Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse (38 page)

"What’s that?" Bran asked. Marcus glanced at him, but didn’t answer for a moment.

"That’s where we’re staying," Marcus finally replied. "The famous Farfield Tower."

Bran sat up straighter to see. The building had rich, black marble sides at the bottom, windows and a set of glass doors glowing from the gigantic sprawling lobby. He could see many people inside, eating at tables and booths. He saw the tops of red felt hats as well as the heads of people in formal attire, though the gnomes appeared to have been seated a distance from the humans. The windows above ground level were tinted so darkly they almost appeared to be of mirror-like stone, and a piercing blue light shone up the sides, causing the building to appear even more imposing from the ground.

"Banks, restaurants, malls," Marcus went on. "That’s all at the bottom and underground. Upward are hundreds of hotel rooms and office complexes."

"How can you afford this?" Bran asked.

Marcus shrugged. "It’s Joris’s money," he said simply. The van slid across a few lanes toward the building, down a street and into the alley beside the skyscraper. Immediately, they were thrown into the building’s shadow as they moved out of the lights, and Joris parked away from the corner.

"Get ready to leave," Joris said. He was about to continue, but then he stopped, and his gaze shifted to look over Bran’s shoulder.

Instantly, Joris went very still. Bran turned his head and saw what Joris was looking at: a black car with tinted windows crossing the street they had just taken. There was a painted device on the door, like the head of an eagle leaning forward, made of simple dark blue lines. Below the eagle were the words Magic Investigational Police. After it had passed, a second one like it followed. All eyes were on the street until both had disappeared.

"What do we do?" Craig asked lowly, his voice holding an edge of anxiety.

Joris hesitated. "You," he pointed to Craig, "watch Bran. And you," he pointed to Marcus, "watch the girl. We’ll take them in quietly through the left elevator."

"What if they’re waiting for us?" Craig voiced into the air.

"They’re just on patrol," Joris assured them. Bran let his breath out slowly as he listened to them moving equipment, briefcases clicking shut as they packed. Every few minutes, he saw Joris look up, checking the windows, watchful for anything. They weren’t taking any chances.

Stay calm,
Bran told himself. He would need all of his wits to get them out of this—if anything, to get Astara out alive. He glanced in her direction. Her eyes were still closed.

"Wake up," he whispered. He nudged her lightly, and she slowly blinked her eyes open. "Be quiet. We’re here," he said in a low voice, and she sat up straighter and looked out.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"Farfield," Bran said, glancing at the men.

Astara shook her head, trying to clear it.

"They took us all the way?" she said with disbelief. Before Bran could say anything else, Craig pulled the back doors open and cold air flooded in. He felt the wind nip at his skin.

"Out, both of you," Craig ordered. Bran moved first, his feet unsteady on the hard concrete. He tried to balance himself, but his legs were weak from being in the van, and he tripped forward. He was unable to break his fall, and slammed straight into Craig.

The man shouted, stumbling backward and hitting a parking meter. Bran stumbled into him, but Craig lashed out, throwing Bran to the concrete. His shoulder hit, and he gasped with pain.

Astara broke away and rushed to Bran, but Craig seized hold of her. In a flash, she slammed into him with her shoulders, so suddenly that he was taken by surprise. He fell and shouted, recoiling and bashing the side of his hand into her face. She fell to the pavement next to Bran.

"Stop!" Bran shouted, trying to sit up, but Craig was already moving to kick her on the ground. At that moment, Joris came rushing around the van.

"Craig!" he hissed, and they froze. Joris looked at him wide-eyed.

"Are you out of your mind?!" he hissed. "Get them up, before someone sees!"

Marcus caught hold of Astara’s arm, dragging her to her feet. Craig was in obvious pain, but he took hold of Bran’s arm, clenching it so tightly it burned Bran’s skin. Joris looked at Craig, then Astara, but there was no pity in his eyes for her bleeding cheek.

