When at last we stop, I punch her hard in the stomach and scramble to my feet, lunging after the journals. Stuffing them down the front of my jacket—I hear the cock of a gun.
“You don’t know when to give up, do you?” Flossie seethes.
I whirl around to find her behind the snout of a lady’s silver pistol. Her eyes are small and mean. Twigs sprout like wires from her hair. Muck streaks her sapphire coat. Her harelip is torn and bloodied.
“Stubborn little bitch, aren’t you?” she spits.
“I could say the same of you.” My eyes narrow.
“But you won’t, because in a moment you’ll never speak again.” She stalks toward me, closes in, pistol wobbling in her shaky hands. “Pity Urlick isn’t here to see this.” She squeezes one eye shut, sizing me up over the barrel of the gun. “I so wanted to see his expression as I put a bullet through your heart. Or perhaps I should wait and kill you both together, like the traitors you are. So much more Romeo and Juliet that way, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t play stupid with me. You know very well what you’ve done. Before you, Urlick and I were perfectly happy.” Her brows dance wickedly over her eyes. “All my life I’ve wanted only one thing. Someone to love me. I always thought that someone would be Urlick—until you showed up and ruined everything! You and your pet name and your fancy face and your whorish way of dress!” Her eyes traipse up and down my frame, stopping to judge my short skirt in the middle. “Everything was fine between us until you came and stole his affections from me.”
“I stole nothing. You never had them—”
“That’s not true!” Her bloody lip quivers. “You know nothing of him! Nothing of me! Nothing of us—”
“I know even with me out of the way he will never love you, because he never did—”
“Shut up and hand over the journals you filthy, lying wench.”
“What do you want with the journals? I thought you only wanted me dead?”
“Stop talking and hand them over.” She cocks the hammer of the gun. Something rustles in the trees.
Behind her head I see the lights of their eyes glowing white through the darkness. A thick grey cloud forms behind her, rising wave-like out of the fog. Gnarled fingers curl, reaching for her. Lizard-like tongues lick the air.
I search the trees over my head to see more peering down on me. Fiendish eyes track our every move.
“Flossie,” I say, breathlessly. “You need to listen to me—”
“I’m done listening to you.”
“It’s the Turned,” I say. “They’ve tracked us. You must believe me.”
A low, throaty moan spirals past, splitting into two by the end of the clearing, doubling back. Flossie’s head jerks, tracking the sound as it swoops back over her head.
“We can’t let them surround us.” I shiver. “If we don’t move soon, we’re dead.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because I speak the truth and you know it. Now put the gun down and run with me. It’s the only chance we’ll have.”
“And if I don’t?”
“We’ll both be eaten.”
“You lie! Just as you always have.” She raises the gun and prepares to shoot me. Another moan ricochets through the trees.
Flossie’s head shoots up. A hand lands on my shoulder. I twist away. Laughter breaks through the trees. Before either of us can draw another breath, the mist behind her comes alive. The faces of twenty or more gape-mouthed ghouls swoop and swirl about her head and mine.
They cackle and howl, poking us, taunting us, like cats worrying mice before a feast. Flossie screams, punching at the air, dropping the pistol to the ground.
I lunge for it, sending a warning shot off above my head to clear the air of spirits, and turn to run, but Flossie drags me back. I've no choice. It's either her or me.
Turning, I throw my hands into her chest, saving myself—sacrificing Flossie to the Turned.
A look of horror etches across her mole-ridden face as I turn to run. Bertie catches up with me by the end of the clearing. I throw a leg over his frame and ride away as fast as I can, haunted by the sound of Flossie’s screams as they drag her off across the forest floor to feed.
Fifty one
Eyelet
My feet are as wobbly as jelly beneath me. It’s all I can do to pedal. I push on for the Core, praying Bertie’s got enough wind left in him to get me there. We don’t dare stop. He takes over quickly, sensing my exhaustion, doubling our pace through the trees.
“Thank you,” I whisper, leaning over him.
