The Tangled Bridge (28 page)

“You sound like Chloe. Trying to school me on the briar.”

His expression changed. The easy, cocky smirk left him and was replaced by a more sober demeanor.

“Look, we on the same team now so quit bein difficult. You ready for some more training?”

“What, you gonna try to teach me firearm and bayonet drills?”

He shook his head, stone serious. “We can if you want. But you can do that anywhere. Right now we got bigger fish to fry.”

He was on his feet and face-to-face with her before she had time to react, his hands wrapped around the base of her skull. She tried to jerk away but he had her clean.

Severin flipped over in the water and surged toward them. “Ah, so lovely!”

It's not that Madeleine felt the change itself. Not like she could sense that something was draining out of her or that something else was filling her up. But as Zenon held on she did know that any quiet inside her had been replaced by noise. It felt exciting and exhausting all at once, the way she might sometimes listen to music that pushed her limits. It both energized and depleted her.

The cigarette was still burning in his right hand. Casting its scent into her hair.

He released her and put it to his lips, speaking through it. “There now. See what your big brother done for you.”

She stared at him, unsure what any of it meant. “What was that?”

He waved the cigarette at her. “Stain removal.”

She looked down. All traces of that phosphorescence were gone. If anything, she saw hints of the strange sepia anti-shadow, like the way the river devils and Zenon looked when they walked the material world.

“Much better,” Severin said.

Madeleine lifted her gaze to the massive black trees. “There's something out there.”

He nodded. “That's it, baby. I just gave a little piece of it to you.”

“But what is it?”

“It's going to come in real handy.”

“It's cold.”

She tried to pinpoint the sensation. Cold, not in such a way that made her feel a chill, but perhaps more the way a cold-water fish might exist. Not desirous of warmth. Cold on the inside.

He said, “You know how long it took me to get to that phase? And here I give it to you in just a few seconds.”

“I didn't ask for it.”

He laughed. “You're fuckin welcome.”

“So you can just pass these abilities on to anybody?”

“No, you probably gotta have the briar in your blood. Everyone else is just pigeon meat.”

She wrapped her hands around herself, thinking. He was wrong. She'd passed the stop-breathing technique to Bo, to save his life.

“But … so the lumens?”

He shrugged and took a drag from his cigarette. “They're different. They can steal any of these little tricks from us, too. And they stain the people around them so alla sudden we ain't nothin special. You gettin me?”

“Yes. No. Not really.”

“It's why they gotta go, babe. I come to believe that people like you and me, we get to be the hominids that come after homo sapiens. Or—”

He gestured behind him. “Or—the lumens do. They like a virus. Evolutionary competition. Look at your science books. Sometimes a species'll split off into parallel sub-species. But only one of'm wins out in the end.”

He said, “So you're ready for the next phase. You got one lumen down, the little blind kid. But he was all over the place. Stained up everyone who's around him. His mama, some school kids, people that lived nearby.”

Madeleine stared at him. “And?”

“So you gotta clean house.”

“You mean…”

“To send them through,” Severin said.

And Zenon said, “Yeah. Get rid of'm all.”

“You can't be serious.”

“Oh, I'm serious alright. Kill'm all. Wipe'm out. Eradicate.”

Intellectually, she knew she ought to find the idea shocking. Ludicrous. Unthinkable. Zenon was a madman.

And yet.

Inside, she felt differently. The cold void that now permeated through her had deadened her sense of vitality. In its absence, the new excitement was what replaced the feeling of being alive.

 

thirty-three

NEW ORLEANS, NOW

MADELEINE SAT UPRIGHT ON
the couch. She looked toward the stamped tin ceiling above just to make sure it was there. No black thorns. And no Zenon or Severin. She was fully back. But that coldness, it still lingered inside her.

Ethan had been sleeping with his arm wrapped around her but he awoke with a start. Bo lifted his head at the change in their breathing sounds, his hand over the Braille copy of
The Cay
.

“What is it?” Ethan said.

