by Sara Beaman
“More or less,” Julian says. “I’m bringing some of Aya’s belongings. A few things of Adam’s, as well. We’ll ask Horace to take a look at them.”
“So he’s a Tracker?” Haruko says.
“Yes,” says Julian.
“What’s a Tracker?” I ask.
“Some of the Children of Orpheus can track the spirits of the dead,” Julian says. “It’s rumored that their strain served as the origin of the Wardens’ surveillance abilities.”
“But Adam and Aya aren’t dead,” I say.
“Oh, but they are,” Julian says. “Dead spirits in dead bodies. Just like the rest of us.”
My skin crawls. I hear footsteps and a heartbeat as a human enters the garage. A woman. I take a deep breath and force myself to be calm. I don’t need blood. Mind over matter.
“Katherine,” Julian says, catching my eyes.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I can handle it.”
He frowns, dubious, but he doesn’t say anything. He climbs out of the van and rolls the door shut. Just outside my window I hear him speaking with the driver about the route. The steady throb of her heartbeat makes me have involuntary thoughts of violence. I need a distraction.
“So how many houses are there?” I ask Jennifer and Haruko.
“Well, you have the Wardens, the Mnemonics, and the Coventinians,” Jennifer says. “Aside from that, there are four others: the houses of Himeros, Nemesis, Orpheus and Anat.”
Haruko snorts with derision.
“What?” Jennifer says.
Haruko rolls her eyes. “You forgot Terminus.”
“I’m trying to keep things simple!” Jennifer snaps.
“Whatever,” Haruko says.
“There was also once a house of Terminus,” Jennifer says, staring at Haruko, “But they’ve disappeared altogether. No one knows where they’ve gone.”
“What about the Thalians?” I ask. “Aya, for example?”
“The Thalians are a Line, not a House. The Line of Thalia,” Jennifer says.
“What’s the difference?”
“A Line occurs when two Progenitors mix their blood and give the amalgam to an initiate,” Jennifer says. “Take Thalia, for example. She was the initiate of Mnemosyne and Himeros.”
“Was? Is she dead?” I ask. “I mean…all dead?”
Jennifer nods. “But she was notoriously… I don’t want to use the word promiscuous, but I can’t think of anything more accurate. In any case, she initiated so many revenants that her line should continue on for quite a while.”
“What do the other Houses do?” I ask.
“Well, Himerans are concerned primarily with manipulating desires,” Jennifer says. “Nemeses with fate, and curses, and some other, stranger things. And Orpheans are concerned with spirits, death and the underworld.”
“Like…hell?” Disbelief contorts my face. “Hell actually exists?”
“Not in the fire and brimstone sense,” Jennifer says. “But, from what we can tell, after leaving this plane, the souls of the dead pass on to… somewhere.”
“I’ve always believed in reincarnation,” I say.
“That’s nice, but the Orpheans don’t agree with you,” Haruko says.
“What about the Anat…eans?” I ask. “What’s their deal?”
“They blow shit up,” Haruko says. “You know Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Yes I know Dungeons and Dragons,” I say. “You know Dungeons and Dragons?”
“By reputation only,” Haruko says. “Anyway, the Children of Anat are like wizards.”
“They have fireballs?” I ask.
“Well, they have Pyrokinesis, so yeah, I guess they do.”
“And lightning?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn it. I picked the wrong House,” I say, sighing.
She snorts
“All of the Houses are named for gods and mythology, I guess?” I ask.
“All except the Wardens, yes,” Jennifer says.
“But, I mean… the Progenitors aren’t really, like… divine, are they?” I ask. “Mnemosyne can’t be a goddess. I’ve met her.”
“They’re assumed names,” Jennifer says.
“The self-styled avatars of human gods that don’t even exist.” Haruko folds her arms and slumps down into her seat.
“So what about Terminus?” I ask.
“They dealt with time, and they used time travel to get the fuck away from whatever’s going on here,” Haruko replies. Jennifer doesn’t see fit to correct her, for once.
