Unbound (28 page)

“The Porters hope to use this prison on me, to bind me with the mindless souls of the dead. And then they would destroy it.” She raised her voice, and her next words sounded like she was standing right beside me. “I brought you here to warn you. If the Porters destroy the sphere, they will release an army of ghosts upon the world with no one to control them. Whatever your fears, nothing would be worse than such unchecked chaos and death. They will destroy everything and everyone they touched.”

“Do you think she’s right?” Lena whispered. “Would destroying the sphere free the Ghost Army?”

“I don’t know.” Meridiana knew her prison better than
anyone. She might be bluffing, but she had to know we’d use the sphere to confirm anything she said. Which suggested she was telling the truth. I raised my phone. “Nicola, could you relay that question to the sphere?”

“What
is
that angel thing?” asked a man near the front of the crowd. “Is it safe?”

“He is exactly what he appears to be.” Meridiana extended a hand.

Binion’s wings stirred powerful gusts of air as he dropped to the ground beside Meridiana. He towered over the girl like a god. People near the back shoved to try to get a better view.

“Magic is real.” Meridiana tilted her e-reader and tapped the screen. “If Binion’s presence doesn’t convince you, perhaps this will.”

She began to read. I couldn’t understand the language—Italian, maybe?—nor could I sense the magic itself. But I felt its effects. Her spell stirred a sense of longing, reminiscent of the siren’s song, though thankfully not as potent. Her intonation changed, and now laughter spread through us all. I found myself grinning as well.

Without magic of my own, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to fight it. Plugging my ears didn’t stop her spells from penetrating my body and manipulating my emotions. Bi Wei and Ponce de Leon had shielded my memories of their location, nothing more.

The next spell evoked rage. Meridiana cut it off after only a few seconds, but it was enough to bring several people to blows. I realized I had turned my shock-gun to maximum and brought it to bear on Meridiana.

“That was no sleight of hand,” said Meridiana. To the camera, she added, “Those of you watching on your televisions will have felt only an echo of my power.”

An echo which hadn’t entirely faded, or maybe the angry thudding of my pulse was the aftermath of adrenaline. I slowed my breathing, trying to calm myself enough to think clearly. I
needed to get close enough for my phone to connect to Meridiana’s primary e-reader.

Meridiana bowed her head. “Isaac Vainio was given the gift of libriomancy, the magic of books. He could have used that magic to help you all. Instead, he brought the Porters’ war to Copper River. How many of you lost friends and family to the monsters that fought in your streets?”

Too damned many. I handed the e-reader to Lena and pressed into the crowd. “Why don’t you tell them where those monsters came from?”

Meridiana folded her arms. The creak of her leather jacket was the only sound. I could see confusion on people’s faces—friends and neighbors squinting at me as I stepped out of range of the old e-reader’s magic.

“You spent a thousand years gathering the broken shells of the dead,” I said. “Building your army.
You
sent them to attack Copper River. I did everything I could to stop them.” My voice cracked. “I was the one who found Loretta Trembath after one of your creatures killed her.”

I remembered every detail: the web of cracks in the smashed windshield, the flattened metal, the wide, frozen eyes of a woman I had known and joked with for years. I hadn’t told anyone about finding her body, or how she and others haunted my nightmares.

“You blame me for that attack?” asked Meridiana. “I thought your war was against the students of Bi Sheng. Another innocent group the Porters tried to destroy. Or was it a battle against one of your own, a father who turned against the Porters after the death of his son? You have so many enemies, so many secrets, it’s difficult for me to keep track.”

I snuck another peek at my phone. Bingo. We had the signal.

“I asked for a truce,” Meridiana continued. “And you brought a weapon to kill me.”

In my anger, I had forgotten about the damned shock-gun holstered at my hip. “Tell them whose body you’ve taken. How
you violated Jeneta Aboderin’s mind and infected her thoughts.”

Meridiana looked to the camera. “Jeneta Aboderin was a brilliant, gifted, trusting child. The Porters lied to her family and lured her here under false pretenses so they could study her magic. They failed to protect her from the darker side of magic, the things that live and wait in the shadows. Isaac and his brethren used her, until her mind was damaged beyond repair. I saved her, and she welcomed me.”

