Hellbender (The Fangborn Series Book 3) (20 page)

“Oh,
yeah
I did!”

“Well, I need a little help sorting that out. As in, what. The. Fuck.”

“I think it’s pretty clear. You’re getting powerful enough that acting in your best interest is rewarded by the acquisition of artifacts. It’s what predators get for being predators, right?”

“There’s that word again. I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to. But I’m not wrong, am I?”

I thought about it. “Like what dragged me away from that staked-out child molester in New Jersey, so that I could find the information about the asylum where Porter Senior was raising my mother. Which led to me realizing a whole new set of abilities.”

“Exactly. Perhaps there’s both a Fangborn reason for you to pick up on an artifact or a bit of information that will help you become a better, more evolved Fangborn, combined with a personal desire to be near that same place? Knowing what happened to Richard Klein was hugely important to you. That drew you to Kanazawa, but mostly because the katana and the other artifacts could . . . reel you in. I think the stronger you are, the more the artifacts are attracted to you.”

“There was a lot drawing me to Japan,” I said, nodding. “Finding the short Celtic sword, whatever that is. Killing Jacob Buell. Not a bad haul.”

“And that’s why you had the instinct not only to consider nicking a few extra baubles but it’s also what inspired you to rescue the dragons. You got many of their jewels, even if a lot were burned up in the attack and retreat home. This connection between you and the artifacts is getting stronger, and I wonder if this might not be adjacent to some of my research on how the Fangborn Change. I’ve been playing around with quantum entanglement as an explanation for that phenomenon.”

Geoffrey and I had very different ideas of what “playing” meant, apparently. “Yeah, you said . . . spooky something?”

“Yes, spooky action at a distance.” Then he launched into an explanation that used words like “remote steering,” “qubit states,” and “buckyballs.” It was when he began discussing the possibility that we were dealing with a “landscape multiverse” that I held up my hand.

“You mean . . . like a parallel universe?” I hazarded.

“Yes, but . . .” He was baffled. “It was William James who came up with the term, “multiverse.” He was
American.
Do you even understand that time and space are the same thing? How can you not know any of this?”

I was starting to lose my patience. “Yeah, archaeologist.”

He waved his hands. “Okay, okay, never mind, it doesn’t matter. Quantum entanglement is the faster-than-light communication of an entangled system with the time dilation of special relativity, allowing time to stand still in light’s point of view . . . Alice asked, ‘How long is forever?’ And the White Rabbit answered, ‘Sometimes, just one second’—”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m trying, but even that—”

“Let me just say that there might be important relations between you and these objects, between states of the Fangborn Change, that could enlighten us as to the nature of the universe, multiverses—”

He finally twigged that I needed more specific, concrete ideas, for now. “Let’s focus on you and your experiences. There are connections among these multiverses—you call them your mind-lab or meta-realm or voids or whatever. I think that the Makers might come from another multiverse superimposed on our own, and that they’ve found ways to bridge between theirs and ours. Just streams of particles would be all it took. You, the dragons, the artifacts all have some way of communicating across these spaces. That’s why you’re able to play with time, and now, space. I’m trying to define how you’re doing it.”

“Um, okay. The how isn’t so important as the how come, to me, though.”

He waved a hand. “It’s all part of the same problem. Take the name the dragons are always calling you. Why Hellbender?”

“I don’t know. I looked it up. It’s some kind of ugly giant lizard.”

“Salamander,” he corrected automatically.

“Whatever. I thought it was just what I look like to Quarrel. But . . . it’s got to be more. He once said I would become the Hellbender and none but my Makers could overtake me. Or something like that.”

“Well, have you ever thought that it might be hell you are bending? Not fire and brimstone, but the place where time and space get
really
weird, beyond our brains to comprehend? Maybe that’s what it refers to. You’re learning to do in a very short span what he came by naturally after centuries of communicating with the Makers. He understands
you
have real power, to be able to do that.”

Geoffrey seemed very excited, but so far, not a damn thing he’d said trying to reassure me had worked. In fact, quite the opposite. I didn’t like the idea of bending time and space, and I most certainly didn’t like thinking about bending any hell, either. I made a note to ask Quarrel what he meant as soon as possible.

