Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel (5 page)

A door all the way to the left of the room was slightly ajar, just the hint of yellow light escaping to draw me toward it.

Neds were already in bed, boots shucked at the foot of their cot, shirt tossed over the footboard, and blanket pulled up over their shoulders. From the rhythm of their breathing, they were asleep.

I wandered to the lit room, hoping it was a bathroom, and almost groaned in delight. It was a full bathroom with a standing shower and bathtub.

I shut the door, stripped off my duffel, clothes, and boots, and turned on the water. It took a little while for it to get warm. As soon as it was hot, I stepped in and scrubbed the sweat, fear, and anger of the last day and more off me.

The impossible task in front of us just seemed more impossible the more I thought about it. I’d been desperate to get out of the city with Quinten and Abraham. I’d promised Oscar Gray I’d keep Abraham safe. It had been his dying wish. . . .

I swallowed and brushed away the tears mingling with the shower.

I was doing the best I could to fulfill that wish. I was trying to save the world from the Wings of Mercury experiment.

Quinten had told me he was looking for our grandmother’s journal while he was at House Orange. He said it held valuable information we needed.

My brother was also convinced that the Wings of Mercury experiment had broken time more than three hundred years ago. And that when time mended—by his calculation, in just a few days—all the galvanized would die.

I’d die.

I knew the Houses might have guessed we were heading to our farm. It was a foolish thing for us to do, but Grandma was there, under the care of Boston Sue, whom I’d found out was a spy and hired gun for Reeves Silver, head of House Silver.

Grandma might be hurt or she might just be bait.

She might have the information that was in her journal somewhere in that forgetful mind of hers.

I couldn’t leave her alone and at the whims of House Silver. I had to make sure she would be safe and taken care of if I died.

Any way I looked at it, my chance of surviving this was pretty low. Quinten hadn’t broken the law. Neither had Grandma. If I could, I’d make sure they came out of this alive and free.

Neds too.

I didn’t know if Gloria’s water consumption was being monitored, so I made it quick and washed my hair with soap that smelled like lemons and honey, then got out, dried, and debated getting back into my travel clothes.

If something went wrong tonight, I didn’t want to be running in my pajamas, so I got into clean undergarments and put on my jeans and T-shirt, stuffing the long-sleeve shirt and vest into the bag.

I searched the vanity drawers for a brush or comb, found one of each, and took the time to comb my wet hair and then braid it loosely so it wasn’t a frizzy menace in the morning.

I slipped out of the room and into darkness. Neds hadn’t moved. Quinten was nowhere to be seen. I put my duffel down next to a bed near the stairs and pushed under the covers, the pillow cool and fresh against my cheek. I didn’t think I’d sleep.

I was wrong.

H
OUSE
O
RANGE

“C
lose the door and have a seat,” Reeves Silver said, as if he were inviting in an old friend. “Can I offer you a drink?” He poured scotch in a glass and held the bottle over a second tumbler.

“No.” Slater Orange did as he was told, latching the door, then taking a seat across the desk in Reeves’ personal office. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt, an old, telling habit.

Reeves’ eyes lit up when he saw that.

Slater dropped his hands into his lap. “Why have you called me here?”

“Because you and I are partners now,” Reeves replied affably, his blue eyes too blue in a face comfortably lined with the lies he told. “Rulers, ruling House Orange side by side. Unless you fail so miserably we must find your replacement.”

Slater remained silent.

“Oh, now, have I hurt your feelings? Don’t you see how this will work? Our partnership?” Reeves asked. “Fine. Let me try this again. This stunt you’ve pulled,” he
waved a finger at Slater, “is impressive. You took a far greater risk than I expected you to take, Slater.”

“Robert,” he said plainly.

Reeves bit down on a smile. “Let’s not play games, Slater. I always thought you were conservative when you made your moves. I certainly never expected you to go to these extremes with your power play. Death? Rebirth or whatever you call that horror you’ve done to yourself? I believe I’ve underestimated you all these years, and I am not a man who underestimates his peers. So, a toast. To the surprise of you.” He lifted his drink and sipped.

He sat back, fingers pressed together, waiting for Slater’s response.

“My name is Robert,” Slater said again.