“That’s a lie.” Only it wasn’t, not entirely. I
had
failed to protect Jeneta, and Meridiana knew it.

The crowd moved with restless energy, and I heard my name muttered over and over, growing louder and angrier with each repetition. I had no proof of Meridiana’s actions, and they saw me as a liar who had betrayed their trust.

I had lived most of my life in Copper River, but suddenly I was no longer one of them. I was an outsider. I picked Lizzie Pascoe out of the crowd. If I couldn’t get the crowd to listen to me, maybe I could reach them as individuals. “Lizzie, you would have died in that attack on Copper River if I hadn’t gotten you inside. I pulled you off the street . . .”

She stared at me like I was a stranger. Dammit, the Porters had erased her memories to try to cover their tracks. She didn’t remember how close she had come to dying. The Porters had effectively eliminated anything I could use to defend myself.

“You know me,” I said. “You knew my parents. I’ve never done anything to hurt any of you, or to endanger this town.”

“How many werewolves live in Tamarack?” Meridiana’s words were soft, but her power carried them to every ear within a hundred feet. “Or should we discuss the vampire you befriended in Marquette? The one who was so fond of the blood of young Boy Scouts. What other threats have you concealed from your friends and neighbors?”

Shit. The longer she kept me on the defensive, the more I looked like a criminal and a liar. I spread my hands. “You told me you wanted a truce.”

“I do. Bring me the sphere, and I promise to protect you from the Ghost Army. I will make sure Copper River is safe. Or do you care so little for your home that you would sacrifice it to protect your own power?”

“What the hell are you, Isaac Vainio?” shouted Jaylee Parker.

Walt Derocher shoved me from behind. “We buried my cousin after that attack. The cops tried to tell us it was a bear what did that to her.”

My bowels and gut clenched as I realized what was about to happen. I shoved the phone into my pocket and tried to back away, but I was too late. A stone glanced off of my temple, making me stagger. I reached for my shock-gun, but before I could draw it, they closed around me, grabbing and punching and kicking.

I fell to the ground and rolled to the side. A boot smashed into my upper arm. Someone else stomped on my hand. I kicked a heel into the stomper’s groin and tucked my other arm over my head for protection.

Everyone had grieved for the loss of friends and family. They had watched, afraid, as stories of magic and monsters spread. And Meridiana had brought me here to be a target for their anger and their fear.

I saw my boss, Jennifer Latona, standing a short way back. She wasn’t attacking, but neither did she do anything to try to stop the others. Our eyes met, and she turned away.

Pain jolted my lower back. Hands seized my shirt and hair, hauling me brutally to my feet.

I heard the crack of wood against bone, and thought for a second someone else had struck me. Instead, Jaylee Parker cried out in pain and staggered back. Lena’s bokken hummed through the air and another man fell, clutching a broken knee. She grabbed me with one hand, sweeping her bokken through the air with the other as she dragged me toward the street.

Jaylee held her arm and wept, but nobody followed us. Already the old e-reader’s magic was working, causing them to
forget about me, just as I had forgotten Lena’s presence until she stepped in. They looked around in confusion, seeking another outlet for their anger.

Meridiana said nothing. She simply watched as the mob turned toward my house. They didn’t know I was here, but they remembered me. They remembered Meridiana’s accusations, and the deaths of their loved ones.

I tried to get up, but Lena’s grip was unbreakable. “They’ll
kill
you.”

The fire started on the deck. I had to believe it was more of Meridiana’s magic. No matter how hurt and afraid they were, I couldn’t accept that the people I had lived with my entire life would deliberately set my house ablaze. But as the flames began to spread, they did nothing to stop it, either.

Black smoke rose from the deck. Siding warped and cracked. A window shattered. The fire crept inside, consuming the faded blue curtains my father had hung in that room when I was eight years old.

The mob fell back. Some looked frightened. Others shocked, as if they were beginning to realize what they had been a part of. Nobody looked at one another. Nobody spoke. The news van backed out of the driveway and sped away.

I raised my weapon. I couldn’t stop this, but Meridiana could.

She smirked and tapped the screen of her tablet. When she pulled her finger away, a tiny orange flame perched on the tip. She gave a meaningful glance toward the trees of the grove.

