Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  Despite her feet not wanting to cooperate, she slinked toward door number two. It opened—a good sign. Behind it, an utter abyss greeted her. The air was colder and dank smelling. Worse than the blackness of her cell, which she had at least seen in the light, traced and memorized with her body. The unknown dark was… She gulped back a wave of nausea as she crossed the threshold.

  She held the door open a crack with one hand and groped ahead with her foot. Garbage, cigarette butts, heavier, softer objects that might have been living once. Finally, she reached a step, and above it at waist height, she found a metal railing. The chipped paint sloughed off under her sweaty hand.

  The click of the door enclosing her in the prickling dark sounded very final. The screams were muffled though. Small mercies. Audrey released her invisibility cloak and began to climb on all fours, seeing with her hands. A single flight of stairs had never seemed so long. When she reached the top, she felt along the wall of the landing until she reached a corner and—thankfully—a door that opened without a fight.

  This hallway was dim. Eerily quiet, the screams sounded worse from a distance, like people were buried alive below her. Everything was newer and cleaner here too. Fresh air. Plants. A water fountain. Things people took for granted. The sounds of the city weren’t too far off and added a little starch to her spine.

  Almost there.

  Though clearly alone, she felt exposed, a ghost returning to the world of the living. Her throat tightened, and her legs burned with the need to run, but she channeled that instinct into another cloak. The air around her shimmered faintly as it snapped into place. Her bare feet still left grey prints on the pristine white tile.

  Banner’s office was through a set of double doors and unlocked. It smelled like him, cigars and dry-cleaning and two-day-old coffee. The lush carpet felt like sponge cake between her toes, and a private balcony looked over the gritty east bay. She rifled through the drawers of his shiny mahogany desk and found only the standard fare of files, prescription slips, office supplies, and a bottle of brandy. She considered swiping that but then decided it wasn’t worth it. Not when his lips might have touched it. Her search turned up nothing of note except for one small, ill-concealed key. She turned to scan the room for what it unlocked.

  If I were Dr. Banner’s secret stash, where would I be hiding?

  What if the necklace wasn’t here? What if he’d thrown it away or taken it somewhere else? She refused to succumb to the pang of loss burning up the back of her throat.

  A Romanesque sculpture in the far corner caught her eye. It looked heavy, but the carpet underneath it wasn’t bulging at all. She walked over and felt around it. Sure enough, the sculpture pivoted. Way too fancy for a government employee, not that she’d been fooled by that cover for a minute. A drawer with a brass lock was set into the back of the wooden podium at the bottom.

  Jackpot. Audrey knelt, twisted the key, and quickly rustled through the paperwork on top. Yes!

  Heart beating a fierce tattoo against her ribs, she snatched up her mother’s moonstone and slipped the beat-up silver chain over her head. She clutched it hard in shaking hands and closed her eyes, feeling the familiar, soothing song of the stone slip around her like a balm. Like home.

  The task of escaping was suddenly less daunting. The risk of capture less intimidating.

  Now just get the hell out of here.

  She was about to shove the papers and files back into the drawer when the sight of her name caught her attention. She flipped the top folder open and skimmed the first few pages of her file. Descriptions of her symptoms and a list of possible social disorders. Photographs of every one of her numerous distinguishing marks. Her responses to different “therapies,” including that goddamn electroshock. Audrey’s toes curled when she read a hand-scribbled note in the margin in a jagged scrawl: Objects in the room shaking. Telekinesis? Could explain effort required to restrain.

  Audrey’s breath hissed out. Fuckall. She thumbed through the rest of the stack of files, all about her except for one.

  A thin one marked Armstrong, Lilly. It was practically empty—no medical records, just a small notebook and a single photograph of a young girl with ancient eyes that were hard to fathom, even in flat black and white. Who was she? Audrey really didn’t have time to wonder or the luxury of caring, but she was frozen still by the image, cut deep by the haunted expression on the child’s face. Like looking into a mirror for the first time.

