The Furies (36 page)

Cordelia was dead, and yet Ariel tried to revive her. She knelt beside her aunt and pressed her palms to the bullet wound and tried to pump Cordelia's shredded heart back to life. Although everyone knew the effort was futile, no one tried to stop her. She kept pumping her aunt's chest while one of the guardsmen took the pistol away from John and another tied Old Sam's hands behind his back. At the same time, Margaret Fury crouched next to Elizabeth, who'd propped herself up to a sitting position. The Chief Elder was still gasping, and her throat was badly bruised. Margaret rested a hand on her shoulder, but Elizabeth wouldn't look at her. She was staring at Ariel and Cordelia.

“Please, Sister, look at me,” Margaret urged. “You must—”

“Nay!” Elizabeth pushed her away and stood up.

“What are you doing? Come back here!”

With sure and steady footsteps Elizabeth marched to the guardsman who'd taken Old Sam's gun from John. She wrested the pistol out of the surprised man's hands, then returned to where the unconscious bailiff lay. Then she bent over Old Sam and shot him twice in the head.

The gunshots echoed against the walls of the warehouse. Elizabeth looked up, and for a moment John thought she was going to shoot him next. But instead she pointed at the trucks parked by the loading dock.

“Move out!” she ordered. “We're leaving
now!
”

TWENTY-FIVE

Agent Larson gazed at the crater that used to be the Amish farm. His task force, which had been preparing for a raid on the underground meth lab, was now engaged in a rescue operation. He and twenty other agents stood at the crater's rim, shining their flashlights at the rubble below. The remnants of the barn and the farmhouses were embedded in a giant mound of soil and cornstalks.

Larson swept his flashlight's beam over the rubble pile, looking for survivors. His agents had already discovered several dozen corpses, but they weren't victims of the cave-in. Most of them appeared to have died from bullet wounds or fragmentation grenades. This evidence was consistent with the earlier reports from the agents in the surveillance van, who'd heard gunshots and explosions at the farm's southern border about an hour ago. Unfortunately, Larson had been slow to respond to the reports because his assault team hadn't yet arrived from Sault Sainte Marie. He and his men didn't reach the farm until after the cave-in.

Now he wondered if he would ever piece together what had happened here. About half of the corpses were dressed in Amish clothes and half in leather boots and motorcycle jackets, which suggested that Van's gang had attacked the farm. But why would he do that if he knew the FBI was going to raid the place in just a few hours? It didn't make sense. And when Larson had tried to call Van to get an explanation, there was no answer, of course.

He switched off his flashlight.
What a fucking mess
. Van's attack must've set off another explosion in the meth lab. But how could it trigger such a big fucking cave-in? The crater was at least a hundred yards wide.

And another thing: Who the hell shot down the drone? The Air Force and the Homeland Security Department were going to be pissed about that.

Larson turned around and walked away from the crater. His career in the bureau was over, that much was certain. His bosses would probably suspend him from duty as soon as they found out what happened. And the truth was, he deserved to be shit-canned. He should've conducted more surveillance of the farm before going ahead with the assault. He'd relied on Van's bullshit stories instead of hard evidence, and he'd obviously overlooked something. He'd missed something important.

He shook his head.
What the hell was it? What did I miss?

He had no fucking idea.

PART III

FOUNTAIN

TWENTY-SIX

The journey in the truck was miserable. A dozen guardsmen and Rangers crowded the cargo hold, sharing the space with stacks of trunks and boxes. The exhausted men and women sprawled wherever they could, each trying to get some sleep as the truck rumbled down an unseen highway. The cargo hold had no windows or peepholes, and the only light came from a naked bulb dangling from the ceiling. There was no place to wash up or go to the bathroom, either. John smelled so bad, he disgusted even himself.

There was little conversation. No one wanted to talk about the destruction of Haven or the murder of Cordelia. And everyone was careful not to disturb Ariel, who'd shrouded her aunt's body in a canvas tarp and kept vigil over it in the far corner of the cargo hold, hidden behind several stacks of boxes. John wanted to console her, but the others stopped him. For the Furies, mourning was a strictly private affair.

