The Everlasting (30 page)

He walked a dozen more steps, then turned around. He was now in a cave, looking back along a tunnel that turned a corridor. This felt like a barrier that had to be passed, a changing point in his quest, and he had crossed it willingly.

The heavy door handle at the end of the corridor begin to dip.

Scott turned and ran. The tunnel split and he took the left fork. (
Always go left
, Papa had said;
in a maze, always turn left.
)

“Scott!” To begin with he thought it was Nina. The turn in the tunnel hid his line of sight, so he went back the way he had come.

Should be running away, not toward
. But something about that voice . . .

“Scott?”

That's not Nina
.

“Scott.” There was defeat there, and wretchedness, and he had never heard Helen sound like that in all their time together.

“Helen?” He rounded the split in the tunnel and looked back toward the door, and there she stood, Helen, his wife and love. She looked totally defeated,
even when she looked up at him. She smiled—she
grinned—
but seemed somehow reduced. “That's not you,” he said. And he turned to walk away.

“Scott?”
She screamed his name, and she was already running at him when he turned back.

“You're not . . .” he said, but then he frowned.
My wife? Is that my wife? I'd know her anywhere . . . but this is nowhere
.

“Oh, babe,” she said, voice jarring with the impact of her feet against the dirt floor. She was out of the corridor now and into the tunnel, her arms stretched out for him, and as he realized for certain that he would
always
know his wife—and this was her—the door opened again, and Lewis stepped through.

Helen ran into Scott so hard that they both toppled to the ground. Relief and delight faded quickly when he shifted her aside, looking past her splayed legs at Papa's dead friend. He was running at them.

A Screaming Skull sounded from somewhere close by.

Lewis paused, looked around, then came on again. His old man's face was lined, but no longer ugly. There was a purpose there that gave it something of a glow.

“Helen,” Scott said, and she smothered his face with kisses. “Angel, we have to . . . We've got to . . .”

“We're together, we're home, we're together, we're home . . .” She could say nothing else, and she punctuated each word with a kiss.

She felt good against him. She felt right. And while he knew that this was no vision, Scott had never before felt so threatened.

“Scott,” Lewis said, “we need to talk.”

Helen raised herself up above him, looking down. Tears dripped from her face onto his, and they made him cry. “We really do,” Helen said. “We really need to talk.”

“We have to keep moving.” The ghost of Lewis seemed pained with every word he uttered. His face was drained with effort, paled by death. Scott could not trust him for a second.

“I'd rather wait for Nina,” Scott said. “So are you bringing blights to try to kill me again?”

“I didn't try,” Lewis said.

“Then why?”

“There are reasons.” He kept glancing back at the door, and ahead at where the corridor split. Impatient to move, afraid to stay.

“You okay, Angel?” Scott said. He buried his face in Helen's hair, smelling her, feeling her, pressing his hand against her face where she cuddled into his neck. She was shivering, her teeth clacking together. Her skin was cool and clammy. It was not a Helen he had ever known, and his hatred for Lewis was growing by the second.

“Listen to him,” Helen whispered.

“What?”

She nodded at Lewis. He shimmered against the wall, as though cast there by an old movie projector.

“He's a liar, and mad,” Scott said. “He took you and tried to kill me.”

“Why would I try to kill you if I want the book?”

Scott shrugged. “Because you're mad.”

“I have answers,” Lewis said. He held his hands out, palms up. “I swear I have answers. But you need to move. I can go from here at any time, but you . . .” He looked back at the door. “They're coming down,” he whispered.

“The Skulls?”

“All of them.”

“What about Nina and Tigre?”

“Tigre is here?” If it was possible for a ghost's visage to pale even more, Lewis's did so.

“He was fighting the Skulls while I . . .”

“The book is much deeper,” Lewis said.

“I can't trust you.”

Lewis came forward, stepping across the tunnel without touching the ground. He placed one hand against Scott's cheek; Scott felt it materialize until it was real, and he saw the effort in the ghost's eyes.

“I'm doing this for Papa,” Lewis said, and with great effort he slapped Scott around the face. “I'm doing it for
Papa
! If you want to help him, do as I say. Listen to me. Helen knows . . . she knows it all. She can tell you while we go. But we have . . . to . . .
go
!” He turned and moved away along the tunnel.

“We have to go,” Helen echoed, and at last she sounded like herself. She pulled away from Scott's side, then looked back and grasped his hand. “He's telling the truth, babe. If you still love Papa, we have to follow Lewis.”

Scott allowed himself to be led by his wife.
She's so beautiful
, he thought. “You're so beautiful.”

She smiled meekly. “Not like this.” Then her face fell. “I saw so much, Scott.”

“Him.”

“He protected me. I'll tell you. Follow me—follow him—and I'll tell you what I know.”

“How do you know?”

“He told me.” She nodded at Lewis's back. He took the left fork in the tunnel, moving quickly.

Scott shook his head.
They're coming down
, Lewis had whispered.
All of them
.

And as if conjured by thought alone, a scream erupted back along the tunnel.

“Run!” Lewis said. They ran.

“Lewis and Papa were good friends right until the end,” Helen said. “And they still are.”

“Papa's gone. Beyond the Wide. Heaven, or whatever's there.”

“No, babe.” They were running, and sadness jarred her voice. “He's not gone. Papa and Lewis were researching the pages of the Chord of Souls they found in Africa. Sifting through the clues. And it was Papa who discovered where the rest of the book was being kept. He'd already known for a long time how dangerous the book would be, not only in the wrong hands, but in good hands as well. Such power, and such potential for corruption. So as soon as he discovered the location of the book he killed Lewis, then himself. There was no way he could let that knowledge out. Nor could he live with it. Maybe he
was
mad, slightly. But Lewis doesn't think so.”