The door to the van slides open. Julian climbs inside, slides it shut, and sits down beside Jennifer. I hear the driver’s side door open and close and the keys turn in the ignition. The garage door retracts. The engine starts. The van starts moving, slowly accelerating, and we leave the estate behind.
So we’re only going to South Carolina, I guess. I wonder why I need an overnight bag for such a short trip. Maybe we’re not planning on coming back. Maybe we’ll set off in Aya’s direction as soon as the Son of Orpheus tells us where she’s gone. Maybe I’ll never come back to the estate.
Suddenly I feel like crying. Why? I don’t like it there. It makes me feel suffocated, closed in. And while I’m in Adam’s suite, I can’t think of anything but him. But I hate the feeling of being homeless, like there’s not a single place in the world where I belong.
Of course, I have a home. I have parents, back in Pennsylvania. But they haven’t heard from me since Mirabel drafted me into her Program five years ago. They probably think I’m dead, or that I’ve been abducted and sold into white slavery. And if I went to see them now, I’d have to fight with myself not to attack them and drink their blood. And as soon as I left, Mirabel’s programming would make them forget I was ever there in the first place.
Maybe that’s why going to see your mortal parents isn’t the done thing for revenants. Against the Sanguine Consensus or whatever. I idly wonder if they’ll put me in that registry, the one Haruko put Adam in. I doubt it. I’m pretty strictly contraband, I think, being Mirabel’s rogue double. An untouchable among untouchables. The engineer of Desmond Schuster’s assassination. The child of the most deeply despised revenant in the known world. The failed science project of the second-most despised.
I wish all of these epithets made me feel like a badass. Instead, they just make me feel afraid.
***
Two hours later, the tires of the van grind against gravel and roll gradually to a stop. Julian slides the door open; salt air rushes in. Waves crash in the distance.
“This is as far as Elizabeth can take us,” he says. “We’ll need to go the rest of the way on foot.”
We all pile out of the van. Julian retrieves a small duffel from the back and shoulders it. He pulls a compass out from the bag, inspects it under the harsh glow of an LED flashlight, then starts walking in the general direction of the ocean. Jennifer and I follow, and Haruko takes up the rear. We walk in silence for at least a mile, trudging through sand and shin-high grasses. It’s difficult to see much of anything in the dark, but it looks like this place isn’t well-traveled. I don’t see anything but dunes and scrubby plants, no buildings, no lights. Aside from the sound of the surf and of our own footsteps, it’s utterly silent. I start to worry if we’ll be able to find our way back to the van. We only have so many hours before daybreak.
Seemingly at random, Haruko turns to Jennifer. “Are you going to say something or should I?”
“About what?” Jennifer asks.
“There’s no one here,” Haruko says. “No revenants.”
“Horace lives in a cicatrix,” Julian says.
Haruko makes an ah sound. “So that’s why I can’t sense him.”
Julian nods. “It’s said to be beneath a pier near here, somewhere along the coast.”
“What’s a kikah… what is that?” I ask.
“It’s a hidden space between this world and the next,” says Julian.
“Between this world and t
he… the underworld?” I ask.
“Exactly,” Jennifer says. “Cicatrices are places where the boundary between the two worlds is blurred. They’re said to coalesce at places with a violent past. Slaughterhouses, battlefields… things like that.”
A few minutes later we set foot on the beach. No pier is in sight, just ocean, grey sand, and a gull picking over the bony corpse of a beached fish.
“From here to the south, I should think,” Julian says, setting off to our right.
Soon the silhouette of the pier appears in the distance. It’s broken down; half of it is crumbling into the sea. As we draw closer I can see detritus thickly encrusted all over its wooden support beams and posts.
The wind picks up. The waves crash louder and harder, sending salt spray into my face. The moon passes behind a cloud. A few steps ahead of me, Julian shoves his compass and flashlight into his pockets. He rubs his hands together as if trying to warm them. He is shivering. Two paces later, I feel it too. The air goes from chilly to frigid, and all the color abruptly drains from the dim landscape, leaving it rendered in grayscale.
