ground floor, which contained a kitchen completely empty of food, several bedrooms, and a large sitting room at the far end of the house. It had large windows on all three s
ides, offering a view of both the front and back yards, and the side of the house.

  “Let’s try upstairs,” Eliza said.

  The staircase curved slightly as it rose from the ground floor to the second story. At the top, a walkway with a handrail encircled the entryway below. Two hallways departed from either side, mirroring the hallways on the first floor. “Which way?” Steven asked.

  “This side,” Eliza said, choosing the side which was over the library and sitting room.

  They entered a room facing the back yard which had large white curtains in a window that were fluttering in the breeze. From here, the banyan tree looked even more impressive, its green canopy spread large. You could see the graves distinctly.

  “The bed,” Eliza said, nodding to a spot further in the room. Steven left the window and walked over to it; there was a body lying still upon it.

  “James Unser,” Eliza said.

  Only the skeleton was left. Its head was on the pillow, and the lower half of the body was covered by the sheets on the bed, as though someone had just tucked him in. His left hand was above the covers. In it was a silver fork.

  “Are you sure it’s him?” Steven said. “How do you know?”

  “Jump in,” she said.

  Steven entered the flow, and he immediately knew she was right. The fork in his hand changed shape – it was now a cone, about three inches in diameter.

  What’s the cone? he thought.

  Don’t know, Eliza thought. But he must have had it with him at his death.

  Steven left the River, and walked around the bed, examining James. “Do you think Anita visits him like this, at night?”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me,” Eliza said.

  “Should we try to contact him?” Steven said. “A trance, or a séance?”

  “I think we should,” Eliza said, “but when Roy is available to help.”

  Steven felt a little dejected, as though Eliza didn’t consider him powerful or experienced enough to do this on his own, without Roy.

  “I don’t think you and I can pull it off,” she said. “I’m losing my ability, and it’ll probably take all three of us just to make it happen.”

  Steven resisted the temptation to become petulant. She was right, it probably would require all three of them to make contact with James. He didn’t know exactly how much ability they had lost, but he knew that jumping in and out of the River was increasingly harder and more painful for them.

  “Well, let’s get Roy then,” Steven said. “We shouldn’t waste time.”

  “I’ll get him,” Eliza said, turning to leave the room.

  Steven walked back over to the window, staring down at the banyan tree and the graves. The man in the bed next to me is responsible for all those deaths, he thought. He saw the open grave that they had noticed earlier. I wonder if it was for him, Steven thought, and no one bothered to bury him.

  Eliza came back with Roy, and Roy examined James’ body. “I’d rather spend eternity in a room like this than buried in the ground,” Roy said.

  “I think he planned on being buried,” Steven said. “I think that’s what the open grave outside was intended for.”

  “He did abhor his gift,” Eliza said. “He might have wanted it sealed over like the others.”

  “Just didn’t have very reliable family,” Roy said. “OK, we’re after info on how to stop Anita and where the device is located. Let’s stay focused on that. Everyone ready?”

  They sat on the floor next to the bed, and Roy began the séance. This has got to work, Steven thought. We’re running out of time.

  After a few moments, Roy began speaking.

  “We wish to speak to James Unser.”

  They waited. Nothing.

  Roy repeated his call to James Unser.

  Still no response.

  “He’s hiding,” Eliza said.

  “James,” Roy said, “come out and speak with us. We wish to speak with you.”

  “I do not wish to speak with you,” they heard, and turned, seeing James lying in the bed in the same position as the skeleton, staring up at the ceiling. “None of you are welcome here. This isn’t your home. I want you all to leave.”

  “We can’t leave,” Roy said. “Not until we locate your device. We, like you, hate those with abilities that aren’t normal, and we want to use your device to further your aims in life.”

  “You are a liar, sir,” James said, still immobile. “And the discs will have you all normalized within another day or two.”

  “So you know about your progeny, Kent Percival?” Roy said.

  “I do, and he’s made me proud to be an Unser. He and his sons will carry on the work I started.”

  “Your mother is making it hard for him to do that,” Roy said.

  Where’s he going with this? Steven wondered.

  “She frightens Kent,” Roy said. “He’s scared of her. She nearly killed him.”

