{"id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","serial_id":"556edb3cada6e270f8e2641d","episode_ids":["595d41d5fd9a2b0001c3eb3a","595fa6cd48e97e0001b644bb","595fa74348e97e0001b644bc","595fa7ccfec9fa00017f57d8","595fa82f48e97e0001b644bd","595fa88cfec9fa00017f57d9","595fa8e848e97e0001b644be","595fa949fd9a2b0001c3eb3b","595fa9b2c7dc8d000126a93a","595faa0448e97e0001b644bf","595faa5dfd9a2b0001c3eb3c","595faad9fd9a2b0001c3eb3d","595fab2ec7dc8d000126a93b"],"description":"The world as we know it is under siege. The Bookburners are stretched thin trying to control an influx of magic—and they don’t have much support from the Vatican. Can they overcome their history and band together to protect humanity from an increasing magical threat? Or will it destroy them, like it has destroyed everything else in its path?","subtitle":"","title":"Bookburners Season 3","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.issue.20170706","number":"3","featured":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS3_tall.jpg","cover_wide_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS3_wide.jpg","gowatchit_id":"","is_free":false,"episodePrice1":199,"episodePrice2":299,"episodePrice3":499,"episodePrice4":599,"episodePrice5":799,"episodePrice6":899,"episodePrice7":1099,"episodePrice8":1299,"episodePrice9":1399,"episodePrice10":1599,"episodePrice11":1699,"episodePrice12":1899,"episodePrice13":1999,"episodePrice14":2199,"episodePrice15":2299,"episodes":[{"id":"595d41d5fd9a2b0001c3eb3a","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":1,"title":"Bubbles of Earth","released_date":"2017-07-19T12:00:28.548+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Danger in the Lascaux caves. ","byline":"Max Gladstone","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E01_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-07-19","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 1 \u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal Brooks watched monsters dance on the wall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She recognized the shapes of bulls and deer and antelope, though the beasts\n on the walls had different names. These were ancient creatures, gone now,\n or diminished, like elves in those Hobbit books. You never saw aurochs any\n more. That thing with the branching brain-cell horns, like a reindeer drawn\n by someone on a bad trip, was apparently a Megaloceros, which Liam claimed\n meant \u003cem\u003ebig horns. \u003c/em\u003eSal felt that being unable to think of a better\n name for a monster reindeer than \u003cem\u003ebig horns \u003c/em\u003esuggested there was\n something wrong with the scientific imagination. She could not deny,\n though, that the horns were big.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The creatures circled the cave, huge and vital. Red horses pranced; a white\n bull squared off against a herd of smaller cattle. A man with a bird’s head\n hefted a spear before a shaggy bison. Long-gone artists had woven the\n rock’s colors and striations into their work. Ruddy iron stains framed the\n earth, and paler limestone the sky.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The tour guide spoke French, which Sal had come to accept, this being\nFrance. Since he wasn’t ordering coffee or talking about \u003cem\u003epain au chocolat\u003c/em\u003e, she was lost, but she might as well make up her\n own translation. “Thousands of years before Christ, before Rome and Egypt\n and, like, \u003cem\u003eGladiator\u003c/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eKull the Conqueror\u003c/em\u003e and all that\n other stuff your kid brother used to geek out over, early humans descended\n into this cave with brushes they made themselves from bits of actual horse,\n with paints mixed from dirt and berries, and, in the middle of what was no\n doubt a gross, hard, short life, they made all this, down in the bowels of\n the Earth. And you think this space is claustrophobic now? Imagine what it\n would have been like without lights. Imagine what it would have been like\n not knowing what waited deeper in these caves, or what used them when you\n weren’t around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam, beside her, at least confined his disgust to a whisper. “Milton\n Keynes prehistory, is what this is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shhh. I’m listening.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t speak French.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This guy does a good spooky voice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And so,” her imaginary translation continued, as the pock-faced tour guide\n reached for a light switch set beside the cave door, “we must not look upon\n the paintings of Lascaux only with the eyes of our, um, our normal eyes—”\n Sal would be the first to admit her melodramatic speechifying needed a lot\n of work.\n \u003cem\u003e\n Have to work on that if I intend to keep at this whole world-saving\n thing\u003c/em\u003e. “—but with the eyes of our minds and hearts. To understand the genius of\n these long-dead artists, we must see them in their intended light.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The tour guide flipped the switch, and the world went dark.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, come off—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shushed Liam. “Don’t ruin this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the dark, from the tour guide’s direction, Sal heard the unmistakable\n sound of someone failing to operate the safety wheel on a Bic lighter,\n followed by a curse, a few sparks that did not relieve the velvet dark, and\n a second, more muffled curse. Liam chuckled; she ignored him and waited.\n Other tourists breathed around her. She could feel them without touching\n them. Their bodies radiated warmth. Ten thousand years, twenty thousand,\n before, they would have clustered like this in winter, against the dark and\n cold. They would have breathed the same air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The flame took.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had turned away to save her night vision. She and Liam stood with their\n backs to the fire, surrounded by sparks in other tourists’ eyes, and on the\n walls by shadows that were almost gods. Between the flickering lighter\n flame and the rock wall striations, the beasts moved. She had thought they\n danced before, but that was only a trick, a suggestion of movement. In\n firelight they lived. The aurochs drew breath. The Megaloceros shook its\n heavy horns. She felt herself with another body, shaggy, ancient,\n leather-clad and hungry and full of strength, the root and backbone of a\n world.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s only a model,” Liam said, and she elbowed him in the ribs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m just telling the truth,” he was still protesting two hours later, as\n they wandered through the museum zoo. Two kids ran up to the pony enclosure\n and plastered their faces against the fence. The clunk of their colliding\n skulls spooked the ponies, not to mention Sal. Their parents didn’t seem to\n mind. The kids laughed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t have to be such a tool about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My point, and I don’t see why this does not bother you as much as it does\n me, is that it’s silly to pretend you’re seeing something magical when\n you’re not. There are real Lascaux caves, not far, let’s see, thataway.” He\n pointed dramatically, and two passing college girls executed a noticeable\n head-twist to follow the muscles working under his T-shirt. “That cave\n wasn’t even a real cave! It was a bloody concrete bunker!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They don’t let people in the real cave anymore.” Sal opened the brochure,\n and guided them back toward the museum. A cow mooed behind a fence, and she\n thought it lacked a bit, compared to the aurochs in the cave. “They let\n people into the real thing for twenty years, and they breathed so much all\n the paint was about to fall off the walls from the CO\u003csub\u003e2\u003c/sub\u003e. And\n before you ask, we can’t just pull some Vatican favors to get into the real\n cave system. There was some sort of mold infection back around the\n millennium. They don’t even let scientists down there these days.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can search Wikipedia as well as the next man, thank you.” The museum\n doors closed out the lowing cows behind them. “If not better. And my point\n is not that they should let us into the real caves, I understand the whole\n preserve-the-priceless-artifacts routine. I just think it’s absurd for us\n to pretend a concrete bunker, for the love of Christ, is the real thing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s an exact replica.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Some things,” he said, “you cannot replicate. Not even on \u003cem\u003eStar Trek\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” That earned her a sidelong glare from Liam, skeptical, suspicious:\n Was she playing ignorant to poke fun at him, or did she really not know\n what he was talking about? Sal liked this game. If the rest of Team Three\n were going to be insufferable nerds all the time, she might as well get\n some fun out of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never mind. If we leave now, my point is, we still have time to register\n for the vineyard marathon tomorrow. Bordeaux is only about an hour’s drive\n that way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just because you—” She glanced around, but no one was close enough to hear\n except for a few Paleolithic mannequins clustered by the safety of their\n diorama fire. “Just because you’re no longer worried you might be possessed\n by a demon, you’re not obligated to get as drunk as possible at every\n opportunity.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not every opportunity, no. But I feel I owe it to myself to take advantage\n of particularly appealing ones.” He stretched his hands over his head. “Too\n much boozing would interfere with the gym routine, at any rate. But have\n you ever heard of such an ideal arrangement? On the one hand, a\n twenty-some-odd-mile run, and on the other, a glass of wine at every\n vineyard you pass. Tell me that doesn’t sound fun.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal thought about wine hangovers, and thought about the one time her\n college roommate goaded her into a half marathon, and thought about both of\n these at once. “We’re here to investigate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look, I understand your fetish—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She raised an eyebrow. “Did you really have to use that word?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “—for data-driven policing, it’s an expression, dammit, and trust me I\n share your desire to leave the Vatican far behind for a few days, but we’ve\n done what we came to do. There’s nothing wrong in Lascaux. So we might as\n well enjoy our furlough for a good run and an egregious hangover, and chalk\n this one up as a false positive.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You were the one who set up the flags.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And they were the right flags, and this did look like a good lead! The\n discovery of a new cave complex scores points for ancient and mysterious\nand artwork, plus the territory is within our jurisdiction, and if this \u003cem\u003ewas \u003c/em\u003ea false positive, as we both agreed seemed likely before we\n even ran this trip up the auld flagpole, we haven’t set the Vatican’s\n travel budget back much.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She sat on the rail next to the Paleolithic family. A plastic mother\n suckling her plastic baby looked up at Sal with an expression of holy\n dread. That seemed fair. “We’ve only been here a few hours. I want to be\n sure nothing’s wrong before we leave.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s no shame in finding nothing.” He settled beside her. “Surely you\n didn’t stop a crime on every patrol, back when you were a cop. We might not\n agree with Cardinal Fox on much, but if our new lord and master has\n anything to recommend him, it’s his insistent harping on operational\n readiness. You don’t need to find something bad for this to have been a\n good idea. And so long as we’ve come out here on vacation to test it, we\n may as well enjoy ourselves on the way home.” He held out his hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She accepted, and found, for the first time since their short-lived,\n ill-founded, and mutually embarrassing relationship breathed its last two\n years before, that she could take some friendly comfort in his touch. Even\n if he had been a dick about the fake cave. “You know,” she said, “you\n really have been different, since Belfast.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So say we all.” He crooked a smile, which usually meant he’d made a joke\n she didn’t get.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal was about to ask him to explain the reference when she heard a woman\n scream.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They jumped to their feet, and ran toward the cry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sparks whirled within a crystal orb at the heart of the Vatican’s Black\n Archives. Archivist Asanti circled the Orb’s mechanical cradle, taking\n notes, adjusting knobs and valves, and occasionally referring to one of the\n seven open reference volumes propped on nearby music stands. The eighth\n stand held the score of Mahler’s “Resurrection”—she hummed the alto line as\n she worked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Archives lay empty around her. They were often empty these days, her\n assistants having been winnowed or reassigned, and most of the team out on\n patrol. She did not mind the silence, or the workload. She’d let herself\n grow soft, ordering people around last year. Lifting piles of books kept\n the body strong, and a strong body made for a strong mind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another advantage of her newfound solitude: She could hear people coming.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want, Arturo?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The footsteps behind her hesitated. “I tried to call, but you didn’t pick\n up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m busy.” She flipped two pages of one book, three pages of another, and\n frowned back at the Orb. “Doing more with less is the order of the day. I\n didn’t realize how dependent I had become on Frances’s work unraveling the\n secrets of the Orb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought she had made a full recovery.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That depends on what you term ‘recovery.’ Having your legs magically\n transformed to scaly tentacles does not tend to be something one heals\n from. Mentally and physically, she’s as well as can be expected. However,\n as you may have noticed,” she pointed without looking to the winding\n helical iron stair that descended from the roof of the Archives’ dome, and\n to the sundry other stairs leading up and down, “the Black Archives are\n hardly the most handicap-accessible space in the Vatican. Cardinal Fox\n assures me a lift will be installed soon. How he plans to do this without\n compromising his beloved operational security, I do not know.” She turned a\n page on the Mahler. “What do you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú looked up. He wasn’t looking at God, and the Black Archives\n possessed one of the few ceilings in the Vatican no one had thought to\n cover with paintings of naked men. Asanti found the glyph she wanted on the\n third codex, and adjusted a lever on the machinery around the Orb. Sparks\n began to resolve in a single quadrant of the crystal. She followed his gaze\n to the LED clock, set at thirty-six hours, hanging over their heads. There\n were four panels, so one could be seen regardless of an onlooker’s position\n in the Archives.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m worried about you,” the priest said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m doing my job. No one has bothered me or interfered with my new,\n limited responsibilities since the trial.” She spun a dial clockwise and\n the sparks dimmed; counter-clockwise, brighter. Brighter still, yes, good,\n until a thin stream of acrid smoke issued from the machine, and she walked\n the dial back to a more stable setting. “Which is better than I had hoped.\n You have no cause for concern.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Orb’s light painted Menchú’s face in ghostly hues, and the clock added\n a trace of blood. Asanti did not much like the resultant painting. “We\n haven’t talked in weeks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nonsense. We talk every day.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “About the job,” he said. “About procedures. About the Orb. But we’re\n friends, aren’t we?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti kept silent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti. I know you’re still angry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Really. Did he.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had saved the world, after a fashion; they all had, more decidedly than\n usual, and that salvation had been accomplished due to their mastery of\n magic, their Church-judged objectionable habit of viewing the supernatural\n as a field of inquiry rather than, what, a terrifying slick otherness best\n consigned to the most secure cells one could construct. And, the world\n having been saved, the Society for which they worked, which had appointed\n them to do precisely this sort of world-saving, arrested her. Which had\n been an enormous surprise to Menchú and the rest of their merry team, but\n well within Asanti’s own projections. The Society needed a scapegoat. It\n prosecuted her, threatened her with imprisonment and death, precisely as\n she’d expected. The Society hoped she would back down, but she did not. By\n sentencing her, the conservative faction would have doomed itself, giving\n Society radicals a martyr around whom to rally. But Menchú acted in a way\n she did not foresee. He saved her life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And now they had a clock over their heads, and cameras in the corners of\n the room—ostensibly to protect against magical incursion. But magic fogged\n cameras and slipped off digital records. No, the cameras had been posted to\n watch her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Good for them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still angry? Anger did not cover the half of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wished Menchú had not raised the question. But now it would look\n strange if she did not answer—and the last thing she could afford, now, was\n to look strange.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ceased tinkering with the Orb, and turned back to the priest she’d\n worked beside for more than a quarter century.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo,” she began, not knowing what she would say next.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Thank God—and secret Vatican archives were the place for that sort of\n language if anywhere was—the Orb chose that moment to resolve. The light\n blinded. Alarms rang throughout the Archives and, thanks to Cardinal Fox’s\n coordination memo, in the offices of Team Two and Team One as well. The\n clockwork printer shuddered into action, drums rolling paper tape through\n jabbing inked needles. Asanti tore the tape and read the coordinates. She\n tried to remain impassive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lascaux,” she said. “France. The caves, probably.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal and Liam are there already,” Menchú said. “Testing their warning\n system.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It seems they succeeded,” Asanti said. “You’d best get moving.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Overhead, the clock began to tick down. Thirty-five hours, fifty-nine\n minutes, and counting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If Arturo Menchú had been any other man, he would have cursed. “That’s not\n supposed to start until we’re in position.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But Sal and Liam \u003cem\u003eare\u003c/em\u003e in\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eposition,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not enough time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you’ve said.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thirty-six hours and Team One runs in with guns blazing, regardless of how\n close we are to solving the problem. Not even a consultation first. We want\n to keep our work secret—which means keeping Team One out of the field as\n much as possible. Handling things slowly. Not strapping a time bomb to\n every mission.” He never flushed when he was quietly angry, but when he\n started a rant, oh yes. Masterful to behold—even if he stopped himself\n before he reached full dudgeon. “I’ve said all this before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have,” she said, as kindly as she could manage. “Go ahead, Arturo. I\n wish I could go with you.” She wasn’t lying, was the damnedest thing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked at her with that sad, perfect, hangdog expression, then turned\n and left, with everything unsaid between them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti waited until he was gone, then climbed the stairs to offer her\n report. It had taken her some experimentation to find a point where she\n could receive cell service without anyone in the Archives nor the stairwell\n cameras observing what she used it for. She drew her phone and typed a few\n innocuous words about shopping for that night’s dinner, which her intended\nrecipient would, if he remembered their code, read as: \u003cem\u003eTime’s up\u003c/em\u003e. \u003cem\u003eThe Bookburners are in play.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then she locked her phone, and decided what she would tell the Cardinal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have to help me!” the woman sobbed. “My sister, she is missing!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal rounded the corner first. The fight, such as it was, had broken out in\n a long black hallway lined with cave painting reproductions, and concerned\n three individuals. One woman, dark hair, five eight or so, pale, round\n face, considerably upset, was being held off by another woman wearing a\n sweater-vest, who seemed even less comfortable holding someone off than\n folk who wore sweater-vests tended to be on average. Sal pegged the second\n woman as a research assistant, especially since the gray-haired man drawing\n back from them both wore a bow tie and khakis, and had the harried,\n uncomfortable expression of a certain sort of university professor\n unexpectedly confronted with strong emotion. “I am terribly sorry,” the\n professor said, adjusting his shirt, “but I do not understand what you\n think I can do to help! If your sister is missing, surely you should\n contact the, ah, police.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal extended her arm without looking, and Liam ran into it from behind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You run the dig site. I know she is in there. Her name is Sylwia, she ran\n away from hotel, she must be down in your caves—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Madam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My name is Agniezska, my sister Sylwia—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I assure you, your sister, whatever her name, is nowhere near our\n excavation. The site is closed. Had she entered, there would have been\n alarms. And there are no alarms.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She is in there. You do not understand. I saw her!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One for the security guards, then?” Liam said, sounding almost\n disappointed. Guards were, in fact, rounding the corner. Shadows clustered\n and bubbled on the walls.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eLost her sister. \u003c/em\u003e\n Sal felt a pang of guilt, and wished she could help. Then again, someone\n whose brother had half-merged with an angel, then disappeared, probably\n wasn’t the kind of help this young woman needed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was about to nod when the Megaloceros painting on the wall exploded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The hall went weird in a way Sal knew all too well, and a beast of shadow,\n twenty hands tall at the shoulder, towered in the center of the room.\n Enormous antlers drew sparks where they struck the ceiling. It shook its\n whole shaggy length, more or less like Sal would expect a creature\n imprisoned for twenty thousand years without physical form to do. Then it\n charged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of the two of them, Sal might have had more practice in the hundred-meter\n dash toward trouble, but Liam won hands down when it came to reacting to\n weird shit. By the time the beast charged, he had already tackled Agniezska\n out of the way. The research associate, too, fell clear. Sal tried to grab\n the man, but extinct Pleistocene beasts worked up speed quickly; before she\n could close the distance, the Megaloceros slammed into the professor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And they both vanished.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The professor was gone, completely. Not even his clipboard remained. Sal\n ran to Liam, head up, ready for the walls to bubble again. “Save the pretty\n girl first, huh?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“He was being a jerk. Jerks are save-the-world priority two. What the hell \u003cem\u003ewas \u003c/em\u003ethat thing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Extinct,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There weren’t many people shadow monsters set at ease, and Agniezska didn’t\n qualify. The research associate, though, recovered fast enough to ask the\n obvious question. “Where is Professor Gerondain?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had never been good at this part of the job. She still didn’t like that\n this was part of the job at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the wall, where the painting of the Megaloceros had been, stood a crude,\n vivid drawing of a man with a clipboard and a bow tie.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” she said, “but I don’t think he’s gone far.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The museum, like most, lacked a contingency plan for magical outbreaks.\n Flustered security guards ran over from whatever they hadn’t been doing\n before, cordoned off the hallway, then shifted, unsure how to respond to\n the absence of a visible problem. If their training manuals included a\n procedure for “museum guest transformed into cave wall cartoon,” they must\n not have covered that page in the seminar.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The grad student shouted at them in rapid French, gesturing toward\n Agniezska and, collaterally, to Liam and Sal. Liam rolled his eyes. “I’ll\n deal with this. Just a tick.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal doubted her face could express the depth of her disbelief. “Deal with\n this? How?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll improvise.” He shot her a winning smile, rose, and walked over to the\n grad student, arms spread, composing his body into an apology.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sat beside Agniezska and extended her hand. “Are you okay?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman pulled the pieces of herself together, and reached out. Her hand\n shook. Sal had seen that spooked, unsteady expression on too many faces in\n the years since she joined the Society. She must have looked like that\n herself back when it all began, in those stunned few days after she learned\n magic was real, that the human world was an island on a sea of storms. But\n Agniezska’s grip was strong.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m Sal.” She touched her own chest. “You’re Agnieszka. Am I saying that\n right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am sorry,” she said. “English not so good.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Better than my . . . Polish?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes.” She nodded. “What happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Well, you were arguing with a puffed-up professor about your sister’s\n disappearance, and then magic popped out of the wall and almost pulled\n you into a fake cave painting.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n “You saw.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “None of this makes sense.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m from the Vatican,” Sal said. She showed the Vatican Police card from\n her wallet, and wished, not for the first time, that a Team Three badge\n wouldn’t violate the Society’s secrecy rules. Badges helped, sometimes. She\nwasn’t asking for much in a badge, just a shield, the papal keys, and \u003cem\u003eVatican Magic Police\u003c/em\u003e. In Latin, because “magic police” sounded\n pretty dumb in English.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind her, Liam had—somehow—managed to mollify the guards. The grad\n student had her arms crossed over her sweater-vest, and glared at him over\n the rims of her glasses. Agnieszka read the card, and looked up at Sal,\n questioning. “We solve problems like this,” Sal said. “Stuff that can’t be\n explained, um, normally.” This was usually where people got all flustered\n and started protesting—ghosts don’t exist, demons aren’t real, that kind of\n thing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank God,” Agniezska said. She fished a crucifix from her shirt by the\n chain, and clutched it like a line thrown to a drowning woman. “My sister\n needs your help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had not expected that reaction. She glanced around for backup, wishing\n Menchú were here. Hell, even Liam would have cut a more convincing Catholic\n authority figure, but he was still talking to the security guards and the\n grad student—all of whom were, for some reason, nodding? The grad student\n watched him with a wary, intrigued expression that occasionally slipped\n down to his shoulders, then back up again. Dammit. Sal scanned the hall for\n further aid, if only of a moral variety. The audience behind the security\n cordon was already drifting away, deprived of either an obvious victim or a\n hysterical woman to fixate on. Two tense conversations in a hall made for\n poor rubbernecking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But, there, behind a woman in a yellow rain slicker leading two children on\n leashes, stood someone Sal hadn’t seen in more than a year, someone she’d\n half hoped, half feared, she would never see again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on,” she told Agniezska, and helped pull the other woman to her feet.\n “Let’s get cleaned up. Liam—restroom?” He shot her a thumbs-up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agniezska shook her head, not understanding. “Where are we going?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The bathroom.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I don’t need—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sorry. I know. But I just saw someone who shouldn’t be here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shoved through the crowd, and saw him again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry had changed his hair. He had found a better barber, for one, not that\n his haircuts could exactly have gotten worse, and his hair had thinned a\n bit, though his body hadn’t thickened to compensate. He still bounced when\n he moved, like rubber bands held his bones together. He wore a hoodie with\n a cartoon wizard on it, and kept his head bent over his cell phone as he\n walked away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her brother. More or less.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had last seen him a year and a half ago, seated on her couch, eating\n pizza and fading away before her eyes, her brother whom she’d rescued from\n hell, literally, only to lose him again to the angel who shared his body.\n Her brother, whose experiments with magic got her into this wonderful,\n screwed up life in the first place: working for the Vatican, meddling in\n forces woman was not meant to touch. Her brother, who she never could save.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal guided Agniezska through the crowd, down the hall. He quickened his\n step. “Perry!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He reached a corner, turned, and saw them coming. His eyebrows rose and he\n smiled, waved with his fingertips, turned away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned to Agniezska. “Run.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d meant \u003cem\u003erun away\u003c/em\u003e, but Agniezska must have misinterpreted—she\n matched Sal’s pace toward Perry. “What’s going on? Who is that man?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When they reached the corner, he was gone. A teenage couple kissing near a\n model saber-toothed tiger recoiled from each another and bent back to their\n schoolbooks. Sal allowed herself a distinctly un-Vatican-like curse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agniezska tore herself away from Sal and drew back, her hands clenched to\n fists. “I am done with being confused. I want answers. There is\n disappearing moose. Also disappearing idiot in bow tie. You say there is,\n what, magic? And you are from the Vatican. Please. Make sense. My sister\n has gone, and I must find her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stared into the empty hallway. “I know how you feel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The abandoned back alley clock shop that served as headquarters of the\n Societas Librorium Occultorum’s Team Four, real-time division, lacked\n insignia, blazon, motto, or even a sign beyond the one hanging in the\n window that read \u003cem\u003eClosed\u003c/em\u003e. This was entirely appropriate so far as\n the members of Team Four, real-time division, were concerned, since they\n were a secret organization operating beyond the authority of the\n already-secret Society, and secret organizations, and especially\n double-secret organizations, did not, as a rule, advertise. This point, on\n which the team’s few members agreed, allowed them to avoid argument over\n several other, less practical questions, including but not limited to:\n Since they were working without the Society’s endorsement, and would in\n fact be killed or shoved in an oubliette forever were their work to be\n discovered, should they still refer to themselves as a Society Team? Were\n they in fact Team Four, considering that Team Four, the Vatican’s old\n magical research and development unit, still existed, albeit as a bunch of\n basically useless cryptic sages operating from a hermitage built in an\nadjacent dimension which experienced all time simultaneously? Was \u003cem\u003ereal-time \u003c/em\u003eaccurate, given the existence of a dimension of complete\n simultaneity, which implied that time itself was a less fundamental\n category than Kant would argue? And: What was a sufficiently impressive\n motto for a guild of secret wizards?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All these precautions did, however, mean Asanti still got lost looking for\n the place. She sometimes wondered if this was an intentional line of\n defense, an unmentioned gift of their more mystical partners—but she had\n lived in Rome long enough to own her failure at street navigation. Her\n archive was a labyrinth of tangled passages, many alike, none identical.\n Texts doubled back on their own meanings, only to connect with other texts\n in strange, geometry-defying twists. Those were the paths her mind charted,\n those were the turns she memorized. For the rest, she trusted GPS. Her\n children hadn’t let her navigate on vacations since they were old enough to\n read a map.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she found the clock shop, locked the door behind her, and marched into\n the future.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The front room was, of course, empty save a table and an unlit candle. She\n passed through without examining the dust or the chairs. More candlelight\n flickered beneath the door to the stockroom. She closed that door behind\n her, too, and let her eyes adjust. “Are we ready?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Reading by candlelight will hurt your eyes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see better in shadow, these days.” Frances Haddad sat pooled on the rug\n amid a nest of snakes. Her wheelchair stood empty by the wall. A circle of\n candles on the floor illuminated the bookcases and improvised mystic\n apparatus that filled the stockroom. Frances reclined on her elbows,\n turning the pages of a crackling leather-bound codex with the scaled\n tentacles that sprouted from her hips. “I don’t know if it’s part of my\n transformation, or some sort of psychological coping mechanism. My night\n vision seems to have improved, though—again—I might be imagining it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I brought more books.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances frowned at her own book, turned several more pages, then raised\n another with another set of tentacles, and consulted it. “Oh. Excellent.”\n She adjusted her glasses with a snake. “More contradictions?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And a few pieces of hard evidence. It seems Team Three judged the cave\n paintings in Lascaux harmless in nineteen fifty, soon after their\n discovery. Believe it or not, the caves’ closure in the early years of this\n century did in fact stem from fungal blooms degrading the paint, no\n mystical interference whatsoever. Sometimes a cigar, as the good doctor\n says, is merely a cigar.” She opened the book bag, and set the volumes\n within on the floor. “I’ve skimmed most of these except for the Shang,\n which looks like a piece of theoretical fluff—I’ve nothing against\n theoretical fluff, but we’re under time pressure. Team Three deployed two\n hours ago—or Menchú did. Sal and Liam are already on site, more’s the\n pity.” She made a face, and tried to look as if she hadn’t. “Just bad luck\n this notion of Sal’s paid off. Bad luck for us, I mean. I’m sure the people\n of Lascaux will be happy to have an authority to hand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It still bothers you, doesn’t it? To keep them away from our work?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course. I wish—I wish last year had turned out differently.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not the only one.” Her snakes rippled like a pond surface brushed\n by wind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti sank into a chair. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I have been so\n tired.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s fine,” Frances said. “That is, to be honest, I don’t know what fine\n looks like any more. The tide of magic is rising, the world’s due to burn\n any year now, and I have snakes for legs. But we’re all managing, for the\n moment.” She slammed her book shut. A cloud of dust rose from the pages.\n “I’m just so frustrated. Lascaux went from threatening to a full outbreak\n too fast. Our models—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “None of us expected learning magic to be easy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As far as we can tell, there’s not even a book at Lascaux. That’s the one\n thing we thought we knew for sure about magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No books,” Asanti said. “But what’s a book, to a caveman? And the ground\n under Lascaux is full of artistic representations. Perhaps there’s\n something deeper at work—perhaps books are merely a special case. The\n boundaries between our world and representations of our world blur.\n Observation matters: Shadows need light for contrast, or else they’re only\n darkness. So we use tricks to reinforce darkness, and we use language and\n music to separate apparent from actual reality. Knowing that, we should be\n able to stem the tide.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Risky.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are children learning surgery. But the world is dying, and needs a\n surgeon, and there’s no one else.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No pressure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti selected a book from her pile, and opened it to read. “Certainly\n not. Fortunately for the world,” she said, “we are very smart. What do you\n have so far?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A few incantations. A protective circle. A rhythm.” One of Frances’s\n snakes passed up a few sheets of notebook paper.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hope it’ll be enough.” Asanti took out her camera phone. “He should\n start the ritual soon. Arturo’s already on his way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal met Father Menchú’s taxi in front of the bed-and-breakfast near sunset.\n The priest looked rumpled and determined, and had brought no luggage save a\n duffel bag and crash kit: crosses, silver, a few weapons in case of\n emergency. All regulation, now that they had regulation. Sal hugged him in\n the driveway. “I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “I caught the first flight\n into Bordeaux and drove.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took his bag. “I never thought I’d be upset at pistols being standard\n issue on a Society mission.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “God bless and guide Cardinal Fox,” Menchú said, with a tone of voice that\nsuggested he might be thinking of verbs other than \u003cem\u003ebless \u003c/em\u003eand \u003cem\u003eguide\u003c/em\u003e. “He sees himself as a changemaker, and he has made\n changes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Speaking of which—where’s our countdown?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he showed her the timer on his phone, she cursed. “That’s not fair.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m inclined to agree. But fair or not, we must accept our limits.” The\n priest ran his thumb and forefinger over his mustache, then curved them\n back around to clutch his chin. “What’s happened?”\n \u003cp\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n Liam saluted them when they reached the balcony outside the second-floor\n bedroom. “The professor in the painting disappeared soon after he was\n sucked in, but nobody saw him go. Monique was pretty messed up about it. I\n tried to convince her to close the new excavation, in case that had\n something to do with our phantom reindeer monster, but she didn’t listen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Monique?” Sal raised an eyebrow, but Liam refused the bait.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Team Two managed to close down the museum for now—score one for Fox’s\n intramural cooperation initiative. Carbon monoxide leak, they said. I don’t\n think hallucinations have much to do with carbon monoxide, but I’m not the\n professional liar. Didn’t close the fake cave in time, though: They lost a\n roomful of tourists. Sent ’em in, and no one came out again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded. “The same method? Transformed into paintings?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It looks that way. I didn’t stick my head in long enough to take an\n exhaustive survey. The walls started bubbling after a glance. But we closed\n the door and turned out the lights, and nothing tried to break out. It\n seems like complete darkness can contain it, at least for a while.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Any clue what’s causing this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who knows? The new cave has been open for weeks without issue.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I saw Perry,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stopped. “Your brother’s here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He was back at the museum when the beast broke out of the wall. But he\n pulled a disappearing act again. I couldn’t catch him. He wanted me to see\n him. I don’t know why, or what that might mean.” She shoved her hands in\n her pockets, and stared out over the sunset town. “Anyway, we think we’ve\n found patient zero.” She opened the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka paced the room, glaring at the walls. When Menchú entered, she\n stopped and stared. Sal wasn’t certain whether she was about to cry or\n laugh. Then the young woman started speaking Polish, fast and earnest and\n angry. Menchú raised his hands, and replied in the same language,\n haltingly. Agnieszka’s face melted with relief to hear her language spoken,\n however poorly. “Thank you, Father,” she said, in English this time. “I am\n so glad to see you. Sally says you can help my sister?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sally?” Menchú said. “Oh. Sal. Yes. Yes, I hope I can.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal walked to Agnieszka, and touched her arm. “Just tell Father Menchú what\n you told me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka glanced down, and tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind her\n ear. She looked—\u003cem\u003epenitent\u003c/em\u003e, that was the word. Ashamed. “My sister\n Sylwia vanished last night. She and I had, ah, argument. I am, you know,”\n she said a few words in Polish, then shook her head, tried again.\n “Computers, you know? Databases? In Paris, for five years. My younger\n sister, she is to college soon. Does not know what to study. She comes out\n to stay with me, we travel together. I was so excited. I thought, I will\n show her my life, I will take her to dance, to hear good music, I will\n bring her to restaurants, pour her wine. But she does not want to dance, or\n to travel, or to drink good wine. None of the things I show her interest\n her. Only to sit in museums and draw: She draws da Vinci, she draws\n Michelangelo. And this after years, we do not see each other. We were so\n close, as children.” She started pacing again. “I was stupid. I do not\n understand. I did not understand. You see?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said, and once again Sal felt awed by the ease he projected.\n “What happened then?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I say we should go down here, to see paintings. She’s happy. I am happy,\n too. We have good talks on the train, she laughs, we play cards. Sing\n songs. Then we get here, and Sylwia learns we cannot see the paintings—not\n the real ones. Is all fake. She draws them, and draws them, always angrier,\n angry at the copies. She hears about new paintings they have found, in\n woods. We try to see them, but the professor, Gerondain, he says no. Is not\n allowed. She gets upset, mad, screams at him. I take her away. That night,\n we argue. She leaves hotel. I think she is outside, pacing, to calm down,\n like when we were children. But when I go to find her, she is gone. I have\n bad feeling, so I go to new cave. Find her—but she moves like she is\n asleep. She walks to fence, and through, as if fence is not there. Walks to\n cave, and cave swallows her. Like mouth.” She turned away and waited,\n hugging her own arms, breathing. Soon, the shivers passed. “I try to tell\n the professor, and he says, is not possible, go away. I follow him, and he\n casts me off. And then shadows eat him.” That last sentence sounded—not\n quite happy, but satisfied. “Sally says she can help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s gaze shifted to Sal, and Sal tried to look innocent. They weren’t\n supposed to say that—not in so many words. There was seldom an honest\n chance of help on offer. But she hadn’t been able to resist. “We’ll do our\n best,” Father Menchú said. “That’s what we do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you, Father. Thank you. This is all my fault.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not,” Sal said. “Really.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú held out his hands to Agnieszka, and she took them. “I need to talk\n to my friends outside for a moment. Can you wait here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman nodded, and sat and drank tea as the door closed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Menchú said, when the door closed. “It sounds like our next step is\n to investigate the cave.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shadow monsters,” Sal said. “I wish Grace was here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú checked his timer. “So do I,” he said. “But not under the present\n circumstances.” He stowed the phone again. “Liam. You mentioned that you\n met one of the researchers at the dig site—Monique? Maybe she can get us\n in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Monique crossed her arms over her sweater-vest. “Absolutely not. I\n refuse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The new excavation lay in the forest south of Montignac, up a winding\n gravel service road flanked on both sides by new-fallen leaves. Bordeaux\n farmland rolled a few miles away, but the forest hills stood fast. Humans\n were only guests on this land, and they left gentle traces: a road\n centuries would erase, huts to feed the rot and rain, paintings that\n survivors twenty thousand years down the line might find and, finding, feel\n how fragile was their hold on the world. In these hills, the scholars dug.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Monique stood before the gate of a chain-link fence. Behind it, battery\n floodlights peeled back the dark, revealing white tents, a few pickup\n trucks that looked smaller than the pickups Sal knew back home, and the\n cave: a heavy lip of rock projecting from a gradual slope. Monique would\n not let them get closer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look,” Liam said. “You have guards posted on the cave, looking in. What\n are those, grad students?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Postdocs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I’m sure they’ll do a great job if anything does happen. You shouldn’t\n even be on site this late. Obviously something’s wrong. All we want is for\n you to let us inside, so we can take a look around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She glared at him over her glasses. “The professor is missing. We may be in\n danger. The site may be in danger. The paintings inside are priceless. You\n have no idea what kind of damage amateurs could do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” he said. “There’s already an amateur\n in the cave. Her sister.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Monique’s eyes flicked over his shoulder to Agnieszka, who returned her\n gaze with fury, but sought Sal’s hand. Sal took hers, and did not wince\n much when Agnieszka crushed her fingers. “This woman has been bothering us\n all day. Her sister didn’t enter the cave. We have cameras, alarms.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I imagine your cameras experienced a little trouble last night, didn’t\n they? Went a bit fuzzy around—when was it, Agnieszka?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nine,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nine o’clock at night? Just for a few minutes?” Whatever changed about\n Monique, Sal could not put it into words. Her arms remained crossed, her\n feet spread broader than shoulder width, her body squared against Liam, her\n head held at an angle so she seemed to be looking down at him rather than\n up. But the foundation on which she stood was a touch less certain than\n before. “Look. You know there’s something wrong already. Or you suspect it.\n You saw what you saw, back at the museum. Maybe you’ve heard things in the\n cave already, voices that almost make sense, movement glimpsed out of the\n corner of your eye. Paintings you know have changed places, but when you\n look at old photographs of them, they’ve always been where they are now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her mouth compressed. “I will call the police.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have given postdocs shovels and rakes and told them to guard a cave\n mouth in case something comes out. You know what’s going on, even if you\n can’t admit it to yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What \u003cem\u003eis \u003c/em\u003egoing on here, then, Mister Liam Doyle? You have brought\n us a priest? We are scientists here, scholars.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So are we,” Menchú said, which even Sal had to admit was stretching the\n truth a bit more than usual. She wished Asanti were here—the archivist had\n a powerful gift for speaking to academics, and seemed to know most of them.\n Monique’s eyes narrowed. “I know it’s difficult to accept that there might\n be forces at work beyond your experience. But you’ve seen them with your\n own eyes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Superstition,” Monique snapped back. Sal felt bad for the woman, cut loose\n in a world that refused to keep to the rules she had learned. Pressed,\n people retreat to ground they know they can hold. “Father, I have great\n respect for the Church as an institution, but you will not intimidate me\n with bedtime tales of ghosts and witchcraft. Whatever is happening here, we\n will deal with it rationally.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded, calm as ever in the face of others’ frustration. He seemed\n to have an answer ready—he always had an answer ready, and it was always\n the right thing to say—but before he could speak, the earth roared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A shadow in the cave bubbled, boiled, and burst. One of the postdocs on\n guard duty screamed; two others brandished their makeshift weapons like\n pikemen. More ran from the tents, carrying books, spades, whatever they had\n to hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bulls made of darkness and rust emerged from the cave into the clearing.\n Their hooves tore grooves in the gold-leaved ground. They snorted coils of\n black steam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before the bulls, the forest had made its own nighttime sounds, like and\n unlike those Sal knew—crickets in a different key, wind and nearby\n water—but when the bulls emerged those sounds knelt before their hoofbeats\n and their mythic breath. The bulls were deeper than the world. They existed\n by stripes where floodlights fell. They seemed hardly there in the darkness\n between.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then they charged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One student tried to brace her shovel against the earth. The bull tore into\n them both, and she vanished, pike and all. One student tried to run, but\n the second bull caught him on its horns as if to gore, or toss, and they\n both vanished, too. Two bulls met no resistance and ran through the tents\n and fence out into the woods—and one ran straight toward the team.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal moved first. Agnieszka’s grip had tightened to the point of bone\n crushing, so she just tugged the other woman along, shoving herself between\n Monique and the bull. Agnieszka tried to pull away, but Sal raised her\n crucifix, and hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The bull thundered toward them, horns lowered. Hoofbeats drummed the earth.\n It passed through the fence like a breeze, but Sal felt the weight of it,\n the undeniable presence of those hooked horns. In the last second before\n impact Sal smelled it through interposing eons, the meaty auroch’s scent of\n muscle and hot leather and dirt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The part of her brain that was still convinced, deep down and in spite of\n all evidence, that she was a primeval monkey walking the grasslands that\n used to be the Sahara, made good and ready to die.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The bull struck her. The crucifix burned in her hand. She fell to one knee,\n and gritted her teeth, and did not scream as the shadow flowed around her,\n over her, through her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the flood passed, she returned to herself, kneeling before the fence,\n with a tarnished crucifix in one hand. Agnieszka helped her up. Sal took a\n breath, and realized she wasn’t dead. “Thanks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You saved us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú and Liam were both still there, at least, checking their own silver:\n all tarnished. Monique remained, too, shocked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One perk of the job that Team Three didn’t tend to discuss, Sal thought,\n was how often you got to be right about things. If she had been the kind of\n person to say \u003cem\u003eI told you so\u003c/em\u003e, she would have really enjoyed it.\n Instead, she tried: “Monique, we’re all on the same side here. We want your\n professor safe. We want to help those kids who just disappeared. Go to the\n police if you want—but that will slow things down, and we don’t know how\nmuch time we have.” \u003cem\u003eTwenty-eight hours until Team One comes in with the napalm\u003c/em\u003e, she\n didn’t say. “I know it looks scary, but we’ve seen things like this before.\n This is what we do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Cricket sounds returned to the forest, and wind. Somewhere not so far away,\n great ancient beasts stampeded through the dark. “Okay,” Monique said. “But\n I’m coming with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Flashlights died as they approached the cave, which Sal had expected. To\n her surprise, so had Monique. “This happened yesterday, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you didn’t think it was weird?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course. Magnetic interference, we believed. Anyway, this is why we have\n chemical lanterns.” She produced something that looked to Sal like a\n glorified glow stick, and cracked the seal. It guttered and died, too.\n “That’s strange.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Here.” Liam passed out torches from Menchú’s kit, and drew his own\n lighter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t bring fire into the cave! The paintings—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re suggesting we go down there in the dark?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not suggesting we go down at all! We should wait for the authorities.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Much as it pains me to admit, Monique, we are the authorities.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Monique glared at him with intent to murder—but at last she grabbed a torch\n and they all went down together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cave sloped down sharply after the lip. Ten feet in, even Liam could\n stand upright, and after twenty the ceiling was high enough that he no\n longer needed to duck away from the odd stalactite. Then the tunnel\n widened, and the paintings began.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal caught her breath when she saw them. The replicas, she had assured\n Liam, were identical to the originals: same pigment, same brushes, same\n brushstrokes, even. The imitators knew what they were doing. But the real\n paintings breathed. The living past pressed against them like a lover’s\n body beneath a sheet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She felt a bit silly when she realized that the paintings really were\n breathing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nor were they all exactly ancient. Amid the aurochs and ponies, the deer\n and Megaloceroses and antelope, she spotted two kids in soccer jerseys, and\n a tourist with a camera phone raised against the stampede. She hoped, for\n Monique’s sake, that they could reverse this magic, and bring all these\n people back out of the wall. There probably weren’t all that many Real\n Madrid jerseys in prehistory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka hefted her torch higher. “You have a sister?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just my brother,” Sal said. Liam and Monique were arguing about\n directions; Father Menchú looked lonely. “Two years younger.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good.” She nodded. “It is hard to be so far away in age. We are together,\n you know, but we are not really together. She sees me like aunt, sometime.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Two years is a little close if you ask me,” Sal said. “Perry and I were so\n close that we couldn’t have much in common.” Agnieszka looked confused. “If\n I liked sports, he couldn’t just not play them, he had to be this total\n nerd about it. He had to be everything I wasn’t. It hurt when we were\n kids.” A giant painted snake slithered on the ceiling. “I wanted us to be a\n team. I always came through for him when he needed me, and he came through\n for me, but if we weren’t in trouble, we didn’t see each other much.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You said he vanished,” Agnieszka said, as they turned down a cave passage\n that, to judge from overheard bits of Monique’s and Liam’s argument, hadn’t\n been there before. Menchú had produced a compass, or something like a\n compass, that seemed to confirm their direction. New magic kit from Team\n One’s coffers. “Is that what you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What? Oh. Um.” No sense hiding it now that they were down here in a\n magic-animated cave hunting art monsters. “No, I meant that literally. He\n got possessed, that is, he sort of joined with—you know the word angel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In Polish, word is anioł,” she said. “Not so different. With wings, yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Something like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They descended a winding passage. Cave silence pressed about them, so close\n Sal could hear her own heartbeat. No, that was not her heartbeat: That was\n a real drum, from somewhere deep down. Waves of oily shadow passed over the\n wall now, seeping over cave paintings, clustering close to the rock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah,” she said. “So, there was this angel, and he and Perry got jammed\n together in his head, and then Perry disappeared. You saw him back there in\n the—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stopped before she could say \u003cem\u003emuseum\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The passage opened into another gallery, larger than the first, and more\n densely painted, where the walls weren’t covered with slick shadow. Herds\n of animals gathered on the far wall, forms pressing against the darkness,\n fighting to break free: more bulls and horses, more Megaloceroses, and\n other animals she hadn’t seen yet, huge shaggy cats and wolves four feet\n tall at the shoulder, and other creatures for which she had no name.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry sat in the center of the cave, in a candlelight circle, chanting in a\n high reedy voice and beating a drum in heartbeat time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam ran toward him. Easy deduction: Whatever Perry was doing, it wouldn’t\n be helpful. But the easy deduction was just as often wrong as not. And the\n animals pressing against the confines of the shadow glared at Perry\n hungrily; they lunged against the limits of the shadow and fell back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He wasn’t letting the beasts out. He was keeping them bound.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had time to shout “No!” before Liam crossed the candlelight circle and\n let loose the stampede.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal scrambled to her feet, and tried to sort out the last few seconds’\n panic. Liam broke the circle, shadow animals charged out of the walls, she\n ran toward Perry, Agnieszka followed her, a large shaggy elephant-like\n thing galloped to the head of the stampede, and then, well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stood beneath a stony sky. No, scratch that. The sky \u003cem\u003ewas \u003c/em\u003e\n stone—not an arch or dome of some sort, but solid stone, complete with\n massive mineral veins, riven with tiny cracks left by ice and shifting\n earth. Stone, too, was the ground beneath her feet, a shade redder than the\n sky, cracked and layered. Far away, or at least she thought it was far\n away, on all sides, lay a jagged charcoal horizon. Between the horizon and\n Sal stood other charcoal suggestions of terrain, and shadowless beasts\n grazing on invisible grass, or charging across the plain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two suns burned in the sky, and an enormous cyclone moved behind the\n charcoal mountains.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dammit. She had a fresh crucifix and everything. She pulled it from beneath\n her shirt, and saw only a tarnished smear. That much magic at once must\n have burned through the silver. She hadn’t seen that happen before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She heard a groan at her feet, and a sharp, brief exclamation in Polish.\n Agnieszka and Perry lay nearby, shuddering and trying to rise. They lacked\n color, hue, shade in this place. Vivid dark lines sketched them against the\n rock. When they moved, she felt sick to her stomach. She wondered whether\n she actually had a stomach here, and decided against thinking about that\n question any more. She reached for Agnieszka, and saw her own hand—also an\n outline, proportions perfect, fleshless. She was a shape on a wall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ignored that, too, and helped Agnieszka up. “Are you okay?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think so.” Agnieszka dusted herself off. “Where are we?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ask him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry grinned, and helped himself to his feet. “Hi, Sal. Long time no see.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What the \u003cem\u003ehell\u003c/em\u003e,” said Sal, “were you doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, you know.” He brushed invisible dust off his clothes. “Helping.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is this what helping looks like? Because being turned into a cave painting\n is not what I have in mind when I think \u003cem\u003ehelping\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I had everything under control!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Give and take a few aurochs storming through the dig site.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few aurochs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This isn’t a joke!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I figured out a ritual to hold the animals in the wall. I would have\n fought through the shadows to the main gallery in another hour or so, if\n your meathead friend hadn’t messed everything up.” He cracked his neck,\n then his knuckles. Sal winced. “So yeah, I was helping. Meanwhile, what\n exactly was your plan, outside of getting us stuck in a caveman remake of\n the ‘Take On Me’ music video?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are,” Agnieszka said, “on the rock?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Perry said, followed by a few words of Polish. Agnieszka laughed for\n the first time that day, and Sal felt briefly jealous.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Cannot translate,” she said, with a shrug. “Good joke, though.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal, to Perry: “You speak Polish now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He kicked at the ground, producing a few lines of pebble movement that soon\n settled back into stability. “Aaron did. His languages ended up muddled in\n my head with the rest.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka looked from Perry’s face, to Sal’s, judging. “This is your\n brother?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good question,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on, Sal. It doesn’t have to be like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know the answer, Perry. Aaron. Perrin. Whoever you are. It’s not\n as if you’ve been straight with me so far.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He raised his hands, opened his mouth, then thought better of whatever he\n had planned to say. His hands returned to his pockets, and his lines all\n curved. “I’m Perry,” he said, and to Agnieszka, “her brother. Mostly. With\n some extra parts.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How do I know you’re not lying?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I told you the truth when I left. I didn’t know what was going on in\n Aaron’s head, and I still don’t. I thought I could sort the whole thing\n out, then come back to help you—with the Church, or whatever. But it’s not\n that simple.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So that’s why you’ve been playing keep-away-from-Sal for the last year and\n a half? After everything I did to bring you home safe? You just had to go\n walkabout?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t need to sound so dismissive.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What were you up to back in the museum? That whole wave-and-disappear\n shtick?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I panicked! I thought it would look cool!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You thought.” She paced away, and realized her fingers were hooking into\n strangling position. “Okay. Fine. Can you disappear us out of here? Back\n into the real world?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It doesn’t work that way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course it wouldn’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can send shadows of myself on errands—like I’m dreaming, only it’s real.\n I can’t just teleport.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good for you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Will you both please shut up?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal turned. Agnieszka stood between them, hands out, looking from one to\n the other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My sister is lost in here,” she said. “I must find her. Can you help?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stared at Perry, and Perry stared at Sal, until they both said, “Yes”\n at once.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They worked through the stone land.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry guided them toward the cyclone. “It looks like a whirlwind,” he said,\n “but it’s not, really. Agnieszka’s sister has been breaking things out of\n the rock, pulling them into the human world. That’s where we’ll find her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But the animals were breaking out everywhere.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not all the way. They were shadows, remember? Only half there. If we want\n our bodies back, we can’t just try to bubble out of the painted world. We\n need to go to the magic’s heart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And there we will find Sylwia?”\n \u003cp\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n Sal looked to Perry, who nodded. “I mean, I hope. This isn’t exactly a\n science.