“We’re not even to the gate yet,” Jennifer mumbles beside me.
Julian steps beneath the pier. The shadows swallow him; he disappears.
“Fuck,” I say beneath my breath.
“Go on,” Jennifer says. “I’m right behind you.”
I swallow hard and step underneath the pier.
***
I am no longer walking along the beach. I am in a cave filled with a wan green glow, its only mouth yawning straight out into open ocean. Beneath my feet are rough black stones interspersed with muddy little pools. Julian stands a bit further into the cave, facing me, waiting. Jennifer and Haruko materialize behind me.
“The man we are about to see is very old,” Julian says, his voice hushed. “High ritual was still quite common when he was initiated. He’ll likely expect a level of decorum that has long since gone dead in revenant society.”
Jennifer nods. Haruko frowns.
“He may expect one of us to make an offering,” Julian continues.
“Of what?” I ask.
“Blood.”
The back of my throat prickles with anxiety.
“It’s customary for the youngest among us to make the offering,” he says.
“I’ll do it,” Jennifer says. “It’s not like I’ll miss the blood, and he won’t be able to tell how old I am. I don’t think. Will he?”
“I can’t say,” Julian says. He turns away and walks deeper into the cave.
I follow closely behind, looking in all directions. The walls are covered in strange growth, some kind of plant or fungus I’ve never seen before. It, or something else in here, smells like rotting trash. As we go deeper into the cave, the passageway narrows, eventually forcing us to walk single-file. Then the ceiling gets lower, and lower, and lower, until we’re walking hunched over, then squatting, then crawling. Green light still fills the wretchedly narrow space, emanating from everywhere, or from nowhere at all.
The tunnel abruptly opens into a grotto larger than Julian’s ballroom or Desmond’s crypt. Pale lights dance on the craggy ceiling, reflecting from the surface of an immense underground lake. Julian walks to the edge of the water, drops to his knees, and puts his head and his hands on the wet ground in a gesture of total supplication. Figuring I ought to follow suit, I get down on the floor by his side. Jennifer and Haruko do the same.
We wait. I have the creeping, tickling sensation of being watched, although I don’t hear anyone approach.
Then I hear a rumbling bass voice say, “Get up.”
It’s not a command like a Mnemonic would give, but I scramble to my feet just the same.
Standing a few yards away by the edge of the pool is a young-looking, muscular man with deep black skin and a shaved head. He wears a simple piece of cloth wrapped around his body like a toga. He carries a bowl in one hand, a knife in the other. I immediately think of Adam—the tools he used to feed me were the same.
“Two Mnemonics and two Wardens,” he says as the others slowly stand. “If you’ve come to ask me of the future, you’ll soon read yours in your own entrails.”
Julian bows deeply. “Horace son of Lita daughter of Orpheus, I entreat you for permission to shadow your doorstep.”
“Julian son of Mnemosyne,” Horace says. “Your request is denied. Get out.” He points in the direction from which we came.
“My respected elder, I beg you to reconsider,” Julian says. “We will make you an offering—“
“I heard your discussion,” Horace says. “Do you think I am too old and feeble to feed my own mouth?”
“A favor, then,” Julian says. “Anything. Whatever you want.”
I look at Julian out of the corner of my eyes. He could be getting us in some real trouble. Doesn’t he know that?
“You are a fool,” Horace says. “Only a fool would make such an offer.”
Julian’s shoulders tense. His hands ball into fists.
“Or a man drive to desperation,” Horace continues.
“Look,” Haruko interjects, “I get what this must look like, but we’re not here representing the Watchers of the Americas. Or the House of Mnemosyne, for that matter.”
“Then why are you here?” Horace asks.
“We’re looking for someone,” she says. “Two people, that is. Two revenants.”
“Who?”
“Aya daughter of Zenas son of Thalia,” Haruko says. “And Adam son of Julian son of Mnemosyne.”
Jennifer clears her throat.
“What?” Haruko asks her, exasperated.
“Adam son of Mnemosyne,” Jennifer corrects her.
Haruko frowns, confused.