On the other hand, if Quarrel could explain it to me, the answer might be even worse. That’s how I was finding it with dragons.

“Now tell me about these shifts of temporal perception you’ve experienced,” he said.

I mentioned seeing the rebuilt oracular temple at Claros—or maybe I should say the original structure as it was back when it was first standing. I described the seeming lack of time passing for Adam while I was in the house in Roskilde in Denmark. After a moment’s consideration, I described the fight with the two Fangborn there in nineteenth-century costume, and how they vanished, the swirling chaos, the flickering sight of a giant snake.

“But I don’t know what that was, really,” I said, half-apologetically. “Some kind of hallucination, or some trick of the artifacts to protect themselves? I don’t know.”

Geoffrey stared at me. “Well, the idea of a wormhole springs to mind. A wormhole is a shortcut through space/time and wyrm is another word for “dragon”; maybe there’s a connection in the stories of the Fangborn . . . What do you call it?”

“Um, culture?”

“The way that these things move between multiverses. I mean, I’ve never actually seen one fly—and I’m not sure they are structurally sound for flight. The wings seem more, not vestigial, but not quite developed yet. So, if you want to look at the different myths and legends about dragons flying, I’d say it’s more like teleportation.” Geoffrey took a deep breath, and a disbelieving grin just about split his face. “And now you can do it. This is awesome!”

At the same time I said, “Terrifying.”

“Zoe, it’s all in the name. You’ve got to learn to bend these things, these hells, to your will.” He nodded. “Now’s no time to be timid; that’s all I can say. When you need to use these powers, go in big, like you own the place; that’s the only way.”

“It would be nice if I knew exactly how to do it and end up not scattered across the universe. Multiverses,” I corrected myself.

He nodded. “I’m working on it.”

I’d spent so much time thinking about abstractions and hypotheses that I needed something physical, concrete but not life threatening. I went to the gym, where I found Dmitri Parshin jumping rope. He’d always been an imposing figure to me. His muscles had suggested steroids, and so did his viciousness. I’d thought of Dmitri as evil—and he had been once, until I changed that—but now I recognized the discipline that backed up his ego and his ambition. Clean shaven, dark hair carefully cut, he moved with practiced ease even though he was sweating from the intensity of his workout. I was surprised to see him there, but he and the men under his command who had survived the Battle of Boston were staying with the Fangborn. Eventually, they’d move to the island with me.

It was cheaper for the government to have all their criminals in one place.

“I’ll come back later,” I said. “I don’t know what I’m doing here anyway.”

“Here.” He wiped off his face and went to a bin. He pulled out a pair of boxing gloves and threw them to me. He donned a pair of training mitts and held them up. “Work on your combinations.”

“I don’t have any.” But that wasn’t true. “I once learned some boxing, from a friend.”

“Then it’s time you added to that.” He gestured with the mitts. “Give me jab, cross.”

We’d worked our way up to speed, and I relaxed a little. Thoughts crept in, though, when I was doing a “jab, jab, cross, duck, uppercut.” I didn’t duck fast enough and Dmitri caught me on the side of the head with the mitt and knocked me over.

“You’re not concentrating. That will get you killed.” There was nothing of pity in his voice.

“Yeah, I know. This is just practice.”

“Practice concentrating on not getting killed. What are you thinking about?”

I wanted a distraction, so I turned it around on him. “What’s your long game, Dmitri? Because I know you have one.”

“Power. I go where power is. Sometimes it’s me. Right now, it’s you.”

I nodded and returned my gloves to the bin. “And what if I gave the power back to the Makers? What if I used that power they’re giving me to take myself out of the running? And they’d have to wait another ten or fifteen or thousand years for the next Fangborn who gets all the goodies?”

He stared at me, no expression on his face. Finally, the hint of a smile. “You’re not going to do that.”

“Let’s say I am.”

“I suppose I would find my own way of communicating with the Makers,” he said. “Ally myself with your friend Quarrel.”

“Maybe you would.” I thought secretly that the first thing I would do after I rejected the Makers’ power would be to kill Dmitri. Just in case. There was no way I was letting him get near the Makers or the dragons or anyone powerful enough to communicate with them.