Bertie groans, then sighs with relief.
He zigzags his way through the forest, avoiding stumps and slicks. I’m thankful he knows where we’re going. At least I hope he does.
The air suddenly grows too hot, too thick, too hard to breathe. The lining of my lungs burns. The forest is steadily growing hotter, yet there’s no sign of fire. I don’t understand what’s happening.
I pedal on, the lace trim on my skirts withering to nothing in the infernal wind, as if they’ve melted off the fabric’s edge.
“Bertie!” I shout. “What is this? What’s happening?”
Bertie shudders, struggling to breathe, the lacquer from his handlebars peeling.
I look up to see a green beam of light radiating through the trees, shooting up from the ground in a perfect circle. It cuts through the dense fog, illuminating the heavens above in a ring around the Core—or what’s left of it—creating a halo around the rubble. Heat emanates in waves from it sides, scorching out into the forest.
“Oh, no,” I gasp. “No. No no. This can’t be happening. We’ve got to get there, Bertie. We’ve got to stop this, quick!” I jump on the pedals, leaning out over the handlebars, my skin bubbling from the heat.
A churn of gears, and the earth on either side of the door to the Core tears open, revealing two giant holes. The Crookes tube appears through a third, in the middle, just behind the door. The earth cracks and breaks all around it. The ground trembles as the Crookes tube rises up out of the burrow, cradled in its metal stand, the needle-nosed snout aimed at the Heavens. “Good God,” I gasp.
I race harder, Bertie gasping as I pour on the speed. The closer we get, the more the sulfuric stench of the Vapours turns metallic, stinging my nostrils and pulling away my breath.
Tree limbs steam and smolder. Voltage jumps.
“Oh, God! It’s happening!” I fall back on the seat. “The machine, it’s been activated!”
The ground shakes beneath, throwing the cycle’s tires into a wobbly mess. I nearly lose control. From out of the slats in the earth around the entrance to the Core rise two gigantic mechanical arms. Massive hands stretch from the ends of them, reaching creakily skyward. Each holds an enormous brass bar—a conductor—like the ones mounted on the front of the original Illuminator. Circular canisters of silver powder appear next, as long and tall as rooftops.
“Fairy petrol,” I say, in disbelief. “Hundreds of thousands of pounds of it.”
I bend my head into the scorching wind, driving Bertie forward. My hair blows back from my shoulders, from the force of the massive spinning disks as they rise. The Illuminator.
We’re running out of time.
Wires crackle at the sides of the disks. Sparks leap. Lightning jumps the length of the wires onto cables connected to the main structure.
“Urlick!” I power the cycle forward in a burst of speed. “Urlick! Get out of there!”
Bertie balks as we approach the rim of green light. I leap from the cycle, dashing through it alone. “URLICK!” I scream, searching for him. “URRRRLICK! NOOOoooooo!”
My eyes land on him struggling with Smrt near the edge of the ravine, backing slowly toward the frothy black cauldron of Embers.
The machine zaps and crackles.
Sparks fly.
Electricity jumps.
The conductors overhead sizzle.
>
A flash of lightning slinks snake-like up the sides of the metal toward the top of the structure. If it jumps from the bolts to the tip of the Crookes tube, it’s over. We’re all goners.
I can’t let that happen. Won’t let that happen.
Snaggled wires wince and seethe.
I turn and race for the stairs of the Core, fling open the door, and fly down them, bursting into the back room, the floor bouncing beneath me, the Illuminator quaking.
Another arc of lightning cracks, shooting through the holes in the domed ceiling, up the structure toward the conductors.
I sprint for the machine, voltage jumping beneath my skin, and lunge at the controls. Wrapping my hands tightly around the lever, I pull with all my strength.
Nothing happens.
The lever’s stuck.
It doesn’t even budge.
Anchoring my feet, I try again, throwing all my weight behind it. “Please,” I shout at the sky, arcs flashing all around me. “Help me, please. Don’t let this happen.”
