Chapter #20Malacandra Comes to Oswego by: Seuzz   You pick your way noiselessly across the carpet of the forest, casting your cloak before and about you to catch anyone who might be waiting in an ambush. It's not really a forest you're crossing, just an incursion made by the surrounding woodland into the outskirts of the town. But it's better to approach from this angle than from the road, even though it is already quite dark. You glance over your shoulder as you trot over a small crest, and through a gap in the trees you glimpse the surface of Lake Ontario twinkling under the moonlight. You follow the bend of the hill, and soon your destination looms over the trees.
The long-abandoned State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It's a gaunt shadow, and even less inviting in the dark than it is in the daytime. Even under the noon-time sun the dark stonework—unbroken even by windows—grimly deflects the gaze. At night, the walls are an obsidian nightmare.
You keep to the eaves of the wood, though, and drop to your haunches to watch and listen. Traffic grumbles on the nearby roads, and now and then the leaves rustle in the breeze. You let your eyes better adjust to the light. Then, while keeping still just inside the edge of the woods, you edge your way around to the parking lot.
From that angle you make out the spike of shadow at the foot of the tower. With a panther-like silence you cross to the nearest corner, and from there hurl your cloak over him. As he blows into his cupped hands, you sidle over and touch the side of his neck, and catch him as he sinks.
That touch has given you his imago as well as his memories. It gives you pause as you flip through the latter, for they are clear and strong only until earlier this evening, and then they vanish. But what's left is enough to warn you against waiting for him to revive. You touch him again, and send him into a deeper sleep.
The layout of the old asylum is like a diagram before your mind's eye as you slip in through the main doors into the atrium. You silently check each of the dark rooms that open into it, then quietly mount the staircase leading up to the tower. You cuss silently to yourself as one of the steps creaks beneath your foot.
"Bradley?" a voice hisses from the room at the top of the stairs.
You pull on Shackelford's imago. "No, it's me."
"The fuck? You're supposed to be waiting down—"
"He's not showing. He must've got wise. He should have been here fifteen minutes ago."
The screen of a cell phone lights up a few feet away. Stupid, you think. Anyone down below outside could see the glow through the window.
Stupider to light it up when it can be spotted from fifteen feet away. You're across that space in five steps, and catch the lookout about the throat. It would be so easy to twist and snap his neck, but you've yet to have the need to do that to anyone, and you just drop him into a sleep as deep the one you cast on the man on the ground below.
Back down in the atrium, you study the heavy doors leading into the operating theater. That is where they took Shackelford earlier this afternoon. They bundled him in and pushed him into a chair, and Bradley, the leader of the gang, poured something into a Styrofoam cup and forced the undercover cop to drink it. That is when the man's mind went blank.
So if they're waiting for you anywhere, it's probably in that room.
You cross over to press yourself against the wall beside the doors. "Bradley!" you call, and whistle between your teeth.
There's a hesitation, then the doors swing open and two men come out. As the doors swing shut behind, you throw your cloak over them and catch them each by the neck. They immediately sink to the floor.
The doors swing open again, and you have just enough time to murmur, Fucking premature of you, Prescott, before another man steps out. He's only a shadow against the darker shadow of the theater behind, but you instantly take in the glint of metal at his waistband, and he's close enough that you can hear the soft swish of cloth as he goes for the gun.
In one swift, clean motion you grab him by the shoulder and punch him in the throat. He gurgles once, and his knees buckle. As he goes down you pull the pistol from his waistband. Another figure lunges out of the theater, and you blast a hole in the ceiling while slapping your attacker hard across the face. He spins and falls backward face first through the doors.
Footsteps sound inside the theater, running. You kick the doors open and step inside, sweeping the darkness with the muzzle of the gun. But you don't fire. You feel for the light switch that should be beside the door, and when the lights blaze on you throw your cloak over the figure sprinting down the center aisle. It wheels and blinks and squints at you, but you're now invisible to him. He staggers back, then ducks down behind a row of seats.
Early in your training, when you were still green enough to think that Stellae prodigies should be enjoyed as much as used, you liked to alert your prey, then stalk them after blinding them. Even now you feel the twinge of temptation. But it's been a long time since you acted on it. Not since the exercise when Frank caught you as you silently gloated over him, and hung you upside-down from the ceiling until you puked.
You do make a sweep of the theater first, though, and by the time you're satisfied that it's just you and this last man, he has come out from his hiding place and is cautiously advancing up the aisle toward the double doors. He's hunched as you approach from behind, and even now you almost whisper "Boo!" in his ear as you close over him. But you content yourself with touching the back of his neck and dropping him into the same enchanted slumber as you've sent the others.
* * * * *
You've tied all seven men up and stacked them like cordwood by the time Rick arrives in answer to your summons. "Didn't you check it out?" he asks when you jerk your head at the coffee urn.
"If you order me, sir. You're the superior officer."
He makes a face. "Been hanging out with the cadet too long, that's your problem," he mutters. He advances on the stage and lifts the lid of the urn. He gives it one quick glance inside, then drops the lid with a clang. His lips move and he shuts his eyes. Then he lifts the lid again and gives the contents a longer stare. After dropping the lid, he puts a Styrofoam cup under the spigot and flicks the tap. He lifts the contents to his nose, and sniffs.
"Okay, squirt," he says as he dumps the cup, contents and all, back inside the urn. "I'll dispose of this."
"And the men outside?"
"They do anything the cops'd be interested in?"
"Drugs, extortion, blackmail, racketeering—"
"Confession's good for soul. Find the one who knows the most, and write one up for him."
"That'll take an hour at least! Maybe more!"
Rick gives you a look.
"Yeah, it all looks like mad ninja skills and cool, cool gunplay in the movies, squirt," he says. "But anyone who's been in the military will tell you most of it is paperwork. And latrine duty," he adds as he lugs the urn away.
* * * * *
"Whoa!" you exclaim after you've emerged from the vision. "That was—" You search for words that will do justice to the enthusiasm you feel. "Cool!"
"That was a lot more like you wanted from the earlier visions?" Charles asks with a smile. You feel abashed, but nod. "I'm not surprised. You were in control of most of it." He nods at John, who is sprawling face down on the table.
Your eyes pop. "Are you alright?" you ask him.
John groans. "I need a painkiller," he slurs. "And sleep. And a few days break."
"I'm sorry, John! I didn't know I was—"
"Let's take him to bed," Charles says as he rises.
Later, after Reilly has been sedated and tucked into bed, you sit with Charles on the steps of the back porch. "If John wasn't in control," you ask, "should I really trust that vision?"
"No more or less than you should trust any of the others," Charles says.
"What I mean is— You said that was close to the kind of thing I wanted. Wouldn't that make it kind of a wishful thinking?"
"Possibly. But wishful thinking is also a marker of powerful desire. I've already told you that these visions must be taken as only truth-like, not as mirrors reflecting what would be. No, not even with Sulva's influence," he adds. "When Perelandra is present," he adds with a wry smile, "even Sulva's mirror is likely to have a funhouse cast. But even if this vision was more wishful than the others, that might mean that something in you yearns strongly for Malacandra."
* * * * *
Your eyes open, and you again feel the rattling rhythm of the train.
As long ago as that, you wonder as your eyes close again, was I falling into Frank's orbit?
To wake from this reverie: "The Boy from Before Everything, Part 2"  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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