by Oliver Atlas
“Excuse me?”
“In answer to your question,” he presses on, “I am experimenting to see if the source can provide the Cure outside of her current state.”
“And,” I growl, “what is her current state?”
“When a child—usually a girl with Type O blood—transitions into the initial phases of puberty, it is possible to achieve a sustainable double-infection, to integrate both living dead and undead cells in its body. This was important for the Faction because an iota of its blood allowed them to create a synthetic that could be injected into the living dead, rendering their blood temporarily solvent, thereby creating a virtually undetectable, unending supply of food. One syringe from the source could keep Sylvan fed for a year. In the past, it was preying upon humans that led to the vampires’ exposure and demise. Though superior in intelligence and strength, they were always ultimately at a loss, overwhelmed by our sheer numbers. By creating zombies—beings that could overwhelm us in turn, and which we too would destroy without blinking—the vampires solved more than the logistical problem of securing a safe food source. They united our moralities. In so doing, they united our destinies.”
A scowl has taken over my face and I can’t make it leave. “What. About. Zoe?”
“You mean ‘the source.’ Her life—its life—remains in a perpetual metamorphosis. It could take its first victim and actualize a vampire nature, which would eliminate its precious double infection, or I could do the same thing by administering a vaccine. The question I am seeking to answer, however, is whether or not it can still be the source without also being infected.”
“You’re saying you could heal her?”
“It, Mr. Prose, is beyond healing. Despite appearances, the source is probably as old as you are. Its cognitive development was stunted long ago and nothing will change that. What I am trying to determine is whether or not it must be protected from those of us who would be misguided by sympathetic emotions and try to administer a vaccine—or grow close enough to her that she might have an opportunity to feed.”
I shake my head subtly, barely controlling my anger. “If she’s infected and the vaccine will help her, it may also help her recovery. She may still be able to develop as a woman, as a person.”
Schlozfield smiles sadly and shakes his head too. “This is exactly what I am talking about, Mr. Prose. Given an opportunity, I would guess you might try to destroy our best chance of saving the world. You would sacrifice the many for the one. I’m surprised at you.”
“Ha!” I take a step toward the good doctor. His three surgical techs all step toward me in response, glaring. “I’ve got a surprise for you. I’m not going to let you practice this utilitarian bullshit on a little girl.”
“Oh, you’re not?”
“Listen, doctor,” I say, scrambling to regain some tact. “I’m grateful for your work and your gifts. I’m forever in your debt for saving Skiss. But there has to be a better way here. If obtaining the Cure requires keeping Zoe in some tormented half-life, then it’s not worth it. If we agreed to that we’d be just like the Faction. We’d simply have replaced their interests with ours. We’d be no better than spiritual vampires!”
Dr. Schlozfield folds his hands in front of his lab coat and twirls his thumbs. “I wanted to meet you, Mr. Prose. I wanted to thank you for your part in securing the source. You yourself have been a source of unforeseen good fortune. Now, if you will forgive me, I must ask you to give us some space. Our procedures will soon become increasingly . . . invasive . . . and it is clear enough that that would upset you. Perhaps Ms. Ruse and Ms. Moon will give you a tour of the Library. I know as a man of learning, you must be dying to see more of such wonder.”
I set my hand on Clementine. “I’m not taking a tour,” I say, seething. “I’m taking the girl.”
One of Schlozfield’s bushy brows arches with amusement. “Threatening anyone with your weapon would be a very poor idea, Mr. Prose. Much better to consider . . . hmm . . . putting up your dukes?”
“That’s it,” I mutter, drawing Clementine. “I’ll show you my dukes, you asshole.”
A flash of bright yellow erupts around me, a distant hiss of wind, a vague smell of seared hair. And everything goes black.
Chapter Sixty
Awakening
I wake to screams—anger, terror, alarm. Dozens of them echoing in the distance. I blink to soft light and darkness, to red hair and black.
“Blake!” Strong hands shake me. “Blake? Blake, wake up.”
