The Native Star Read online

  Emily clenched her fist hard around the warmth of the ring. There wasn’t going to be time for him to find her. Artaud was going to tear open the dimension where her hand was … and probably tear her open along with it. Her pulse raced in her temples. She had to do something. Her eyes darted around the room. If only she had a weapon, one she could reach before he could get his hand up to stop her …

  A weapon.

  The idea came to her in a flash, with such force that it made her hand rise abruptly to her throat.

  Of course. A weapon. She did have a weapon. A terrible, beautiful weapon.

  Emily fumbled for the silk pouch that was still tucked down the side of her dress. She pulled out the blue and red calico pouch she had carried with her since she’d left Lost Pine. She palmed the little bundle of ashes.

  She raised the pouch to her mouth, using her teeth to bite through the thread. When it was open, she spilled the powder into her hand, and whispered the spell over it to recharge the magic:

  “My decision is firm,

  My will is strong,

  Let this spell bind him

  All his life long.”

  Then she closed her fist around the powder and waited until Artaud was finished. He seized the fat handle of a knife-switch, pulled it down. The portal blazed with sudden light, coruscating with wereflames of brilliant dancing plasma.

  “Now, be a brave girl.” He laid a heavy, sizzling hand on her shoulder, fingers digging hard into her flesh. “I’m afraid this is going to hurt quite a lot.”

  Emily blew the powder at him in a billowing cloud. The smell of lavender filled the room.

  Artaud gasped, choking and waving his hand in front of his face.

  “What the …!” he bellowed, taking two alarmed steps backward. And then he stopped, blinking, his black eyes flat and unreadable.

  “My God,” he said softly. “What have I done?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Skycladdische’s Revenge

  There was a long silence. Artaud stared at her, unblinking, unmoving. Then, abruptly, he dropped to one knee before her, grasping at the hem of her dress.

  “Behold, a god stronger than I that is come to bear rule over me,” he whispered as he pressed the purple silk against his face, making a sound of pleasure in his throat. One of his metal-cased hands snaked out to caress her ankle. She tried to move her leg away, but Artaud’s cold hand rose to stroke her calf. She pushed it away angrily.

  He smiled up at her, a mean, hungry smile.

  “Now, you little connasse, is that nice?” he asked, biting the last word. Wrapping his arms around her ankles, he tipped her backward. She fell hard, banging the back of her head against the wooden chair. In an instant Artaud was over her, his body pressing down on hers.

  “Don’t be coy,” he growled at her, and she was suddenly very aware that his teeth were rotted brown stumps. She tried to turn away, but he mashed his mouth down over hers, pinning her arms by her sides. She screamed in her throat and tried to push him away. But Artaud worked one steel-clad hand up to the neck of her dress, and there was the sound of tearing fabric.

  Then, another sound. A loud, abrupt humming.

  A sudden flash of light came from the machine’s glowing archway, from the activated dimensional portal. Artaud looked back, frowning; the momentary distraction gave Emily the chance she needed to her free her hand from where the old man had it pinned. She reached up to where her silver hair sticks were. Seizing one, she drove it toward Artaud’s face.

  The stick missed the old man’s eye, but delivered a sharp, painful smart just under it. Artaud drew back, bellowing with rage and surprise. As he did, a hand clamped down on Artaud’s shoulder, pulling him up and pushing him back roughly across the floor.

  Emily scrambled backward, holding the hair stick like a dagger in her hand. But when she saw who had thrown Artaud off of her, she let it drop to her side.

  “Mr. Stanton!” she breathed.

  With two long strides, Stanton went to the portal and punched buttons in a rapid sequence. There was the sound of pounding from the other side—heavy hard pounding. Someone was trying to follow …

  “Behind you!” Emily screamed.

  Stanton spun, but it was too late. Artaud’s hand came up, intense radiance exploding from his fingertips, so bright that it made Emily’s eyes water. The outpouring of energy crackled and seared the air.

