A Latent Dark (62 page)

“There are still people down there, sir. Survivors. They are going to need help.”

Harold looked down at the ruined city, its central Tinker’s Academy a bent scepter in the air. He wondered how many people had died for this, how many people were surviving, but just barely.

Harold nodded and began to make his way down the hillside. There was work to be done, machines and people to mend. Harold had always wanted to work with his hands.

Chapter 45

Cardinal Salazar awoke to the sense that he was being shaken. He opened his eyes and stared straight into the face of his page, Alex, his mouth taut with concern.

“What is it, Alex?” he muttered.

“Cardinal,” said the page. “I apologize for the late hour, but you should come to the docks. They are going to kill the man unless you speak up for him.”

Salazar sat upright and held out an arm to the side of the bed. His assistant draped a heavy robe over it and left the man to dress himself. Outside, the riot could be heard echoing through the streets into the night.

The port was crowded with men, sailors. There was black terror in their eyes as they yelled back up towards the massive steamliner that loomed over the port like a cliff. Salazar pushed his way through until he saw a man who—judging by his uniform—must have been the captain.

“I came as soon as I could,” he said to the captain. “I was told it is urgent.”

The man looked at him, anger on his face smoothing once he recognized the Cardinal in his robes. He kneeled briefly, then stood again.

“Your Eminence,” said the captain. “He appeared in our hold overnight. The men won’t go near him. We would have thrown him overboard, if not for the note.”

“A note?” said the Cardinal, confused. “You’re not making any sense.”

“I wish it made more sense,” said the captain.

“Where is he now?” asked Salazar.

“In the hold. Where we found him.”

The cardinal stepped onto the gangway when the captain grabbed his elbow.

“The scarlet man,” said the captain. “He is violent, I must warn you. He attacked our men when they approached. He is very dangerous. May God watch over you.”

“May he watch over us all,” said Salazar, breaking the man’s grip.

The ship was dark and silent, if not for the occasional creak of metal and chains. His footsteps sounded hollow against the rusty floor. A hush fell over the crowd of sailors at the dock as he approached the metal hatch. An unfortunate and very nervous young sailor guarded the hold. Upon seeing the cardinal he knelt, opened the door with a curt gesture, and then left briskly as the cardinal passed through the doorway.

A solitary lantern lit the hold, illuminating what Salazar mistook as a shipment of meat. It wasn’t until the man moved that Salazar crossed himself, muttering prayers in Italian under his breath.

The man was red, streaked in slashes and scars across his entire naked body.  Skin lay in discarded confetti ribbons around the floor, curled and hanging from his torso like leaves. He was hugging his knees, strips of skin trailing from his fingertips.

A hiss came from the man as if he had sprung a leak. It echoed through the metal walls with every breath. The cardinal took a step closer and realized that the hissing was a scream, hoarse and empty.

Something square and flat was stuck to the man’s back, held by a drying scab. The smell of blood and steel made the cardinal wince. He reached for the envelope, sticking to the scarlet man as he rocked and hissed—screaming with no voice.

As he pealed the envelope from the man with a sticky, wet squelch, a bloodied hand shot out and gripped Salazar by the wrist with the speed of a striking snake. Blue eyes looked up at him appearing more like tiny glass beads from a mask of red.

Salazar nearly slipped on the slick floor as he wrenched his hand free. He fled through the metal doorway. Once outside, he slipped the note from its sheath beneath the yellow glow of the docking lights.

It was aged considerably, the paper yellowed and ancient, but the ink was fresh, the writing almost whimsical, as if written by a teenage girl.

To: The Pope, The Vatican, Vatican City

Dear Mister Pope,

You recently hired this man, The Reverend Lyle Summers, to track down a pilot for your Confessional facility in the city of Rhinewall. Whether you deny that this facility even exists at all, or that the Vatican has been funding the project for a century, is inconsequential. The facility has been destroyed.

What you may or may not realize is that this machine, while good intentioned, was erasing the very souls you claim to save. We know you have more machines like the one in Rhinewall. We will find them.

This letter can be taken one of two ways: you can read this as a reminder of your misguided cruelty and hubris. Learn your lesson and walk away from it.

Or, you can read it as a declaration of war. It was you, after all, who fired the first shot.

If you choose the latter, then please understand that you will not win.

There will always be more of us than you. We are every person you ever knew. We are every person who died in your foolish crusades or your cruel, senseless inquisitions. We are your distant ancestors and your late mothers and fathers.

