Midnight's Angels - 03 (27 page)

As soon as she heard that, Cass lunged forward, grabbing a handful of the doctor’s jacket. Which wasn’t the smartest thing to do around such a powerful adept. But she was overcome with fright. And Willets, seeing that, remained calm and passive.

“What’s happened to him?” she yelled. “Where is he?”

When he looked at her, his gaze was mild. I’d never seen those crimson-flecked eyes so filled with sadness.

“Back at home,” he told her in a terribly quiet tone. “A doctor’s --“

But he never got to finish the sentence. Cass was running off toward Meadows next instant, without uttering another word. I watched her shrink into the distance, and then turned back to Willets. Who was standing with his shoulders slumped, both arms hanging slackly.

“The Hallows Knot?” I asked.

It seemed to be an effort, but he nodded.

“It happened some fifteen minutes back,” he told me. Which was about the same time that the angel had been destroyed. “I sensed this tremendous burst of energy near the Luce house. The
source
of it was a much shorter distance off though, nearby here and to the west. And so I knew that it had to be Maycott.”

The doctor stopped, peering at me uncertainly.

“He destroyed one of those soul-suckers? To save Cassie, right?”

His eyebrows rose. It was my turn to nod.

“He must have had some idea of the risk,” the doc continued. “I got there as fast as I could. Quinn was lying on the floor, not even breathing. So I applied my own version of CPR.”

Willets was a fantastic healer when he cared to be one. Many of us owed our lives to that, myself included.

“And then?”

“After I’d resuscitated him, I called for a real medic, who is with him now.”

The man stared in the direction of the alley and then back.

“Quinn had a heart attack,” he told me. “Defying the spell on him? He’s lucky to be alive at all.”

* * *

The door to Quinn’s house was partway open. Cassie burst through it and then staggered to a halt. God only knew what she had been expecting. But it hadn’t been her new lover reduced to this enfeebled state.

He looked like the vitality had been siphoned out of him. His face was bloodless, his cheeks hollow. He was sprawled out very limply on his futon bed, covered to his chest with a plain linen sheet.

His eyes were closed. It was hard to be sure -- the lights were turned down low. But she thought his eyelids had a deep blue tinge to them, and that had not been there before. His lips looked  withered.

A painful gasp went through her body. The doctor who was in the room heard that and glanced around. She only got a brief impression of him. Medium height and rather stout, dressed in a tracksuit and with stubble on his cheeks. Then she crossed the room and went down on her knees beside the mattress, pushing past the man like he was barely there.

He cleared his throat, trying to get her attention. But she barely heard that, the blood singing in her ears. She picked up one of Quinn’s hands and twined her fingers around his.

The doctor tried again. “Miss?”

Cassie turned her head at last. The man looked more imposing from this angle. When she stared at his face, she could see how tired he was. But such considerations were beyond her.

“You are?” he inquired.

She struggled to understand the question. He didn’t only want her name. He was asking about her relationship to Quinn. And how to describe it? It was barely a day old, although it felt much longer-term than that. As if they’d known each other their whole lives.

But there seemed to be no way that she could put that into words. And so she finally settled for, “A friend.”

He nodded. “Has your friend ever had trouble of this kind before?”

“Will he be alright?” she came back at him.

“He’s had a major incident. He ought to be on medication and a drip. In hospital in fact, and under constant supervision. But none of those things are available at the moment.”

“But he’ll be okay?” she asked again, a lot more sharply.

The doctor seemed unbothered by her tone.

“He’s young. He’s in good physical shape. With rest, he ought to pull through fine. But he needs to be shielded from stress, and God knows how that’s going to be achieved in these conditions.”

Quinn, who had been fast asleep, gave a tiny grunt and shifted position slightly. Then his eyes opened a narrow crack. They focused and he recognized her. He forced out a tired, weak smile. And then he started trying to push himself up. Panic swelled in Cassie. She put a palm against his shoulder, holding him down as gently as she could.

“There’s no need to move.”

She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

His smile became a little puzzled, his brow squinching up. And she could see he couldn’t open his eyes properly.

“I want --“

“You need to rest, Quinn. You’ve been really sick.”

The doctor -- who seemed like a sensible, experienced man -- moved away, giving them some privacy. Cassie crouched in close to Quinn’s ear, talking to him in a whisper.

“You saved me, right?”

He grinned and ducked his chin..

“And that was when this happened?”

“I guess.”

