Jenny Plague-Bringer: (Jenny Pox #4) (30 page)

The sound of Ward’s voice brought Junius’ wandering mind back to the present.

“...can do this quick and easy or quick and painful, Senator,” Ward was saying. “Where
are Seth Barrett and Jennifer Morton?”

“Don’t know,” Junius said. 
Doh nuh.

“I find that hard to believe, Senator,” Ward said. “Did you not help to hide them? 
Did you not help the White House to bury the entire situation?”

Junius didn’t speak, but he felt relieved.  He didn’t personally know where Seth was,
that hadn’t been part of the arrangements.  Only one or two people inside Hale Security
Group knew the answer to that one.

“Senator, I’m afraid we’ll need the answer immediately,” Ward said.

“What do you want with him?” Junius asked, and it sounded like
Wah ooh ooh ah wah heh?

“You’re not making much sense, Senator.  But that’s all right.  Just think about your
grandnephew for me.” Ward grabbed Junius’ right hand.  Junius tried to pull away,
but he had no strength in his arm.  All he could do was make his hand tremble like
a frightened mouse.

Junius found himself thinking of the arrangements they’d made with Hale.  Jenny and
Seth would live in a location known to almost nobody, but the family was assured it
would be quite pleasant there.  A tropical island, maybe.

“You really don’t know.” Ward dropped his hand back onto the bed. “But Hale Security
knows,  don’t they?  And it just happens that Eddie Cordell is a friend of mine, so
I’ll go ask him where to find Seth.  Good night, Senator.” Ward started for the door.

Junius kept his face as stoic as a poker player’s.  He didn’t want to signal that
the man was on the right trail, although he was.  Junius retreated into silence, usually
the best move when you didn’t know the score.  He didn’t know who this man was, what
agency he represented, or what his intentions might be toward Seth.  Junius would
need to make some phone calls after Ward left.

Ward halted and turned back to him. “Oh, Senator, there is just one more little problem. 
Eddie Cordell might continue protecting Seth out of fear of crossing you, a senior
member of the Armed Services Committee.  We’ve been waiting for you to die, Senator,
but you’re taking too damned long.  Avery?”

One of the younger men, the one not holding Junius’ remote control, drew a small sheath
from his inner coat pocket and slid out a syringe filled with clear liquid.  He approached
the bag of fluids hanging over Junius’ bed, which fed right into Junius’ arm.

Junius squirmed weakly, but he was helpless to stop the man.  He tried shouting with
as much power as his lungs and vocal cords could manage, but that wasn’t much.

“Please, Senator, consider dying with some dignity,” Ward said, while Avery injected
the poison into Junius’ fluid line. “You’ll feel some pain, but if I were you, with
your history of sin and corruption, right now I’d mostly be worried about the devil
waiting for me on the other side.  Good night, Senator.”

Junius felt a cold burning in his heart as the three men left.  He reached for the
remote, now dangling from its wall cable, and managed to catch in his arthritic fingers. 
He dragged it up onto the hospital bed with him, and he lay a finger on the red EMERGENCY
button
. 
Before he could press it, his heart stopped and his eyes glazed over.

Outside, the barn owl took flight.

On New Year’s Eve, Jenny, Seth, and Mariella took the train west across France, traveling
to the small town of Carnac on the coast of Brittany.  The place was a tourist destination
in the summer, but in January it was freezing cold, and much of the town lay empty
and quiet.

Jenny had suggested they find very old ruins, since Alexander had taken her to an
ancient Mayan pyramid half-swallowed by the jungle when he’d helped Jenny recover
her past-life memories—the ones he’d wanted her to remember, anyway, the lifetimes
she’d spent as his consort.

Mariella had suggested the standing stones of Carnac, the oldest known structures
in all of Europe, built about five thousand years earlier.  Thousands of stones, some
of them more than twice as high as a tall man, were arranged in straight rows that
stretched for half a mile or longer.  Their original prehistoric purpose remained
unknown, but might have been related to religion or astrology.

Carnac itself was a pretty little village of centuries-old houses and cobblestone
streets.  A “campground” near the standing stones offering camping sites for tents,
but also rental apartments and mobile homes.  Seth rented a two-bedroom trailer for
their stay, joking that it made him feel like he was back home in South Carolina.

They dropped off their overnight luggage in the rented trailer, including paints
and canvases, which would provide their cover story if local authorities caught them
among the standing stones late at night.  Tonight was a full moon, providing plenty
of light for painting, and Jenny thought the full moon might even help with their
real purpose, too.

They ate at a local restaurant, enjoying a thick stew called
Pot au Feu de Homard
, full of lobster, scallops, shrimp, oysters, and mussels, all locally caught.  Jenny
peppered Mariella with questions about her life in Milan, and was rewarded with stories
of lavish parties at her family’s
palazzo
, crowded with Italian politicians, film directors, and fashion models—sometimes exciting,
often tedious, according to Mariella, but it all sounded insanely glamorous to Jenny. 
Mariella had quietly offered “palm readings” to those who wanted them, just for fun,
but her parents strongly discouraged it, as did their priest.

They walked through the little village during the sunset, browsing the shops and playing
tourist, and later returned to the “campground” to pass time on the water slides at
the heated indoor pool, an unexpected treat on a cold winter night.

When it was late enough, they sat in the living/dining area of the trailer, and Mariella
placed a large camera bag on the table, with a sticker warning that it contained exposed
film that should not be exposed to the light.  She opened it up and took out a camera,
followed by a plastic bag full of pointy, dark brown dried mushrooms.

“
He told me the name of these, but I forgot,” Mariella said. “They were supposed to
be the strongest ones the guy could get.”