We watch you through the cracks in the walls, from that place your eyes refuse to see. We are the dark piece of your soul that you spend your life trying to deny, control, ignore and repress. You may live your lives however you wish, but sooner or later, you will be one of us.

We are your shadows; ignore us at your peril.

You cannot defeat the dead.

-Hel

The hissing from the scarlet ribbon man followed Salazar as he fled from the ship.

~

Epilogue

Two men and a young woman emerged from the woods. The men were bearded, all three of them unwashed and filthy, yet they walked casually, the way friends out for a weekend hike might stroll through the wilderness. In this case they were simply happy to be alive.

They had passed Lassimir along the mountain ridge. There were a few new tents now that the soldiers had gone. The wilderness had already begun to reclaim and recycle the ash and ruins from the war. John saw a cluster of homes nearly overrun with vine. The residents didn’t seem at all bothered.

“It’s just up ahead,” James said, cutting through some brush.

The cabin was exactly as James had left it. He opened the door, letting Sarah and John inside. The smell of wood and furs hit him like a soft pillow and for a moment he just stood rapt at the doorway. When he eventually entered the threshold, John was sitting in his chair, Sarah on the couch, stretching out her legs.

It was twilight, and the sounds of the wilderness welcomed them back with all the nocturnal calls of home. He walked over to Sarah with heavy, exhausted footfalls. She scooted over to make room and gave him a small smile as he sat beside her. The couch creaked.

“So…” he said, but stopped as the three of them all looked at one another.

They all felt it—that connection. After some time, they would attribute it to the bond that forms between people who have peered over the edge and into the void of their own mortality together. In the end, they would simply call it friendship. For now, it felt like some strange kind of magic.

 “So, this is my cabin,” said James, lamely. “I… I don’t usually have visitors.”

“I can tell,” said Sarah, looking around, amused. “It looks like about twenty years of man.”

James blushed and John smiled, closing his eyes, hands clasped behind his head as he reclined in the chair.

The cabin seemed smaller than it had before. Perhaps it was that it had never been so full of people, or maybe he had just never noticed how small it was to begin with.

Like a prison
, thought James.
I built myself a nice little prison cell, didn’t I?

“It’s definitely going to need more rooms,” said Sarah.

Alarmed, James looked at the priest.

John shrugged back at him. “Well it isn’t like I can go back to Bollingbrook,” said John, stretching. “The archbishop will probably issue a warrant for my arrest on charges of heresy. I’m a wanted man.”

“And I’m,” Sarah jumped into the conversation, but hesitated, frowning. “I… don’t know what I am,” she said. “I just need time to think, I think… before I go back... If I go back…”

Dinner was a meal of stored meats and jams that James dug up from the pantry. Much of it was stale, in need of throwing out for the raccoons. Tomorrow would be a hunting expedition, maybe a side trip to mark some trees for cutting.

John and Sarah watched him eat, exchanging bemused glances across the table to one another as food cascaded down the front of his beard. James still ate like a barbarian.

“Your parents,” John said to her. “I know what you said. But consider them. They’re undoubtedly worried.”

She nodded and looked at her food, poking it thoughtfully. “I should also inform my aunt and uncle about my cousin Charles… assuming they haven’t heard already.”

“You still sound like a priest,” James said, a crumb tumbling down his beard.

“I guess I still am,” said John. “I couldn’t tell you what religion at this point, however.”

“Oh?” James said. “You could always start your own.”

John made a face. “Ugh. Who wants that?”

“You could write about it,” Sarah said. “Write about Skyla, what she did. How you rescued her.”

There was a brief pause as both men simply looked one another before bursting out laughing. She frowned at James, who sat back in his chair letting out a breath.

“What?” she asked. “What did I say?”

“She didn’t need either of us,” James said. “We were both terrified for her. We traveled together for
miles
fearing the worst and she never needed us once.”

John looked around the cabin. He shrugged. “I doubt it could have gone any other way. We had to know, right?”

“That we did,” James agreed.

He looked at the corners of his room, now lit by warm ambient light from the lamps. There would be no more night terrors from the shadows and if there were, James had a feeling he could learn to deal with them.

“What about Gil?” John asked. “Do you think she’ll be safe?”

“She’s survived that long on her own,” he said. “It wasn’t like we didn’t offer.”

“I know,” said John. “She’s just so…”

“Young?” he said. “All alone, with nobody to help her but a raven?”

John went back to his food. After a while he spoke again. “Maybe I’ll go back to Rhinewall. There is going to be a need for aid, medical care. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for some people. And the empty ones, the subjects.” He shivered.