Dark Company (5 page)

Meg struggled where she stood. Her feet were heavy and clumsy as stones. She couldn’t move them.

“Think,” the being instructed her. “Use your thoughts to project yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Think about where you want to go and you will go there.”

Meg concentrated on the wall. Nothing happened.

“Think harder,” the being said. “Imagine yourself moving toward the wall.”

Meg focused as hard as she could. All at once there was the sound of air rushing through a tunnel, and her body lurched forward several feet as if she were sliding on ice. The feeling was so exhilarating, she shouted, “Hey! This is amazing!”

“Please, control yourself,” the being admonished. “Such outbursts will not be tolerated before the Council.”

“Oh.” She lowered her eyes in embarrassment. “I just can’t believe it actually worked.”

“Of course it worked. Now try again.”

Meg furrowed her brow, concentrating her intention. The whooshing sound grew to a roar, and in a stream of glittering stars she slid wildly across the ice again. “Holy smokes!” she exclaimed, forgetting what she’d just been told.

The silver being folded its arms with strained forbearance. “There is no need for such an emotional response. In fact, you should have left your emotions behind eons ago. Something isn’t right. You’re supposed to be pure—a blank canvas. But you’re the furthest thing from it. I can’t imagine what went wrong.”

“It’s not my fault,” Meg said, even though she was sure that it was. She’d done everything in her power to prevent her transformation from happening.

“Whose fault would it be?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. The guy in the white room said he was in charge of my transformation …”

“Your Incubator? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Maybe I was contaminated,” she said. “He seemed to be so worried about that.”

“Nonsense,” the silver being clipped. “You’re just going to have to control your thoughts and movements and not let whatever it is that’s affecting you interfere. An essential degree of subtlety is required here. You don’t need so much power just to get about.”

Meg frowned to keep from smiling. She liked having power.

When the being saw the look on her face it misunderstood and reconsidered its approach. It assumed a gentler stance, softening its tone.

“Think of yourself as … a leaf upon the water.”

Meg concentrated again, imagining a lovely green leaf bobbling along on a sparkling blue river. To her delight, she began to glide forward with the most pleasant swishing sound.

“Good,” the being congratulated her. “Now follow me—and try not to talk with your mouth open.”

C
addy crouched on the ground, a cornered animal. The man glared at her, his face shifting in the flickering candlelight. She wanted to memorize everything about him, to take what she could before he killed her. He was tall, dark-skinned—Native, maybe—dressed in jeans and a worn black suit jacket with a battered top hat pushed down over his dark mane of hair. Over his shoulder he wore a fringed tan leather satchel. His hands were the size of dinner plates. It was clear she couldn’t fight him off, though she would try. She didn’t want to die like this. She clutched her safe stone, gathering her courage.

“Are you the One-Armed Bandit?”

The man looked at her as though she was an idiot. “What did you come here for?” he asked.

His question confused her. What did he plan to do? She needed to act quickly, to find something—anything she could use to defend herself. The room was empty except for the candle guttering on the floor. The only way out was the door behind him. She was trapped. And then she remembered her phone. Pulling it from her jacket, Caddy pressed the key for emergency speed-dial.

The man reached her in one step, knocked the phone from her hand and shattered it with the heel of his boot.

“No phones.”

“Please, let me go,” Caddy begged.

“Why did you come here?”

She thought to lie but found herself telling the truth. “I was looking for my father.”

“Your father isn’t here.”

Caddy felt a sharp pain in her hands. She held them up in the candlelight, saw blood and started to cry. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you want from me.”

The man was unmoved. “We have to go.”

Caddy broke down. “Please … I haven’t done anything. I just want to go home.”

A scuffling sound outside the door set the man in action. He pushed her aside and brushed some dirt from the ground, uncovering a hatch. Grabbing the handle, he tugged it open. “Come on.”

Caddy made a break for the door, fumbling with the hasp as she tried to unlock it. “Help!” she shouted, pounding on the door with her fists. “Someone help me, please!”

The man picked her up and stuffed her through the hatch into a tunnel. He jumped in after her, pulling the lid shut.

“Get away from me!” Caddy yelled, hitting his face and chest until he snatched her up and carried her on his hip again.

She fought him the entire length of the passageway, the man cursing and muttering under his breath. At a bend in the tunnel, he dropped her to her feet. There was another hole. This one had a ladder leading down. The man pointed at the ladder.

“Climb,” he said.

Caddy started to object but he looked at her with such malice that she lowered herself onto the rungs. She clung to the ladder, peering between her feet at the water running along a massive concrete culvert below. Was he going to kill her down there? She
glanced at him and he scowled, forcing her to move. The rungs were damp. Her sneakers slipped and squeaked as she went.

The man descended after her, a menacing bear. At the bottom of the ladder, Caddy stopped. The culvert smelled of worms and muck and rotting tree roots. And it was dark. Her stomach tightened. No one would ever find her body there.

“Move,” the man said.

The water gushed cold over her shoes. There was no time to care because the man nearly landed on top of her when he splashed down. Opening his satchel, he retrieved a thin, tightly bound bundle of sticks wrapped at the top with a piece of cloth. A torch, Caddy thought. Whoever he was, he’d come prepared. The man lit a match and the torch jumped to life, the flame snapping like a sheet on a windy clothesline. Black smoke rolled up the ladder. The man motioned with his head.

“Go.”