“Are we going to do it this way? Are you expecting me to prove to you that I know you are Slater Orange pressed into that”—here he waved his fingers again—“body?”

“Why would you think I am anything other than Robert?”

Reeves leaned forward again. “I know you, Slater. I might have underestimated your desperation, your sickness, your access to whatever technology it took to implant yourself into that body and brain, but I know you’re in there, one hundred percent Slater Orange. I know the stink of you, the hunger of you. I see it behind your eyes. I smell it on your skin.

“And,” he said in a conspirator’s whisper, “I’d love to know how you did it. But we can save that for later. Right now, here, today, I want you to understand one thing: I own you.”

“I can’t be owned,” Slater said. “I am the head of House Orange. It is the law.”

“What is that saying? Good men don’t need laws, and bad men always find a way around them? I can claim you. And, really, I already have. Maybe not publically. Not yet. This”—again the finger waved, this time to indicate the two of them—“works for me. Your deals, payments, dues will go through me and my House. Do you understand me, Slater? I own you and your House.”

When Slater didn’t respond, Reeves set down his tumbler. “I looked into the members of House Orange who might take over ruling. There have been dozens of deaths over the past decade. Subtle, accidental, untraceable misfortunes have befallen every person who could take the throne. The only conceivable candidate left is a ten-year-old boy, who would of course need guidance until he is of age. Guidance I am assuming you would provide until he too was killed. Clever,” he said. “Not a long game, but it might be long enough to buy you time to win the trust of the Houses. Or to buy their trust.”

“What do you want?” Slater asked.

“You. You are useful to me. I want to give you power—enough to keep you happy and silent. House Orange in your hands. Isn’t that what you want? Power for as long as that galvanized body may live?”

Slater’s ambitions were much higher than that. He would own Reeves. He would own all of them—and the world. Sooner, much sooner than Reeves suspected. He had the journal Quinten Case was searching for. And in it was the solution he needed: how to control time. But he needed Quinten found and brought to him. Alive.

“Yes,” Slater agreed. “I want to rule House Orange.”

Reeves narrowed his eyes. Slater held a blank expression, wondering if the head of House Silver could read that partial lie. He did want to rule House Orange, but that was just the beginning of his desires. Desires that began with killing all the galvanized but himself and torturing Quinten Case until he gave him the control over time.

“Good,” Reeves said, settling back. “Then we are in agreement. We’ll be in touch. I expect you to open your database to me. I want full access to your House and history, partner.”

“Of course,” Slater said.

Again the pause while Reeves considered him.

Slater waited. Was he giving in too easily? Was he making Reeves suspicious?

“Why Abraham?” Reeves asked.

“What?”

“Why did you set up Abraham Seventh as your murderer?”

So far, Slater had been very careful with this conversation. He had not acknowledged that he was, in fact, Slater and not Robert. He had not agreed to anything that could be used against him if this conversation was being recorded—as he assumed it must be.

He was not going to slip now.

“His fingerprints are on the gun,” Slater said. “Perhaps you should ask him why he killed Slater Orange.”

The corner of Reeves’ mouth curved up. “Maybe I will.” he said. “I am looking for him, you know. Abraham and Matilda Case and that brother of hers she seemed so desperate to set free from your House.”

“Why?”

“Would you like to guess?” Reeves’ eyes burned hard, every muscle in his body tense.

Did he know about the Wings of Mercury experiment? Did he know Quinten was searching through the House histories to find a way to manipulate time?

“John Black is in charge of finding criminals,” Slater said smoothly. “Perhaps you should leave their capture to him.”

“Of course. But if I happen to find them before him . . . well.” Reeves tipped his glass to his mouth again. “I will be sure to keep Abraham alive, and maybe that new one—Matilda. But Quinten isn’t worth my time. Unless you know of some reason why he should stay breathing?”

Slater remained silent. He was furious but refused to give in to his anger. The answer to that was his secret.

Slater possessed the journal Quinten had been so set on finding. And in it he had discovered an odd and detailed description of the Wings of Mercury experiment.

The experiment appeared to have broken time and also created the galvanized. If Slater’s calculations were correct, that break in time would mend in just a few short days. That, he believed, was what Quinten Case had been desperately looking for.

