Pile of Bones

by Bailey Cunningham

  “Unless I’m mistaken,” Ingrid said, “you’re fairly good at that yourself.”

  “Running a basia requires vigilance. Drauca and I need to ensure that the clients are behaving themselves. The spado’s creeping about is different.”

  Shelby chuckled. “You dislike him nearly as much as Carl dislikes you.”

  “Hey,” Carl said. “Dislike is a strong word. Let’s just say I don’t trust the majority of people who wear masks for a living. Bank robbers. Circus freaks. Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. I’m not about to hug any of them.”

  “Everyone shut up.” Shelby was staring at the counter. She lowered her voice. “There’s somebody here. I can feel it.”

  They were silent for a moment. Ingrid couldn’t hear anything. Perhaps it was Morgan, and not Shelby, who’d caught the noise. She adjusted her grip on the sword. Fel was closer to the surface than she’d ever been. Their shadows, as Oliver called them, were stronger in this moment. Like Peter Pan, she could sew Fel to her foot and never let her go. Was it possible? People had different personalities, different sides to them, that much she understood. But Fel was supposed to be a character. A miles didn’t care about paying her SaskTel bill on time. If Fel took over, she’d go straight to Bushwacker’s to pick a fight with the biggest mouth-breather at the bar. Fel cared about winning. What did she know about family? She’d always been alone.

  Ingrid blinked. Had Fel always been alone? Those memories were beyond her grasp. They said that you had to play a character for years before you could really know where they came from or what they wanted. Sometimes she caught flashes of a childhood, a small room in a dirty tenement building above the Subura, reeking from the tanner’s shop below. She must have had parents. To her, Fel had always been a chipped sword, defiant and worn.

  Shelby was gesturing to Carl. He stared at her, not understanding. She rolled her eyes. Then, in a single motion, she leapt over the counter. Ingrid heard something that sounded like a squeak. Then Shelby stood up. In her left hand, she gripped the shirt collar of a dazed-looking girl. Her red hair looked strangely golden beneath the emergency lights, and she was still clutching a hardcover book. Her mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out.

  “I knew I heard something,” Shelby said.

  Finally, the girl cleared her throat and managed to speak. “Could you let go of me? I’m not going to—” Her eyes widened as she took in the four of them. “Are you wearing body armor? Is this some kind of intense paintball tournament?”

  “Why were you hiding down there?”

  She looked at Shelby with undisguised curiosity. “You have a bow.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “I was on the second floor when the alarm started. I came downstairs, and the place was totally empty. I was just about to leave, but—” She looked beyond the counter, at the half-concealed room. “Okay, it’s stupid, I know, but I’ve always wanted to see the uncataloged books, and they’ve got stacks of them, just sitting there. The librarians had all left. I just wanted to take a peek. There’s this engineering text that’s been listed as ‘in progress’ for weeks on the library website, and I really need it for my thesis. I just wanted to see if it was actually there, and not just a ghost in the machine.”

  Shelby was also looking beyond the counter. “I—suppose I can understand that,” she said. “But why didn’t you leave?”

  “Well, I heard these guys come in. I thought they might be librarians, and—I know it’s childish, but my first instinct was to hide. They disappeared after a few minutes, and then I tried to leave, but the doors won’t open.”

  “What do you mean?” Oliver asked. “They have to stay open in case of a fire.”

  “I know. But someone melted them. At least that’s what it looks like. They’re fused. I tried to open them, but they won’t budge.”

  Ingrid walked up to the doors. The girl was right. The metal edges were fused together, like two strips of Play-Doh. No seams or bubbles—it was as if they’d always been a single piece of black metal. She walked back over to the counter.

  “She’s right. The doors are sealed.”

  “Mardian,” Oliver said. “I don’t know how he’s done it—”

  “Wait—” The girl stared at them. “You know—I mean—” Her eyes flickered rapidly, trying to study all of them at once. “How do you—”

  “Bee!” Shelby cried.

  Carl began swatting at the empty air next to him.

  “No. Not here, brain trust. On her shirt. Look.”