Communication—I suddenly remembered the impression of reaching other minds when I’d experimented with the scarab chip. I didn’t want more abstract physics, so I turned my thoughts to Carolina Perez-Smith. “Carolina. Logic isn’t enough to deal with her brand of crazy. Reason isn’t nearly enough.”

Dmitri removed his mitts and wiped his face. “What do you mean?”

“I’m thinking about Carolina, her whole machinery. It just seems there’s no good way to deal with her and her brand of narcissism.

He regarded me with pity and humor. “You can’t win with logic, Zoe. With her, we go in, full throttle, and tear it down, burn it, then salt the earth for good measure.”

It was so easy for him. Violence was always the solution.

I nodded, slowly. Then, “No, we can’t do that. We can’t give her anything more to use against us. Check that—it doesn’t matter if we give her anything. If we don’t, she’ll make shit up, spin hysteria from speculation and rumors. We can’t feed the monster, either. We can’t feed the beast; we can’t destroy it . . .”

An idea hit me. “We starve it. We take its food away, we starve it, then feed it poison. We cut off some heads, bury the others.”

“What do you mean?”

I’d forgotten about him, struck by my idea. “Nothing,” I said, running down the hallway. “Thanks for the lessons.”

Chapter Fourteen

I showered and then asked Danny, Vee, Lisa Tarkka, and Claudia and Gerry Steuben to join me in a meeting room.

“The Makers,” I said. “I’ve told you about what I know of them. What do
you
think they are? And please . . . use simple words.”

Danny focused on a space on the wall above my head as he thought. It was a familiar habit, as though he were concentrating on the answers that hovered outside of our perception. “Maybe the Makers are a kind of megapathogen, a complex biological organism, that spreads. Maybe they need real estate; maybe they need information. Maybe they just want to see what’s out there.”

“And it would take a lot of energy for them to move or create something, right?” I remember how exhausted I was after the construction of the blaster and using it. “So . . . how did they make us, if that is true?”

“Maybe it’s just a”—Lisa flicked her wrist, in a gesture of throwing—“series of very little messages. Maybe they send out genes like spores, to turn worlds to something useful for them? Maybe they change your human DNA with a couple of switches on, or off. Or maybe they’re a virus that takes over in some ways, to their advantage. Something that doesn’t take a lot of effort. We know so little about the full range of genetic information; we can’t identify something like fifty percent of the bacterial or viral information in your gut. It’s biological dark matter, doesn’t look like anything we know about now.”

Eeeeewww
, I thought.
Like puppet masters or . . .
“What is that cat disease? You know, the one that’s supposed to make you want more cats, so it gets more hosts?”

Lisa’s face cleared. “Ah,
Toxoplasma gondii
. Well, that’s popularly misunderstood, but the analogy of a host and parasites might be accurate here.”

“We could just think of them as aliens,” Danny said. “With advanced technology and understanding of the fabric of the universe; it makes the most sense. I mean, he talks about planes of existence and the like.”

I knew he was right, of course, but I felt my stomach flip. It was bad enough for me and the unacculturated Normal population to grasp that the Fangborn existed, stretching taut the already straining fabric of credulity. Now aliens? “I wish that wasn’t the case.”

“Zoe, you’ve already encountered vampires and dragons,” Vee said. “And you’re already on first-name terms with the Makers. Why is that idea so distasteful?”

“It’s irrational, I know, but I don’t know what they want for all of us.” I understood that was exactly how the Normals will feel on I-Day. “But the massive expenditure of energy they’d need to communicate with us. . . That might explain the reason that older Fangborn, like Senator Knight, don’t feel the Call to Change, don’t seem as driven to pursue evil. There could be a stretching of the connection between the Makers and . . . what the Fangborn were meant to be? I mean, they’ve . . . become so much their own selves that they no longer feel the influence of the Makers?”

“Or it could be they’re becoming more specialized tools for the Makers,” Lisa said.

I tried hard not to dislike her, but Dr. Tarkka was making it difficult for me.

“Okay, okay, more immediately, more concretely. Carolina and the kidnapped Family. What plans are in place?”