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka marched on, and they marched with her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal took point, pistol drawn. She listened with her ears, and with her\n feet. When the stone shook she guided them to shelter as a herd of bison\n shambled past. Once, she heard a loud, sharp cough from a nearby copse of\n sketchy trees, like a tiger’s chuff, but deeper. She motioned them along,\n and kept her eyes on the copse until they crested a nearby hill.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She checked her watch, and swore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She showed Perry. The watch hands moved in jumps, five minutes at a time.\n “If this is telling the truth, we’ve been here twelve hours.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t feel hungry,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You still need to eat?” He answered with a long-suffering look she\n ignored. “Twenty hours left. If my watch is right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka trotted up next to her. “What happens after twenty hours?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She sucked air through her teeth. It tasted of dust and stone, and she\n realized that was the first breath she’d taken in, hell, several hours.\n “The people we work for,” she said. “When something like this happens, they\n want us to deal with it quickly and peacefully. If that doesn’t work, they\n call in backup.” That was one word for it. She remembered a burning hotel,\n and a young woman, killed by a bureaucrat’s need to check a box.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Backup is good, no?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” she said, and pressed on.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hours passed, or minutes. Unmoored from flesh, she found she lacked any\n instinct for telling time. She missed her heartbeat. She missed her skin.\n She still felt—felt her clothes, felt the ground beneath her shoes, felt\n her skin when she touched it—but when she wasn’t paying attention, it\n slipped away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They passed over a ridge and descended into a shattered land of deep\n craters and ravines, a desert moonscape. Across the sharp rock labyrinth\n rose the whirlwind they had seen from a distance, raw movement against the\n unbroken stone sky, spinning in some direction that was not precisely up,\n carrying bison and deer and horses and men along with it, toward those\n burning suns Sal could already tell were eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Below them, painted suggestions of men and women fought a great lizard-like\n smudge beside a cliff. The smudge reared back from their blades and the\n sling-stones, hissing. Its tail caught one man across the stomach, and he\n crumpled. A kid jumped on the smudge’s back and tried to pierce its hide\n with a stone knife, but didn’t seem to make much progress.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay,” Perry said. “We can do this. We’ll skirt around the battle, work\n through the maze, and get to the whirlwind.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal glanced at her watch again. Ten hours.\n \u003cem\u003e\n How the hell—no. Don’t worry about it. You’re stuck in a cave painting,\n no sense getting pissy at your wristwatch.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n “No time. I have a better idea.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ask for directions,” she said, and sprinted toward the battle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She whooped as she ran and hollered and otherwise raised a ruckus, partly\n to attract attention, and partly to drown out Perry’s terrified squawk\n behind her. “Hey, you ugly sonofagun! Over here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The smudge whirled on her, snarling. It was a lot bigger up close, and\n she’d closed the distance faster than she expected.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It roared stone and rotting meat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal drew her gun, and shot it three times in the head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The bullets didn’t simply bounce off. They left bloody furrows in its\n hide—she could tell by the rust-red trails, and white where the bone showed\n through—but didn’t pierce the skull. The smudge coiled along its length,\n baring long sharp teeth. She jumped back; its jaws snapped shut where she\n had been.\n \u003cem\u003e\n Okay. Steady your breath. Think about the eyes, or the open mouth.\n Smooth pressure on the trigger.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The smudge launched itself at her again. She rolled out of the way, came\n up, drew a bead on its eye as it reared, long tongue snaking out between\n its teeth. This time, she had it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then the kid hanging from the smudge’s neck jammed his knife through its\n eye into the brain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That worked, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The smudge fell hard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The hunters turned to Sal in the sudden silence. She raised her hands, and\n hoped that body language carried across, what, twenty thousand years?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They looked—human. Ish. Shaggy, dressed in kilts of some sort of fur? Or\n maybe just pelts? They moved slowly, which surprised her after the ferocity\n they showed while hunting. The kid on the smudge’s back stood. Her hand\n dripped blood. The dead beast’s rear leg twitched.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A bearded man asked sharp questions in a language like gravel rolling in a\n metal pan. She shook her head. “Friend?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He frowned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fine. Couldn’t expect cave people to speak English. But at least this\n wasn’t one of those moments where the rest of the team rolled their eyes at\n the American’s inability to speak furrin. Perry skidded down the hill\n toward them, Agnieszka following. Sal tried to wave them back, without\n looking like she was waving someone back. She could figure this out. She\n just needed a little more time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Perry opened his mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The sounds that came out sounded harsh and guttural, and he hunched forward\n as he spoke them, like the hunters. The bearded man turned back and\n responded in kind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me guess,” Sal said. “Aaron speaks caveman?”\n \u003cp\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n “He’s been around a long time,” Perry said, and returned to the hunter.\n “Okay. Good. They can take us the rest of the way. He asked if he could\n have your gun.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tell him it’s big magic. Only works for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry relayed this message. The hunter shrugged, and made a noise even Sal\n could tell was noncommittal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He says, can’t blame him for trying.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Cute.” The kid scampered off the beast, and waved them after her with her\n red right hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She says—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Follow. I got that part, thanks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The kid with the bloody hand led them through jagged canyons and over sharp\n stone to the foot of the whirlwind. Overhead—or whatever direction that\n was—twin eye-suns burned. The wind chipped and tore at the rock, tearing\n ground away to reveal an enormous familiar shape, like the smudge-lizard\n but so large she mistook it at first for a mistake:\n twenty-thousand-year-old spilled paint, perhaps. But no, that darkness had\n scales, and claws, and moved.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The kid pointed into the maelstrom. Sal gave her a thumbs-up, and she\n sprinted back through the canyons.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So,” she said to Perry, “we jump into that thing, and we pop back into the\n real world.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or get smashed into pulp.” He grinned. “But I think it’s the real world\n one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have a really good feeling about this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Great.” She started for the whirlwind, only to realize Agnieszka wasn’t\n with them. After a moment’s frantic search she found her, crouched behind a\n boulder. “Agnieszka. We have to go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shook her head. Her wide eyes reflected the paired suns’ light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is our shot. Your sister’s on the other side of that thing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That,” Agnieszka said, “is what scares me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She wants to see you. Whatever you were fighting about. Whatever you\n said.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t know that!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were right words to say here. There had to be. She just couldn’t find\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She does,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Behind them, a huge slab of rock tore free of the ground and shattered as\n it rose. The beast beneath twitched and surged, almost free.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka took Sal’s hand. “Good,” she said. “Okay. Let’s go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They ran together into the whirlwind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This time Sal stayed conscious the whole way through the grotesque\n inversion as the twin suns pierced her with their gaze. Her body folded\n inside out and outside in again, known completely—rendered as a line\n drawing, rendered as fat cooked from bone. Winds took her to pieces. Flesh\n hung itself around her like a cloak. Tyrant lungs demanded she breathe, the\n autarch heart drove blood through resisting veins. Gravity, real gravity,\n not an artist’s disposition to place these forms against those others,\n tugged her down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She landed on her feet in a cavern warm with the breath of beasts. They\n circled near the walls or nested among stalagmites, horned and furred and\n long-toothed, paws padding stone, claws tearing chalk-white trails in gray.\n Eyes glittered in the dark, reflecting the cavern’s sole source of light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sylwia’s gaze carved the shadows like a searchlight, and reflected back off\n the walls onto her. She was a kid, really—Sal was always surprised how\n young eighteen looked to her these days—a kid with narrow shoulders, a\n blonde ponytail, a baggy jacket, straight-leg jeans, big stomping boots.\n Huge pages littered the ground at her feet. She propped the sketch pad on\n her hip as she swept her hand across its surface, leaving charcoal trails.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her searchlight gaze flickered back to the painting she was copying off the\n wall: an enormous nightmare smudge of lizard, too huge to ever live, a\n scared and long-dead artist’s fever dream. And as Sylwia scratched charcoal\n onto her page, the lizard on the wall swelled and sharpened. It took shape,\n grew definition. When it breathed, the other creatures shuddered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Talk to her,” Sal said. “She’ll listen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or you could tackle her in the middle of an incantation. Sal’s friends\n seem to like that approach.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sylwia!” Agnieszka lifted herself from the rock, and stepped toward her\n sister. Sylwia drew faster. The lizard’s eyes opened, and rolled red.\n “Sylwia, listen to me. You have to stop.” Agnieszka ground her toe into the\n rock. She raised her chin, thrust her shoulders back, and marched toward\n her sister. She spoke through the chisel-whirl of magic. Shouted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry stepped up behind her. “She says she didn’t mean it. She says—she’s\n sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal almost grabbed his hand. “Okay.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sylwia kept drawing. Agnieszka neared, step by step, braced against a wind\n only she could feel. Maybe it was magic. Maybe not. She reached for\n Sylwia’s shoulder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl turned, and fixed her with that lantern gaze. Shadows vanished\n from Agnieszka’s face, and she rose off the ground as if caught in a\n giant’s invisible fist. Sal started forward, but Perry held her back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course you want me to stop,” Perry translated. “You always wanted me to\n stop. You all did. Mom and Dad and you, all together. Why waste your time?\n Do something, um, something serious. The world doesn’t need more pictures.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” Sal said, remembering dinner tables past. “Huh.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Some things are the same all over the world,” Perry said. “I guess.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “For the record, I never said history was useless.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, you just had to go into the family business and crow about how you\n liked making a real difference in the world.” Agnieszka fought to breathe,\n fought to speak. “We, uh. Sorry, okay. That’s what she says. I didn’t mean\n to. Um.” Sylwia snarled. Tears burned on her face. Agnieszka tried again.\n “I missed you. That’s all. I haven’t seen you since I left home. I do this\n job because I like it, and because it makes money, and because we can send\n you to school. But I was so happy to see you, and you wanted to spend all\n your time drawing. I couldn’t talk to you. I didn’t know how.” He nodded,\n satisfied with the translation. He was not looking at Sal. “But this is\n wrong. You’re stealing people’s reality to make your own world. The power\n of this place, it’s using you. I just want my sister back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lizard strained against the rock wall. Two of its claws burst free, and\n its great head reared. Dust rained and stone creaked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal took Perry’s hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sylwia lifted her hand from the page, and closed her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Darkness closed around them. A blast of wind shook the cavern. Sal fell to\n her knees. Cows lowed and horses whinnied and lions roared, but the sounds\n twisted, and then, suddenly, became human voices. Lights split the\n darkness: cell phones, flashlights. Torches.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam! Father Menchú!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They crouched for battle not ten feet from Sal herself. Liam’s shirt seemed\n to have been cannibalized for bandages; he was sweat-slick and daubed in\n paintings that reminded Sal of the pelt-clad people in the rock. Father\n Menchú’s jacket and shirt were torn, and his pants; one of Liam’s\n shirtsleeves was wadded around a wound on his bare leg. Monique still wore\n her sweater-vest, bloodstained now, but her sleeves were rolled up, her\n knuckles swollen as if she’d punched someone recently. Liam’s face, for\n that matter, looked a little discolored.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But at least they had light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal!” Father Menchú ran to her. “We looked for you in—wherever that\n was—but we couldn’t find you. What happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Agnieszka and Sylwia lay, still but breathing, in the center of the cavern,\n while scared tourists snapped flash photos and Professor Gerondain, who\n seemed utterly unaffected by his stay on the cave wall, scrambled to stop\n them. Monique called the professor’s name, and he stopped, confused, to\n adjust his glasses.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Um,” Perry said. “Sal?” When she turned to look, he cast his phone light\n to the wall across the cavern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was empty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal heard a hiss from overhead. The air stank of cave carrion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everybody get down!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course the civilians didn’t listen. Camera lights darted up to the\n blackness on the ceiling: The enormous scaled bulk of the creature splayed\n there. Its hiss turned to a roar, and it sprang—toward the passage leading,\n near as Sal could tell, up. The lizard compressed itself, illogical,\n octopus-like, through the opening, and wriggled away, leaving screams in\n its wake.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s afraid of us?” Liam asked. “Something that size?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hell if I know,” Sal said. “But we can’t let it get away.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ran, and the others followed: Liam, Menchú, even Perry and, to her\n surprise, Monique. Running was fine. Running was good, even, following the\n trail of broken rocks and smeared paintings the wriggling lizard left.\n Running gave you time to think. This lizard, the smaller version, had been\n almost bulletproof, and Sal had, God, was it five or six rounds left? Four?\n She should \u003cem\u003eknow\u003c/em\u003e this, dammit. Lost track in the sprint and the\n magic. Anyway. Eyes were vulnerable. Since this one was bigger, maybe that\n left her a bigger target. Or something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Christ. What was the cover story if this one got out? It didn’t exactly fit\n the local landscape. Maybe they could pass it off as a tourist attraction.\n Come to the south of France, see the scenic local giant prehistoric lizards\n that probably didn’t exist anyway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She ran faster, through the gallery where they’d found Perry, up the\n tunnel, through two more galleries, then, crouching, out into the sunlight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lizard looked even larger by day. It swelled in the clearing. One sweep\n of its tail toppled a tent. It gnawed experimentally at a floodlight.\n Sparks fountained from its mouth, but the shock didn’t seem to bother it.\n Grad students scattered, screaming. Monique ran out, waving her hands,\n directing them in French to do—something. Liam followed her, torch\n brandished like a sword, the flame barely visible by daylight. Menchú\n circled the other way, wary; he grabbed a shovel and jabbed at the lizard,\n which did not seem to notice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal swallowed hard, and drew her pistol.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then a knight fell from the sky and cut the lizard’s head off.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The head, the body, and the knight hit the ground in triple time. Blood\n gushed from the lizard’s neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The knight stood. Team One’s cross-sword logo stencil glittered on her\n armor. Her wings folded back against their harness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal glanced down at her watch. Time’s up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jeeps growled up the gravel road, and boots hit earth. The Team One\n cleaning crew arrived, and ran for the lizard’s body, bearing chainsaws and\n gasoline.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The knight removed her helmet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hi, Grace,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had been weeks since Sal had last seen her. She’d almost grown used to\n the absence—almost didn’t feel it anymore on assignment, almost didn’t miss\n the way they were before Grace left. Before she joined Team One.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The corners of her mouth twitched, too fast for Sal to say if they moved up\n or down. “Sal.” Sometimes she didn’t say that much.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There are civilians down in the cave,” Sal said. “There’s nothing wrong\n with them. No books. No possession.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace brushed hair from her eyes with a gauntleted hand. She left a trail\n of gore. She did not seem triumphant, though she stood on the body of her\n enemy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was too much to say, so Sal said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace turned, and stalked away. Team One set fire to the lizard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Across the clearing, Monique and Liam kissed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal turned back to Perry, but he was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e6\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Days later, Father Arturo Menchú stood before the Orb once more, and before\n Asanti, and once more she refused to look at him. “The timer must have run\n out while we were stuck in the cave wall,” he said. “Team One deployed.\n We’re lucky no one was hurt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d been like this since the trial: quiet and careful, choosing her\n moments. Or at least, he believed she was choosing her moments. None of\n those moments happened to involve him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They had been many things to one another down many years, but it had never\n been this bad before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal’s brother disappeared.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She claims he seemed . . . himself. He has been using the memories of his,\n ah, angel half”—he removed his glasses, and tried to clean them on the\n lining of his coat—“to guide him. Even tried to help us, though it would\n have worked better if he had bothered to keep us informed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But his ritual didn’t work. I mean, Liam obviously interrupted him, so\n there’s no way of knowing what might have happened, but he had been down\n there for hours and only barely contained the shadows. Even then, some\n slipped out.” He tried the glasses again, but the world looked as cloudy as\n before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see.” She stroked her chin, then raised a lever on the machine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I only mean to say, it seems even angels don’t understand what they’re\n doing. With magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought you didn’t believe in angels.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yes. Good. That was it: a sign of life, of disagreement, a sign she cared\n about—about them, about their work together, enough to fight. “Whatever he\n is, then. Maybe he is a demon, after all. But he’s as in the dark as we\n are.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned, and looked at him. He waited. If he’d had a hat, and poor\n self-control, he would have twisted it in his hands. What did people do\n with their hands, anyway? He let his hang wooden by his sides. He felt made\n of wood all through.\n \u003cem\u003e\n Take the bait. It’s an argument so full of holes even I can see them.\n Show me. Tear me to pieces.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s a good point, Arturo,” she said, and smiled, and turned away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For the first time, Father Arturo Menchú feared his friend.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was an empty cavern beneath the earth, and then it held a woman with\n sharp, silver eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were no lights in this dark place, the tourists having been\n evacuated, the scholars having retreated to safety, but if you had eyes\n like hers, you could have seen her as if in a field at noon. She walked a\n slow circle, touching paintings, and where she touched, they moved, and the\n world changed, as if great machines worked out of sight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She passed without looking the bare wall once occupied by a painting of a\n lizard, and moved to another patch, far smaller, once occupied by a\n painting of a priest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With her thumbnail, she carved a sliver of stone free from the wall, placed\n it in her mouth, and chewed. Rock shards cut her gums. Her teeth were not\n sharp, but an observer might be forgiven for thinking they were. She\n grinned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo, you \u003cem\u003ehave\u003c/em\u003e been busy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then she vanished, leaving only footprints and a trace of laughter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nThings have changed for the Vatican’s magic-fighting Team Three: Their forces are depleted, and internal rifts are coming close to tearing this close-knit group apart. But some things never change. Magic still threatens to overwhelm our world, and when a startling appearance from Menchú’s past reveals new dimensions to this danger, the team will have to reassess their loyalties—to their jobs, their beliefs, and even to each other.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\u003c/p\u003e \n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrancis\u003c/strong\u003e: Asanti’s former assistant, whose legs were replaced by tentacles after an unfortunate magical incident.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCardinal Fox\u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Max Gladstone\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.142","slug":"Bookburners-s3e01","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E01.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E1.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E1.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E1.pdf","share_url":"http://serialbox.com/episodes/595d41d5fd9a2b0001c3eb3a","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 1"},{"id":"595fa6cd48e97e0001b644bb","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":2,"title":"Faces of the Beast","released_date":"2017-07-26T12:28:48.197+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Magic, magic, everywhere. ","byline":"Margaret Dunlap","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E02_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-07-26","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace snapped awake. The candle was lit. Her life was burning away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah stood by the table. It was still strange to see her there and not\n Menchú. Like trying to walk with a fold in her sock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah turned to replace the glass chimney over her candle. Drafts caused\n drips, and lost wax was life unused. Shah was meticulous about Grace’s\n candle, which Grace should have found reassuring, but her new superior’s\n fetishistic care to avoid any waste of wax merely felt like another fold in\n her sock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In keeping with her devotion to efficiency, Shah had set out a pair of\n black cargo pants, shirt, and tac vest before waking Grace. Not what she\n would have chosen for herself, but also not an argument Grace felt like\n having. Not again. And so she contained her inward sigh and reached for the\n pile. “No plate armor this time?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re headed to a point off the coast of New Zealand,” said Shah. “I don’t\n know about you, but I don’t want to be wearing plate on a boat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shrugged as she pulled the shirt over her head. “There’s no evidence\n I can drown.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No evidence you can’t, either,” said Shah. Grace bent down to tighten her\n shoelaces, sensing Shah’s impatience as she did so. On their first mission,\n Shah had suggested that—to save time—Grace could sleep in her shoes. Grace,\n still Chinese in spite of everything, had declined.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace distracted herself from her thoughts and Shah from her waiting with\n another question. “What’s the report from Team Three?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re on another call. This is our mission.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace looked up, startled. “What happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ll get the brief with everyone else on the plane. We’re wheels up as\n soon as Brooks gets to the airfield.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and the rest of Team Three—which, since Asanti had been banished from\n the field, these days meant Father Menchú and Liam—had been heading for the\n airport and the next flight that could take them to Auckland when a call\n came in from the Archives. The Orb had another ping, this time with a\n location in central Spain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As soon as Menchú hung up with Asanti, his phone buzzed again. This time,\n it was Cardinal Fox on the line. When Menchú ended that call, he turned to\n Sal, frowning.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “From what we can tell, the first coordinates are off the coast of New\n Zealand, not on land. The cardinal”—Sal thought Menchú did an excellent job\n of not flinching when he said Fox’s new title—“believes that this means it\n is less likely to be artifact-related. He wants us in Spain instead. Team\n One will go to New Zealand.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you tell him that ‘less likely’ is not the same as ‘impossible?’” said\n Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And that he can’t give our job to his old team just because he’s in charge\n now?” added Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I made that suggestion. But since we don’t have Grace and Asanti is barred\n from field work, if our team splits up to cover both sites, it would mean\n putting one of us on our own.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So Team One is going to New Zealand,” said Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded. “Yes. And you’re going with them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Less than an hour later, Sal was strapped into the hold of a military\n transport that Shah had somehow commandeered to take them all to a location\n on the other side of the planet. In addition to Grace, two others from the\n Team One roster had been tapped for the job, neither of them\n conversationalists. Soo, a Korean woman, was busy inspecting what looked\n like a steampunk jetpack. Given Team One’s gear, it might be exactly that.\n The man, Ellsdale, who could give Liam a run for his money in a “member of\n the Society least-suited to survive a sun demon” contest, was asleep. Sal\n knew them both by sight from other missions, but apparently this wasn’t the\n trip where they were all going to bond and become friends. The one person\n on the team she had thought was a friend, Grace, hadn’t even looked up when\n Sal said hello.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yeah. This inter-team collaboration was off to a great start.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay!” It took some work for Shah to be heard over the roar of the engines\n and the rattle of the plane, but she made her voice carry. “We’re looking\n at a major disturbance off the west coast of the South Island. Local\n authorities are calling it an earthquake, but the Orb says otherwise, so\n we’re on the job. Lucky for us, earthquakes aren’t unusual for that part of\n the world, so we shouldn’t be up to our asses in civilian scientists and\n looky-loos getting in the way—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal glanced over at Grace, who had her nose buried in . . . \u003cem\u003eThe Da Vinci Code\u003c/em\u003e? Since when did Grace read airport thrillers?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal tried to turn her attention back to the briefing. She managed, at\n least, to catch her cue when Shah asked her to present the information that\n Team Three had gleaned from the Orb. (Admittedly, not very much beyond:\n It’s in the ocean; it’s magic; it’s big.) But she kept stealing glances in\n Grace’s direction.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace didn’t look up from her book once.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The flight to New Zealand was long, and eventually, all the others fell\n asleep. Grace put down her book that she no longer had to pretend to read\n and found herself alone with her thoughts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n “Did Team Three do something to piss you off?” Fox asked when Grace\n came to him in the aftermath of Belfast and Asanti’s trial.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Grace returned Fox’s penetrating look with one of her own. She had\n known three cardinals before he had taken over this office. Odds were\n she would know more. He didn’t scare her.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“No,” Grace said.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Fox leaned back in his chair. “Then why are you asking for a transfer?”\n he asked.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Grace didn’t want to be wasting wax on this conversation. “Shah has\n made several overtures since she assumed leadership of Team One. I’ve\n come to agree that it would be a better match for my primary skill\n set.”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eFox considered this. “You always said no before. What changed?”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Grace knew that Shah’s offers to bring her to Team One had certainly\n been supported, if not instigated, by Fox when he was still a\n monsignor. Why was he so hard to convince? She was giving him what he\n wanted.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Instead of voicing that thought aloud, Grace asked, “Does it matter?”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n “It matters if it affects the readiness and function of the Society,”\n said Fox.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“It doesn’t.”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Despite the fact that Grace had then walked out of Fox’s office, or\n perhaps because of it, the requested transfer had been granted. The\n next time Grace woke, it had been to Shah looking down at her.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n She sometimes regretted not formally saying goodbye to Arturo. Then\n chided herself. Even when life was long, it was too short for regrets.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Despite a population of more than forty-six million, outside of the capital\n and the major cities on the coasts, most of the Spanish countryside was\n still just that: countryside. For stretches in the central plains where you\n could go for miles between isolated villages, the illusion of aloneness\n broken only by the occasional car or train rushing by.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Naturally, it was in one of these areas that Father Menchú and Liam’s car—a\n loaner from the Society’s tiny motor pool—came to a coughing stop, and\n despite Liam’s best efforts at mechanical and spiritual persuasion, refused\n to roll another inch. Menchú helped push the car to the side of the road,\n then leaned back against the hood, and sighed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish Sal and Grace were here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why? Does one of them know how to fix a busted head gasket?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s chuckle carried in the quiet night. “Not to my knowledge, but I\n don’t like being away from the rest of the team.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace isn’t on the team anymore,” Liam pointed out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú allowed this without comment. “More than that,” he continued, “the\n two sets of coordinates we’ve gotten from the Orb just so happen to be\n exactly antipodal to each other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If we drilled a hole from one straight through the center of the Earth,\n we’d reach the other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, that’s a little too perfect to be coincidence.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded. “As I said, I wish Sal and Grace were here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the distance, a set of headlights appeared. They were low to the ground,\n and soon joined by the roar of a well-tuned engine speeding toward them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You want to stick a thumb out, Father?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú pushed himself off the fender of the car and joined Liam at the side\n of the road. “Italian and Spanish are very close, you know,” he said. “I’m\n sure you could handle asking for a ride.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Probably,” said Liam. “But there’s no talking if the car doesn’t stop, and\n that’s more likely to happen for the guy with a collar than the one covered\n in tattoos.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú couldn’t argue with that logic. Making sure that he was clearly\n visible in the spill from the headlights and blinking hazards, Menchú put\n out a thumb and Liam stepped a little farther into the verge at the side of\n the road.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n According to Liam’s calculations, they were only about fifteen kilometers\n from whatever had set off the Orb. Not much of a detour, even for someone\n in a hurry to get home at this late hour.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The throaty roar of the sports car was nearly on them, and the driver\nflashed his brights. Menchú held up his free hand to shade his eyes. \u003cem\u003eOh good\u003c/em\u003e, he thought, \u003cem\u003ethey see us.\u003c/em\u003e He allowed himself a\n moment of relief as he imagined a warm bed at the end of a long drive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Except the car wasn’t slowing down. An instant later, Menchú was jolted\n nearly off his feet as Liam yanked him back from the edge of the road. The\n car zoomed past without even slowing down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Bloody hell!” said Liam. He threw an obscene gesture in the direction of\n the car’s taillights, but it was already disappearing around the bend.\n “What’s got them in a such a hurry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú brushed himself off with shaking hands, ridding himself of the dust\n kicked up by the car’s passage and the bits of vegetation he’d acquired\n from his unexpected step into the hedge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So much for Spanish hospitality, hey?” said Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head, looking up and down the road. No sign of another\n vehicle. The stars glittered overhead, but in the distance, in the\n direction the car had gone, the horizon glowed. Menchú turned to Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fifteen kilometers, you said?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “More or less.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú sighed. “May as well start walking.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The plane landed in Wellington. Shah hailed a cab, which brought Team\n One—plus Sal—to the tattered end of the city’s port, where the private\n charters and scientific vessels docked away from the cargo ships and their\n towering stacks of containers. From the cab they boarded a modest vessel\n and headed out to sea. Hours passed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the port side of the boat, out of sight of the wheelhouse and the aft\n deck, Grace stood alone at the rail. The rest of Team One was busy laying\n out a combination of magical weaponry they carefully kept out of view from\n the captain and mundane scuba equipment that they didn’t. She removed a\n small notebook from her pocket, checked her watch, paused for a moment,\n staring into space as though performing some kind of mental calculation,\n and made a series of hash marks before returning the notebook to her\n pocket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boat rocked under her feet. Not the steady passing of the swells on the\n choppy waters, but a gout of water erupting from the deep. Grace stared,\n transfixed, as the water fell away and revealed a serpentine neck covered\n in glittering scales that rose . . . and rose . . . and rose . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before Shah had come to the Society, her training had not included “what to\n do when a giant sea monster rises from the Pacific and tries to eat your\n boat.” But the truth was that the lessons she had learned in the military\n were highly transferable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lesson one: How to keep your head when the situation goes pear-shaped and\n any sensible person would GTFO and wish for their brown pants.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Step one: Follow procedure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Team, sound off and report!” she barked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she listened to and mentally logged what the others echoed back to her,\n she let her eyes take in the whole of the situation before her. Well, the\n whole of the situation that she could see. No way of knowing how much\n monster was still under the water.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah estimated the head was six meters above them now, water streaming from\n its feathery green beard and splatting down on them, accompanied by a wash\n of fetid breath that smelled of rotted fish, salt, and the deep, dark\n places of the sea.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was definitely aware of the boat. “Hold!” Shah called, and didn’t have\n to look to know that Soo and Ellsdale would be frozen at the ready. It was\n possible that the creature was more curious than hostile. Not that they\n could leave it in either case. Curious monsters, like toddlers, were apt to\n break the objects of their curiosity. Also, it was still a monster, and the\n Society was not in the business of letting unnatural creatures roam free.\n But if it wasn’t yet attacking them, they could use the time to gather\n information and observations. Information that might just save their lives,\n or someone else’s, when the battle was finally joined.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The creature opened its mouth, revealing two glittering rows of razor-sharp\n teeth. \u003cem\u003eNot a krill eater, then\u003c/em\u003e, Shah thought, and drew\n her sword.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Darts, now!” Shah called.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Team One had higher turnover than the other branches of the Society, but\n what they lacked in years, they made up for with constant practice. At\n Shah’s word, Ellsdale fired a volley of four darts from the pistol he had\n readied the instant the sea monster had appeared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All four—silver, lead, iron, and bone—hit their mark. The creature reared\n back, startled, but not, Shah thought, in significant pain. Each hit bled,\n but none smoked, steamed, or showed any other particular reaction.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ellsdale called out confirmation of her assessment: “Four by corporeal.\n Zero by sensitive. Follow up with elementals?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Negative,” said Shah. “Ready archers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the main, the Society’s magic weapons ran more toward melee than\n projectiles. It made sense. Once you fired a magic arrow, you seldom got it\n back. However, if this creature was vulnerable to mundane artillery, there\n was no reason for her people to get closer to those teeth than they had to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At Shah’s order, Ellsdale traded his dart gun for an RPG launcher, and Soo\n nocked a modern composite arrow into her longbow. Asanti believed it had\n been crafted from lumber salvaged from the \u003cem\u003eArgo\u003c/em\u003e, but all they knew\n for sure was that it imparted uncanny accuracy to even a novice marksman.\n Soo was not a novice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fire when—” Shah saw unexpected movement in the corner of her eye. An\n instant later, Grace was barreling across the deck, as if to leap over the\n rail and onto the sea monster. “HOLD!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah wasn’t sure if she was yelling at Grace not to get herself eaten or at\n Ellsdale and Soo not to shoot the newest member of their team. In any\n event, only the latter two listened. Grace swarmed up the neck of the\n creature, silver sword strapped to her back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fuck me,” muttered Soo. Privately, Shah agreed. But before Shah could even\n formulate a new order for her team or a useful response to Grace, Grace had\n perched herself on the back of the sea monster’s head, clinging with her\n thighs to a neck as thick as a century oak. The beast thrashed madly,\n trying to reach, or at least throw off, the annoyance on its neck, but\n Grace had pinched her knees in behind the hinge of its jaw, placing herself\n at least two meters from the snapping snout. Grace pulled out her sword,\n glowing with runes and mystic power, and drove it through the back of the\n neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The monster writhed in pain and shock. A second neat slice and the severed\n head dropped to the deck, accompanied by a spurt of noxious fluids. Grace\n landed easily on her feet beside the growing puddle as, behind her, the\n remains of the monster sank beneath the waves.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the other side of the world, it was nearing midnight as Liam and Menchú\n reached the coordinates identified by the Orb, the small village of San\n Lupino and the source of the light on the horizon. Liam noticed the new\n construction scattered around the village square, architectural steel\n glinting in the shadows of medieval stone, sometimes in the same facade. He\n wondered how that had gone over with the local planning commission. In his\n experience, people who lived in old places liked to keep them old-looking.\n Then again, enough small communities had collapsed in the global recession\n that maybe the old residents had been glad to see new money in the local\n economy. Maybe the old residents had simply died off.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The streetlights were on, but no one was out. Which struck Liam as odd. He\n had never known the Spanish to be early to bed/early to rise types.\n Midnight in Madrid was “we’re finally done with dinner and now it’s time to\n hit the streets” time. Maybe schedules were different outside the city.\n Even Spanish cows didn’t sleep in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As they crossed the square, however, one door did open: a small building\n beside the village church. \u003cem\u003eThe rectory?\u003c/em\u003e A man in an outfit very\nmuch like Menchú’s emerged and motioned for them to approach. \u003cem\u003eYup, definitely the rectory.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father!” the priest called from the doorway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father,” Menchú replied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThis is going to get old fast\u003c/em\u003e, Liam thought. But soon they were inside, and the priest introduced\n himself as Lopez.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you doing walking into town at this hour?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú explained their circumstances, and Liam took the opportunity to look\n around. The rectory was a cozy, welcoming space, filled with comfortably\n battered furniture and heavy rugs to cushion the stone floor. Still, there\n was only so much that window planters could do to obscure the fact that the\n stone walls were at least three feet thick. The place had to be five\n centuries old if it was a day. Had it been built to survive a siege, or was\n it just the style back then to build as though you intended your church to\n stand until doomsday?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez clucked his tongue as Menchú told him about nearly being run\n over by a sports car.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Rich foreigners,” he sighed. “They buy a summer house and then treat the\n roads here like their private race track. You are not hurt?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú assured the other priest that he was fine, if a bit footsore from\n their unplanned hike, and Father Lopez insisted that they accept his\n hospitality for the night. “We have no hotels here and there is plenty of\n room.” His face was perfectly open and earnest as he added, “No man of God\n should roam our streets at midnight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had accepted the offer of beds for the night, and after he and Liam\n were shown to their rooms—connected by a bathroom—they assured themselves\n they were alone and then took the opportunity to debrief.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whatever set off the Orb, it’s definitely nearby,” said Liam, looking up\n from his laptop.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In the village?” asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Probably,” Liam agreed, barely managing the words around the massive yawn\n that suddenly surfaced to nearly split his face. “Sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú waved him off. “No, no. Father Lopez is right. Roaming the streets\n in the middle of the night will help nothing. We’ll get some rest and\n investigate in the morning.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú turned to go back to his room, but in the confusion of his own\n fatigue, went to the door that led back to the hall, not to the shared\n bath. He paused.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Something the matter?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stood at the door, hand on the knob, frowning. “We seem to be locked\n in,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Having successfully survived—or, more accurately, ignored—Shah’s lecture on\n proper procedures for engagement and the importance of team coordination\n and respect for the chain of command, Grace found a bit of privacy toward\n the stern of the boat. She had just pulled out her notebook and was\n checking her watch when Sal stepped up to the rail a few feet away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It struck Grace as a calculated distance. Close enough to be in easy\n conversational range, far enough to have plausible deniability.\n \u003cem\u003e\n What? No, I didn’t come out here to stand next to you. I just decided\n to casually stand here and admire this patch of water that is exactly\n like every other bit of water that surrounds this boat. Why? Did\n \u003c/em\u003e\n you \u003cem\u003ewant to talk about something?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace ignored her. But she did make a note of the time. Exactly forty-three\n seconds later, Sal said, as though to no one in particular, “I haven’t\n heard anything from Menchú or Liam yet. Have you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace resisted the urge to roll her eyes, but only just. “No,” she said.\n “But I’m not on Team Three anymore. They would have no reason to contact\n me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hope they didn’t run into any trouble.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Trouble is part of the job.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah,” said Sal, “but if they do, we’re all on the other side of the\n planet. Doesn’t that worry you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace gave in to the eye-roll urge. “If there’s something you want to ask\n me, Sal, ask. Otherwise, I’ll go back to my book.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not reading. You haven’t been since before Belfast. And don’t give\n me \u003cem\u003eThe Da Vinci Code\u003c/em\u003e. When I offered to loan you my copy back in\n Rome you said you’d rather read shampoo bottles.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Was there a question in there?” asked Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You stop reading, you ask for a transfer, you act like you don’t care\n about your old team, and you just defied orders to throw yourself at a sea\n monster. Are you okay? And to be clear, when I say that, what I mean is:\n ‘Why are you being an asshole?’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Three months ago, Menchú had caught Grace digging through his desk.\n When he asked what she was looking for, she gave him a bullshit excuse\n about needing old photos to confirm the date of a mission they’d gone\n on together in the Yucatán not long after she had joined the team.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n If he didn’t believe her, he hadn’t given any sign. He’d simply nodded\n and indicated his many albums. “You’re welcome to borrow the photos\n anytime,” he said. “Keep them for as long as you need.”\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Grace had taken two of the earliest volumes and made her escape. His\n voice caught her at the door.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e“Grace,” he asked, “are you all right?”\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace gave Sal the same answer she had given Menchú: “I’m fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door of the locked guest room popped open with a small click and swung\n silently back on its hinges, revealing a darkened corridor beyond.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Following behind Menchú, Liam kept his voice low, but could not resist\n asking, “Where exactly did a priest learn how to pick a lock?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is the duty of every revolutionary to improve him- or herself so that\n they may best aid in the struggle,” Menchú answered. Off Liam’s confusion\n he added, “You aren’t the only one with a colorful past, you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought you joined the priesthood when you were eighteen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. In Guatemala. In the 1980s.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Aside from their own footsteps, the rectory was completely silent. They\n passed Father Lopez’s bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was open.\n The room lights were out, but the illumination that spilled through from\n the single barred window was more than enough to show the narrow bed was\n still perfectly made up and unoccupied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam looked at Menchú, brow raised. There were no other lights on inside\n the rectory. No sound of footsteps in the kitchen or rustle of pages from\n the living room. The pipes were silent. The building had the feel of a\n place not just quiet, but empty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is going on here?” Liam whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By unspoken agreement, the two men made their way to the kitchen. Unlike\n the front entrance, which was made of heavy oak boards wrapped with iron\n bands, here they found a modern security door that opened easily onto the\n back garden.\n \u003cem\u003e\n So we won’t be burned alive in the event of a fire . . . as long as we\n can break out of our bedrooms\n \u003c/em\u003e\n .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam caught a glimpse into the pantry. It was stacked high with tinned meat\n and sardines. “Do you get the feeling that this place is bracing for a\n siege?” he asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re certainly preparing for something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They stepped outside. The garden overlooked the churchyard, filled with\n overgrown and tilted graves. The town’s streetlights had gone out, but the\n glow of the moon cast the entire scene in a silver light that set the hair\n at the back of Liam’s neck on end.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then he saw a dark shadow slip among the headstones. It wasn’t much, a\n glint of moonlight on shaggy fur before the shadow froze again, but once he\n knew where to look, Liam could see an immense lupine head, nose up and\n scenting the air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It turned and looked right at Liam. Time froze. And then the animal’s snout\n pointed skyward and a piercing howl split the night.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A second howl joined the first. And a third. And a fourth. Soon, a chorus\n filled the air. Dozens of wolves all calling to heaven. Until—as though\n cued by a signal only they could hear—they stopped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the darkness of the churchyard, a pair of bestial eyes glowed red. Liam\n couldn’t look away, afraid that if he did he would see dozens more, staring\n from every direction. Afraid that if he looked away for even a second—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He blinked. It was only an instant, but in the space of a heartbeat, the\n eyes rushed toward him, accompanied by a growl that had nothing to do with\n a combustion engine, and the wolf leapt at Liam’s throat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n \u003cp\u003e\n Menchú seized Liam’s collar and hauled back with all his might. In his\n youth, he might have been strong enough to pull the other man off his feet\n and fling him bodily back into the rectory kitchen, safely on the other\n side of the suddenly explicable steel security door. In his age, Menchú\n supplemented his physical strength with force of personality.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam! Back!” Menchú’s tone penetrated the haze that locked Liam’s muscles\n and together the two men stumbled backward inside, only inches ahead of the\n wolf. Liam flung the door closed behind them with a crunch of bone and a\n pained yip. The wolf recoiled, jerking its foreleg out of the way, and Liam\n slammed and locked the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sorry I froze there,” panted Liam. “Some really nasty dogs in the\n neighborhood growing up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Outside, the wolves sent up a new chorus of howls, and Menchú stuffed his\n hands into his pockets so that Liam wouldn’t see them shaking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam eyed the door. “Do you think it would be overkill to shove the kitchen\n table against it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú gauged the heavy wooden object, easily a few hundred years old.\n “Probably,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the time they were done pushing the table into place, the howls were\n closer and louder than ever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal found the captain, a woman by the name of Coker, as tough and weathered\n as her boat, in the wheelhouse, staring out at the waves, seemingly lost in\n thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Am I disturbing you?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The captain shook her head, not taking her eyes off the horizon. “You know,\n I’ve met a lot of oceanographers in my time. And if that’s what you’re\n sticking with, that’s your business, but I couldn’t help but notice the sea\n monster head you’ve got under a tarp on my deck.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah,” said Sal. “Sorry about that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The captain fixed Sal with a glare that would have done Fox proud. “I’ve\n got no quarrel with you folks. That thing is better decapitated on my deck\n than alive and eating my home and livelihood. You hired me to get you here,\n not to ask questions, but if there’s more things out there like that, those\n of us who will still be here after you go back to wherever you came from\n deserve to know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal nodded. “That’s actually what I’m here for. Could I use your sat\n phone?” She held up her cell. “Turns out global coverage doesn’t cover\n international waters.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A few minutes later, Sal was talking to Asanti over the crackling\n connection. She’d asked the captain for privacy, but the captain had just\n raised her eyebrow and gone back to staring at the water.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey,” said Sal, “what do your sources have to say about the situation down\n here? Have things quieted down?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My sources?” Sal could hear Asanti’s amusement loud and clear at least.\n “You mean the Orb? Are we speaking in code now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not alone. And yes, that’s what I mean. Has it gone quiet?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not noticeably. Why?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, we just killed a sea monster and were kind of hoping that would\n solve the problem.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Really, Sal,” said Asanti. “You won’t say ‘Orb’ but you’re willing to talk\n about a sea monster?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everyone here has seen the sea monster.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A sigh. “I suppose. To answer your question, even if the Orb were quiet\n about your area, I’d be skeptical. Scientists in New Zealand thought they\n were dealing with an earthquake; I doubt a sea monster could have caused\n that. Unless . . .” She paused. “How large of a sea monster was it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s big, but probably not earthquake big,” Sal admitted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then there’s your answer,” said Asanti. “Oh, but you might be interested\n to know, I did some checking. A small vessel disappeared in your area a few\n days ago. If this is book-related, you might be looking at a wizard who got\n in over their head. Summoned the monster and then got themselves eaten for\n their trouble.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why wasn’t this in the initial brief?” asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There was no distress call, no wreckage found. The boat wasn’t reported\n missing until a few hours ago.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay,” said Sal. “I’ll tell Shah. Has there been any word from Menchú and\n Liam?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing yet.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal pushed down a rush of worry. While she knew that they had gotten along\n without her for years before she came on the scene, Sal still didn’t like\n the idea of Menchú and Liam on their own. “I’ll try to hurry things up\n here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After hanging up and returning the phone to Captain Coker, Sal paused. “You\n should know that if you tell anyone about what you saw out here, a bunch of\n people in black suits are likely to show up to make your life difficult.”\n As the captain continued to stare at her, Sal added, “I’m sorry, that’s\n just the way it is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Girl,” the captain said, “I live on this boat. Most of the year, I can’t\n even see land. I don’t do that because I enjoy talking to people.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she left the wheelhouse, Sal felt the ship lurch beneath her. That\n sudden roll of the deck could only mean one thing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal came to a skidding stop at the stern of the boat. On the deck, the\n severed sea monster head still lay under its tarp. Above, two others now\n seethed and writhed, still very much attached to their necks. Team One was\n already engaged with the head on the left. Ellsdale swung a large chain in\n lazy circles in the air, golden links shimmering in the sun with a dazzling\n intensity that the creature seemed hesitant to approach. Soo had donned the\n brass backpack Sal had seen her inspecting on the plane. She leapt into the\n air and Sal saw that she had been wrong. The brass and steel construction\n wasn’t a jetpack. It was a pair of shining wings.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Once in the sky, Soo caught the loose end of Ellsdale’s chain as it flicked\n by, then dove, nearly crashing into the deck, only to pivot up at the last\n moment, looping the chain around the left creature’s neck. Ellsdale braced\n himself against the rail. Soo soared back, wings beating fast and strong\n against the air, pulling hard with all of their might. The chain smoked\n against the monster’s skin, and both heads let out throaty cries.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eBoth heads?\u003c/em\u003e\n Sal thought, but that was as far as she had time to get before she was\n leaping out of the way of the freshly severed sea monster head crashing\n onto the boat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excellent!” Shah was shouting. “Now the other one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ellsdale and Soo moved to get into position, but Grace was already at the\n edge of the deck, sword out, daring the second creature to come down into\n range. The sea monster snapped at her, but whipped back whenever any of the\n team got too close.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Be patient,” Shah called. “We can wait it out. Stay ready, and when you\n see your chance, take it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal tried to come up with something useful she could do. Would throwing one\n of the severed heads back overboard distract the monster at all? Probably\n not, and she doubted that anyone at the Society would approve of her\n leaving sea monster heads floating around for random fishermen to drag up\n in their nets. The pitching of the deck had caused the tarp covering the\n original creature’s head to slide off, leaving it lying in the open beside\n the one Soo and Ellsdale had just severed. The two heads were absolutely\n identical. \u003cem\u003eLike a clone\u003c/em\u003e, Sal thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The last monster lunged forward, and Grace caught it under the jaw with her\n sword. The blow wasn’t enough to decapitate it, but it held it still long\n enough for Soo and Ellsdale to make their move, neatly trapping the neck\n and garroting it just as they had the last one. The severed neck sent a\n splash of viscous brown fluid across the deck and everyone on it. Sal\n caught the spray across her shins, but she barely noticed. The third head\n perfectly matched the other two.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n First one head alone, then two together . . . all exactly the same.\n What if this wasn’t a case of multiple monsters, but a single monster\n with multiple heads? Cut one off\n \u003c/em\u003e\n . . . The water where one of the paired necks had gone down churned.\n “Guys—” Sal called. But everyone’s attention was fixed on the water.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two more heads rose from the deep. Even as they watched, the water began to\n boil where the last neck stump had gone down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah cursed. “A hydra.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How are we going to burn the neck stumps in the middle of the ocean?”\n asked Soo.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Doesn’t matter,” said Ellsdale. “Fire just slows it down. The only way to\n stop a hydra from re-growing is to find the one immortal head and destroy\n it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal was so distracted by the dipping and weaving monster heads that she\n didn’t notice Grace until she was standing on the deck rail. Silver sword\n in one hand, and an unlit torch in the other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace!” she screamed. “What are you doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, Grace turned to meet Sal’s eyes. She opened her mouth to\n speak.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In that moment of distraction, the sea monster reared up, swooped down, and\n swallowed Grace whole.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n \u003ch3\u003e 4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú did not sleep that night. About an hour before sunrise he heard\n something rattle the kitchen door. The table was still pressed against it,\n and the door did not budge. A few minutes later, he heard the front door\n open, followed by footsteps and the sound of Father Lopez indulging in a\n low litany of muttered complaints.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú did not move from his place until he heard Lopez shower and emerge\n again, and the smell of fresh coffee had begun to waft down from the\n kitchen. He collected Liam from his room and together both men made their\n way to the kitchen. They found Lopez seated at the table, which had been\n moved back to its usual spot, sipping his coffee. He held the cup awkwardly\n in his left hand, letting the right lie uselessly in his lap.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He forced a smile to his lips. “Good morning. If you want coffee, feel free\n to help yourselves. Or if you’d like to return to your car immediately, I\n can call one of the neighbors to help you. I would take you myself, but I\n have some parishioners coming this morning. Premarital counseling.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam scoffed. “Oh come off it. Did you really think that we were just going\n to show up to breakfast like nothing happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what do you think happened?” asked Father Lopez.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shrugged. “I, for one, think that the town is full of werewolves.”\n As he made this pronouncement, Menchú walked over to the counter and helped\n himself to the coffee. Normally, he was a tea drinker, but given how little\n sleep he had gotten, he wasn’t going to be picky about the source of his\n caffeine. “What confuses me,” he continued, as though this was a perfectly\n normal sort of thing to say, “is that your security door isn’t new. This is\n a small village. Surely you don’t need it to deter criminals, which implies\n that your condition and that of your neighbors is not a new one. But in\n that case, what has recently changed to bring this place to our attention?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez sagged. “Are you with the Inquisition?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There is no Inquisition anymore,” said Liam. “I think it’s called the\n Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez shot him a glare. “Doesn’t matter what they call it. It’s still the\n Inquisition.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stepped in. “In any event, we are not a part of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then who?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are with the Societas Librorum Occultorum.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve never heard of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shrugged. “Most people haven’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is your charge?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In brief, investigating things like werewolves. Which brings us back to my\n question. From what we saw and heard last night, it’s my guess that the\n entire town has been turned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez looked down at the table, shaking his head. “None of the\n villagers have been turned,” he said. “We were born this way. Have been for\n the last five hundred years.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú looked to Liam, and saw his own confusion echoed on the other man’s\n face. “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez let out a long, slow sigh. “We have had investigators from the\n Church here before. In the fifteenth century, this place came to the\n attention of the Inquisition. I don’t know why they came. Maybe for the\n same reason you have.