A Dream of Ice (31 page)

There.

Her hand seemed to come alive—with an internal humming, a buzzing, a vibration that she automatically compared to the trembling of the stone in its acoustic aerie. The buzzing intensified until she felt the pounding in her palm. She directed her fingertips toward the stone.

Suddenly, the pounding in her hand was drawn powerfully toward and then onto the stone. Fearful, Caitlin almost pulled her hand away to cut the energetic bond.

But that would mean starting over. This had to be done. She calmed her knee-jerk reaction. The goal was engagement. She had to learn to use the mental-physical throttle. She began to twist the energy, turning it like a spoon in coffee, and slowly she began to sense something responding from the stone. The stone was expressing something
inside
her. The feeling was pure joy—similar to what she and Ben had experienced, drifting up and out into the cosmos, them
selves, and each other. The core of this artifact was no core at all, but an opening. She hovered there, uncertain—

A new image flashed onto her visual field. There was no longer ice, just eyes—hazel eyes, eyes that crinkled in recognition and then in triumph, eyes in an old face with a white beard. Caitlin didn't wait around to see what the triumph was for. Her instinct told her to get out before this other presence could take control. With one movement she spiraled the pounding energy into the stone and pulled herself out of the sound stream.

The eyes were jerked away from her, leaving only the room with the levitating stone. She put her hands on her knees, dropped her head, and just breathed for a few moments. When she looked up again, she saw that the stone was still not lit, was not even buzzing. She wondered whether Yokane's stone had stopped buzzing too.

Peripherally, she saw that Flora had joined Adrienne. Both were staring at her.

“Please,” Flora said. “Talk to me.”

“Not now.”

“But what should we
do
?” Flora said, pressing her.

“Be quiet.” Then she added, “Please.” To Adrienne she said, “Don't touch me and definitely do not touch it.” She indicated the stone.

Caitlin sensed Flora's struggle, Adrienne's compliance, but then quickly forgot them both as she stood upright and ground her left heel into the floor for a strong sense of balance. With the stone in repose, she could attempt to take care of her other priority, although the Source and its dead inhabitant could not be underestimated.

Her main concern was how Jacob was affected by her connection with the stone, with ascended souls, with the past. Without leaving this place, without surrendering these connections, she had to know what was happening at home.

Caitlin reached out as she had when seeking Yokane from the roof. With the ensuing wave of energy she reached toward her home and found it almost immediately, not by sight but by feel. The visual feed
wasn't there but she could sense that no one was in the living room and heard water running in the kitchen. She extended herself like fingers, searching for something she had a good chance of sensing—and yes, Ben had left his phone on the living room table. It had the same aura of life as hers, his clinging presence, an emotional hook that she could grab on to.

Once more she had the sensation of swinging herself toward the destination—grabbing for it across space, but hopefully not across time. Then the visual came in, as clearly as if she were standing in the room. The sound of water turned off and to her surprise Caitlin's friend Anita Carter walked out of the kitchen into the dining room.

“Anita?”

The psychiatrist turned, looked around. “Caitlin?”

“Yes.”

Anita went to the front door, looked out the peephole. No one was there. She looked around for a phone.

“What are you doing there?” Caitlin asked.

“Me? What are
you
—where is that coming from? Laptop? You Skyping?”

“That's not important now. Why are you there?”

“I called, couldn't reach you, came over. Ben said you were gone. I figured I'd stay.”

“Why?”

“Ben was with Jacob,” Anita said. “He was talking in his sleep. Doves, ashes, flying—”

“Dovit? Azha?”

“I'm not sure,” Anita said. She was still looking around as if suddenly Caitlin would reveal her hiding place. “Caitlin, seriously—what is
this
? Where are you calling from?”

“I'll tell you later, I promise,” Caitlin said. “Is he all right, Jacob?”

“Yes, he's fast asleep and snoring.”

“Can you stay, Anita?”

“Of course, but . . .”

“Tell Ben, Global Explorers' Club, Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street, now—no, never mind. I'll tell him.”

“All right, fine. Caitlin—”

That was all Caitlin heard. She sought and found Jacob asleep and snoring in his room. He seemed calm. She felt only one other presence near him and it was Ben. A surge of mortal need rolled through her. More than anything else she wanted to hear Ben's voice, hug him, but she couldn't indulge right now. Still, she wanted him with her for support. He was the only one she trusted.

And then, like a dying fireplace, the apartment vanished, lost all its warmth.

Caitlin dropped her hands. She took a moment to feel her gratitude to Anita for going with a hunch that something was wrong and being clairaudient and fearless enough to hear her. Then, as Caitlin fully returned to her body, she pulled out her cell phone. While speaking to Flora she simultaneously texted Ben the address followed by the same information she was announcing.

“A man's coming,” Caitlin said. “The man who translated what I know of the Galderkhaani language. He's going to watch over the stone while I'm otherwise occupied.”

“I do not allow—” Flora started.

“In return,” Caitlin continued, “he will share what he knows about the language. It's a fair bargain. Some trust, some distrust, in the end win-win.”

She hit “send” and stowed the cell phone.

Flora approached. Caitlin pinned her in place with a look.

“Doctor,” Flora began very carefully, “you
must
tell me how you—”

“When I'm ready. I'm not even close to being done here.”

Flora braced herself defiantly, then shrank as quickly.

Suddenly Caitlin was vaulted from the room. It was similar to what she'd experienced in Haiti, when an unseen force had whipped her around like a dog on a leash.

For a moment she was simply in darkness. Then a face appeared. Not Yokane. Not hazel eyes. A woman with flaming red hair.

I am Azha
, she said without moving her lips.