"There won’t be any of this inside," he said sharply. One of the bald men and Shambles left with the van for the parking garage, and Bran could see the side where the metal was damaged from the crash in Dunce. The rest of them followed Joris to a door. He slid a key card in the lock, and they shuffled into an enormous, empty ballroom, tables all about with chairs resting in perfect alignment, and place mats and floral arrangements ready. There was an empty stage on the far end, but the place was dark, the only lights coming from small lamps attached to the walls, reflecting off the darkened chandelier. The rich red and gold carpet masked their footsteps as they crossed the room unhindered and came to another door.

"Take those off them," Joris said.

Bran felt his arms go free.

"No sudden moves, either of you," Joris warned sternly. He swiped his key card again, lights flooding in from the hallway when the door swung open. Bran blinked in the sudden brightness, but they continued without pause. He could hear the babbling sounds of people nearby, and the carpet ended and was replaced with marble. He managed a glance and saw that the lobby faced the front of the building, the ceiling towering above his head and glass doors facing the streets outside. There were people moving about, some of them glancing at him, but only for a moment.

As they rounded the corner, Bran saw doors for eight elevators, four on each side, with two separate doors for fire stairways. Bran didn’t even have a chance to turn before the elevator doors had slid shut with them inside. It was smooth and quiet, and Bran felt himself being brought higher, the elevator speeding up as it went.

When it finally came to a stop, the doors slid apart, and everything behind them was shrouded in darkness. Gone were the lights from downstairs; instead, they had come to a dark, wide hall, with empty walls and a thick door on the far end. The air in the room was different than below—a processed, hotel air. Joris moved for the door across the room, sliding his key card across the panel like a knife, and the handle gave a click.

He pulled it open, and Bran was forced through.

The room was somewhat circular, with an indention in the floor that went down a step. There were no lights on, but Bran could almost make out every detail, for the walls on either side were lined with clear glass that reflected lights from the city below. Bran couldn’t help glancing out, and when he did, he saw that they were high above the streets, the city like the design of a map.

In front of the windows were tables, and on them were piles of things: notepads, books, newspapers, videotapes. Nearly a dozen computer screens were flashing and making soft sounds. He saw a laptop like Adi’s, the program on the screen split up into four windows, and in the windows were views from different security cameras.

His eyes caught movement at the far end of the room, next to a set of doors. Almost as if she had appeared out of thin air, Bran saw a woman.

He turned quickly. She had been watching him. She was tall and looked to be in her early thirties at most. Her skin was pale, and she had piercing, cobalt blue eyes, her hair long and black with a streak of white going down the side, almost as if all the color had been dispelled from one lock of it. She wore dark clothing and was beautiful in a way—a dark way. Bran’s eyes darted away from her face, and they caught on something that was tucked in her belt: a smooth, black wand with a diamond tip that glittered and threw colors.

"This," Joris hissed to him, "is Elspeth."

Bran looked back and couldn’t tear his eyes from her. She was staring at him with a cold gaze, so powerful that anyone would tremble under it: unmoving and solid, so thick that he could not break it. It seemed to burn at his eyes, holding him fast, until he was so lost he couldn’t pull away.

"
Just like your mother,
" she spat in anger. Bran jerked his eyes away, trying to hold himself together.

"I can feel it in you," she said. "So arrogant, yet so weak…"

"And yet it took six people to bring me here?" Bran said, and the instant his words were out Craig wrenched his arms back, so hard that Bran winced with pain.

"It’s only right to escort the carrier of our master’s spirit," Elspeth said, watching the pain on Bran’s face closely, her words unfaltering. "Those men and myself are all that is left of our great society, save for a few others who are hardly significant, hiding in fear for their lives."

"You were lucky to have escaped." Bran said, spitting his words out.

"So you know then?" she said with some curiosity in her voice.

Bran stood up straighter. "I know everything now," he said.

"Well then," she said, "you probably know it was my shot that killed your mother."

Bran felt a sudden fury leap into him, but Craig squeezed tighter on his arm so he was kept from moving away. He clenched his jaw in rage, wishing that he could reach for magic then, but knowing that if he did, they would not hesitate to hurt Astara in return.

"It was good to see her dead after all those years," Elspeth said, taking a deep breath, as if recalling a fond memory. "I always hated her."