“Senator Knight has a spy in her camp,” Gerry said. “We’ve been told that the Boston victims were moved to a place on private property in New York State. That’s why the Midwest facility we rescued you from was so full. The folks there had been moved to free up a place closer to Boston to whisk the Boston Family to.

“That property is within . . . well, let’s just say, some Family believe they have the rights to certain places. So tonight, you and some others are going to talk to the Adirondack Free Pack about this.” He shifted, looking uncomfortable.

“Since when are there separate ‘packs’?” I asked. “Do they only have werewolves or something?”

“These guys are unusual,” Gerry said. “Claudia calls them the Cousins who live in caves and cast bones.”

Claudia shot her brother a dirty look. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” she said hastily. “It just seems . . . archaic. To me.”

“And patriarchal, right?” Gerry said, like he was repeating back a lesson. He looked pleased with himself for remembering, but Claudia’s pursed lips shut him down. “Anyway. The majority of the Family, well, we try to keep things democratic,” Gerry said. “Like, Heck’s running things in Boston, because we’ve agreed he should. The Free Pack, they keep to themselves, isolated from humans, and they feel very strongly about other Fangborn coming onto ‘their’ territory. They tend to keep Fangborn varieties segregated. In this case, the werewolves are dominant. You’ll go with Senator Knight—they know him and respect him. You’ll take Jason with you. The idea is that one of the ravens can be observing Carolina’s property while you’re in talking to the Free Pack.”

“Okay, but why me?”

“They’re curious about you, the senator said.” Gerry looked through a very messy notebook. “After that meeting, we’re all going to storm Carolina Perez-Smith’s compound tomorrow. Remember, the goal is to rescue the kidnapped Fangborn and round up whatever Order members are there—no killing, no casualties, if possible. We just want our people back, and if we can find a way to make Carolina and the Order pay for it later, so be it.”

“The rescue is the priority. Vampires will be supplying a lot of alternate narratives, but we want to keep the memory changes as slight as possible. We can’t have the Order all doing a complete turnabout, because it will let everyone else know what we’re up to. We’re just trying to contain her a bit, is all.”

There was a clamor outside, and the door opened suddenly. “Zoe,” a werewolf said. “There are two kids named Dickson who want to see you. Shall I send them up?”

“Yeah, sure.” Why on earth was this person—was her name Ryleigh?—asking me? “Kids? Who—”

Rose and Ivy Dickson appeared. “We needed to come,” Rose said.

“We felt an emptiness, and since you established that connection between us . . .” Ivy said.

“You thought being here would help?” I said.

They looked at me, acknowledging that I’d just filled in a space that was left open by Ash’s death.

“That’s totally . . . I didn’t do that,” I said hastily. “I was just trying to figure out what you meant.”

My protest didn’t convince either of them. “See?” they said at once.

“Besides, Rose said we needed to be here,” Ivy said. “She’s always dragging us around.”

“We
are
racking up the frequent-flier points,” Rose said.

“Okay, well, I won’t lie,” I said. “We can use you in the rescue operation tomorrow.”

“Just don’t try to give us venom or a suggestion that we forget,” Ivy said fiercely. “About Ash.”

“They kept trying it at home. Why would we want to forget?” Rose added. “Why would we not want to feel this? You wouldn’t ask someone who’d lost a limb or an eye to just get over it. We’ve lost much more than that. A third of ourselves.”

“And don’t tell us Ash would have wanted us to feel better.”

“I would never say that,” I said, shaking my head. “I hate that. ‘Oh, you’re mother would have loved this’ or ‘She would have wanted it this way.’ People say that at funerals because they can’t bring themselves to say that
they
like something, or that the person who died might have been unhappy at the idea of death. It’s a stupid thing to say, and if you ever catch me, you can punch me in the head.”

“Zoe’s right,” Claudia said, with a disapproving look at me that suggested she didn’t think I should be talking about punching people in the head or funerals.

I shrugged. “So we have no desire to try and jolly you up about your brother’s death. We desperately need all the help we can get.”

“No problem,” Gerry agreed. “We’ll get you a room; it’s getting crowded here, but when we are set up on Flock Island, it’ll be easier. Dan, Will and Adam will be here in a moment. Can you give us five minutes on how the provisioning of the island is going?”

“Sure,” he said.