I try to sit up but barely manage a groan. My body feels as though its joint have been fused together. My jaw feels wired shut. “What’s . . . wrong . . . with me?”
Milly’s blue eyes fill the world. “Besides being a hothead? Well, you drew your gun and triggered the library’s defenses—some kind of other-dimensional electrocution.”
“Blake?” It’s Skiss’s voice. And then the world is full of eyes like the night sky. “We need to get out of here. The Library isn’t safe right now.”
I try to say something sarcastic. I want to scoff, to spit scathing words that will cut down Schlozfield, but I can only manage a questioning grunt.
“Vargulf,” replies Skiss. “They waited until my father left with Yaverts to scout out a report of Mymar near the bookstore. Then they came—dozens of them, maybe hundreds. No one knows how they got in. My father said it’s never happened before. But they managed it. Many are still here, fighting the Librarians.”
“But . . . I . . . I just . . . ” My mouth won’t work. Spiritual electrocution must be nasty stuff. And I’m glad I can’t remember anything other than the burning smell. I want to reach up and check if I still have hair, but my arms won’t budge. I’m paralyzed.
Milly looks at Skiss and shakes her head. “We have to get out of here. We’ll have to carry him.”
“No,” I whisper. “My . . . knife.” I try nodding toward my ankle, where the dagger is strapped, but even that proves too much. Thankfully, though, Skiss knows what to do. In less than a minute she’s stuck me with its hidden needle, pumped me full of chlorotein, and I’m on my feet, feeling like a champion.
“Vargulf, eh? What happened to the library defense system? I know it works.”
“It only responds to weapons or the undead,” says Milly, already pulling me into a run.
For the first time, I notice our surroundings: an empty holding cell with tile walls and floors and prison bars along one wall. Apparently after my electrocution, Doctor Schlozfield had me imprisoned. Such a sweet guy. “The vargulf may be as dangerous as any gun or vampire, but they are simply who they are, natural creatures,” continues Milly as we pass into a shadowed hallway. “Many were once members of the Museum.”
“Hold on,” I complain. “I thought this was an ancient Library.”
“The Library is the place, the institution,” says Skiss, holding a shotgun very much like the one Yaverts won in Union Powder—which must mean someone has managed to turn off the Library’s anti-tech defenses. “The Museum,” she continues, “is the community who indwells it. The members call themselves the Muses.” She stops to dig through a shoulder bag, producing Clementine. “You’ll need this,” she says, handing me the gun. “I loaded it with silver.”
“Silver. Right . . . And why are the vargulf suddenly invading the Library?”
The ladies are merciful and don’t reply. They give me a second. The answer is obvious.
The answer is Zoe.
My shoulders tense. “Where is she?”
Milly spots movement ahead and sprays three bullets into the netherlight. “She was right where you left her, on the table. Malcolm and his men were trying to hold off an onslaught, but it looked hopeless. We heard one of the vargulf shout orders to find the Ranger, so we decided to come get you.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem.”
At the platform where Pastor Jon and I first landed, we find nothing but twisted bodies. Some are hairy and bristling with claws. Most a
re white-coated or dark-robed. The bed that held Zoe is broken in half and the little girl is gone. Next to the bed’s wreckage, we find Schlozfield sprawled on the tiles with a cowled Muse kneeling over him, attending to a ripped-up shoulder. The invigorating light that had fallen on everything has shifted, edging away, off the platform.
“They have her,” says Schlozfield when we reach him, coughing up blood as he does. “I thought . . . I thought they wouldn’t miss her so much now that—” His dark eyes flick to me and I can see him choking down whatever he was about to say. “Well, no matter. Lancaster will bring her back. And here,” he says, offering a vial to Milly. “The first fruits of the future.”
She takes it with reverent hands.
“The Cure!” manages Schlozfield through a sudden surge of pain. “It can be done! Help find the source and bring it back to me.”
