A Latent Dark (51 page)

“How did you do this?”

“What you are seeing—” she began.

“Sin,” said the archbishop, injecting himself into the conversation. “The Church believes that those shadows are… sin, for lack of a better word, damaged souls, demons even.”

John looked again at the same picture. Had the image changed? He couldn’t be sure. Something in the back of his mind said it had. He felt a prickle at the base of his neck.

“Sin,” said John.

“Well,” said Stintwell. “We aren’t really sure what they are, but that’s what—”

“The Vatican believes,” said Christopher, more to Stintwell than to John, “that these images are impurities of the soul… and they are everywhere. It is, in essence, all sin. The girl sees it and the machine cleanses it, stores it, produces energy.”

John turned to look at him, his face incredulous. “What, exactly… What do you plan on doing with that knowledge?”

It was Stintwell who began to answer, her words faster this time. “Well, aside from the obvious benefits, we hope that it might be a better way for us to understand—”

The archbishop interrupted again. “The most practical use, of course, would be to identify heretics, pagans, anyone who is hiding things from The Church. And it could be implemented in the court system as well. Murderers, thieves, any of their ilk would be easy to pick out. It’s much more humane than resorting to interrogations and inquisitions.”

“There is still a lot to work out, of course,” said Stintwell, trying to get a word in edgewise. “For one, we aren’t really sure that what we’re seeing is ‘sin’—as the archbishop puts it. And some of the test subjects haven’t responded well to the therapy.”

“Therapy?” said John. “What kind of therapy?”

“Well,” said Stintwell. “Our hands were directed by the obligations of The Church—”

“Nonsense,” said the archbishop. “The Vatican pays you Tinkerers to worry about making it work, not to share your theories. The Pope himself will decide what the results mean. Besides, the test subjects were awful people. Heretics of the highest order.”

“With all due respect, Father,” Stintwell was almost trembling. “I’ve worked closely with the subjects.”

“Too closely if you ask me—”

“And they are highly intelligent, kind people.”

“Yes, Ostermann told me about your budding friendship with the girl,” Christopher sneered. “I don’t approve, and neither will the Vatican when they see it in my report.”

Stintwell glared at the archbishop.

“What happened to them?” John yelled over the argument. There was a pause. John’s eyes shifted between the two of them. “What happened to them?” he asked again.

“They,” began Stintwell, “they were found to be unresponsive.”

“You mean it didn’t work.”

“I mean that they were unresponsive afterwards.”

“They died?” said John.

“Not exactly,” said the Tinkeress. “The dark energy is consumed and the overflow stored in fuel cells.”

“Consumed?” John’s face was one of shock. “How?”

“We… we don’t know,” she said. “This machine wasn’t made by us, we are just now figuring out how it even works again. But the engine is remarkable. It is a self-sustaining generator—”

“Who made it then?”

She paused. “Our earliest records date back to over three hundred years ago. But that’s just theory—”

“Three hundred…” John gasped. “What happened to them?”

She made the subtlest of glances over John’s shoulder. He turned slowly to look again at the picture. The shadow this time was noticeably different. He watched it carefully and saw that the man’s face, while tiny, was readable. He was screaming.

He turned back around, facing the two of them.

“That isn’t a picture at all, is it?”

Chapter 37

The ceiling of the black cathedral swirled with clouds of light, sending strange moving patterns along the walls. The three travelers stood in the center of the great hall, looking up at a child god on her throne. She stared back at them with analytical grace.

“How is she going to destroy us?” Melissa was shocked. “Skyla wouldn’t do that. We all love her.”

“It’s true,” said Dale.

“You had a strange way of showing it,” said Hel, pointing at Dale with a finger the color of coal. “You sold her out to The Church and a snake oil salesman. An entire city was slaughtered in its infancy because you wanted a few coins, a stroked ego, and a piece of tail—although, let’s be fair, she was pretty hot, wasn’t she?”

Hel winked. Dale flushed. She turned her gaze to Melissa. “And you, Missy, you not only tossed her out of your life as a friend, but you invited murderers into her home. They never would have found that house except through your invitation.”

Melissa looked away, and as she turned, Dale saw the mask of a corpse. Empty eye sockets cried bloody tears from beneath a black brush stroke of soggy hair. Then in an instant, she was Melissa again.

“It’s not that I don’t sympathize,” Hel added. “We all have our regrets, but…” She brushed a skeletal hand through her hair. “Oh, what a mess it’s made.”

“What does it matter now anyway?” said Melissa. “They killed me even after I told them.”

Hel stood and walked down from her throne. She extended a bony finger and poked Melissa hard in the chest.

“
Ow
!”

“You feel that?” Hel said. “Does that feel like being dead to you? Dale, did it feel like being dead when Marley flattened your brainpan?” She spun around dramatically, holding out her arms. “Does any of this feel dead?”

