The Second Siege (20 page)

“One room,” repeated Cooper, ignoring them. “And we’d be obliged for a bit of rest. As you said, we’ve had a long journey.”

“As you wish,” said Rasmussen, offering a curious smile. He beckoned to a tall woman wearing a trim gray outfit. “Can you please take our guests to a suite in the VIP quarters?”

“Of course,” said the young woman. “Please follow me.”

They were taken to an elevator bank that was unlike any Max had ever seen; the elevator was a sort of smooth oval pod that was propelled along without any appreciable sense of friction. They traveled at a steep trajectory before suddenly leveling off to skim smoothly along a white plastic tube lined with rows of shiny silver disks like the suckers on a tentacle. A violin concerto played from a hidden speaker.

“Er, are you Mr. Rasmussen’s secretary?” asked Mr. McDaniels.

“I’m a physicist,” replied the woman coolly.

Mr. McDaniels blushed and coughed into his fist.

“Have you seen what’s happening aboveground?” asked Miss Boon.

“Not personally,” replied the woman. “I’ve never been above-ground.”

Max’s jaw dropped. Even Cooper glanced up in interest.

“You mean you’ve
never
left the Workshop?” asked Miss Boon.

“I understand that must sound odd,” said the woman, “but there’s never been a reason to leave.”

“So you’ve never seen a hag before?” asked Mum, giving a regal turn to present her bulbous profile.

“Of course I have,” said the woman, glancing at her watch. “There’s a stuffed specimen in our Biology Museum, and we have a dozen genetic samples on record.”

Mum’s eyes widened in shock; her lower lip began to quiver.

“You’ve got a hag
stuffed
in some dusty museum?”

“The museum is perfectly clean.”

“ You scrawny little—”

Miss Boon clamped her hand over Mum’s mouth while the gray hag flushed green. Max was impressed that Miss Boon could keep a hold on Mum, who was notoriously strong for her size. After several furious seconds Mum stopped struggling.

“Are you going to be polite?” asked Miss Boon firmly.

Mum glared at the teacher but nodded. The hand was removed and the hag leapt to her feet.

“It’s my cousin Gertrude!” Mum bawled. “Gertie went on holiday twenty years ago and—”

Miss Boon sighed and snapped her fingers before Mum’s spitting, hissing mouth. The shrieks and accusations ceased as though Mum had been unplugged.

“Thank you,” said the woman as the pod came to a gentle stop. “I’ll take you to your room.”

For all of the Workshop’s emphasis on machines, Max found their room surprisingly organic. Its palette was light, its textures were natural, and the internal geometry converged to pleasing curves. It had two large bedrooms and baths and a common room complete with burning fireplace. The woman touched a screen that was set into a wall of burled hardwood.

“Just address the monitor if you have any requests,” she said. “I have to be returning to work.”

Cooper nodded and shut the door behind her.

“Assume everything we do and say will be seen and heard,” he muttered, opening David’s bag and unpacking their things. Hoisting his own pack, Cooper disappeared into one of the bathrooms to shower. Max and David followed Mr. McDaniels into one of the bedrooms, where they collapsed onto a huge soothing green comforter. Nick leapt up on the bed to nestle between the McDanielses. Scratching the lymrill’s silky ears, Max closed his eyes and drifted to his first satisfactory sleep in a month.

He awoke to the sound of Mum’s voice speaking shrilly from the common room. Max glanced at his watch—he’d been asleep for five hours.

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “And six more hams on the bone. Honey-glazed.”

“Will that be all, madam?” asked the beleaguered-looking woman on the screen.

“And perfume,” Mum thundered, shooting a finger toward the ceiling. “Something expens—”

Cooper strode to the computer screen and banged it off.

“I wasn’t finished!” hissed Mum.

“Get dressed,” said Cooper. “We’re not on vacation.”

The Agent ignored Mum’s departing curses and threats as he pulled on his shirt of nanomail. He looked tired; there was a purplish tinge to the skin beneath his undamaged eye.

“Are you all right, Cooper?” asked Max.

Cooper nodded and reached for the wavy-bladed kris. He oiled its blade with a black cloth before strapping the scabbard to the small of his back. He reached for his black sweater and sniffed it.

“They have plenty of clean clothes in the closets,” offered Max.

“Threaded with audiowire and filament cameras, no doubt,” replied Cooper. “Stick with what we brought, eh? Whether it needs a wash or not.”

Cooper glanced at the door to the room where David and Mr. McDaniels were sleeping. He crossed over and shut it before taking a seat at a small dining table near the fire. He beckoned for Max to sit.

“How do you feel?” asked Cooper.

“Fine,” said Max. “Hungry, but fine.”

“We haven’t had much time for training,” muttered the Agent. “Do you feel sharp? Capable, I mean.”

“I do,” said Max, puzzling at the man’s earnest tone.

“That’s good,” said the Agent, rubbing his hands together. “That’s very good.”