The sight of the mushrooms made Jenny a little frightened, remembering how intense
her previous experience had been.  She was glad she wasn’t taking any tonight.

“
I also brought some smoke, in case we need it to take the edge off.” Mariella tossed
a half-ounce of shaggy purple marijuana buds onto the table next to the mushrooms.
“And I brought wine, because...just because.”

“
Looks like a wild night for you two,” Jenny said.

“
So what do we do now?” Seth asked. “Is there a ritual?  Do we have to chant or strangle
a chicken or something?”

“
The chicken sacrificing doesn’t start until later,” Jenny told him. “Y’all just eat
the shrooms, they take a while to kick in.  Then we’ll go walking.”

Seth picked up one of the brown mushrooms. “They look like...little shriveled brains.”

“
Does that make them more appetizing to you?” Jenny asked.

He put in his mouth, chewed, and gagged, looking disgusted. “They taste like shit.”

“
They grow in shit, so it makes sense.” Mariella curled her lips as she placed one
in her mouth, then took a swig of wine.  She and Seth passed it back and forth, washing
the mushrooms down with more wine.

“
Okay,” Jenny said. “Now we wait.  Who wants to go to the beach?”

They walked from the lighted campground out to the endless darkness of ocean, where
they shivered in the icy wind off the water. 

“
Who feels like swimming?” Mariella asked.

“
Or freezing and dying,” Seth said.

“
At least we have the beach to ourselves,” Jenny pointed out.

“
Let’s make the most of it.” Mariella took a joint from her coat pocket and lit it
up.  She and Seth passed it back and forth, coughing, while Jenny watched the dark
waves roll in under the shimmering night sky.

“
Tell me something, Jenny,” Mariella said as she exhaled blue smoke. “You have the
memories.  What are we, really?  I mean...we have something supernatural, but obviously
we’re not, um...vampires or werewolves or...zombies...”

“
I’m a werewolf,” Seth said. “I’ve just never mentioned it before.  But with the full
moon, I think I should warn both of you.”

Jenny tried to figure out how to answer Mariella’s question.  She pointed out at the
sky over the ocean. “What do you see up there?”

“
Stars,” Mariella said.

“
Beyond that?”

“
Nothing.  Darkness.”

“
The darkness beyond the stars,” Jenny said.

“
What does that mean?”

Jenny thought about it. “In almost every ancient myth, the universe begins in darkness
and chaos, and then order and light take over.”

Mariella nodded quickly.  She’d attended a Swiss boarding school, Jenny knew, so she
must have studied classics there.  Jenny had studied classics herself, in the actual
classical age.

“
Imagine...” Jenny closed her eyes. “Imagine the entire universe is just a single mind. 
At first, it’s all alone, and it knows nothing, and there’s no one else to explain
anything, so for a very long time, it’s just confusion, fear, nightmares, lost in
its imagination.  But, after a very long time, a small little portion of the mind
sorts itself out and becomes....sane.  The little patch of light grows, turning the
raw chaos around it into order.  An ordered universe begins to emerge.”

“
Man,” Seth said, pulling on the joint, “Are you sure you haven’t smoked any of this?”

“
Quiet, Seth.  So, there are these isolated bits of chaos left scurrying around in
the new, orderly universe,” Jenny said. “That’s us.  Have you ever read any H.P. Lovecraft?”

Mariella shook her head.  She was listening intently.

“
It doesn’t matter,” Jenny said. “So our kind had nowhere left to go but to infiltrate
the living.  And here we incarnate again and again.”

“
But why?” Mariella asked. “Do we have a purpose?”

“
Our purpose is to destroy the new order and bring back the original chaos, where we
thrived instead of scurrying around like rats in the basement,” Jenny told her.

“
That’s all we want?  Destruction?” Mariella asked.

“
We don’t have to be that way.  We have a choice,” Jenny said. “Many times, I used
plague as a weapon of war...some king or emperor would send me to destroy the armies
or the cities of their enemies.  And it was fun, to my old self.  But I will never
do that again, not for anyone.  No man will use me as his weapon again.”

Mariella nodded, thinking things over, the moonlight making her green eyes glow like
a cat’s.  Seth was gaping silently out at the waves.

“
It’s all waves,” Seth whispered. “One after another, it’s all just waves, waves in
the universe of the ocean...or the ocean of the...what was I saying?”

“
I think the mushrooms are starting to work,” Jenny said, and Mariella laughed.  She
kept laughing, and Seth started laughing, and Jenny shook her head, watching them
stumble around the beach, laughing so hard they toppled over into the cold, wet sand.

“
Okay, kids,” Jenny said. “Let’s go back in time. We’re trespassing, so try to keep
quiet.”

A wooden fence surrounded the nearest field of standing stones, but a few boards were
missing, so they were able to slip right through.  That was lucky, because Jenny doubted
Seth or Mariella could climb a fence in their current state.  They kept bumping into
each other and giggling.

“
Sh!” Jenny whispered.  She pointed to the small farmhouse on the far side of the field.
“Someone might be home.  Stay quiet.”

“
I wonder who lives there,” Mariella whispered.

“
Old French ghosts,” Seth whispered, and they both laughed, and Jenny had to shush
them.

They found themselves in the middle of nine perfectly straight rows of tall standing
stones stretching away into the distance, where Jenny could make out the remains of
what looked like a megalithic house, with a few gigantic stones for walls and equally
large stone cross-pieces across the top.  She wondered why Stone Age people had built
such things.

“
Stand over here, next to each other, and look at me,” Jenny said.  She thought back
to the few previous lives in which her memories had been fully awoken.