A Latent Dark (49 page)

The teenager whipped around and glared at Melissa, eyes filled with warning. She slowly raised a finger to her pierced black-painted lip and shushed them. She held a glare of outrage for a moment before turning and rushing on ahead.

The teenager cut into the serving line and spoke to a thin man in a matching apron and cap. “Karl, could you cover for me?”

Karl saluted her, ladle in hand, as the girl disappeared through a break in the serving bar, cutting between customers. Dale, Melissa, and Marley followed, much to the dismay and protest of several inmates. Melissa wanted to apologize, but she worried she would lose sight of the girl if she did.

Further down the wall, a much larger square door swung freely as if someone had recently passed through. Melissa charged into the doorway with both hands out in front of her, and froze with Dale and Marley nearly falling on top of her.

“You know,” said Dale, “It’s customary to keep walking when you go through a door so people don’t…” But he stopped when he realized where he was.

They stood in a massive hall, infinitely long and paved with Penrose tiles. Pillars the size of redwoods lined the floor, creating an obsidian forest before them. The teenager stormed ahead, pulling off her cap and dropping her apron on the floor. Her hair was short and black, cropped with a hairclip in the shape of a cartoon kitten.

“I know you are new and all,” she said, her voice echoing back at them. “But you really need to stop being so mouthy about every little detail. That’s the sort of thing that will get you in trouble around here.”

She kept ahead of them as the discarded clothing melted away into dust. Dale felt a nudge against his arm and he looked to see Melissa staring at the black, woven walls. They moved.

The great pillars were undulating as well, flexing with steady, rhythmic breathing. The walls made a distant rustling sound as the millions of tiny serpents that comprised them writhed against one another. The sky above was a melodramatic swirl of black clouds and lightning as winged shapes swooped through distant rock spires.

“Well, had I known my quest was simply navigating a post-life bureaucracy,” said Melissa, “I would have ignored your letters altogether. You sent them as though you wanted to play some kind of game, and that it was about Skyla. I had no idea everyone was supposed to stay in character.”

The girl turned her dark eyes on Melissa. “
Helheim
isn’t a place for questions. You could have stood out and very likely gotten someone hurt.”

“So what?” said Dale.

“So,” said the girl. “There are a billion people out there that all believe the same reality. It’s the only thing that gives them any peace or semblance of identity. Without it, the predators beyond these walls would swoop in faster than you can say ‘purgatory’. The last thing I need is for you to shatter their fantasies like a herd of elephants in a china shop, making them question their own existence. It was irresponsible and frankly inconsiderate. You’ve been here long enough to know how valuable illusions are.”

The girl reached the throne and sat, crossing her legs. The edge of her black dress hiked up, exposing a moldering ankle. Tiny windows in yellow skin displayed the tendons underneath. She caught Dale staring and covered it with a graceful flip of her hem.

They stood at the base of the dais as two pillars behind the girl fell free of the ceiling and shook the floor where they landed. Immense reptilian heads, black and polished, emerged from collars the size of tractor wheels. They watched the three visitors with voracious interest in their ruby eyes.

The girl looked down at the visitors with a sardonic grin and flicked a lock of her black hair.

“Now,” said Hel. “Let’s talk about this problem named Skyla and how to deal with her before she destroys you, me, and everyone in both worlds.”

Chapter 36

Black armored hands grabbed John by the shoulders as cuffs were slapped tightly onto his wrists. He grunted, blinking away the light that now flooded his vision, turning the world into a white blur. He stumbled on stiff legs as the men pushed him around corners and into a small room where he was shoved into a chair.

“Please,” he said, gasping, “I know the archbishop. Please just tell him that Father John Thomas is here. That’s me. Just tell him—”

The door closed with a loud
click
and he was alone. An hour later it opened again as a guard stood aside. A stout man in a cream and red robe entered the doorway. John almost didn’t recognize him at first. The archbishop froze and crossed himself. He turned to the guard.

“What is this man doing imprisoned here?” he yelled into the guard’s face. “This man is the Right Reverend Father Thomas. Are you all insane?”

The archbishop stormed through the door and scooped up John in a bear hug. The guard scurried to undo the cuffs from his wrists. Warmth flowed into his hands and he returned Christopher’s embrace with a slap on the back.

“Chris, what are you doing here?” he asked the archbishop. It was surreal.

“I should be asking you the same,” said Christopher. He barked to the guard. “Get Stintwell in here. She has some explaining to do. And bring this man some water.” He turned back to John. “I thought you were dead, John.”

He pulled up a chair and the two men sat facing one another. John rubbed his wrists, still overcome with shock. “Chris,” he said, “I mean it. What are you doing here?”

“They’re preparing a demonstration of the facility, so naturally I had to come,” he said. “It’s a big day. Now maybe you should tell me why
you’re
here. How are you not dead?”

