The Furies (30 page)

He dashed out of the room and stood in the middle of the scorching antechamber, trying to think. Should he check the other patients' rooms? Would Octavia have gone into one of those? Maybe Constance was wrong, maybe Octavia had slipped out of the asylum without anyone noticing. She could be anywhere in the cavern. Or maybe someone else had rescued her. Maybe she was safely aboveground now, reunited with her daughter and grandson.

Then another thought occurred to him. He turned around and retraced his steps, heading back to Octavia's room, but this time he opened the door marked
VIEWING
. He entered the narrow room and walked to the far end. The one-way mirror on the wall showed nothing but dark clouds of roiling vapor, dimly illuminated by the emergency lights.

As he took his fifth step into the room, his foot hit something soft. He knelt on the floor, groping in the darkness, and felt a woman's body lying on its side. First he touched her broad shoulders under her damp nightgown, then her head with its brow resting on the slick floor, then her long hair massed in a tangled wet pile. He didn't need to see her face. He could tell just by touch that it was Octavia.

He fitted his extra gas mask over her face and tightened the straps. Then he slipped his arms under her torso and lifted her, cradling the big-boned woman against his chest. She was even heavier than he'd expected, at least a hundred and seventy pounds, but he had no trouble carrying her. He left the viewing room and hurried out of the antechamber, taking big strides across the stone floor.

Although the heated air had kept Octavia's skin warm, her body was limp. She had no pulse, no heartbeat. She'd probably stopped breathing long before John found her. And yet he ran as fast as he could, carrying her through the tunnel and across the floor of the cavern, as if she were still alive. As if he could still save her.

 

 

Haven's main emergency exit led to a trapdoor in the floor of the barn. At least eighteen hundred people had already used this exit by the time John came up the stairs carrying Octavia. The barn, although large, could hold no more than a thousand people; the rest had overflowed into the barnyard. Dozens of men and women lay on the barn's floor, where the Fury medics treated them for hydrogen sulfide poisoning. Doctors in long black dresses distributed oxygen tanks, connected patients to ventilators, and prepared doses of herbal medicine. But nearly all of them stopped what they were doing and stared at John as he brought in Octavia and rested her on the floor.

He stepped backward while the women crowded around her body. One doctor stripped off Octavia's gas mask and slid a tube down her throat. Another lowered Octavia's nightgown and delivered an injection to her heart. Yet another woman took John aside and treated his burns. She removed his mask and slathered a cooling salve on his arms and the back of his neck. But all the while he kept his eyes on Octavia.

After a few minutes the doctors' frantic activity subsided. One by one, they drifted away and found other patients to attend to. The last remaining medic knelt beside Octavia and placed her hand over the woman's eyes to close them. Then she draped a plain white sheet over the body.

John continued staring at her. He'd suspected that Octavia was dead as soon as he found her, but it was still crushing to see it confirmed. He couldn't help but imagine her final moments in the asylum, hiding from Constance and the other rescuers while the toxic steam swirled all around. She'd grown so terrified of death that its approach had paralyzed her. After two thousand years of dodging its embrace, all she could do was lie on the floor and wait for it to take her.

Many of the other evacuees stared at the corpse too. Although the barn was full to bursting, the place fell strangely quiet. This was clearly a painful blow for the Furies, to lose the oldest member of their family in such an awful way. Several women gazed suspiciously at John, most likely wondering if he'd had something to do with Octavia's death. But a few others—the ones who'd seen John racing across the cavern with her body—looked at him with greater sympathy.

Then someone tapped John's shoulder. He turned around, expecting to see Ariel, but instead it was Archibald, Gower's irritable friend. The man's face was pink and dripping with sweat. He leaned close to John. “You should go outside, to the yard,” he whispered. “The women are distraught. Your presence is making it worse.”

John nodded. He didn't like it, but Archibald was right. The guy headed for the oversized doorway at the back of the barn, and John followed him outside.