“But we aren’t alive,” said Dale.

“Life,” the goddess hissed, “is an illusion. All of it. It’s a surface fantasy. The only thing that makes it seem real is the sticky substance between your ears when you’re up there. Shift your perspective for a change, honey.”

She grabbed Dale by the shoulders with fingers so cold the ice could be felt through his clothes. She spun him around. Shadows flared from behind him, fanning out against the wall, a nightmare tangle of tentacles and gristle, twisting and writhing like worms pulled from the ground.

“Those things,” said Hel, her eyes deep and ancient. “Those are just a part of who you are. If you don’t learn to live with them, channel them, they consume
you
, determine
your
reality for you.” She looked at Melissa. “You seem to have figured that out somewhat. You’re better at it than most. Do you think you would have betrayed Skyla, had you known what was at stake? Would you have betrayed her knowing that nothing truly dies?”

“But doesn’t Skyla have a choice in all this?” asked Dale.

“None of us have a choice anymore,” she said.

Hel walked to a window that hadn’t been there a moment ago, beckoning them. They looked out over the cafeteria. A sea of people meandered around, carrying their trays. The crowd stretched forever.

“Watch,” said Hel.

 “I don’t see—” Melissa began, but was cut off when an inmate flickered and vanished. She would have missed it completely, except that they just happened to be staring at the right spot at the right time. It was like catching a glimpse of a falling star.

“Where did they go?” asked Dale.

“They’re gone,” said Hel. “Forever.”

“But, this is the
afterlife
,” said Melissa. “We’re
all
dead.”

“
That
is not death,” said Hel. “Death is just a doorway to get you here. Now, that”—she pointed to the hole where the inmate had been—“that person is gone. They will never become anything. They will never move on from here. They are beyond dead. They are removed from existence.”

Another patron further in the distance vanished like a candle being blown out. Melissa gasped. “But… how?”

“Skyla is erasing them,” said Hel gravely. “She may not even know she is because she is being used.”

“I don’t understand,” said Melissa. “How is she doing that?”

Another soul flickered and vanished in a puff of dust. The other patrons seemed to not even notice.

“There is a machine in Rhinewall,” said Hel. “It feeds off dark matter, souls or—if you are The Church—you would call it sin. It produces energy for the city and in return, they let it feed. What they can’t realize is that it’s feeding on both the living and the dead. There is no way for them to know the damage it’s doing here.”

“How?”

“What I said before,” said Hel. “Those demons… You don’t see them when you are alive, but they are there all the same. The shadows under your feet, the feeling you are being watched in an empty street, the guilt you carry with you. The Church is using that machine to try and cleanse them, ‘exorcise’ them.”

“But,” said Melissa. “It’s not cleansing them, it’s...”

“Eating them?” Hel gave her a grim smile. The ring in her lower lip quivered. “Instead, it is consuming the very thing that makes us conscious.”

“How do you know this? I mean, I know you’re a goddess, but how do you know so much about the living world?” asked Melissa.

 “Because she used to run the machine,” Marley said, looking at the teenage god in her throne.

Hel gave him a solemn, withered look as a black shape tumbled from the ceiling. As it passed through the air, the color drained from its feathers, peeled away until it was completely white. It spread its wings just before perching on her shoulder. She reached up a hand and scratched Orrin’s head.

“Melissa,” said Marley. “Meet Skyla’s aunt. Say hello, Rhia.”

It was Orrin who answered. “Hello, Rhia.”

Rhia shushed him. “What did I say about being cheeky?”

Melissa and Dale gaped at Hel—now Rhia—with open mouths. Marley on the other hand was looking pleased with himself. Rhia gave him a respectful, defeated look.

“That was a good guess. How did you know?” she asked him. She seemed only mildly curious.

“I knew you were dead,” he said.

“How?” she asked. “Lyle?”

“The preacher? No. But I did have a conversation with the general in Lassimir. He and Lyle Summers had something of a partnership. Lyle told him and I made Perlandine tell me.”

Rhia nodded. “Lyle was there when I died. He is one of the people who funds the facility, keeps it running. You have to give the man credit, he certainly has conviction.”

“I also knew that Skyla was on her way to see you.”

Rhia only nodded.

Orrin opened his beak. “Hello, Marley.”

Nothing really surprised Marley anymore, but he did blink at this. “I guess you left when you realized she wouldn’t be following you.”

“There’s only so much I can do in a physical form up there,” Orrin said. “Speaking isn’t easy in a raven’s body and Skyla is growing out of her ability to understand me. She wasn’t going to make it to Rhinewall in time, so I had to find other options, and other people who would listen to me. I may have found a candidate.”

Rhia cocked her head, giving Orrin a curious smile.

“Why not just make yourself into a human?” Melissa asked. “Just walk up to Skyla and tell her what’s going on, what to do.”