“Should I be?”

“Well, yes, you should,” the archbishop said. “John, you were last seen being kidnapped from the city by some madman from The Wilds.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped,” said John. “I was—” He stopped short.

“You were what?” Christopher asked.

John took a breath. “I was looking for Skyla.”

The archbishop glared at him for what seemed like a full minute. He flushed, then said, “I thought we discussed that, John.”

“I know we did, but… well, I came into some information that led me to believe that she might have headed here.”

Christopher laughed. “John, why didn’t you just ask? I would have arranged a visit. Didn’t I tell you myself to come see this place?”

“I know, I know,” John said. “But… well it was more than that. There was a girl murdered.”

Christopher’s face became sullen. “The Montegut girl.”

John nodded.

“Yes, a tragedy that one,” he said. “It’s a shame her murderer got away.”

John looked at the archbishop coldly. “Chris, I think she was killed through inquisition.”

Something shifted in the archbishop’s eyes. “So you saw the corpse? When was this?”

“On my way here,” John said. “The man I was with discovered the corpse. We wanted to make sure it wasn’t Skyla, but then we realized that the way she had been tortured—”

“John,” the archbishop leaned forward. “How do you know that the murderer wasn’t that very man who showed you the body? You could have been killed.”

“I… I just knew okay?” John said, somewhat embarrassed. “Look, I know it was rash. But listen… the marks on her. It was like an illustration from the Dark Ages. She was killed by an inquisitor. I saw the marks myself.”

“And what if she was?” the archbishop said.

John blinked. “What if—Chris, what are you saying?”

“If the Pope himself required it, would you not do what had to be done? A mandate from the Lord, John. Consider that.”

“A mandate—Chris, it’s
murder,”
John’s hand had begun to tremble. “In this day and age?”

Christopher stood and cleared his throat. It was the sort of thing John had seen him do when preparing to lead a sermon. He stared at the door.

“Skyla was living for a decade right under our noses. She attended school, went home, lived with her mother. Nobody could touch her. Have you ever asked yourself why that was?”

“I…” John stopped. He hadn’t really ever considered that. “I’d spoken to her. I’m sure other people had as well. She was bullied.”

“But nobody ever captured her,” said Christopher. “Why do you think that is?”

John slumped into his couch. “Lucky I guess?”

“Or would you say, ‘protected’?”

“Sure… I suppose. What are you getting at? Protected by what?”

“John,” Christopher said. “It is not our place to question the Reverend Summers and his tactics. He has been mandated by the Pope himself. Not you or I can question him. But understand that it is because only he can see through them. Only he knows ways to trick their kind into betraying the trust of one another. The rest of us are simply tools in God’s hands.”

“I don’t understand,” said John.

“The only way that girl could have allowed anything to happen to her was to invite the trouble herself. She could have lived in plain view and nobody would have even looked at her.”

“I refuse to believe that she wanted to get beaten up at school, Chris. She’s eleven.”

Christopher held his hands out. “Maybe she was testing her limits. Her mother made her go to school. Maybe they wanted to feel normal.”

“But they weren’t,” said John. “Nobody let them forget that.”

“John,” said the archbishop. “The only way that anyone could have seen that house was through an invitation. The only way anyone could have put a hand on that girl was through an invitation.”

“So, you’re saying she invited The Reverend to burn her house?”

“No, John,” the archbishop said. “Not her.”

“Well, then what are you saying, Chris?”

“All I’m saying is that maybe the Montegut girl wasn’t as innocent as you think.”

John’s mouth hung open as if he had been slapped. “She was
twelve
. I don’t understand how you can justify this.”

“Under the city-state edicts regarding unethical and heretical texts, she was guilty enough that The Church would have sanctioned it anyway. The fact that we had an opportunity to gain valuable information—”

“What information?” asked John. “What texts?”

Christopher waved away the questions, but not before John’s eye’s grew wide.

 “She was friends with Skyla,” said John. “She was friends with her and knew where she lived. She could see the house. You tortured her to get at that house.”

“We are all tools of God’s Divine Will, John,” said Christopher. “We do what He asks of us unquestioningly.”

“Yeah,” said John, his mouth set. “I’m sure Melissa was unquestioning throughout the whole thing.”

Chris was about to respond when the door opened. A woman in a white Tinkerer’s coat entered. She held a glass of water which she immediately offered to John. He took it, still glaring at the archbishop spitefully.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, looking between the two men. “I must have come at a bad time.”

“Not at all,” the archbishop said, glad to be able to change subjects. “Laura Stintwell, this is Father John Thomas from the Bollingbrook archdiocese. It seems there’s been a bit of a mix-up with the detainee registration.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” she said. “There must be.”

“I don’t need to tell you what a tragedy it could have been—”