Chapter 64:
Silencing the Voice
Kate scrambled back to the top of the rig, running into but not needing to fight what was left of the remaining mercenaries.
A few stopped and lifted their guns, but then backed away cautiously. She wondered if the cyborg she met in Wegener's office had issued some kind of evacuation order.
At one point, she witnessed a pair of the ninjas carrying on a whispered conversation. Kate jumped to grab hold of a bar above her and pull herself into the rafters as they passed. They spoke a mixture of several languages, English, French — a Slavic language Kate couldn't identify, and Mandarin, but she caught "gone" and "escape" among the English, and knew enough French to decipher the word for wolf.
She wondered if Titus had survived. She wondered, more darkly, what she would do if he hadn't.
Up on the main deck, several helicopters took off, ignoring everything occurring on the surface. The storm still raged out across the water; rain and lightning peppered the sky. The copters paid her no mind. Things were finished here, it appeared.
Then, she saw the man in the squid-marked mask being escorted by a set of guards toward the biggest helicopter.
"Well, why not," she said.
Kate ran at him, tossing taser discs at the two lead bodyguards, watching them jitter and stagger when the electricity hit their skin. Before the others could get a shot off, she kicked a third in the mouth, elbowed a fourth in the eye, and prepared to keep going when someone cracked her head with the butt of his rifle.
She fell to the ground, stunned.
"Should I shoot her, Sir?"
The man in the mask spoke. Kate remembered his voice from the television. It was pretty, for a man. A television announcer's voice. Someone who could narrate film trailers.
"None of this matters," he said. "We've failed. We're all going to die. They'll have us killed when they find out."
"So where we going?"
The Voice turned to his bodyguard. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Huh?" one of the guards said.
Kate watched the exchange; two other bodyguards continued to train their weapons on her. She stayed low, feigning to be in worse shape than she really was. The blow to her head made her see stars, but she could move if forced to. At least that was what she hoped.
"You're going to kill me, aren't you," the Voice said. "You're on their payroll. I'm to be the sacrificial victim for this failure. What did they promise you?"
"I swear, I'm not — "
"Give me your gun," the Voice said.
"What?"
"Your sidearm. Give me your pistol."
The bodyguard, confused, handed the pistol on his belt to the Voice with his free hand. The other man accepted it and pointed it at Kate's head.
"Why did you do this?" he said. He sounded scared, the smooth richness of his voice giving way to panic. "What did you hope to gain?"
Kate smiled.
She wondered if she was fast enough to get her head out of the way if he pulled the trigger. Even if the bullet hit her body armor it would be better — it would hurt like hell, but she hadn't armored her head enough for this sort of thing.
"Bring her," he said.
"Bring her?"
"I'm not going back empty handed," the Voice said.
"You're not bringing me," Kate said.
The Voice fired. Not at her head — the bullet clipped off her armored hip, sending a shockwave of bruising pain up and down her leg.
"Bring her," he said again.
The bodyguard tried to pick her up but she bashed him across the nose with her forehead, the man staggered backward in pain. His cohorts opened fire, but Kate was already on the move, five feet from where they were aiming.
The Voice fired also, wildly, all self-control lost.
Kate felt another bullet slam into her protective covering, mid-back and to the left, knocking the wind out of her.
"Forget her!" the Voice said.
He stormed off for the waiting helicopter; his guards followed. The blades of the helicopter's rotor began to spin and the Voice climbed in through a side door. Kate noted that the one who'd been speaking to him, the commander of the bodyguards, had been left behind, still on the ground holding his nose together from Kate's head butt.
She pulled out the grappling gun again and fired it, puncturing the helicopter's tail.
"This is a terrible idea," she said. But she prepared to hold on, looking for a way to clip the firing mechanism to her belt. They can't get away, she thought. Someone has to be held accountable for all of this.
The helicopter started to pull away. Kate ran across the deck of the rig, wondering if the winch in the grappling gun was strong enough to carry her high up to the landing gear.
And then, two hundred and fifty pounds of werewolf launched into the air and slammed into the tail of the helicopter.
The copter spun like a top, Titus's bulk sending it out of control. Kate saw the pilot struggling to right the vehicle, to no avail. Sparks flew as the landing gear scraped across the deck.