He was just as exhausted as everyone else, so he found a place to lie down and sleep. When he awoke a few hours later he realized that the truck had come to a stop and its rear doors were open. Standing up, he saw a square of night sky and felt a cold breeze. The truck had stopped in a dark field in the middle of nowhere. Maybe Wisconsin, John guessed, judging from how long they'd been driving. Two vans and four large SUVs were parked nearby, and the guardsmen were busy transferring boxes from the truck's cargo hold to the vans and cars. This was a rendezvous point, John realized, a place where the Furies could disperse for greater safety. It was more prudent to travel in half a dozen vehicles than in one.

John needed to take a piss, so he stepped down from the cargo hold and hurried to the edge of the field. After he finished, he turned back to the truck and saw two Rangers holding Cordelia's shrouded corpse. They carried it to one of the vans and placed it inside. Then they got into the van themselves and drove away, presumably to bury her.

The other van drove away too, and so did the SUVs. By the time John returned to the truck, most of the guardsmen and Rangers had departed and only Ariel was left in the cargo hold. She stood near the rear doors, looking up at the stars. John sensed she didn't want to talk yet, so he stood beside her, silent. The sky just above the eastern horizon had started to brighten. It was maybe half an hour before dawn.

After a minute or so, the tall Ranger medic who'd treated John's shrapnel wounds came to the back of the truck and handed him a paper grocery bag. “Here's some food and water,” she said. “We still have three hundred miles to go.” Then she shut the rear doors, locking John and Ariel inside. Half a minute later the truck's engine restarted and they began moving again. The truck jounced up and down as it crossed the field, but the ride leveled out as soon as they returned to the paved road.

John sat on one of the trunks remaining in the cargo hold and opened the grocery bag. He pulled out two plastic bottles of water and handed one to Ariel. She opened it, took a long drink, then poured the rest of the water on her head. This turned out to be a mistake. The water washed the dirt out of her hair, sending muddy rivulets down her forehead and into her eyes.

“Oh, hell,” she muttered, raising her hands to her face. “Hand me another bottle, will you?”

He gave her another bottle of water and a fistful of napkins. She cleaned herself more carefully this time, splashing water on her face and using the napkins to wipe away the dirt. Then she took off her backpack and cleaned her neck as well. John did the same, lifting his shirt to wash his underarms. Afterwards, he smelled a little better—not great, but not putrid, either. Then he looked in the bag to see what else was there. “We got some sandwiches,” he reported. “Roast beef and cheddar, it looks like. You want one?”

Ariel shook her head. “No, I'm not hungry. But don't let me stop you.”

“I'm not hungry either. I feel a little nauseous, actually. And kind of weak.”

She stepped closer and looked him over. “Well, that doesn't surprise me. The Fountain protein put you on a roller-coaster ride.” She sat down beside him on the trunk and pressed two fingers to his neck to feel his pulse. “How long did you feel its effects?”

“I definitely felt it in the train tunnel. It was like the world's biggest adrenaline rush. But it faded after that. I started to feel normal again when we reached the warehouse.”

She unzipped her backpack and removed her Treasure and a pen. Then she turned to a fresh page in the notebook and started writing in the strange runelike alphabet that was her family's first language. “What about psychological effects? Did you feel any extremes of rage? Any inability to control violent impulses?”

“No, I was lucky. The protein was out of my system by the time I tackled Old Sam.”

Ariel frowned at the mention of the traitor's name. Furrowing her brow, she scrawled a few more runes in her Treasure. “I wish I'd had a chance to examine you in my lab. Without any data, all I can do is make guesses. The Fountain protein may have interacted with your other biochemical pathways. Maybe the sudden injection of so much Fountain into your system triggered an overproduction of the Upstart protein to compensate. That might explain why we don't see these effects in women, because they don't have the Upstart gene.”

“But why would there be psychological effects?”