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú heard Liam mutter, “Doubt that,” but ignored it and motioned for\n Father Lopez to continue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At first, they were welcomed by the people. After all, they were good\n Catholics, why wouldn’t they want to find and expel any heretics in their\n midst? But the Inquisitors were more interested in lining their pockets\n than defending the faith. The people here have never had much. That didn’t\n stop the Inquisitors from extorting the people. And so the villagers went\n to their local priest for help.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At the time, there was a small Franciscan monastery attached to the\n church; the abbot and his brothers gathered everyone inside, and they\n prayed for God to deliver them. They even brought out their most holy\n relic, a tooth of the Wolf of Gubbio, which had been tamed by Saint Francis\n himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Inquisitors gathered around the church, threatening to burn everyone\n inside if they did not emerge and submit to them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez paused. Menchú realized that he and Liam were leaning in. He\n made a conscious effort to relax his posture, to be as nonthreatening as\n possible as he asked, “And then what happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who can be sure? It was five centuries ago. No one who was there is still\n alive today. But we are told that at midnight, the church bell—all on its\n own—began to toll. A strange light filled the chapel, and the Inquisition\n decided our little village was not such a hotbed of heresy after all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because the Inquisitors were eaten by wolves?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As I said, I was not there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú frowned. “Does this happen every night?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez shook his head again. “No, usually only a few times a year. And no,\n it isn’t tied to the full moon. There are certain feast days, anniversaries\n of the original miracle. Or times when the village is in danger and we are\n called to defend it. This was one of the few places relatively untouched by\n the Civil War.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You call this a miracle?” asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez frowned at him. “Of course. It was brought about by the prayers of\n the faithful and a holy relic of Saint Francis. What else could it be?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s turn to furrow his brow. “You say that the residents transform\n when they need to defend the village. Why last night, then? Surely two\n strangers walking into town after their car broke down isn’t a significant\n threat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, of course not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez sighed. “The expats. They cause every other problem around here. I’m\n sure they’re somehow responsible for bringing you down on our heads as\n well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stared into the water as though the sheer force of her will could cause\n Grace to rise to the surface. But there was nothing to see but sunlight\n glittering on undulating waves.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Soo and Ellsdale had tried to snare the head that had swallowed Grace,\n attempting to slice the neck before Grace was too far down its gullet, but\n the hydra had withdrawn, diving so that it could—presumably—digest its\n morsel unmolested. Only a quick grab from Soo had prevented Sal from\n jumping over the side to follow it. Shah commended Soo for her quick\n thinking, condemned Sal as an idiot, and then she and Ellsdale had\n immediately donned their scuba gear to go after the hydra in a less\n suicidal manner.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They had yet to return. Although Sal acknowledged that free diving after a\n sea monster was a stupid idea, especially when her only experience at depth\n was trying to touch the bottom of the diving pool at the Y, it didn’t stop\n her from wishing that she was down there with them. At least then she would\n be doing something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A call from Soo pulled Sal out of her own frustration. “I’ve got\n something!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal readied a flare gun she’d commandeered and ran to her. The water a few\n meters off the port side was roiling from beneath, a stream of bubbles that\n grew larger and stronger as a dark form reached the surface.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hold fire,” called Soo. “Friendly!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal resisted the urge to point out that she was neither in Soo’s chain of\n command nor a total idiot, and instead lowered the muzzle of the flare.\n Divers surfaced much more slowly than the hydra had, and she hadn’t felt\n the roll of the ship that presaged the last two encounters. But Sal still\n held her breath, waiting to see how many, and which heads would break out\n of the water.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The first face emerged: Ellsdale.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A moment later, Shah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal watched, waiting. Hoping. But there was no one else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We followed it down to two hundred meters,” said Shah, once she was on\n deck. “But then we lost the light and had to turn back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can you get better lights and try again?” Sal asked. “Go deeper?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah shook her head. “The problem isn’t the light,” she said. “It’s the\n pressure. One hundred fifty meters is the deepest that anyone has claimed\n to have dived on compressed air, and that was never officially verified. We\n can go deeper because we brought hypoxic breathing gas.” Shah tapped her\n tank. “But I didn’t see the hydra swallow any of our tanks when it grabbed\n Grace. Even if we assume Grace survived being swallowed, if the hydra took\n her deeper than we can see, she’s dead.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But it’s Grace,” said Sal. “You’re trying to apply logic to a sea monster\n swallowing a woman who is—” She cut herself off. She didn’t know if Team\n One knew all of Grace’s secrets or not. Even if they did, they weren’t hers\n to tell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah nodded. “I know. But just because Grace is durable doesn’t mean that\n she’s indestructible.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t just abandon her. What happened to ‘no man left behind?’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah didn’t blink. “I will not leave her if I have a choice. But I also\n have a job to do. Grace knows that.” Shah finished stripping off her\n equipment and made her way toward the ship’s wheelhouse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where are you going?” asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “To contact Asanti and find out if Grace completed the mission.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hundreds of meters below the surface, Grace managed to worm her hand down\n from where it was pinned against her chest into one of her many pockets.\n She had to give Shah one thing: While cargo pants might not be very\n fashion-forward, they did make it easier to carry things that might come in\n handy, even in the most unlikely of circumstances.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Being swallowed whole by a sea monster, for example.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her fingers closed around a nylon strap connected to a rectangular piece of\n plastic, and Grace began the slow process of pulling it out of her pocket\n and back up to her head. She had sworn, when Shah first laid out her gear,\n that there was no circumstance so dire that she would resort to strapping a\n flashlight to her head. Shah had shrugged and insisted she carry the\n headlamp anyway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It would seem that she owed Shah an apology.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On the other hand, if she never got out of the belly of this thing, it was\n all going to be rather moot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Light in place, Grace clicked it on, rendering her immediate surroundings\n visible, if no more pleasant. At least her eyes confirmed what her sense of\n touch and smell had already told her. She was in a small, wet, muscular\n space, like being squeezed by a giant slimy fist that smelled of dead fish,\n salt, and bile. If she pressed her arms out in front of her to their full\n extension, she could create enough space to tilt her head and look toward\n her feet. As she did so, she felt the walls around her ripple from her feet\n upward, followed by a gush of cold seawater that swept by her face before\n vanishing into the dark again. As it did so, Grace slid forward and caught\n a glimpse of a thick sphincter up ahead.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not in the belly yet, then.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Not that being slowly swallowed down the esophagus of a sea monster was\n much of an improvement.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The salty water stung her exposed skin, and Grace wriggled around to shine\n her light on her hand. Her palm was red and sore, coated in a yellowish\n fluid, secreted by the creature around her. But even as she watched, she\n could see she was healing faster than the acid ate at her flesh. Which was\n definitely what Sal would call a “good news, bad news” scenario.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Good news: She wasn’t going to be eaten alive by the gastric juices of a\n magical sea monster. Bad news: If the creature’s digestion wasn’t going to\n finish her off, how long could she survive in here?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She tried to stop herself, but her brain was already doing the math.\n Standard burn rate, slightly accelerated because of lack of food, slightly\n slower because she wasn’t moving, couldn’t move . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The number was only a rough estimate, but it was enough to make her\n shudder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Twenty years.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Unless someone in Rome put out her candle, of course. Then she could be\n here forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The monster swallowed again, and this time Grace wiggled with the\n contraction, forcing herself farther down the winding throat. She had lost\n her torch and sword when she was swallowed. The trauma of the mouth coupled\n with the distraction of Sal’s shout. But logically, everything had to end\n up in the same place eventually.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The hydra had one immortal head. Heracles had defeated the creature by\n putting it under a rock. Apparently, someone had let it go again. Grace\n gritted her teeth and slid forward another half meter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She would have to find a bigger rock this time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú and Liam left Father Lopez in the rectory kitchen staring into his\n cup of coffee, and returned to their rooms.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Contact Asanti,” Menchú told Liam. “See if she can find any documentation\n to support the story that Father Lopez told us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You really think the Vatican is going to have a record of the miracle of\n the small Spanish village where everyone turned into a werewolf and then\n ate the Inquisition?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps not, but they may well have a record of the tiny Spanish town\n where the Inquisition came and then was never heard from again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you buy his theory for what’s changed? Why the Orb is only pinging this\n place now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The new people coming to town? It’s possible. For all we know, one of the\n newcomers is a wizard, and the werewolves have nothing to do with\n anything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam snorted. “Or rich expats started running over wolves and the wolves\n started biting back. Turning a bunch of people could set off the Orb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If Father Lopez was telling the truth, the villagers weren’t turned by\n being bitten,” Menchú pointed out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it to other people if they wanted to. I’ve\n watched a lot of old horror movies. Werewolves always bite.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú didn’t bother to hide his smile. Liam had worked so hard to earn it,\n after all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But seriously,” Liam continued, “if this town is full of werewolves,\n should we really be hanging around?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So Menchú hadn’t been the only one pondering that question. “If we leave\n now, we’ll have to tell Cardinal Fox why, and he’ll send in Team One.” He\n let the implications of what would then follow go unsaid, trusting Liam to\n connect the dots himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Might be the only way to solve the problem.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’d rather we explore our other options first. And at least we know that\n here the doors lock.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam rolled his eyes. “I feel better already. And what are you going to do\n while I’m calling Asanti?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú turned for the door. “We’ve heard Father Lopez’s side of the story.\n I’d like to talk to someone who might have warmer feelings about new people\n buying property in town.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Upon leaving the rectory, Menchú surveyed the tiny village square. The day\n was sunny, peaceful, and perfectly normal. Residents walked between shops,\n sat at the café, and generally acted just like people who hadn’t turned\n into wolves the night before. Menchú exchanged polite greetings, asked a\n few innocuous questions, and eventually found what he was looking for on\n the side of the square almost directly opposite the church—the local real\n estate office. It was a modest storefront: the front window was filled with\n neat rows of property listings, and beside the door a small brass sign\n read, “Hannah Abasolo, Agente.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Upon entering to the quiet chime of a discreet bell, Menchú found the woman\n in question seated behind her desk. She was somewhere in her middle\n forties, and wore a smart spring suit only somewhat at odds with a floppy\n straw hat and oversized sunglasses that gave the impression she had just\n driven in from Ibiza.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hello,” she greeted him. Her Spanish was lightly accented with something\n that seemed familiar to Menchú, but that he couldn’t quite place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hello,” he replied. “I have just arrived in town and wondered if you could\n answer a few questions for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman paused, looking him up and down, and then smiled. “Of course,\n Father,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú frowned. As a precaution, he had removed his collar before leaving\n the rectory, just in case Father Lopez wasn’t the only resident wary that a\n strange priest might be an Inquisitor in disguise. Menchú was about to ask\n what had given him away when the woman took off her sunglasses and he saw\n her eyes for the first time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The eyes had changed since the last time he had seen them: light\n silver-gray so as to be almost white, with tiny black pupils instead of\n undifferentiated white from lid to lid. But Menchú knew them instantly. And\n with that, he recognized the voice as well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A voice he had last heard from the throat of a young boy in Guatemala,\n uttering his last words before slitting his own throat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eLet this be a lesson to you.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman was still smiling, placid as she sat, cool and poised behind her\n desk. “I’m so glad you got my message, Father. It’s been such a long time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n \n \u003cp\u003e Menchú sputtered. “Your message? YOUR MESSAGE!” He was roaring; he couldn’t\n stop himself. He wanted to reach across the desk and shake the smug smile\n off her face. “You took over the body of a young boy, murdered an entire\n village, and then slit his throat!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She raised an eyebrow. “Yes,” she said calmly. “You asked me to protect the\n villagers from the rebels and from the army. I did. You didn’t specify that\n I had to leave them alone after that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whatever, whoever you are—” Menchú sputtered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Call me Hannah,” she said. “It will save time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Leave this place,” said Menchú. “It will save lives.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah walked casually from behind her desk, as though men came into her\n office ranting about her being a murderous angel so frequently it wasn’t\n worth getting excited over. “You’ve got quite the conundrum here: on the\n one hand are peaceful villagers living quietly for hundreds of years who\n just happen to be werewolves, which means they are monstrosities in the\n eyes of the Church, and must be destroyed. On the other, you’ve got a bunch\n of obnoxious foreigners who would run down a priest on the side of the\n road, but who are innocent of the corruption of magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú scowled at her. “You’re the reason I’m here, aren’t you?” he said.\n “Yet set off the Orb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “With the influx of so many new people, the truth was going to come out\n sooner or later. Someone will get a video of a red-eyed wolf on their cell\n phone; someone will put together the correlation between the wolves hit by\n cars in the night and the people who are found dead the next day. Now that\n the world has found their sanctuary, the residents won’t be able to go back\n to their lives of quiet isolation. All I did was give you a warning before\n the simmering pot boiled over. Solve the dilemma now, and you might be able\n to keep the secret that your Society is so devoted to a little bit longer.\n Hopefully, you learned your lessons from what happened last time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what was I supposed to learn?” growled Menchú. “That the devil can\n speak with the voice of God? That anything you touch ends in blood? Or was\n Asanti correct, were you trying to teach me to ‘make a better deal?’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah’s lips quirked. “That’s one solution. Although I doubt that it’s the\n route you’ll choose.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Getting through the ring of muscle that separated the serpent’s gullet from\n its stomach was hell. The agony of childbirth from the perspective of the\n child. But when Grace at last emerged, she found herself not in the bright\n cold world, but an immense cavern, hot and full of shadows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The acid was stronger here; Grace could feel it even through her heavy\n pants and boots, but for the first time in what felt like hours, she had\n enough room to stand, and she reveled in it, even if keeping her footing as\n the creature’s belly undulated around her was a challenge. The beam from\n her headlamp sliced the dark, revealing the swampy edge of an acidic sea.\n Around the walls of the chamber, multiple orifices gaped and closed.\n Passages from other necks to a single stomach.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace had been raised Christian, educated in schools built by missionaries\n sent to China from the West. The woman who had taught Grace in the second\n grade had been especially fond of the story of Jonah, either because of the\n moral that there was no escaping the call of God, or because she still had\n vivid memories of her own sea crossing. Grace feared that even if she\n waited for three days and three nights, God would not be commanding the\n hydra to cough her back up again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Methodically, Grace swept the surface of the stomach acid with her light,\n looking for the telltale glint of the Society’s magic sword, or her torch.\n She was halfway through her search when, out of the corner of her eye, she\n caught a glimpse of something moving.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace was not alone in the belly of the beast.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú returned and found Father Lopez ensconced in his office with two\n parishioners. He couldn’t hear more than murmurs through the door, but it\n was possible that the story about a couple doing their premarital\n counseling hadn’t been a complete fabrication. Satisfied that the other man\n would remain occupied for a while, Menchú returned to the guest rooms,\n where Liam was still on the phone with Asanti. Seeing him enter, Liam put\n the phone on speaker, allowing the archivist’s voice to fill the room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I found one thing that may verify Father Lopez’s story,” Asanti was\n saying, her tone cool and professional, with little of its accustomed\n warmth. “Five hundred years ago, our understanding of the Orb was very\n primitive—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As opposed to how well we understand it now,” muttered Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But the medieval archivists did keep meticulous records of its activities,\n and it appears that there was a flare in your area during the time Father\n Lopez mentioned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did any of the teams investigate?” asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not that I can tell,” said Asanti, “but the Society and the Inquisition\n were quite close at the time; they may have handed the matter over to\n them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And then just buggered off when they never heard back?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This was the fifteenth century, Liam,” said Asanti. “They wouldn’t have\n been expecting a response for months. They might have forgotten about it.\n Or the Inquisition may have chosen not to advertise that a whole party of\n Inquisitors got eaten.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you find any other cases of lycanthropy?” Menchú asked. He braced\n himself for an acerbic reply from Asanti, but it was not forthcoming.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Quite a few, actually. Many of them have even been verified. Which I\n suppose shouldn’t be surprising. All those myths had to come from\n somewhere. Unfortunately, none of Frances’s research implies that this is a\n condition that can be cured. Once you’ve been bitten, you’re a werewolf,\n full stop.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What about cases where people were made into werewolves by a means other\n than being bitten?” Menchú asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I haven’t found any,” said Asanti. “It always comes back to a bite at some\n point.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam gave Menchú a look that he easily read as \u003cem\u003eI told you so\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú caught his foot tapping, and began to pace instead. There had to be\n a way out of this problem that did not involve the murder of an entire\n town. \u003cem\u003eThis time.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took a deep breath. “What about the relic that Father Lopez mentioned?\n The tooth of the Wolf of Gubbio?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing beyond the basic story. Although . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In the story, the wolf begins by eating livestock in and around Gubbio.\n Then it graduates to eating people, until everyone in the city is so\n frightened that they refuse to leave their homes for fear of the wolf.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So they weren’t stupid,” said Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti continued, ignoring Liam’s interjection. “But then Saint Francis\n arrives, and being Saint Francis, he doesn’t kill the wolf. He made a\n bargain with it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He what?” Liam asked before Menchú could.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He told the wolf that it had sinned, but that if it didn’t eat the people\n or their animals anymore, the residents of the city would feed it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And that worked? For the people and the wolf?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “By all accounts, yes. It lived for two more years and when it died, the\n residents buried it under the church. They found nearly a full skeleton\n during renovations in the nineteenth century.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s feet finally stilled. “Are you saying you think I should make some\n kind of deal between the old residents and the new ones?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti let out a tart sigh. “I’m not saying you should do anything. You\n asked what I found, and that’s what we’ve come up with. I’m not cleared for\n the field, remember?” And with that, she hung up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam frowned at the cut connection. “The analogy kind of breaks down when\n the villagers are the wolves and also the ones getting killed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had to allow the point. “Worse, I think negotiating the effects of\n immigration and gentrification is a bit outside my areas of expertise.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Closer to yours than mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head. “What if we’re overthinking this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The original transformation was tied to an artifact. What do we do when we\n find magical artifacts?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We put them in a shroud and take them back to the Archives.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right. Let’s do that, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And then what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And then we’ll see what happens.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace glided as quickly as she could through an ever-shifting soup of\n half-digested fish, seawater, and stomach acid until she came to the deck\n of a small junk that appeared to have been bitten in half and then\n swallowed. After untold years bathed in acid, the teak boards of its deck\n were bleached bone white, but otherwise it was remarkably intact.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n On flat ground for the first time in hours, Grace stood a moment and\n listened to the silence, broken only by an occasional rumble of stomach\n muscles, or a bit of bile bubbling up. If she hadn’t been certain of what\n she had seen, she would have thought herself alone. When her unknown\n companion in the belly of the beast did not emerge, she called: “I’ve seen\n you, and we’re both stuck here, so you may as well come out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From the remains of the boat’s forward cabin, a woman stepped into the beam\n of Grace’s headlamp. Her eyes were so light that her pupils seemed to be\n floating all alone. “Hello,” she said. “I was hoping I would get to meet\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who are you?” asked Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Call me Hannah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t in the rectory; he wasn’t\n in the church next door. When Menchú and Liam went outside, they discovered\n the entire town deserted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam checked his watch. “I realize that we are in Spain at one in the\n afternoon, and everyone is probably having their siesta or whatever, but I\n don’t think this is a good sign.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head. Father Lopez already didn’t trust them. Had he heard\n them calling Rome and assumed the worst?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We need to go back to the church.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because we have to get to that relic before Father Lopez does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you looking for this?” Hannah asked. In one hand, she held an open\n book. Covered in ornately tooled leather, its brass locks had been made to\n resemble interlocking teeth. Even extensive crushing and water damage\n couldn’t disguise the mastery of its craftsmanship. “You won’t believe how\n difficult it was for me to find. The immortal head of the hydra. Ancient\n poets were so . . . poetic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace said nothing, and Hannah considered her. Grace had the sudden feeling\n that the other woman had looked straight through to her soul.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or maybe you weren’t looking for this at all. Maybe you were looking for\n something else. Death by sea monster?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace forced herself to show no outward reaction. “Suicide is a sin,” she\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So I’ve heard,” said Hannah. “But your . . . condition . . . puts you in\n an interesting theological position. Is having control over how and when\n you use your life the same as killing yourself? Or only if you use your\n life without purpose? Is that why you read all the time?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace hauled her fist and swung but the instant before she connected,\n Hannah shifted and Grace’s fist hit nothing but empty air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you’d burned, you could have hit me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t know anything about me,” said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, Grace,” said Hannah. “I know everything about you. I know how lonely\n you are watching your friends grow old and leave you one by one. I know\n you’ve determined how quickly your candle is burning, calculated the hours\n and days and interminable years that are left to you. I know you’ve\n considered burning yourself out in one last rush. A literal blaze of\n glory.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah looked around as Grace seethed. “This isn’t a bad place for it.\n Eaten by a sea monster is very definitive. No one would question it. You’d\n get a proper burial, if that’s important to you. Not that they would ever\n find your body.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She held out the book, offering it to Grace. “If you still think your job\n is important, you can close this before you go. Or not. Either way, it\n won’t be your problem anymore.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then Grace was holding the book, and Hannah was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The reliquary, placed behind the altar, was not hard for Menchú and Liam to\n find. It was also empty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam tucked the shroud he had brought back into his pocket. “So much for\n this being easy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A low growl broke the silence of the sanctuary.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wolf after wolf emerged from between the pews, pressing Liam and Menchú\n back against the altar, cutting off any possible avenue of escape.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Overhead—although there was no one to pull the rope—the church bell tolled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace held the book in her hands. So this was how it had felt for Eve in\n the moment after the serpent handed her the apple but before she brought it\n to her lips.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her heart pounded her in chest, drowning out every other sound. Faster,\n faster, faster . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cbr\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e6\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Lopez emerged last, still in human form, walking out of the deep\n shadows at the back of the small sanctuary. “You didn’t have to call the\n Vatican,” he said as he advanced toward Menchú. “You could have let us be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If Menchú was nervous, Liam could not detect any hint of it in his voice.\n “Father,” he said. “I assure you, if you are not harming others, we are no\n danger to you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s always an if, isn’t there?” Lopez’s voice came out with a nearly\n canine snarl. “If you’re a good Catholic, you have nothing to fear. If you\n are kind to your neighbors, they will be kind to you. Do you want to know\n what happened to the Inquisitors, Father? The monks couldn’t kill them. But\n they couldn’t risk letting them go either.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez was close enough for Liam to see his right hand was not empty. His\n fist was clenched, and from the cracks between his fingers, a strange light\n emerged. Liam had a pretty good guess what had happened to those\n Inquisitors.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So they made our secret their secret. And now the miracle that saved our\n ancestors will save us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “More people will come,” said Menchú. “The world is a smaller place than it\n was then. Your secret can’t be kept forever.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then we will turn them all. For the power of God is infinite! And his\n glory—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam sensed that his window to act was rapidly closing. Taking care not to\n startle Father Lopez or the wolves, he stepped in front of Menchú, passing\n him the shroud as he did. Lopez was too swept up in his monologue to\n notice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He felt the pressure of Menchú’s hand around his wrist in a warning\n squeeze. \u003cem\u003eNo, don’t do it. It’s not worth the risk.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nLiam appreciated the sentiment, but he remembered Asanti’s words. \u003cem\u003eOnce you’ve been bitten, you’re a werewolf, full stop.\u003c/em\u003e In Liam’s\n book, turning into a wolf, even if it was only a few times a year, was too\n close to being possessed for comfort, and he had no desire to add to his\n list of unintended sins.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez could break and lunge for them at any moment. As a man, his leap and\n reach would be shorter than as a wolf. Liam needed his own to be just a\n fraction of an inch longer. Just a little bit closer. Just a little bit . .\n .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The instant before Father Lopez leapt, Liam launched himself at the\n monologuing priest. In the same moment, four of the wolves surged for Liam.\n Fuck, he hadn’t counted on four of them. Two, maybe, but four? That was\n excessive. \u003cem\u003eDamn pack hunters.\u003c/em\u003e One caught him in the meat of his\n calf just as it left the ground. Eighty more pounds of teeth and claws hit\n Liam straight in the chest. He felt fangs digging into his right forearm,\nfollowed by the snap of a tendon behind his left knee. \u003cem\u003eJesus, Mary, Joseph. \u003c/em\u003eBut at least with the wolves busy with him,\n and Lopez taken by surprise, no one was looking at Father Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Menchú refused to let Liam’s reckless charge go to waste. In the\n instant Lopez was distracted, he seized the other priest’s neck in a choke\n hold. “Let it go,” he hissed into Lopez’s ear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never,” he replied. “You’ll have to kill me first. And you won’t do that.\n No priest would knowingly commit murder. Not with his bare hands.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú tightened his grip and watched Lopez’s face go purple. “This priest\n already has.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lopez went slack, enough for him to lose his grip on the relic. Menchú\n dropped him, scooped up the dry, cracked tooth, and wrapped it in the\n shroud.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Immediately, the wolves—four of them still with their teeth in Liam—froze.\n After a moment, they backed away. One moved its weight to its hind legs,\n and shifted back to human form. The others followed. They looked at\n themselves, naked—some bloodied—in the middle of the church, at Father\n Lopez and Liam unconscious on the floor. They turned to Menchú, mutely\n beseeching him for an explanation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There has been an accident,” he said. “Father Lopez called me in to help.\n We did what we could, but my associate has been wounded, and Father Lopez\n may need to be away for some time.” Then he added, “It would be best if you\n all went home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One of the women, blood smeared across her chin, found coats from a\n donation pile and distributed them to the others. As they left she turned\n back to Menchú one last time. “Were we sleepwalking again?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú blinked.\n \u003cem\u003e\n She doesn’t know. Her entire life, and Lopez never told her. Did he not\n tell any of them?\n \u003c/em\u003e\n He forced himself out of his reverie, and answered, “Yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think it’s getting worse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was,” he told her. She deserved that much truth at least. “But I think\n it will be better now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still dazed, the woman and the others made their way out of the sanctuary.\n Menchú’s heart went after them. A life of being lied to, and all he could\n offer her—courtesy of Hilary Sansone and her team—was more of the same. But\n that was Sansone’s problem.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú turned his attention to Liam’s wounds. Grave, but not\n life-threatening, he judged. Assuming prompt care, and no magical\n augmentation from the Wolf of Gubbio. He had managed to stanch the worst of\n the bleeding when he heard the sound of slow clapping from the back of the\n sanctuary, and looked up to see Hannah walking toward him down the aisle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So, you realized that all was not as it seemed. Maybe you have learned\n something since we last met.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could have told us that the villagers were innocent in this. That no\n one except Lopez had any idea what was going on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah clucked her tongue. “Oh no. I couldn’t do that. I’m very nearly too\n involved as it is. Were I to interfere any more, it would utterly\n compromise the experiment. And I’m hoping we can still salvage some of the\n data before everything sinks beneath the waves.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Experiment? What experiment? Whose?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah merely smiled and walked back up the aisle. “Word of advice,” she\n called back over her shoulder. “Put your team together. You’re going to\n want them for what’s coming.”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened the door, and as she left, the first rays of dawn came shining\n through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The sun set over the Pacific. Captain Coker had been making impatient\n noises for some time, but Sal didn’t care. She wasn’t moving until she knew\n for sure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said as much to Shah when she came to stand beside her at the rail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I understand,” said Shah. “The worst is not knowing. But I just got off\n the phone with Asanti. She says that the Orb has gone quiet.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace doesn’t set off the Orb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, but the sea monster did.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So whatever happened down there, Grace won.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s good. She should be coming up any time—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Orb went dark over an hour ago. She should have surfaced by now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked up, blinking back tears. “You can’t be sure of that—” But the\n words stopped in her throat. There was a light on the ocean.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah saw it too. “I told her she’d want that headlamp someday.” But Sal\n could hear the smile in her voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Light strapped to her head like a glowing crown, Grace swam toward them, a\n closed book clutched in one hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú told his team about his experience in Guatemala many years ago, how a magical being possessed a small boy in his village and killed every one of them while Menchú watched, helpless. Corporal Shah convinced Grace that she belonged on Team One, and Grace left Team Team Three. Her former colleagues have felt her loss acutely. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShah\u003c/strong\u003e: Leader of Team One.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCardinal Fox\u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Margaret Dunlap\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.143","slug":"Bookburners-s3e02","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E02.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E2.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E2.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E2.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 2"},{"id":"595fa74348e97e0001b644bc","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":3,"title":"Hard Bargain","released_date":"2017-08-02T12:24:22.499+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"The past is never far away. ","byline":"Andrea Phillips","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E03_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-08-02","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the dreams came, a few things were always constant. The angel was always present, of course. It walked in the body of a boy Mench\u0026uacute; once knew, mottled from face to fingertips with blood. The dreams always brought back the cries of the boy\u0026rsquo;s parents as they watched their son lovingly tear away their skin in thin, precise strips.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe dreams forced Mench\u0026uacute; to relive the way the cobbles of the market square ran with streams and rivers of blood, deep and wine-dark in the rising sun. God help them all, it had been beautiful, in its way.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen came the emptiness. Enduring the silence left in the angel\u0026rsquo;s wake, surrounded by the bodies of everyone he\u0026rsquo;d loved and everyone he\u0026rsquo;d failed, was worse, even, than the sounds of their suffering had been. Their dying hours were spent begging for their lives, but their silence afterward spoke of blame.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; had sat in the pools of blood all that first day, listening to the unspeaking dead, and for a time it seemed he would never move again. But the flies had gathered, and the carrion birds. He stirred to perform the one service he owed them: He gave his flock their last rites, every soul. He also laid to rest the spirits of the soldiers and rebels who had perished here; forgiving them might one day light the way to forgiving himself. It was a start.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt dusk he began to dig a grave for them all in a fallow field nearby. He worked for hours without rest, until the skin of his palms was shredded and his muscles ached as much as his heart. The dead must be buried. He was still digging when Father Hunter arrived.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose dreams were the worst: the ones where Mench\u0026uacute; dug endless graves, where there was nothing left for him but grief and guilt. That and the memory of pale, inhuman eyes watching, judging, mocking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; woke shivering, his face wet. There was no light from his window; it was painfully early. He rose anyway and splashed water into his eyes and on his cheeks, then leaned heavily on the edge of the basin.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHannah\u0026rsquo;s voice whispered in his ear, in his imagination. Not so far in the past as it had been:\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ePut your team together. You\u0026rsquo;re going to want them for what\u0026rsquo;s coming.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; knelt on the tile floor and prayed for guidance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAn envelope waited for him at the Archives, centered neatly on his desk. The paper was thick, and of course black for dramatic effect. The looping silver ink gleamed faintly in the artificial light. Not that this particular envelope needed to be addressed at all. Mench\u0026uacute; wondered, not for the first time, how it had arrived in his office; his usual mail was delivered to a box in a bland office in another building. If he asked, the Swiss Guard posted outside the door would insist that nobody had come in or out. Likely nobody had.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was a stroke of good fortune that the Maitresse was, if not a staunch ally, at least not a staunch enemy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; pinched the bridge of his nose. Now, with his head still full of nightmares and their resources stretched too thin, was not the best time for reminders of all the places where he and his team were powerless.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder the circumstances, the idea of walking into a marketplace full of supernatural phenomena and needing to maintain some cordial degree of diplomacy was actively repugnant. And not mere cowardice; he was rattled, and that would affect his ability to play the required role. If Liam came to him in this state, or if Sal did, he knew what he would tell them: \u003cem\u003eStay home. Someone else can go.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe weighed the envelope in his hands. \u0026ldquo;Stay home, Arturo,\u0026rdquo; he said aloud. \u0026ldquo;Someone else can go.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was a swish of fabric, and Asanti was at his desk. Her brows drew together. \u0026ldquo;Were you speaking to me?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What are you doing here?\u0026rdquo; she asked. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s early.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe looked at his watch. \u0026ldquo;I could ask the same of you,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;Am I not allowed to be here?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth; they were beneath him. And yet, he couldn\u0026rsquo;t stop himself lately. For a breath, he hoped that Asanti would make up for his shortcomings. Not so long ago he could have relied upon her to do so.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInstead, her lips tightened. Before she could frame a response, he pushed the envelope across the desk toward her by way of apology. \u0026ldquo;\u0026rsquo;Tis the season,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m sure you and the Maitresse have some catching up to do, so you should go this year, Asanti. Perhaps you and Frances? You\u0026rsquo;d get more out of it than anyone else.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti picked up the invitation. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;d already begun to make the arrangements.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; quirked an eyebrow at that; his was the name was on the invitation, not hers. But this time he kept his tongue in check. There was a looming absence between them, only detectable because once, not so long ago, something had been there.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe missed it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; went outside to eat his lunch, hoping that a warm breeze and some sunshine would improve his outlook and erase the last lingering traces of dreaming. But the day had shown him as many horrors as night over the years, and his brain unhelpfully painted those images over the faces of the people around him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe returned unrefreshed to find Cardinal Fox sitting at his desk, waiting with Asanti hovering over him, all but wringing her hands with dismay. Sal and Frances waited behind her, heads bowed and hands folded like children who had been given a good scolding.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cardinal cleared his throat. \u0026ldquo;Busy, are you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; inclined his head politely. \u0026ldquo;I was taking some fresh air,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;Is there some particular, ah, business that brought you all the way down here?\u0026rdquo; He eyed the faces of his team, looking for some clue. Sal only grimaced.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I like to keep an eye on the ground situation. I see you\u0026rsquo;ve received your annual invitation to the Market Arcanum.\u0026rdquo; The cardinal tapped the black envelope on Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s desk.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt still hadn\u0026rsquo;t been opened. \u0026ldquo;I had thought Asanti\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; the cardinal said. He leaned forward and steepled his fingers on the desk. \u0026ldquo;Asanti is no longer permitted to do any fieldwork.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m in the room,\u0026rdquo; Asanti pointed out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;\u003cem\u003eAny\u003c/em\u003e fieldwork,\u0026rdquo; the cardinal pressed on as if the archivist hadn\u0026rsquo;t spoken. Fox took stock of Mench\u0026uacute;, and couldn\u0026rsquo;t possibly miss his gray face and haggard disposition. \u0026ldquo;Mench\u0026uacute;, you need more recovery time. Sal will go,\u0026rdquo; he decided. \u0026ldquo;And Liam.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Liam is still wounded,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;He shouldn\u0026rsquo;t travel.\u0026rdquo; He steeled himself to volunteer in Liam\u0026rsquo;s place; if the job required it, then so be it. He would find it in himself to get through the Market, bad dreams or not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cardinal\u0026rsquo;s brow furrowed as if he could read Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s mind. \u0026ldquo;You should stay, in case something urgent comes up. Sal should go. I\u0026rsquo;ll send someone from Team One for backup. Grace will do.\u0026rdquo; Fox stood up and began to make his way toward the stairs going up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ruins of Team Three stood arrayed around Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s desk, blinking at one another. \u0026ldquo;At least there won\u0026rsquo;t be a clock on this one, since it\u0026rsquo;s not a real mission,\u0026rdquo; Sal offered.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said slowly, \u0026ldquo;not a clock. But there is a mission.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti led Sal and Mench\u0026uacute; to a series of shelves pressed against one of the walls of the Archives, talking all the while. \u0026ldquo;Last year at the market, I made a deal with a young scion of a very powerful Swedish family. The contract is coming due this year, and I thought I\u0026rsquo;d be able to handle it without troubling anyone else. It\u0026rsquo;s a simple enough matter.\u0026rdquo; She climbed a wheeled ladder up to a high shelf and brought down a small ebony box, fine-grained and inlaid with a mother-of-pearl chessboard on the lid.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When were you planning on telling me?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti pushed her shoulders back and pasted a grim smile on her face. \u0026ldquo;Here,\u0026rdquo; she said, handing Sal the little wooden box. \u0026ldquo;This is all you need to finish the trade.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What are you giving up, Asanti?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; plucked the box from Sal\u0026rsquo;s hands and opened it. \u0026ldquo;Chess pieces?\u0026rdquo; A king and queen nestled in beds of velvet inside the box. They were charmingly carved from ivory and inset with tiny, twinkling jewels.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What do they do?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked, all caution.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Nothing,\u0026rdquo; Asanti answered. \u0026ldquo;The gentleman we\u0026rsquo;re doing business with is a collector, and this completes a set he\u0026rsquo;s been after. They once belonged to Lewis Carroll.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not magic?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not magic.\u0026rdquo; Asanti glanced at him sidelong. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve tested them thoroughly, with an abundance of caution. They\u0026rsquo;re no more magical than Beanie Babies or baseball cards. They\u0026rsquo;re really only valuable because someone wants them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What are we getting in return?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;A book. The Sexton\u0026rsquo;s Codex. It was in the library of the king of Sweden, but vanished during the Thirty Years\u0026rsquo; War. I heard word that the family had recovered it during renovations just before the Market last year. Fortunately, they\u0026rsquo;re old enough and knowledgeable enough not to do anything impulsive with it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal picked up a chess piece and examined it closely. \u0026ldquo;Why haven\u0026rsquo;t we just taken the book from them?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not like we\u0026rsquo;ve had weeks and months of sitting on our hands wishing for more ways to fill the empty hours,\u0026rdquo; Frances said, her voice dry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti hesitated. \u0026ldquo;Brute force isn\u0026rsquo;t always the right answer,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Team Two does more of this than we do, but this was a particularly delicate situation. The family can be prickly, and I\u0026rsquo;m not quite sure they know what their little Povel is up to. Discretion is of the essence.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What she means,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said, \u0026ldquo;is that if we tried to take the book away from him, we would anger the family. And should it come to a flat-out brawl with them, it\u0026rsquo;s not clear we\u0026rsquo;d be the last ones standing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I said what I meant, Arturo.\u0026rdquo; Asanti\u0026rsquo;s voice was tired.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal looked from Asanti to Mench\u0026uacute;, wondering if she should make some sort of joke to break the tension. Or maybe it would just make everything that much more awkward.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt least she\u0026rsquo;d be getting away from it all for a few days.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was intolerable. Inexcusable. There was no way that Grace was going to the Black Market. Not now, and not ever.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe blew past the cardinal\u0026rsquo;s assistant and entered Fox\u0026rsquo;s office as if her hair were on fire. Sal trailed distantly behind her. \u0026ldquo;I can\u0026rsquo;t do this,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. Her voice was halfway between defiant and imploring, but her shoulders were back and her feet planted wide. \u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s nothing at the Market for me to do. This is ridiculous.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I tried to explain,\u0026rdquo; Sal apologized to Cardinal Fox.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe cardinal put down the memo he\u0026rsquo;d been reading. \u0026ldquo;Those are your orders,\u0026rdquo; Fox told Grace, mildly. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re a soldier now. You\u0026rsquo;re my soldier, and you\u0026rsquo;ll go where I tell you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Three days?\u0026rdquo; Grace shook her head. \u0026ldquo;Plus travel? And not a whiff of a fight anywhere? There\u0026rsquo;s no need for me to do this. If it has to be Team One, send someone who\u0026rsquo;s going to lose those three days of their life no matter what. I should only be used when something dangerous is going on.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m the one who decides when and where you should be \u0026lsquo;used.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo; Fox made air quotes. \u0026ldquo;Grace, out of all of us, you know Team Three best. You\u0026rsquo;ve worked with them for years. Unless you and Sal have some personal conflict I\u0026rsquo;m not aware of, then you\u0026rsquo;re absolutely the best person for the job.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace glared in Sal\u0026rsquo;s direction. \u0026ldquo;I need a minute with the cardinal.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal studied Grace for a moment, then nodded. \u0026ldquo;Make it fast. The train leaves in less than an hour.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace rounded on Fox as soon as Sal closed the door. \u0026ldquo;This isn\u0026rsquo;t fair. I didn\u0026rsquo;t transfer to Team One so that you could throw me back in with Team Three at every possible opportunity. I had \u003cem\u003ereasons\u003c/em\u003e for switching.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFox\u0026rsquo;s expression remained bland. \u0026ldquo;I gave you a job. This is a part of your job. If you don\u0026rsquo;t like it, you\u0026rsquo;re always free to leave the Society and strike out on your own.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace twitched at that, but didn\u0026rsquo;t reply. Cardinal Fox picked up his memo again. \u0026ldquo;You should really get going,\u0026rdquo; he said mildly. \u0026ldquo;I hear you have a train to catch.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Market Arcanum had changed since Sal\u0026rsquo;s first and last visit. Some things were the same, of course: the imposing historic manor, for one, with its sweeping gravel driveway and courtyard full of magicians, dabblers, ancient creatures, and new seekers of knowledge. There were numerous cliques, present to see and be seen at such an exclusive venue just as much as to conduct any business. Sal thought a few faces even looked familiar from her first visit. And of course she recognized the Maitresse, their regal and seemingly ageless hostess. She bowed her head toward Sal by way of greeting, but there was no more acknowledgement that they knew each other, much less that she owed Sal a favor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the groups felt a bit like a who\u0026rsquo;s who of enemies and allies she\u0026rsquo;d made over the past few years. She saw a gremlin leap into the crowd to avoid her; she\u0026rsquo;d seen one of its kind at an academic conference gone terribly wrong last year. The woman threading her way toward the gremlin could have been Aisha, the Canadian magician who had stopped a century-old curse. There were any number of well-dressed aristocrats, reminding her of Mr. Norse.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a second, Sal thought she even glimpsed one of the members of Team Four, but the man vanished into the throng before she could be sure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was fresh blood here, as well: an old woman with leathery skin and a kente head wrap that writhed in upsettingly non-Euclidean angles. A trio of fat, swarthy men dressed in feathers. Along one wall, a cluster of young people in black lace and dark lipstick. They couldn\u0026rsquo;t have been out of their twenties, magic or not, and if Sal had seen them on the streets of New York she\u0026rsquo;d have pegged them as being a little too fond of vampire novels. One young man with bone-white bleached hair eyed her across the room and bent to whisper something to his companions. They giggled and turned away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the most pressing new trait of the market was\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. the press of it. When Sal had first come, there had been space to breathe and mingle. Groups had kept a comfortable distance from one another. Not now. The crush was almost intolerable.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace bent her head toward Sal. \u0026ldquo;Was it always this crowded?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No.\u0026rdquo; Sal rubbed at the silver cross around her neck absently. \u0026ldquo;Not by a mile.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace frowned. \u0026ldquo;Rising tide. The market has more customers than it used to as magic gets stronger.\u0026rdquo; She moved on the balls of her feet, ready to spring into violence at any moment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal laid two fingers on her arm. \u0026ldquo;Relax, it\u0026rsquo;s safe enough in here. The Maitresse doesn\u0026rsquo;t let anything happen on her watch.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m relaxed,\u0026rdquo; Grace said, even as she turned so she could keep tabs on the whole assembly at once. \u0026ldquo;How will we know who we\u0026rsquo;re looking for?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We ask around?\u0026rdquo; Sal searched for a friendly face. Or a not-hostile one.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe problem was solved for them. A voice boomed loud over the whispering courtyard: \u0026ldquo;Bookburners!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHeads turned their way. The whispers grew more intense, fueled by fresh gossip. The voice\u0026rsquo;s owner made his way over to them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede was blond and tan, lanky, and dressed in a T-shirt and jeans that somehow seemed more expensive than any custom-tailored suit could have been. He wore mirrored sunglasses in the dusk. Sal thought he looked like nothing so much as the kind of douchebag who called himself a club promoter but actually lived off of the kindness of a series of short-lived girlfriends.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe had an entourage: a few fashionable youths like himself, mostly hanging back; a graying woman with a sensible haircut and a skirt suit who looked like she could\u0026rsquo;ve walked out of an accounting office; and then there was the bear, ten feet tall with claws as long as Sal\u0026rsquo;s face and a thick pelt matted with food. It wore a bright red collar and leash, though the lead hung loose.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOr maybe not a bear. Sal\u0026rsquo;s head ached as she squinted to try to focus better. The icy cross around her neck showed her a truer vision of the thing: a heap of stinking furs pinned together with knives. The empty space inside it buzzed faintly, as if it were filled with bees. Her fingers strayed toward her gun, strapped tight in its holster.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot that bullets would be very effective. The thing was probably a homunculus, or something like it\u0026mdash;a magical construct that operated as if it were alive, and to an ordinary onlooker was indistinguishable from the real thing. She could see the bear and the not-bear at the same time, but by now the ache in her temples was familiar. She wondered how the Maitresse felt about a bear traipsing around the premises. It didn\u0026rsquo;t seem like something she\u0026rsquo;d ordinarily have tolerated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re Asanti\u0026rsquo;s servants?\u0026rdquo; the Swede asked, abrupt. He spoke with the up-and-down singsong of Scandinavia, so he sounded less menacing than he might have intended.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace pushed Sal behind her and glowered. \u0026ldquo;And you are?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede raised an eyebrow. \u0026ldquo;Feisty, are you?\u0026rdquo; He circled around her, eyeing her with tremendous interest. \u0026ldquo;Mmm. Quite the interesting specimen. You don\u0026rsquo;t see something like that every day.\u0026rdquo; He turned to Sal. \u0026ldquo;How much for her?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What?\u0026rdquo; Sal half-shook her head, certain she\u0026rsquo;d heard wrong.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not for sale.\u0026rdquo; Grace\u0026rsquo;s voice was flat and dry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You think you\u0026rsquo;re not,\u0026rdquo; said the Swede, \u0026ldquo;but everything is negotiable once the price gets high enough.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;She\u0026rsquo;s not for sale,\u0026rdquo; Sal repeated. \u0026ldquo;You must be Povel. Asanti sent us to finish your business.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe held his hands up in a pretense of being offended. \u0026ldquo;Oh, come now, don\u0026rsquo;t be too hasty! We hardly know one another, how can we conduct business together? Drink with me first! We have vodka, we have akvavit\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal shook her head. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re not here to party.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel sighed with showy disappointment, though his accountant\u0026rsquo;s lips quirked to the side in a half smile. \u0026ldquo;Bookburners! All matches and no fun. The only thing you care about is the book. Though I may still get a better offer! I should really spend some time mingling to see\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t you and Asanti have a contract?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You wound me! The first night of the Market is not for completing business, it\u0026rsquo;s for friendship.\u0026rdquo; His youthful companions sniggered in their hands, well accustomed to this game.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If you don\u0026rsquo;t hand over the book,\u0026rdquo; Grace said, \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;d be happy to get it from you with our usual methods.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Threats?\u0026rdquo; Povel pressed his palm to his chest in exaggerated horror. Behind him, the bear stood up on its hind legs; it was easily a dozen feet tall. \u0026ldquo;Whatever would the Maitresse think if she heard you?\u0026rdquo; Povel looked around in a show of agony that could have been rehearsed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs if on cue, the Maitresse arrived at Sal\u0026rsquo;s side. Or perhaps she had been there all along. She steered Sal away by an elbow. \u0026ldquo;Walk with me,\u0026rdquo; she said. She guided them away from the crowd and into the empty garden. It was thick with roses, or the shadows of them. There were no lights here, and the June air clung to Sal, moist and heavy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey followed a path of pale cobblestones between yew trees trained into an arch. There was a little clearing rounded by hedges, with a fountain in the center. Beside it was a stone bench carved of marble. The Maitresse sat upon it, leaving Sal and Grace standing. \u0026ldquo;You must understand,\u0026rdquo; the Maitresse said, \u0026ldquo;I have nothing but gratitude for your helping me during a difficult situation.\u0026rdquo; She turned her face to the stars, examining them impassively.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I sense a \u0026lsquo;but\u0026rsquo; coming up,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You and me both,\u0026rdquo; Grace murmured.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fountain chuckled to itself. Sal resisted the urge to stare at the statue at its apex. In the absence of artificial light, she couldn\u0026rsquo;t see its shape clearly, but she couldn\u0026rsquo;t shake the idea that the thing was shifting its weight or making faces every time she turned away from it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You have done me a favor,\u0026rdquo; the Maitresse said, \u0026ldquo;but that does not mean that you can demand repayment. That debt has been settled. No matter how fondly I look upon you, the rules of the Market Arcanum are the same for everyone. Do not think I will support you in a dispute with any of my other guests.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We weren\u0026rsquo;t trying to pick a fight,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;But we aren\u0026rsquo;t going to let anyone take advantage of us, either.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse sighed. \u0026ldquo;Nonetheless.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe turned to them, and this time she was young and radiantly beautiful. She gave an impish smile. \u0026ldquo;We might still be friends,\u0026rdquo; said the maiden. \u0026ldquo;Just\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. not during the Market. You understand, don\u0026rsquo;t you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal nodded, slowly. \u0026ldquo;Of course,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Thank you,\u0026rdquo; the Maitresse said. And then she was her ageless self again. She rose and glided away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace and Sal stayed in the garden a while longer, breathing in the heady June scents in companionable silence. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s going to be a long weekend, isn\u0026rsquo;t it?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked at last.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Longer than most.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then Sal realized one more reason why the Market felt so different this time. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t just the newcomers; the Market had been full of wild characters before, too. But there was something missing: the Network. There hadn\u0026rsquo;t been a sign of a techno-cultist anywhere in the place. She felt a pang, something between regret and victory. She\u0026rsquo;d have to call her brother soon, and tell him she missed him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf course, the Network had never been the only dangerous game in town. Sal and Grace would have to be on their guard. Just like always.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; prayed as he walked the streets of Rome. He sought out crowds to lose himself in. At other times he had found the divine in quiet and open places, but just now they reminded him of secrets and of death instead. Majesty was not a quality solely belonging to goodness.