I’m torn between an urge to kick the man and to stand in awe of what he’s claiming. If the vial in Milly’s hands is truly the Cure . . . the world can change. The lost can be found. The living dead can be human again. But then, for the first time, I wonder about those zombies whose bodies are complete tatters, who are little more than skeletons animated by tendons, who are simply stomachs attached circuitously to teeth. If I thought the moral challenges that came with shooting zombies were weighty, I’m suddenly struck by the realization that the challenges of healing them might be even greater. When, after all, does death become the loving decision? Where is the line at which we must accept the reality of death and entrust ourselves, finally, into the hands of mystery, admitting that our fate is beholden to wonders and terrors beyond our control? I start to shiver, chilled by the idea that ‘the Cure’ has always been akin to ‘the West’: a panacea, a Holy Grail, a symbol of mythical, momentary escape from the maddening fact of human mortality and universal entropy. Even for those who enshrine and protect the notion that the heart of life is Good, there seems to be something in the human heart that wants to resist entrusting the beauties and wonders of being to an unprovable hope in an invisible grace.
Caught up in such thoughts, I don’t kick Schlozfield. Instead, I kneel down and look him in the eyes. “Malcolm, if a place like this Library exists—if light like that exists,” I point over my shoulder to the vaulted hall of beams, “then how can you and your way and your wisdom be our best hope for living into the beauties of life? Isn’t it possible, given these wonders, that the boldest and wisest exploration of the universe will come by respecting the boldest and wisest dreams we’ve known? I’m talking about reverent awe, Malcolm. I’m talking about love. If you make one person into an it in order to preserve the rest of us, you make us all into its. And you throw us all into a lie. Because we’re not its. We’re mysteries—mysteries made and called to engage in mysteries. I don’t mean we throw science and reason to the wind. What I mean is that we remember that science and reason came to us on the wind.”
With those words, the cowled Muse turns toward me. The shadowed face is an old person’s, black and wrinkled. I can’t tell if it’s a man’s face or a woman’s. But I recognize the eyes. The eyes shine with the curiosity of a child. I smile and stand up. “I guess that’s all to say that if someone does manage to bring Zoe back and you don’t treat her like a person, I’ll take her away. If I have to become a vargulf and join the Faction to do it, I’ll take her away.”
And then I walk away, toward the edge of the platform. I don’t know where I’m going or how to exit the Library. Screams and snarls still echo throughout the great chamber. The vargulf may have taken Zoe, but apparently some came for more. Some came for me. Clementine is out now and I don’t feel like much of a pacifist.
“Blake?”
My feet are at the edge of the giant well. I can see dust floating through the fiery splendor of the great center sunbeam. Milly steps up beside me. I can feel Skiss waiting behind, no doubt guarding us with her big shotgun. “How do we get out of here?” I ask. “We need to help find her.”
“Blake, I don’t think Lancaster will be going after Zoe.”
My head jerks toward her. “But Schlozfield just said—”
“No one knows where they took her. And by the time Lancaster returns . . . what little trail there is will be gone.” Milly’s hands curl nervously around the vial of blood-serum that Schlozfield claimed to hold the Cure. The moment reminds me of something . . . of another vial in Milly’s hands not long ago.
The vial given to her by Maplenut.
The vial meant to allow the Faction to track her.
The vial sought by a band of three ruffians who had a gatling gun mounted atop a tower in Durkadee. My mind is racing frantically, straining to make a vital connection . . . .
Milly takes my arm. “You can’t blame yourself. And you have to let her go. There’s no way to find Zoe anymore, Blake. But there is a chance to, well . . . Blake . . . I have to tell you something.”
Ignoring her awkward efforts to console me, I take Milly’s arms. “I know where she is.”
Excitement—or is it terror?—flashes on Milly’s face. “You do?”
“Yes,” I whisper, leaning close so none of Schlozfield’s people hear. “She wasn’t taken by the Faction. Those vargulf were with Duchess Desreta.”
Milly laughs darkly. “That’s absurd.”
“No. It’s not. I heard one of them in Powell’s minutes before Jon and I jumped here. He asked a clerk how to find Victorian Horror. It was the leader from Durkadee—I know it! That means they’re heading for the Dredge.” Until now, I’ve merely been speaking my dawning theory aloud, trying to convince myself, but now I’m starting to feel my own certainty. “They’re heading for Sumpter Dredge. How do we get out of here?”