Craig held Bran still, and Bran tightened his fingers into fists; but in an instant, he forced himself to release them. Elspeth watched him with interest, and then switched her gaze to Astara.

"And who is this?" she asked. Joris stepped forward.

"The hostage," he said. Astara did not flinch under Elspeth’s gaze. Shambles whimpered in the corner, hiding in the darkness, so much that Bran had hardly noticed he had joined them.

"And you?" Elspeth said, turning. Shambles pushed against the wall, his eyes wide with fear. Suddenly he fell down, curling on the floor, hiding his face from her. Bran could hear him breathing and choking, a rasping sound… the same sound he had heard on the roof, nights before. Bran saw something on Shambles’s wrist—a bracelet with a green stone. The rock was glowing slightly, and Shambles hissed with pain, tearing at it, as if it was burning him.

"Pleassse!" Shambles pleaded.

Elspeth shifted her gaze from him, and he went limp.

"We shall do this quickly," she said, starting across the room. She stopped in front of the door on the left and pulled it open. Behind it wasn’t another room, as Bran had expected, but another door, thick and gray. It made him think of the door to the vault at the bank, and it was very much set apart from the rich furnishings around him. On the right side of the door was a small screen, and below it, a keyboard. The screen flashed the words enter Password .

Elspeth typed a long string of keys, and when she finished, Joris stepped forward and typed another password in. There was a rush of air, as if the pressure of the room inside had changed. The door gave a pop, and Elspeth pulled it open. Bran felt cold air rushing out. A sudden white light flashed into his eyes, pouring from the room beyond. He tried to shield his face, but Craig held his arm tight. The air was so strong it stung.

Bran felt himself being pushed forward. Beyond the door was chilling, as if they had come to a refrigerator, and his breath came out as a thick mist. Elspeth moved in front, blocking Bran’s view, and he almost tripped down a step as the floor lowered a few inches from the room before.

Elspeth stepped to the side, and for a moment Bran was blinded by a thick white light. It poured from the ceiling and seemed to fall onto the middle of the small room like a waterfall. He squinted, just barely able to see. But as he stepped inside, suddenly he recognized it.

Everything was white, like a sterile plastic that held no life within. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—all of it shaped like a small, round shell of a room. As he looked over it, Bran knew where he had seen it: the same room as when he had first put the necklace on. The same place he had seen the corpse, awakening and falling, the same place he had seen for barely an instant.

And as Bran looked up, his gaze moved to the one object in the center of the room: it was a bed, and in the bed was a body.

Baslyn’s corpse was dressed in the same black robes Bran had seen so many times. His hands were at his sides with his palms turned upward, his eyelids closed with dark circles around them, his flesh completely preserved. His face seemed to be tortured even though he was limp—a strange face that Bran couldn’t draw his gaze from. There was a cowl drawn over the top of his head. Though Bran had seen him so many times already, staring at his corpse sent a chill down his back in a way even the coldness of the room could not.

"Here is the body of Baslyn," Elspeth said in a loud voice, and Bran’s head turned upward to look at her. She was staring straight at him, the light from the ceiling against the top of her head.

The room went still. Everyone stared at Bran, waiting for him.

"But one is not made of body alone," Elspeth said, looking from Bran to the others. "His soul must reside within him to make him whole. One cannot survive without the other."

She looked back to Bran. "One cannot
live
without the other."

Bran swallowed hard, and he felt as if his hands were beginning to tremble. He looked from her to the body, and then back to her.

"And in this child," she said, her gaze unwavering. "Many years ago, Baslyn hid his spirit…so that if one day, he might die in body, his spirit would live on…"

She looked upward. "…to one day return."

All of a sudden, she lifted her right hand and gestured toward Craig. Bran stiffened, but he felt the rough arms of the man release from his sides. In a moment, he was free, and his mind snapped before he could react. He felt the magic jumping up, so quickly that it seemed to burst, and in a split second he made his move.

He spun around and raised his palm outward to Marcus, slamming the magic into his body full force. Marcus didn’t have a chance to react. His body lifted from the ground, hurtling through the air into the wall behind him.