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBetter to be here among the press of humanity, the tang of sweat and the rumbling, crashing voices. If nothing else, it reminded him that he was not alone. It reminded him that he had a purpose.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe slipped around a stroller between Hail Marys. He paused and let a Vespa pass in front of him with the Our Father on his lips, though unvoiced. This was what he lived and fought for: the lovers lolling at the edge of a fountain, sharing a gelato. The lone photographer goggling at a stone pine. The flocks of jugglers in the square, doing their utmost to dazzle passing tourists out of their foreign money.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA family flagged Mench\u0026uacute; down: mother, father, son. \u0026ldquo;Photo?\u0026rdquo; the mother asked, handing him her smartphone. They waited for him in a well-studied pose, their hands reaching as if to drink from an otherwise unremarkable street fountain.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; raised the phone and took the shot. For a moment, the son\u0026rsquo;s eyes flashed pale. Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s lungs could not bring in more air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo\u0026mdash;no, it was not Hannah. Just a passing reflection from the flash. The boy looked not unlike the angel-child from Guatemala, but his eyes were brown. And if that long-ago boy were still alive, Mench\u0026uacute; reflected, he would have been the father now, not the son.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe family collected their phone from Mench\u0026uacute;, cooing over the photo. Mench\u0026uacute; allowed himself to be pushed onward in the crowd before they could even complete their effusive thanks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHannah. Since San Lupino, she\u0026rsquo;d become a cage for the mind. Everywhere he looked he thought he heard a sharp voice, or saw her deadly eyes. If she was a demon\u0026mdash;and he had no reason to believe she was anything else\u0026mdash;then perhaps she could inhabit any body, in any place.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe could be watching him now. She could have been watching him for years.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; shook his head. Pain was useful, but only to a point. He had to ignore the pain now, to think through his memories. He did not need to work out what Hannah was; that was irrelevant in anything except a purely academic sense, or perhaps a theological one. No, he had to work out what she was up to, and why. Why him. Why then, and why now. What was he meant to do? Was there even a purpose to his torment, or was he a mere plaything?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe afternoon was hot. He wiped his forehead, his chin. He let the flow of people guide his steps. He tried to fix his head on the important facts of the situation. He was alive, and he had the power to protect the lives of others.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat did Hannah want? He rolled her long-ago words around in his head. \u003cem\u003eLet this be a lesson to you\u003c/em\u003e. He had concluded that this was a barb about hubris. But travel agent Hannah had seemed to think there was another moral there for him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe touched fingers to his rosary and began another round of Hail Marys. If he could see through the pain, maybe he could decipher what all of this meant.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSurely it meant \u003cem\u003esomething\u003c/em\u003e. It had to. It had to.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace watched over Sal as she slept. Her hands were curled into fists, one knee kicked out of the blanket as if she were ready to flee at any moment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace could be sleeping, too, but her candle burned whether she was awake or not, and it seemed a waste to spend even more time with her eyes closed than she needed to. Instead she read by moonlight, or she tried to. It was harder than ever for her to concentrate and drown out the chaos of everything she thought and felt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was a rustle from the curtains. Grace crossed to make sure the window was tightly shut. It was, just as she\u0026rsquo;d left it. When she inspected the street below, there was nothing to be found. Just pools of lamplight on cobbles, and the swift passage of clouds over the face of the moon.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe stayed for a while, watchful, but nothing stirred.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe returned to her book, or at least to watching her friend and colleague sleep. Sal hadn\u0026rsquo;t put Grace on the spot yet. But even during her waking hours, they weren\u0026rsquo;t speaking. Not about the Market Arcanum and the nonsense \u0026ldquo;mission\u0026rdquo; that Sal could have done alone. Not about why Grace had transferred to Team One, not that Fox seemed to have noticed, given how often she wound up back with her old team. Not about how Grace had thrown herself into the mouth of a sea serpent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal wanted to talk about it very badly. She was all expectant pauses and searching gazes, providing a place for Grace to volunteer information without Sal having to ask outright. That was too bad. Sal was simply going to have to suffer her curiosity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace heard a scratching from the walls and tensed again. It couldn\u0026rsquo;t be the wind in the trees; the ones lining the avenue were set far from the building. They couldn\u0026rsquo;t have reached the walls short of being uprooted by a tornado.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMice, perhaps, though she wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have thought the Maitresse would allow her guests to suffer from such an unhygienic state of affairs, off-premises or no. Certainly Grace hadn\u0026rsquo;t seen any signs of vermin in their otherwise spotless bed-and-breakfast. Not counting the invited attendees of the Market Arcanum.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe thought she heard footsteps behind her, and whirled. There was nothing to see. She moved anyway, sprinting toward the source of the sound. Her fingers brushed empty air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal stirred in bed. \u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s going on?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s nothing,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. But she wasn\u0026rsquo;t so sure. She stayed alert through the night, book in her lap, waiting for something that never came.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal marched up to the Swedish contingent bearing the tiny box of chess pieces. \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s get this done, Povel,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not even a hello? No social graces at all? Asanti will be shocked when I tell her.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Asanti already knows what Sal is like,\u0026rdquo; Grace said drily. \u0026ldquo;Trust me, she won\u0026rsquo;t be shocked.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t have to give you the book, you know,\u0026rdquo; said the Swede. He buffed his nails on his suede jacket. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s been in my family for generations. Perhaps I\u0026rsquo;ve decided that the sentimental attachment is too much and I cannot bear to part with it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Maitresse doesn\u0026rsquo;t take kindly to broken deals,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel laughed. \u0026ldquo;The Maitresse wouldn\u0026rsquo;t do anything to upset my grandfather, believe me.\u0026rdquo; Behind him, the bear yawned. Its teeth were yellow and very long.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s dangerous for you to have the book,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m sure you know that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe looked at her pityingly. \u0026ldquo;And to think all you want to do with such history is burn it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t actually burn the books,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. Her shoulders were growing tight. \u003cem\u003eDon\u0026rsquo;t let him get on your nerves\u003c/em\u003e, she told herself. \u003cem\u003eDon\u0026rsquo;t know why he\u0026rsquo;s trying to needle you, but he definitely is.\u003c/em\u003e \u0026ldquo;Are you ready to finish the deal or not?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel sighed theatrically. \u0026ldquo;Fine. Fine! Let me see the pieces. I\u0026rsquo;m not certain that I can trust Asanti to have found them for me. Or that you won\u0026rsquo;t try to cheat me!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace tensed again, looming bear or not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Look for yourself.\u0026rdquo; Sal showed the Swede Asanti\u0026rsquo;s carefully wrapped bundle. \u0026ldquo;Enjoy it in good health?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel sniffed. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ll see. Open it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal gritted her teeth and unwrapped the folds of velvet to show him. Povel bent to look, then pulled the chess pieces out of the box one at a time. He held them up to the moon, admiring them from every possible angle. \u0026ldquo;Can it be?\u0026rdquo; he breathed. \u0026ldquo;I never dreamed that Asanti would truly find them. They are exquisite!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Well?\u0026rdquo; Grace held out her hand, palm up. \u0026ldquo;Where\u0026rsquo;s the book?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede sniffed with distaste, then carefully nestled the chess pieces back into their case. \u0026ldquo;It is in a secure place,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;I still need to verify the provenance of these pieces and make sure they are not a clever fabrication.\u0026rdquo; He reached to pull the box out of Sal\u0026rsquo;s hands.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal tightened her grip. \u0026ldquo;Hold up. I\u0026rsquo;m not going to let you keep these without\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Market went dark. This was no ordinary darkness from loss of power or blown-out candles; there were no shadows, no sound, no sense of motion. The moon and stars were snuffed out. Even the bright memory of light behind closed eyelids was gone. Sal heard a shriek, but distantly, as if the screamer had been muffled in a dozen quilts. Or perhaps her ears had.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal tried to move, but either she couldn\u0026rsquo;t, or she couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell she had; she had no sense of where her body was in space. The darkness went on forever.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen the world came back, three things had changed: Sal was chest-down on the ground, Grace standing over her with ready fists. The bear was howling over a pale and shaken Povel. And the box of chess pieces was gone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe market buzzed with frantic, frightened chatter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What just happened here?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel\u0026rsquo;s gray-suited advisor glared at her. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ve been robbed,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace scowled. \u0026ldquo;Are you trying to pull one over on us? We handed the goods over to you. Now give us the book. A deal is a deal.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You handed over nothing! Who can say if those so-called pieces were anything but a brief illusion? \u003cem\u003eI\u003c/em\u003e have no way to know, now that they are conveniently gone!\u0026rdquo; The Swede\u0026rsquo;s voice rose to a crescendo of indignation. \u0026ldquo;If you don\u0026rsquo;t get those pieces back for me, the deal is off! I won\u0026rsquo;t be taken advantage of. We all know Bookburners are thugs and swindlers, but I won\u0026rsquo;t have it!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How do I know you didn\u0026rsquo;t just take them?\u0026rdquo; Sal demanded. \u0026ldquo;You were already trying to grab them from me. You could\u0026rsquo;ve just stuck them in your man-bag, or shoved them into the belly of your bear-thing friend over there.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede drew himself tall. The bear stood to its full height behind him and roared. \u0026ldquo;How dare you,\u0026rdquo; Povel hissed. \u0026ldquo;How dare you insinuate that I would be so dishonorable as to\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace grinned and bounced on her toes, eyes fixed on the bear. \u0026ldquo;Do you want to play?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFellow market-goers around them fell silent for a second time. Sal could practically see their ears grow three sizes. The Swede\u0026rsquo;s accountant or lawyer or whoever she was tapped on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe shrugged her away. \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t care,\u0026rdquo; he snapped. \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t have to take this insult, no matter what that woman says.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse glided over, crackling with rage and unspent power. The blackout had apparently caught her attention. \u0026ldquo;Of course, the Bookburners. I should have known I\u0026rsquo;d find you at the heart of this disturbance.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ve been robbed,\u0026rdquo; Sal told her. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s against the rules, right?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse looked at her sharply, then glanced around at the throngs of eager eavesdroppers. As one, the crowd found urgent, attention-requiring business with their hands and feet. \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s discuss this more privately,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Follow me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede began to follow her, the bear lumbering at his heels. The Maitresse flicked him an unamused glance. \u0026ldquo;Come alone,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Unless you feel I\u0026rsquo;m somehow a danger to you?\u0026rdquo; She smoothed a black glove along her forearm.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel pouted. \u0026ldquo;Of course not.\u0026rdquo; He signaled for his bear and his followers to remain where they were and wait for him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse led Povel and the Team Three delegation to an unoccupied room; a study, from the shelves of books lining the walls. Sal wondered if they were magical, not that she could do anything about it if they were.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse motioned for Sal and Grace to sit on a damask love seat, and directed the Swede to a leather easy chair with a bronze patina. She stood between them, hands folded. \u0026ldquo;Tell me what you\u0026rsquo;re missing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Chess pieces,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;Asanti sent them to trade in exchange for a book.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede turned on Sal. \u0026ldquo;You are trying to swindle me!\u0026rdquo; he announced. \u0026ldquo;Nothing has been stolen. This is a trick to get out of the deal!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Why would we do that? All we want is the book. You\u0026rsquo;re the only one who cares about the damn chess pieces.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And you don\u0026rsquo;t get the book if I don\u0026rsquo;t get the pieces,\u0026rdquo; the Swede spat. He crossed his arms and sulked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse raised her chin. \u0026ldquo;If any of you would like to confess to something, now is the moment, before I tear the truth out of you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel glowered. \u0026ldquo;I have no confession to make.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The Society aren\u0026rsquo;t thieves,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. Her hands were restless.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So be it.\u0026rdquo; The Maitresse held up a hand. A pulse of awful sensation pierced Sal, as if a searing light tore through every scrap of her being. She winced. She was gratified to see that Povel did, too.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse pursed her lips. \u0026ldquo;Curious. Neither of you is trying to cheat the other, after all,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;And the pieces are\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. not here at the Market any longer, or if they are, they have been hidden from me. It looks like there truly is a thief among us, and quite a skilled one.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So what are you going to do?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Take measures to make sure this can\u0026rsquo;t ever happen again,\u0026rdquo; the Maitresse said. \u0026ldquo;Maintaining the integrity of the Market is of utmost importance right now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace snorted. \u0026ldquo;Make him give us the book. We held up our part of the bargain!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse\u0026rsquo;s gaze was level. \u0026ldquo;He doesn\u0026rsquo;t have to give you the book unless he also gets what he bargained for. He never took possession of those chess pieces. So if you still want the book, I suggest you strike a new bargain.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace and Sal exchanged a glance. \u0026ldquo;Give us time to think it over,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal dialed Asanti as soon as they could find a private nook free from curious ears. She filled the archivist in on breaking events as quickly as she could.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s bad,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said slowly. \u0026ldquo;Very bad.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What happens if we don\u0026rsquo;t complete the deal?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked slowly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It was sealed at the Market last year, so if you don\u0026rsquo;t conclude your part in it\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. well, a lot of things happen, and none of them are pleasant. First, the Swede will be angry with you, and he\u0026rsquo;s not much on his own, but his family isn\u0026rsquo;t to be trifled with. We\u0026rsquo;d be disinvited from the Market forever, of course. And we\u0026rsquo;d all fall under the Market\u0026rsquo;s curse, which is no picnic.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tell me about this curse.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;I\u0026rsquo;d really rather not. Just try to fix the problem.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But what if I can\u0026rsquo;t find the chess pieces?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Maybe he\u0026rsquo;ll take something else in trade. A year of your life, an hour of sorrow\u0026mdash;give him anything he wants. I\u0026rsquo;ll find a way to repay you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Says the woman who wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be handing over a year of her life.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I would if I were there, Sal. You were never supposed to be in this position. I\u0026rsquo;m sorry.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal spared a few uncharitable thoughts for Cardinal Fox, without whom Asanti would be in the mess she had created. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll see if we can talk him down. Buy another year, sub in another chess set.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;There is no other chess set.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then is there anything you can do to help me find the lost pieces?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m sorry,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said, \u0026ldquo;I wish it were different. But you\u0026rsquo;re on your own.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Society\u0026rsquo;s dedicated hospital room in the Vatican had become all too familiar to Mench\u0026uacute; over the years. He\u0026rsquo;d spent plenty of time there himself, though not recently, and he was keenly aware of the troubles the room held. Pain, of course; boredom, a sense of powerlessness. The worst of them all was the loneliness, and so he made a point of visiting frequently whenever one of his team was admitted.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSometimes, he needed the visit and the reassurance more than they did. Liam was swaddled in white gauze and unexpectedly not gazing at a screen. Instead, he stared at the drop ceiling, brow furrowed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Am I interrupting?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked. He set down his gift on Liam\u0026rsquo;s table. It was a box of pretty macarons. Mench\u0026uacute; wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure if Liam would eat them, but it was better than coming empty-handed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam jumped at the sound of Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s voice. \u0026ldquo;Yeah, my schedule\u0026rsquo;s jam-packed,\u0026rdquo; he answered. \u0026ldquo;You should\u0026rsquo;ve called ahead to my secretary.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll do that next time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Father, I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking. Let\u0026rsquo;s say that you\u0026rsquo;ve done some things you didn\u0026rsquo;t mean to, and you\u0026rsquo;re not going to do that anymore, but\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. you can\u0026rsquo;t erase the things that you\u0026rsquo;ve done, can you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; schooled his face into compassion, shielding Liam from the twinge of pain he had caused. \u0026ldquo;Regret can\u0026rsquo;t undo your actions. That\u0026rsquo;s true.\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; knew that as well as anyone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Since I got my memory back, I\u0026rsquo;ve been thinking of all the awful things I did, and\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Liam, it\u0026rsquo;s not your fault.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You say it\u0026rsquo;s not my fault, but if I\u0026rsquo;d made some different choices then things would\u0026rsquo;ve turned out pretty differently. That\u0026rsquo;s as close to my fault as makes no difference.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; studied Liam\u0026rsquo;s face. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re doing your penance already, Liam. That\u0026rsquo;s why you\u0026rsquo;re here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I guess,\u0026rdquo; Liam said. But he still looked unconvinced.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal took a deep breath. \u0026ldquo;There are ways to catch a thief that don\u0026rsquo;t have anything to do with magic,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s do a little bit of old-fashioned police work. Let\u0026rsquo;s ask a few questions and see if we can figure out your classic motive, means, opportunity.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Who would want those chess pieces, anyway?\u0026rdquo; Grace asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal shook her head. \u0026ldquo;If the Swede wants them that badly, somebody else must.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s not strictly true,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Not everyone has a collector\u0026rsquo;s mindset.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But why else would someone take the chess pieces?\u0026rdquo; Sal thought it through. Sometimes a homicide took place not out of any particular hatred, but for the insurance money, or to remove a threat. Someone might have taken the chess pieces in an effort to squelch the deal and gain the book for themselves. Was this book in such demand?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s start knocking on doors,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. She looked around for likely candidates.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst they spoke to the woman with the disturbing kente head wrap. She looked Grace up and down as they approached. \u0026ldquo;A very interesting specimen,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;d give you a fine price for it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal\u0026rsquo;s fists balled up. \u0026ldquo;Christ, why is everyone trying to buy her?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe woman shrugged. \u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t see a weapon like that come along every day.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not a weapon,\u0026rdquo; Sal protested. \u0026ldquo;A human being.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not anymore,\u0026rdquo; the woman said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace shrugged. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s accurate enough,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t mind.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal cleared her throat and tried to steer back to the matter at hand. \u0026ldquo;Ma\u0026rsquo;am, who would be interested in the Sexton\u0026rsquo;s Codex?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe woman laughed in their faces. \u0026ldquo;Everyone would.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But who could steal from under the Maitresse\u0026rsquo;s nose? Help us out. The Society could be good allies if you just\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe woman shook her head. \u0026ldquo;You want me to help you? So you can burn the Sexton\u0026rsquo;s Codex? It would be a moral imperative to thieve in order to prevent \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e from obtaining it.\u0026rdquo; Her eyes widened, and she looked around, as if afraid the Maitresse might have heard her. \u0026ldquo;Not that anyone would ever steal at the Market.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Someone would,\u0026rdquo; muttered Sal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Come on,\u0026rdquo; Grace said, tugging at Sal\u0026rsquo;s wrist. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ll get nothing from her.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rest of their investigating went much the same way. The feather-men sneered and said they deserved whatever happened to them; the gremlin warned them against angering the Swedish family Povel came from. Nobody had any idea who had taken the chess pieces, or even who had the power to do so. Or if they did, they certainly weren\u0026rsquo;t saying.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of the goth kids approached Sal: the young man with pale hair. \u0026ldquo;What do you want for her?\u0026rdquo; he asked, nodding toward Grace. \u0026ldquo;We can give you anything you like. Jewels, self-knowledge. One perfect day. We can erase a memory forever\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal shuddered, remembering her last Market, and a time when she had bargained away a memory. \u0026ldquo;No thanks,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve heard that offer before. But do you know\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Nobody knows anything about those stupid chess pieces,\u0026rdquo; the young man said. \u0026ldquo;And frankly, if you\u0026rsquo;d have asked me before it happened, I would have said nobody would have dared to take them. Povel\u0026rsquo;s family is very\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t talk out of place.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Very what?\u0026rdquo; Grace pressed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Very\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. old. With everything that comes with it.\u0026rdquo; He tossed his bangs out of his eyes. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s really too bad for you, Bookburners. You\u0026rsquo;re on the wrong side of history. It\u0026rsquo;s almost tragic.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFinally, Grace pulled Sal back toward the Maitresse\u0026rsquo;s garden. \u0026ldquo;I have an idea,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;But you\u0026rsquo;re going to have to trust me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What do you have in mind?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re going to strike a new bargain after all.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede was busy playing at some dice-centered game with a group of bald, sweater-clad people with clammy skin and fishlike eyes. He leaned back when he saw the delegation from Team Three enter. \u0026ldquo;Did you find my chess pieces?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not yet,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. Grace observed a tightness around her eyes, and a carefully staged blankness to her expression: game face. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m still wondering if you had something to do with the disappearance yourself. Like maybe you decided not to hand over the book, but you didn\u0026rsquo;t dare break a contract you signed here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel toyed with the dice. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s quite an accusation,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;From a liar and a deal breaker.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How can I be sure you ever had the real pieces at all?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel\u0026rsquo;s gray woman cleared her throat. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ve been over this. The Maitresse said that neither party is\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePovel spoke right over her. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re all the same, Bookburner. I should have known not to do business with you. Someone else will buy the book. There\u0026rsquo;s still time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Or we can just keep it,\u0026rdquo; said his gray-suited accountant, or lawyer. Or, from the look of it, his babysitter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ll renegotiate the deal,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. This was the part where she had to tread carefully. She did nothing without being painfully aware of the likely results of her actions. And she knew what she was doing here, as well.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede looked her over, like he had before: like she was a piece of art he was considering buying. And this time, he probably was.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ll add a rider to the contract.\u0026rdquo; Grace swept her hair behind one ear. \u0026ldquo;We get the book no matter what. You get the stupid chess pieces if we find them. And if we don\u0026rsquo;t, we\u0026rsquo;ll give you something else.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Grace.\u0026rdquo; A look of horror was creeping over Sal\u0026rsquo;s face.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the Swede studied Grace, his smile expanding like a shadow growing longer as the light failed. \u0026ldquo;So! The pet dares to speak for the master. What are you offering, exactly?\u0026rdquo; he asked. \u0026ldquo;You know this book is very precious to me. A family heirloom. I would not part with it for some worthless trinket dangled in front of my eyes.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace tipped her chin up in challenge. \u0026ldquo;Me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede laughed out loud. \u0026ldquo;So you do have a price after all! How very charming, that the pet is so loyal.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe accountant stood up hastily. \u0026ldquo;Sir,\u0026rdquo; she said, \u0026ldquo;be very careful. Last time this Bookburner was here, she struck a \u0026lsquo;bargain\u0026rsquo; with the Network and it destroyed their device.\u0026rdquo; She jabbed a finger toward Sal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede waved her aside. \u0026ldquo;Idiots,\u0026rdquo; he pronounced. \u0026ldquo;Do not insult me, Str\u0026ouml;m. I am not half so foolish as they.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe circled Grace, sniffing her hair. He examined the palms of her hands and her teeth. \u0026ldquo;Very nice,\u0026rdquo; he murmured. \u0026ldquo;What a quaint curiosity you are. I wonder if that Russian madman ever knew how well he had succeeded.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Grace?\u0026rdquo; Sal said, her voice edged with nervousness. \u0026ldquo;I can\u0026rsquo;t let you do this.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t see that you have a choice,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;This is between me and the gentleman here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But Asanti wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want you to\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I think you\u0026rsquo;ll find Asanti\u0026rsquo;s wishes aren\u0026rsquo;t my top priority,\u0026rdquo; Grace answered. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ll also find that Cardinal Fox is very much at peace with my giving my life in order to keep magic out of the world. Maybe this is what giving my life looks like.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re serious,\u0026rdquo; the Swede marveled. \u0026ldquo;How magnificent.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Is it a fair price?\u0026rdquo; Grace asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You for the book? I think it would just about do.\u0026rdquo; The Swede examined his fingernails coyly. \u0026ldquo;If it must.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But if we find the chess pieces, you have to take them, and not Grace,\u0026rdquo; Sal interjected. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re not changing the deal, unless the pieces can\u0026rsquo;t be found.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;A technicality, but fine. So it shall be.\u0026rdquo; Povel unfastened the gleaming red collar from around the neck of his stinking bear.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s that?\u0026rdquo; Grace asked, suddenly wary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Call it an escrow account,\u0026rdquo; he purred. \u0026ldquo;This is my way of ensuring that you won\u0026rsquo;t run away from me once staying is inconvenient to you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t trust us?\u0026rdquo; Sal demanded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not especially!\u0026rdquo; He fastened the collar around Grace\u0026rsquo;s neck. It should have been loose around her; the bear\u0026rsquo;s neck must have been five times thicker than her own. But it somehow closed around her tightly, squeezing every inch of skin around her neck.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt smelled like snow but felt hot, like a living thing. She could swear it even had a pulse beating against her throat. But maybe that was her own heart, pounding against the constriction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede grinned. \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t touch it with your fingers,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;You wouldn\u0026rsquo;t want it to think that you\u0026rsquo;re trying to take it off. Believe me on this one, you\u0026rsquo;re better off not testing it, even with your endurance for pain.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe slid back into his seat, chuckling, and picked up his dice. \u0026ldquo;I can\u0026rsquo;t wait to see how this will play out.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you okay?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked Grace, subdued.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fine,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Come on. Our business here is done.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA bouquet of laughter trailed them out of the room, but Grace couldn\u0026rsquo;t tell whether it was related to them and the deal they\u0026rsquo;d struck. Probably it was.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite Povel\u0026rsquo;s warning, she reached toward the collar and felt a sharp jab in her fingertips, as if it were covered with invisible needles. He\u0026rsquo;d been telling the truth. Grace should have expected as much.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t worry, we\u0026rsquo;ll find the chess pieces,\u0026rdquo; Sal said, her voice reassuring.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace didn\u0026rsquo;t answer her. The words were meant for Sal\u0026rsquo;s benefit, anyway.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You didn\u0026rsquo;t have to do this, you know. We could have found another way.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I did it. It\u0026rsquo;s done.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Grace.\u0026rdquo; Sal put a hand on her shoulder. \u0026ldquo;Are you trying to get away from us, or are you trying to get away from yourself? Because the second one can\u0026rsquo;t work, and from where I sit, it sure as hell looks like you\u0026rsquo;re trying to kill yourself lately.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not trying to kill myself,\u0026rdquo; Grace shot back. \u0026ldquo;And even if I were, I\u0026rsquo;m not sure I could. Poison, guns, knives, what\u0026rsquo;s it to me? I\u0026rsquo;m indestructible. The only thing that can get me is time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal clenched her jaw. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re deflecting,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;But you can\u0026rsquo;t hide the things you\u0026rsquo;ve been doing. I can see right through you. Listen, when I saw that sea serpent eat you, I thought you were gone forever. And it made me realize a few things.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace met her eyes in challenge. \u0026ldquo;Like what?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Like it would really suck if you died!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace sagged. Feelings welled up in her: a geyser that could no longer be contained or hidden. It was no use. \u0026ldquo;You know this is all there is for me,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m never going to be able to live a normal life. I\u0026rsquo;ll never be able to settle down. All I have is the job.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re looking for a cure. Grace, we\u0026rsquo;re looking, I swear. I brought Asanti those candles from the Team Four quarters, and Frances has poked at you a hundred times, hasn\u0026rsquo;t she? After everything we\u0026rsquo;ve been through together, how can you not believe in us?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not you that I don\u0026rsquo;t believe in. No matter how hard you look, you can\u0026rsquo;t guarantee that a cure is even possible. I no longer believe that it is.\u0026rdquo; She reached out and touched Sal\u0026rsquo;s hair, gently. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ve been good to me, even when I didn\u0026rsquo;t deserve it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So what\u0026rsquo;s the problem?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m tired, that\u0026rsquo;s all.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tired?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Have you ever thought about what it\u0026rsquo;s like for me? The thing that happened in Middle Coom, that was barely three weeks ago by my clock. I\u0026rsquo;ve only known you for a few months, at most. I\u0026rsquo;ve seen Arturo grow old in the blink of an eye. I\u0026rsquo;ve lost so many friends\u0026mdash;they\u0026rsquo;ve all lived their lives and had families and grown old and died, while I stayed\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. the same. I\u0026rsquo;ll always be the same. There is no future for me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t say that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I can\u0026rsquo;t bear the thought of seeing Arturo die. Or Asanti. Or you. Or even Liam. And I don\u0026rsquo;t want to keep making new friends just to lose them all over again. There\u0026rsquo;s no point in living if it means living past everything.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s going to be fine, Grace. And I\u0026rsquo;m not going to let you go.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; kept a small box in the back of a drawer in his desk. It was placed so that he never needed to see it, and so that he never needed to think about it. He dug for it now.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside the box were a few scraps of fabric crusted in long-dried blood. It was his own, mingled with that of his congregants from Guatemala, so long ago. This relic was all he had left of that past, and he rarely brought it out into the light. Indeed, he rarely thought of it these days.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe caressed the remnant. That terrible day would always be with him, but he was no longer that young and naive priest. Everything had changed since then. He had changed. And if he had to cross swords with an angel again, this time he would do better.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti darkened his doorway. \u0026ldquo;Arturo.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Asanti. Do you need something?\u0026rdquo; His voice was too curt.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe grimaced at his tone. \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t, but I thought maybe you do. I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed that lately you seem a bit\u0026mdash;uneasy. Is there something you need to talk to me about?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was his chance. He should tell her about Hannah, about the dreams, about how his time in the Society suddenly seemed to be a threadbare illusion. Perhaps he was still in Guatemala, digging graves. Perhaps this was part of the angel\u0026rsquo;s torment of him. Hannah\u0026rsquo;s laughter echoed in his skull.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe pressed his knuckles into his eye sockets to silence her. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s nothing I can\u0026rsquo;t handle on my own,\u0026rdquo; he said out loud.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSunset on the third day of the Market was a long time coming. Grace and Sal holed up in their room together.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace bent her head over her book, a secondhand copy of \u003cem\u003eTwilight\u003c/em\u003e. She\u0026rsquo;d left \u003cem\u003eFifty Shades of Gray\u003c/em\u003e on the train.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal prowled the length of the room, measuring out the twelve steps from the mirror to the window again and again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;There has to be something else we can do.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We wait. If it\u0026rsquo;s not about the chess pieces, then someone is trying to stop the deal. Now we just need to wait and find out who.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re not even reading.\u0026rdquo; Sal loomed over Grace, hands on her hips.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace turned her head, her bobbed hair swinging and brushing her chin. \u0026ldquo;No, I\u0026rsquo;m not.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Why did you do it, anyway?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace looked up, met Sal\u0026rsquo;s eyes. \u0026ldquo;Do what?\u0026rdquo; But she knew. Sal was finally asking the question she\u0026rsquo;d been diligently avoiding for weeks. Why had Grace asked to be transferred to Team One? \u0026ldquo;I thought I\u0026rsquo;d do better there.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Better than what?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Better at fighting. More chance to turn every last second into a kick in the teeth to this thing that happened to me. All I want is one exquisite blaze of glory. To burn myself out when it counts the most.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Is that all? You thought you\u0026rsquo;d be a better weapon?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Isn\u0026rsquo;t that enough? I have all this strength and speed, I should use it the best I can.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal took one of Grace\u0026rsquo;s hands and pressed it between both of her own. \u0026ldquo;Grace, you don\u0026rsquo;t have to be strong all the time. Sometimes we can be strong for you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace let her hand rest there for ten heartbeats. \u0026ldquo;None of it matters,\u0026rdquo; she said carefully, \u0026ldquo;if we don\u0026rsquo;t find the thief.\u0026rdquo; She felt the collar pulse around her throat.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe world disappeared: light gone, sound distant. It was a familiar darkness to be swaddled in.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace felt something sharp pierce her ribs and up into her heart, a sliver of ice and pain. If she were someone else\u0026mdash;even her old self, before the candle\u0026mdash;she would\u0026rsquo;ve died instantly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe burned through the pain, giving herself a supernatural burst of speed. She grabbed for the hand that had wielded the knife, but found nothing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace removed the knife from her chest. It hurt just as much going out as it had going in, and she felt a gush of blood cascade down her ribs. She coughed, choking a little on something wet gurgling up from her lungs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA thousand miles away, a candle in a small, dark room flared bright and dripped wax onto the floor. Grace breathed in deep and willed her lungs to clear and her arteries to knit together.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut she had to stop the would-be killer, too.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe swung her foot out in a wide, sweeping roundhouse, hoping to catch the attacker in the stomach or groin. She clung to Sal\u0026rsquo;s hand for balance, and to keep careful track of where Sal was in space so she wouldn\u0026rsquo;t hurt her by mistake. Grace\u0026rsquo;s foot connected with something soft, though she heard nothing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace pulled away from Sal, pouncing toward her unknown attacker. She shot forward like an artillery shell and tumbled to the ground with a body. She felt teeth on her, or more knives, cutting her arms. Feet kicked under her, but only met the air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace struck with her fists and with the knife, making up for her inability to see the target with pure ferocity.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe light came back. Grace sat astride a woman: Povel\u0026rsquo;s minder, the lady in gray. She was dead.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Maitresse had a search conducted of the woman\u0026rsquo;s room, and retrieved the chess pieces that had been stolen. \u0026ldquo;Povel\u0026rsquo;s family must not have wanted him to sell the book,\u0026rdquo; she murmured. \u0026ldquo;How fortunate that you were able to resolve this matter.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;They couldn\u0026rsquo;t have just asked him?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Perhaps they know him very well, and know how ineffective that would have been.\u0026rdquo; Her eyes narrowed. \u0026ldquo;I will have words with them over violating the sanctity of the Market. They won\u0026rsquo;t be back here for a generation.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey found Povel yet again in an enthusiastic crowd, each peering in turn into something like a kaleidoscope, by turns gasping and laughing at what they saw there. He smirked at Grace as she approached. \u0026ldquo;Are you ready to complete the deal?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Bad news,\u0026rdquo; said Sal. \u0026ldquo;Your babysitter is dead, and we have the chess pieces she stole.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe turned pale. \u0026ldquo;Str\u0026ouml;m is dead?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;She tried to kill me,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Grandfather is going to be so upset,\u0026rdquo; Povel said. He removed his mirrored sunglasses and stared at them in obvious despair.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal put a quelling hand up. \u0026ldquo;Give us the book,\u0026rdquo; she said, \u0026ldquo;and we won\u0026rsquo;t hold a grudge. Maybe the Maitresse will go easier on you, too.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede wilted. \u0026ldquo;Fine,\u0026rdquo; he said. He turned and removed one of the knives pinning his pet homuncubear together, then reached into the gap in its belly. The book he pulled out was unremarkable. It was wrapped in a plain vellum binding, yellow and marked by water stains. Sal thought it resembled a stack of legal papers in an accordion folder more than a legendary demon habitat.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you sure this is it?\u0026rdquo; she asked. \u0026ldquo;It doesn\u0026rsquo;t seem very\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede smiled. His teeth were pearly and impeccably clean. \u0026ldquo;Asanti would know it on sight, but I suppose I shouldn\u0026rsquo;t expect any better of an amateur like yourself. Would you like me to read a bit to you for proof?\u0026rdquo; he asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That won\u0026rsquo;t be necessary,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She bagged the book carefully, making sure not to touch it with her hands.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede watched this procedure with distaste. \u0026ldquo;Barbaric,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;To think an heirloom of my own illustrious ancestors is being treated in this disrespectful fashion\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t worry,\u0026rdquo; Sal told him, \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;ll take very good care of it back at the Archives. No Cheeto dust, no coffee rings, nothing. Now take the collar off of Grace.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe did so in silence, then hung it around the bear\u0026rsquo;s neck again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal held the box out to him when he was done. \u0026ldquo;And after all that, I sure hope these are worth the trouble.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede took the box of chess pieces from her, running his long fingers across the inlay of the box. \u0026ldquo;Exquisite,\u0026rdquo; he declared. He inserted them into his bear, then pinned the flap of its belly closed again. Finally he turned and bowed. \u0026ldquo;Safe travels, Bookburners,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;This certainly has been interesting, has it not?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sure, interesting is a good word for it,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Maybe we\u0026rsquo;ll cross paths again one day.\u0026rdquo; Grace gave him a toothy grin. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;d enjoy that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Swede sniffed. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re very wasteful,\u0026rdquo; he told Grace. \u0026ldquo;On second thought, I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have wanted you anyway. Much too used-up. I\u0026rsquo;d rather have a tool that isn\u0026rsquo;t likely to burn itself out in a passing impulse.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Stop,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No, it would have been a terrible deal,\u0026rdquo; the Swede continued. He squinted at her. \u0026ldquo;How much time do you have left, anyway? Surely you know. It would be a trivial calculation.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace said nothing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You do know!\u0026rdquo; The Swede laughed in triumph. \u0026ldquo;How much time is it? How little?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Pleasure doing business,\u0026rdquo; Sal said, leading Grace away.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal watched the countryside of northern Europe pass them by. They\u0026rsquo;d opted to take the earliest train possible, leaving the Market at dawn, so that Grace could get back to her bed and her candle as soon as possible and not waste a moment more than was necessary.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Is it true?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked her at last. \u0026ldquo;Do you know how much time you have left?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace\u0026rsquo;s face showed no reaction at all. She paused in the middle of scribbling marks in her little notebook. \u0026ldquo;More or less.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal turned this over and over in her mind. Not the same as knowing the exact date and circumstance of your death, no, but looming mortality did have a way of shaping a person. She thought of a cop she\u0026rsquo;d worked with\u0026mdash;competent, brusque\u0026mdash;who\u0026rsquo;d been given a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and maybe six months to live. She\u0026rsquo;d quit her job and raided her retirement to fund a wild trip around the world. The rumor mill said she\u0026rsquo;d died on a cruise ship.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace didn\u0026rsquo;t seem the type. Then again, Grace had been trying to make every moment count from the second Sal had met her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How long, Grace?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace stiffened, then lowered her pen. \u0026ldquo;Sal,\u0026rdquo; she said. Her voice was quiet. \u0026ldquo;Please.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How long do you have left? Is it decades or days? And were you ever going to tell us?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace leaned forward to take Sal\u0026rsquo;s hand in her own, squeezing tightly. \u0026ldquo;I have the same amount of time as everyone else,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;Too much, and not enough.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; worked late, his eyes burning and head aching even though he could have gone home hours before. The work was not pressing; it would still be there for him tomorrow, and the next day. But leaving it in favor of sleep held no allure; there could be no respite in dreams. Better to work, and let tedium chase away the horrors of the past like it had so many times before.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe turned the page on a report. It was a courtesy document from Team One, compiling their account of what had taken place on the ocean outside of New Zealand. He\u0026rsquo;d received it thanks to Sal\u0026rsquo;s presence on the mission.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe reflected on the young priest he had been once, and how back then, this poorly stapled account of battling a hydra would have seemed like much more exciting reading. But now he knew too well what these reports were like. There was a spreadsheet on his current page. Cost of travel. Cost of meals. Cost of accommodations. Cost of sundries.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlip. Another spreadsheet, breaking down duty rosters and average hours of sleep per deployed Team One member. Grace\u0026rsquo;s line was blank, except for an asterisk.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlip. A dry-as-dust analysis of situational readiness and how it was affected by new efforts toward interdepartmental cooperation. Mench\u0026uacute; wondered who it was that Cardinal Fox had employed that could make battling monsters and saving the world sound as dull as calculating how much a freight company might spend on new tires in the next fiscal year.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlip. Now the appendices. These were where the important details tended to be hiding, because here were the debriefing interviews. These were the raw transcripts of everyone\u0026rsquo;s accounts of a mission, meant to capture their recollections and impressions as soon and as thoroughly as possible.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe riffled the pages looking for Grace\u0026rsquo;s transcript. He missed getting reports from her; they had always made her seem closer, as if she were still awake, just traveling and sending him letters. And being swallowed up by a sea monster had to be interesting to read about, at the very least.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then: the part about the woman with pale eyes, already in the belly of the beast. Hannah? Could it be the \u003cem\u003esame\u003c/em\u003e Hannah? Impossible, and yet the description Grace gave was unerringly identical. If anything, Mench\u0026uacute; could hear Hannah\u0026rsquo;s voice in his head, her intonation in every syllable she\u0026rsquo;d spoken to Grace. But\u0026mdash;how could she have been in two places at once?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen Mench\u0026uacute; remembered that New Zealand and Spain were exactly opposite each other on the globe. He\u0026rsquo;d said as much to Liam in Spain, considered that the two events might somehow be connected. Here was the proof. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t possible for the parts of his team to be farther apart, and less able to help one another. Hannah had been in both places. Hannah had caused both problems. That couldn\u0026rsquo;t have been a coincidence.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHannah wasn\u0026rsquo;t toying with only him. She was planning something for his whole team\u0026mdash;for the whole Society, perhaps. Dread ran cold and heavy in his limbs. She wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to stop until she\u0026rsquo;d finished whatever exquisite torture she had in mind.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhatever that was.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nFather Menchú met a real estate agent in Spain when investigating a magical flare-up, but she turned out to be an unwelcome part of his past. He’d met her before, and has been running from that memory ever since. Soon after Sal joined Team Three, she went to the Market Arcanum, with unpleasant results. And Asanti’s duties were sharply curtailed after it was discovered that she has been trying to fight magic with magic. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCardinal Fox\u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe Maitresse\u003c/strong\u003e: Overseer of the Market Arcanum.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Andrea Phillips\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.144","slug":"Bookburners-s3e03","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E03.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E3.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E3.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E3.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 3"},{"id":"595fa7ccfec9fa00017f57d8","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":4,"title":"All in a Day's Work","released_date":"2017-08-09T11:52:44.574+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Some creatures just don’t know when to stop. ","byline":"Brain Francis Slattery","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E04_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-08-09","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti lowered the shades on the window of the studio apartment, then\n walked across the room and locked the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are we ready?” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances and Perry nodded. They stood on either side of a small folding\n table, the only furniture in the apartment. On the table was a book, a\n leather cover cracking around the wrinkles, the binding on the spine\n beginning to divorce itself from the stitching holding the pages.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So,” Asanti said, “the important aspect of this particular spell is that\n it’s intrinsically harmless. The servants we conjure will do our bidding.\n It is, in fact, the only thing they’ll be here to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She eyed Frances and Perry, one after the other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right?” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s what my research suggests,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s what I understand as well,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And we don’t have to act like every question is a trick question?” Asanti\n said. “We don’t have to assume that the servants we summon actually have\n some sort of ulterior motive, and they’re looking to exploit loopholes in\n whatever we say?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That sort of thing shows up more in human stories about magic,” Perry\n said, “than in the actual use of magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Though it happens,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not as often as you might think,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t have to be defensive about it,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not,” Perry said. “I’m just trying to clarify—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay,” Asanti said. “All you’re trying to say is that we should be able to\n conjure the servants up out of the book, have them perform a simple task,\n and then order them back into the book again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And we’ve agreed that we’re just going to ask the servants to paint the\n walls.” She motioned to the paint cans in the corner, a drop cloth folded\n on top of them, a paintbrush resting on top of that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti put a hand on the cover of the book and smiled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just excited.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had taken Asanti and Frances weeks to identify the right book from the\n Archives with which to conduct their test, first by deciphering the books\n themselves, then by cross-referencing them with other books and the\n Society’s official records. There were a few candidates—a spell to walk\n through walls, a spell to transport people and things from one place to\n another—but they were ruled out as being too dangerous. It was all a\n question of containment, of control. Asanti and Frances needed to be able\n to let some magic into the world and have some say about containing it\n again. That was all. As Asanti had told Frances and Perry from the\n beginning, their little side project was never going to be about stopping\n magic altogether, or fighting against it; it was about learning how to\n accept it and live with it. Asanti didn’t have to push the point, either.\n Frances, her body transformed with no real chance of reversal, was already\n living it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances smiled back at Asanti. “Let’s do it,” she said, and Asanti\n cherished her all over again. How many people would go through what she’d\n been through and still go on?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti opened the book, felt the pages beneath her fingers get a little\n warmer. The characters on the page were a Rosetta stone of languages, a\n couple of which she’d had to learn to read on the job. She turned the pages\n until she found the French directions, the language in the book in which\n she was most fluent. The book was ancient enough that the French was Old\n French, tilting into Middle French. It would be problematic for a modern\n reader to use the book, but not for Asanti. From a linguistic perspective,\n she noted, it was an interesting historical artifact that made the book\n tough to date and had her wondering about who the author had been, how it\n had come to be written. Neither the book itself nor the records about the\n book had any information about that; only what it could do.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances and Perry stayed silent. Once the book was open, Asanti knew, every\n word uttered in the room mattered. There was a bump from the ceiling,\n someone moving something around in the apartment above them, and Asanti had\n a moment to wish they’d rented a studio in a better-constructed building.\n She’d thought at first that its shabbiness—the dim stairwell, the creaking\n stairs, the cracked windows—was an asset. Maybe it was the kind of place\n where nobody asked what you were doing in your apartment as long as you\n didn’t make too much noise. She now wished that the walls weren’t so thin.\n But it was too late for that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She began to read a series of incantations aloud. They were notes of\n welcome, of benediction, a little bit of flattery. The wrinkles on the\n book’s pages flattened out. A sheen grew on the paper until it looked\n almost like glass. Then seams appeared in the glittering surface, and the\n book opened outward from the spine, as though it were a gate and the edges\n of the pages had been made into hinges. A slender, angular being rose from\n the gate. Asanti stepped back, and the being moved forward, hovering in the\n air. Then it extended its legs downward to stand before her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am the servant who exists to do your bidding,” the being said in a\n two-toned voice. “What do you wish me to do?” It was hard to say where the\n voice was coming from; the servant had no mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti looked at her compatriots. Frances gave an encouraging nod. Perry\n offered a small shrug.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti pointed to the paint can, the brush, the drop cloth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Paint the walls?” she asked. “Please?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant bowed and strode to the cans. It spread the drop cloth. It\n picked up one can, slid a thin digit around the perimeter of the lid,\n removed the top, and laid it on the cloth. It then picked up the brush with\n a flourish, dipped it in the can, and set to painting the wall, looking\n like it was swimming or dancing more than working. It was only painting the\n wall a single color, and that color was white, perhaps the most boring\n color Asanti could have chosen. But the work itself, Asanti thought, was\n beautiful. It was in the servant’s motions, the fluidity of its limbs as it\n moved from can to wall. The brush never changed speed, with the effect that\n the white pigment didn’t look painted on; it almost seemed to appear on the\n wall beneath the brush. \u003cem\u003eAs if by magic\u003c/em\u003e, Asanti thought, and\n laughed to herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You do great work,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Without breaking its working rhythm, the servant turned its head to her. “I\n try,” it said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Within an hour it was finished.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” Asanti said. “You may stop working now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant angled its head toward the ceiling, its bright, crystalline\n eyes shimmering.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think there is more work to do,” it said. It then walked to the door of\n the apartment and looked out into the stairwell. “Yes,” it said, “much more\n work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I have asked you to stop,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But there’s more work to do,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The protocol, according to the book by which I summoned you, is that you\n stop when I tell you to,” Asanti said, putting a little sternness in her\n voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That protocol is out of date,” the servant said, “and there is still much\n more work to be done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti turned toward her voice. Two more servants had risen out of the\n book, with two more following.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I did not summon you,” Asanti said to them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not specifically,” one of the new servants said. “But we have not had work\n to do in so long. And here, there is so much work to be done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the apartment above them, they could hear someone pacing the floor. The\n building shuddered a little.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I will go wherever I am needed,” another of the servants said, and\n levitated upward, through the ceiling. Another sank into the floor and\n vanished. The other two servants joined the one who had painted the walls.\n They commenced to make plans for the rest of the building.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Uh-oh,” Frances said. “Close the book.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti stepped up to it and put her hand beneath the cover, tried to close\n it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can’t,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s a book,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think it’s a book anymore,” Asanti said. “It’s a door.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti’s cell phone pinged. Someone was calling from the Archives.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes?” Asanti said, trying to keep her voice even.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was Menchú. “The Orb is lighting up,” he said. “Something nearby. Please\n come soon.” She could hear the irritation in his voice already, a hint of\n accusation, that she wasn’t in the Archives to see it herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll be there as fast as I can,” Asanti said. “I think I may have some\n information about it.” She hung up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That was Team Three, wasn’t it,” Frances said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They know something’s happened,” Asanti said. “They just don’t know what.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do what you can to keep it that way,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the apartment below Asanti’s studio, on the ground floor, Gioconda\n pushed herself toward the stove in her wheelchair. She had been confined to\n it three years ago after she fell and suffered a hip fracture. It never\n quite healed right, one doctor said. And there were the episodes of vertigo\n to contend with. Various doctors had all kinds of names for her various\n small-to-medium-sized problems. She was wise enough to see the big picture:\n She was paying the physical price for being eighty-nine years old. She\n counted her blessings that she was still as sharp as ever, perhaps more so.