  Stanton leaned into the blast, rhythmic Latin streaming from his lips. He twisted one hand over the other, small motions summoning larger forces—a cold blasting whirlwind, whistling angry and harsh. Emily was spun across the floor by the sudden gusting force; she grabbed at the legs of a heavy table to hold herself in place. Stanton stood before Artaud, feet planted firmly. With curt movements, he spun Artaud around and around, lifting him from the ground, battering him against walls.

  Then, Artaud’s other hand came up, his fists clenched thumb against thumb. And with a bark that echoed even over the whistling cyclonic din, he sent a tremendous blast of concentrated brilliance against Stanton’s chest. Stanton flew backward, his body slamming hard against the far wall. The spinning gale he had summoned vanished abruptly, dissolving into small sighs, dusty whorls, gasps. Stanton slid to the ground.

  And then, the only sound in the room was the pounding coming from the other side of the portal.

  Emily scrambled to Stanton’s side, grabbing him by the shoulders. His blood-streaked face was gray and slack; his chest was still.

  “Mr. Stanton?” Emily touched his face. His skin was ice cold.

  The pounding on the door intensified. Sudden, familiar, searing pain sliced through her skull.

  Carissima mia.

  Emily’s whole body contracted with loathing and anguish. No, not that. It couldn’t be. It was too much. Grabbing handfuls of Stanton’s jacket, she hid her face against his chest.

  Open the door.

  Emily was not aware that Artaud had come up behind her until he reached down and grabbed her, hauling her to her feet.

  Open the door.

  The pounding on the door had become rhythmic, like the beating of drums. An ancient command, burning in her blood, a throbbing like the beating of her heart.

  “Do you see what happens?” Artaud raised a fist; Emily watched it coming toward her slowly. “Faithless whore!”

  Open the door.

  Now.

  The compulsion was too powerful to resist.

  Emily ducked Artaud’s blow easily, then brought up a fist and struck him hard across the face. What the blow lacked in strength it made up in precision; Artaud staggered backward. Emily went to the portal and touched the buttons in the exact order in which they were flashing through her mind.

  The portal cracked open and Caul staggered through. His face was pale with exertion and lined with strain; his body and hands were covered with cracked, dried blood.

  “Finally,” Caul said. He placed a hand on her head. “Dormiente.”

  Emily melted, suddenly exhausted, unable to keep her legs underneath her anymore. Caul held up the Otherwhere Marble, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger.

  “Stanton remembered some tricks from his days at the Academy.” Caul looked down at Stanton’s body, and then at Artaud’s tanks. “But not enough of them, it seems.”

  Caul threaded his fingers through Emily’s hair and pulled her to her knees. She hung limply in his grasp.

  “Don’t you dare hurt her!” Artaud cried. “She is mine, Caul, do you hear me? Mine!”

  Caul regarded him curiously. Then he looked down sideways at Emily, and gave her a vicious little shake. “I guess I underestimated your capacity for playing tricks, skycladdische.”

  “You know what these can do, Caul,” Artaud growled, holding his gauntlets out before him. “Let her go this instant!”

  Caul raised an eyebrow. He did not let Emily go.

  “Go ahead, Artaud,” he said.

  Artaud clenched his teeth, balled his hands into fis
ts, put them together thumb to thumb.

  “You think I won’t?”

  “I think you can’t. Your bottles. They’re bone dry.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then, with a cry, Artaud scurried toward the racks, fumbling for another glowing bottle. Caul followed him, dragging Emily by the hair. With his other hand, Caul seized the harness on Artaud’s back and threw him backward. Artaud thudded heavily to the floor, his sundry appliances clanking and squeaking. Caul came to stand over the black-eyed man. Artaud looked up at him, pleadingly.

  “John, don’t. Please, don’t do it. You mustn’t hurt her. I beg you …”

  “It’s for your own good,” Caul said. Lifting his heavily booted foot, he delivered one sharp blow to the Frenchman’s chin, sending him crashing backward into unconsciousness.

  Emily, her hair still clutched tightly in Caul’s fist, made a small unintentional sound in her throat—despair and fear mixed in equal parts. Caul looked down at her as if he’d forgotten that she was there.