Madeleine was staring at Bo, trying to find that sense of protectiveness she'd felt for him before. But: nothing.

“We've got to get out of here,” she said.

Ethan rose up on his elbow, rubbing his eyes. “What? Now? Baby, I'm tired.”

Madeleine watched Bo as he returned to his book. “You sleep. I'll take Bo out for a little bit.”

Something inside her was objecting to this idea. Where would she take Bo? How safe would he be in her company, now that the void had emptied her? The truth was, she wanted him out of her home. Felt absurdly territorial.

Ethan blinked the sleep from his eyes. “No. Let's stick together. Let me just brush my teeth and change my shirt.”

Madeleine swallowed and nodded.

“How's your book?” she said to Bo, eyeing Ethan as he left the room.

“It's good. There's a blind kid in it. He wasn't blind starting out, though.”

She stood, breathing in carefully.

Because the urge that filled her right now …

Madeleine closed her eyes. She had to stop this. Whatever she felt, she needed to make her conscious mind override the other thing, or the lack of something, that begged to be filled. Make pain to prove its existence.

Bo was clicking at her. “Doc LB?”

In her mind, she counted, breathing in and out carefully. Because she knew Severin would appear at any moment unless she found a way to still this thing.

Ethan emerged from the bedroom wearing a fresh tee-shirt and walked to the bathroom. The sound of running water.

“It's back,” Bo whispered.

Madeleine swallowed. “You can tell that from clicking?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Well that's good. But it's not really back. You're picking up on something in me.”

Bo was quiet for a moment. “You gonna kill me, Doc LB?”

The statement sent a frenzy of emotions through her and none of them were sympathetic. Her stomach rolled. She wasn't sure how long she could keep this up before going mad. She closed her eyes again and counted aloud, distantly aware that she hadn't answered his question.

But as she counted, she felt a touch on her arm. She opened her eyes. Bo was there, his hands reaching for her, and then his arms went around her neck in a gentle hug.

“Don't worry Doc LB. You gonna be OK.”

And that quickly, it changed. The void was replaced by warmth.

*   *   *

MADELEINE KNEW THAT IF
they stayed home and Zenon came looking for her, he'd find out Bo was alive. Better to disappear into a crowd for a while. So they walked along the waterfront in the Quarter near Pirate's Alley. That way if Madeleine sensed Zenon might be nearby, Ethan could take Bo and blend in with the hordes of tourists. Security by obscurity.

How she was going to explain to Zenon why the phosphorescent “stain” had returned, though, she wasn't sure.

They streamed through people and felt the kind of invisibility you can only get in a tourist-saturated area. Bo was awake enough but Madeleine and Ethan moved like the living dead.

“We're going to have to sleep sometime,” she said.

“Yeah,” was all Ethan managed.

The steam calliope on the
Natchez
played whistling carnival music. Bo was listening and grinning in the direction of the thing, and Madeleine could tell he was dying to click at it.

Madeleine said, “Watching him may be difficult. You have to go to work.”

Ethan shrugged. “I think I can bring him with me into the lab, at least for a little while. Things are loose right now with the students on summer vacation.”

Madeleine looked out over the water. “I guess we just need to concentrate on getting through today.”

“Yeah, well that one's easy.”

“Why?”

Ethan gave her a sideways grin. “Ice cream.”

Madeleine looked, and saw that he'd spotted the Sucre Gelato van. He took Bo by the shoulder and steered him in that direction. Tourists queued up to buy treats from a woman in a blue bouffant wig.

All these people. Zenon could make them his pigeons in the blink of an eye. He was so much farther advanced than she was. He would have eventually closed in on Bo if he hadn't wanted Madeleine to make the kill. It didn't matter where they went—they were sitting ducks.

A few days ago Chloe had offered up advice in finding the truth by distracting the conscious mind. Ethan had said virtually the same thing when they'd stood together in the rail yard. But Chloe was the one who knew the full spectrum. She was the one who'd spent a lifetime observing the ways of the briar.