They sloshed through the water, the torch casting eerie shadows on the walls. Caddy walked in front, clutching her necklace and wondering if she could outrun him. The man was practically on her heels. She squinted through the dark. The torchlight caught something in the distance. It flashed and disappeared, then flashed again. The water solidified, spreading in a wave up the walls and growing in speed and size, rolling toward her.

“Rats!” Caddy yelled.

The wave crashed over her feet and surged up her legs in a frenzy of teeth and nails and glinting eyes. The man caught her as she fell back. One arm around her, he stabbed wildly with the torch, the rats squealing and leaping away from the flame. The wave broke, streaming past in two grey torrents. Caddy didn’t resist when he lifted her off her feet, clinging to him like a frightened child until the rats were gone.

By the time he set her down, her whole body was shaking. She looked at him with a mixture of gratitude and disbelief. He’d
protected her. Why would he do that if he wanted to kill her? Maybe she could appeal to him—even convince him to let her go. “Thank you,” she said.

He glowered. “Go.”

Caddy’s heart pounded. “You’re very brave.”

He shoved her shoulder. “Go,” he repeated, this time more forcefully.

She walked, looking back periodically to discern the man’s intention. His face was hard as a shovel blade. She had to think of a way to change his mind before her chances ran out.

At the end of the tunnel was another ladder, this one leading up. The man threw the torch down, extinguishing it in the water. Caddy thought to sprint up the ladder to get ahead of him and slam the door shut at the top. If there was a door. Or maybe kick him in the face from the top of the ladder and run. Anything was better than going quietly. Did she have the guts to actually do it? She would never find out. As soon as she gripped the rungs the man flopped a cloth bag over her head, cinching it around her neck.

“Hey! You don’t have to do this!” she cried, clawing at the hood. He jerked her hands away and placed them on the ladder.

“Climb,” he ordered.

Caddy probed for the ladder with her feet, her breath heavy and moist inside the bag, her mind flattened with fear. “I can’t breathe …”

He nudged her harder. She moved in stops and starts, mouthing the words of her shining song. At the top, she felt around and pulled herself up. Squatting on her heels, she frantically worked the cord on the bag. It was tied tight. She could hear the muffled sounds of the city over her breathing as her fingers deciphered the knot. The smell of gas filtered through the hood. Were they in a garage? Her heart leapt when the cord began to loosen, but the man got to her first. He yanked her to her feet by one arm and
dragged her behind him. She heard a car door open and he forced her in, pushing her head down so she wouldn’t hit it getting into the vehicle. She realized now that he would never let her go. He was going to drive her to the middle of nowhere to kill her, and no one would ever know or care.

The second her legs touched the seat, Caddy exploded, kicking and yelling and swinging her fists. The man swore when she struck his face. He grabbed her arms. She threw her body to one side, feet flailing. Wrenching her upright, he pulled her hands behind her back and wrapped her wrists together with a piece of rope, pulling it taut. She lurched forward. He held her against the seat and fastened the belt.

“Let me go!” she screamed.

The car door slammed. Another opened and the vehicle rocked as the man got in. Keys jangled. The engine turned over. Caddy screamed louder, thrashing and bucking against the seatbelt. A damp rag covered her nose and mouth, the cold rush of solvent filling her lungs. It numbed her lips and made her neck loose. The car rolled forward, her head lolling from side to side, the movement of the vehicle sloshing her brain back and forth. Back and forth. Sounds blared and receded around her. The dark rose up and she surrendered, drifting into the void.

M
eg glided alongside the silver being. The cloudy walls of the white room dissolved, revealing a great and magical city that stretched uninterrupted as far as the eye could see.

“The City of Light,” the being announced.

Meg had never seen or dreamed of anything like it. Had the city been here the whole time she’d felt so alone? She hardly knew what to explore first. Every building gleamed with the brilliance of white marble, crystal and glass. The skyline was studded with domes of gold. There were rivers that gushed with no traceable source into ornate fountains, and pools of water so still it was nearly impossible to determine where the water stopped and the sky began. Meg wanted to see everything. She trailed her fingers in the spray of a huge fountain, and marvelled at the majestic trees lining the streets, and wondered at the impossible flower baskets that hung by magic, their blossoms tumbling in a riot of colour to the ground. Everywhere there were other beings—countless numbers—moving through the streets, their collective voices a roar in her ears. It was all so blindingly beautiful and strange and … completely overwhelming.

“Where’s everyone going?” she asked.

“To the Great Hall for the initiation ceremony,” the silver being said. “It is a very important day. These events don’t happen often.”

Meg gawked at the crowd. “These are all recruits?”

“Yes.”

Now she understood why the being had been so confused by her appearance. The recruits were entirely white and genderless, as the being had said they should be. And they were tall. She was suddenly self-conscious. All the other recruits were gliding purposefully along, chatting telepathically with their silver beings. They all seemed to know who they were and what they were doing and where they were going. She thought about her bad arm and her female form. She’d fought so hard to retain her past, to prevent her transformation from happening. Now she felt horribly out of place. She couldn’t fit in if she tried. The city and all its glittering wonders—they weren’t meant for her. They were meant for everyone else. Her soul sank. This wasn’t home. She couldn’t say exactly what home was like, but she was confident it was nothing like this. She tried to catch bits of conversation, to feel like part of the action. The voices rushed in a garbled stream through her head. She held her hands over her ears.