  Ingrid peered at the girl’s long-sleeved shirt. It had a bumblebee sewn onto the shoulder. For a moment, she could almost hear it buzz. Then she remembered what Oliver had told her about the scene at the basilissa’s banquet. A mechanical bee had summoned three hungry silenoi, like some kind of dog whistle. The work of a master artifex.

  “Julia?” Shelby asked.

  The girl blinked in confusion. “Morgan?”

  “On this side, I’m Shelby.”

  “The artifex,” Ingrid said. “I thought you were a citizen.”

  She laughed. “Only the rich apprentices can manage that. I’m flat broke.”

  “But—” Shelby stared at her. “You said that you had a room at the gens. And you remembered your mother. I thought that only citizens had access to deep memory structures.”

  “My mother was famous. People are always telling me stories about her. As for the room”—she stared at the floor—“I may have exaggerated. When I said ‘my chamber,’ I should have said ‘the spare room that I sneaked into.’ It’s not like anyone notices me. To them, I’m only a shadow of what my mother used to be. Or Julia’s mother. Sometimes I can’t tell us apart. I’m Sam. I think.”

  “This is all very informative,” Oliver said, “but we’re still the prey in this scenario, and there’s no way out. I suggest we get out of the open.”

  Sam gave him a sideways glance. “Who’s this?”

  “Just call him Dr. Love,” Carl said.

  “No. Do not call me that.”

  “Too late. It’s going to stick—I can feel it.”

  “The doctor—I mean Oliver—says that there’s a basement exit,” Shelby whispered. “It’s possible that Mardian and his crew don’t know about it.”

  “Crew?” Sam looked around the empty room. “How many of them are there?”

  “We don’t know.”

  She shook her head. “I knew I should have stayed home to mark exams.” Then her expression softened slightly. “Andrew—”

  “—is alive.”

  “Oh. I didn’t—I mean, I hoped, but—”

  “After this is done,” Oliver hissed, “you can share everything on your windows, or whatever they call it. For now, zip it and follow me.”

  “Facebook did exist before you left,” Ingrid said. “You know what a wall is.”

  “I really wish I didn’t.”

  They walked past the computers, to the area covered in plastic. Gently, Oliver lifted a corner, and they crept into the construction zone. In the corner, a tangle of sleek metal shelves were piled on top of each other. They were designed to entice undergraduates into reading periodicals but actually resembled something you might find on the deck of an alien spacecraft. Ingrid couldn’t imagine them holding journals and magazines. Like the refurbished downtown campus—all concrete, glass, and succulent greenery kept alive by merciless heat—this project smacked of desperation. Most students would never pass by the computers in order to leaf through random journals. They were building a zoo for rare animals, each one slightly dazed to find itself on a shelf beneath track lighting.

  “I’m the only one without armor,” Sam whispered. “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Aren’t you an engineering student?” Carl made an abstract gesture. “Why not use these lovely materials to fashion yourself a cuirass?”

  “I liked you better in the shit-stained tunica.”

  They heard footsteps.

  “Behind the shelves,” O
liver whispered.

  There wasn’t enough room for all of them to hide in the same place. Carl, Shelby, and Oliver managed to fit behind the pile of half-assembled shelving. Ingrid and Sam crawled behind a hoard of wall brackets and other support structures. Ingrid was sweating beneath the chest protector. The sword no longer felt natural in her right hand. It was giving her a cramp.

  Maybe it’s the firemen, she thought, without conviction. Won’t they be surprised to discover a group of crazy people, huddled together in an active construction zone?

  Through gaps in the metal, she saw four pairs of shoes. Two sets of sneakers, one pair of boots, and—closest to her—sensible black orthotic shoes with extra cushioning. She’d recently thought of buying that exact pair from Zellers.

  “This isn’t Robarts Library,” Mardian said. “They can’t have gone far. I’m willing to bet that they’re on this floor.”

  “Waste of time,” an unfamiliar voice muttered.

  The black shoes squeaked lightly as Mardian turned to face the voice. “You were bleeding to death when I found you in that hallway. If you’d like, we can re-create that scenario. There are plenty of sharp things lying around here.”