The yard behind the barn was bigger than a football field and surrounded by a high privacy wall. Only about a quarter of the yard was occupied by the sheep and cattle pens. The remainder had been set up as a recreation area, with sections devoted to lawn bowling, croquet, and horseshoes. But no one was playing games or exercising now. Hundreds of evacuees sprawled on the grass, many of them gasping for air or splashing water on their faces. Archibald led John to the far left side of the yard, near the wall, and then halted so suddenly that John almost plowed into him. Gower was just a few feet ahead. He sat on the lawn beside Claudia, his mother, who'd regained consciousness. He held a cup of water to her lips, encouraging her to drink.

Looking up, Gower saw his friend first. “Archie! Have you heard any news?”

Instead of answering, Archibald pointed at John. When Gower saw John, he scrambled to his feet. His brow was creased and there were dark circles under his eyes. “Did you find Grandmother? Is she safe?”

John shook his head. He'd delivered bad news before, and he knew it was better to do it fast. “I'm very sorry. I found her, but not in time.”

Gower didn't react. It was as if he hadn't heard. He stared at John for a few more seconds, then turned back to his friend. “Does he speak aright, Archie? Is she dead?”

Archibald coughed and swallowed hard. “'Tis…'tis for the best, Gower. You told me so many times … how unhappy she was…”

His voice trailed off. John looked at him with disdain. What Archibald said was true, but he shouldn't have said it. Gower just stood there, blank-faced and bewildered.

A moment later Ariel came up behind them, striding across the grass. John started to say something, but she mouthed the word “Wait” and walked past him. She went straight to Gower and wrapped her arms around his waist. For an instant he seemed more bewildered than ever. Then he started to weep.

After a few seconds Gower pulled away from Ariel and returned to his mother, who leaned against him and buried her face in her hands. As he consoled her, Ariel went to John and took him aside, moving several feet away from the others. She looked at his burned arms and grimaced. “You must be in pain.”

He glanced at the burns, now caked with the glistening salve. He could feel his skin throbbing, but it didn't hurt so much. “I'm fine. How's Constance?”

“She's recovering. Do you realize that you reached the emergency exit before I did? Even while carrying Octavia?”

Ariel sounded angry, as if she were accusing him of something. He didn't understand. “I thought she had a chance. I must've passed you in the haze.”

“That was an extraordinary feat of endurance, John. It's not normal.”

“What are you trying to—”

He was interrupted by a scream. The source was Claudia, Gower's mother. She stood on wobbling legs and pointed at Archibald. “I saw you last night! What were you doing in the geothermal plant?”

Everyone turned to look at him. Archibald stepped backward in surprise and almost fell. “What? Pardon, Claudia, but I don't—”

“When I left the plant just before midnight I saw you near the exit! Did you tamper with the machinery?”

“Nay, of course not!” He shook his head vigorously.

Claudia moved toward him. Her footing was unsteady, but she kept her hand pointing straight at Archibald's pink face. “Then what were you doing there? You had no business in the plant at that hour of night!”

“Please calm yourself, dear. I was looking for Gower. I wanted to talk to your son, that's all.”

Now John stepped forward. He knew that was a lie. “You sure about that? Gower and I also saw you last night, and you weren't interested in talking. When Gower called out to you, you turned away from him.”

Archibald sneered, narrowing his eyes. “Mind your place, paramour. That was earlier in the evening, much earlier.”

John remembered that the bastard had been carrying a backpack. And after he turned away from Gower, he'd headed for the geothermal plant. John clenched his hands as he recalled the incident. He was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

“What was in your backpack, asshole?” John took another step toward the guy. “It looked pretty heavy.”

“This is preposterous!” Archibald stood his ground, but his sneer was fading. “I don't have to explain myself to you!”

Blood rushed to John's head, darkening his vision. “What the hell was in it? Dynamite? A bomb?”

That last question broke Archibald's composure. His mouth opened and his chin quivered. An involuntary, strangled noise came out of his throat, a hopeless yelp. Then he turned to run.