Cassie felt her eyes begin to burn with tears, and held his hand a little tighter.

“You must
never
do anything like this again, you understand? Whatever’s happening. However bad it gets. Never use your powers to destroy stuff. Promise me?”

She pressed his knuckles to her cheek to emphasize the point, letting him feel the dampness on them.

And was about to repeat everything she’d said, when she heard a faint creak from the door. She looked over to see Ross and Willets staring at her. Cassie raised her head, a look of desperation spreading on her face.

“Can’t you do anything more for him?” she pleaded.

Willets didn’t answer, staring back at her helplessly. And Ross did the same.

And that made her mind up. Quinn had already saved her life, not merely once but several times. So now that his was in the balance, it was up to her to make sure he pulled through.

During the course of the next few hours, a load more missing townsfolk started showing up, every single one of them in pretty much the same state that Vernon and the rest had been. Ragged, mildly injured, frightened and bemused. None of them had the slightest memory of what they had been doing since the Dweller’s agents had captured them. They’d simply headed here because it seemed the natural place. Union Square has always been the hub around which this town revolves.

These were more folk who had been transformed either by the angel that had been destroyed or by the hominids it had created. They came wandering in from every quarter of the Landing, although mostly from the west … Tyburners. Male and female, young and old. Singly, or in pairs or small groups. And on more than a few occasions, an entire family.

When they found themselves confronted with fellow human beings whose skin was glowing, their reactions ranged from astonishment to open fright. It took a while to get some of them calmed down and accepting it.

“It’s okay,” Martha and the rest assured them. “There’s a brand-new adept on our side.”

But was that even still the case? Something new was occurring to me, and I went across to Willets.

“We need to stop this ‘shoot to kill’ stuff,” I insisted. “If there’s a chance that everyone can be changed back, we
have
to take it.”

I could see that his thoughts had already been running along the same kind of route, since he looked badly troubled.

“We can’t force anyone to sacrifice their life for someone else,” he said. “But everybody now knows what the situation is. We’ll do the best we can.”

By the time that we were halfway through the small cold hours of morning, our numbers had grown considerably larger. At a rough guess, seven or eight hundred people had come back. But Nick McLeish was not amongst them. Neither were the rest of the adepts from Sycamore Hill.

The majority, the Tyburn folk, were generally slender and dressed in dark clothes. Had blank, distant expressions once they’d settled down. This was likely the very first time that most of them had ever mingled with the general population. And they’d only headed here because their own neighborhood had been transformed into a hominid-infested wasteland.

But there’s a natural leader to any group. Someone who the rest rotate around, like little planets orbiting a larger, brighter sun.

In this case, it was a tall woman with golden hair and strangely piercing eyes of almost the same color. The Tyburners kept walking up to her, ducking their heads slightly as they did so. She appeared to command their respect and attention, so I went across and introduced myself.

“Emaline Pendramere,” she told me.

Which was as old, West-country English as a name could get. So it was possible she was descended from the original Salem crowd. She explained to me her role in the community, High Witch. They didn’t use ‘adept’ down in Tyburn, since they had no time for euphemisms and were proud, besides, of their supernatural heritage.

She was clad in a loosely woven maroon dress that swept the whole way down to brush against the ground. It started with narrow straps across her shoulders, and clung to her slim body in a way that made me careful where my eyes went. And I wondered if that was intentional. We’d all heard rumors about the rather loose ways of the people down in Tyburn.

Her feet were bare, except I didn’t think she’d lost her shoes. The casual way she moved around made me suspect she never wore them. Every time she spoke, her full lips puckered.

“And what is your involvement in this, Mr. Devries?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “You could call me a sort of local troubleshooter.”

At which point, her eyes narrowed slightly, like I’d rung some kind of bell. I couldn’t really see how that was possible. People like her … the world outside their boundaries was of very little interest to them, a place in the distance they paid no attention to. So how could she know anything about me?

I set that aside.

“If there’s anything that we can do to help your people?” I inquired.

“We don’t need your medicines, if that’s what you mean. We have our own ways with such matters.”

I noticed that her hands were already beginning to heal, much faster than they should have done. And she didn’t seem to be getting any pain from them, which couldn’t be said for some of our guys. No magic was involved in this. I’d seen them using poultices made out of common weeds and herbs.

“We could use some food, though. None of us have eaten for a while.”

But then she began to look rather embarrassed, her cheeks turning hot.“We were such fools,” she muttered, almost to herself. “When they first came to us --“

“The angels?”