“Why is Lewis still here? Why didn't he cross over?”

“He would have. But before Papa could reach the Wide, the Screaming Skulls took him! His knowledge of where the Chord was must have woken them, and they couldn't risk any of the immortals intercepting him while he crossed the Wide.”

“So where is he? If he's not alive and not dead, where is he?”

“He's here somewhere. Deep down, close to the book. They have him trapped across the Wide. This place, and another. A terrible limbo. There's nowhere for him to go, and he's suffering, Scott. Suffering badly.”

“The note . . . ?”

“It was only recently that Lewis managed to communicate with him, via the blights. Papa wrote the note through him, but he knew only an immortal could read its language, and that they would be drawn to you. He put you in danger, but he had to. He wants you to find the book and destroy it.”

“And set him free?”

“No,” Lewis said from ahead of them. “I'll have to look at it first. Find out the words to say, the spells to break.”

“You talk as though it's a book of magic.”

Lewis did not answer. The ghost chose which turnings to take; they jogged behind him, and minute by minute the recurring screams seemed to be fading.
Lost them
, Scott thought. But it could not be that easy.

“Who are the Screaming Skulls?”

“I don't know,” Helen said.

Lewis stopped. Scott and Helen leaned forward, hands on knees, catching their breath.

“Who are they?” Scott asked.

“Guardians of the Chord of Souls.”

“But who put them here?”

“I don't think even the immortals know what they are or where they're from. My guess is they were put here by the book's true author.”

“Nina told me that she could never reveal who or what that was. She said it would change everything.”

“Perhaps it would,” Lewis said.

“You don't know?”

“I'm just a ghost. But I think Papa does.”

Scott shook his head, hugged Helen close to him again. She gave him comfort, but peace seemed so far away. “All so confusing,” he said. “What about the blights?”

“Sorry,” Lewis said, though there was little apology in his expression. “I needed you to see Old Man, and I knew Nina would take you to him after that.”

“Why?”

“Because if anyone should have the book, it's him.”

“After you've freed Papa, I'm going to destroy the book.” Scott saw something dark pass behind Lewis's eyes, as though there were a ghost within the ghost.

“Good,” Lewis said. “That will set many free. The route to the Wide has been confused by Papa's imprisonment.”

“So that's why ghosts have been asking me to help them.”

Helen swayed and slumped to the ground, pressing her hands to the stone to prevent herself from falling over. “I don't feel too good.”

“
You
did this!” Scott spit at the ghost.

“I had to make sure you'd come! You wouldn't have believed me otherwise.”

“I don't believe you now.”

Lewis shook his head, turned, and started walking again.

“Where are you going?”

“To Papa. To the Chord of Souls. Then you can make up your own mind. What have you got to lose?”

“I'm getting out of here with Helen.”

Lewis said nothing, but simply turned and continued on his way. A distant Skull scream seemed to vibrate down Scott's spine.

Scott watched the ghost go, feeling torn a dozen ways. “What about Nina?”

Lewis paused and turned back. “Bastards want the book for the knowledge they lost. They don't want to
die
! They want to live on, with everything else the book can give them. Can you imagine Tigre with the power of a god?”

Scott shook his head.
I believed her. Maybe I still do
. “Have you been leaving messages for me?” he asked.

“She will slay you. Lose her.”

“I don't believe she would.”

“We have to go deeper.”

They went deeper. Lewis led the way, silent most of the time. He moved with the ease of every ghost Scott had seen, but he was graceless. Perhaps he was pained, as well. If he really had purposely remained on this side of the Wide to help his old friend, perhaps pain was all he knew.

The tunnels curved down, passing through larger areas where carvings and paintings covered the walls. Most of them were senseless. They told stories with no endings and presented images without beginning. They exuded age, misplaced knowledge, and things that should never be known, and Scott found them more frightening than anything he had yet seen in or below the House of Screaming Skulls.

There were screams pursuing them. The Skulls knew where they were heading, so it was just a matter of time. A race. It was all down to speed.

Scott had Helen back, so it should have been over. His love, his angel was with him, running by his side even though she looked exhausted. She was a different woman; he could sense that very clearly. She had been in the Wide with Lewis, and though he had apparently protected her there, she had seen things that no living person should ever see. Whether she had come back stronger or edging toward destruction had yet to be discovered.

It should have been over. But it was not.

Lewis seemed to be failing. His image faded in and out of focus, and though he moved just as easily as
before, he seemed more pained than ever. He shimmered and flickered, and more than once Scott held out his hand and looked at it to test his own vision.

“Lewis,” Scott said, but the old ghost kept moving. They passed through tunnels and caves, and here and there were whole rooms, carved perfectly square into the rock of the earth and decorated with old paintings, swathes of faded cloth, or mosaic images buried into the wall. These mosaics used many mediums to communicate their image: pebbles, shells, colored glass, and once what looked like a vast array of stained teeth. They did not pause long enough to examine any in great detail, and for that Scott was pleased. Everywhere down here felt wrong. He could not translate the mosaics, but even looking at them left a filthy taste in his mouth. He could not make out anything recognizable in the paintings, but somehow they communicated the presence of greater, less understandable things.

“What made these places?” he said, and when he looked at Helen he saw that they were having the same effect on her.

“Don't want to know,” she said.

“What is this place?” Scott asked.

“Same answer.”

Lewis paused and seemed to gather his strength. Though he was a ghost, he seemed grateful for the rest. “One of a thousand ancient places,” he said.

“How ancient?”

“Old.” The image of Papa's friend looked around the tunnel they were in, tracing one ambiguous finger along a ridge in the wall. “So old.”

“And the Chord of Souls has been here ever since it was written?”

“That, I don't know. But I've heard whispers. I think much of what you see on the walls down here are images of old wars, and they all pivot about that book.”