The giant Crookes tube tilts slowly into position, and I gasp. Arcs jump all around. I hold my breath and release the lever. It’s too late. I can’t stop it now.
Unless —
If there wasn’t any Crookes tube—
It would produce a harmless flash!
I abandon the lever and race up the stairs, out of the Core, and back through the beam.
“Bertie!” I shout over the howling machine. “Bertie! Come quick!”
Fifty two
Urlick
I see Eyelet disappear through the beam, running toward the Core. If anyone can stop this, she will. Smrt connects with my jaw.
I stumble backward, my boots teetering over the edge the ravine. The heat of the Embers burns at my back. Smrt winds up in front of me. He catches me with a quick clip to the jaw, and wrenches my neck to one side. “You’ve outlived your usefulness,” he sneers, crushing my windpipe with his thumb. “It’s time for you to die.”
“After you,“ I hiss, prying his fingers from my neck. I wrap my hand around his. Hate bulges from his beady black eyes as I strengthen my grip. “One thing you should learn about me. I never give up.”
I throw a jab to his gut and he buckles to his knees.
“Hand over the vial.” I breathe through gritted teeth.
“I’ll die first,” he gurgles.
“You’ll die, all right.” I curl up my fist, delivering another right to his cheek. His head bobs left then right. Blood splatters in a trail to the very brink of the ridge.
“Hand it over.” I shake him, hauling him up by the scruff.
“I can’t.” He spits blood through his teeth. “I haven’t got it.”
A sinking thought pours over me. Perhaps he lost it in our scuffle. Perhaps Flossie made away with it, too. She couldn’t have. There wasn’t time.
“You lying bastard!” I shout, pounding him again.
Smrt leans to avoid my blow, stumbling sideways, the heel of his shoes hooking on a rock. He tumbles backward, falling hard to the ground, landing on his rump. The vial pops from his breast pocket.
It skitters across the dirt, heading toward the lip of the ridge.
I lunge, grasping for it, falling over Smrt. He dives beneath me, reaching for it as well. The vial bounces past me, dancing on his fingertips.
My heart stalls in my chest.
“Noooo!” Smrt screams, as the vial trickles through his fingers, over the side, tumbling length over length into Embers.
All the blood in my body turns to ice.
I hover over him, frozen.
Sparks fly up from the ground all around us. Lightning bolts snap overhead.
Adrenaline pulses through me like a drug. I clutch him by the throat and drag him to his feet, suspending him in the air.
“No, please!” he rasps, kicking his feet, clawing at my wrists like a frightened animal. “I can help you. We can make more!”
“I don’t need your help!”
“Are you sure?” A wicked light burns in his eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t cost Eyelet her life.”
“Which life?” I seethe. “The one you would have gladly taken from her?”
I tighten my grip and swing him out over the ridge, my arm trembling under his weight.
“No! Please,” he wheezes, clinging to my wrists. “I beg you. Spare me!”
“As you spared so many others?” I shake.
“Tell me”—my eyes narrow—“how does it feel to be on the wrong end of power?”
He gurgles, feet twitching. I close my eyes. Let out a breath. And release my grip.
Cringing as he slips through my fingers...
His haunting screams ratchet up my spine,
As he sinks below the mist,
Spiraling to the bottom,
The endless bottom.
Of the nothingness,
The Hell,
That lurks below.
Fifty three
Eyelet
A boom shakes the earth. The ground snaps out from under my feet like an unruly child’s flicked a blanket. I’m tossed in the air like a rag doll. I land meters away in a bruised heap. Heart pounding, I hike up my skirts and stumble forward, trying to remain upright in the aftershock.
“Bertie!” I scream. “ Bertie, please! Hurry!”
He races up, and I jump aboard. “I need you to fly!” I shout above the roaring machine. “Like you’ve never flown before!”
Bertie shudders as I dive on the pedals, bursting through the glowing green rim into the center of the Core. I circle, trying to amp up our speed. Then using the door of the Core as a ramp, I yank up on the handlebars and deploy the wings, praying.