“Cooper, what’s wrong?”

The pale blue eyes darted away from Max to stare at the fire. The Agent seemed to choose his words carefully.

“We all have a purpose,” said Cooper. “I used to think mine was to be alone—to hunt Rowan’s enemies and keep dark things where they belonged. I was wrong. My true purpose has been to keep you safe—you and David, your father and Miss Boon. Even Mum.”

Max began to speak, but Cooper held up a finger to silence him.

“A time may come when I cannot keep you all safe. You are inexperienced, but you are a member of the Red Branch and you have been blooded. As of this moment, I am assigning you a most important objective.”

The Agent pushed a thin slip of paper toward Max. There were only three words, but they sent a chill down Max’s spine.

They watched the paper blacken and curl and dissolve to ash.

“Well, at least it’s straightforward,” said Max, trying to lighten the mood.

“Straightforward, yes,” said Cooper. “But not simple. It must be your reason for being. Nothing can come between you and this objective.”

Cooper inclined his head toward one of the bathrooms, where Mr. McDaniels’s booming baritone could be heard from the shower. Max pondered several scenarios.

“You mean if I had to choose—”

“There is no choosing,” said the Agent, shaking his head. “There can be no hesitation. Your objective is clear.”

Max glowered at Cooper.

“I will look after him, Max,” offered the Agent. “You know that.”

Max nodded, looking hard at Cooper. “I do. But there’s one more thing I want to know.”

“And what’s that?”

“Did you know my mother?” asked Max simply.

Cooper blinked but sat perfectly still. They stared at each other for several seconds.

“Why would you ask me that?” asked the Agent slowly, rising to retrieve a bottle of water from a slim silver refrigerator.

“I saw your face when my dad showed you the photograph,” said Max. “You’ve seen her before, haven’t you?”

A vein throbbed in Cooper’s forehead. He sipped slowly from the bottle.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I have seen your mother before.”

“Where?” demanded Max.

“I can’t answer that.”

“Where is she now?” demanded Max.

“I can’t say,” said Cooper evenly.

“You don’t know or you can’t say?” said Max, his face growing hot. He jabbed a finger at the Agent. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“I don’t believe so,” replied Cooper.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” hissed Max.

There was a sharp knock at the door. Cooper strode over to answer it but Max seized his arm.

“Answer me!”

Cooper’s face darkened and he straightened to his full height. Turning, he gripped Max hard by the shoulders.

“I think she’s alive because her apple hasn’t turned to gold. And that’s all you’ll get from me, do you hear?”

The words struck Max like a physical blow. Cooper released him and went toward the door. Max’s hands began to shake. A tremendous, terrifying surge of energy snapped through his body like a whip.

Breathing deeply, Max shut his eyes for a moment and sought to calm himself.

His mother was alive. His mother had attended Rowan.

Max’s mind flashed back to his memories. He had never seen his mother do anything unusual—nothing to suggest she had any capabilities in Mystics. She had certainly never mentioned Rowan. So many questions. He opened his eyes and saw Dr. Rasmussen standing in the doorway, looking at him curiously.

“Are you ill, boy?” asked the man. “You don’t look well.”

“I’m fine,” croaked Max.

“I trust you’re comfortable here,” said Dr. Rasmussen, glancing at Cooper’s stained clothing with mild amusement. “And I see you’ve already managed a bite,” he added, glimpsing the culinary carnage.

“No,” sighed Cooper. “Just Mum.”

“Ah, the hag,” said Dr. Rasmussen, frowning. “Curious travel companion. If you’re ready, I’ll give you a brief tour of the Workshop. Then we request your company at dinner.”

Minutes later, they had piled into another one of the floating pods and were whisked off on brisk rounds of subterranean wheat fields and orchards and greenhouses, all illuminated by artificial sunlight and manned by robotic, spidery farmhands or actual humans who enjoyed the activity. They glided through monstrous foundries, past coiled energy converters, and beneath shuttered research labs that protruded like rock ledges in the hollowed enormity of an old salt mine. Surfaces were clean, people moved with unhurried efficiency, and everywhere was the low drone of white noise.

“How many people live in the Workshop?” asked Cooper as the pod slowed to permit a team of scientists to cross the way.

“That’s classified, as I’m sure you understand,” replied Dr. Rasmussen.

The pod rose several levels and accelerated forward into a well-lit hall the size of an aircraft hangar. Max fidgeted and glanced at Mum as they passed biological exhibits. Gargantuan skeletons of whales and dinosaurs were suspended in glass cases, their mouths yawning wide to reveal fine-combed baleen or six-inch teeth. While they hovered past tree sloths and octopi and marmosets and water buffalo, Mum’s face was pressed against the pod’s window.