  “I just don’t see why we’re playing hide-and-seek with these idiots. You know where they live. Why not just—”

  “Stop talking.” Mardian turned toward the pile of metal. “They’re close. We need to flush them out.”

  “We could burn the place down.”

  “This is your school. You really wouldn’t hesitate to set it on fire?”

  “My parents made me enroll. You think I wanted to major in kinesiology?”

  Mardian sighed. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

  Ingrid tightened her grip on the sword. Her brain was telling her to stay quiet. What surprised her was that she didn’t feel scared. Across from her, Sam was trying not to breathe. Her eyes were all pupil. For Ingrid, it was different. There was no shock of adrenaline. Her breathing stayed level as she kept absolutely still. Her body was used to this, even if it was the opposite of the Hippodrome. No pounding blood or tunnel vision. Just a bizarre kind of weightlessness. Dangling, a bat inside a cave lit only by flashes of mica. If she kicked over the hoard of metal, there would be a few seconds of anarchy. Long enough to strike before they knew what was happening.

  But there was no way to signal Oliver. He was on the other side of the room. It would just be her, swinging her sword blindly. She looked at Sam, trying to gauge what the young woman might be capable of. Sam looked up. She was squeezing her hands together, and Ingrid could see that her knuckles were white. Not knowing what else to do, she winked. It was an odd gesture, and for a moment, Sam looked confused. Then, the hint of a smile played across her face. Some of the fear vanished. Maybe she’d fight after all. She’d been brave in the arx, when their odds had been much worse.

  Kick over the pile. Do it now.

  “Wait,” another voice said. It was the pair of boots. “I know how to find them. We don’t need fire. Just smoke.”

  They were silent for a moment. Then three pairs of shoes left. Only the boots remained. Ingrid shifted position, trying to get a better look. She saw only a worn pair of jeans whose frayed cuffs were tucked into hiking boots. He wasn’t moving. Why? Sam also seemed curious but was unwilling to find a better vantage point. After a few more seconds, he began whispering under his breath. She couldn’t understand what he was saying. He paused, as if listening, then murmured something else, largely inaudible. She made out a single word: peels. He spoke again. This time she heard deal. Maybe that’s what he’d said before. It had sounded like peels, though. Was he reciting poetry to himself?

  After another pause, he ducked under the plastic and left the enclosure. Ingrid could hear Sam breathing. She frowned. Then something impossible occurred to her. At first, she denied it. But then she remembered the scene in the bathroom. Andrew’s wide, dark eyes. The faint whiff of ozone clinging to the tiles. Was it possible?

  As she watched through the hole in the brackets, two tendrils of smoke appeared. They hovered a few inches off the ground. They had no spark, no source. They were simply there, as if something invisible were burning. The tendrils formed a smoke ring, which began to expand. It was followed by another ring, and another, each one larger, until smoke was pressing against the plastic shell of the construction zone. Sam coughed. Ingrid stood up, holding a hand to her mouth. The smoke made her eyes water. Through the haze, she could see Oliver, but he was slowly becoming indistinct. She took Sam’s hand, not wanting to lose her as well. The shadow beside Oliver might have been Shelby, or not. The smoke was thickening. How stupid they’d been. Dressing like warriors, thinking that they could roll the dice against someone like Mardian. He had precisely what they’d lost. An auditor.

  There were two choices left. They could make a run for the elevators. Of course, they’d be followed easily enough, but it would give them a chance to regroup. They could fortify the archive. It seemed like a fitting place for a last stand. The second choice was to run for the emergency exit, in the hopes that it was still clear. One of them could probably make it. She looked at Sam, already vanishing into the smoke. If they all charged at once, she might be able to escape in the confusion.

  Ingrid squeezed her hand. “Listen. We have to get out of here. Stay with me for now, but as soon as I let go of your hand, I want you to run for the emergency exit. It’s past the information desk, in the far left corner. Don’t look back—just run. Understand?”

  Sam nodded.