Bertie sputters. His wings slap the ground first before he catches any wind. He flaps furiously, working hard to pull us up.
“Higher!” I shout, as we circle the structure. Bolts of lightning graze his wing tips. “Hurry, Bertie! Hurry!” I shout as he climbs. The whir of the giant glass plates pushes him around. He fights against the friction, his hydrogen stores plummeting. The gasket gasps. The needle falls. The canister reads near empty.
Electricity lashes around my head, whipping to the top of the structure.
I tear at my clothes. The heat’s unbearable. It radiates off the structure in an endless burning wave. I wince as the hide bubbles from Bertie’s bones.
My skin feels as though it’s melting. Wires snap at us like angry dogs.
“Just a little farther,” I push Bertie. “We’re almost there!”
The Crookes tube glistens in its stand to my right. The point hovers close to my hand. If only I could...I reach out, my fingers brushing the glass. “Closer! Closer!” I shout.
Bertie balks, caught in a gust of wind. I lurch to one side.
“Hurry, Bertie! We’re running out of time!”
He recovers, throwing himself into a turn. Tightening his rotations, he circles the structure, tipping his wings toward the tube. His hydrogen tank whisks dangerously close to the electric fire snaking around the structure.
A spark hits his wing, burning a hole in the hide. The elephant skin bursts into flame.
“Ten. Nine. Eight…” a countdown begins.
The Crookes tube shudders in its stand.
“Now, Bertie!” I shout. “It has to be NOW!”
Bertie swoops, making one last circle around the neck of the glass.
I reach, pulling up onto my knees on the seat.
Everything is suddenly too loud, too bright, too charged with energy.
An arc leaps beside me.
“Five. Four…”
I let go of the bars.
Lean out over the seat.
And hurl myself at the Crookes tube.
A flash ignites at my back, knocking the breath from my lungs. The palms of my hands meet up with the smoothness of glass—the Crookes tube topples from its stand.
I fall, spiraling through the center of the structure, my back to the earth, shards of broken
glass bouncing up all around me in a twinkling storm, my eyes fixed on something glorious—
“Three...Two…”
Through the cone of green light parting the clouds, I see another world—another universe—floating on the wind. A series of tiny islands—chunks of land all tethered together by plank-and-rope bridges. Each one kept afloat by a huge spinning paddlewheel. On top of each island sit the most glorious two-story thatch-roofed houses I’ve ever seen, on carpets of green grass, surrounded by white picket fence. Waterfalls spill clean water into private ponds. A yellow sun shines in a blue, blue sky, dotted with white cottony clouds. I close my eyes and open them again, expecting it to be a mirage. But it isn’t.
Limpidious.
It has to be.
It’s everything Father described and more.
The flash begins to fade.
The ground comes heavy and fast at my back.
I close my eyes and think of Urlick,
His image spinning with me,
And I brace myself for the crash.
Fifty four
Eyelet
Something appears out of the darkness. Feathers strike softly against my skin. The voice of a raven chattering pulls me to the surface. Where am I? What’s happened?
I reach up, pushing the gasmask from my face. How did I end up with this? My eyes spring open. Ravens loop in circles over top of me.
“Archie?” I try to sit up, but I can’t. My limbs are too heavy. My mouth is dry. My tongue is thick, as if I’ve been drugged.
I run my hands over the makeshift bed of twigs I’m lying in. My head rests on a pillow of leaves. I’m still in the forest. But I’m not sure if I’m at the Core. The structure, it’s gone.
I look around, for the remnants of the building, but the cloud cover’s too thick for me to see. The Turned. Have they taken me? Am I one of them?
Is this what my life is to be?
Archie spreads his wings, cawing over his shoulder, and I panic, thinking he sees the Turned. Instead, the rest of the flock arrives in a dither, swooping and circling, their chatter playing as musically as a zither in my head.
Lumière (The Illumination Paradox) Page 31