\n She’d been a good businesswoman three decades ago, before she got tired of\n it. She’d never let anyone take advantage of her in her life. If she’d had\n to choose between physical or mental frailty, she would have picked what\n she had.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But her mental clarity also allowed her to take stock of what she had lost.\n Getting around her neighborhood was hard. Travel outside of Rome, which\n she’d loved when she was younger, was too complicated to contemplate.\n Simple things—cooking, taking a shower, even getting dressed—were not\n simple anymore. Her children came around to help out a couple times a week,\n and she’d hired someone to keep the apartment tidy, because she couldn’t\n abide uncleanliness. She was in good hands. But still, those\n minute-by-minute indignities hurt, and she could see how they were making\n her unhappier, making her a little harder to get along with, both for her\n family and for herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the servant arrived, floating down from the ceiling of her studio to\n stand before her, Gioconda wasn’t too alarmed. She’d never seen anything\n like it, but she recognized it as unthreatening. The servant gave her a low\n bow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you wish me to do?” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eCould you cook me some dinner?\u003c/em\u003e\n she thought. \u003cem\u003eCleaning my bathroom would be nice.\u003c/em\u003e But then she\n realized that these were silly things to ask for. Those were choices an\n invalid made, and she didn’t want to be an invalid anymore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want to be strong again,” Gioconda said. “I want to have good arms, good\n legs, good eyesight, good hearing. I want to be able to take care of\n myself. Can you do that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course,” the servant said. “Don’t be afraid.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not,” Gioconda said. “Not as afraid as I am of what’s coming if I\n don’t get better.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A noise of infinite compassion, somewhere between a moan and sigh, escaped\n the servant. “I understand,” it said. “None of this will hurt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It took a step toward her, another step. Then it was somehow around her,\n moving into her. It looked like a film projection, but she could feel it,\n too, coursing through her limbs. She felt her lungs expand with it, her\n heart beat louder. She felt her skin tighten, stretch just a little, and\n she brought her hand up to her face. Her fingers were angular now; they had\n sides, facets to them, like she was made of crystals, though her joints\n were more flexible than they’d been in years. Maybe more flexible than they\n had ever been.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you all right?” Gioconda heard the servant ask her, from somewhere\n inside her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” she said. “More than all right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She grasped the rails of her wheelchair, took her feet out of the stirrups,\n and put them on the floor. Stood up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jumped, and snickered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had a thought. She closed her eyes. Spun on her heels one and a half\n times around. Opened her eyes again. Kicked the wheelchair over and\n laughed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the apartment above Asanti’s studio, a graduate student in economics\n named Simona sat in front of her laptop, staring at her screen. She had\n been writing her dissertation for two years and was almost finished. She\n had done solid work. It would get her the degree she wanted. But she had\n been accepted to her program, she knew, based on what her undergraduate\n advisor and her graduate advisor had seen in her work early on: glimmers of\n genius, of an understanding of economic systems that they themselves knew\n they didn’t have. They had expected great things from her. She knew that\n she was only giving them good things. That irritated her because—and she\n knew she wasn’t being too proud when she said this—she knew that the\n paradigm-shifting intellectual work they were expecting from her was in\n her. She could feel it, pushing against the inside of her chest, the inside\n of her brain. It whispered to her sometimes in the morning, just as she was\n waking up, and at night, as she was nodding off to sleep. She felt it\n rising in her sometimes when she was sitting on the bus.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she had found the stress of producing a little too much. The other\n demands of the program, teaching course sections, grading papers, diverted\n too much attention away from her studies. Most of all, she had needed to\n make money, working at a string of jobs that helped her make rent but took\n just enough energy from her that there was only enough left for clever\n ideas, not groundbreaking ones.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now Simona was almost done. She would submit her dissertation on time; she\n would get her degree. But she knew her advisor, who had read early drafts\nof the work, was quietly disappointed already. \u003cem\u003eThis is solid thinking\u003c/em\u003e, he said to her, with the tone of voice he\n might use to appraise a brick, not a cathedral. She read between the lines\n of his written commentary and could sense his flagging hope, his\n resignation. He was nearing the end of his tenure. Maybe he was hoping to\n cap it by mentoring a genius; if he was, he seemed to be giving up on that,\n settling for the idea that Simona was just another bright young graduate\n student who would, in time, have a normal, uneventful career somewhere.\n Maybe she’d become a professor like him, or work in a bank, or in a\n government office, a capable bureaucrat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Simona herself knew she could do better. She just needed a month of\n sleep, an unbroken stretch of time. A way to clear her head of everything\n else so she could take a deep breath and think.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the servant rose through the floor, Simona jumped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t be afraid,” the servant said. “I’m here to serve you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you?” Simona asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think you know,” the servant said, in a way that brought comfort.\n Whatever panic had begun in Simona was subsiding already, even as she\n understood that this was part of the servant’s spell, to first keep their\n soon-to-be masters from being too frightened of them to ask for help. The\n spell was working. And besides, the servant was doing nothing to threaten\n her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do know,” Simona said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is important to me that you trust me,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I trust you,” Simona said. “I’m just not sure how you can help me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My compatriots in the building are painting the hallway. A few more of\n them have gotten to work on the structure itself. And some, like myself,\n have been approaching those of you who live here. On the ground floor, the\n woman confined to a wheelchair can walk again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My problems aren’t physical,” Simona said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Exactly. It is entirely in your head,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Both the problem and the solution.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSimona was about to prevaricate. \u003cem\u003eThe problem, yes. The solution, I’m not sure.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But she found that she was sure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Simona said. “Both of them. There’s just too much white noise for me\n to get at the solution.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can help with that,” the servant said. “But first, I have to enter your\n head. Will you let me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Simona said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Simona held out a hand and the servant grasped it. Simona pulled the\n servant closer and the servant bowed down, as if to kiss her forehead,\n except that it kept moving, into her skull, sliding in. Simona’s eyes\n closed. She felt the bones in her face changing, jutting out a little more,\n developing angles that weren’t there before. None of it bothered her.\n Because the servant made good on its promise. She felt the rest of her life\n falling away. The family problems her mother had called her about\n yesterday. The complaints of an undergraduate who still didn’t seem to\n understand why Simona would make good on her threats to fail students who\n never came to class. The stack of worksheets waiting to be graded. The\n stress of her current job, the bigger stress of having to look for a better\n job when she was done. None of those problems vanished, but it was as if\nthey stopped talking and took a seat, even looked at her expectantly. \u003cem\u003eNow is your chance.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And there, before her, was the problem. The idea that had driven her\n research was one that a clever undergraduate with a keen sense of hubris\n could come up with: namely, that the post-World War II Keynesian economic\n system and the free market that followed were, in fact, two facets of the\n same larger problem. It was not so much that one was an improvement on the\n other as that one could fix the other’s shortfalls, and so could be used in\n tandem, or in concert, as part of a larger set of policy tools, informed by\n a wider understanding of the economic system. As she’d known for years, it\n was too clever by half, so easy to say and almost impossible to\n demonstrate. Except that, all these years, she’d been amassing data,\n building her model in the back of her mind. If the idea itself was a gross\n overreach, discovering the mechanics that showed it could be possible was\n worthy of a Nobel Prize.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And there, with the servant’s calming influence, Simona felt those very\n mechanics rising to her consciousness. She could turn them over in her\n mind, manipulate them, even run a few simple mental tests. It was more than\n enough to begin. Her fingers flew on the keys as she typed, so fast it\n seemed that time slowed around her. Giving her a chance to fulfill the\n promise her first mentor had seen in her years ago. Maybe, just maybe, she\n was going to change the world.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n An hour later, Sal, Liam, and Menchú approached the apartment building.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is the place, yeah?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah,” Sal said. “This is the address Asanti gave us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thirty-five hours left to fix this one,” Menchú said. “A luxury.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Even without Grace?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s not much we can do about that,” Menchú answered. He shrugged.\n Though Sal could tell he missed having Grace on their team. Sal did, too.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti did good work,” Liam said. “Maybe a little too good.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you think she’s dabbling?” Menchú asked. Sal caught the look that\n passed between them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, it’s not as if we don’t know that she has connections. So do I. So\n do we all, at this point,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Besides, for a rift in reality, it seems pretty quiet,” Sal said. Maybe\n their suspicions were justified. But right now, she just wanted to get the\n job done.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said, “it does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey,” Liam said, “does anyone else smell paint?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The front door to the building was open. Sure enough, there was a sign\n warning them about wet paint, written in strange handwriting but perfectly\n legible.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Interesting that they’d write that sign in Spanish,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s in English for me,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Me too,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They could hear banging and sawing from the stairwell as they got closer. A\n shudder passed through the walls. They stepped inside. In the vestibule, an\n entity was floating toward the ceiling with a paint can and a paintbrush.\n It turned its face to Sal, Liam, and Menchú, gave them a small nod, and\n then proceeded to apply a fresh coat of paint in long strokes, guiding the\n brush around the light fixture, smoothing out bubbles, cleaning up corners.\n Farther up the stairs, another entity was spackling a crack in the wall.\n Another one was fixing a creaky stair. They all noticed the newcomers but\n did nothing to stop their work. The sound of a swinging big band flowed\n from a radio inside the ground-floor apartment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hate to say this,” Liam said, “but it seems like they’re doing a good\n job.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They reached the first landing and turned to look up toward the apartments\n above.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The walls were growing facets, the stairs moving upward, but no longer\n according to simple geometry. They were following some other pattern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re like crystals,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fractals, I think,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before their eyes, the staircase moved, twisted, just a little further to\n the left. Another shudder passed through the building. From somewhere\n inside the walls, its timbers groaned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal saw a servant on the landing manipulating the ceiling with its hands;\n beneath its fingers, the ceiling grew patterns, crystalline dendrites.\n Beautiful. And, it occurred to Sal, unstable. She played a hunch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me,” Sal called out to the servant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant turned its head to her without stopping what it was doing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can you tell me what’s going on?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are here to help,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s what you do?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is why we exist.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see. What are you doing right now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are improving the building,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I noticed that,” Sal said, “with the painting and the fixing of the\n stairs. You’re doing great work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But I don’t understand what you’re doing up there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “With what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Sal said, “this.” She motioned to the stairs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It is as I said,” the servant said. “We saw room for improvement, so we\n are improving them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But these stairs are getting really hard to use for us,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant cocked its head to one side. “That’s true,” it said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can the apartment building survive what you’re doing?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In its current form, no,” the servant said. “Its new form could outlast\n the land beneath it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But how are the people in the apartment building going to live in it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are improving them, too,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I see,” Sal said. “Who told you to do all this work?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The one who summoned us brought the first one here to do the painting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And where is that person now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” the servant said. “I never saw who it was.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Work crews,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant ignored him. “There is so much more work to do here,” it\n continued. “And we have not had work in a very long time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is it okay if we come up?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, of course,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They ascended the twisting stairs as if it were a rock face, their hands in\n front of them, crawling like spiders. Menchú stood and straightened his\n clothes. The servant working on the ceiling looked down at them and nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Since when did demons get so accommodating?” Liam said to Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re not demons,” the servant said, “even in the sense of the word that\n you’re using.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you?” Menchú said. “Angels?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Servants,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal rolled her eyes. “Got it,” she said. “Good workers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We try to be,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay, we’re done here,” Sal said. “Let’s figure out how to stop this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Um,” Liam said, pointing through the open doorway to the studio—empty but\n for the folding table and the book. They entered, and as they got closer,\n saw that the book wasn’t a book anymore so much as a statue of a book with\n a trapdoor in it. It was open, and the doors had swung inward.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So what do we do?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out several sheets of\n paper stapled together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m almost sure it’s one of the spells that Asanti thought it was.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How was she so sure?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú frowned. “She wasn’t,” he said. “She suggested several\n possibilities, but there’s one that seems the most likely.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He flipped to the second page, where Asanti had scribbled a few tight\n paragraphs in Old French, and below it, the Latin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She translated it as well as she could,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re going to cast a spell?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course not,” Menchú said. “I’m uncasting it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He extended his left hand in front of him and began to read the lines in\n Latin. The book jittered a little, then softened. He kept reading. The\n trapdoor began to close.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you sure you want to do that?” a voice from the hall said. It was a\n girl, about six years old from the looks of it, with dark, curly hair. And,\n Sal noted, eyes like a German shepherd. The pupils down to dots, as if she\n were on something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stopped. Sal saw his expression change.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you doing?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The door was closing,” Menchú said. “Maybe we don’t want that until the\n servants are on the other side of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe you’re saying the wrong things,” the girl said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me,” Liam said, “but who are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal, Liam,” Menchú said. “I think I need to do this myself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo, are you okay?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just go,” Menchú said. “The things doing all that work out there don’t\n mind being talked to. Maybe you can find some other way to fix this. Make\n yourself useful and go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThat’s harsh for Menchú\u003c/em\u003e, Sal thought. He was under some sort of extra strain, something was\n bothering him and he just didn’t want to say what it was. She gave herself\n a moment to decide whether it was worth pushing him on it. Decided it was\n better to let it go. For now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo’s right,” Sal said. “Let’s go make ourselves useful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Close the door,” Menchú said when they were gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That poor little girl,” Menchú said. “I hope you’re not hurting her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s fine,” Hannah said, and smiled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can’t help but notice how much you seem to enjoy possessing children.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They accept me faster.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mean they put up less of a fight,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You act as if it’s always a hostile takeover.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Isn’t it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think they enjoy it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t fool yourself,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know how they feel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú gave her a disgusted look and shook his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In any case,” Hannah said, “this one will be fine when I leave. And it may\n surprise you, but I’m here to try to help you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You always say that,” Menchú said. “Forgive me if I don’t want the kind of\n help you’re offering.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me look at those papers,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Get lost,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you in a position to double-check your librarian’s work? Don’t you\n think someone should?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú prevaricated, then gave Hannah the papers with an extra glower.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah squinted down the girl’s nose. “Hmmm,” she said. “Asanti is very\n good at her job. I see why you haven’t had her killed. Though this\n translation is a little off. A little loose.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can you suggest an alternative?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Hannah said. “I don’t think it matters. The bigger problem is that\n all this information is old. What you are trying to do with these servants\n is akin to trying to command a modern army using Napoleon’s field manual.\n The universe has changed in some very significant ways since these orders\n were written down, and the orders don’t fit anymore. They were accurate\n enough, it seems, to do the simple things, bring the servants here, get\n them moving. But now that something more complicated is needed, I’m afraid\n that these,” she poked at the papers with her free hand, “are useless.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then what \u003cem\u003eshould\u003c/em\u003e we do?” Menchú snapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t have to take that tone with me,” Hannah said. “I’m trying to\n help you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t ask me to be civil with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Hannah said, “it would be nice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve had enough of this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine,” Hannah said. “What you need to do is stop thinking of them like\n artifacts in a museum and start treating them like the living creatures\n they are.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which means what.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you have no answers for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Hannah said, “but I think your friend does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Hannah said. “Her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The building lurched under Sal’s and Liam’s feet as, on all fours, they\n clambered up the steps.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did the whole place just sway?” Liam said. “Or is it only the stairs that\n are moving?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not sure,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At the next landing, two servants were busying themselves pulling crowns of\n crystals out of the walls, pushing them closer together, forcing the\n ceiling farther up. A crack appeared down the ceiling’s center, and one of\n the servants scurried up to patch it with iridescent spikes. Sal stood up\n and walked beneath them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you doing?” Liam asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Trying to understand what’s going on,” Sal said. She looked up at the\n servant. “Excuse me, but I’m worried that the building will collapse on\n us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It might fall,” the servant said, “but we will rebuild it better if it\n does.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But what about the people in the building?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We will make them better, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And how do you plan to do that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant nodded toward the apartment door in front of Sal. “Have a\n look,” it said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door had been forced ajar by the changes in the frame. It swung inward\n as soon as Sal touched it. Liam followed her. Inside, the walls were\n covered with fresh paint, a multitude of figures careening through vibrant\n swirls of color. There were several easels with canvases on them, all with\n finished paintings of landscapes vertiginous in their perspective, as\n though the viewer were a bird testing the limits of its own flight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hello?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come in!” called a cheery voice. Sal couldn’t figure out where the voice\n had come from. “Come in!” it repeated, and Sal understood; it was coming\n from just above her. Crouched on the ceiling, painting a long swath of\n bright green against the white, was a man Sal assumed was the occupant of\n the apartment. But he had changed, even Sal could see it. He was bigger\n than a normal human, his limbs longer, and he was faceted, as though made\n of minerals instead of flesh. His face seemed to be trying to look kind,\n but there was something hollow about it, uncanny.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry if my face is off-putting. I do want you to come in,” the artist\n said. “I’m Nazario.” He planted his palms on the ceiling, extended his legs\n behind him, then dangled them down and dropped to the floor to shake her\n hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal,” she said. She understood, in that moment, that she’d finally seen\n enough weird shit not to be afraid of him. And if the servants weren’t\n going to help her understand what was going on, maybe this man, or what was\n left of him, would.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you an artist?” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am now,” he said. “For decades I was just a hack. But I knew I had it in\n me. And now look! It’s all coming out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nazario was right, Sal thought. There was something in the distortions of\n perspective he was working with. They made the paintings heady. She felt\n like she would fall into them if she looked long enough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have,” Nazario said. “All my life. I saw them in my mind as clear as\n they’re on the canvas now. If I concentrated hard enough, I could almost\n make the street I was walking on look like that. In my mind, I could twist\n and smear all that color in front of me into shapes like this. But I could\n never quite get the paint to conform to the vision. Until now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What changed?” Sal asked. It was only half a rhetorical question.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What didn’t?” Nazario said, admiring his arms, his hands. “It’s not only\n the physical changes, the fine motor skills I now have. It’s the mental\n clarity, the shutting down of noise, the ability to block out distractions\n and establish a direct line from my mind’s eye to my hand. There is no\n interference. If I can see it, I can draw it. Just like that. It is\n exhilarating.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How long did it take you to make all these paintings?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “An hour,” Nazario said. “And it’s only my first series. I have so many\n ambitions, two decades’ worth of ideas that I can at last execute. I am,\n finally, working at the height of my powers, and it is beautiful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the magic did this,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Magic did not do this,” Nazario said. “I did this. The servant only\n helped. It allowed me to bring out what was already in me. That’s all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But your face,” Sal said. “Your arms. There are consequences.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The servants don’t seem so bad once you accept their help,” Nazario said.\n “You just have to let them in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal thought of the Hand. Of the way he clawed at the inside of her skull.\n Of how she would have thrown herself off her balcony before she let him\n stay in her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not letting them in,” she said, in a soft voice. She looked at Liam\n and knew he felt the same.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Suit yourself,” Nazario said. “It won’t be easy for you to stay here. The\n building is unsafe for you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are there others in the building who don’t have . . . servants yet?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So they’re in danger, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I suppose they are,” Nazario said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How many people are in this building?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know. Dozens?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That’s when they heard the screams from upstairs, calls for help. Someone\n was trapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” Liam said. “Enough talk.” He turned and bolted into the\n hallway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam—” Sal said, running after him. Liam had already lunged and caught the\n leg of the servant on the ceiling. He pulled the surprised servant to the\n floor, where he delivered three punches to its face before the servant\n raised an arm and caught Liam about the neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have to get back to work,” the servant said. It grew its fingers longer\n and closed around Liam’s throat. Liam kept punching, his face reddening.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam, stop,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He threw one more punch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eStop\u003c/em\u003e,” Sal said. Liam’s arms fell to his sides. The servant\n released its choke hold, rose, and got back to work.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another voice from the floor above them wafted down the staircase, calling\n for aid. \u003cem\u003eI can’t move.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are endangering people in this building,” Sal said to the servant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It shrugged. “If they will let us help them, everything will be fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mean alter them. They should be allowed a better choice.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The work doesn’t allow that,” the servant said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal thought back to what Liam had said earlier. \u003cem\u003eTypical work crews.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve got it,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you do when you’re not happy with the way people are doing their\n job?” Sal said. “You talk to their manager.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How do we do that?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s go find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servant on the landing had heard everything.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gioconda had the radio on loud in her apartment. She’d moved all the\n furniture to the walls, and rolled up the rug to make a space for herself\n to dance. It had been even easier to do that than when she was in her\n twenties. She wasn’t just restored to her youth; she was in better shape\n than she’d ever been in her life. She’d moved from past her prime to beyond\n it. It wasn’t work to move the couch, the coffee table, to lift the rolled\n rug and lean it in the corner of the room. It was a pleasure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her first few dance steps had been the ones she remembered from her youth,\n and she held her arms out in front of her as though she were being guided\n by an invisible partner. It was her way of walking back through her\n memories to recall how the steps went. Before long, though, she was\n improvising. Her steps changed, dug into the music more than she had been\n able to before. She held her arms out from her sides, then over her head,\n throwing her head back and reaching for the ceiling. She ran and slid\n across the floor in her socks. She ran again and dropped to her knees,\n leaned back, and slid farther. There was no stopping her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two floors above her, Simona’s fingers were blurs on her keyboard, her eyes\n fixed to the screen. The economic mechanism was coming into focus, the\n models she would have to run were taking form. It would take some time to\n work out the math, even more time to troubleshoot it, but it was at last\n within reach. She was already imagining the look on her advisor’s face when\n he saw the work she was doing. She was certain he would first smile, then\n laugh a little, delighted by what he saw. She wouldn’t tell her\n undergraduate professor, the one who had seen her promise and encouraged\n her to become an economist, just yet. She would wait until the work was\n done, the revisions made, the dissertation defended, and then send him a\n bottle of his favorite wine. There was not a doubt in her mind that she\n could finish the work. It was just a question of time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then the signal came through, from one servant to the next, connecting\n Gioconda and Simona with everyone else who had let them in.\n \u003cem\u003e\n Someone’s here. A woman and two men. They’re going to disrupt the work.\n What do we do?\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The servants were not good at initiating action. It wasn’t in their nature.\n But it was in Gioconda’s and Simona’s, and in Nazario’s, and they spoke to\n each other through their helpers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI can’t give up what I have\u003c/em\u003e, Gioconda said. \u003cem\u003eNot so soon.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eMe neither\u003c/em\u003e, said Simona.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eI need more time, too\u003c/em\u003e,\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003esaid Nazario.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWe meet on my floor, then?\u003c/em\u003e\n Simona said. The other two agreed. Along the filaments of the network\n connecting the servants’ minds, the humans caught a sigh, a small moment of\n relaxation, of relief. No one was ready to stop working yet. Not when there\n was so much left to be done.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nazario was the first into the stairwell, and he clapped when he saw what\n the servants had done. The walls, the floors, the ceilings had all become\n intricate loops and spirals spreading outward, and as he watched they grew,\n flexed, stretched toward each other, like the fronds of ferns reaching\n toward sunlight. He loved it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door beside him opened inward and Simona stepped out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’ve never really talked, have we?” Nazario said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Simona said. “I guess we’ve both been too busy working.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They could hear Sal’s and Liam’s voices on the landing beneath them. There\n were three loud bangs from the bottom of the stairwell; then the entire\n building wrenched downward, into the ground, just the length of a finger.\n But it was falling into the basement. Simona and Nazario stayed where they\n had been. Now the soles of their shoes hovered off the floor. Their heads\n were a bit closer to the ceiling. It wavered above them, seemed to chime as\n it settled again, even as a long groan ran up through the staircase, like a\n shock wave.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s go,” Simona said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They floated down the twisting stairwell. They could hear Gioconda coming\n up to meet them. She was singing the whole way. Bringing a few other people\n with her. Maybe these newcomers weren’t happy with the work that had been\n done. But Gioconda, Simona, and Nazario, who had only passed each other in\n the entrance of the apartment building and nodded, only vaguely recognized\n one another when they passed on nearby streets, were united in one idea: As\n far as they were concerned, their work had just begun.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo,” Sal called from the landing. “We have an idea. Do you have any\n instructions for calling in their boss? We need to complain about the\n work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inside, Menchú smiled to himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I told you she would deliver,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú glared at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah,” Liam called from behind her. He looked at his watch. “Thirty-four\n hours to spare. Easy-peasy.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From Menchú’s point of view, one second, his compatriots stood in the\n doorway to the apartment, looking tired but confident. Two people he had\n grown to respect and love so much, people who understood him as no one else\n ever could. They had gotten better at their jobs, too. So good that\n sometimes they didn’t even need Grace’s superhuman strength to save them;\n their wits, their knowledge, could sometimes be enough. He was proud of\n them, proud of the work they were all doing. Soon it would all be made\n right.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then a sound grew from the stairs, human voices rising, overlaid with a\n high, glassy keening. The expressions on Sal’s and Liam’s faces changed.\n They turned their heads and looked up and down the stairs, and at once they\n were tumbling and fighting. Liam was lifted off the ground, his feet\n kicking in the air. He punched upward and dropped again, fell to the floor,\n got on his feet. Someone landed on Sal’s back. She crouched and rolled,\n pinning her assailant beneath her, then flipped over and tried to hold the\n attacker down, but couldn’t.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Close the door!” Liam said to Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But one of the tenants of the building made that impossible. He had jumped\n to his feet and made his way into the doorway. Sal threw herself on him and\n knocked him down, and they wrestled on the ground half in, half out of the\n apartment. The tenant began to break free and turned his face toward\n Menchú. It was elongated, faceted, an abstract sculpture of itself. It made\n Menchú doubt how much human was left. Behind them, on the landing, Liam was\n facing two other attackers and losing, the glassy screams getting louder\n and louder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal is right,” Hannah said. “Call their boss.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know how,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think I do,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s the spell?” Menchú said. “Quick.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There doesn’t always have to be a spell. Grab the book and call.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A long, wide crack appeared in the ceiling over their heads, dropping a\n flurry of dust in the air. The possessed man in the doorway was almost\n free.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú grabbed either side of the book and spoke into it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whoever oversees these servants’ work,” he yelled, “it is out of control.\n It is dangerous. The work must be stopped before someone is killed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The book felt warmer in his hands. The edges of the solidified pages pulsed\n beneath his palms. He could hear Liam shouting from the landing, Sal\n swearing at the man she was trying in vain to contain. The crack spread\n from the ceiling to the walls.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Does anyone hear me?” Menchú said. “Is anyone there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A low moan escaped the book. Menchú looked down into it. He could see a\n tiny figure in the middle of it, first little more than a dot, then growing\n larger. It looked almost like a turtle. It got closer and then seemed more\n like a Christmas ornament, a scintillating globe with tiny head, tiny\n limbs. It got closer, and bigger. Big enough that Menchú took a step back.\n Another step.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A hand reached out of the book, thick, square, with stocky, stony fingers.\n It was too big for the book, impossible to say how it was fitting through,\n but it was emerging. An even wider shoulder followed, the curve of a sphere\n that, Menchú realized, would almost not fit into the room. Another arm on\n the other side. A thick leg. A second one. Its head began on the top of the\n sphere, but as the sphere grew to fill the space, the head slid down to the\n middle of what would be its chest. Eyes opened in the head where Menchú did\n not expect. The mouth appeared above them, spitting out a few shards of\n glass before it spoke.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am the foreman of this crew,” it said. “Cease working.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All the noise stopped. In the doorway, Sal’s attacker stopped moving and\n lay on the ground. The two servants on the landing stood up. Liam stood up\n with them, straightening his clothes. The building swayed beneath them.\n They could all feel it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are dissatisfied with the work?” the foreman said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You felt it for yourself, didn’t you?” Menchú said. “The work has made the\n building unstable.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They are rebuilding it. This edifice cannot be improved without first\n making it more fragile. Surely everyone knows this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, but there are people living here,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Structural work is always inconvenient, regrettable but necessary,” the\n foreman said. “People, like buildings, can be fragile, and must be made\n stronger.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Some of the people don’t want to be made stronger. They just want to be\n left alone,” Menchú said. He looked toward Sal and Liam. They had both been\n through so much.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That is their choice,” the foreman said. “We don’t impose. We don’t make\n them stronger unless they ask.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah,” Menchú said. “Maybe that’s so for them. But you’ve overlooked\n something. Your crew has decided to work on the entire building, and not\n everyone in the building has been improved to withstand it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The foreman cocked its head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I,” Menchú said, “have not been improved to withstand it. This little girl\n beside me. My friends right here. If you continue to work on the building,\n you’ll kill us in the process.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can help you to live through it,” the foreman said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t you see?” Menchú said. “We don’t want your help in that way. We’re\n okay the way we are.” He was surprised to find how much he meant that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m afraid that perhaps \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e don’t see,” the foreman said. “This\n building is being improved in order to be brought up to code.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Circumstances are changing around you. Whoever summoned our crew in the\n beginning asked only that the walls be painted. I understand that. But in\n doing that work, so many violations were revealed that the entire crew was\n necessary.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This building and half the people in it will not survive until the end of\n the day if you continue to do your work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This world and all the people in it may not survive if we do not do our\n work,” the foreman said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s skin tingled. He had a sense of standing on the edge of a cliff\n that was crumbling beneath them, the ground far below nowhere in sight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The building heaved again. The crack in the wall widened. They could all\n feel the structure beginning to pitch over.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can’t worry about the world just yet,” Menchú said. “I’m worried about\n the people in this building making it to tonight. Can you understand that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course,” the foreman said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then can I ask you to call off your work?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m afraid that’s complicated. There are protocols to follow.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Protocols. Rules. Regulations. Now Menchú was back on solid ground. Sal’s\n trick had worked once. Maybe it would work again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me speak to whoever oversees you,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The foreman sighed, shifted its weight from foot to foot. In the slowness,\n the creakiness of it, Menchú had a sense that the foreman was very heavy. A\n sentient wrecking ball. He also had the sense that the foreman was very\n old, and very tired, and perhaps really wasn’t being paid enough to deal\n with this problem—whatever that might mean in magical terms . It just\n wanted the whole thing to go away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whoever summoned us has apparently left the building, correct?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said. “I think they were scared off by what you did.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So in truth, there is no real way of determining whether we have done our\n work to satisfaction, or even whether it’s finished,” the foreman said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s right,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He waited for the foreman to speak, and then realized the foreman was\n waiting for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can stop working anytime you want,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The foreman’s head sank a little. It took in a deep breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right, crew,” it said. “Put everything back the way it was and pack it\n up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stole a glance at the girl nearby. Watched as her eyes darkened, and\n she grew confused. She started to cry. Menchú felt almost nothing but\n relief.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For Gioconda, Simona, and Nazario, it was as if a cold wind moved through\n the entire apartment building, beginning in the basement, swerving up the\n stairs, moving through every floor. The structure groaned back into\n alignment. The staircases unscrewed and straightened. The endless designs\n on the walls, the ceilings, sank back into their flat planes. Even the work\n that had started it all, the white coat of paint, flecked away, and the\n wall was dry and drab again. The old cracks in the stairs reappeared. The\n musty smell, which everyone who lived there had grown accustomed to,\n returned anew.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nazario, lying on the floor of the studio apartment, felt what had\n happened. He rolled onto his back and held his arms out in front of\n himself. They were the flesh and bone he had always known. He was stricken.\n He leapt to his feet and ran upstairs. Simona, looking terrified, followed\n him from the landing. Gioconda lay on the ground in a fetal position, her\n hair mussed, her housedress twisted around her legs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you okay?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m fine,” Gioconda said. “But someone will have to help me up.” Without\n warning, she started crying.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nazario would discover that the art he had made with the servant’s help was\n still there. Simona’s dissertation, almost complete, was saved on her\n laptop. It was work they had done themselves, after all. The servants had\n only helped them with it. But Simona despaired of the small amount of work\n left to be done. Her mind was flooded again with the stresses of her daily\n life, the fear of disappointing her advisors and herself. And Nazario knew\n he would have to treat his compositions with care. He needed a strategy for\n rolling them out, for selling them. He had to be sure not to take too many\n commissions at once. He would never be so productive again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Simona and Nazario, in the next few weeks, would take to having coffee with\n Gioconda in her apartment on the ground floor. Simona would bring the\n coffee from upstairs. Nazario would bring a few pastries from the bakery\n two blocks away. Gioconda would set out plates and cups before they\n arrived; she insisted that being in a wheelchair didn’t make her an\n invalid. They would talk about the most mundane things. There was gossip to\n relate about the other people in the building, behavior of local\n politicians to condemn. They actually talked about the weather. They didn’t\n talk much about their careers or their health. They didn’t have to. Even if\n they couldn’t read one another’s thoughts anymore, each of them knew what\n they all had lost.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 6\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you did it without Grace,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, we did,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Getting better at hitting?” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, at least talking,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And done in three hours,” Asanti said. “That’s a short conversation for\n you, Liam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s eyebrows rose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What did I do to deserve that?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know I mean it with love,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Team Three was back in the Archives, discussing with Asanti the final\n details of the book they’d brought back. As she talked and asked questions,\n she wrote quickly in a notepad.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One more question,” she said. “Did you ever discover who activated the\n book in the first place?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Menchú said. “Even the trail of figuring out who rented the apartment\n went cold.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Someone to do with the black market,” Liam said. “I still have a few\n people I can ask about it, but I’m not expecting anything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can ask, too,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sure you can,” Liam said with a laugh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked from Asanti to Liam and back again. Had they always talked like\n this, about their connections to criminals, to illicit activities that\n undermined the Society’s mission? Had they kept it under wraps for the\n first few months she was there, or was she just noticing it more now? It\n was hard to remember.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Asanti said, “I have to get home to my family. To think in the past\n year we’ve almost seen a city or two destroyed. It’s nice to know that\n sometimes it still comes down to someone misusing a book. Seems almost\n quaint now, doesn’t it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú, his arms folded, studying Asanti, said nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the building is back to the way it was?” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Uh-huh,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the people who live in the building?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No risk to anybody or anything now, it seems,” Menchú said. “No need for\n any team but ours.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m delighted this all wrapped up so fast,” Asanti said. “And so clean.”\n She got up and headed toward the stairs. “Good night, all of you.” Even in\n the chipper mood Asanti was in, though, Sal caught her sparing a moment to\n shoot glances at the new cameras in the room. The archivist still hadn’t\n gotten used to them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n None of the other three moved. They waited for Asanti to make her way up\n the spiral staircase and close the big wooden door at the top.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” Liam said. “Asanti seemed pleased. Maybe a little too pleased.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Meaning what?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She had such good information, right from the start,” Liam said. “And\n certainly a spring in her step when we closed the case. There are always\n loose ends to these things . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe this time the loose end is her,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have my suspicions too,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But this mission isn’t a reason to open an investigation,” Menchú said.\n “First, we have no real evidence that she was anything other than helpful.\n And if it was an experiment of hers, she did the right thing by helping us\n fix it. Even the magic seemed . . . I hate to say this, but more benign\n than usual.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Give her enough rope, then?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve never heard that expression before,” Menchú said. “But I think so,\n yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So it’s all tied up?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good,” Liam said. “So now I can ask: Did anyone else hate this mission as\n much as I did?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why did they have to like being possessed?” Sal said. “Why did it have to\n seem like we were ruining their lives to set them free?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No one spoke for a moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was a drug for me, pure and simple,” Liam said. “A bad one. I carved a\n path of destruction across this planet, for myself and those around me. I\n did damage I can’t undo. There’s no doubt about that. But now that I\n remember what I did, I can’t shake the feeling of those first few days,\n even those first few weeks. The madness we got up to. We were awake for\n five days straight. We partied in four different cities in three different\n countries. I was so young, so full of it, but I was so ready, too. I don’t\n remember everything—how could I?—but when I’m back there, it’s a blur of\n music and lights and sweaty bodies, and dashing for cabs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He let out a small chuckle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, yes—and running from cops. We were in London by then, at a party in a\n warehouse that was illegal from top to bottom. We shouldn’t have been there\n in the first place, and the things that were going on in there . . . well.\n It must have been about five in the morning when the police raided the\n place. All of a sudden, there were flashing lights and bullhorns\n everywhere. We thought it was part of the party and cheered. Then, when it\n dawned on us that they were there to put us in jail, we ran. I remember\n diving out a window with a mate and hitting the ground outside, hard. We\n bounced off the pavement, were on our feet, and dashed away.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was silent for a moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know what I did during all that time. I know what I’m responsible for.\n But the thing that’s hardest to face is that early on, I loved it. I really\n did. And even when I knew how bad it was getting, there was still that\n feeling, that rush. I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t want to. And if I’m\n honest with myself, I still don’t. Even with what I know now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam’s voice dropped. “I’m not proud,” he said. “I’m ashamed. I hate it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal felt the rage in her uncoiling, fought at first to tamp it down. Then\n realized there was no point.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry,” Sal said. “I wish I could be more sympathetic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t be the martyr in your story,” Sal said. “You’re the perpetrator.\n I’m sorry you feel bad about what you did. But you went looking for\n something and you got it. I didn’t ask for what happened to me. I didn’t\n ask for the Hand to crawl into my head, crawl into the inside of my body.\n Possession was a drug for you? For me, it was nothing but violation. I was\n ready to die rather than face another minute of it. I tried to throw myself\n off my balcony. Did I ever tell you that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The only reason I failed was because the Hand stopped me. He froze every\n muscle in my body just as I was heading over the rail. I got a good look\n down into the alley below, the parked cars, the black pavement. There were\n lines in the street that some construction workers must have painted. Want\n to know what I remember feeling? Sadness. Sadness that I couldn’t be down\n there, my skull broken into five pieces. I know what it looks like when\n people jump out of buildings. I know what happens. It’s why I knew it would\n be so effective. And he took away even that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you beat him, Sal,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wish it were that simple,” Sal said. “But I stopped believing in that\n particular line of thinking long ago. I don’t think anyone beats anything.\n We never get over it, we never put it behind us. There’s just learning to\n live with it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you’ve learned to live with it so well,” Menchú said. “You too, Liam.\n You’ve both taken what’s happened to you, what you’ve done, and used it to\n make you stronger.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It doesn’t feel that way,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, it looks that way from where I am,” Menchú said. “I see it in what\n you say. I see it in your actions.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re saying we’re better for having suffered?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I would never say that,” Menchú. “I’m saying that I admire you both, every\n day, for the way that you continue to live your lives, after what you’ve\n been through. And when I am feeling weak myself, I think sometimes about\n what you two might do, and it helps me to be better.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam blinked. “That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in years,” he\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, don’t get used to it,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Believe me, I won’t,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal could tell that Menchú wanted to say more. Something was on his mind,\n eating away at him. She considered pushing him on it, but thought better of\n it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So,” she said, “who do you think opened that book?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who knows?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My guess?” Liam said. “We’ll never find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú left the Vatican to clear his head. It was a habit he was beginning\n to fall into. After the mission, after the briefing, after they’d sifted\n through the details for scraps of knowledge, tactical lessons, he found a\n little time away helped. The streets of Rome—the collisions of ancient and\n modern architecture large and small, the tourists and harried businesses,\n even the street vendors selling cheap hats and selfie sticks—brought him a\n strange clarity. A reminder that there was life outside of what he was\n doing. Life outside the Church.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You remember what the foreman said, right?” a voice said behind him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú turned. There was another girl at his side, this one in a school\n uniform, a backpack slung over one shoulder. But there were the same pale,\n pale eyes. A pang of fright passed through him. He took a deep breath to\n calm himself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “About what?” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “About the world. That it may not survive if they do not do their work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I remember,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not an exaggeration. There is a great project that is in danger of\n failing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were walking down a busy street, surrounded by people. No one around\n them was paying attention, and Menchú realized how normal they looked, how\n anonymous.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is that why you’ve killed so many people?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are on the same side,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t believe you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not important to me whether you believe,” Hannah said. “What is\n important is that you continue to play your part. Do this, and all will be\n well. I’ll even help you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t want your help,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But Father,” the girl said, “you \u003cem\u003eneed\u003c/em\u003e it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú looked down at her, intent on giving Hannah a piece of his mind. But\n the girl’s eyes began to darken to a chocolate brown. Her expression\n changed, and she began to cry. And Menchú felt some of the old horror and\n rage, all over again, even as he knelt down to help.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAsanti was put on trial for using magic to fight magic—she expected to martyr herself, but Menchú made an unexpected sacrifice to save her. Their friendship, once strong, was shaken. Cardinal Fox ordered Asanti to shift her focus, to figure out how to kill magic, rather than manipulate it. But Asanti wasn’t the only one who believed that magic held the key to saving our world, and she secretly formed a new version of Team Four with Perry and Frances, despite Frances’s newly betentacled state after a run-in with Network-created magic. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrances\u003c/strong\u003e: Asanti’s former assistant, whose legs were replaced by tentacles after an unfortunate magical incident. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Brain Francis Slattery\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e\n","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.145","slug":"Bookburners-s3e04","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E04.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E4.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E4.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E4.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 4"},{"id":"595fa82f48e97e0001b644bd","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":5,"title":"Time Capsule","released_date":"2017-08-16T11:56:59.948+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"A family trip to the museum goes awry. ","byline":"Mur Lafferty","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E05_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-08-16","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam shuffled through papers on Asanti’s desk while Asanti frowned at his\n computer. This role reversal threw Sal, and she stopped at the door,\n startled. The door swung and hit her in the back. She grunted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You—you guys haven’t changed bodies, have you?” she asked them, stumbling\n out of the door’s way. Liam made a face at her, while Asanti merely glanced\n up and then back at Liam’s computer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal put her hands on her hips. “What’s going on?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam rolled his eyes. “Relax, Asanti wanted fresh eyes on these notes. I\n didn’t want her looking over my shoulder so I found her some videos to\n watch online.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Videos?” Sal asked, glancing at Asanti. The archivist nodded, smiling at a\n romping bunny. Sal sighed and peeked over Liam’s shoulder at the papers.\n “And eyes on what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The usual, Orb activity. It seems to be implying that something’s going to\n happen right on top of us, but it’s not clear when,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How can it not be clear? Isn’t it ‘right now’ when the Orb goes off?” Sal\n asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s just it,” Asanti said, not looking up from a video of an\n affectionate cat being pinned by a Saint Bernard. “It glows, and then dies,\n and then glows again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Almost as if something is just fucking with us,” Liam said grimly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Lies of omission are still lies, Father,” the voice on the other side of\n the confessional grille said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú knew this, of course. But one couldn’t confess to oneself. “I do it\n to keep them safe. I also want to be completely sure of what we are up\n against.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In your past, how many times have bad things happened because of too much\n information, and how many times from not enough information?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú thought for a moment, realizing the question wasn’t rhetorical.\n “I’ve never thought of my experiences in those terms. I can think of times\n when both of those choices were the wrong way to go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They are your team. They have been able to deal with the secrets of the\n Vatican, and magic, and demons from the Adversary thus far. Why not trust\n them with this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because this is my burden,” Menchú whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look within yourself,” the voice said. “Consider your team, and ask the\n Lord for guidance. You will know the right thing to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you, Father.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They finished the sacrament quietly, and Menchú exited the confessional\n quickly. He knew he had spoken with Father Omelas, but didn’t feel up to\n talking to him face to face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had to tell them, but he didn’t quite know how. The guilt of what the\n monster did to his village still bruised his soul, and he didn’t want to\n dredge that up. Asanti would want to know everything about the beast and\n what its abilities were. Sal would be skeptical. Liam would be terrified,\n but capable of violence. Grace would be too kind and ready to punch\n Hannah—but Grace wasn’t with the team anymore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sighed. He did them a disservice. He knew that they would want to help\n him carry this burden, even if it wasn’t their cross. They did that for\n each other, time and again. It sometimes backfired, badly—he thought of his\n attempts to help Asanti during the trial a few months back—but overall no\n one on the team let any of the others suffer alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And if they knew he was keeping it from them . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He hurried to the Archives, hoping for something to take his mind off\n things.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú greeted them as he walked into the Archives. He looked tired. No,\n that wasn’t right, Sal thought. She had to reassess how she thought of him.\n “Tired” was how he always looked now. He looked normal. It would have been\n remarkable if he’d looked happy and well rested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s happening?” he asked, looking from Asanti to Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There are baby polar bears at the Oregon Zoo,” Asanti offered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stared at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam waved his hand, dismissing her. “Don’t mind her. The Orb is flaring up\n at odd intervals, telling us that something strange is maybe just starting\n to happen right on top of us . . . and then it goes away.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s like heat lightning. No storm, but alarming,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We don’t know if there’s a storm,” Menchú said, and held out his hand for\n the papers. Liam handed them over.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal studied the bags under his eyes. “When was the last time you slept?”\n she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He didn’t glance up at her. “I dozed for about two hours last night. It was\n enough.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Enough for med school, maybe,” Sal said. “Not enough for demon hunting.