I holstered the gun and shouted, “This is your truce?”

Her smile grew, and she curled her fingers into a fist, extinguishing the threat. “This is a warning. A preview of things to come should you release the Ghost Army.”

“You’re assuming nobody else can command them,” I said.

“If the children of Johannes Gutenberg and Bi Sheng could control my army, don’t you think they would have done so by now?” She walked toward us, flanked by Deanna and Binion. “I’ve stood with one foot in the land of the dead since my birth.
Thanks to my teacher’s betrayal, I spent most of my life in the liminal state between reality and nonexistence. The dead are more real to me than you are, Isaac Vainio. What makes you believe you or anyone else could take them away from me?”

“My boundless hope and optimism,” I said flatly.

She smirked. “Life is an ephemeral, fragile thing. Even to those such as Johannes Gutenberg. You’re children, terrified of what waits in the shadows. You saw how quickly fear turned your friends and neighbors against you. This is what the rule of the living has brought about: a world fragmented by petty, shortsighted men who rule over mindless sheep.

“I mean to make this world whole. To unite the living and the dead. You can accept that and live, or you can try to fight. Destroy me, and you damn this world to the mercy of the dead.”

“Free Jeneta, and I’ll talk to the others about your sphere.”

“I offered to spare Copper River, and you demand more?” She cocked her head to the side so the plastic beads in her hair clicked together. “Bring me Gerbert d’Aurillac’s armillary sphere, and I will give you back Jeneta Aboderin. I will restore your magic. And I will find a place for you in my empire. It’s a generous offer, Isaac Vainio. But if you continue to fight, Jeneta will be the first to die upon my rebirth. Her body will burn, and her soul will serve me forever.”

Meridiana’s ghosts were little more than animals, beaten and tormented into madness, until nothing remained but hatred and power. One way or another, I couldn’t let her do that to Jeneta.

“It’s no longer a question of winning,” said Meridiana. “Letting the Ghost Army ravage your world unchecked will be far worse than anything you fear I might do.”

The wind shifted, slamming a wall of smoke and heat into my body. I retreated until I could breathe again, if uncontrolled coughing qualified as breathing. Meridiana and the others backed away and disappeared in the darkness.

The flames spread through my house like hatred. Smoke
detectors wailed pitifully, their voices smothered by the cracking sound of my home being consumed. I tried not to think about the books I could have used to stop this. Books to slow time. Books to extinguish even magical flames.

Sirens screamed in the distance. Lena dragged me to the road, then ran to her grove. She sank her hands into the closest of the oaks. Overhead, branches shied away from the house, pulling their leaves out of reach. I lost sight of her when she moved to the next.

The first to arrive was a pair of police officers. Within minutes, they had been joined by a fire department SUV, fire truck, and ambulance.

By then, there was no saving the house. The fire chief interrogated me as his team fought to drown the flames and keep the fire from spreading. His questions felt unreal, like a voice from a dream.

Are you the homeowner? Was anyone else inside? Is there anything dangerous or explosive in the home? Were you here when the fire broke out?

I kept my responses short and as truthful as I could, but I could tell he wasn’t buying it.

He crouched in front of me and checked my eyes with a flashlight. “You’re saying you just came home and your house was on fire? There were no candles, no forgotten cigarettes, no dying appliances you forgot to shut off before you left?”

I shook my head.

“How’d you get that black eye?” he asked. “Your hand looks pretty busted up, too. What happened?”

“Got into a fight at work.”

“Any chance the other fellow did this?” He pointed to the fire.

“No, he—he doesn’t know where I live.” Dammit. I could see him getting more and more suspicious.

“Have you been drinking?”

“Not yet.” I looked toward the house as gouts of water assaulted the flames. “I’ll probably start soon enough, though.”

“I’ve been doing this job twenty-three years, Isaac. I’ve seen a lot of houses burn. There’s always a reason.”

My phone buzzed, making me jump. The text message said L
ET ME SPEAK TO HIM
. I had forgotten Nicola was still listening on the other end. I gave the chief an apologetic look, exchanged a few quick words with Nicola, then handed him the phone. “This woman says she saw something.”