He didn't get very far. John lunged forward and grabbed him by the neck. With a furious roar he shoved Archibald face-first into the grass. He pinned the bastard down and started pounding the back of his skull. Archibald went limp after the first few punches, but John kept thrashing him. His fists were taking orders from a different part of his brain, a part that was mad for vengeance. In the more rational regions of his mind he sensed that people were shouting at him, begging him to stop, but he couldn't. His whole body pulsed with rage.

Then someone standing above him grabbed one of his arms by the elbow. He spun around and reflexively cocked his other arm, ready to bash the face of whoever was trying to stop him. But as he was about to throw the punch he saw it was Ariel. Wide-eyed, she stared at him in disbelief. There was horror in her eyes too, but it was a clinical, fascinated kind of horror, as if she'd just discovered that he suffered from some terrible new disease. “Stop it, John,” she whispered. “This isn't you.”

His fist hung in the air, frozen, for a couple of seconds. For a moment he wasn't sure if he could bring it back under his control. Then he slowly lowered it and unclenched his hand. He looked down at Archibald, who was writhing on the grass and moaning “Mercy, mercy!” in a guilt-stricken voice. Then John looked at Gower, who was hugging his mother protectively. Finally, he turned back to Ariel. “I don't … I don't know what…”

“It's Fountain. What else could it be?” Ariel let go of him. “Take deep breaths. You need to wash it out of your system.”

He did as she instructed and took several deep breaths. After a little while his vision cleared. Suddenly cold, he started to shiver. “I'm … sorry. I didn't…”

“I have to get you back to the lab. I didn't expect this at all. Fountain doesn't have these effects on women.” She shook her head. “I didn't notice these changes when I tested the protein on Sullivan, but to be honest, I wasn't looking for them. I could've easily missed them.”

John shivered harder. He stared at his hands, the swollen knuckles he'd rammed against Archibald's skull. He was afraid of himself, afraid of what was inside him.

Then he heard more shouting. He looked up and saw men and women running across the yard, dashing toward the barn's oversized doorway. For a second he wondered if someone had discovered another bomb. Ariel turned her head this way and that, trying to figure out what was going on, and then she froze. She'd caught sight of her mother. Elizabeth Fury was marching across the yard, scattering everyone in her path.

“Back in the barn!” she yelled. “Get back there right now!”

Elizabeth came straight toward them, striding fast. Her lone eye focused on Archibald. When she got within ten yards of them she pointed at the groaning man on the ground, and then at Gower and Claudia. “Get that guardsman on his feet!” she ordered.

Ariel stepped toward her. “What's going on?”

“Don't just stand there, Lily!” The vertical scar on Elizabeth's face had turned an ugly shade of purple. “Help them carry that guardsman into the barn. We all need to take shelter!”

The Elder's expression was so fierce that John automatically obeyed her. He bent over Archibald and grabbed his ankles while Gower took hold of his arms. But Ariel didn't move. She frowned, her expression equally fierce. “Mother, what—”

“Damn it, girl, look up!” She thrust her hand toward the sky.

John raised his head and looked where she was pointing. Against the swath of deep blue sky was a tiny black cross.

TWENTY-TWO

Agent Larson grinned as the surveillance video from the MQ-9 Reaper streamed across his laptop's screen. The quality of the images was outstanding. The cameras mounted on the drone had been developed to pinpoint terrorists in the mountain villages of Pakistan. Even from an altitude of eight miles, the camera lenses could zoom in on one individual in a crowd, providing enough detail to allow analysts to make an identification.
This is the future of law enforcement,
Larson thought.
Pretty soon the drones will be everywhere
.

Sitting next to him inside the surveillance van was Lieutenant Bob Sims, a U.S. Air Force pilot on loan to the Homeland Security Department. Sims was flying the drone from his own laptop, which was equipped with a joystick and a cable connecting the computer to the powerful antenna on the van's roof. The lieutenant had put the Reaper in a circular holding pattern over the Amish farm. Now he checked the flight path on his laptop's screen and used the joystick to make small course corrections that were radioed to the drone. He also kept the drone's cameras trained on the farm's barnyard.