by G. D. Penman
Sully smirked. “I get it. I broke your toys and now you’re pissed off.”
Blackwood’s perfect composure did not flutter. “I do not believe that you do ‘get it,’ Iona. You have always had trouble grasping these concepts in the abstract. So allow me to make them more personal for you. Please, take a seat.”
With barely a word, he conjured an ornately carved chair out of the air in front of his desk. Sully couldn’t feel the magic that he had used, through the crushing presence of cold iron, but for it to have been so simple, the whole room must have been saturated with magic. There was more magic in the hells, and the Far Realms had so much that it had permanently mutated the residents of Manhattan into Magi. She wondered just where on that spectrum of planes this little enclosure was placed. She slumped into the seat with a bored yawn and then went back to staring past Blackwood.
“There are two abiding theories among historians about the way that events unfold. One is that there are social trends which gradually blossom into inevitable results. I can understand the appeal of this particular theory, especially for academics—after all, it entirely absolves the individual of any responsibility. The world has gone awry because of an amorphous trend rather than the work of any one person. I imagine that this is rather how you Catholics view religion. Anyway, the other theory—the one that I must profess to subscribe to after my many years of practical work in this field—is that there are great men, individuals who, despite being born in many different circumstances, have such a strength of will that they can reshape reality to match their vision. Alexander the Great. Julius Caesar. Queen Victoria. These individuals are the pivot points on which history can be swung down a new course.” He frowned slightly as Sully went on ignoring him.
“The first time that I killed you was in the late 80s, I believe. You had fulfilled your mother’s wishes and rallied the free people of Ireland to your cause, leading an uprising against the British occupation and successfully driving our forces out. You looked terribly young in the ragtag uniform that your little militia had stitched for you. Terribly young and terribly proud. I believe that you had a wife at the time, a young lady about three years your junior. She was part of the Ophiran International Brigade that had rallied to your cause. Black as night yet cute as a button. The two of you were quite the charming couple.” He smiled faintly, lost in his memories.
“It wasn’t the first time that we had to resort to extreme measures to counter an Irish uprising. You are a very resilient people. It is commendable, if a little wearing. I met you on neutral territory, The Isle of Man, I believe, and we discussed your terms of secession from the Empire. Or rather, you believed that we were discussing terms, while I gathered all of the necessary information to complete the wish that would rid the world of your little insurrection. You can imagine my surprise when we discovered that you couldn’t simply be wished out of existence. Your mother is a very enterprising woman, she sold herself quite highly. Not only were you impossible to remove, your magic could not be snuffed out either and the same seems to have been true of your rebellious streak. I may have some contempt for the way that you have interfered in the great game, but given the correct resources, I believe that your mother would have been a grand contender. It is unfortunate that she was born in a swamp rather than in a seat of power. I can only imagine the damage that she could have done if she had been given stewardship of a place like this. But I digress . . .”
He registered Sully’s bored expression and sighed. “Alas, we find that this personalization of the grand work remains too abstract to concern you. This Iona is too distant from you to excite any sense of kinship?”
Sully continued to stare ahead blankly. He pressed on as if she were listening. “The rebellion was undone and you were directed away from your mother’s tutelage at a younger age. Combined with your natural inclination against authority figures, you can imagine our surprise when you joined the navy. We had hoped that this indicated a natural improvement in your disposition and a possibility that you would become a contributing member of society. Of course, it also provided us with ample opportunities to redirect your anger. We placed you on the front lines of our conflict with the Mongols, on the assumption that your hatred might be diverted toward the Orientals, or that you might have an unfortunate accident in the line of duty, allowing us to stop tracking your every movement. Imagine our dismay when you relocated your rebellion to our colonies in the Americas.”
He tipped his head to one side until he caught Sully’s eye, then offered up another thin-lipped smile. “That would have been the second time that I killed you. 2005, I believe? The quagmire that you had created was considerably more complex but thankfully we found that you were once more at the epicenter of it. We did not try to remove you or your power on that occasion, nor did we make any grand sweeping changes to the world. Such things are not necessary when there is only a single course to be corrected. The woman that I killed then would have been in her late thirties, I suppose. Almost the you of today. That Iona had shed the Irish from her name, cut off her curls and married some American woman. A blonde in the mold of what I believe you colonials call “cowgirls.” This would be the Marie that you are still pursuing in our current iteration? Well, not quite the same Marie, of course, some adjustments had to be made to ensure that you remained unstable. And that you would not renew your convivial relationship with the United Nations.”
Sully leapt over the desk and had his stupid bloody cravat in her hands before he could let out a yelp. She hammered her forehead into his face, but instead of the satisfying crunch that she had expected there was just pain. Pain and the sound of a thunderclap. The spell flung her back across the Archive to land in a heap next to the portals and the redcoats. They hoisted her boneless body back into the seat as she tried to blink the blinding lights from in front of her eyes.