BOOM!
Crouching in an instant, my heart running rampant, I spin with Milly to find Skiss’s shotgun spouting fire. Down the line of her barrel, a nine-foot vargulf charges toward us across the platform. Skiss fires once, twice, three times—but the canine monster dodges and dives with preternatural anticipation. Milly raises her pistol and fires too, sending a barrage of bullets straight into the beast’s chest. Only ten yards away, it stumbles and roars, rearing back and preparing to spring. Skiss’s shotgun is now a bat in her hands. Milly fires again and again, succeeding in little more than causing the snarl on the wolfish face to deepen. With a howl, the beast leaps for Skiss, my hand flashes forth, and Clementine sends three slugs straight into the creature’s heart. It crashes forward, flips twice, and flops to the tile, dead.
“Let’s go,” I say, forcing myself to breathe.
I’m anxious to be after Zoe. I’m anxious to be back under the sky. I’m anxious to get away from the hairy beast I’ve just killed, because I have a feeling it will soon revert to a form that reveals I’ve not only killed a monster, but a human as well.
Chapter Sixty-One
Escape & Pursuit
Getting out of the Library proves simple enough. Skiss leads us back into the tunnel of shelves, where a false shelf opens to reveal another replica of the Rare Books Collection room. She closes the door behind us, clicks on the lights, and, once again, my navel and nose feel as though they’re doing surrealist painting impersonations. The distant screams and gunfire of the Library quickly fade. They’re replaced by a whoosh of blood to the head, then by the comforting sound of pedestrian shuffling. We open the door and we’re back at the top floor of Powell’s. There’s no mayhem, no vargulf, no vampires. At least none that we can recognize. We’re back in a world full of lackadaisical bookworms and windows filled with gray light from a single sun and a simultaneous moment.
“Come on,” says Skiss, hurrying toward the stairs. “I know what to do.”
I’m hoping she knows how to find her father. No matter how long a head start the Duchess’s lackeys have on us, Lancaster’s dreadful stallion could catch them. But after we’ve found our horses at the front hitching post and galloped west for a mile, I doubt we’re headed for Lancaster Moon. As our horses race into Portland’s
west hills, I holler out to ask where we’re going.
Skiss only leans farther forward on her white stallion, pushing him faster. I know that gesture well. It’s the universal frantic equestrian sign for shut up and trust me.
Trust.
Trust, trust, trust.
Okay. I will. Because I do. I trust Skiss more than I trust myself. I’m not sure why, but I do.
She rides ahead, long black hair streaming, the line of her brown cheeks strong with resolve. And I find myself believing that if Skiss needed to—like Enemy once did on the plains outside of Union Powder—she would run until her heart failed. There is something in her, some sort of ferocity, some sort of compassion, that electrifies something in me. Trust her? I more than trust her. Even if she broke my trust, even if she betrayed me in the time of greatest need, something in me would believe in her, in who she really is, in who she is becoming, in who she can and should be.
And Milly? She rides beside me, all afire. Her bright eyes, her crazy hair, her pixie mouth. She has ferocity. She has compassion. I’ve seen the fight in her. I’ve seen the life. But do I trust her in the way I trust Skiss? Do I believe in her? I’m not sure . . . I’m just not sure. It may be my own failing, but I’m not sure I know how to truly trust someone who can play free and loose with grand plans for the Cure in one hand, and individual lives in the other.
We veer off the main road, onto a single-lane path that winds north into forested hills. Cottages line the way. Some are quaint tudors with potted flowers on the window sills and ivy running down the steep roofs. Others are lavish, miniature castles with gates and turrets. After a mile, though, we reach the most lavish dwelling of all, a white stone mansion overlooking the Columbia River and the northern border of the Territory. When we push out of the trees, into the mansion’s lawns, the westerly wind immediately lashes us with cold cords of rain. For the first time since coming west, I have to grab my felt hat to keep it from blowing away.