The cable connecting the gun to the grapple held true. Kate found herself dragged violently across the deck. Bouncing and bumping her way to the edge of the rig, she tried to get a handle on the grappler, to hit the release button, but she was rolling, wrapped in the cord, the centrifugal force of the copter's spin growing faster and stronger. The helicopter gained altitude and pulled off the deck. Just in time, she found the release button and fell back, landed and started to roll. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Titus ejected from the tail of the aircraft, a frightening and comical sight as the werewolf fell with all the grace of a belly-flopping diver to the deck.
The ground opened up beneath her when she rolled to the periphery of the deck, and toppled over.
Somehow, she grabbed hold of the edge on her way down. Kate's full weight tugged at her grip. She felt the bruised pain of the second gunshot blare, a thrumming ache that took the breath from her lungs. Broken ribs, she thought, I can't hold on . . .
The entire structure shuddered with a vast metallic bang. Heat washed over her and the helicopter exploded in a ball of flame. Kate's hand burned as if she'd held it under hot water too long. She tried to reach up with her other, her breath hitching and catching in her throat. The water below churned hungry and dark.
Pale, thin fingers grabbed hold of her wrist. Those fingers jutted out of a familiar, if ripped and bloody, hooded sweatshirt.
Titus's face, his human face, appeared over the edge. He clasped her arm with both hands. Slowly, she hauled herself back onto the deck.
The helicopter lay crashed and nearly dead center on the rig. Boxes and small buildings burned hot. No one moved inside.
Kate glanced over at Titus, who half-lay, half-sat against the guardrail of the deck. Covered in cuts and bruises, one arm lay limp against his side, and she could see that his pants, those silly yoga pants Emily made fun of him for, had been sliced open across a leg, an angry wound visible through the gash in the fabric.
He smiled.
"Had an interesting afternoon," he said. "And you?'
Kate punched him on his good shoulder and tried to stand up. Her legs went watery, so she sat back down. She put an arm around Titus protectively, and pulled his hood up over his head.
"I can't believe this stupid sweatshirt survived," she said.
"I'm thinking of getting a new one."
"Don't you dare!"
And then, almost without warning, the sun came out. Dark clouds on the horizon slowly disappeared.
Funny what a little daylight can do, Kate thought. She rested her head against the top of Titus's shoulders and closed her eyes, the heat of the sun warmed her cheeks.
Chapter 65:
There are so many worlds
Doc woke to find the Lady standing over him, arms crossed, legs akimbo, a look that would turn an ordinary man's hair white on his face.
"What did you do, Silence?"
"Used a planar knife," he said, pushing himself up onto one elbow, struggling to get to his feet. They were in the middle of a desert, the sand almost snow-white, the sky above them an unnatural shade of blue. The air was strangely temperate. It felt more like beach than desert. Water was in the air.
"You didn't," she said.
"I couldn't come up with any other way to stop you, so thought I'd just remove us both from the equation and let the mere mortals sort things out," Doc said.
He stood up, dusted off his clothes, and shook sand out of his jacket. His rose-tinted glasses jutted out of the sand like a lost toy. Doc picked them up and cleaned them with the hem of his shirt.
"Where are we?" she said.
"I don't know. I didn't tell the knife where to go."
"A planar knife can open a door to anywhere!" she said. "Where is it?"
"I dropped it."
"You . . . dropped it?"
"I did," he said. "Didn't want to risk you getting home before me."
"You threw us through a dimensional window and didn't bring the key with you?"
"I didn't."
"Why didn't — I have seven of those knives," she said. "If I'd known — "
"You have six," Doc said, then smiled.
He smiled.
The Lady glared, paused, and then laughed her silver bell laugh.
"Clever boy," she said.
They looked around, scanning the distance. On a ridge, silhouetted against the sun, a group of travelers riding animals with too many legs made their way across the salt-colored sands.
"Never been here before," she said.
"Me either."
The Lady sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
"Do you have any idea how long it will take for us to get home again?" she said.
"Nope," he said. "But I was thinking we'd get home a lot faster if we worked together to find it. I'd like to get back sooner rather than later, myself."
She stared at him, the fires in her eyes glowed hotter and brighter than usual. Then she laughed again.
"Very clever boy," she said. "Fine."
The Lady waved a hand up and down her frame and her clothes twirled into a new shape, a loose fitting robe, vibrant gold and orange. She pulled a hood up over her head.
"Well? Straighten yourself out, Doctor Silence. You've put a serious damper in my retirement plans, and I want to get a move on back to them."
"But I always look like this," he said.
"You would," she said.
"Come on. Let's ask those folks on that hill what world we're in."
She pointed at him.
"You owe me for not killing you, Doctor," she said.