Slater assumed time being mended would affect the world, perhaps even catastrophically. But what he feared most was what the mending of time would do to the galvanized—to him.

Quinten had the answers he needed.

Reeves Silver tipped his glass in a toast again. “I see we have nothing more to say on the matter. Well, then. My men will escort you out.”

The door opened and four of Reeves’ men, heavily armed, stepped into the room. “See that he is returned to his offices. Comfortably.”

Slater stood. Reeves might find Abraham and Matilda, but by then they would most certainly be dead at an assassin’s hands.

Already one of the deadliest men in the world was on their trail. But Slater would never allow Reeves to get his hands on Quinten Case. Not yet.

“Oh, and,
Robert
,” Reeves said, emphasizing the name. “Until I look over House Orange standing contracts, I want you to excuse yourself from any and all decision making. All House Orange business, money, and resources will be funneled through me. Until you learn the ropes of ruling, of course,” he said.

“Of course,” Slater replied stiffly. He was going to enjoy destroying this small mortal man. He was going to enjoy breaking him into pieces and sprinkling his bones over the ashes of his House.

He turned and, with armed guards surrounding him, left the room.

It took Quinten years before he could look at me without sorrow. I understand. It was my fault he lost you.

—from the diary of E. N. D.

T
he sound of footsteps climbing the wooden stairs woke me from strange and restless dreams filled with thunderstorms, church bells, and jail cells. I opened my eyes and watched a barefoot Quinten pause at the top of the stairs to get his bearings before heading toward one of the beds closer to the bathroom.

His shirt was unbuttoned and untucked from his pants and his hair was mussed. I guess he and Gloria had taken the time to settle their relationship questions in a most intimate manner.

Good for them.

I tried not to feel envious. The end of the world, or at least the end of my world, was ticking down to days and hours. I’d never stolen more than a single kiss in my life, much less done the sorts of things that would leave me staggering to bed half dressed and messy haired.

I wanted that.

I took a deep breath and let it out. When life settled down, if it settled down and I actually had a life left, I would make a list of things I intended to do and go out and do them. Sex was going to be right up at the top of the list.

Of course, if Quinten was right, we had to do something to stop the break in time mending so I could live.

The Wings of Mercury experiment our great-and-then-some-grandfather had set off was supposed to be an experiment for traveling in time that had instead killed all the people within a fifty-mile radius, except for thirteen unlucky souls.

Those survivors had gone on to become the galvanized, me—the most recently revived—included. Something about fiddling with time had given the galvanized immortality—or that was the theory I’d heard.

My brother was convinced that it wasn’t immortality that was given to the galvanized; it was a life extension.

An extension that was going to be up in the next couple days.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, too many thoughts scuffing through my mind. I didn’t want to die, but if that was the only outcome of this crappy turn of events, then I wanted to make sure that my life had been worth something. That I had done some lasting good for the people I cared about.

House Brown had never been recognized as a voice in the world. I wanted that to change. I wanted my life and death to mean something, and I wanted that something to be House Brown’s freedom.

But I had no idea how I could make that happen in such a short time.

I rolled onto my side again, trying to get comfortable. My thoughts churned and scattered, stealing any possibility of sleep down restless paths. I gave up. There would be no more sleeping for me tonight.

I pushed away the blanket, picked up my boots and duffel, and made my way quietly down the stairs. I checked the clock in the kitchen. Only a couple hours until dawn. Too early to make breakfast; too late to go back to sleep.

So that narrowed my activities down to either pacing or planning for our survival.

To plan I’d need info and a network. I didn’t want to use any of Gloria’s equipment in case it triggered a search.

Great. Pacing it is.

I slung my duffel across my chest but left my boots on the floor. I didn’t think they would be able to hear me from upstairs, but just because I couldn’t sleep was no reason to keep the others awake.

Only three days left to live. That one truth, that one horror, twisted around inside me, tangling me up in hopelessness. I wanted to shout at the heavens until some great force listened to me. I wanted time. More time.

But all I had was anger. All I had was fear.

I paced over to where Abraham was lying. I didn’t touch him. My touch brought him pain. Well, not when he wasn’t wounded, but in this state, if I touched him and caused him to have full sensation, he’d be screaming his lungs out.