  Ingrid couldn’t see the others. The smoke was too thick. She used her sword to raise the plastic cover, then stepped out of the enclosure. Sam followed. Smoke crawled up the walls, forming clouds above the computers. It might have started in the construction zone, but it was everywhere now. The fire alarms were silent. The smoke detectors continued to blink green, like nothing was happening, as clouds gathered in the vaulted arches of the ceiling. The smell didn’t remind her of burned soup, or a campfire. It was something different. It whispered of blind alleys, baked cobblestones, giant clay furnaces. Ingrid almost wanted to breathe it in. For a moment, she seemed to be somewhere else. The ground was uneven beneath her feet. The blade rippled in her hand, and she felt it flowing, part of her blood, her water. In the distance, she heard the boom of the clepsydra. Fortuna’s eyes were upon her.

  Something stepped out of the smoke. Ingrid leveled her sword. The shape moved toward her, and she saw the gleam of a knife. She hesitated. It was easier in Anfractus. Her instincts took over. But on this side of the park, things were different. Fel was screaming at her: Now, strike at the legs! With one cut, she could open the popliteal artery. It would spray blood like an aquifer—she’d seen it happen on the sands. The sword refused to dance. Ingrid held on to it, trying to shut out Fel’s voice. This wasn’t the Hippodrome. She couldn’t just attack a stranger in the middle of the library. She couldn’t even respond to the negative comments on her last conference paper. All those passive-aggressive jabs at her methodology. She’d just nodded, as she’d been taught, and said, That’s a fascinating counterpoint, thank you so much.

  On the inside, she wanted to thrust. She wanted to drench the Fiesta Room of the Edmonton Doubletree Hotel in rising arterial spray, wanted to scream Your in-press article can go straight to hell as she diced the critics and everyone else who’d told her that she was too old for grad school, that she should really just stick to raising her son.

  The smoke cleared, and she saw—neither a miles nor an academic—but rather a stocky kid in a green Roughriders T-shirt and baggy carpenter jeans. The gleam of metal was from the fire ax that he carried. He must have stolen it from the glass case She almost laughed. He could have been a younger Jack Nicholson, except that his eyes weren’t glazed over. They were bright with fear. It was a mystery how they’d both arrived at this point. He should have been watching the game, or cruising Northgate Mall with cash to burn. Instead, he was standing in a smoke-filled library,
holding a weapon designed to break through doors. He was taking orders from a nurse who moonlighted as a eunuch. It would have been funny, except that the joke had unraveled a long time ago. The basilissa wanted them dead. She had no qualms about sending boys to do the job. What had she promised this poor kid? What did he think was going to happen?

  His eyes narrowed. He tightened his grip on the ax.

  “Wait,” Ingrid said. “Let’s just take a second, here.”

  “You ruined me.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Holy shit. You don’t even remember.”

  Ingrid stared at him. There was nothing familiar. He could have been anyone. Then she noticed that he favored his left leg. There was something bulky underneath the denim, like padding, or—a bandage. She looked at his face again. For a moment, she imagined him wearing a helmet, carrying a sword rather than a safety ax. He’d looked older in the arx, surrounded by a group of miles. Was it really him? Was this cub the armored warrior she’d attacked outside Pulcheria’s chamber?

  “You severed a tendon in my leg,” he growled. “I’m going to walk with a limp for the rest of my life. I’ll never play football again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “My parents can barely look at me. They say I should go to SaskTech and become an electrician. I had an athletic scholarship! Now I can barely sleep, my leg hurts so much. I have nightmares—about you.”

  Sam was still behind her. Ingrid hoped that he couldn’t see her, that the smoke was obscuring her form. Where were Oliver and the rest of them? She needed to send them a signal. How did knights do it? They must have waved some kind of pennant. There was a provincial flag hanging above the circulation desk. If she could reach it, maybe she’d be able to communicate in frantic semaphore. Medieval texting. The thought almost made her crack a smile, but then she looked into the kid’s wasted eyes. He was a broken thing now, because of her. She’d always feared that Neil might wake up some day and begin to quietly hate her. It was a phase that everyone warned her about. What she hadn’t expected was that a complete stranger might grow to hate her, intensely, for the rest of his life.