  Audrey, a small voice echoed in the recesses of her mind, and she stiffened, the hair on her neck bristling. Audrey slid the drawer closed and returned the key to the desk. Her brain sloshed a bit when she stood, and she could feel the last of her energy draining slowly away, fizzling and popping in her chest like wet firecrackers. She was running out of time. She swept up the files on her way out and rolled them into her T-shirt. She’d trash them when she got out. Burn them, her own form of therapy.

  She was almost to the stairwell when she heard the voice again, stronger this time, like a whisper right by her ear.

  Audrey.

  She whirled, blood thundering from her feet to her head and back, making her dizzy. She spoke on instinct. “Who’s there?”

  The entire floor was empty, and no one could see her. Maybe she really was going crazy.

  No. I’m here. The voice was small, faint, but it was real. No figment of her imagination could sound so broken. So weak. All the weakness had been beaten and burned and wrung out of Audrey a long time ago. She shook her head and turned back toward the stairwell door.

  Wait!

  Audrey’s feet tripped. Tired, and probably delirious, she looked down the hall again. Besides the offices and stairs, there were just three other doors. A janitor’s closet and a bathroom were clearly marked, but there was one more door at the far end. A steel door. With a window. How had she not noticed it before? She thought about walking up to it, looking in from the outside for once. But she didn’t want to see. She just wanted to put this whole place behind her. Get back on the road. Go somewhere warm and dry. She had it all worked out. She’d pick up enough cash in the city to get some clothes and food, maybe a shower and a bed for a night. Then she’d hitch to Alameda and bunk-bunny to Carson City or Tucson.

  Please…

  It was just lack of sleep. Nerves. The last of the meds wearing off. But if she didn’t reassure herself of that fact, Audrey had a feeling that voice would follow her, and she didn’t want any souvenirs of Parkview. Against her better judgment, she gritted her teeth and made her way on wobbly legs to the foreboding door. She paused in front of the hunk of steel and grimaced. This door was thicker and heavier than the ones downstairs, with two extra locks, one of them controlled by a keypad on the wall. She had the urge to rip it off the hinges but wondered if she had the strength for that now. Her reserves were almost tapped.

  This is silly, she told herself. Just plain stupid, Jack’s voice agreed. But she took a deep breath and slid the steel window open. Behind it was a thick plate of glass. At first, she only saw darkness, but then a glint of metal reflected the dim light behind her. A stainless steel table sat in the middle of the white room. Audrey blinked as her mind made sense of the image—a bundle strapped to the table. No, a body. A small, frail body with long, menacing needles protruding in all directions, hooked up to wires and machines. A pair of sharp, dark eyes glistened, piercing through the rough hide of Audrey’s heart.

  She bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from swearing out loud.

  Help me, the tiny voice said, though the child’s lips didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Her jaw was wired shut. Hard to tell it was a she, since her head had been shaved, but Audrey already knew. She recognized the face, the soul within fathoms older than it should have been.

  She shook her head, covering her lips with her fingers to keep from finally lending her voice to the chorus of screams. She couldn’t be hearing what she was hearing, seeing what she was seeing. After everything, it was just… too much.
/>   Please, Audrey, take me with you.

  Her legs threatened to give out underneath her. She pressed her hand to the glass, a brick of salt lodged in her throat. “I—”

  The ceiling pounded with a surge of electricity as the floodlights in the hallway came on in succession, momentarily blinding Audrey. Her concentration snapped, and her cloak dropped away. She blinked at her own reflection in the dark glass for a split second before the alarms rang out, startling all the air out of her lungs.

  Audrey! Please! I can hear them all. All of them, the voices. Make them stop!

  The elevator behind her jumped to life, coming up from the bottom floor.

  “I’m sorry,” Audrey said, backing away from the door, clutching her bundle of paper because it was the only thing she had to hang onto. The next breath she dragged into her lungs burned like raw fire. She tasted ash. “I’m sorry, Lilly.”

  Footsteps echoed at the other end of the hall, coming up the stairs. The elevator beeped. Audrey stumbled back into the office and locked the doors behind her.