“The brain is the most sensitive organ in the body. Any change in biochemistry is bound to influence the signaling among the brain cells. And when their signaling changes, the cells establish new connections.”

John squirmed. A disturbing thought had just occurred to him. “Do you think any of the changes in the brain might be permanent?”

She didn't say anything at first, which made him worry even more. She took her time, thinking it over. “In your case, probably not. But I won't risk giving you another dose. The brain is quick to establish new pathways in response to chemical stimuli. Nicotine is the perfect example. The addiction response starts to develop after just a few cigarettes.”

“So even though the antiaging effect goes away when you stop taking Fountain, the psychological effects might continue?”

Instead of answering, Ariel looked down at her Treasure. She flipped through the pages until she found one in the middle of the notebook. Then she squinted at the runes. “The only other test subject was Sullivan. I gave him daily injections of the Fountain protein for a week. He didn't report any side effects, so I kept dosing him until I ran out of protein.” She looked up from the page. “But now that I think about it, I see he had a reason to lie to me. He wanted us to develop the antiaging treatment as quickly as possible. And he knew we'd have to do additional research if there were any unusual side effects. So in all likelihood he decided not to report them.”

She closed the notebook and looked straight ahead, staring at the rear doors of the cargo hold. John leaned closer to her. “You think the protein might've messed with Sullivan's brain? Might've affected him permanently?”

Ariel raised her hand to her forehead, as if trying to calm the thoughts churning behind it. “He was always arrogant and cruel, even as a child. But until he started his rebellion, he never broke any of our laws. Maybe his conscience restrained him. Or maybe fear of punishment.” She grimaced. “Something changed, though, after I gave him those injections. He ignored the restraints and acted on his impulses. And maybe Fountain had something to do with that.”

She fell silent. Moving mechanically, she put her Treasure back into her pack. Then she removed the medicine case and unlatched it. Inside were the nine vials of Fountain protein, each nestled in foam padding, and the syringe. She rested the case in her lap and stared at the glass vials. There was nothing inside them but thick yellowish liquid, but she examined the stuff intently, narrowing her eyes, as if she could glimpse the microscopic proteins floating in the fluid.

Several seconds passed. Ariel seemed frozen, entranced. John grew nervous. “Look, whatever happened to Sullivan, it wasn't your fault,” he argued. “You had no idea this could happen.”

She didn't respond. She kept staring at the vials.

“You were trying to help,” John added. “You shouldn't blame yourself.”

After a few more seconds she let out a long breath and closed the medicine case. She returned it to the backpack and pulled out something else, a small black box. John hadn't noticed it before, perhaps because it was only two inches wide. Ariel held the thing in both hands and opened it. Inside was a gold ring with a jewel-encrusted ornament shaped like a butterfly. The insect's body was a line of six tiny diamonds. Its wings were spotted with rubies and sapphires.

“Aunt Delia made this for me,” Ariel said. “She loved butterflies.”

“That's right.” An image came to John's mind, a recent memory. “There was a butterfly carved on her wooden hand.”

“They had great meaning for her. She used to say, ‘The flapping of a butterfly's wing on one side of the world can cause a hurricane on the other. That's what makes it so difficult to predict the future.'” Ariel removed the ring from the box and held it up to eye level. Its stones sparkled even in the cargo hold's dim light. “But it has another meaning, at least for me. People are like butterflies. We're lovely and fragile. And in the long run, we're powerless. The wind is stronger than us.”

She fell silent again. John, worried she'd go into another trance, pointed at the ring. “It's beautiful. You were close to Cordelia, weren't you?”

She nodded. “Yes, especially when I was young. After every argument with Mother, I ran to Aunt Delia.”

“When you say ‘young,' what do you mean exactly?” John smiled. “Less than a hundred years old?”

“I mean the seventeenth century, the late 1600s. Mother was especially rigid after we came to America, and I was especially defiant. Delia didn't always take my side, but she stood with me on the most important things. She agreed that it was our duty to inoculate the Ojibway against smallpox. And she stopped Mother from executing Running Cloud after I brought him back to Haven.”