  “Dormiente,” he said again. Fresh languor crept through her. She felt suddenly as soft as butter that had sat in the sun.

  Then he stretched her out on the floor.

  Her body was limp and transfixed. All she could do was stare up at the ceiling, her head filled with pain and the distant sound of clanking machines.

  He went over to the dissecting table, where a gleaming array of surgical implements lay arranged on a tray. He touched each one of them. Finally, he selected a heavy silver cleaver.

  Then he knelt beside her, placing the marble between her limp fingers.

  “Open the cuff,” he said. “You know how Mirabilis did it.”

  There was nothing strong left in her at all. Her body was soft as water, and her hand moved on its own. Emily tapped the marble against the Boundary Cuff in the same rhythm Mirabilis had used. Her hand rematerialized. Caul tossed the cuff aside. It spun away, clattering.

  Caul held her hand for a moment, stroking the stone gently with his thumb. Then he stretched her arm out away from her body. He held her arm down hard against the cold stone floor. He brought the cleaver up. And then he brought it down.

  The ring of steel and the abrupt, metallic smell of spurting blood were the last things she knew.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Heavy Weather

  Smells.

  Acrid burning flesh and cold congealed blood and aromatic spirits of ammonia.

  “Wake up.” A voice resonating in the far distance. A hand waving something under her nose, something cold and bitter and sharp. “Wake up, Miss Edwards.”

  Pain woke as she did, stirring like a provoked beast, diffused through all parts of her body but concentrating in agony at her wrist. She turned her head to look at her arm. A bloody tourniquet was tied tightly around it, halfway between elbow and wrist.

  “My … hand,” she said.

  “Not anymore.” Caul’s voice. He laid the smelling salts aside, next to a field surgeon’s case of brightly polished mahogany. Inside the case, large silver needles shone. “You do present me with the most interesting challenges. Removing clumsy skycladdische love spells is hardly my area of expertise. Comforting brokenhearted Frenchmen even less so. And yet I will be called upon to do both, if Artaud is to be in any condition to extract the power from this stone.”

  “You can’t remove the love spell,” Emily rasped. “Only I … only I can. And I won’t.”

  “Your blood will do as I bid it do,” Caul growled. “Your blood is all that you are, every fragment of your will, every moment of your life. And it’s going to be mine.”

  Caul began taking needles out of the case, one by one. He showed one to her. It was the size of a pencil, delicately engraved, with a razor-sharp tip.

  “One for your carotis communis … here, on your throat.” He touched the place gently. “One for each of the brachial arteries that run along the insides of your arms, and one for each of the large femoral arteries that run along the insides of your legs.” He spoke as if reciting from a book. “You’ll be dry within five minutes, carissima mia.”

  The last words were spoken in Grimaldi’s cruelly perfumed Italian accent. A shadow of distaste passed over Caul’s face. He clenched his teeth, spoke in an undertone.

  “Perhaps the most useful aspect of your blood is that I’ll be able to use it to exorcise this greasy Wop from my body.”

  She was so cold.

  It was the coldness of her hand that made her notice how hot the ring around her thumb had grown. She clenched her hand into a loose fist, ignoring the prick of tears in her eyes.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for the needles to slide under her skin, to pierce her, to empty her …

  “Stop, sangrimancer.”

  Emily’s eyes opened slowly. It was Stanton’s voice, low and shuddering. She turned her head a little, and she could see him standing on shaking legs, pulling himself up against the shelf that held the bottles of chrysohaeme. His skin was the color of plaster; the streaks of dried blood on his cheeks stood out in gruesome relief.

  “Stanton.” Caul’s voice was lazy. “And we thought you were dead.”

  “There are very few advantages to being burned,” Stanton said. “But there is one. You can’t stop me with raw magic. You might as well try to drown a fish.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Caul said. He tilted his head. “You’re just in time to watch me bleed this little tramp. You do remember how they’re bled, don’t you?”