Madeleine watched while Ethan read aloud each of the flavors on the menu to Bo. Bo went for a strawberry gelato sundae, and Ethan picked out a café au lait for himself and a chocolate gelato with chocolate fudge topping for Madeleine. The man knew her well. Regardless of circumstances, she always found an appetite for chocolate.

She dipped her spoon in and let the icy sweetness settle over her tongue, deliberately facing into the sweltering sunlight.

Ethan said, “Feeling better?”

She nodded. “Loads. And I have an idea.”

“What.”

“I need to go see Chloe.”

He scooped a behemoth spoonful into his mouth and swallowed in a single gulp. “Ain't that like drinking strychnine after swallowing a spider?”

She shrugged. “If anyone knows how to get out of that trap, it's her. Yeah, she'll probably try to twist things on me. But I'll be on guard.”

“Alright. We'll go see Chloe.”

Madeleine shook her head. “Chloe hates the lumens just like the river devils do. I don't think it's wise to bring Bo around her.”

Ethan paused for a moment, then threw his ice cream in the trash. “I don't like the idea of us splitting up. What if Zenon shows?”

“Quite frankly, if he shows, he'll be looking for me. He thinks Bo's dead so he won't go seeking him out. So if he does come looking it's better if Bo's not around. Who knows…”

She looked at Bo, who'd forgotten himself and was now clicking toward the gelato van. “Maybe Chloe knows a way to evade Zenon. Or better yet, neutralize him. Now he thinks he can convince me to kill off Bo's neighbors in that Bridge City trailer park. I can't keep faking him out much longer.”

Ethan was breathing through his nose, hand to his hip, the grimness around his eyes having returned in full.

Madeleine said, “Let me just call and see if she's around.”

She dialed Chloe's number into her cell phone and got Oran. She talked to him a few moments while Bo kept after his sundae and Ethan frowned behind his sunglasses.

“They said come on by now,” Madeleine said as she ended the call.

“How long you think you'll be?”

“A couple of hours, probably. You can go on ahead and take Bo to your place and get some rest. When I'm done with her, I'll come join y'all.”

He shook his head. “I don't like it.”

“I don't either. But I don't know what else to do.”

*   *   *

ORAN HAD GONE TO
fetch Chloe. Madeleine waited on a settee in the drawing room, pulling at her hands like they were sugar taffy.

She felt a pang as she looked out toward the grand hall of Chloe's mansion. So much like her old house, which her father had burned to the ground before he'd died. Good old Daddy. Madeleine had rebuilt the old place but had had to sell it, which is why she now lived in a warehouse on Magazine. Another family heirloom.

Both this house and Madeleine's old place had been in the family for generations, and there were similarities—some of the old wall fabric, the cane motif in the frieze, even the china. But Chloe's house had a particularly strange quality about it, as though the wood in the framing was slowly reverting back to the trees they once were.

“Briar waiting to happen,” Madeleine muttered to herself as she waited in the drawing room.

Madeleine had abandoned the settee and was looking out the window by the time Oran returned with Chloe.

“You are distressed,” Chloe said, but her expression was more reproach than concern.

“You could say that.”

“It is because you are worried for someone. That will not serve you any favor.”

Madeleine shrugged. She hadn't come here to talk about that. Oran filled two crystal glasses with sherry and handed one to each of the ladies.

“No thank you,” Madeleine said.

But Chloe barked, “Take it.”

Madeleine looked at her, puzzled by her sharp tone, but she took the sherry.

“Now drink it,” Chloe said, and then added, “won't you
please
.”

Madeleine lifted a brow. It smelled like roasted sweet walnuts and alcohol. She sipped. Not a taste she cared much for but she could see why some drink it.

“So now, let's hear what you have to say,” Chloe said.

Madeleine set the crystal on the tray and folded her arms. “I've come about Zenon.”

“Mm.” Chloe's expression didn't change.

“What's your relationship with him, Chloe?”

“He is my great-grandson. Just as you are my great-granddaughter.”

“Stop it. You know what I mean.”