Blackwood was resting his elbows on the desk and his chin on his hands when he finally came into focus. “I am glad to see that we have finally made an emotional connection, but I would strongly advise you to keep your hands to yourself in the future. In the current scenario I have magic and you do not. Perhaps this will be a learning experience for you. A glimpse at how the other half lives, scared and powerless while people like you burn the world down on a whim.”
“Fuck you,” she slurred.
That damned smile again. “I don’t believe either of us has the appropriate inclination for that.”
“Why are you telling me all of this shit? What do you want?”
He leaned a little closer. “I simply need you to guide me through the chain of events that led us to this moment. I need you to tell me how the island of Manhattan was returned from the far planes where my predecessors deposited it. I also need you to tell me how you defeated my useful acquaintance Adolphous DiNapoli, although I will readily admit that is more out of a personal interest than any true necessity.”
After a long silence Sully cackled. “You don’t know? I thought you’re meant to have spies everywhere? I thought a mouse couldn’t fart in the colonies without His Majesty hearing about its inferior aroma. Some spymaster you are.”
“If you would be so kind as to walk me through the events, I will be happy to ensure that your next iteration has a more comfortable life. We can restore your wife to her previous state of vitality, find you an isolated ranch in the old United Nations perhaps? I understand that you have some inherent urge to hunt, and the game there will be a good match for your abilities. Wouldn’t you like a comfortable life with the one you love, Iona? Wouldn’t you like peace?” He peered at her with a querulous eyebrow raised.
“Sounds like peace is going to cost me too much, if you’re trying this hard to sell it.”
“Ah, but you would not even know that you had paid,” he chuckled, “To you it would seem that your life was going on as normal.”
Sully smiled. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Even if I told you everythin
g. Which I won’t, because it’s the only reason I’m still alive. You don’t have any demons to make a deal with.”
He sat back and crossed his arms. “You and your Manhattanite friends actually furnished us with a rather neat solution to both of my current annoyances—your recalcitrance and the matter of wishes. We may not know precisely how you drew that island back from the Far Realms, but the channel that you opened between the planes remains quite permeable. We have been in contact with the residents of the Far Realms since the moment that the Americas descended into chaos. The beings that dwell there are more powerful than you would believe. As the demons are to human men, so are they unto the demons. Our experimentation with them has been limited but successful so far. Most importantly, we have discovered that they can and will quite readily overwrite demonic wishes. You thought to sever us from the source of our power, and instead you have handed us the keys to the kingdom. The whole world is ours for the taking now. Your demonic allies quail before the Fair Folk and they will not dare to return to our world. In one blow we can create a perfect Empire and rid ourselves of any hint of demonic influence once and for all. Best of all, the Fair Folk do not possess the demons’ chaotic and emotional nature. They are beings of pure reason, much more fitting allies for the greatest of all empires.”
Sully grinned. “None of which is going to matter, because I’m not going to talk.”
Blackwood smiled back at her. “I must apologize once again, Iona, for I haven’t been entirely forthright with you. The purpose of this exercise was not to share information with you, although it was nice to have someone to talk to. I am sure that you can imagine that this is a lonely life, and there are so few people that I come across that could grasp the magnitude of my work. No, the reason that I am telling you all of this is to prime you for interrogation. It is necessary for you to be thinking about the details of the time preceding your retrieval of Manhattan, and for you to be sufficiently emotionally compromised that you will be unsuccessful in hiding those details. You see, I rather suspected that you wouldn’t talk to me, but I am nothing if not a fair man.” He smiled. “I wanted to give you the opportunity to choose the right path. Before you spoke to him.”
Sully’s magic was bound deep down within her and her senses extended no further than the limits of her skin. She had not felt the second portal opening. She had not even sensed the thing approaching. She leapt out of her seat when she caught a glimpse of it in the periphery of her vision, then she scrambled back over the desk. Unthinking. Desperate to escape.
In the brain of every human being there is some small part that still lives in the forests where mankind first came to be. The part that forces them to freeze, if only for a moment, when they hear the howl of a wolf, or to jump when they see the scuttling of a spider. That primal fear took hold of Sully when she saw the creature looming over her chair. It bypassed her brain, moving her body as the fear screamed that the thing she was looking at should not exist.
She was relieved to realize that she herself hadn’t screamed, but she had to clamp her hand over her mouth when she saw the Fair One move for the first time. She wanted desperately to look away, but she was petrified by the thought of what it could do when it was out of her sight.
It loomed over her even now, almost double her height but so thin and spindly that it looked like it should sway with each movement. There was no color anywhere upon its bare rubbery skin—things that lived their whole lives in darkness deep beneath the earth might not be so pallid and dead looking. Corpses didn’t look as dead as it did. Its arms stretched down past the sexless joining of its legs to reach its knees. Too many fingers on each hand were spread and swaying like the tentacles of some deep-sea squid. Sully forced herself to look up into its face, even as tremors and nausea vied to distract her. She had never backed down from a fight, and it would take more than her own brain screaming in terror to make her back down now.