So I stood there resting my hand on the mattress, holding on to the edge of his blanket.

“You have screwed up my life, Abraham Vail,” I said quietly. “You showed up at my kitchen door, bleeding,
wounded, and mixed up in a world I was doing my best to stay hidden from. I should have told you to move on and take your complicated world right along with you.

“But I didn’t. I couldn’t. There was something about you that made me want to help, made me want to know why your eyes were so sad even though you couldn’t feel pain.

“And look where it’s gotten me. I’m running. Still running. I’m all out of tricks up my sleeve to make this right. For you, for House Brown. For anyone.”

Abraham, being unconscious, didn’t have a lot to add to the conversation, but maybe all I needed right now was a really good listener. A comatose man three pints low on blood fit that bill pretty handily.

I surveyed the room, spotted a chair, and brought it over, setting it next to the table and then sitting down.

“What am I supposed to do? House Brown relied on me and on Quinten to keep them safe. If I die . . .” I took a breath, let it out. “I suppose the world will just go on without me, won’t it? No big loss.”

“No,” Quinten said quietly from the hallway. “It would be a very great loss. To the world. And to me.”

I wiped at my face, at the tears that were threatening to fall. I didn’t want him to know how scared I really was.

“What are you doing up?” I asked. “You barely got to bed.”

“I slept on the plane.” He walked into the room, plucking up a chair as he did so and setting it down across from me. His shirt was still untucked and mostly unbuttoned, his sleeves rucked up to his elbows. He must have smoothed his fingers back through his hair, setting most of it into a semblance of order.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“We need to plan,” I countered.

That stopped him, and he frowned while taking a moment to consider me, as if he’d forgotten what I looked like.

I wasn’t the same little sister he had left behind. I’d been taking care of a farm, stitched animals, an elderly grandmother, and all the crises that cropped up with House Brown for three years without him.

I’d followed a wounded man into a city and politics that were so far over my head, I didn’t want to know what could have gone wrong, just for the chance to save my wayward brother.

A girl had to have guts to do that sort of thing.

And I had guts.

“All right,” he said, “we need a plan. But first you need to know some things.”

“About Gloria?”

He clasped his hands together and looked down at them. “That’s . . . private, Tilly.”

“You like her.”

“Yes,” he said, still not looking up.

“Do you love her?”

He finally lifted his eyes. He didn’t have to use words to tell me the answer to that question. He was so in love with her, the pain of it shadowed his eyes.

“Okay. I won’t ask anymore,” I said.

“I want to talk about the Wings of Mercury experiment,” he said, switching smoothly into teacher mode. “The easiest way to think of this is that the Wings of Mercury experiment fell like a hammer and shattered a moment in time.”

“You’ve told me that already.”

He gave me a look and I shut up.

“What I’ve spent the past three years at the Houses searching for is the journal that lists the calculations that went into the experiment.”

“How will that help?”

“Once I have those calculations, I can—we can—mend time. Fix it.” He waited, maybe for me to be amazed or impressed, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He scratched at the stubble of his jaw, then pressed his fingertips against his lips as he stared up at the ceiling. A moment later, he looked back at me.

“Time broke. A piece of it flew off like a ball on a rubber string, and now that piece is winging back to its rightful place in the flow of time. When that happens in three days, all these extra years the galvanized have been living . . .”

“Three hundred years,” I said.

“Three hundred years,” he agreed, “will come due like a bill that hasn’t been paid. The galvanized will die.”

“And so will I.”

His lips went tight, a white ring spread around them. “Yes. When you were little, when you were eight years old and dying and I implanted your mind and thoughts into the galvanized body you’re now wearing, I didn’t know about the experiment. I didn’t know time was broken. I need you to understand that, Matilda. I never would have done this, done this to you, if I’d known about the time experiment.”

I reached over and took his hand in mine. He looked so sad, so worried.

“Of course I know that,” I said. “You
saved
me, Quinten. You were only thirteen. You didn’t know what would happen. And no matter how this ends, I love you. You gave me years I never would have had.”

His eyes glittered and he wiped at them quickly, as if I hadn’t noticed. Then he smiled and it was his “I’ve got a plan” look. “This doesn’t have to end. You don’t have to end. Your life doesn’t have to end, and the galvanized don’t have to die. We can fix this. We can fix time.”