  Audrey, don’t leave me.

  Shaking all over, Audrey fumbled with the lock of the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. I’m sorry, I have to, she thought, hoping somehow the voice inside her mind could hear her too.

  Cold, salty wind slapped her in the face and stole her breath, but she ignored the tremors gripping her body, hauled herself over the balcony railing, and turned around to look down. Forty feet below her, the parched lawn stretched across the neglected yard, sloping toward the rocks and water. Audrey clung to the railing and prayed she had enough strength to shield herself from the fall, or this was going to be the shortest escape in history. She took a deep breath, squeezed her eyes shut, and thought, I’ll come back for you, Lilly, I promise.

  Then she jumped.

  Her feet never touched the ground. One moment, she was falling, the world a swirl of grey and white. The next, a bullet of shadow swooped out of the low clouds, and an arm as solid as a steel band wrapped around her waist. It jerked her upwards like a fish on a hook. She dry-heaved at the sudden change of direction and reflexively shoved at her captor with her powers, but nothing happened. They lifted higher into the sky, Audrey’s feet dangling above the lights glowing farther and farther below.

  Her reflex to turn and fight battled with the sudden fear of being dropped, so she settled for kicking her legs helplessly and finally letting out a long-overdue scream. Fingers of cold marble closed over the back of her neck, and quicker than any hospital syringe, made her body go limp, no longer responding to her mind’s urgent commands. Even the last of her precious power in that dark, secret place started to siphon out of her.

  “What…what are you?” she said, right before she blacked out.

  Chapter Two

  Corvin was thankful to receive a call that morning. He hated the first day of a cycle of fresh initiates. There were always disturbances. Yelling, fights, alarms. Guards everywhere. General chaos that put his birds—and every other inhabitant of the Arcanum—on edge. He ducked out before dawn while things were still quiet, loaded up his Range Rover, and began the forty-mile trek to the Lower Trinity ranger station. Smoke took his usual place as co-pilot, perched on the back of the passenger seat, flinging sunflower seeds into Corvin’s lap.

  The back-forest roads were devoid of any signs of life less ancient than the sequoias. Only a pair of curious grey foxes, nervous new parents, crossed their path. If he hadn’t been so disturbed by Joanne’s message, they might have stopped to play for a while, to check on the kits and make sure there were no traps set nearby. Smoke liked the idea of a long walk, but Corvin kept driving.

  Bad shape, Joanne had said. Come soon.

  Joanne was fully capable of handling any wildlife situation she encountered in the course of her work, and though he had a feeling she liked having an excuse to call him, her tone had been unmistakable. Overwhelmed. His gut burned with the thought of what could rattle such a tough chip of a woman.

  She didn’t wait for him to park. As the gravel of the drive crunched under his tires, she was already making her way over, flashlight bouncing. Corvin grabbed his gloves. Smoke hopped onto his shoulder before he climbed out of the truck.

  “Mornin’,” Joanne greeted, politely shining the beam at his feet.

  Corvin glanced up at the sky with a grunt as he walked around to the back hatch and yanked out his large carrier. “Nearly.”

  “Sorry about the hour,” she said.

  “Show me,” he answered. Thankfully, she knew him well enough to not dillydally or make friendly conversation. One thing the two of them shared was a dedication to their jobs. Joanne wore it like a brand as sure as he did. Someone answering a calling, made for the cause they’d found. She seemed to embrace her duty, and he admired that. The silent understanding between them made their exchanges easier to endure. Easier than most.

  To his surprise, she didn’t lead him into the station, though they had an enviable setup for handling injured animals. They walked around the side of the building instead, and she angled down a narrow path deeper into the misty woods.

  Smoke ruffled his feathers questioningly. Corvin nodded, and the raven took off, a silent black streak against the steel-grey sky, disappearing into the thicker shadows of the evergreen canopy. He cawed back a few seconds later.

  Joanne slowed, pointing her light at a small shed ahead of them, lit from the inside by a single hanging bulb. Smoke perched on the eave, his head angled as if listening to something inside.