Everyone looked at me as if I was supposed to do something. “Uh, thanks for stopping by, folks.” Apparently, I was running this meeting, and since we were finished, I was the one to dismiss it. It was another new experience, almost as unsettling to have people looking to me for guidance and authority as to deal with dragons.

“Hey, Danny? Got a quick minute?” I said as everyone was leaving.

He stopped and turned. “Yeah, Zo.” Vee stood by as well.

I was shivering as I thought about what was coming. I took their hands and pulled them close so we wouldn’t be overheard. “Do me a favor. Go. Run, now. Danny, take Vee and run as far away from me as you can.”

“
Take
Vee? I don’t think anyone’s
taking
me anywhere,” she said.

“Zoe, what the fuck?” Danny’s indignation was enormous. “No.”

I spoke quickly, before I lost my nerve. “Look, at this point, I’m responsible for the death of a lot of people—Ash, Fatima, and oracles I’ve never met being the latest. That number will go up, significantly, in the next couple of days, unless I can find a foolproof plan and execute it exactly right. The chances of those two events happening are microscopically small, minute to the point of utter improbability.”

Danny looked like he was going to correct me on my logic, but shut his mouth when I held up my hand.

“It doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to say is that I feel unbelievably horrible about all of this, but on top of it all, Sean died in my arms. Danny—Dan, I mean, that’s what you’re going by now, right? Everything’s changing . . . I’m the last person who should be making these decisions. It wasn’t so long ago, a lot of people didn’t think I was capable of making decisions for my own life; you know that better than anyone—”

I choked up then, and shook my head, tears filling my eyes. “Forgive me if I tell you I don’t think I could live if I added you guys to the body count, too.”

Danny didn’t seem fazed, however. By my tears or my problems. Neither did Vee, who looked at me like I was crazy. He just shrugged. “You’re the only one who can make them, Zoe, so it’s no use pretending you can’t or you shouldn’t. It’s not something that’s going away.”

I wiped at my eyes angrily. “Yeah, thanks a pant-load.”

“You know it’s true. You just gotta take it one apocalypse at a time, Zoe.”

Apocalypse
was a good word. “I just wish . . . it wasn’t me. Wasn’t now. Wasn’t near you guys.”

“Zoe, there is
nowhere
to run away to that will get us away from this,” Vee said. “You know that.”

“You’re right,” I said, embarrassed now. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I’m sorry.”

It was at that moment that Adam and Will walked in, and stopped when they saw I’d been crying. “Do I want to know what you all are talking about?” Adam asked.

“Almost certainly not,” I said. “Adam, Will, I would like you both to go away from me, leave me to the
mishegas
that is my life, and live until well in your nineties, happy and safe. Will you both do that for me?”

“Um, no,” Will said. “And never ask again, please.”

Adam shook his head. “What is this about? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Without you,” Will added, as if it was some kind of competition. The tension between them was palpable. They were cooperating, because they had to, but that was it. “Why do you ask now?”

I shook my head. “It’s just the short version of the conversation.”

That sealed it for me. If they weren’t going, I had to be the best I could possibly be, and then a whole lot better. As Geoffrey had told me, I had to act like I owned the place.

We spent the afternoon loading up truck after truck with materials from the Boston house to bring to the wharf, and from there, to be shipped to Flock Island. It was amazing what Fangborn habits combined with military procedure could effect. The place wouldn’t have permanent buildings for some time, so there’d be tents and temporary structures. There was a kind of contest between the groups working on opposite sides of the island to see who could get more done faster. The Fangborn had centuries of practice in establishing hideouts and bolt-holes; the military had almost as much time to perfect the quick establishment of a base with housing and communications.

A box full of books fell, spilling and splaying all over the street. I looked up—more thuds and crashes. The Fangborn carrying them had all gone stock-still, frozen in their tracks, their faces blank.

Their mouths opened, but nothing came out.

Suddenly I dropped the box of blankets I’d been carrying. I had to cover my ears, but it was reflex, because I heard the cries of thousands of Fangborn souls coming from within me.

When I felt a tug, I knew that I was being summoned by the Makers. I gave into the impulse to follow, as I had before with the dragons, and found myself back at the Castle.