  “I’m not going to watch you bleed anyone,” Stanton said. “I’m going to stop you.”

  Caul lifted his eyebrows in amusement.

  “Stop me? You can hardly stand up.” Caul lifted the large silver cleaver, its edge crusted with Emily’s drying blood. He took a step toward Stanton. “Reclaiming Mirabilis’ power was a dirty trick, but that’s easily reversed. Once you’re dead, I’ll have the stone and the power of the Institute—and even that Aztec High Priest Mirabilis was good enough to obtain for me. In one day, I will have amassed enough power to crush any goddamn foreign subversive who turns an ugly eye on my United States. It’s a great day to be a patriot.”

  “Not so much as you’d think.” Stanton pulled one of the glowing glass containers from the shelf beside him. He knocked it against the side of the heavy shelf, cracking it open. He plunged his hand into the shifting, shimmering chrysohaeme.

  The transformation was immediate and complete. Stanton lit up like a magnesium torch. His face and eyes and tongue went black as a photographic negative. Around him, a blinding aura of multicolored light flashed and swirled. He raised a hand toward Caul, magic burning in traceries around his fingertips.

  “That won’t do you any good.” Caul reached into his pocket and pulled out Emily’s limp, severed hand. It was loosely wrapped in a blood-sodden handkerchief. “You can throw as much power as you like, the stone will absorb it all.”

  “I know,” Stanton said.

  And he threw power—a flood of brilliance that illuminated the white walls with violently shifting shadows of color. Caul stood, legs spread defiantly, holding up Emily’s gory hand like a shield. He grasped the severed hand with both of his own, straining against the force of Stanton’s magic.

  “You could have stood with me, Stanton!” Caul screamed, a high gleeful scream, tortured by the power surging around it. “You could have used your powers for good instead of throwing them away. You called it principles, but it was nothing more than cowardice. I know what you are! You’re nothing more than a goddamn … yellow … coward.”

  “I know what I am.” Stanton’s voice resonated. “And I know what I’m not.”

  And then it happened.

  The stone blossomed. Exploded. It happened so fast that Emily’s blurry eyes could hardly follow it. A black dripping ball of slime wrapped itself around Caul’s hand. The big man looked down in blank astonishment, screaming.

  The black mass slithered up his arm like a hundred tiny snakes. His body began to expand.
He threw his head back and screamed again—a loud long scream that became high and otherworldly as the rivulets of black slime reached his throat and plunged into it like grubbing maggots.

  “Don’t let him touch you,” Stanton said to Emily, his voice echoing as if it were amplified by a million bullhorns. “Get away from him!”

  Emily sat up slowly. She could not move very fast. She swung her legs off the table, and the world spun around her. Caul’s shrieks rang in her ears. The brilliance of the air around her, shifting and distorted with magic, made the floor difficult to locate. But she found it.

  Stanton’s face glowed stark white, his body burning like the sun.

  “Get away!” he screamed.

  Caul was expanding to such a size now … bigger and bigger, blacker and blacker, exuding the smell of a field of rotting corpses under a hot summer sun. He was reaching for her, black slimy paws fumbling to grab her. Dodging him unsteadily, she threw herself against a far wall, where one of the gas fixtures glowed softly. She waited as he got closer, until he was almost on her, reaching for her throat …

  Then she turned up the gas full blast, the sudden high flame catching a corner of his sleeve.

  She dove for safety as he exploded in an inferno of light and color and heat, white and blue and red. Heat battered at her as she rolled behind the dissecting table. The smell became that of fat blood-fed flies roasting in the flames of Hell.

  Caul stopped screaming; instead, he crumpled, a slow collapse punctuated by sprays of sparks. Finally he stilled, and then there was just the sound of whistles and bubbles and pops, and flames licking the ceiling and smoke filling the room.

  Then, there was a loud crack.

  From the center of the flaming mass a huge fountain of silver light shot up to the sky, blasting the roof outward in a hail of wood and plaster and tar paper. Looking up through the destroyed ceiling, Emily saw that the night was velvety black, salted with stars.