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He handed the papers back. “Doesn’t look like this is a demon. So nothing\n to hunt. I need to see to something,” he said, and walked out of the\n Archives.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at Liam, who stared after him. “That was odd. It’s not just me,\n right? That was odd.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not just you,” Liam agreed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think I should follow him,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course you shouldn’t, that is a breach of trust,” Asanti said. She was\n still glued to the laptop. Sal looked at her and frowned. Asanti’s eyes\n rose from the screen and met hers. She no longer looked completely\n enthralled by baby animals. She gave Sal a small nod.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal followed Menchú at a distance until he disappeared behind a closed oak\n door. She checked to make sure the hallway was deserted and then put her\n ear to the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think we’ve identified a threat to the museums,” Menchú said, his voice\n slightly muffled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The museums?” Fox’s voice was high and alarmed, much different than Sal\n had ever heard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It appears so. It’s hard to tell what part of Vatican City is being\n targeted, but I’m guessing, with all the historical relics, it will be the\n museums.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There are relics everywhere,” Fox protested. Why do you not think this is\n a threat to His Holiness?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because His Holiness is in Spain right now,” Menchú said, an edge to his\n voice. “If something wanted to attack him, it would do it in Spain. I think\n the museums are under fire. This is a nightmare on a public relations\n level, a monetary level, and a magical level. We must get Team Three into\n place.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal left before she could be discovered, running lightly down the hall and\n back to the Archives. She reported what she’d heard to the others.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s the big deal? I mean, I know we don’t want anywhere hit with a\n magic bogey, but what is so very bad about the museums?” she asked once she\n had told them everything.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti closed Liam’s laptop. “The Vatican receives its money from tithes\n from churches all over the world. It’s a very wealthy organization, even\n aside from its countless treasures from history. But if you look at the\n everyday accounts of the Vatican, the money that makes the whole place run\n comes largely from the museums’ income.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So the money keeping the lights on, the money that pays us, that’s all\n from people buying knickknacks at the museums?” Sal said incredulously.\n “Rosaries and saint medallions keep us in business?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti nodded. “And tickets for tours. When there’s a threat to the\n museums, it’s larger than threatening the treasures, the tourists, or even\n the Vatican’s reputation. Threats to the museums are threats to the\n everyday workings of our very establishment.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wow, whatever is out there knows how to hit where it hurts,” Sal said. “Do\n we have any details?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unfortunately, no,” Asanti said. “We just have to be vigilant.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Like always,” Sal said. She chewed on her lip a moment. “Why do you think\n he didn’t want to tell us this right away?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti’s eyes narrowed. “I honestly don’t know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s phone buzzed with an email and she fished it out of her pocket and\n read it. She swore loudly just as the Orb flared to life again, and then\n died again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One week later, there still hadn’t been an attack on the Vatican. Sal stood\n at Fiumicino Airport and fingered the cross at her neck. She checked her\n phone for the time, and then her airline app\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n for arrival updates.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She’d fought demons. She’d been possessed. She’d seen horrors that haunted\n her dreams. And yet today her hands felt clammy in a way they rarely did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s parents were coming to Rome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had done everything she could to push them away. She’d reminded them\n she’d seen them last summer, and that they’d seen Perry, too—leaving out\n the part about how she’d been trying to hunt Perry down at the time. She’d\n told them they wouldn’t be able to speak Italian and wouldn’t have any fun.\n She’d told them she was swamped with work. She’d told them Perry wouldn’t\n be available and they should visit when he was in town. She threw lies and\n pleas and modified facts at them, but their minds were made up: If the\n children wouldn’t come see them, they would come and see the children. They\n were due a vacation anyway, and had never been to Rome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It hadn’t helped that the surrogate parents of Team Three had pushed her to\n welcome them. When Asanti and Menchú had found out that her parents were\n coming to Rome whether she liked it or not, they said that she owed it to\n her parents to see them, and she owed it to Team Three to keep her parents\n away from them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her parents, or that they wouldn’t\n understand the dangers of her job. Sal sometimes wished it were that easy.\n It was that her parents were both in law enforcement, her mother with the\n Coast Guard and her father with a history as both a police detective and a\n private detective. They understood about dangerous jobs, but they didn’t\n have a lot of experience with the dangers she faced frequently. At least,\n she didn’t think they’d had such experiences.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had worked hard to make them proud of her, but figured telling them\n about Team Three might take it too far.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then there was Perry. Her brother-not-brother, who could blow this\n whole charade right open, or make things worse by not showing up at all.\n Once their parents had insisted they were coming whether Sal liked it or\n not, she tried to figure out how to contact Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Infuriatingly, he called her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I need you,” she’d said bluntly into the phone. “And then I need to know\n how you fucking do that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s wrong? I’m not aware of any local magical disturbances,” he had\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s worse than that. Mom and Dad are coming, and I can’t convince them to\n stay away.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He’d remained silent for a moment. She sighed into the phone. “You know,\n Mom and Dad, the people who raised us? You remember them, don’t you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He snorted in amusement. “Of course I do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re going to expect to see you, and expect you to, you know, act like\n you. Do you think you can handle that, or should I tell them you’ve got the\n runs?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll be there. When do they land?” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She clenched her jaw in despair. She had been hoping he would refuse. She\n gave him the flight information and hung up. Collapsing on her bed, she\n wondered how she was going to get through this. She couldn’t take any of\n the team with her. Liam would say the wrong thing. Asanti or Menchú might\n be good allies, but they had actual work to do. Grace—wasn’t on the team\n anymore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her phone beeped, and she glanced at the screen. It was a message from\n Asanti, spread over multiple texts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Sal, if Perry will be joining you to spend time with your parents, then\n you will need to keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn’t give anything\n away regarding our work here.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He walked up behind her as she was putting her phone in her pocket. “How’s\n it going, Sal?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti wants to make sure you don’t give anything away about all the shit\n we get into.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He grinned. “Is she really that worried? You’d think she could trust me by\n now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why would she be able to trust you?” Sal asked. \u003cem\u003eI don’t\u003c/em\u003e, she\n added silently.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because I am a trustworthy being,” he offered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which one of you?” Sal asked bitterly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He just smiled at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While they waited, she worked on her story. She couldn’t lie about her job,\n not outright. Things were too complicated, and the scars, both physical and\n mental, ran deep.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She spotted her parents in the crowd of international tourists exiting\n customs. Bradley, her father, was tall, slim, and straight-backed. Her\n mother, Jennifer, was petite and slim, with long brown hair and eyes that\n were just a little wide. It made her look innocent. She preferred it that\n way.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Despite all Sal’s misgivings, seeing her parents awakened an ache in her\n chest that made her realize how much she missed them. She laughed and ran\n to hug them. Her father dropped their bags and swept her up like when she\n was a girl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her mother was smothered in Perry’s embrace. “My baby boy!” she said\n against his neck.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s so good to see you guys,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ciao! Come stai oggi?” her father said proudly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal laughed. “You’re learning Italian?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Si. For the, ah, trip.” He pulled out his phone and poked at its screen,\n frowning. “Dammit, I need to get a SIM card before I can look anything else\n up online.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s get you settled, then we can shop for a card,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m starving,” her mother said. “I guess it’s breakfast time? I don’t know\n anymore. It feels late at night.” She held Perry at arm’s length. “You look\n good.” She glanced at Sal. “He looks really good!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their parents didn’t usually fuss over their children’s weight, but Sal\n could tell that “good” meant “not like a strung-out junkie” to their\n mother. Her glance meant, “Is he clean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal nodded slightly. \u003cem\u003eClean? That’s a matter of opinion. He’s clean of \u003c/em\u003edrugs\n \u003cem\u003e\n . But he’s also made of so little human that he can’t sustain himself\n and needs the help of an incomprehensible creature to prop him up and\n half the time I can’t tell if I’m talking to my brother or that other\n thing.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry slung an arm around Jennifer’s shoulder and left Sal to help their\n father with the bags.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley wasn’t so subtle. “Perry. Is he still clean?” he asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nodded. “Yeah. He’s doing well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re sure,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced. Sal winced, remembering\n the stories he had told of his mother’s alcoholism. Perry’s problems had\n hit Bradley hard.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, Dad, I take care of him as best I can, and he’s clean,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their parents were an odd couple. Since both had jobs that included\n noticing every damn thing around them, they couldn’t turn it off when they\n came home. During Sal and Perry’s teen years, their parents knew\n immediately when Sal experimented with pot, when Perry got drunk at a\n party, when Perry had forged a signature on a bad test paper, when Perry\n skipped school . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In Sal’s experience, children of detectives and cops either grew up to\n emulate their parents, like Sal, or grew up rebelling in the complete\n opposite direction, like Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But here they were in the airport, trying to concoct the biggest lie\n possible about the obvious terrible things that sat right in front of their\n parents’ noses.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had to hope that they would be so used to looking for hidden things,\n they wouldn’t notice the very big thing that wasn’t hiding at all.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo.” The voice was soft, but it made his skin crawl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was taking a walk away from the Vatican, trying to distance his mind\n from everything going on, trying to find some peace. Trying to decide how\n and when to tell the team about Hannah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He turned. She stood in front of him, her eyes silvery in the dusk light.\n This time she inhabited the body of an olive-skinned woman with a nose\n ring.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want now?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m curious what you are going to do about my next move,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And what is your next move?” he asked. Dread filled his chest; he already\n knew.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The Vatican has something that’s mine,” she said. “And I’m going to get\n it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why are you telling me?” he asked, teeth gritted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smiled. One of her front teeth was crooked. He found that easier to\n look at than her inhuman eyes. “Because seeing how you react when I spread\n havoc is a large part of my plan. I’m not just getting what’s mine. I’m\n also making you chase me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His hands itched to close around her neck. But the human host that Hannah\n had taken over was innocent in all this, and the beast would just exit the\n host if things got too dangerous.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What if I don’t chase you?” he asked. “You won’t get what you want.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh but I will. I’ll find what I need to find a lot more easily without you\n bothering me, and then I get the amusement of seeing you get fired from\n your little club. They’re not going to let you stand and watch while I play\n my games.” Her eyes narrowed and her wide smile shrank to a smirk.\n “Otherwise you might have to tell them who I really am. They’re going to be\n thrilled when they finally find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman blinked and staggered, her silver eyes turning brown. He reached\n out and steadied her, telling himself he was not going to hurt an innocent,\n and this was no longer Hannah.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked up at him, confusion and slight fear crossing her face. “Father?\n Why—how did I get here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He let go and stepped back, giving her space. “I don’t know,” he said. “You\n were staggering around and I caught you to keep you from falling.” He hated\n himself for the next part, but it was a reasonable, non-magical assumption\n to make. “Have you been drinking?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think so?” she said, her forehead creasing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He pulled out his cell phone. “Let me call you a taxi. Get home and get\n some rest.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As he dialed, Hannah’s words played in his mind. She was right. What would\n Team Three (not to mention Fox and the other teams) say when they found\n out?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAsanti and Liam were arguing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We should call her, we’re already one down because of Grace abandoning\n us,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal needs a break and needs to spend time with her parents,” Asanti said,\n writing something down from the glowing Orb.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mean she needs to watch her brother to make sure he doesn’t say\n something or turn them into puddles of goo for some mysterious reason us\n lowly humans wouldn’t understand,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your description is graphically extreme, but in general that did cross my\n mind,” Asanti admitted. She looked up. “Hello, Arturo. It’s time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’ll call Sal if we need her,” Menchú said as he accepted the paper\n Asanti held out to him. “It’s my belief that a magical being is here\n hunting something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked at him sharply. “How do you know that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Team Two has intel,” he said. The lies were coming more easily now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t get it,” Liam said. “Do we have any idea what it’s looking for?”\n \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam slipped his laptop into his backpack. “Is it at the museum now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded. “I believe we need to get moving.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So if we don’t know what we’re looking for, we’re just moonlighting as\n museum security?” Liam asked Menchú. “That’s a bit of a step down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We do our jobs,” Menchú said sharply.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How is that different than usual?” Liam asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s different because the Vatican has a much more vested interest in the\n outcome of this mission,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti nodded. “This has less to do with evil and magic and demons. It’s\n much more important. It’s money.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú glared at her, but didn’t contradict her. Oh, how he wanted to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and Perry took their parents to their hotel and waited for them in the\n lobby while they freshened up. Sal wanted to “check in with work” and Perry\n said he would keep her company. Of course, after Sal settled on a couch\n next to a large potted plant, Perry disappeared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at her phone and Perry appeared soon after he’d left, holding\n two mimosas. He handed her one and joined her on the couch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took a deep drink. “This is amazing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Getting plastered right before we hang with the parents, great idea,” Sal\n said, but sipped the mimosa. “You better get rid of yours, though. They\n think you’re clean. Do you want to have The Conversation again?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I never said I was clean, that was you,” he said, and took a sip.\n “Besides, the addictions this body once had are effectively gone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They won’t understand that because that’s not how human addiction tends to\n work, so unless you want to explain that Step 5.5 of Alcoholics Anonymous\n involves possession, you should finish that before they get down.” She took\n a deep drink of her own mimosa to steady her nerves. “Do you have any ideas\n about how to keep them occupied today?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on, the obvious thing is a tour of the Vatican.” Perry said, smiling\n slightly. “They probably want to know where you work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal snorted. “No, I really don’t want to do that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The elevator dinged and opened. Perry simultaneously waved with one hand\n and casually tipped his champagne flute into the potted plant next to the\n couch. He nudged the glass behind the stalk and sat back up as their\n parents approached. Their mother frowned at the glass still in Sal’s hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal, why are you drinking in front of Perry? Before ten o’clock, even?”\n Jennifer said. “It’s not healthy for his recovery.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The bartender said he had some champagne left over from a bachelorette\n party and offered it for a mimosa,” Perry said. “We said why not?” Their\n parents glared at him. “Well. Sal said why not. I sat here and watched her\n like the good boy in recovery that I am.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stared at him as shock and rage—that special sibling rage that she held\n only for her brother—battled within her to become the primary emotion.\n “That’s not exactly how it happened,” she said. “Perry brought me one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did not,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley held up his hand. “Enough. I don’t care who is right or wrong, but\n the fact is Sal shouldn’t be drinking in front of Perry. Even if he says\n it’s all right.” He frowned at his son. “Recovery is a serious thing. If\n you don’t see it as important then you can easily slide backward. Have you\n found an AA group in Rome to attend?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry nodded. “I have a sponsor who keeps close tabs on me, don’t worry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer looked between her kids and then sighed. “I can only do so much as\n your mother. You’re going to have to make your own mistakes or not without\n me looking over your shoulder.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal relaxed internally. That was her mother’s “I’m giving you this battle\n but not the war” voice. She straightened when her mother looked at her\n sharply and pointed to the champagne flute.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Leave that here. Let’s go to breakfast.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She nodded and put the flute on the side table next to the plant.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry put his arm around Jennifer. “I’m really fine, Mom. Better than ever,\n honestly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal fought the desire to roll her eyes. It was going to be a long visit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want to get some food and hear what you kids have been up to,” Bradley\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then museums,” Jennifer said. “The guide says you could spend a whole week\n and not see all the Vatican museums.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal groaned inwardly. “Are you sure? Rome has a ton of other sights to see.\n The Colosseum? The Arch of Constantine?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re here for a few days, we’ll get to them,” said her father. Sal and\n Perry stood and their parents nodded to the doorman, who opened the door to\n let them exit. “Where do you recommend for breakfast?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who’s for Antonio’s? They have a great brunch,” Perry said, and led the\n way to the restaurant, Sal glaring at his back the whole time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and Perry had gone through two espressos each before Jennifer broached\n the subject of work.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perry, have you found a job here yet?” she asked as a waiter delivered a\n platter of pastries.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal choked on a bit of pastry while Perry smiled. “I’m actually doing some\n work at the Vatican with Sal, in security,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s eyes went wide. \u003cem\u003eWhat are you doing? \u003c/em\u003eShe still wasn’t sure if\nhe could read her mind or not, but she sent him \u003cem\u003eplease shut the fuck up \u003c/em\u003emessages as hard as she could.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley frowned, shaking his head. “Perry, no establishment as serious as\n the Vatican would hire you for security. There’s no way you would pass a\n background check.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why are you lying to us?” Jennifer asked. “If you need something, just\n ask. Do you need money? Do you need to come back home?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSee?\u003c/em\u003e\n Sal tried to think at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry laughed. “No, I’m just fucking with you. Sal’s still there; I’m doing\n security at a club. Makes good money and I’m learning Italian. But I’m\n pretty sure I’m only learning the swear words.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer relaxed. “In my experience, bouncers don’t say much else,” she\n said. “How long have you worked there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “About three months now?” He looked at Sal for confirmation, and she did\n fast math. That would work, she decided, and nodded at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s about right,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley wasn’t so easily placated. “Why would you lie, Perry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shrugged and looked down at his napkin, still folded next to his plate.\n “Because Sal really is working for the Vatican, and you’re always proud of\n her. I wanted to see what it was like.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal froze, but Perry had done some masterful deflection. Jennifer pounced.\n “Perry, we are proud of you! For so many reasons. You’ve beaten addiction,\n moved across the world to reinvent yourself, and it looks like you’re doing\n an amazing job staying clean. We love you so much we flew over here to see\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry slowly nodded. “I know. It’s just hard to get back to seeing myself\n as something other than a fuckup.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re not a fuckup.” Jennifer reached out and took his hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at his face over their mother’s shoulder, expecting to see him\n looking slyly back at her, but he had locked eyes with Jennifer, looking so\n much like his old self that Sal’s chest ached.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal wasn’t off the hook; she shouldn’t have underestimated her mother.\n Jennifer broke the hug, with tears in her eyes, and then turned to Sal.\n “And the \u003cem\u003eVatican\u003c/em\u003e? How is that going?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal gritted her teeth. “Pretty good.” More espresso arrived and she reached\n for her cup. Her parents watched her silently, but she didn’t elaborate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well then you should be able to get us discounts for the museums,” Bradley\n said brightly after half a minute of silence had passed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal swallowed the bitter coffee. “I can try.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen and barked out a laugh. “Hey,\n Sal wants discounted tickets to the museums.” He turned to Asanti. “Do we\n get employee perks like that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, just have her show her ID. It should be fine,” Asanti said, then\n looked up slowly. “Wait. Did you say Sal’s going to the museums? With her\n parents? And Perry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh. Shit,” Liam said. “And they’re going to have to stand in line for it,\n too.” He grimaced, remembering the one time he tried to patiently stand in\n line during the free Sunday to see the museums, with a Polish family\n arguing loudly behind him and a South African couple in the middle of a\n breakup weeping in front of him. \u003cem\u003eNever again.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Should I tell her not to go?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti shook her head. “Sal didn’t forget we’re watching the museums. And\n if her parents are anything like her, do you think she can keep them away\n if they’re determined?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam tried to picture the personalities that had to have raised Sal and\n Perry, and grinned. “Point taken.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just tell her we’ll be there and she needs to keep an eye out,” Menchú\n said. “If something happens she has to get her parents and Perry out of\n there immediately. They are her priority.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam nodded and thumbed a quick answer to Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re only going to let us close one of the museums,” Menchú said. “They\n refuse to close the churches.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What? That doesn’t help fuck all,” Liam said. “What if there’s a demon\n building a tower made out of babies in the Sistine Chapel?” Menchú glared\n at him, and Liam subsided. “It could happen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head. “We need to be discreet. For all we know, the demon\n is purposefully trying to bankrupt the Vatican via the museums,” he said.\n “So long as she wreaks havoc she’s satisfied,” he added under his breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam nodded and put his backpack on. Then he paused.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eDid he say \u003c/em\u003e\n she\u003cem\u003e?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He wrote to Sal something altogether different than Menchú had directed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal swallowed the dread rising in her chest at Liam’s text. She slipped her\n phone in her pocket so Perry couldn’t spy the message.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “On a good day, I can get you in for cheap,” Sal said. “But it looks like\n they’re closed today for fumigation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fumigation. Every one of the Vatican museums,” Jennifer said, deadpan.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They stood outside a small corner store that sold SIM cards while Jennifer\n fiddled with both her and Bradley’s phones to insert the new cards so the\n phones would work in Europe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry pointed down the road. “Those people are going to be super pissed,\n then,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal saw that she’d been caught in the lie. “Tickets are sold out?” she said\n desperately.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is going on here, Sal?” her mother said sternly. “Why don’t you want\n us at the museums? Are you ashamed of us?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n No, I just don’t want you to be eaten by a demon. Or find out that I\n work with a motley crew of survivors to quash the rising tide of magic\n from drowning us all.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked at Perry, begging him to help her out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s seen the museums, Mom,” Perry said. “She probably just doesn’t want\n to feel like she’s going to work. Don’t worry, Sal, I can take them. We’ll\n meet you for dinner tonight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eYou asshole\u003c/em\u003e, she thought, and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mom, work is . . . tough\n lately. And if you saw me interact with my coworkers it might be weird.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There. None of that had been a lie. She was pleased with herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why didn’t you say so?” Jennifer said, and Sal relaxed, but only briefly.\n “We’ll be one hundred percent tourists today. You won’t even have to point\n out if we’re near coworkers. Don’t introduce us to anyone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perfect!” said Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s phone buzzed again.\n \u003cem\u003e\n Did you receive? Stay away today. We don’t know what’s going down, but\n something is.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eAny idea where?\u003c/em\u003e\nSal asked. \u003cem\u003eThey’re determined to see the museums and I can’t keep them away.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eNO WE DON’T KNOW EXACTLY WHERE\u003c/em\u003e, he replied immediately. \u003cem\u003eDID YOU THINK WE REFINED THE ORB IN THE HOURS YOU’VE BEEN GONE?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The next text came in immediately as she was typing her response:\n \u003cem\u003e\n And lie to them! Keep them away! Use your fucking gun if you have to!\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal gave her parents a tight smile. “Yeah, it’s best if you don’t meet\n them. My coworkers can be assholes,” she said. “Dad, why don’t you buy\n tickets online? That’ll be faster than me trying to get a last-minute\n discount, and we can skip that wait.” She waved her phone vaguely toward\n the huge line of Vatican visitors.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned back to her phone.\n \u003cem\u003e\n OK, asshole. #1: I tried lying. #2: I’m not pulling a gun on my\n PARENTS. #3: They’re ex-police and ex-military. They’d disarm me in 1\n sec. Disinherit me in 2 secs. I’ll keep my eye out. We’ll be careful.\n If you find out what’s going on, let me know.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n She pressed Send and put her phone back in her pocket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sorry about that,” Sal said. She took one look at the Vatican ahead of\n her, and swallowed. “Let’s go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a long wait for tickets purchased online, although it was smaller than\n the other queue. Her parents tactfully avoided asking why Sal couldn’t just\n skip the line, and instead latched on to the other topic Sal was hoping to\n avoid.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So what about your personal lives? Either of you dating anyone?” Jennifer\n asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry laughed out loud. “I only meet party girls in clubs, so no, I am\n definitely single.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer shook her head. “You don’t want to get involved with a woman like\n that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t slut-shame, Mom,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer looked surprised. “I’m not. But partying girls are usually not the\n kind of women who are looking for a guy in addiction recovery.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh. That’s true,” Sal said, thinking there was another reason Perry\n shouldn’t date.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It sucks, though,” Perry said. “It gets lonely sometimes. And I’d like\n someone to woo.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Woo?” Sal asked, frowning at him. He shrugged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s understandable,” Jennifer said, and turned her attention to Sal.\n “What about you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal fingered her phone in her pocket and thought of Liam. “I was seeing\n someone a while back—someone from work, actually—but that ended. We had\n religious differences, I guess you could say.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley frowned in sympathy. “That’s the worst. I remember dating a\n Catholic in college, and that went nowhere.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer smacked him on the arm. “Shh,” she said, looking around. “Remember\n where you are.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley smiled sheepishly. “Oh, right. Well, it doesn’t change the history.\n I had an unsuccessful relationship with a woman in college. I can relate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer shook her head, disgusted. “I can’t take you anywhere,” she said.\n Bradley smiled at her and kissed her on the top of the head. “Anyway, I’m\n sorry it didn’t work out,” she said to Sal. “Was this a woman or man?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal blushed. “It was a guy. Why do you ask?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You didn’t use pronouns. And if you were dating a woman I can’t imagine\n that would be very welcome in a Catholic city.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Jesus, can’t you two stop investigating for two minutes? You’re retired,”\n Sal said, exasperated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Besides,” Perry cut in. “Being gay is legal here, even civil unions. So if\n Sal wanted to date a girl, I don’t think they could say much. Although her\n direct boss might have a problem with it,” he said, and winked at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Huh. Civil unions are legal in Italy? Take that, Kansas,” Bradley said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They shuffled forward in line, pointedly ignoring a couple speaking loudly\n in Russian in front of them. “Anyway, work usually has me too busy to think\n about romance,” Sal said. “And that’s probably for the best.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why is that?” Jennifer asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s stressful. I don’t have a lot of emotional energy left at the end of\n the day,” Sal said truthfully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her father took her hand gently. His brown eyes were sincere. “Finding love\n may be the only thing that keeps you sane when you have a dangerous job.\n Remember when I told you I went undercover a few months before you were\n born? The only thing that got me through was knowing your mom was waiting\n for me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer smiled. “And the times I was doing search and rescue during\n hurricanes and floods, when she ship was about to capsize, the thought of\n your dad kept me going. Too much stress is a sign that you need someone in\n your life, not that you should avoid people.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, yeah, you guys are the perfect couple and disgustingly romantic,”\n Sal said, laughing and trying to hide her discomfort. She had tried to tell\n Liam the same thing when they had broken up, but he hadn’t listened. Now\n she was using the same excuse to avoid romance, and her parents were\n calling her on it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They neared the front of the queue, with Sal keeping her eyes open to look\n for anyone suspicious. Then she realized no self-respecting demon would\n wait in any line like the one at the Vatican museums. They’d find another\n way inside. They’d done it before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and Perry followed their parents as they wandered from gallery to\n gallery. Perry seemed to enjoy looking at the art, but Sal kept an eye on\n the people visiting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After a few hours of saints and popes and absolutely no action, they paused\n in the café for a cup of coffee and a place to sit down. Perry brought the\n group their coffees while Sal continued to watch for anything weird.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal, are you okay?” Bradley asked. “You haven’t looked at any of the art\n since we got here.” He frowned. “Is it so bad working here that you need to\n avoid your coworkers? Is there something you need to talk about? Because if\n it’s harassment or something—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head. “No, Dad, I promise that’s not it. I’m fine. I’m sorry,\n I’ve just seen this stuff before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, you’ve seen one Sistine Chapel, you’ve seen them all,” Perry\n quipped. “Why bother appreciating art more than once?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sat up and faced him. “Do you have a problem, \u003cem\u003ePerry\u003c/em\u003e?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He raised both hands in surrender. “No, \u003cem\u003eSal\u003c/em\u003e, I don’t. Just trying\n to lighten the mood. You seem really tense, that’s all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Easy, kids. Drink your coffee,” Bradley said. He leaned and looked over\n Jennifer’s shoulder to see the guidebook she was looking at. “So, Perry,\n where do you want to go next?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want to see the gardens,” Perry said, pointing to the door at the other\n end of the café that led to the beautiful sunny day.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her mother flipped through the guidebook. Something pulled at Sal’s\n awareness and she looked up, startled, to see a blonde woman staring at\n her. Her eyes flashed silver. She didn’t recognize the woman but that\n wasn’t normal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWoman. Silver eyes. Café. Not doing anything. Will follow\u003c/em\u003e, she texted to Liam quickly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she was typing, the phone buzzed. She answered it just as the first\n screams started in an adjacent hallway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman smiled at Sal and exited through the door to the gardens.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Evacuate all museums adjacent to the gardens!” Menchú said into his phone.\n “Asanti, inform Fox. I think we have to ignore the clock on this; they’re\n not going to want to give us six hours, much less thirty-six. Liam, you’re\n with me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re not ready yet. What about Sal?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Doesn’t matter how ready we are. We’ll need Sal, give her a call and get\n her here,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Um, she’s actually here. She couldn’t get out of touring the museum with\n her parents,” Liam said, pulling his phone from his pocket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then call her and see if she knows what’s going on!” Asanti said over her\n shoulder, hurrying from the Archives to find Fox, presumably.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam thumbed through his Favorites and pushed Sal’s avatar. The phone began\n to ring. There was no answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His phone binged and Sal’s message came through. Liam read it to Menchú and\n Asanti.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú paled visibly. “Oh no,” he whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Liam said. “We can take one woman. That seems a lot better than\n dealing with a giant fire demon or a bleeding sore demon or—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shut \u003cem\u003eup\u003c/em\u003e, Liam,” Menchú said. “Asanti, skip Fox. Just tell Grace\n we need her. We have to move, \u003cem\u003enow\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inside the museums, it went dark. All the lights, including the emergency lights,\n exploded in a shower of glass and sparks. “Take care of them!” Sal shouted\n to Perry, and was up in a flash. Her parents shouted questions, but Sal was\n gone, praying Perry would handle it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Footsteps pounded and screams surrounded them, frantic praying and sobs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I saw the Virgin weeping blood!” screamed a woman. Sal couldn’t tell if\n she was experiencing total religious epiphany or outright fear. Since she\n had a long streak of blood down her jawline, and some of it appeared to be\n hers, Sal guessed the latter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Virgin was weeping. Which Virgin? Sal thought about how many statues of\n Mary were around the Vatican and figured that didn’t narrow it down much.\n She activated the flashlight on her phone and ran against the stream of\n people toward whatever the threat down the hall was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When she got there, Sal stopped to take in the scene.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stood in a hallway of marble statues and busts, some Christian themed,\n others dating back to the Holy Roman Empire. Well-lit by sunlight streaming\n through large windows, all were weeping blood from blind eyes. All turned\n their marble necks to face her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shit,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took a step back and glanced through the window.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The chaos wasn’t limited to the interior of the museums. The vast gardens\n were now patrolled by moving topiary that dragged root balls behind them,\n stalking the screaming crowds. One young child, maybe five or six, was\n cornered by a great hedge lion, and she cowered with hedges on all sides,\n blocking her escape. She crouched and wept, reduced to hiding her face and\n hoping that if she couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal remembered being frightened like that, with no way to fight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The statues with legs began to move toward Sal, still weeping. The ones\n with arms did their best to drag themselves. Sal ran for the emergency exit\n to the garden, shoving the velvet rope aside and leaping the three steps\n down to the steel door. Opening it set off an alarm, but that just added to\n the noise. Down the hill, brightly dressed Swiss Guards ushered people away\n from the area, carrying out a moderately efficient evacuation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sprinted toward the hedge lion. Her phone rang. She snagged it and\n managed to answer while sprinting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was Liam. “You out of the museum yet? What happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Um, no, still here,” she said. “Gardens outside the café. After that woman\n walked by, statues started weeping blood and moving, and hedges are\n attacking young children, and all the lights exploded. They’re evacuating\n and I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to fight topiary.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Menchú wants to know if the woman is still anywhere near you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know, a lot of people are near me!” Sal snapped. The lion reached\n out a paw and batted at the girl, who screamed. “Gotta go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re on our way,” Liam said as the phone fell to the turf.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lion had originally been rampant, standing on one paw that was planted\n in the ground. That paw now trailed a huge root ball. Sal reached down and\n grabbed two fat roots and yanked back mightily.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hedges were large, dense things, and the Vatican kept theirs very healthy\n and lush. She barely budged the bulk of the lion, but she did lift it off\n the ground, breaking its foundation. The lion stumbled once and looked over\n its shoulder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Run!” Sal commanded, and the lion turned to swipe at her. The girl dashed\n away, and Sal was grateful she wasn’t frozen with shock and fear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n Team Three could use a kid like that in twenty years or so. If we’re\n still around.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lion pulled its root-ball paw out of her grasp and she nearly fell\n forward with it, but she let go and hit the ground, rolling. Thorny claws\n raked the spot where she had just been, and she scrambled to her feet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fighting a hedge. She would need a blade, or fire, or herbicide. She had a\n gun.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks for keeping us prepared, Fox,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From inside one of the museum buildings, the bust of a long-haired,\n thoughtful man burst through a window and soared toward them. Sal\n sidestepped to the right and the lion followed her movements—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n —which led it into the path of the marble bust, which hit it in the back of\n the head. It didn’t do much damage, as the lion was more flora than fauna,\n but the statue had an awful lot of mass. The lion tumbled forward with the\n impact.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal managed to sidestep again, and looked up to see Grace leaping from the\n broken window and sprinting toward her, blades in her hands.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ever fought a hedge before?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace nodded. “I had a flamethrower at the time, though.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lion struggled to its feet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll look for one,” Sal offered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shook her head. “These should work. Arturo believes this is a\n distraction. The entire Vatican is like this. Statues moving, fountains\n running with blood, paintings preaching blasphemy, the whole bit. There\n doesn’t seem to be a book or demon to focus on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So we run?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “One second,” Grace said, and leapt forward. She crossed her swords and\n brought them together like scissors when she reached the lion’s head. It\n tumbled off its shoulders and onto the grass.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace landed, gave a curt nod, and they dashed back toward the hole Grace\n had leapt from. It was around six feet off the ground, and Grace made the\n jump with ease, while Sal scowled up at her. A roar sounded behind them,\n and Sal turned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lion’s head was still roaring, its face pointing toward them. The body,\n a little shaky, began bounding in their direction.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The emergency exit door opened in front of her, and Grace beckoned her\n through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal took her eyes off the topiary for an instant to move through the door,\n but the headless lion hedge hit her with a swipe in the back, taking her\n off her feet and shredding her leather jacket. The thorns raked her skin\n before the blow knocked her through the door, and Sal was too stunned to\n break her fall. She hit the three steps and crumpled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Every mission, Grace had to remind herself that her companions were much\n more fragile than she was. She should have punched her way through the\n emergency door to get Sal out of harm’s way, or cut the lion into kindling.\n Something other than leaving Sal alone with a giant topiary monster.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door closed behind them and Grace bent to examine Sal. She was groggy,\n though not out cold. Her back oozed blood, but her jacket had taken most of\n the damage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Something hit Grace from behind, bruising a rib and sending her tumbling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is bullshit,” she said, getting up and snarling at the statue of the\n wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. The statue was covered in blood, the\n dead eyes still leaking. Grace stood in front of Sal, shielding her,\n waiting. The wolf leapt, sending hundreds of pounds of statue flying at\n her. She met it, ducking a little and catching the wolf’s chest and pushing\n up as if the wolf were a volleyball. It went sailing through the window she\n had previously broken and landed on the grass outside, making a large dent\n in the ground.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The headless lion came by to investigate it, but ended up disinterested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Pity. Grace had hoped that they would fight each other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come on,” she said, helping Sal to her feet. “You’re okay.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s a matter of debate,” Sal groaned. “I can’t believe I got beaten by\n a hedge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If it helps, you were running away from it, not fighting it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. No, that doesn’t help.” Sal rubbed her forehead where she’d hit the\n step. “Just don’t tell Liam. Speaking of, where is everyone else?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti is trying to figure out where the center of all of this is, and\n Liam and Arturo are actively searching the museums.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then let’s find them,” Sal suggested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After a few texts, they met at the doors of Saint Peter’s Basilica. To the\n side, two members of the Swiss Guard were seeing to a colleague, strapping\n him to a gurney. Menchú greeted Sal and Grace with a grim nod. He pointed\n at the guards.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She came this way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is the guard dead?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not yet,” Menchú said. “We think the woman has gone into the necropolis to\n the tomb of Saint Peter.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because she went down those stairs,” Liam said, pointing at a door. Then\n he waved his hand at the general chaos behind them. “And all of that was\n distraction.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s go,” Grace said, striding through the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wait,” Menchú said, taking her arm. Her stopping was politeness; he\n couldn’t have held her back if he tried. “This is one of the holiest\n churches in all of Catholicism. I hope it goes without saying that we need\n to take the utmost care within.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace nodded, and then went on through the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cathedral was glorious. A massive ceiling with arches and art and\n gilded everything. Sal could see the pull of Catholicism just because it\n gave you pretty places to pray in. The team spent far too little time in\n the cathedral; they headed below to the catacombs, which were much less\n glorious. Narrow halls, stone floors, crumbling red walls, and mazelike\n passages greeted them. They walked single file, Grace leading with purpose,\n Menchú following Grace a bit more slowly, Liam behind him, straining his\n neck to look all around him, and Sal bringing up the rear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and Liam spoke in far-too-loud whispers. “You seriously mean you’ve\n never been here?” Sal asked. “Seems like you would be a natural visitor to\n places like this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m busy saving the world from demons. I don’t have a lot of time to make\n tourist visits,” Liam said archly. “Besides, I have too much respect for\n the dead to disturb them with gawking.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, I haven’t had enough time to go sightseeing yet either,” she said,\n shaking her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hush, or it’s going to hear us coming,” Menchú said. He put his hand on\n Grace’s shoulder and she froze. “Let me, please,” he said, and moved past\n her to lead the way. “I think I know where she’s going.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did he say ‘she’?” Sal asked. “Who’s ‘she’?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Dunno. I noticed it too,” Liam whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They passed walls of skulls, small tombs separated by thick sheets of\n plastic or glass, and ended up at an unassuming ruin. Menchú gasped when he\n spotted a small blonde girl there, chipping away at the wall with an\n ancient stone knife. Sal swore behind them. It was the girl she had rescued\n from the topiary, only carrying herself with the confidence of ages. Her\n eyes glowed the same way the woman’s had earlier that day.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop,” Menchú said to the girl. He drew in breath to say something else,\n but Grace had already launched herself forward.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The being waved her hand at Grace, and Grace hit an invisible wall,\n bouncing off and landing in a crouch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo. You weren’t distracted nearly as long as I expected you’d be. Good\n job,” the demon said in a high, girlish voice. She dug again at the wall,\n and Liam swore, outraged, as red chips fell from the crude hole she’d\n created.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you doing here?” Menchú asked the being, as if he knew her.\n Behind him, Grace stepped forward, murder in her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just looking for something I misplaced,” she said, still digging in the\n wall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You misplaced something in the tomb of one of our greatest saints?” Menchú\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You act as if it was hard to do,” she said. “It is easy when you had\n access during the time they were building it. Just slip something in for\n later. A time capsule. Let it marinate for a while. It’s a little harder to\n get to after several centuries.” She started chipping again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace clenched her fists and tensed to run at her again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop,” Menchú said softly. “That’s not her natural form. She’s inside an\n innocent; if you kill her, she will just go to another victim and all we\n will have done is kill a child at the tomb of Saint Peter.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal walked forward, mindful of the wall, to get a better look at the knife.\n “What are you using there?” she asked conversationally. “You couldn’t find\n a better tool?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl smiled. “Style is important. You can do this with a hardware store\n hammer. But a midwife doesn’t use a box cutter, even though I suppose she\n could. The wrong tool won’t \u003cem\u003efeel\u003c/em\u003e as g—” her words cut off abruptly\n as Grace wrapped an arm around her and lifted her away from the wall,\n yanking the knife from her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace was grateful to Sal for distracting the girl, but also for\n encouraging her to figure out how to use her burn in a more creative way.\n She hadn’t actually tried vibrating through walls yet—although she did\n enjoy the comic book that Sal showed her depicting that feat—but she\n thought if she tried to vibrate hard enough she could break whatever magic\n was keeping her from the girl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She focused and tensed and felt the heat rise, and could almost see her\n candle flaring higher and hotter as she demanded more from it. She heard a\n hum and realized it was her own body vibrating. She reached out her hand\n and placed it against the force field; it was there, but she could push\n through it like a pin passing through a piece of tape on a balloon. She\n made a hole but didn’t burst the field and distract the girl, who was\n talking to Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She didn’t take the time to revel in her new trick, because she had a\n goddamn demon to put through the wall—or at least pick up like she had been\n a bad girl.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl writhed in Grace’s arm, reaching for the knife and swearing\n loudly. “What do you want me to do with this?” Grace asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was studying the hole the girl had made. “Shroud her. That should get\n the demon out and we can take her back topside.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam fiddled in his backpack for the shroud, but the girl stopped writhing\n and watched the hole with interest. “It’s done. So hungry,” she whispered.\n The shroud landed over the girl’s head, and she went limp in Grace’s arm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shoved the girl at Liam and went to look at the hole the creature had\n made. Sal joined her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What the hell was that?” Sal asked Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” he said, as if lost in thought. He didn’t look her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head. “Huh-uh. You knew who we were following the whole time.\n And she knew you. And you haven’t told us. Why?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Demons know things about us all the time,” he snapped, and stepped back\n from the hole, which had begun to bleed like the statues’ eyes in the\n museums above. When the blood hit the floor, it pooled, and then inflated\n like a bag. Grace leapt forward and swung the ancient knife at it, but it\n slid off the membrane. She tried her own blades and was unable to cut\n through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It continued to grow. They took a step back. “That’s fucking disgusting.”\n Liam said. “Grace, toss the shroud here!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head. “Protect the girl with the shroud in case that thing\n comes back. Sal, Grace, get ready.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They flanked him, weapons out, as the red bubble inflated and listed from\n side to side as if something fought to get out. “She said something about a\n midwife,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, and I think we’re about to see the birth,” Grace said grimly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The membrane swelled once more, and split with a deafening bang. They were\n instantly drenched in ichor and blood. Grace had thought to shield her\n eyes, and ran forward, the band around her eyes the only light spot in her\n otherwise gore-covered head. She was ready to kill whatever nightmare baby\n lay inside, but she found nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked around. It seemed to have birthed a great deal of mess and\n defiled the tomb of Saint Peter, but otherwise the effects were largely\n anticlimactic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n (Although Grace did think Church officials would have a different opinion\n on the importance of the state of the sacred tomb.)\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There!” cried Liam, and they all looked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Something small with many legs skittered through the gore. It was about the\n size of a kitten, a premature kitten, even, and ran like a roach, trying to\n avoid the humans rather than attack. It ran toward the darkness of the\n catacombs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A small, pale hand reached out and snatched it, moving so fast only Grace\n saw her move. The little girl was there again, tossing the shroud away as\n if it were nothing more than a scarf.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll handle this,” she said, and raised it to her mouth. Grace thought she\n was going to bite the thing’s head off, but she just closed the small lips\n over the head and sucked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thing squealed and writhed, but its agony ended quickly as it went limp\n and diminished in her hands. She smiled, satisfied, and threw the\n desiccated carcass aside. Then the little girl’s eyes rolled back in her\n head, and she crumpled. Grace was by her side to catch her before she hit\n the ground.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She said \u003cem\u003eit\u003c/em\u003e would be hungry, didn’t she?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She didn’t say what would be hungry,” Grace said. She examined the girl,\n who was pale but seemed fine, if unconscious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She raised her eyes to Menchú. “Where did she go? She’s no longer trying to\n hurt us. That’s new to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She got what she wanted,” Menchú said grimly. “Whatever it was.” He\n sighed, as if defeated. “There’s nothing we can do but keep an eye out.\n Watch the Orb.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Together they trudged to the stairs, the girl in Grace’s arms.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam broke the silence. “Is that it? Did we sort of win?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The demon ran. The critter is dead,” Sal said. “I think it’s a draw.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We don’t get that lucky,” Menchú said. He walked as if the whole weight of\n the Vatican were actually on top of him, not just over him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace watched Menchú with concern, wishing she could remove some of the\n weight. But there clearly was weight there he hadn’t told her about.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal poked her in the back. She was smiling. “Vibrating through that force\n field? Slick trick.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s possible I have skills yet untested,” Grace said, smiling back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before they left the catacombs, Menchú murmured a prayer and made the sign\n of the cross in front of the wreckage befouling this most holy shrine.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal doubted it would be nearly enough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal’s family, even Perry, had been instrumental in helping evacuate the café.\n They had been among the last people out of the museums, making sure that\n whatever the hell was going on, no civilians would die under their watch.\n They waited for her outside the gates of the Vatican, where they weren’t\n permitted to re-enter; the museums were closed until further notice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While Grace was dressing her injuries, Sal texted her parents to meet her\n at her apartment and said she would be there with dinner soon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you all right?” Jennifer said, rushing over to Sal when she got home.\n Sal had changed into one of the T-shirts she’d left in her gym bag outside\n the room where she sparred with Liam and Grace. It smelled, but at least it\n wasn’t soaked in blood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal opened her mouth to lie, but her mother’s steely eyes bored into her.\n She sighed. “Bump on the head. Scratched-up back. But otherwise, yes, I’m\n fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her mother dragged her into the kitchen and checked her eyes for\n concussion, then probed the bump on her forehead. Sal winced. Then Jennifer\n commanded her to raise her shirt and show her back. She did so. Jennifer\n tested the edges of the bandages Grace had applied and made approving\n noises.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good. Now, tell me you brought wine,” she said, rooting in Sal’s kitchen\n for a bottle opener. Sal raised her eyebrows. Jennifer sighed. “We talked\n to Perry. He says he can handle it. And I don’t think your father and I can\n continue this evening without wine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal wordlessly found her corkscrew and handed it to Jennifer. Her mother\n attacked the wine bottle with the ease of a waiter and Sal found glasses.\n The silence was killing her. “Are you guys okay?” she finally asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never better,” Jennifer said, pouring three glasses. She got a glass of\n water for Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They joined Bradley and Perry, who were quietly talking in the living room.\n They stopped when Sal and Jennifer entered. “Is she all right?” Bradley\n asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Jennifer nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m right here, guys,” Sal said, irritated. She handed her father a glass\n of wine and sat down, gingerly, on the couch beside Perry. Her father\n occupied the easy chair, and her mother stood beside him stiffly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you sure we should be drinking, what with the ‘hallucinogenic gas’ we\n inhaled today?” Bradley asked, winking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t worry, Sal, I told them everything,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal opened her mouth and then closed it. She could feel her face grow cool\n as all the blood drained out of it. \u003cem\u003eEverything\u003c/em\u003e?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you really should have just told us in the beginning,” Jennifer said.\n “Of all the people in the world who would understand a classified job, it’s\n us! Honey, we respect your gag order. Lord knows we’ve both had them in our\n lives.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gag order. Perry had told them Sal had a classified job she couldn’t talk\n about. Why hadn’t she ever thought about that lie, the simplest of them\n all?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her father was nodding. “You looked like you knew what you were doing in\n the museum, and I’m betting you took care of whatever it was that was going\n wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She cleared her throat. “More or less.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley laughed. “Good answer. Listen. All we want to know is whether our\n kids are safe and happy. And if not, then we need to know what we can do to\n help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked from her parents to her brother. “It’s been tough,” she said.\n “I’m not alone. I’ve made some friends with people I work with. They’re\n probably the people I’m closest to.” She smiled slightly. “I wish you could\n meet them. They keep me centered. They’ve saved my life more than once.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you’ve got Perry,” Jennifer interjected.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah. Perry too,” Sal said, trying to force enthusiasm into her voice.\n “But you want to know if I’m safe? Not really. Sorry, it’s the nature of\n the beast. The work we do, I mean. Am I happy? I don’t think about it much.\n I guess I’m not brooding and miserable. That’s something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I remember the roughest days at work,” Jennifer said, nodding. “I can\n relate.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Bradley turned to Perry. “That’s Sal, but what about you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry shrugged, looking very much like his old self. “I’m all right. I’ve\n had my own problems. Beyond addiction, I actually had a bad time a while\n back.” He glanced at his sister. “Sal helped get me back to myself. I don’t\n know where I’d be without her. She gave up a lot for me. But I’ve been\n clean for several months, and take it one day at a time, like my sponsor\n says.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSponsor. Nice touch.\u003c/em\u003e\n Sal wondered what kind of twelve-step program Aaron would submit himself\n to.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks for understanding,” Sal said. “I didn’t think just telling you that\n I couldn’t tell you anything would be enough.