Dr. Rasmussen continued his dry commentary. “. . . of course, many are now extinct, but we have preserved all available genetic material in cryogenic bins located beneath each exhibit. With this we are able to incubate and resuscitate any species whose reappearance is considered desirable. For example—”

“Where’s the hag?” blurted out Mum.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The hag, the hag!” shrieked Mum. “I want to see her.”

“Very well,” said Rasmussen. The pod hummed along toward a vast wing labeled
EXOTICS
.

This gallery was dim, brightened primarily by the exhibits themselves, whose glass cases were illuminated from within.

“Now this is interesting,” said David, sitting up.

Max gaped at a russet-plumed cockatrice whose petrifying eyes had been removed. A mottled Okinawan hobgoblin glared straight ahead, its sharp-toothed mouth frozen in a mischievous leer. They passed a Baltic ogre and a serpentine naga. David and Max craned their necks to glimpse the shadowed face of an enormous giant clad in heavy skins. It must have been thirty feet tall, with braided black hair, and several eyes sparkled from beneath its craggy brow like semiprecious stones. The giant’s head and limbs were massive and rough-hewn, as though it had crawled out of some bubbling vat of primal clay and cooled before it could be properly shaped. It was the most hideous thing Max had ever seen.

“What is that?” asked David, scuttling to the rear of the pod to get a second glance at its label.

“A Fomorian giant,” replied a disinterested Dr. Rasmussen. “Thoroughly brutish and mercifully extinct. We purchased that specimen from Solas in the sixteenth century.”

Max glanced at Cooper, but the Agent merely stared straight ahead. They had passed several more cases of various giants and ogres and trolls when Miss Boon suddenly exclaimed, “Excuse me, but did that lamia just blink?”

“Ah, Lilith is a great favorite among the schoolchildren,” chuckled Dr. Rasmussen, bringing the pod to a halt. The pod door slid open, and he stood aside to let them out. They stopped at a respectful distance from the ten-foot cube. The lamia’s hooded eyes surveyed them with disdain. It had the porcelain face and torso of a beautiful woman but the lower body of a green-skinned constrictor that moved ever so slowly in a thick series of coils.

“You keep
live
specimens here?” asked Cooper.

“Certain creatures, yes,” said Dr. Rasmussen defensively. “They’re critical to our research. Without that research, you’d have no Course, my friend.”

“You built the Course?” asked Max.

“Of course we did,” said Dr. Rasmussen proudly. “Not quite cutting-edge anymore, but I daresay it still meets your needs—even those of your top Agents.”

Cooper nodded and stepped closer to the glass. The lamia’s snake trunk now wrapped sinuously around its body. Blood-red lips smiled and parted to reveal triangular white teeth.

“Ever have one escape?” asked Cooper.

Dr. Rasmussen scoffed.

“Never. Our containment chambers are impenetrable. A lamia is a minor consideration. After all, we have afrits and marids and all sorts of
diaboli minora
similarly imprisoned.”

“You’re joking,” said Miss Boon, looking ashen-faced.

“Not at all,” said Dr. Rasmussen, gesturing toward distant rows of bronze-tinted cases. “Your own Scholars inscribed the original pentacles in the mid-nineteenth century, I believe.”

“Bother all that!” shrieked Mum, flapping her hands impatiently.
“Where’s the hag?”

“Two aisles over, three cases down,” muttered Dr. Rasmussen.

Mum galloped away, skidding around a gleaming exhibit of a half-grown chimera.

Moments later, a bloodcurdling wail, like a broken siren, rose to a frenzied pitch before subsiding into pitiful sobs. The group hurried over to find Mum curled into a weeping ball at the base of a brightly lit exhibit. Within the case was a particularly pasty, gap-toothed hag in a floral sundress, toting a large woven handbag. Her features were frozen into an expression of revolted shock and horror. Max glanced at the nameplate:
PEDIVORE TERRIBILIS
.

“Murderers!”
howled Mum. “Oh, my poor Gertie. Cut down in the prime of life.”

“My condolences,” sniffed Dr. Rasmussen.

Mum scrambled to her feet and launched herself at Dr. Rasmussen. Mr. McDaniels intercepted the sputtering, cursing hag. “We’d better take Mum back to our room,” said Miss Boon quietly.

“Another transport is on its way,” said Dr. Rasmussen, tapping a translucent screen on his watch. He flicked an irritated glance at Mum, who now clung to Max’s father like an inconsolable koala. They stood in awkward silence for the next minute until a sleek pod hovered before them.

“I’ll take her,” said Mr. McDaniels, lumbering toward the open door with his sobbing burden.

Mum’s face whipped up from Scott McDaniels’s shoulder. Her face contorted in fury.

“I’m going to get you, Rasmussen,” she hissed, taking a long sniff. “Hags
never
forget!”

The door slid shut, and the pod reversed smoothly out of the gallery.

“Charming creature,” remarked Dr. Rasmussen, turning on his heel. “Shall we?”

“I hope we don’t see a stuffed lymrill,” whispered Max to David. “Nick would go berserk.”