Two huge black almond-shaped eyes dominated the creature’s swollen head and though it had no mouth, she could hear its voice hissing into her head uninvited. “I shall extract all that is needed from you directly. Then on to the experiments. Your master has given you to us freely in exchange for this service. Do not give in to fear, your suffering will last only a moment at a time.”
November 10, 2015
Blackwood had gone back to his paperwork, and the white thing had driven Sully through the chamber with the threat of its proximity until they reached a space that was clear of furniture and files. It drew walls up from the floor around the two of them and then sealed Sully inside an enclosed space so that her screams could not distract Blackwood from his work. The Fae did not have names, as those were a by-product of emotion; and besides, Fae rarely gathered in one place in sufficient numbers for it to be necessary to designate beyond pronouns. Sully knew all of this, because the creature was still hissing into her head. Every thought that crossed its mind forced its way into hers. It explained that this was how the Fae communicated and that soon that communication would be a constant exchange of ideas flowing both ways, once she was acclimated and primed to share. It was obviously some kind of magic, but Sully was cut off from her own and had no way to defend herself. The creature advanced on her when there was a lapse in communication, driving her back into the corner of her perfect white cell.
Sully refused to scream, even when it reached for her with those dead-spider fingers. It didn’t hurt when it brushed them over her face; in fact, the pain that had been her constant companion for days started to fade almost immediately. Huge black eyes still filled her vision. “The damage here is deeper. I must touch it to heal your wounds.” Sully nodded wordlessly, still trying to keep her shaking in check. This time, when the fingers brushed over her shoulder there was discomfort, then a dull ache. When she couldn’t bear it anymore, she looked down and she could see those awful fingers inside her, burrowing into her through the tattered remains of a Hawaiian shirt. It whispered as it worked. ”I must heal your wounds so that you understand that you are utterly powerless. Even your body is not your own. Even your pain can be taken from you. I can heal or harm you as I see fit and there is nothing that you can do to change this fact. You are nothing.”
Sully tried to wrench away but the fingers were still lodged inside her shoulder, flesh merging into flesh as if they were one creature. She lost control and vomited, but there was nearly nothing in her stomach. A tiny splatter of bile decorated the plain white walls and Sully couldn’t help but feel that that was a tiny victory. The Fae turned to look at the stain, then turned back to Sully. If there were expressions on its face, Sully couldn’t see them. “Your wounds are healed and now I will leave you here to become afraid. You will contemplate the things that I will do to you when the waiting time has elapsed. This fear will lead you to speak sooner. As it has with our previous subjects. You will not know where I am, or if I can hear your thoughts. I will be close, and I will return later than you would expect but sooner than you would hope. Very few subjects manage to sleep, but if you do, I will enter your dreams.”
It conjured a door into the wall with a simple gesture, then ducked almost double to pass through. It didn’t need to look back at Sully. The door made an ominous clunk as it closed, but Sully ran over to try it anyway. It was locked.
In the center of the room, Sully slumped down and sat cross-legged to take stock of her situation. She was no longer injured, which was the good news. The Fae could toy with human bodies like a child with modeling clay, which was the bad news. She was still shaking but now that the Faerie was out of sight her fear was starting to recede. She clambered up onto her knees to check her pockets. She had two pounds in loose change, which probably wasn’t enough to bribe anyone with. She had the clothes on her back which had seen better days and a half-decent pair of boots. She had nothing that she could use as a lock-pick to get the damned shackles off and her magic back and then blast her way out of this cell. The cold iron felt he
avier than a normal metal should, but Sully supposed that might just be emotional weight. The honesty of the Fae was pretty refreshing after listening to Blackwood talk himself around in circles. It was leaving her here so that she could get scared. That was where it had made its fundamental mistake, because outside of that initial awful gut reaction, Sully didn’t get scared. She got angry. The longer that she sat there thinking about everything that Blackwood had said, and the Faerie had threatened, the angrier she got. Sully’s magic and her anger had always felt inexorably connected. When she was enraged, she could feel her magic crackling beneath her skin. Now that she was separated from her magic, she was surprised to find that less of it had been about power, and more of it had been about purpose. She didn’t sit and plan her escape. She didn’t let her thoughts drift to any ideas that she might have had about ways out of the current predicament. Instead she just experienced the slowly simmering rage until she drifted into a shallow stiff sleep for a few minutes at a time, resurfacing for just long enough to stoke the flames of fury before drifting off again.
Sully heard the door to her cell opening, but she kept her eyes closed. She could not afford to flinch. She could not afford to be afraid. Fear was not going to carry her through to the other side of this.