“Don’t you think us Cases have done enough damage trying to control time? Our great-grandfather was the madman who started this whole mess.”

“Yes, he was,” Quinten said, his growing excitement clear and his eyes shining with something more than tears: hope. “That’s my point. His calculations must have been off by just a fraction, but when one is meddling in time, one must be precise.”

“All right, Einstein, you’ve lost me,” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“We can, if my theory holds true, change the calculations of his experiment and make it so that time didn’t break. It will simply stretch, as he intended. And since we will have allowed it to mend in this time space, the galvanized won’t die. You, my dear little sister, will not suffer an early death.”

The fire of fanaticism lit his eyes and words. In front of me was a man who had spent years tracking down the solution to a very complicated problem. A man who had sacrificed his own freedom to find that solution, and very possibly a man who had gone a little off his rocker in doing so.

“I knew this would happen someday,” I said.

“What?”

“You. Losing your mind.”

“I haven’t—”

I grinned at him.

He just pointed one finger at me. “The calculations of Alveré Case’s experiment were so close to being correct. I was finally able to put the last pieces of the puzzle together when I was working for House Orange.”

“Working? I thought you were a prisoner.”

“Well, yes. I was that too, but he gave me unlimited access to his histories.”

“House Orange histories told you there was a way to fix time? That sounds like trustworthy information.”

“This new thing of yours?” he said. “Doubting everything I say? I can’t say that I’m a fan of it.”

“If you don’t like it, then don’t take off and leave me alone with no way to contact you—with no way to know if you’re alive or dead—for three years.”

He sat back at that, surprised at my words.

I was surprised too.

I swallowed and reached out for his hand again, holding him, knowing he was here, real.

“Three damn years, Quinten.” My voice faltered down to a whisper. “I thought you were dead.”

“Matilda,” he said just as softly, “Tilly. I’m sorry I didn’t contact you. I couldn’t. Not even at the beginning. They were watching me so closely, I knew they’d find you. But this was so important—”

“Nothing’s more important than us. Nothing’s more important than family. The people you love.”

He seemed to fold down into himself, the manic
energy gone. It was worrisome how quickly he looked pale, thin, and exhausted. His three years spent at the Houses had not been kind to him. “I was doing this for you.”

“I know. I know that. It’s just . . .” I shook my head. “
You’re
important to me. More important than . . . anything.” How did I explain to him that he may have just gambled away three years of our lives? Three years with him I’d never get back.

“And you’re important to me,” he said. “You understand that, don’t you?”

I squeezed his hand and let go again. There was no use wasting more time on regret. “Yes, I understand. So, we’re in this together now. How can we fix time?”

“It’s . . . a little hard to explain,” he said. “And without the journal—”

“Grandma’s journal.”

“Yes. Without that I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but my best guess is if we can stand in the eye of the experimental storm at the exact moment time returns to mend itself, we will be able to cross through a . . . brief opening. Then all we have to do is find the Wings of Mercury machine and change the calculations.”

I waited. Then shook my head. I didn’t understand what he was saying.

“You know where the experiment took place, right?” he asked.

“I didn’t even know the experiment was anything more than a legend until a couple days ago. So no. I don’t know where it happened.”

“On our land. Our property. That’s why we’ve kept the place out of House control and in the family. That’s
why the nanos and minerals act so strangely. That’s what Mom and Dad died for.” He swallowed around the catch in his voice.

I missed Mom and Dad something terrible, but Quinten had been a lot older when the Houses had come out to our property, killed our parents, and ransacked our home, looking for Dad’s research.

Quinten had been gone, studying, when it happened. He’d always blamed himself for not being there to save them. And even though I hadn’t thought about it for years, he had often told me that he would give anything to find a way to bring Mom and Dad back to life.

“Tell me this isn’t about Mom and Dad,” I said. “Quinten, you know you can’t bring them back. No one can.”

“You can’t begin to know what I can and can’t do, Matilda,” he said, drawing himself up stiffly. “I have stared down death and dulled its blade. You are breathing because I refuse to believe in the limits of genius.”

“I know,” I said sitting back and studying the anger and righteousness he always resorted to when he was deeply, deeply frightened.