"Well, we have some time to negotiate a repayment, don't we?" he said.
"Beginning with you getting my planar knife back," she said.
"Done."
"Not done, Doc," she said. "This bargain's not done by a long shot."
They bickered as they walked, the Lady in her golden robes and he in his long black coat. Doc wondered, and hoped, that his charges were okay.
Chapter 66:
The calm after
They watched her, the trio of heroes, floating there outside her cage.
The golden girl, the silver boy, and the strange one with her goggles and scarf. She felt the storm inside her now, because it had nowhere else to go, no way to escape. It wailed and cried in her head, but every time it tried to extend its reach, to lash out at their mutual captors, this sphere of emptiness stopped it from attacking.
She knew how strange she must look to them, twitching and squirming as the storm tried to take control of her body. But now it couldn't; the storm remained inside her, it could not take her body from her. She felt the storm's rage spill off her like waves.
"You must take control," the golden girl said.
"What if I can't?" she said.
Even her voice — colored with hints of pouring rain, of howling wind — no longer sounded like her own; it sounded elemental.
"I saw you," the golden girl said. "Saw you control the lightning to help me. You saved me."
"I don't know how I did it," Valerie said. "It just happened."
"You willed it to happen," she said. "You took control."
"Does she speak?" the silver boy said.
He lacked pupils. His eyes glowed white, from the inside.
"What?" Valerie said.
"Does the storm speak to you."
"She doesn't talk," Valerie said. "Only feels."
"But can she communicate?" he said.
"I've tried; tried so many times," she said.
"Try again," the younger girl said. "Maybe she was too big to listen. Or just didn't want to."
Valerie closed her eyes.
At first she spoke in English, in words, phrases — then in pleading sentences: please stop fighting, please work with me, please be one with me. But, later she gave way to feelings, sadness, loneliness, fear. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be free. She wanted to live. She wanted to fly.
And she felt those feelings returned to her. Childlike, more raw, unfiltered. The enormous sentiments of a child, not the controlled emotions of an adult. Such rage, such fear, such joy. They caused her heart to pound in her chest, her eyes to ache with tears.
"She's listening," Valerie said.
The storm's passions crept in, making her feel more, more of everything. She'd never been so afraid, so angry, so alone in her entire life. Valerie wasn't sure that any human being could sense these things as desperately as she did now.
"Can you control her?" the golden girl said.
Valerie closed her eyes again. She reflected on a vision of her mother, the storm's mother, smaller, but still strong, still destructive, still impossibly vast; she remembered being born, breaking free, a rain cloud left behind after the death of a hurricane, just a bit of condensation and sky, growing into a downpour, into a thunderstorm, into a tropical storm, into a vortex.
She was majestic. And she knew how to do only one thing.
Valerie hoped to show her how to be so much more. She wanted to be something to this juvenile storm, this alien intelligence. She had incredible things to learn, and without Valerie, very little time to do it. Without Valerie she'd vanish like a summer shower come morning.
Stay with me, she said. We need each other. We can learn so much.
Waves of rage, waves of sadness, a spike of fear . . . and then, clarity — cool water in her veins. She looked at her hands, at her arms. No longer harsh, dark gray, instead, they swirled marble white, cumulous ivory. The calm after a storm.
"She's gonna be fine," the younger girl said. "Look at that. She's gonna be totally fine."
"What should we do?" the older girl said. She was looking to Valerie. Asking her.
Valerie smiled. It had been so long since she smiled, it hurt. Her cheeks ached, tiny facial muscles in atrophy — unused for months — now creaking with effort.
"We'll be okay," she said. "Do what you have to do."
The older girl looked to the boy, whose own smile, a cocky grin, glowed with inner light.
He nodded to her. "She's going to be fine, Jane," the boy said.
The older girl put a hand on the younger one's shoulder.
"No more bubble of float, Em," she said.
"Finally," the younger one said. "This isn't easy, you know."
"Yes it is," the older girl said. "For you it's always easy."
"Well, yeah," the younger girl said.
She opened both hands in front of her like a magician releasing a dove, and Valerie felt the world tug at her again, gravity and air and wind and sky — all the things that made her real. Clouds moved across her skin like thoughts.
"I'm sorry for everything we've done," she told them.
"It was never your fault," the older girl said. "You just wanted to go home."
"Isn't that what we all want?" Valerie said.
And she let the storm inside her take flight. Sleek clouds followed her like dolphins along the bow of a ship. The sky opened up. The sky was hers. And she was home.