  “She what?” James said, now sitting up in bed and looking down at the three on the floor. “Nearly killed him?”

  “She’s evil, isn’t she, James?” Roy said. “She’s evil through and through. We felt it. Kent felt it. She attacked him. It was a cold, empty feeling, made him want to die. Maybe you know the feeling? Maybe she attacked you the same way? Do you remember, when you were alive?”

  “Damn her,” James said, sliding a foot to the ground and standing up. “Always meddling and interfering. I should have killed her when I had the chance.”

  “You know she’s twisted your purpose, don’t you?” Roy said. “She has found a way to use what your draining device collects to increase her own power.”

  “No!” James said, beginning to pace the room, a worried look on his face. “It’s not for her!”

  “Everything Kent is trying to accomplish,” Roy said, “she will benefit from. She is using what you built to increase her own abilities. More evil, building and building, until she becomes so powerful that she doesn’t need your devices anymore.”

  “No, that can’t be true,” James said, the tone in his voice clearly upset by what Roy was telling him. “It can’t be. The marchers will stop her. That’s why I put them there. She can’t get past that, regardless.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere, Steven thought.

  “Why did you put the marchers outside your house, James?” Roy said.

  “To trap her,” James said. “She had to be stopped, contained. She’s evil.”

  “But they only come out at night,” Roy said. “She could leave during the day.”

  “No, they’re there during the day, too,” James said. “They’re dormant during the day. But they’re still there, and she knows it. She’s scared to death of them. She’ll never leave the house.”

  “Why does she come down here every night?” Roy asked.

  “At night the marchers stare at her through her window,” James said. “She can’t stand it, their eyes frighten her. And the thumping.”

  “She never tried to escape?” Roy asked.

  “A couple of times,” James said, “but she never made it. They caught her once, but she escaped them. She’ll never try again. Have you seen what they did to her face?”

  Steven shuddered. He’d seen.

  “She’s more powerful now,” Roy said, “because she’s draining us. Soon she’ll be able to stop the marchers, and then she’ll be free.”

  “She’ll never be able to stop them,” James said. “I made sure of that.”

  “How?” Roy asked.

  “I made an agreement,” James said. “An agreement that will last forever.”

  “How did you do that?” Roy asked.

  “With someone far more powerful than her,” James said, still pacing the room. “So I’m not worried.”

  “You seem anxious,” Roy said. “You don’t realize that things have changed. Other arrangements are being made.”

  “What arrangements?” James asked excitedly. “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s b
een a long time since you cut your deal,” Roy said. “Your mother has cut a few of her own, now.”

  “What?” James said. “How do you know this? What arrangements?”

  “She’s finally found a way to overcome you, James. You always hated her, wanted to make sure others couldn’t become like her, or like you. But she’s going to win. She’s discovered a secret you forgot, and she’s manipulating it. Soon, she’ll be free and all of your work will have been for naught.”

  “No!” James said. “I don’t believe you. It can’t be true.”

  “That’s why we wanted to talk with you today, James. To warn you.”

  “To warn me? That she is becoming more powerful?”

  “Not just that. She’s stolen it, James.”

  “Stolen it? What? Stolen what?”

  “The device,” Roy said. “Your device. She’s taken it. It now works for her, and only for her. Everything you’ve worked for, she’s about to take!”

  “No!” James said, and turned and disappeared through the wall towards the hallway.

  Exit the River, Roy thought to the others, and they all left the trance and the flow.

  “Oh, they’re so stupid!” Roy chuckled. “Quickly, out into the hallway. I’ll go back into the River to watch him as we follow, and the two of you must help me maneuver.”

  They stopped in the hallway and Roy entered the flow once again. “There, on the stairway, headed down. Quickly!”

  Steven took Roy by one elbow and Eliza took the other. They walked quickly back to the head of the stairs and followed James down it.

  “He’s going into the library,” Roy said. “Hurry, we don’t want to lose him.”

  Steven and Eliza picked up the pace, hurrying down the stairs as quickly as they could with Roy in tow. Roy was straining his neck to see further ahead. They left the stairwell and the entryway, and ran quickly to the library.

  “There!” Roy said, pointing to the back of the room. Steven and Eliza couldn’t see anything. Roy exited the River and walked over to a bookcase on the far wall of the room.