The woman was speaking Galderkhaani but Caitlin understood more words than Ben had already translated. “I am—” Caitlin began to respond.

I know
, the woman said with quiet authority.

Fear cascaded through Caitlin's entire being, but before she could grapple with it, she was jerked away again.

Then she was somewhere—a place that was blue upon blue upon blue, and moving. She opened her mouth to speak and tasted salt. She was in the ocean, beneath it, but she was still breathing. Or perhaps she was beyond the need for breath.

She was suddenly afraid of something new—not of drowning but being stranded here and unable to get back to Jacob.

Azha?
she called.

Not far away, the red-haired woman floated facedown in the sea. It was just a small section of water, an opening that had apparently been punched through the ice by whatever wreckage was around her and by the flames that still licked at it.

Caitlin felt sympathy and horror all at once. Whatever tragedy had befallen this woman, she had to prevent Jacob from experiencing her agony . . . her death.

You're the soul who's been haunting my child
, Caitlin said to the woman.
What do you need from me?

We must stop my sister, Enzo
, she replied.
She seeks to help her mentor.

Who is her mentor?

A Priest named Rensat
, Azha informed her.
But Rensat cannot communicate with Enzo. They are not bonded through
cazh.

So they're trying to contact her—to do what?

Rensat is ascended, with a Priest named Pao. With the help of Enzo, Rensat seeks to undo the destruction of Galderkhaan.

How is that even possible, winding back time?
Caitlin asked. Even as
she said it, she knew the answer. She had changed the past before, when she'd gone back to Galderkhaan to protect Maanik.
They will compel me to go back
.

Yes. To stop a Galderkhaani named Vol from activating the Source. Just before my airship crashed, I revealed the treachery of Vol to Enzo
, Azha said.
I told her of his plan to activate the Source prematurely. When she died, Enzo was trying to
cazh
by fire, to possess someone living in Galderkhaan, to pass this information to others. She failed.

I have seen others try to do that
, Caitlin said.

Enzo is trying, still, to communicate that information.

Enzo was attempting to do what the dying of Galderkhaan had done with Maanik, Gaelle, and Atash: to enter their bodies and bond with their souls. After millennia of trying, Caitlin couldn't begin to imagine how mad this Enzo must have been.

What am I supposed to do?

You must stop them. Pao seeks your intervention to restore Galderkhaan, but Rensat wishes to do that . . . and then destroy it.

Destroy it again?
After
they save it?

Yes. I have watched her when she is alone, seen her collecting ancient names, assembling an army. I believe she wishes to build the Priest class to unprecedented numbers and then in one stroke she and Enzo and their myriad followers will cause mass death—as many souls as it takes to reach the cosmic plane. There, they will become Candescent. But at a price
.

Azha didn't have to spell it out. Caitlin could do the math: ancient Galderkhaan would die and the course of history would shift. It had become apparent through Ben's research that survivors of Galderkhaan had spread throughout the world. But if there were no survivors—or very few—the world Caitlin knew would be vastly changed. It was genocide of an existing race, and preemptive genocide of billions of others who would never be born.

You must not be taken
, Azha said.
Yet they must be stopped.

What can
you
do to help?
Caitlin asked.

Like Rensat and Pao, I and Dovit are ascended but without power. This that I have conveyed is all I can do. You must succeed on your own.

And with that she was gone.

Caitlin swore loudly. She was not certain if any of that was really imminent or truly possible. The one thing she did know: Azha had access to Jacob. Yokane had gotten to him. Now that the other Galderkhaani knew who she was, they could probably find him as well—if not through agents like Yokane, then through his dreams.

She had to end this now.

C
aitlin left the mansion with barely a word to Ben.

“Caitlin?” He turned after her.

“Later, okay?” she said as she hurried down the steps. “Everything you need to know is in the text,” she told him over her shoulder.

“All right,” Ben said. “Be safe.”

Ben had seen this side of Caitlin enough to trust that “need to know” was sufficient right now. Caitlin on the other hand felt far less prepared than when she faced the previous Galderkhaan crisis. And there was so much more at stake. If only Yokane were there to help.

Caitlin had an unknown span of time before Davies's stone regained awareness. That could work for her or against her: she might be able to use its powers, or it might try to take her over to connect with other stones. She had to use her time prudently.

First, she had to find a
place
to use time prudently.

Turning down Fifth Avenue, she walked at a fast pace partly to focus herself. Three souls, two of them bonded. Together, they had an agenda. The agenda had a focal point: Antarctica. Specifically, a place with active mosaics. If she could find that in her mind, she could use
it the way she had used the courtyard tiles when she disrupted the
cazh
in ancient Galderkhaan.

That effort was going to require a powerful access point. Orienting toward the ocean had worked for a small bit of outreach like locating Yokane. But this?

For a much larger move through space and time Caitlin needed a big boost, something akin to what the trauma-soaked United Nations had provided the last time she accessed Galderkhaan. Preferably nearby since time mattered and preferably powerful. She was dealing with professional Priests. Priests who were also apparently resourceful psychopaths.

Briefly, she considered going downtown to the memorial park that was now stamped upon the former World Trade Center site, but something deep within her recoiled at the thought. Caitlin realized that if she relived any moment from that day and the weeks following, tapped the living terror of so many souls, she might run too hard in the opposite direction. She could take off so high and far into the transpersonal plane that she wouldn't come back, not even for Jacob.

Unconsciously she had been walking south and now she was facing the mercifully rat-free arch of Washington Square Park.

She looked to the east, where the Brown Building, the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, still stood. A hundred and forty-six people had died there in 1911, having burned, suffocated, or jumped to their deaths. She was drawn toward it, across the park, open to the horrible energy . . . then stopped.

There was also power below her feet.