“What do you want with these souls?” Horace asks.
“Well, you see, Adam is hurt—physically injured, and he’s our friend, and Aya abducted him,” Haruko says, sheepishly. “But she’s also our friend, and we think maybe she just needs help…”
Horace gives her a withering look.
“We just want information. Where we can find them. That’s all,” Haruko says. “Nothing that can be turned against you. Nothing political.”
“Everything is political,” Horace says.
“There has to be something we can give you in exchange,” Jennifer says.
“Perhaps,” Horace says, his face still stony. He looks each of us up and down, one at a time, ending with me. I shiver as his eyes meet mine.
“Perhaps,” he repeats, the edges of his mouth curling upward.
Julian follows Horace’s gaze. “As we said, we’re prepared to offer whatever we can.”
I give him a horrified look. I can’t tell what Horace wants with me, but I’m pretty sure I’d rather not be a part of it.
“Information,” Horace says. “Mine for yours.”
“Certainly,” Julian says. “With pleasure.”
“Or, rather, mine for hers,” Horace says, still looking at me. “Young Katherine’s.”
“If that’s what interests you most, then of course,” Julian says.
“Are we agreed, Katherine daughter of Mnemosyne?” Horace asks, laughter in his eyes. “My information for yours?”
Is that all he wants? Really? I have a hard time believing it, but I don’t want to reject his offer.
“I, um… all right,” I say. “Sure.”
Horace smiles, baring twin rows of very white, very sharp teeth.
Avatar of Orpheus
Horace leads us to an alcove hollowed out in the wall of the grotto. In the middle of the alcove rests a low table surrounded by worn cushions. He places his bowl and his knife on the table next to an array of stranger things—snake vertebrae, it looks like; a dish of feathers and human teeth; a small collection of discarded eyeglass lenses; and an age-spotted, circular mirror with a warped surface that hurts my eyes to look at. Horace kneels on a cushion in a compact fashion that wouldn’t look out of place in polite Japanese society. Julian, Jenni
fer and Haruko attempt the same. I try to imitate all of them, tucking my feet underneath myself and sitting with my spine straight. It takes considerable effort not to give up and go cross-legged.
“We will begin with my information,” Horace says. “If the souls you speak of are on this plane, I will locate them for you.”
Horace picks up a tooth from the dish, puts it in his mouth, and begins chewing. Chewing. The tooth. I try not to let my revulsion show on my face. Silently he chews, for at least a minute, before spitting out something into his palm. A paste. Made of powdered tooth and revenant saliva. He spreads it over the surface of the mirror. I shudder.
“We’ve brought some of their personal effects,” Julian says, pulling the duffel bag off his shoulder and opening it.
Horace raises an eyebrow. “Hmm,” he says, sounding perplexed, or maybe even amused, but he extends his hand to Julian. “Give them to me.”
Julian hands Horace a silver-framed hand mirror. “This belongs to Aya,” he says. “It’s one of her oldest, most sentimental belongings.”
Horace frowns. “Aya daughter of Zenas son of Thalia?”
“Yes,” Julian says.
“Who amongst you knows this woman best?” Horace asks.
Everyone looks at Julian.
“I do,” Julian says.
Horace passes him the knife and the bowl. “The ritual demands your blood. Fill it.”
Julian takes up the knife and cuts into his wrist without flinching. Concentration lines his face as he wills his wound to stay open while the bowl fills with his blood. When the bowl is full, Julian hands it back to Horace. Horace dips three fingers into it and smears Julian’s blood over the surface of the large mirror on the table. His eyelids droop as he gazes down at the mirror. He brings the bowl up to his lips and holds it there for a moment, not drinking. His eyebrows furrow. His eyes widen.
I look down at the mirror on the table. Something is churning beneath the surface, green-blue-black, like an oil slick, like a bruise, full of tiny mouths—mouths full of teeth—
Horace slams the bowl down on the table, sloshing blood everywhere. He stands up.
“What is this?” he demands. “Are you trying to kill me?”
“Of course not!” Julian says, taken aback.