  Corvin turned to his silent guide with a questioning look.

  “It was the best we could do. She took off one of Miguel’s fingers and left the other one hanging by a thread. Every time I go near her, she makes a huge show of it. I’m afraid she’ll hurt herself worse.” Joanne worried at her lower lip and stared at the ground, her petite brow wrinkling.

  An awkward moment passed where Corvin wasn’t sure if she was waiting for him to say something, but he shrugged it off and knelt on the ground to retrieve a thick wool blanket, hood, and leather bracelets from inside the carrier.

  “I’d help—”

  “It’s fine,” he said, maybe a little too briskly. Joanne snapped her mouth shut and frowned down at him. “I prefer to do it alone. It’s better not to overwhelm her.”

  Joanne firmed her jaw and nodded. “Good luck, then.”

  He gathered his things without another word and approached the shed quietly enough not to startle but loud enough to not surprise the animal trapped inside. Smoke’s high-pitched warning call pierced his ears just as Corvin’s other senses made contact with the eagle.

  She was in very, very bad shape. Slashes of pain interspersed with panic blurred across his empathic senses. The animal behind that door was hanging on by an unraveling thread, desperate in a way that only comes when the end is near. Any efforts to use his gift to calm or soothe her at this point would be futile. He breathed in a deep lungful of loamy forest air and opened the door, steeling himself for what had to be done.

  He had to be swift and firm, just a hair’s breadth from brutal. Decisive, or he put them both at risk. Unyielding, or it would be too late to save her.

  She put him on the defensive immediately, coming at him screeching and beating her good wing, claws and beak ready to maim. Corvin took the barrage with his leather gauntlets and shoved her back, sweeping under her feet to keep the height advantage. She hit the floor hard and scrambled back, dragging a wing that was twisted beyond hope and appeared to be shredded. He swallowed down the swell of pain his powers soaked up, threatening to buckle his knees, and spread the blanket open.

  The eagle shrieked and attempted to ram and claw its way through the corner, all the time wheezing for breath and splattering blood on the floor and walls.

  They were running out of time.

  He lunged, holding the blanket wide, and pinned her down. She bucked and screeched bloody hell as he knelt to tuck the edges around her. He couldn’t bundle h
er with her wing like this, so he held her to the ground while he bound her feet and beak, then pulled the blanket back enough to inspect the wing.

  With so many bent and broken feathers, it was hard to tell how bad the flesh damage was. The bones felt intact and in the right places, so he did his best to tuck the wing back into position, reordering the damaged feathers into some semblance of a wing. He wound a piece of soft suede around her body, immobilizing it. Her heartbeat and breathing had slowed, and not in a good way. He could feel her slipping away as he bundled her tight and emerged from the shed.

  Joanne held the carrier open as he settled the bird inside. Even in the grey morning half-light, her bright eyes shone with wonder. She shook her head, grinning at him in a way that made Corvin’s neck tingle. If he had feathers, they’d be ruffling. “You’re a miracle worker.”

  He smiled faintly in return and shook his head. “Just have a special connection.”

  Joanne followed him back to the truck. “I guess so. Hey, maybe I could come and visit her when she gets a little better? I’d love to see your facility.”

  With the bird tucked safely away in the back, he stood with his door open, waiting for Smoke. Who was taking his sweet time. Corvin searched the sky.

  “Well.” Joanne clicked her flashlight off and tucked it in her pocket. She was wearing jeans, he noticed. They fit her muscular build a lot better than her normal uniform pants. Her hair was down too, wet, with a slight curl to it rather than in her usual braids or tight bun. She caught him looking and smiled, causing his cheeks to warm.

  He whistled. Smoke called from a tree behind him and swooped down. Damn bird. Corvin let him perch on his hand, then tossed him into the cab of the Rover without ceremony. He got in and started the engine, but Joanne stood there as if waiting for something.

  Niceties. Right.

  He rolled his window down as he popped the truck into gear. “Thanks for calling.”