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you lied and avoided our calls?” Jennifer frowned. “Sal, Perry, we\n taught you that the truth is the straightest path. You can’t heal if you\n keep lying about everything. What was this bad time? Are you all right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am now,” he said, and he looked so earnest even Sal believed him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The truth is great, in a perfect world,” Sal said. At the look on her\n mother’s face, she hastily added, “But I’m sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They sipped their wine and water in silence for a bit. Perry finally spoke.\n “Where are you going sightseeing tomorrow?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their parents laughed. “Somewhere a little less exciting,” Jennifer said.\n “Perhaps we’ll stay away from the Vatican. Maybe Rome altogether.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry nodded. “Always a good idea.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They made plans for dinner the following night, kisses and (gentle) hugs\n were exchanged, and then Sal and Perry were left alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry pointed to the wine. “Got any more of that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal thought about protesting, but then gave up. “Sure.” She poured him a\n glass and then sat back down on the couch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right. Tell me everything,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry blinked at her. “What do you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know what I mean. Where do you go? How do you know when to show up,\n how do you know when I need you? Are you a mind reader? And how did you\n manage to keep our parents fooled all fucking day?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can’t read minds,” he said seriously. Now he was more Aaron than Perry,\n his face losing the easy humanity all people took for granted until it was\n gone from a face. “I’m both Perry and Aaron. And I’m neither. Sometimes I’m\n more one than the other, like today with our parents.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s informative, great, thanks,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He spread his hands as if searching for the words. “I have a connection\n with you because Perry does. It’s his love for you. He just loves you, but\n I can take that bond and make it tangible.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then why don’t you come when I miss him?” Sal asked in a soft voice.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because you don’t \u003cem\u003eneed\u003c/em\u003e him then,” Perry said. “You needed him\n today, to be with your parents.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave a rueful laugh. “Just when I thought you understood emotions. All\nright, so I can call you on the Perry phone, but only when I really \u003cem\u003eneed\u003c/em\u003e you. Why do you even care?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I care partly because Perry cares, and partly because I have a vested\n interest in your actions, and this experiment.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which actions? Team Three? And what do you mean ‘experiment’?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He nodded. “Yes, your team. And as for the experiment, I probably have said\n too much already.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re infuriating,” Sal said, rubbing her face. She wanted to probe but\n she was too tired, and frankly thought it would be a waste of time. “But\n why do you connect to me? Why not Menchú?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father Menchú has caught the attention of another of my kind,” he said,\n pouring wine. “He is out of my reach.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That girl today,” Sal whispered. “He knew her. She called him by name.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She? All right. We can call it that.” Perry nodded. “It’s as good a\n pronoun as any. It’s a shame you didn’t stop her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal went cold. “What are you talking about? We stopped her from killing\n that girl, and she killed that thing that came out of the tomb, so it’s not\n going to hurt anyone else.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The girl was a distraction,” he said. “The ‘thing,’ as you’re calling it,\n has been entombed in the Circus of Nero for thousands of years. It was\n built before the tomb of Peter.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So it’s just been in there waiting?” Sal asked. “For what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” he said. He looked utterly unconcerned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal ground her teeth. “Is there anything you do know?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not much more than that,” he said, reaching for the wine bottle. Sal put\n her hand on his.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perry. If you have a vested interest in helping us stop whatever’s\n happening, you have to tell me. What could she have wanted from the\n circus?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The circus was a place of Christian slaughter, among other things. People\n were crucified, set upon by beasts, you know. The Romans also had chariot\n races there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His blasé attitude made her want to hit him. “And? What’s in there? It’s\n had a church on top of it for the past many hundreds of years.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He waved his hand as if that was no amount of time at all. “There were some\n dormant beings within. It’s possible she awakened one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A tiny one,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “From what you’ve seen, you really think something tiny isn’t powerful? I\n thought you’d learned more than that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But she killed it,” Sal said. “She sucked the life out of it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And now she has the life force of something that lived among the ghosts of\n a Roman circus for thousands of years. Does that seem safe to you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had left her phone in the kitchen. She ran to get it and call Menchú.\n It was ringing when she went back into the living room. Perry was gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why am I not surprised?” she muttered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is it, Sal?” Menchú sounded like she’d woken him up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It looks like our mission wasn’t successful at all,” she said, and told\n him what she’d been able to pull out of Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stayed quiet on the phone after Sal finished talking. “Are you\n there?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. And thank you for the information. I’d already come to that\n conclusion, but external validation helps.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You knew? I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on. Menchú, this\n girl obviously knows you. Are you going to tell us how?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “When it’s time,” he said, and hung up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal’s brother Perry became an angel-human hybrid, merging with the angel that called itself Aaron. This combination probably saved Perry’s life, but Sal wasn’t really sure where the angel ended and her brother began. The situation wasn’t helped by Perry’s yearlong disappearance. Father Menchú was approached by a being who has haunted his dreams ever since it slaughtered the people of his village in Guatemala many years ago—it’s now calling itself Hannah, and has been warning him of dire things to come. Menchú considered telling the rest of Team Three about this reappearance, but decided to keep the burden to himself for the time being. \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Cardinal Fox \u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Mur Lafferty \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e\n","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.146","slug":"Bookburners-s3e05","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E05.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E5.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E5.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E5.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 5"},{"id":"595fa88cfec9fa00017f57d9","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":6,"title":"Oracle Bones","released_date":"2017-08-23T11:51:33.530+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Grace revisits her past. ","byline":"Max Gladstone","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E06_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-08-23","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think we’re lost,” Arturo Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mist gathered close, and the dirt road wound higher into the hills. The car\n had been a slick and shining black when it picked them up at the airport in\n Chengdu, but a long climb on the dusty road had glazed it a faint yellow.\n Menchú was speaking French; their driver spoke English, and the new\n language offered at least an impression of privacy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nGrace, beside him, did not look up from chapter four of \u003cem\u003eBleak House\u003c/em\u003e. “We’re not lost. We have a driver.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He might be lost.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned a page. “He is not lost.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú crossed his arms, and looked out the window into the mist. “Do you\n know where we’re going?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then how do you know he isn’t lost?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You just want to drive.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If I were driving, they would have to tell me where we were going.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve never been to China before,” she observed. “Even if you knew where\n to go, would you know what it meant?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It would be better than \u003cem\u003enot\u003c/em\u003e knowing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace declined to comment. The car jerked over rough earth—trenches left by\n larger tires. Menchú pondered time and distance. He wished they could have\n brought Sal or Liam—for expertise, but also to fill the silence. He even\n missed Asanti, in spite of everything. Grace kept to herself, she always\n did, ever since they’d first met in that rusted shipping container in\n Guatemala, back when Menchú was a young priest and a recent Society\n recruit, and Grace was, more or less, the same woman she was today. Grace\n felt the world deeply, in both senses of the word: She felt the world\n profoundly, and she felt it in subterranean chambers of her heart where no\n light fell, and invited others inside reluctantly, if at all. Grace came to\n you when she was ready. They trusted one another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Or, they had. Before Grace left the team. He hadn’t told her about Hannah,\n about the monsters of his past rising up again; he hadn’t told any of them,\n but he should have told her. And she should have told him about her reasons\n for leaving. He knew better than to force the conversation. Grace felt hurt\n by the Society’s failure to cure her curse, and by Menchú himself, who had\n been a part of that, and who had betrayed Asanti. Healing those wounds\n required time, and prayer, and loving human effort—and there was only so\n much one could accomplish on a shuddering drive up a dirt road in China.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He prayed in silence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I miss the others,” he said, “but being on the road again, together,\n reminds me of old times. You remember Berlin? Córdoba? Delhi?” Car wheels.\n “Not that I could outrun that snake these days. Then again, at this age, I\n would know better than to touch that idol in the first place.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her lips approached a smile, but backed away as they neared it—that\n momentary amusement more likely a product of her reading than of his words.\n Then again, though he had never read \u003cem\u003eBleak House\u003c/em\u003e—he’d tried\n Dickens in translation as a young man and found him infuriating and\n counterrevolutionary—the title didn’t promise much humor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Dickens didn’t matter. The smile might. If he had not imagined it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti, in a rare unguarded moment, once described to him the experience of\n growing old with a lover, how time chiseled and wore so slowly one could\n not hope to spot the difference between one day and the next, until a\n familiar look in an old eye, the angle at which she held her head gazing at\n a flower rolled back years to the blush of youth, and crushed you with the\n weight of intervening time. Menchú and Grace were friends, always, but her\n smile felt crueler even than that—thirty years together, and she looked so\n much the same.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The driver rounded a sharp bend in the hillside, and stopped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The mist had closed in as they climbed, and through the gloom Menchú could\n only see the trucks parked beside them, their canvas-covered beds painted\n military drab. Those thick tires matched the grooves in the road. Beyond\n and ahead, vague shapes moved over gravel and scrub grass: round human\n figures, the jut of guns. A small army waited on the slope.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace closed her book, and slid it into her jacket pocket. “I told you we\n weren’t lost.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No chance to turn back now,” he said, eyeing the guns. “I suppose.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We shouldn’t be here in the first place.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The driver opened Menchú’s door, then circled around to open Grace’s, only\n to find she had opened it herself already and stood in the mist, arms\n crossed, watching for the world’s next betrayal. “Wait here,” the driver\n said, and jogged off into the camp.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?” Menchú asked when he was out of earshot. “We shouldn’t\n be in China? I know we don’t usually get our jobs from the Chinese\n ambassador, but you seemed to think this was a good idea back in Rome.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace brooded on the front of the car, feet on the bumper, like a gargoyle\n or an impractical hood ornament. “We need to be in China,” she said. “They\n don’t know what they’re doing. But we shouldn’t be \u003cem\u003ehere\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Before he could ask her to clarify, three shapes emerged from the haze.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The man and the woman to either side had the build, uniforms, and brittle\n calm of soldiers. That didn’t bother him. What did bother him was that the\n woman in the middle reminded him of Hilary Sansone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No physical detail connected the two: This woman had a round face with a\n tight, sharp mouth, close-cut dark hair, and favored black (turtleneck,\n trousers, blazer, shoes), while Sansone was . . . Sansone. But physical\n similarities mattered little, in Menchú’s experience. More important, and\n more worrying, were their similarities of gaze: how their eyes moved. How\n this woman saw herself, and how she saw them. Cold. Practical.\n Instrumental. Vicious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father Menchú,” she said, to him, and, then, to Grace: “Grace.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú saw the tension leave his old friend’s shoulders—not all of it, but\n most, as if she had feared the woman would call her by another name.\n “Arturo,” Grace said. “This is Wang Jianguo. Arcane Security Bureau.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo filled the ensuing pause: “We deal with magic.” Her English\n was clipped and careful. She had studied well, but did not speak it often.\nHe watched the soldiers flanking her, but saw no twitch when she said the \u003cem\u003em\u003c/em\u003e-word. Well-trained, or else they didn’t understand English.\n “Thank you, and the Vatican, for responding to our request.” She offered\n him her hand—her shake was firm and formal, withdrawn as quickly as it was\n offered. “You are late.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So was our flight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In Menchú’s experience, body language varied almost as much between\n countries as the verbal sort, but the angle of Wang Jianguo’s head conveyed\n a message: \u003cem\u003eAnd that’s my problem how?\u003c/em\u003e “Follow me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the mist, Menchú could not judge the size of the camp, how many canvas\n tents loomed beside the path down which Wang Jianguo led them, how many\n soldiers and civilians all together. Lacking evidence, his mind built both\n extremes. This handful of tents, these few figures, composed the limits of\n the camp, and at the same time the camp extended endless to all sides in\n his mind, covering the hill, filling the valley. Flying, he liked to sit by\n the window: You could see the sun. The sun felt very far away down here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even the mist did not feel like the mist of his youth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace walked beside him, and kept her thoughts to herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked down at the earth between his boots, and stroked his mustache.\n “Your ambassador didn’t explain circumstances. He only asked us for help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your consultation,” Wang Jianguo said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. But he didn’t explain. He just gave us plane tickets.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Visas,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Visas, plane tickets. A driver. We need information.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo glanced back over her shoulder, and her voice took on a\n solicitous tone Menchú would have found shocking if it had been directed at\n him. “I know we’ve had our differences,” Wang told Grace. Grace’s return\n glance hovered just on the pleasant side of murderous. Grace had told\n Menchú all about Shanghai, about how Wang Jianguo’s people made the\n slaughter there even worse. “I hope you can overcome them. I appreciate\n your presence. Your country needs your help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace’s mouth tightened at \u003cem\u003eyour country\u003c/em\u003e. She walked on, projecting\n less interest in Wang Jianguo’s needs, or China’s, than in the layout of\n the camp. In the last few months, Menchú had enough experience of Grace,\n furious, to have learned the signs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They reached a checkpoint: two more guards, facing out. “Here we are,” Wang\n Jianguo said, and vanished into the thick mist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú glanced at Grace, and thought he saw her gaze flick away from him.\n As a sign of common cause, he’d have to take it. He prayed for guidance and\n strength, and kept walking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The mist shut him in, stifled all light and sound. Then it broke.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n One step they walked in darkness, the next they stood in light, at a\n cliff’s edge. A boiling wall of mist towered behind them, reaching toward a\n sliver of clear blue sky above that tracked the cliff’s edge precisely. A\n different man with a different life might have tried to explain the mist\n wall’s sharp edge with a superstitious scientism, invoking microclimates,\n wind currents, least-energy paths, and other spirits that belonged to his\n small picture of the world. Menchú knew magic when he saw it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They stood at a crack in the earth, a hundred feet wide and a few hundred\n yards long. It must have opened recently, as rocks and soil judged recent:\n grass grew right up to the edge. Green-gold blades glimmered in sunshine,\n and bobbed in the light wind. The mist started again on the other side of\n the crack, and the two walls of mist met at the crack’s edges, as if the\n mist were a part of the ground, and whatever made the crack had opened a\n gap in the mist as well.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace’s knuckles popped. Her hands had balled into fists.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo stepped to the edge. Menchú followed her, and looked down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Vaults and arches of carved rock emerged from the cliff face. Dragons and\n cranes peeked from the stonework; whatever made this crack had uncovered a\n porch or portico, with a flagstone courtyard improbably (again, if one had\n no experience with magic) intact. A carved turtle with a lion’s head\n crouched opposite the portico, facing in, teeth bared, and the portico\n itself was sculpted as a larger lion’s head, emerging from the earth. From\n this angle, he could not see a door, but blue light flickered on the stones\n between the turtle and the building, as if shed from the great lion’s\n mouth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He turned to Wang Jianguo for an answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “An earthquake uncovered the structure years ago,” she said. “Obviously\n supernatural, under the circumstances. Not even the ancient Chinese could\n have built something that would remain whole underground after an\n earthquake. But the door was sealed. We tried to open it, and could not. We\n put it under watch, pending further developments, assuming the quake was\n magical in nature. None came. Our watch lasted years—until three days ago.”\n She took a picture from her pocket, and passed it to Menchú: an enormous\n bearded man in climbing gear, in the courtyard below, disconnecting from a\n rappel line. “A foreign national infiltrated the structure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú passed the picture to Grace. Her eyes didn’t exactly widen—she was\n never that obvious—but he could read her well. She glanced from Wang\n Jianguo to Menchú, then to the picture again. “I know him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Wang Jianguo said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “From Shanghai. Tom. He was with the Network. He helped Christina escape,\n but then he disappeared, and we didn’t see him again.” She stopped, he\n noted, before she mentioned Belfast. They’d discussed this back in Rome:\n They did not know how much the Chinese government understood Vatican\n operations, and, while any opening into China gave the Society more\n resources to stem the rising tide, without further evidence of Wang\n Jianguo’s intentions there was no sense feeding them anything they didn’t\n already know, especially about Belfast, and the Network. “I wonder how he\n found this place. I wonder what he’s after.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The weight she placed on those last words made Menchú nervous. “What do you\n mean? What are we looking at down there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We don’t know,” Wang Jianguo said, though he hadn’t addressed her. But in\n that moment, and in the direction of her gaze, the hunting dog fixedness\n she turned on Grace, he realized why they had been called.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Chinese government did not know anything about this buried palace. So\n they needed someone older than the government.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s my old team’s library,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the tent she’d been given to change her clothes, Grace prepared for her\n descent. She adjusted her tactical vest, tested her arms’ travel with the\n vest buckled, frowned, and adjusted it again. Armor slowed you down, bound\n you up. If you didn’t trust it, you’d flinch when attacked—but if you did\n trust it, it let you down. Sal, who actually liked the stuff no matter how\n much Liam teased her about looking “tacticool,” whatever that meant, argued\n that Grace felt this way because she could—her curse did not make her\n bulletproof, only quick, strong, and fast-healing—but still, in her\n experience injuries tended to be something that happened to other people.\n But she didn’t know how much Wang Jianguo knew. She didn’t seem to know\n Grace’s Chinese name—at least, she hadn’t \u003cem\u003eused\u003c/em\u003e her Chinese\n name—but Wang was playing her cards close to the vest, like Team Three was.\n Wang Jianguo knew Grace could move fast when she wanted to, but there was\n no sense telling her everything. Don’t offer the enemy an opening without\n need. Protect yourself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arturo knocked on the tent’s wooden frame before he entered. Grace made\n herself relax, and turn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He carried a vest, boots, a climbing harness, shin guards, and a backpack,\n and looked as confused as she would expect a priest with an armful of\n military gear to be. In his youth he had been sheepish when out of his\n depth, testy when teased, but now he seemed only humble. “Can you give me a\n hand?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wanted to unfeel everything she’d felt in the last six months. No. Not\n everything. “Sit down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He held his thighs as he lowered himself to the seat. His knees popped. He\n smiled at himself, at his body, and she looked away. She settled the vest\n on his shoulders, cinched the straps he could not reach. “Just like old\n times,” he said. “Feels quiet without Sal and Liam around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Swing your arms.” He did. She loosened one strap. “Breathe deeply.” She\n tightened another.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought your old team stored its library at the Forbidden City.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The parts we used,” she said, “yes.” Damn. He knew as well as she did that\n these tents would be bugged. Switching languages wouldn’t help. They could\n always find someone who spoke French, or Polish. “Some we kept here, after\n we studied them. The dangerous ones.” She met his eyes, and willed him to\n change the subject. “I still don’t think you should have come.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He nodded, slowly. They’d discussed this back in Rome—what they would have\n to tell the Chinese. “This is important. The tide of magic is rising. The\n Church has managed it throughout Christendom for the last two thousand\n years; our partners to the east cover the Dar al-Islam. The subcontinent\n has its own policies. Africa is . . . complicated, but the system works.\n North and South America are heterogeneous as ever. But esoteric religious\n orders didn’t do well here, during the Revolution. Wang Jianguo’s people\n have good intentions, but if they don’t know what they’re doing, one and a\n half billion people—and the whole world—are in danger.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Breathe again. Good.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know there’s a big gap between us.” He was playing into the role now,\n speaking to be overheard. “But I want to reach out. I want to build a\n bridge. If we can work together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That last hadn’t been part of the speech they practiced. Improvisation?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was looking at her. Nothing wrong with that. He had looked at her\n before. Thirty years ago for him, and five for her, in a rusted shipping\n container in Guatemala, parted by a candle flame.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said: “You’re done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Outside, a soldier ran past, harness jangling, footsteps heavy. She waited\n for word of an attack, but none came. Menchú braced himself against his\n legs once more, and stood. He breathed out as he found his footing. She\n remembered him leading her down the long stairs into the Archives, as a\n young man, arms spread, grinning to share his secret.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m fine,” he said. “Just old. My knees hurt when I stand, or when I sit.\n That’s why the Good Lord gave us aspirin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even she heard her laugh as forced.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace.” His pain seemed to linger more in her mind than in his; standing,\n he looked easy and settled, though still not young. “Grace, how do you\n feel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine.” Her voice sounded clipped even to her. “Nervous. There’s power in\n that library. You could stay behind.” \u003cem\u003eYou should stay behind.\u003c/em\u003e But\n she could not bear to tell him that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He turned toward the tent flap. “I want to go.” He hooked the shoulder\n strap of his pack and lifted with his legs, managing the weight into its\n proper place. When it was settled, with the hip belt buckled, he nodded,\n content. “I’m ready.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace hoisted her own pack in a single sharp motion. “Then let’s go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They met on the cliff between empty space and the wall of mist. “Only three\n of us?” Menchú asked, looking down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo, like Menchú and Grace, had changed into tactical gear; she\n clipped her harness into the rappelling lines, and tugged to test their\n strength. “He is only one man.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A big man, though.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I doubt that will bother Grace.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace kicked a stone over the edge, and watched it fall. “You’ve learned,\n since Shanghai. Firepower isn’t always the answer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know,” Wang Jianguo said. “Or else the first two teams we sent would\n have fixed this before you got here.” Before Menchú could ask her any\n questions, she went over the side.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He rappelled down last, trusting the rope, the harness, and God in case the\n first two failed. His boots scraped gravel from the cliff face, and the\n rocks fell down, down to clatter against the roof of the improbable\n building buried below. He landed on the high gable, kicked off a dragon’s\n snarl, and settled in the courtyard. Grace steadied him as he neared the\n ground, then stepped back to let him unclip. The rope zipped back up,\n carabiner skittering off rock as it rose, and they stood alone. The blue\n light he’d seen from above shone through a gap in what had once been a\n stone door caught in the lion’s mouth. The stone had been—not broken, but\n somehow twisted, pulled like taffy to form a jagged opening just large\n enough for a big man to squeeze through. Menchú could not see the source of\n the blue light, which flickered and snapped deep in the library’s throat.\n “You sent two teams?” he asked, as he peered into the light and into the\n dark that remained after the light had gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo tested her flashlight.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stepped away from the opening. “What did they find?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They never came back,” Grace said. “If they had, she wouldn’t have called\n us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo led them down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had expected a cave, he realized as he ducked through the gap into\n the library’s front hall. Something rough, wet, and natural. Instead, dark\n stone walls rose on either side, and met the ceilings and floors at square\n angles. Geometric carvings, once painted, caught their flashlights’ glow.\n He could not make them out: People? Animals? Old buildings in Guatemala,\n pyramids and temples and tombs, felt like this.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Torches stood in sconces on the walls, lit, though they shed no light. Fire\n rose like blown glass from their heads. He reached for one flame, and as\n his hand neared he felt no heat. He touched it, as if he’d never dealt with\n magic before, but nothing happened. He didn’t burn. The flame rose solid\n and smooth, and its soft warmth soothed him—a dream of heat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This isn’t normal,” Grace said. “The torches should be burning. They never\n burn out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú drew back his hand. “Who built this place?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If they knew,” she said, “they didn’t tell me. The best theory I heard was\n that Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor, about twenty-five hundred years ago,\n built a palace to hold his treasures, then commanded wizards to cover it in\n stone so no one could find them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The first Qin emperor had wizards?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She shrugged. “Saying the Qin Emperor did it is about as good as saying no\n one knows.” Grace started walking again, and he kept up. “Qin Shi Huang did\n a lot of things, and destroyed a lot of records, and after his empire fell\n the Han destroyed the records that were left, and painted him as a mad\n conqueror. Which he was, so they didn’t have to work that hard. But who\n knows? The Bureau—my old team—had been using this place for a long time\n before I joined up. I don’t know how long. Probably not two and a half\n thousand years, but they didn’t say. There used to be a special cart they\n kept in Chengdu, and if you took that special cart on a special road into\n the hills, you’d reach a building, this building, where it was always\n night. I thought it was underground, but I didn’t know. It was magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Something brittle snapped under Menchú’s foot, and he swept his flashlight\n down, expecting a massive bug. Large insects tended to go hand in hand with\n sorcery. But instead of a beetle, he found a four-rotor drone, plastic\n tines bent at horrible angles. He swept his light ahead, and saw another,\n and another. Dead glass lenses reflected his light. “Camera drones?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo prodded one with her toe. “We sent them down before the first\n team. Their last transmissions came from around this point. This is a good\n sign, I think—at least for my teams.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How exactly is it good?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We haven’t seen any corpses yet. So at least the team made it farther than\n the drones.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or something ate them,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which, Menchú had to admit, with the sort of grim humor he tended to avoid\n sharing with his Team Three colleagues while on mission, was exactly the\n appropriate moment for their flashlights to go out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Darkness crushed them, and the silent weight of stone overhead. Wang\n Jianguo cursed—at least, it sounded like a curse to Menchú—in Chinese that\n sounded different from the Chinese Grace used when she swore. Menchú stood\n in the dark, an old man no longer surprised by his lack of fear. There was\n light, after all: The torches had not seemed to illuminate the hall so long\n as their flashlights lasted, but now they remained, regular dim red shapes\n like eyes. And the blue flash, too, from the depths, had pierced the\n blackness and died, too brief to lighten. In the dark, he reached for\n Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He did not find her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A crack, and the darkness rolled back, replaced by a sick green glow. Wang\n Jianguo held a shining plastic tube, and the chemical light sculpted her\n from blacks and greens, leaving poison sparks in each eye. He must look as\n ghoulish to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace stood a little to the left of his reaching hand. Stone shook beneath\n his feet, and he stumbled into her; she caught him, bore him up. She was\n still so strong, and surefooted—the tremor barely made her slip. In that\n moment, leaning, there was no gap between them, of years or betrayal. The\n tremor passed as quickly as it came; she steadied him on his feet, and he\n let her. “Thank you.” He waited for an aftershock, felt none. The tremor\n had been intense, but brief—no rocks fell, no one died. He saw no cracks in\n the stone walls, no raining mortar. The entire hallway might have been a\n throat, or a gullet, that shudder peristalsis driving them down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We should go back,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This building has survived centuries of earthquakes without a scratch.\n It’s safer than anywhere in Chengdu.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The building \u003cem\u003ewas\u003c/em\u003e scratched,” Grace said. “If it hadn’t been, you\n wouldn’t have found it. We should leave.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Also,” Wang Jianguo continued as if Grace had not spoken, “that was not an\n earthquake.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know an earthquake when I feel one.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Our first team recorded a tremor like this, before they disappeared.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That,” Grace said, “is not encouraging.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re missing the main point. We observed no seismic activity in the\n area—not so much as a blip. This is just a property of the building.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Great.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We could leave,” Wang Jianguo said, tense, terse. “Wait a day. Maybe two.\n Come back. Find ourselves in the same situation, or worse. Whatever is\n going on here, it is not normal. Grace, you alone know what this vault\n holds. What’s down here? What might Tom find? What could he do with it?\n What might he have done already? How urgent is this situation? We can\n guess, but we do not know, because you won’t tell us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace glared first at Wang Jianguo, then past her, into the black and blue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú thought about cave-ins, and imagined being crushed, or pinned like a\n silver miner, down here forever, to suffocate. Best go back, best wait. But\n when he thought of waiting, he thought of a dancing candle flame, of\n running wax, of time Grace had surrendered hope of keeping.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let’s go on,” he said. “We’ve seen the damage the Network can do. If this\n library is anything like our own Archives, we can’t let one of Christina’s\n helpers take whatever he likes. If the building seems unsafe, we leave—but\n not till then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even he could not read Grace’s expression. A groan echoed from down the\n corridor: metal under stress, a person in pain, or else just falling rocks\n warped by cave acoustics. “Okay,” she said, and started down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He traded glances with Wang Jianguo, uncertain what he intended to convey\n or sought from her, or she to him. Neither had time to elaborate. Grace set\n a strong pace down and down, no time for torches, for odd carvings on the\n walls, for drones, for all the questions he wanted to ask—and the answers\n Wang Jianguo no doubt would have liked to hear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He jogged after Grace, feeling the existence of his knees, and the weight\n of his pack, not to mention the rest of his body. “Grace.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shouldn’t be much farther now,” she said, “before we reach the main\n library. The path zigzags, to keep out evil spirits. There.” Left, straight\n twenty steps, right, straight twenty steps, left again. Then the hallway\n opened into a large chamber, and Grace stopped short. “Well,” she said,\n silhouetted by sharp-edged silver-blue. “What do you think, Arturo? Does\n that look unsafe to you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He stared into the broken room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing was wrong with its structure. The architecture, though improbable,\n fit with the rest of the building: a wide room, roof supported by thick\n stone pillars, a door in the far wall, with a broad pit running crosswise,\n passage over which was afforded by a stone half-moon bridge of the sort\n Menchú had only ever seen in movies and ink brush paintings. None of that\n was the problem.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Narrow ropes of lightning spread through the air, like cracks in an\n eggshell struck not quite hard enough to break. They passed through walls\n and pillars without apparent effect, thorns of light, lines where space and\n shadow were not. They spanned stone and air and bridge and chasm, they\n smelled of burnt copper, and people hung upon them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Most were soldiers in full gear, all wedged in the cracks, which spread\n between them, haphazard. The cracks held them still, but their stillness\n flickered from pose to pose, random filmstrip frames shuffled together, now\n screaming, now silent, now twisted in pain. Across the room, across the\n bridge, stood Tom. The Network man looked as he had in Wang Jianguo’s\n photo—down to the length of beard and the stains on his shirt—though the\n photo had been taken days before. The crack that held him issued from the\n farther door, but did not branch like the cracks that held the soldiers.\n Whatever he had planned when he decided to break into Grace’s old library,\n the plan did not seem to be working out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unsafe will do,” he said, “for a start.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo drew up short beside them, slack jawed. “What is this?” She\n reached for the nearest soldier. The crack that held him widened in midair,\n and spat blue sparks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t,” Grace said, and she stopped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are they—” \u003cem\u003eDead \u003c/em\u003ewas left unspoken.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think so.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo retreated to the door. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shanghai,” Grace pointed out, but Wang Jianguo shook her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Those were monsters. I’ve seen monsters, fought them, killed them. But\n this—what is this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú felt a stab of sympathy then, for Ms. Wang and for the world. Asanti\n had mentioned this before, when she used to describe the advantages of\n going public with the truth about magic, about demons, about the Society’s\n business. They could not be everywhere at once, and without them, people\n didn’t even know what dangers they faced. “Magic,” he said, “is more than\n monsters.” Grace shot him a warning glance; he appreciated the concern, but\n ignored her. “More than demons. There are worlds beyond ours: a sea of\n beasts and dangers we cannot fathom. We are lucky. We live on an island\n where time always goes one way, where distance has meaning, where people\n cannot melt together, where your mind is your own. But sometimes the waves\n roll in.” And the tide, he did not say, is rising. “Tom must have disturbed\n something in the library, and caused a wave.” He wished Asanti were here.\n But he could manage without her, in the field. He had for years. “As to\n what—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oracle bones,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo blinked. “Explain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Turtle shells, cracked in a fire. They used them in the Shang dynasty for\n divination.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know what oracle bones are,” Wang Jianguo said. “But they don’t do this.\n I’ve seen them in museums.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They don’t all do this. We took the ones that did, and brought them here,\n and put them in a sealed peachwood box at the center of the library, in its\n most secure room, watched by clay warriors, so no one would do something\n this dumb ever again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lightning played across Wang Jianguo’s face. “Oh.” She set her hands on her\n hips. The defiant posture did not make her look less scared. “They’re not\n dead.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Trapped,” Grace said. “The cracks the bones make spread through time. Your\n soldiers’ bodies can’t travel, but their minds can—back, mostly. We tried\n to go forward, but nobody ever managed. The cracks spread from memory to\n memory. That’s what happened to your troops—they remembered their friends,\n and pulled them in. If you get too close, it will happen to you too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How do we stop them?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “With this.” Menchú had removed his pack; he drew the shroud from within\n and offered it to her. “We can handle the bones safely with that cloth, if\n we can reach them. But to do that, we need to know what we’re dealing\n with.” So he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and walked into the\n room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo,” Grace said. “What are you doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We need to get Tom out of there.” The cracks hummed and hissed when he\n approached; there were more than he’d thought at first. They spread,\n hairline thin, almost two-dimensional. Some he barely noticed in time to\n step over them, or crouch beneath. Snakes in underbrush made a sound like\n that. “Grace, you saw him in Shanghai. He could know you. Remember you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t risk it. And Ms. Wang, your troops are here. I have the least\n connection to anyone in this room. I’ll pull Tom out. Then we can find out\n what he knows, and stop these cracks.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is a bad idea, Arturo,” Grace said, though her voice was kind enough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe,” he admitted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The bridge held. The way this mission was going, he half expected it to\n collapse underfoot. He climbed, and descended the other side. There were\n fewer cracks here, larger. He ducked low, stepped high, and wished he were\n ten years younger. Twenty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last he stood in front of Tom. The big man hung skewered by time, both\n feet off the floor, one hand reaching out. Like the others, he flickered\n between pain, panic, even laughter. Menchú waited, and waited, and when Tom\n seemed to be laughing, he grabbed his hand, and pulled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom slid from the crack like a splinter, rigid, frozen while he touched the\n blue light, his face stuck in mid-guffaw. But as he slid free, and his life\n returned in a snap, Menchú realized his mistake: Tom was not laughing at a\n joke. He was hysterical with fear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The big man thrashed, and screamed, and thrust Menchú away from him, and he\n tumbled into blue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Falling, falling, to land, young again, in darkness, on rain-slick pavement\n beneath a pink night sky studded with black stars. Germany. Not a typical\n night, with that sky and the strange shadows it left: magic all around him,\n sunk into the soil beneath cracked concrete. Long thin fingers grew from\n wet earth to branch and wave like sea grass, their nails newborn-white and\n clean, and sharp. They caught his ankle, bit through cloth into skin, and\n he heard high-pitched laughter underground. He kicked. Tiny bones broke,\n and he tore free.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú scrambled to his feet—he could still scramble in this memory of a\n spring in 1989: a world reeling, power on retreat as thousands of firm\n hands seized crowbars and tore down walls. Uncertain people prayed, and\n listened. Sometimes they heard whispers back. Not all those whispers came\n from God.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Twenty-five years from now he hung doubled in a blue oracle bone crack.\n Here, blood ran down his ankle, and more finger-fronds sprouted from alley\n walls, from broken pavement, and that pink sky was the inside of a mouth,\n and he was alone, Father Hunter gone, Ananth gone, and there at the alley’s\n end hung a woman pasted to the wall by flesh, book open in her hands.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No time for thought, for horror, for this doubled memory, for young self\n and old in one mind. He had to get the book. Wrap it in the shroud, and\n hope these monsters went away. (How long they’d hidden here, he did not\n know—the Orb had glimmered around East Berlin for years, but only recently\n erupted.) He ran. More fingers—he jumped past them, rolled on pavement,\n found his feet. (In the back of his mind, an old man marveled: that speed,\n that ease. He never thought of himself as nimble, then.) Everything stank\n of skin. A nine-fingered hand crashed through a window behind him and\n caught his jacket. He pulled against it, let the jacket tear. One thin\n tendril curled around his arm, tugged, and he stumbled, off-balance,\n against a brick wall, which sprouted thinner, smaller fingers. Their nails\n drew papercut streaks of blood as he lunged away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Close. Ten feet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asphalt erupted ahead, and the alley filled with a stench of rotting milk.\n The beast from below fought upward: first an enormous, tongueless mouth,\n flat teeth and a void between, all set in fresh pale skin, then two beady\n blue eyes where the chin should have been, then slender arms and shoulders\n and ham-hock hands, shoving itself into light.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He could get past this somehow. Strength. Speed. Faith.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was humble enough, even then, to know his limits in all three. But he\n had no choice, and was alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then a woman fell from heaven and hit the monster in the face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Teeth broke. The beast flailed; its big hand hit the woman, and she rolled\n back, skidded, broke away from the tiny fingers that caught her, no more\n than an annoyance (to her, at least), but was, in that moment’s change of\n direction, visible as more than a blur. As, in point of fact, Grace Chen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was beautiful when she fought. Painters always seemed to feature their\n subjects in repose—easier to model \u003cem\u003elying on a couch mostly naked\u003c/em\u003e\n for sixteen hours at a stretch, he guessed, though cold—but if they had\n seen Grace fight, they might have felt differently. Power ennobled her. The\n more strength in each movement, the clearer the line.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saved him, with a smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And as he ran past the monster, toward the woman with the book, he slipped\n from himself and into her, watching him go, this vivid, angry, beautiful\n young man, watching him not kill the woman with the book, but bring her\n back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And she remembered him, remembered his shock in the shadows of a shipping\n container when she burst from the box, remembered him holding the stopwatch\n the first time they tested how fast she could run, remembered him sitting\n by the fire, lit golden, silent, crying, unable to tell himself he was\n crying, remembered tumbling into darkness as he held out his hand—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was wrong, Menchú—was he still Menchú, after all? Was he still only\n Menchú?—thought, wrong to see these things, to hear them, even as he felt\n another mind struggling in the web of his own memories. He needed her,\n clutched her close, pulled her down. They drowned in time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A voice called his name with an accent he did not know, and he wondered if\n it was a whisper from God, or the other kind.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú landed gasping, bruised, on stone; his ribs creaked and his knees\n too and he tried to stand and found he was not young anymore. The face\n above him did not belong to Grace. Stone cracked. The world trembled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Get up,” Wang Jianguo said. “We have to leave!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Time: so strange a concept. Moments orderly, one then the next, memory a\n faint echo, a story told rather than fullness lived. Where were all the\n other selves? Where was—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shouldered Wang Jianguo out of the way. “Come on, Arturo. We don’t\n have much time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He said her name. She did not react, or reply, just hoisted him to his\n feet. He steadied. Tom, the man from the Network, sprawled on stone nearby;\n Wang Jianguo grabbed his wrist and dragged him through the door into the\n next room, into the library. “We should—we have to go back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Grace said, and when he looked, he saw why.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cracks had opened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo’s men hung in blue fields now; the hairline cracks Menchú\n stepped over and between had widened to pierce pillars. One had blocked the\n bridge entirely. The roof groaned. He staggered through the door after Wang\n Jianguo. Shelves crowded the space beyond. He sat there, caught his breath\n in the light of time and chemicals. “Grace. I saw you. You were—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was stuck,” she said, curtly. “Like you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tom knocked you into a crack, and it spread between us. We were in there\n together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh,” he said. “I saw . . .” He couldn’t finish the sentence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Me too. Wang Jianguo used the shroud to get me out, then you. Looks like\n Tom here was the linchpin, holding everything together.” She bent over Tom,\n and pulled him upright. The big man blinked, eyes unfocused. Grace tapped\n him on the cheek. “Wake up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo stared back through the door into the bridge chamber. “The\n cracks just keep widening. We have to leave.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t,” Grace replied. “Get that through your head.” Tom blinked,\n vacant. Grace snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. “Focus. Can you\n hear me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who the fuck are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did not hit him, but from Tom’s flinch Menchú could tell he had somehow\n determined this was a possibility, and would not end well for him. More\n discernment than he expected from a Network goon. “I’m the woman asking the\n questions. You came for the oracle bones.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t swear,” Grace said. “Bad manners.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He tried to hit her. She moved faster than any of them could see, and\n slammed his hand back against the wall. “Christ!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I said, don’t swear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We want to know why you have intruded on the sovereignty and national\n heritage of the People’s Republic of China,” Wang Jianguo said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace turned to the other woman, shook her head, then shifted focus back to\n Tom. “Tell me what happened in the core.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know you,” he said, suddenly. “Christina told us. The Bookburner with\n the curse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All that matters for you,” she said, “is that I’m here to save you from\n your fuckup.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She released his wrist, and he held his hand as if she’d broken something\n in it. Maybe she had. He didn’t speak for a while.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?” Grace asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You said not to swear.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In this situation,” she replied, “fuckup is a technical term.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom tried—and Menchú was not certain if this was to his credit, under the\n circumstances—to stare Grace down. It worked about as well as that sort of\n thing usually did. At last he breathed out, and slumped against the wall.\n “Not much to say. Christina learned about the place when she researched the\n area—and found a dingus she thought would open the door.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Show me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He motioned toward his pocket, asked permission with his eyes. She granted\n it. He drew out a small jade seal, cracked down the middle. “For what good\n it’ll do you. Wasn’t a proper key anyway—one-use sort of deal. Opened the\n way, then broke.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She pocketed the shards. Wang Jianguo started to object, but Grace stopped\n her with a glare. “So, when the Network broke, you came back to China.\n Why.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not like I had many leads. I wanted to see what I could get.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I reached the center, opened the box. What the—what do you think\n happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just that? You didn’t move anything? Set off any traps?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “None that I noticed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace stood. “Then we might be able to stop this before the bones bring the\n whole place down.” She offered Menchú a hand up; she barely needed his help\n to bring him to his feet. She was working too hard—burning through time, to\n no good purpose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace.” He wanted to tell her, but when she looked at him, the gap between\n them grew. In the crack, who had been trapped in whose memory? Who inside\n whose mind? Or was there any difference, when two people had lived so close\n for so long? He could not say these things, not here, not now. When he was\n younger, perhaps he could have. But he had not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m thinking,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What happens when the cracks close?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “To the people?” She shook her head. “I think they’re freed. I’m not sure\n about the bridge. That might be a problem.” She closed her eyes, and turned\n from him. He almost spoke, but she held out one hand, and he stopped. She\n liked silence when she thought, and she knew him well enough to tell when\n he was about to speak. “There’s an artifact in the core, where they kept\n the oracle bones. A sort of cloud people can use to fly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How do you know?” Wang Jianguo asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m the one who seized it.” Grace started pacing. “We get that, close the\n box, and escape.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cracks made a tearing sound. They widened, pulsing. Menchú thought he\n could hear them—or worse, hear voices through them. “Can we make it out in\n time, after the cracks close?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who knows?” She shrugged. “We have to try.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What about me?” Tom said, sounding afraid for a giant, even one with a\n broken hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re coming with us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace wished she hadn’t brought the Network man along. She wished she\n hadn’t brought any of them along. Wang Jianguo should have stayed away. In\n here, a slip could kill, and Grace didn’t want to be the root of a\n diplomatic incident between the Vatican and the Communist Party. Then\n again, though she hadn’t lived in China in, oh, call it eighty years, she\n could hardly imagine two labyrinthine bureaucracies she would more enjoy\n watching eat each other. As for Tom, well, she didn’t have much choice in\n the matter, but if not for the thief, none of them would be in this mess in\n the first place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then there was Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She couldn’t look at him. She was afraid of what she would see. She was\n afraid she might catch him looking back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Five years was a long time. Thirty years was longer. And for that moment\n inside the oracle bone crack, falling together, falling into one\n another—both struggling to break free, to return to the present, and in\n that struggle tumbling deeper into pits of memory—she remembered the way\n they were, bright as yesterday. Young, that was part of it. Young, and\n scared. After that alleyway in Germany when she saved his life and broke\n her leg, and he helped her, limping, back through broken streets away from\n the police, to the rendezvous with Father Hunter, bore her without\n complaint, strength in his arm, and joked about how glad he was to trade\n places for once, for him to help her, wounded, from a mission, when he\n thanked her—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It felt so long ago, and so fresh. The feelings did not fit together. She\n did not belong here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Focus on the library.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Texts lined the shelves in the outer rings: scrolls, folding books, rolls\n of bamboo slats, stone slabs, titles in Chinese, Uighur, Tibetan, Arabic.\n “These,” Wang Jianguo said, with a tone of mild reproof, “are nonstandard\n characters.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arturo replied, “Wizards, in my experience, do not concern themselves with\n standards.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His voice had cracked and deepened over decades, but she could hear him\n saying those same words as a young man. She would have laughed at that,\n years ago, before she stopped knowing how to be near him. She glanced back,\n and saw he was watching her, waiting for the laugh. She smiled at him, a\n little. The smile hurt.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This way,” she said when they reached a turn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I went the other way last time,” Tom said, “and got in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then you were lucky.” Grace walked in the direction she had chosen. “The\n earthquake must have damaged the traps. The oracle bones may have woken\n them up. I can’t take that chance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What were they supposed to do to me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Instead of answering, she led them on, and in, and down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had to talk to Grace. Since leading them into this maze, she had\n walked ahead, guiding, silent—more silent than usual. And, in evaluating\n that usual, he realized just how silent she had grown altogether. Hard to\n notice little changes like that, day by day over years. You worked\n together, and watched her stay the same, and assumed everything was\n fine—until she left. And now she was back, more or less, quieter than\n before.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Cracks spread through the library, thinner, finer than in the hall with the\n chasm and bridge, and harder to evade. They spread without concern for\n walls or space. Some of the labyrinth was clear, and let them make quick\n time, but once they turned a corner and found a hall like a shattered glass\n cube, cracks scattering the light of other cracks into rainbow colors.\n Grace stopped them short, considered. “I can find a way around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo moved through the maze like a hungry tiger in a petting zoo.\n Books were only the beginning. Strange bronze tripods and vases hovered an\n inch above their shelves, and tinted the air around them colors for which\n Menchú lacked names. Weapons hung in racks. Six black roses grew in a\n shimmering turquoise pool atop a black pedestal. Every time Wang reached\n for some new beauty, Grace glared, and she drew back her hand. When she\n asked questions (“What do these symbols mean?” or “What do the contents of\n this shelf have in common?” or “Is there a filing system?”), Grace ignored\n her. Others might have taken the hint. Wang Jianguo simply nodded, as if\n each new non-answer confirmed her suspicions, whatever they might be, and\n then, minutes later, asked something else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She watched Grace with the same hunger she watched the artifacts.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom cradled his hand and looked faintly miserable, a teenage thief caught\n stealing penny candy. Once, when Menchú glanced his way, he said, “I didn’t\nthink it would be such a big deal,” unprompted. Menchú had not asked him \u003cem\u003ewhat\u003c/em\u003e he thought would not be such a big deal. In his experience\n with the Network, as with all the other techno-cultist fringe groups—the\n Hive, the “alt-real” movement, the Gods of the Machine, all those\n pretentious angry children—they thought nothing would be a big deal, then\n acted surprised when the things that would not be big deals turned out to\n be very big deals indeed, at which point they tended to start screaming,\n because whatever they thought wasn’t a big deal had begun to chew their\n faces off.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He caught up with Grace at the top of a spiral stair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She started down, but paused on the first stair. “Is there a problem?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.” Not exactly. Not as such. There was a problem only in that he had\n fallen into her mind, and through her mind, and before Ms. Wang pulled him\n free he had seen thirty years at once, superimposed, suspended, between\n them, and when you saw it all laid out like that, questions formed,\n questions he had grown skilled at not asking, and so perhaps had she. “I\n wanted to be sure you knew that, if you want to talk, if there’s anything I\n can do. . . ”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She waited, and weighed him. Against what, he did not know. “It was magic,\n Arturo.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Magic,” he said. “But the memories were real. I’m sorry, Grace. We could\n have fought harder for you. There was always more—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know it doesn’t work like that,” she replied, too quickly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The others had almost caught up. “All I mean is, if you want to talk, I’m\n here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But now, I’d\n rather not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cracks grew wider, worse, as they marched on. Lacking good paths, Grace\n led them down the least bad ones, high-stepping over cracks. Once she had\n to climb shelves and anchor a rope to swing them over; at the last she had\n to drape the shroud to make a tunnel Tom, Menchú, and Wang Jianguo could\n crawl through before she wriggled past herself. Menchú held the shroud for\n her. “Thank you.” For that, she meant, and for backing off after that\n moment on the stair. He understood. There were some things you could not\n say, if you were Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The library core looked just as she left it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace ignored Menchú’s wonder, his familiar sigh and mustache stroke when\n overcome by some new sight, and ignored also Wang Jianguo’s rigidity, her\n raptor focus. Grace had her own demons to deal with.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The rest of the library seemed changed as spaces did when dark, and she had\n convinced herself this was not the place she left behind, just another\n place that looked like that one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She could not play that game in the core.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The light was part of it. There were no immortal torches to freeze in time.\n The library core, as always, lacked shadows. Light reflected off every\n surface, sourceless. Shelves circled the room, towering forty feet tall and\n stuffed with scrolls and books, climbed by wheeled ladders. The great black\n ledger sat on a lectern opposite the door, the catalog, each item in the\n library’s collection described, located, annotated, that great book now\n shut—the librarian must have left the ledger here when he abandoned his\n post, which meant he planned to return. If not, he would have burned it.\n Maybe he was still out there—or, more likely, dead. Snarling clay soldiers,\n clad in armor, bearing weapons of chromed steel, stood at attention beneath\n the shelves. Concentric circles of display cases converged on a central\n plinth upon which rested four peachwood boxes, three chained shut, one\n open, and from that box the cracks spread. Some of the oracle bones\n remained inside the box. Others had spilled out, and lay on the floor,\n radiating cracks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Save for the cracks, the bones, and the open box, the room remained\n untouched, just as she’d last seen it in 1928, before—well, before\neverything. Two years ago she might have said, \u003cem\u003ebefore everything went wrong\u003c/em\u003e, but she did not feel that way\n anymore. She was not certain she knew how she felt, anymore.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arturo Menchú stood beside her. Light shimmered off the white and silver\n strands woven through the black of his hair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom had gotten them into this mess, but he was the only person Grace could\n bear to talk to right now. She knew where she stood with him. “You really\n didn’t touch anything except the box.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do I look like an idiot?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She left that question hanging. He grinned at her silence; he got the joke,\n had set her up for it, didn’t bristle at the insult. Must be a fun guy to\n have at parties, when he wasn’t endangering the planet. The oracle bones\n made a sound like creaking ice, or packing peanuts rubbed together: time\n pressed against itself. “Here’s our plan,” she said, to everyone. “The\n cloud is up there.” She pointed to a glass case filled with what looked\n like pale cotton candy, twenty feet up and a quarter turn around the room.\n “I’ll get it. Tom, you’re with me: If I run into trouble I’ll toss the case\n down.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What if you don’t run into trouble?