“We thought they were benign. Stood there and welcomed them. And let them do this awful thing to us.”

She had obviously been brought up to speed on what had been happening and the dark forces behind it. But when I tried to get some more information out of her, she -- like the others -- could remember nothing.

“The past couple of days are a total blank.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” I smiled gently.

She thought about that, and agreed.

“But what is the ultimate purpose of this? Why should anything so vast descend on our small town?”

I outlined to her the details of this Clavis they were after, and the way that Erin Luce had hidden it. Emaline seemed like a smart, perceptive woman, so I was wondering if she had anything to add.

Her eyes got slightly darker as she took the information in and chewed it over.

“Even in Tyburn,” she informed me, “we know of and respect the memory of Erin Luce. A mighty sorceress, blessed by the Goddess, who dispensed magic and wisdom in equal measure. You can be sure of one thing, Mr. Devries.” Her gaze glittered as it battened onto mine. “Wherever she hid this Clavis, the location would be chosen with the utmost shrewdness.”

Somewhere in plain sight, the journal had informed me. But where could you
obviously
hide a little chunk of rock, where people would pass by it without thinking it unusual?

Emaline’s attention had already wandered. I was starting to get the measure of her by this time. She was intelligent, for sure. How could a natural leader not be? But she had one of those butterfly intellects that hovered around one subject for a short while and then flitted to another. And right now she was staring at the people walking past us. A wistful expression spread across her face.

“I wish that
I
could glow like that. It strikes me as marvelous.”

It had only been intended as an off-handed remark. But it kicked off a new train of thought, bringing to the surface something that had been simmering away for quite a while.

I started turning away urgently, but she wasn’t finished with me yet. She brought me back around with, “Ross?”

I peered at her, wondering what else she had to say. She was holding herself very proudly.

“Our community is just as much under threat as yours. Perhaps even more so. Whatever help you need, my people will give it instantly and unquestioningly.”

I thanked her for that. But she moved in a little closer.

“And, if we get through this, then I can help you personally too.” The fingertips of one hand moved up to my shoulder. “I sense hidden pain in you. And there are methods I know of to deal with that as well.”

Was she talking about magic, or did she have something else in mind? My imagination stuttered. She was trying to be kind in her own way, but had unnerved me slightly.

So all I did was thank her again, a little more stiffly than I had before. Then I put her behind me.

* * *

Seven or eight hundred people was an awful lot to add to an already very busy part of town. Union Square was jam packed. Nobody was yelling in particular, but the hubbub was still dreadful. I was having to pick my way through a vast mob to cross the flagstones. And, because of that, it was taking me much longer than it had the last time.

Most of the folk here still had that golden glow. But the returned ones -- and it wasn’t
only
Tyburners -- had nothing but their normal flesh tones. I was passing by them the whole time. And what Emaline Pendramere had brought to my attention was, a few of the hominids were still here too.

Most of the things, finding their search useless, had moved on to other parts of town. But there were still some out on the edges, staring in at all of this activity.

If anyone who glowed approached them, they backed off quickly. But there were people near them who had no such protection. They could have rushed in and attacked them, but were staring at them blankly or ignoring them. And why were they doing that?

I found Gaspar Vernon conversing with Willets by the Town Hall steps. They both looked around as I approached. And must have noticed the determined expression on my face, because their eyes filled up with questions.

As well they might. It was time for Vernon to put his money where his mouth had always been and prove that he’d risk everything for the sake of this town.

“What is it, Devries?”

“The hominids aren’t touching you, or anyone else who returned tonight,” I pointed out.

He squinted, not getting my drift immediately.

“None of you are glowing, so what’s stopping them?”

Willets rubbed at his chin when he saw what I was driving at.

“And some folk who got changed back had to come miles through the dark to get here. They should have been all over those ones, putting them back under the Dweller’s control. But no such thing has happened.”

Vernon’s face began to color.

“If you’re implying --?“

“I’m saying you might be immune. That once you’ve been changed back, you can’t be transformed again.”

He looked thoughtful when that sank in.

“But we have to test it,” I informed the man. “Or to be more accurate,
you
have to. You need to confront these things, even try and provoke them.”

Gaspar went practically bug-eyed.

“I’ll be standing by,” I assured him, “with my gun in my hand. And the doctor’ll keep an eye on you as well. But there’s still an element of risk. Are you prepared for that?”