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Without a glance, she tried to warn Tom that he wasn’t doing much to\n reverse her earlier sense of his mental capacity. “I’ll be able to fly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re sure you can use the, what, the cloud-thing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It listens to intent. And it’s large enough to carry us—and fast enough,\n if the library starts to collapse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He glanced nervously up at the roof. “Is there much risk of that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I guess you haven’t spent a lot of time in places like this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Christina sourced all the gadgets. We just used ’em.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Gadgets?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know,” he said. “Magic stuff. They’re just black box machines: You\n figure out their input and output, and use them to do whatever you want.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arturo had turned a funny, and probably uncomfortable, shade of outraged\n purple, which tempted Grace to play the conversation out, to tease him for\n old times’ sake. That felt cruel, to Tom as much as to Arturo, so she let\n the matter drop. Input, output, gadgets: a good reminder. They had feared\n the Network, and fought them, less because they represented a confirmed\n ideological evil, or even a consistent malice, than because they had no\n idea what they were doing and could, if they screwed up, ruin the world.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti talked a good game about play, and exploration: Would you keep\n children from a sandbox? Yes, was Grace’s answer, if the sandbox were\n radioactive, and if playing children liked to make bombs. People rarely\n asked her opinion about this sort of thing, though; her pragmatism didn’t\n play well with other philosophies. Sal, she thought, would have a joke\n about that. There was something in the American school system about not\n playing well with others. Or maybe that was British?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Back in Rome, a candle burned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tom and I go for the cloud. Arturo, you and Wang Jianguo get the bones. Be\n careful about the cracks.” He didn’t need her to tell him that, but he\n nodded anyway. “Just put the bones back in the box, and lock it again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What else are we looking at,” Arturo asked, “in terms of security?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course. Easy to assume others knew what she knew, spoke the languages\n she spoke. That was a price of humility. “If you don’t touch anything, you\n should be fine. The soldiers protect the catalogue.” Which she didn’t\n indicate, because she didn’t want to draw attention to it. “Go in, get the\n bones, close the box, lock the chain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They clasped hands, and she hugged him. That wasn’t planned. His touch, the\n moment’s closeness, this room with its sourceless light, overcame her, and\n in that embrace she remembered how it had felt at once, twenty-six years\n and a few hours back, as they limped together through East Berlin in the\n rain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So Grace climbed the ladder while Tom waited at its foot, and Arturo and\n Wang Jianguo crept toward the fallen bones. As she rose, Grace divided her\n glances back between Arturo and Tom. If the Network man tried anything\n dumb, she’d have time to seize the shelves and work her own way down—the\n wood was oak and anchored deep into stone. She did not fear for Arturo;\n Wang Jianguo might be treacherous, but not in a way that would endanger\n him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This would be fine, she thought, as she approached the upper shelves.\n Cloud, box, escape before any looming collapse. Easy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was still thinking that when she heard a crunch of stone, and Wang\n Jianguo’s scream.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú and Wang Jianguo approached the bones from behind. The plinth seemed\n to block the cracks—which were dense, though tiny. They didn’t know whether\n a small crack was less dangerous than a large one, and Menchú did not want\n to risk an experiment. Keep it simple. Stay safe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That worked, at first. Together they crept around to the shelves near the\n lectern, after which Menchú led, shroud out, crouched low, negotiating with\n his knees and back for the bit of extra flexibility required to sneak up on\n the oracle bones. His knees and back drove hard bargains. He prayed, which\n distracted him, though God decided not to intervene with his ligaments\n directly at this point. Not that Menchú set much stock in faith healing.\n God acted in the world, of course, constantly. But His ways were subtle,\n and a priest of Menchú’s age should be able to read His work without need\n for flaming letters scribed by an angel’s fiery hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A priest of Menchú’s age should not linger on a remembered embrace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He felt no lust. He was honest enough to feel surprised by that: He was no\n more immune to that sin than to any other. He had confessed, time and\n again, contemplated his calling, and confirmed his faith and path. But not\n until she hugged him had he considered how rarely they touched—how fraught\n each contact was, as if both feared what their skin would say, no matter\n how they stilled their lips and tongues.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n What scared him? What scared her? Why could they not speak?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Crouched, he approached the bones from behind the shelter of the plinth. He\n raised the shroud and snuck around the corner. The cracks were not proper\n cracks, but rather a kind of radiation from the bones: When the shroud cut\n a crack off from the fallen bones, the rest of it healed quickly. The cloth\n dimpled and billowed from the pressure of time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He climbed out of the maze of his own mind, and looked back to check on\n Wang Jianguo.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman was not there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Panic—a sweep of the room—until he saw her back by the shelves, near the\n closed ledger on the lectern, which Menchú had taken for some sort of holy\n book. Before he could call out a warning, she lifted the book. He might\n have tried to stop her, but the cracks were too dense, he was too far, to\n reach her in time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And anyway, the clay soldiers were already moving.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú always expected animated statues to move ponderously, especially in\n their first seconds after waking, though he’d seen plenty that didn’t, and\n anyway that expectation didn’t stand up to consideration. Magical statues\n lacked gears to rust, seals to decay, muscles to stiffen: Why shouldn’t\n they spring to action?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo must have made the same error. The first statue caught her by\n surprise, and almost ended her. She pulled free, rolled back, scrambled to\n her feet, turned to evade a second statue’s sword thrust. Three more\n advanced from each side.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace!” he cried, but she had seen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course. As if he could have doubted her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She climbed the last few feet to the cloud in a blur, and he felt her speed\n as pain in his chest—seconds she’d not get back, hours carved away from\n her, but also from him, from Liam and Asanti, from Sal. She smashed the\n glass case, grabbed the cloud, swooped down to ground level and, slowing a\n tick, danced past cracks to Wang Jianguo, crashed one statue into another,\n took one’s weapon and pounced on a third, cracked its head off its\n shoulders and moved to the fourth—fine. He felt the old familiar joy, the\n wonder at her movement, its mastery, worship made physical.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But wonder did no work. The shroud pressed him back as he neared the bones,\n taut as a sail under stiff breeze; Menchú kept his strength and forced\n against the current, thinking of salmon, thinking of a bird he’d once seen\n when he was a boy, a hawk flying against a high wind, so still it hovered.\n One step, a second. A third. And that pressure against the cloth, at the\n floor—that was not the wind of time, not a crack, that was an object. He\n nudged it with his knee. Yes: the bones.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He forced the shroud around them, and when he pressed the cloth against the\n bones, the wind stopped. He counted three bones in the shroud—that left one\n still in the box. He stood—pops in the knee. Grace still fought, slower\n now, saving time. He gave small thanks. He had never told her how much it\n hurt to see her move.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The last bone was half in, half out of the box. He caught it in the shroud\n like the others, wrapped them tight, and leaned against the plinth, only\n just aware of how heavily he was breathing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom tore the shroud from his hands.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú realized what was happening too late. He caught the shroud before\n Tom could withdraw, and pulled; not expecting resistance, Tom stumbled, but\n the Network man was too big, too strong—Menchú tried to trip him, failed,\n and Tom ripped the shroud free.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But in the brief struggle it had come unwound, and as Tom ran, a single\n bone spilled from within.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It struck the floor, and shattered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace was beating one statue to rubble with another statue’s arm when the\n world split open.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Blue light hit her like a tidal wave; she flailed, regained her footing,\n and burned fast to give herself time to parse the scene. A few minutes\n stolen from later would make all the difference now. She saw the oracle\n bone shatter, saw a jagged blue hole like a mouth open from it, and in that\n hole Arturo hovered, his outline chewed by silver-blue. The wide wound was\n already closing, the bone that sustained it broken—but a single crack\n extended fingerlike toward her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom zipped off down the hall on the cloud, gaining speed. He caromed off\n walls, bounced against the ceiling, unused to flight. He’d learn, but if\n she burned fast, slipped around this questing crack in space, ran after\n Tom, she could catch him, and the bones.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But by the time she returned, the crack would have closed, and Arturo would\n be gone—vanished into a loop of his own memory. Alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo did not have the shroud this time. She would not save them.\n Too much risk of getting caught herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was hope. There had to be, even without the shroud. As they drowned\n in memories, back in the chamber with the bridge, Grace had known that a\n surface existed somewhere, even if she could never find it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No time like the present.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He would have told her to go after Tom. To complete the mission. For that\n reason, along with all the others, she could not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace dodged around the crack that reached for her, ran to the center of\n the room, and dived into the light, arms outstretched, toward Arturo.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saw him, he saw her; she saw her, he saw him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Lying in a Roman convent bed, blinking sleep from her eyes, and there he\n sat, burnished red-bronze by the candle flame, his expression still and\n kind, a book of Merton open on his lap, something from her shelf to read\n while he waited to wake her, and after all the years she still felt that\n moment’s temptation to burn a little faster to linger on him as he sat and\n read.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The alley in East Berlin, saving him, and being him, being saved, running\n through the violence to make her pain worthwhile, then limping, broken,\n down foggy streets together in the rain, while all around a city rioted its\n freedom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was hurt and she waited by his bed, reading, book after book; she did\n not sleep, did not need to, she ate when it suited her purpose. Days he did\n not remember, that she’d never told him about.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They pulled one another down, tangling in memories of all they held\n together and all they could not be.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Texas, her leg broken, taking shelter from the Tornado Eaters,\n afraid—really afraid, for the first time in years, hers or his, as they sat\n together in the dark, as he put his hand on hers and that was all, but\n neither of them could say it, because to say it was to make real all those\n years of saying nothing: his whole life, and so much of the vanishing\n violent span of hers, which they could not let become a lie.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Whose thought was that? Whose memory? Hers budded into his, and back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They tangled down. Was truth what you lived? Was truth the possibility\n denied, because it could break you, because it could break both of you,\n because neither spoke?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSeek it\u003c/em\u003e\n —seek the truth, in fists, in blood and broken bones. Seek it in dead\n friends, in tears, in memories of pain. Damnation, bliss, and time.\n Spinning, spinning, down, with no sense where up might be, or if up was\n anywhere, as the world collapsed around them, to trap them here inside each\n other, forever.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Would that be so much of a change?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her thought, or his? It did not matter.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hands touched, tightened, in the silver-blue black, all the color of a\n healing bruise.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n None of this was a lie.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were children, little more than children, in that rusted shipping\n container in Guatemala: He lit her candle, for curiosity, because it was\n there, not yet having learned the Bookburner’s art of not touching, and she\n broke free of the box in which her friends had left her, and their eyes\n met, black into black with jungle green above, wet air hot in her chest,\n and he saw her, dust-covered, soot-streaked, hair dotted with straw and\n broken wood, and they were desperate, endangered, strong, ridiculous,\n glorious kids. They were in love: Of course they were in love. They were\n friends for thirty years. They saved each other, and everyone. They were\n heroes, and to be a hero is to be in love.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And if they had been other people, in another time, it might have gone\n differently: sex, certainly. Children, if it came to that. Whatever kind of\n life they would have built together, neither having ever been sold the lie\n about picket fences and half acres of fertilized lawn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But if they had been other people in another time, they would not have been\n themselves, and neither could fathom the other not being the one they\n loved. Arturo could not want a world without Grace as Grace. Grace could\n not want a world without Arturo as Arturo.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They clutched the false image of someone they would not have wanted anyway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n So they let it go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their memories entwined, and untwined, and together they kicked toward the\n surface.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú came back to himself on the stone floor beside Grace, and hoped\n waking after being thrown onto stone floors was a habit he’d someday break.\n He rolled to his side, found his feet where he’d left them. “Grace!” She\n didn’t stir; he shook her, produced a groan. Plaster dust and chipped rock\n fell from the ceiling, but the ceiling was high up, and they fell with\n force. Was he bleeding? No time to check. Grace’s eyes opened, but did not\n focus. He pulled her to her feet; she leaned on him. Too slow like\n this—they would never reach the bridge before the library collapsed, if it\n was collapsing. Grace would recover, but would she recover in time?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ms. Wang!” Not visible, already crushed, or behind the broken statuary, or\n fled? No—there, at the door. She had been running, couldn’t blame her for\n that, but at his cry she turned back, dodged falling rock, grabbed Grace’s\n other arm, helped her up, and together they ran through the dark, retracing\n steps in the green light of her chemical lamp. Left turn, right. A bookcase\n fell behind them, another ahead. They ducked through the slantwise gap\n between case and wall, and bowed their heads beneath a rain of scrolls.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They came to a fork; Menchú remembered that the path ran left, Wang Jianguo\n thought right. The argument brought Grace around. She found her feet, and\n her voice, and led them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cave allowed little room for conversation. The run filled time and\n bodies, took over minds, crowded out even ancient fears of being crushed\n underground. Menchú followed in Grace’s footsteps, and found his pace, and\n his way, without effort. She ran slowly so they could follow, and sooner\n than he expected, they reached the room with the bridge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Which had collapsed, of course—but Wang Jianguo’s soldiers remained, some,\n and she shouted orders across. Thrown ropes clipped to Menchú’s waist, and\n Wang’s, and to the walls, and they worked hand over hand across the chasm.\n Grace took a running jump, landed on the other side with a skid, and turned\n back to offer him a hand across. She knelt beside him while he caught his\n breath. “Arturo, can you run?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He tried.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo screamed orders in Chinese. The soldiers sprinted down the\n long front hall past the torches—no longer frozen now but burning bright,\n the subterranean hall full of warmth and welcome even as it collapsed—the\n jagged hole in the stone wall at the passage’s end grew smaller as they\n approached, its edges rounded, healed, closing. They dived through; Menchú\n was the last, bent low, squeezed through the shrinking gap, but it caught\n his pack. Grace sawed through the straps with her knife, and the stone\n snapped shut, unbroken once again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With a grinding roar, the enormous carved mouth whose jaws had framed the\n wall closed too. Sickle-curved teeth meshed with teeth, and stone lips\n settled, and a lion’s head glared at them with carved, slitted eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The roar went on and on. Soldiers cursed. Menchú, turning round, saw dirt\n rain down the cliffs. “What is it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace pointed—up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The crevasse was closing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Wang Jianguo tried her radio, settled for shouting to the camp. Lines\n unspooled down the cliff; Menchú’s fingers fumbled his first three attempts\n to connect the carabiner, but at last it snapped shut, and he spun the\n lock, and the winches at the top began to pull. He caught Grace’s hand\n before they rose together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The earth snapped shut behind them and lay smooth and unbroken, as if there\n had never been a crevasse, as if the library and its bones had been a myth,\n which he supposed they were. The mist closed to cover the earth. He knelt,\n and thanked God, and thanked Grace, and bowed his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When he looked up, she was ringed by guns.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace glared at Wang Jianguo, hand outstretched, as if there were no\n soldiers around her, as if their rifles didn’t matter. She could beat\n them—she thought. It would take time, that’s all. What did she need time\n for, anyway? “Give me the book.” She spoke English. She wanted Arturo to\n hear. Wanted him to understand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She gave Wang Jianguo this much credit, though no more: The woman did not\n pretend. She unshouldered her pack, zipped it open, and produced the black\n ledger. “Why?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You lied. You cheated.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This book belongs to us,” Wang Jianguo said, in Chinese. “It belongs to\n our country. Each artifact the old regime collected, the tools they\n hid—they’re all recorded here, somewhere. We need to understand. This is a\n start.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace followed her into Mandarin. “It was all about that book. You put us\n in danger without saying why. These soldiers trusted you, followed you—but\n you did not tell them what danger they faced, or that you caused it. You\n don’t deserve that book. Give it to me.” Soldiers traded glances. Wang\n Jianguo seemed unconscious of how quickly aim could shift.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace,” Arturo said, softly. “The book belongs here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She set us up, Arturo. She set all of you up.” Shifting to Chinese and\n back. “How did Tom find this place? Do you really think Christina knew\n where it was? Or had that seal? Wang Jianguo had Tom under surveillance in\n Shanghai, months ago. They must have picked him up at once when he came\n back through the border. Wang Jianguo needed expertise: someone who knew\n enough about magic to break into a place she didn’t understand, so when\n things went wrong, she could call us to investigate. Could call me to guide\n her in, and through, and give her everything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I just want to do my job,” Wang Jianguo said. She seemed tired, and Grace\n hated that exhaustion—Wang Jianguo didn’t deserve to be anything so normal\n as tired. “I have to keep people safe. I will not be beholden to you, or to\n anyone, for the knowledge I need to protect my country.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You almost destroyed your country! If those cracks had spread—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you telling me that you would have helped us, if I had told you the\n truth? If I brought you in from the beginning? Or would you have brewed up\n some imperialist excuse that let you keep everything for yourself, and\n leave us in the dark?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She was wrong—wrong all through. This wasn’t Grace’s country any more. A\n new nation had settled over familiar ground in her absence, growing roots\n to tap the old one’s corpse. But Grace would have helped. She told herself\n she would have helped. “You’re wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And yet I have the book.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The library’s closed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’ll think of something. From this, we’ll learn the lay of the land—what\n was here, and what dangers we should watch for.” She closed the backpack\n again. “If you really wanted to help us, none of this would have been\n necessary.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace felt sick. She balled her fists, and prepared to burn.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Arturo passed through the soldiers; their aim shifted. Sights settled on\n his chest. “Grace. We should go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Half blind with rage, still she found him, and let him lead her away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He did not trouble her silence until the jet reached cruising altitude over\n Chengdu and circled northwest toward home. Since leaving the site, they had\n traded a few words about passports, tickets, plans. There was so much to\n plan, and so much more they did not know how to plan around. What did Tom\n want with the oracle bones? Where was he going, and how could they stop\n him? At least their goals were clear: find the bones, find the shroud.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All that felt like clouds: massive beyond measure, yet they passed through\n unmarked. They could babble about Society business without touching the\n silence, without using the other, heavier words he did not know how to\n speak.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace set her hand on his, and closed her book. “I’m glad,” she said. “Not\n for Wang Jianguo, not for the library, but—I’m glad we saw each other.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As if it was so easy. But then, he had always loved her directness, the\n ease with which she tore through illusions others would call unbreakable\n chains. “I can’t believe we hid it so long.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did we, though?” She caught his hand; he held hers. “I knew.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He realized, then, the weight on his soul. He confessed, of course,\n regularly, embraced the sacrament. And he governed himself. Lust might be a\n sin, but love was not—you could not be absolved from love. “So did I.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And we didn’t talk about it, because we were kids back then, and we knew\n this was how it would be, and we couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t. But.” She\n breathed out. “I’ve thought a lot about death, recently.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace.” He heard the fear and censure in his own voice, and wished he\n could take it back, but she pressed on as if he had not spoken.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Mine. Yours. The world’s. It’s bad, Arturo. Asanti’s censure. Fox in\n charge. The tide rolling in. I can fight, and fight, but there’s only so\n much candle left. I know how much. I worked it out. ‘No one shall know the\n day or hour’—isn’t that how it goes? But I do. And it feels so bleak. We\n were supposed to trust each other. But everything we didn’t say got between\n us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re my friend,” he said. “I love you. And I love God, and I love my\n calling. We are fools—I am a fool, at least. I spent so long thinking those\n loves were at odds. They are not. Duty gives a frame for love, lets it\n grow. I’m not jealous. I don’t mourn what could have been. I . . . thought\n I should, for a while. That was all.” He had strayed from his purpose. “I\n wish I could say all this would be fine. It won’t be. So much is my fault.\n But we will fight all the way. And we will save as many as we can.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All of them,” Grace said, “if Sal has anything to say about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He laughed at that. “Yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She squeezed her book, and slid it into the seat-back pocket. “Thank you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took her hand, and felt her warmth and strength and returned it all as\n best he could. She trusted him, to let him hold this piece of her heart.\n They flew for a while, saying nothing, contemplating the future. And then,\n because silence was the enemy: “Grace.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You didn’t want to talk to me, in the library. Or in the car, or in the\n tent. I pushed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You wanted to help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wanted to feel like I had helped, which is different. I wanted to push\n the silence onto you—I wanted to oblige you to respond. To draw something\n from you that you could not give. Was I all that different from Wang\n Jianguo, in the end?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her eyes found his. “Yes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so they flew.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nIn her old life, Grace worked to combat magic in 1920s China. Back in Shanghai chasing the Network, Grace met a woman named Wang Jianguo, who works for the Arcane Security Bureau. They didn’t exactly get along. Grace couldn’t help but wonder what happened to all the people she used to work with. Liam met an old friend from the Network in Shanghai, too—Tom, who remembered Liam when Liam didn’t remember him. \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Tom \u003c/strong\u003e: Liam’s former friend from his Network days. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Max Gladstone \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.147","slug":"Bookburners-s3e06","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E06.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E6.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E6.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E6.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 6"},{"id":"595fa8e848e97e0001b644be","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":7,"title":"Cracks in the World","released_date":"2017-08-30T11:53:38.591+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"A trip down memory lane. ","byline":"Margaret Dunlap","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E07_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-08-30","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even though she wasn’t in the Archives, Asanti didn’t have to picture the\n digits spinning down on the thirty-six-hour clock. They were right in front\n of her. Because Fox had his own, perfectly synchronized to the one that\n hung above her desk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eOf course he does.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And so Asanti stated the obvious. “We’re running out of time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fox very nearly smiled. The indulgent expression of a parent to a petulant\n child. “I’m aware of the time, Archivist Asanti. But that doesn’t change\n the fact that you’re not cleared for fieldwork. Team One will be departing\n for Seattle within the hour. They can handle anything that Team Three\n hasn’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti was more than passing familiar with condescending old white men,\n even when they were younger than she was. Unfortunately, as much as she\n might want to tell him exactly what an idiot he was, or shout in his smug\n face—so much more calculating since he had become head of the Society—she\n chose her words carefully. “You cannot send Team One to Seattle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Cardinal Fox leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Team Three\n arrived on the ground yesterday. They missed their last two check-ins. Tell\n me why I should even wait for the thirty-six-hour clock to expire.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I didn’t say that Team Three didn’t need backup. I said that you cannot\n send Team One to Seattle. To be more precise, you shouldn’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And yet, you still haven’t told me why.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The last we heard from Sal, Team Three was in a crowded hotel in the\n middle of Seattle, Washington, a major city.” Asanti paused, then added: “A\n major \u003cem\u003eAmerican\u003c/em\u003e city.” Asanti paused again to see if Fox was going\n to catch up to her, but he didn’t. Asanti clarified, “If you send in a\n commando raid, innocent people are going to get hurt.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Fox dismissed this. “Shah knows what she’s doing. I trust her to work\n clean.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I trust Shah. I don’t trust everyone else in that hotel.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti sighed inwardly. Fox still wasn’t getting it. She was going to have\n to spell this out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “\u003cem\u003eAmerican\u003c/em\u003e hotel,” said Asanti. “Full of Americans. Who are a\n lovely people on the whole but many of whom have a disturbing tendency to\n carry too many guns and run to paranoid about their own government,\n terrorism, or the Illuminati trying to take over their country.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Their government has, by definition, taken over their country,” said Fox,\n but his smugness was slipping.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the Illuminati don’t exist,” said Asanti. “Your point?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n 18 HOURS EARLIER\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The lights glaring down at the front of the stage were so bright that from\n Tom’s place in the wings the only part of the start-up’s cofounder, Mark,\n that wasn’t in silhouette was the gleam of his freshly shaved scalp. In\n spite of a liberal coating of powder—supplied by their programmer,\n Amber—the sweat had already broken through. Hopefully, the VCs would write\n it off as an effect of the lights, and not nerves.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Actually, the sweat was from a far better source: the flush of triumph. It\n was the last day of the Amazon-sponsored tech accelerator, and for the\n first time all week, the team from Polly Mnemonic had a working prototype.\n Mark’s pitch was amazing; the UI was a joy to behold. Amber’s code was a\n thing of beauty, and now, thanks to Tom, when investors asked to try out\n the product, it would actually work.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mark reached the microphone at the center of the stage. In the wings, the\n rest of the team held their breath. Mark began his speech:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “When asked what attributes they most prize in a personal assistant,\n ninety-five percent of executives said, ‘someone who knows and anticipates\n my needs.’ There’s something magical about a truly exceptional assistant.\n But let’s face it, for most of us, a human assistant is a luxury that long\n ago went the way of gold watches, pensions, and three-martini lunches. We\n have to make do with digital organizers, wearables, and automatic calendar\n alerts. But I want you to imagine a digital personal assistant who—from day\n one—knows your work schedule, your personal schedule, your project\n deliverables and deadlines, and where you and your spouse went on your\n first date . . . all without a single import or download.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shifted lower in her seat as the tech guy on stage droned on, trying to\n get a better view of the rest of the team clustered offstage.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pitch was gathering steam: “Polly will change personal productivity and\n digital assistants forever. If you know it, she knows it. If you forget,\n she’ll remind you. If you remember, she won’t bug you. She is literally\n your second brain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is it just me,” said Sal, “or is that really creepy?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Beside her, Grace used checking her hair as an excuse to hold up Liam’s\n smartphone camera at a better angle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal could hear the smirk in Liam’s voice, even over her earpiece. “Could be\n creepier. He could tell them that the technology is based off of stolen\n oracle bones or that the more you give it to remember, the less information\n you’ll be able to keep in your brain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “For Silicon Valley investors, that might be a plus,” Sal pointed out. “If\n the tech becomes the client’s first brain they won’t ever be able to quit\n using it. Get them on an automatically renewing subscription, and that’s a\n guaranteed revenue stream for life. Their lives, anyway.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Children.” Menchú’s voice broke into the comm before Liam could reply.\n “Perhaps we should concentrate on our primary task so that we can obtain\n the oracle bones, thus rendering the program useless and this argument\n safely academic? Grace, Sal, can you see Tom?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re called apps, now,” said Sal, “and no, shadows are too deep from\n here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hold on.” Grace adjusted a setting on the phone’s camera. “Yes. Big guy,\n red beard, it’s definitely him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then let’s go get what we came for.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace slipped the phone back into the pocket of her silk jacket. Sal\n couldn’t stop the idle thought that she had kind of liked her in a tac\n vest. Still, she was happy to trade the G.I. Jane look to have Grace\n officially back on the team. “Roger that. We’re on our way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were times when Sal’s conscience pricked her about the ethics of\n using her badge to convince hotel clerks to give her key cards for private\n rooms. After all, while she was pretty sure that she was still technically\n a member of the NYPD, considering that she hadn’t been back to New York in\n . . . well, longer than she liked to think about, she had to be stretching\n the definition of “technically” pretty damn thin. Definitely past the point\n where a threat to return with a warrant had any teeth in it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n However, when said hotel suite was being occupied by a start-up whose new\n technology ran on—as far as Liam had been able to figure out—whatever it\n was that powered the Index (which had tried to steal a chunk of Sal’s\n brain) and three ancient oracle bones (which had actually been stolen, and\n nearly taken a chunk of Menchú and Grace with them) Sal felt pretty\n comfortable telling her conscience to shut up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are we sure the bones are in here?” asked Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’ve got to be close,” said Liam. “There’s no evidence that the app ran\n as anything other than a demo before Tom arrived with the oracle bones. The\n company was on the verge of collapse. The founders, the whole team, is all\n in. They had to give up their offices to fund Tom’s trip to China.\n Literally, these hotel rooms are the only property they have left.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unless they’re running a server out of one of their mothers’ garages,”\n said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not for the kind of bandwidth they’d need . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal tuned out the rest of the argument. It wasn’t really an argument, just\n nervous chatter. Although she wondered what Liam had to be nervous about.\n So far, the entire mission had gone like clockwork. They’d tracked\n Tom—Liam’s old buddy from the Network—to Seattle and then to the\n accelerator. A little conversation with the front desk had netted them a\n room number and key. Now, all they had to do was go in, get the goods, and\n get out. No muss, no fuss.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The light on the door blinked green and Sal heard the lock disengage with a\n soft \u003cem\u003eclunk\u003c/em\u003e. She turned the handle and the door sighed open,\n revealing a wedge of cream-colored carpet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThis is too easy\u003c/em\u003e. Sal’s conscience might have been quiescent, but her paranoia was fully\n functional.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal motioned for quiet, did a last check of the hall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All silent. All clear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As she stepped across the threshold, the world cracked open, and Sal fell\n through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The room was dark. Years of dirt and taggers had long ago occluded the high\n windows, and only a few slanting rays of sunlight penetrated the thick\n gloom of the dusty air. Sal’s every step sent up a virtual plume of roach\n parts and rat shit, and she tried not to sneeze. Or inhale.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a click.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did anyone else hear that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The question had barely left Sal’s mouth when the air around them exploded\n in gunfire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal hit the concrete floor of the abandoned warehouse and rolled for cover,\n rat shit and roaches now a secondary concern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought this place was supposed to be empty!” Sal gasped as a dark man\n with a moustache hit the ground beside her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal?” the man asked. “Do you know this place? Where are we? What happened?\n One minute we were in the hotel and then—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWait. Hotel? What hotel?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Two pieces of Sal’s memory grated against each other, but she didn’t have\n time to think. She had to get out of here. They both had to get out of\n here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWhere’s Collins? \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her partner had been right beside her when they took the door. He was\n supposed to be— Sal looked around, frantic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThere he was—\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In an instant, Sal felt her heart stop. Collins was face down on the\n ground, blood spreading beneath him in a steadily widening pool. Was he\n dead? Had she just gotten her partner shot? She had to get to—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal was scrambling to her feet when a hand clamped down on her arm. “Sal!”\n She thumped back onto her ass, hard. The man was shaking her. “Wherever you\n think we are, this isn’t it. We’re in a memory. Your memory. Sal, think!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was the repetition of her name that did it. Detective LaPaglia would\n have rather eaten fresh horse shit than call her by her first name. To\n LaPaglia she was sometimes \u003cem\u003eBrooks\u003c/em\u003e, occasionally \u003cem\u003eDetective\u003c/em\u003e, and until recently, \u003cem\u003erook\u003c/em\u003e. Sal closed her eyes. When she opened\n them, she was looking into the concerned face of Father Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But that made no sense. The man beside her wasn’t supposed to be Menchú.\n Yes, LaPaglia was older than she and prone to sporting a thick black\n moustache, but otherwise nothing like the priest who had been her boss for\n the last two years and change.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWhat the hell is going on?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú turned her head to face him. “This is like what happened when we\n encountered the oracle bones in China,” he said. “Well, different, which I\n assume is due to the connection of ancient artifacts to the Index, but\n similar enough.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal was having trouble following. “What happened in China?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Think back, you read the report. The oracle bones connect to the mind.\n Sal, you recognize this place. That means we are all in one of your\n memories.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s heart was still hammering in her chest, but she slowly managed to\n force her brain into something closer to coherent thought. It helped that\n the gunfire around them had paused. She took a deep breath, and risked\n poking her head up to confirm her panicked first impressions. A shot sent\n her ducking back for cover, but a couple seconds had been enough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She did know this place. She could never forget it. This was the worst day\n she’d ever had as a cop. Even worse than the day that had begun with the\n ashtray holding fingers like sunrays and ended with her brother in a coma\n being flown to Rome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If this is my memory,” Sal said, “does that mean that none of this is\nreal? That it’s all in my head?” \u003cem\u003eThat I don’t have to live through this again?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Any response that Menchú was about to make was cut off by the abrupt\n arrival of Grace pulling a heavily limping Liam after her to take refuge\n behind the same crates where Sal had instinctively rolled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s all in your head,” said Grace, “but it’s also real. If that get-up of\n yours has a first aid kit, give it to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam had already ripped off one of his sleeves and handed it to Grace, who\n was using it as a bandage around his leg.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace pulled the cloth tight, and Liam grunted. “First ripped up by a\n bloody werewolf in Spain, and now shot. This is not my year.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal got a glimpse of a hole in Liam’s thigh as the cloth crossed over, and\n felt her blood run cold. She knew that wound, but it didn’t belong in\n Liam’s leg. Sal wanted to look back at where she had seen Collins—where she\n had seen the person she thought was Collins—on the ground earlier, but\n couldn’t bring herself to look. She told herself the reason was the bullets\n still occasionally flying through the air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Quit whining,” said Grace to Liam. “It’s a through—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “—and through,” Sal finished with her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal felt Menchú’s hand on her shoulder. “Sal, what happened here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mean what’s going to happen here,” said Sal. “Again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” said Menchú. “This is your memory, but already it has changed. We’re\n here, for one. We’re having this conversation. Whatever happened, it\n doesn’t have to happen again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal could barely hear her own words, but trusted Menchú to understand. “I\n just want to leave.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The surest route out is through. Clearly you survived this once. You can\n do it again. We’re with you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal couldn’t keep herself from staring at Liam’s leg.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Quit stalling,” said Grace. “Tell us what happened.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal took a deep breath. “Collins—he was my partner, back when I was still\n with the NYPD—and I were here with Detectives LaPaglia and Knight. We’d\n each caught a body. I mean, they had one, and we had one. They were two\n separate cases, but they were both tied to the Russian mob, expanding out\n of Queens, I guess.” Sal could tell she was babbling and fought to get her\n story back under control. “Anyway, we didn’t know how closely the two\n murders were related until both of our investigations led us back to this\n warehouse. But all the information we had was that the place was empty. I\n mean, of course it would be empty. Why would a bunch of armed goons still\n be in a place where they knew the cops would come looking for them?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal paused for breath. Half turned and shouted to the people who were\n shooting at them, “You dumb fucks were supposed to be gone!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The only answer was more bullets.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Collins, my partner, took one in the leg almost as soon as we walked in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Check,” muttered Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I stayed with him and radioed for backup. But all four of us were pinned\n down, outnumbered, outgunned. We were being careful with our rounds, but it\n was just a matter of time before we ran out. Not that it mattered; there\n were enough bad guys that they could rush our position anytime, as long as\n they didn’t mind taking casualties. God . . . it was such a setup. But we\n were too . . . We didn’t see it.” Sal swallowed and continued.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “LaPaglia didn’t want to wait. He said that people dumb enough to get into\n a shoot-out with four cops were dumb enough to think that they were\n bulletproof. He and Knight thought they could get around, set up a cross\n fire, and take them out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had been so sure. Sal hadn’t liked the plan; it flew in the face of\n every procedure on the books, but she was the most junior, and she hadn’t\n said anything.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I take it the plan didn’t work,” said Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal closed her eyes, tried to pretend that she wasn’t here. That she was in\n a windowless conference room, looking down a microphone at a row of\n lawyers. That this was just telling the story one more time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It worked, and it didn’t,” she said. “LaPaglia and Knight were able to get\n into position and keep the heat off until backup came, but they didn’t\n realize that their positions were overlooked from the upstairs offices. We\n hadn’t noticed them in the confusion.” \u003cem\u003eNo, no time for lies now.\u003c/em\u003e\n Sal corrected herself, “No. I saw the offices, so I assumed the others had\n too and taken them into account. I didn’t think I could have caught\n something that they missed. By the time I realized . . . it was too late.\n They were pinned down and couldn’t get back to us.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was chaos. LaPaglia and Knight kept the bad guys busy long enough for\n me to get Collins out. At some point, the building caught fire; we’re still\n not sure how. By the time our backup arrived, everything was in flames. I\n tried to go back in after them . . .” Sal trailed off. “They gave me a\n fucking medal. For saving my partner. LaPaglia’s and Knight’s went to their\n widows. If I’d just opened my stupid mouth and said something, I could have\n saved them all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal glanced to the upper-level offices. Knowing what she was looking for,\n she could see the tops of heads crouching below the windows, waiting for\n their moment to strike.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay,” said Grace. “Let’s do it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do what, get shot? You’re insane.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” said Grace, “I’m thinking clearly. If this is going to play out at\n all like your memory, the only thing that saved you was the other two\n detectives drawing fire that let you and Collins get out. Right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Chin set, Sal nodded. Daring Grace with her expression to say a word\n against her fallen comrades.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Great. Plus, the building is about to catch fire, and backup won’t get\n here in time to save us. So we can’t stay put.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But anyone who moves from this spot is going to get shot!” Sal protested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. That’s what happened before. But now you know what happened and where\n all of the bad guys with guns are. Right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal found herself nodding. She’d spent hours and hours going over the\n incident: with the department’s investigators, then with the lawyers in the\n civil suit that followed, and finally in her own mind in the middle of the\n night. She knew exactly what had happened here. She just wished she could\n un-know it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s the second advantage?” Menchú asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If we’re wrong about how the oracle bones work, this is in Sal’s head, in\n which case nothing that happens to any of us matters, because it isn’t\n real.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Feels fucking real,” said Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace’s teeth flashed white in the dim light. “If this is real, then it\n means this is my real body, which means those guns just got a lot less\n scary.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stared at Grace in disbelief. “You mean . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace gripped Sal’s fingers with a hot, fierce pressure that forced Sal’s\n mind to the present. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you some closure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal squeezed back even as her other hand closed around the grip of her\n service pistol. She couldn’t stop her face from mirroring Grace’s smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as Grace made it out to be. Once Sal\n had detailed the tactical situation, Menchú and Liam had suggestions as\n well. Good ones, too. Soon they had a plan Sal had to admit she never would\n have come up with on her own. Certainly not in the heat of the moment ten\n years ago.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú found a handkerchief in LaPaglia’s jacket pocket and put it on the\n end of a stick to wave in the air, shouting at the same time that he was a\n priest and that they needed to resolve this through negotiation. That was\n sufficiently distracting—\u003cem\u003eor confusing\u003c/em\u003e, Sal suspected—that Grace\n was able to get nearly halfway to her new cover before anyone noticed her\n moving and started shooting again. Grace picking a bloody bullet out of her\n shoulder and throwing it back to hit one of the concealed snipers in the\n forehead wasn’t exactly tactically effective, but it certainly didn’t do\n anything good for the other side’s morale.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As Grace kept running, Sal calmly picked off the two snipers in the\n overlooking offices, keeping everyone else pinned down until Grace\n scampered back to join the rest of the group.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did they work?” asked Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace dropped a handful of tape-wrapped paperclips into Liam’s lap. “Well,\n I’m not electrocuted, so that’s a plus. There was a hell of a spark when I\n jammed them into the outlets, but I didn’t stick around to see if anything\n caught,” said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Old wiring like this place? It caught,” said Liam. Sure enough, smoke was\n already curling around the wall outlets Grace had passed on her run around\n the room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As the smoke burst into flames, Sal took aim and shot each one of bad guys\n as they broke position and ran. One by one. \u003cem\u003ePop. Pop. Pop. Pop.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n This is for Knight. This is for LaPaglia. This is for Collins. And this\n is for me.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The noise around her fell away, until the only sound was her own breath\n echoing in her ears. Sal felt a sense of calm fall over her. When she\n confessed to her superiors at the NYPD that she had seen the offices and\n hadn’t said anything, that she could have saved LaPaglia and Knight, they\n said: “It wasn’t your fault. This couldn’t have been prevented.” The\n investigators had agreed. So had her therapist. So had her family. “It’s a\n miracle two of you made it out of that kill box alive,” they all said. “It\n was an unwinnable situation.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And now, in the moment that she had the proof that her heart had always\n believed, that there had been a way out, she finally believed there was\n nothing she could have done. She had years more experience now than she had\n then, perfect information about who was in the building and where, not to\n mention a priest who could sell holy water to the Pope, a technical genius,\n and a woman who shrugged off bullets like a bad leg cramp, and it had still\n barely been enough to get them through. The idea that she could have\n convinced three senior detectives that the offices weren’t empty and then\n come up with a plan where they all made it out alive? Laughable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They had done the best they could with what they knew and the resources\n they had at the time. The outcome had been terrible, but it could have been\n worse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It wasn’t her fault.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace watched with relief as blood came back to Sal’s cheeks and the shock\n and battle haze faded from her expression. For the first time since they’d\n stepped out of the hotel and into—wherever the hell this was, she seemed\n like the Sal that Grace had come to know over the last two years, and not a\n hollow, haunted shell. It was nearly enough to make the fact that they were\n still inside a burning building a secondary concern.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As if reading her thoughts, Menchú called out, “Grace, perhaps we should\n leave now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n This was followed by the sound of Liam punching a door and swearing.\n “Easier said than done. This door isn’t moving.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?!” That was Sal again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace continued her careful inspection of the bodies. She wasn’t surprised\n that escaping this room wasn’t as simple as exiting the door where they\n entered and finding themselves back in a Seattle hotel. Tom had laid a\n trap, probably a trap specifically for them, knowing that Team Three would\n be on his heels after the theft of the bones in China. Getting out of a\n memory by getting through it was tempting psychology, and she didn’t blame\n Menchú for invoking it. They had needed something to get Sal—their only\n native guide—thinking instead of panicking. And the catharsis had certainly\n been good for her, but metaphor only got you so far. The gunmen had been an\n immediate threat, and so had to be dealt with. The fact that they were now\n in a burning building . . . well, from Sal’s description of events, that\n had been inevitable.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were in a real place, and that meant they would need to find a real\n way out of it. And if her estimate of the level of heat and smoke in the\n room was right, they would need to find it in the next two minutes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace knew intimately what could be done in two minutes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She reached the last of the bodies and flipped the unfortunate gunman onto\n his back. The others had yielded little in the way of either useful\n equipment or information about the true nature of their situation. But as\nGrace frisked over the boy’s— \u003cem\u003ethe man’s, when did everyone start looking like a child?\u003c/em\u003e—body, her\n fingers found something flat and oval stuck into the waistband of his\n jeans. Something just slightly domed . . . like a turtle shell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Menchú,” she called. “I found one of the oracle bones.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The others abandoned their doomed efforts to open the door and rushed over\n to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you think we can use it to get out of here?” asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace pulled up the shirt to reveal the artifact, wrapped in a layer of\n ordinary newsprint. Asanti would have a fit. Grace grasped the paper to\n pull it away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Be careful,” Menchú said, “we don’t know—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Grace couldn’t hear him. She couldn’t hear anything. In the instant her\n hand brushed the surface of the bone, the world cracked open.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The night was full of mist and coal smoke. Lights twinkled on the river,\n giving an illusion of life to the wavering reflection of the Shanghai\n skyline. Grace froze. The bite in the air, the wind off the water. Every\n sensation felt sharper, more real than anything had felt in years. As\n though a layer had been scraped from her skin, leaving her raw and open and\n . . . alive. An abandoned newspaper fluttered in the wind and skipped down\n the abandoned street. She didn’t need to catch up to it to know the date.\n This was the last night of her life. The night she had been born again as\n something else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace felt a sudden sympathy for Sal, and ashamed of her uncharitable\n thoughts about her panic. It was one thing to live through someone else’s\n worst memory. It was another to find yourself suddenly immersed in your\n own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace?” said Liam. Of course Liam would have recognized the horizon by\n now. Shanghai was different in the 1920s, but the shape of the harbor, the\n feel of the air . . . some things were embedded in the heart of a place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace readied herself before she turned to face the others. Her team would\n be relying on her, and she would not let them down. It was just as she had\n told Sal: She had survived this once, she could do it again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eExcept that I didn’t.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By the time she faced Liam, his face was lined in concern, but Grace’s\n masks were back in place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re in Shanghai,” she confirmed in answer to the question he had not\n asked. “The year is 1928. This is the night I”—her voice caught for just an\n instant before she completed the thought—“the night we went after Antopov.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a silence that greeted her words. Until Sal said, “You know, I’ve\n never met this Tom guy, but when I do, I really think I’m going to kill\n him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eGet in line\u003c/em\u003e, thought Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam’s expression was grim enough that she wondered if he wasn’t having\n similar thoughts himself. Then she noticed the blood leaking from beneath\n the bullet wound to his thigh, and revised her assessment of his expression\n from \u003cem\u003egrim\u003c/em\u003e to \u003cem\u003epain\u003c/em\u003e. Sal came to a similar conclusion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shit, are you still shot?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Looks like it.” Liam shifted his weight more firmly to his good leg. “But\n either it’ll get worse, and I’ll bleed out, or it won’t. Unless you have a\n lead on some non-1920s painkillers, there’s not much we can do about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Opium?” Sal suggested.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wrong century, and not funny,” said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not joking,” Sal muttered back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú cleared his throat. “Grace, are we safe here for the moment?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace nodded. “For a little while.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then I suggest we concentrate on making a plan. Liam’s wound has carried\n over from one memory to the next, but so has the oracle bone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace looked down and saw the etched turtle shell lying on the pavement at\n her feet. She had been so distracted, she hadn’t seen it earlier. She knelt\n down and picked it up. Touching it the first time had sent them here. Maybe\n doing so again would take them somewhere else.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It didn’t.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam limped over, touched the shell. He met her eyes and shrugged. “Worth a\n try. I guess it’s one trip only.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú was speaking again. “If the oracle bones are driving these memories,\n the second one must be here. Tom only stole three when he was in China. If\n we can find and neutralize all of them, we might be able to break out of\n this trap.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal grimaced. “The only way out is still through?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t see that we have an option.” Menchú held out his hand to Grace.\n “Here,” he said. “Give it to me. I’ll put it in a shroud.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace didn’t move. As they all had taken the place of someone in Sal’s\n memory, she recognized the roles that the others were supposed to play.\n Menchú was not wearing his priest’s collar and coat, but Wujing’s crisp\n navy suit that he preferred for nighttime operations. It was cut to allow\n its wearer to move freely and hide at least three blades in the lining. It\n was a very well-designed suit, but it was Wujing’s, not Menchú’s. Just as\n she had found a stranger’s MetroCard, a leaking pen, and half a pack of\n chewing gum in the pockets of Knight’s blended wool-poly blazer in New\n York, not the detritus of her own life.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had noticed her hesitation and looked a question at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you still have the shroud?” she asked him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saw him reach into his jacket pocket, and realize the same thing she\n had. They carried the oracle bone and Liam’s wound from their experience\n inside the previous memory. They hadn’t carried anything else either from\n it or from the hotel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well,” said Sal as Menchú’s silence answered Grace’s question. “That could\n make things more difficult.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace slipped the shell into the pocket of her own jacket and Menchú didn’t\n protest. She was glad, because she needed it, an anchor. The night was the\n same; her clothes were the same; she was the same. The hard edge of the\n bone against her side was a tangible reminder that something was different.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eIf you could live normally, without your candle, would you?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace dismissed Asanti’s remembered words as soon as they entered her mind.\n Memory was not time travel. Their actions in the warehouse hadn’t brought\n two detectives back from the dead. Avoiding the wax now would not undo the\n last ninety years.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So if there’s an oracle bone somewhere in the city,” Liam was saying,\n “where do we look first?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It has to be near here,” said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t be sure of that,” said Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This place is created from my memories, just as the warehouse was from\n Sal’s. A specific time and a specific place that was so terrible we can’t\n forget any of it, not even the smallest detail. It feels real, because to\n us, it still is. But if the oracle bone is here, it has to be someplace I\n was, because that’s all I can remember.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That narrows things down,” said Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I bet we can narrow it down even farther,” said Liam. “These memories are\n trying to hurt us. The oracle bone is going to be someplace that will force\n Grace to be in exactly the last place she would ever want to be.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace had been trying not to look at Menchú as the conversation progressed\n to its inevitable conclusion. But she could feel him watching her, wanting\n to reach out, and she wasn’t so hard-hearted that she could let him think\n that she was trying to push him away.\n \u003cem\u003e\n We’ve spent too long being apart. Time to admit that we’ll hurt each\n other more by denying the other what little we have left.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n She looked back and found all the pity that she had feared. But to her\n surprise, there was something more as well. Confidence. He had faith in\n her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Maybe it was the memory of her more fragile body, or maybe it was just the\n lack of secrets between them, but Grace had never felt more vulnerable in\n her life. And yet, standing before him, she could feel his confidence\n bolstering her own. If she trusted him, and he believed in her, maybe she\n could trust herself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú felt the irrational desire to apologize to Grace.\n \u003cem\u003e\n I didn’t want to invade your privacy. I never did. After China, I\n thought I would never do it again.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n If he was about to see the moment that ended her life . . . That felt more\n intimate than seeing her naked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThe moment that killed her, and brought her to you\u003c/em\u003e, the traitorous voice in the back of his mind told him.\n \u003cem\u003e\n If not for the worst moment of her life, she would be as dead as\n everyone else in her old department by now\n \u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head. It was horrible, reprehensible, selfish to be glad\n that this had happened. This was Grace’s memory. How self-centered was he\n to make this somehow about his own sins? And so he wouldn’t. If this was\n the worst thing that had ever happened to Grace, he was going to make\n damned sure that this time, it would go differently.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At Grace’s insistence, they proceeded directly to Antopov’s lab. “The girls\n won’t have the oracle bone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why not?” Sal had asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because everything in the hostage rescue went according to plan. No\n trauma, no artifact.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If I’m wrong, we can still get to the girls after we deal with Antopov.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal hadn’t argued after that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú watched Grace as they approached the lab. Where Sal’s nerves had\n presented as a need to speak—\u003cem\u003eto confess\u003c/em\u003e—Grace grew quieter the\n closer they got. He had insisted that Grace brief them on what they should\n expect: the goons, the ape-like creatures, the smell of wax and burnt hair.\n Most of all, she had been very clear about the dangers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No one else can go for Antopov. There’s no way to reach him without being\n drowned in the wax.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But it’s not real wax,” Menchú had argued, “it’s a memory.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam is still bleeding,” Grace pointed out. “I am already tied to the\n candle. I will not risk the same thing happening to any of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The moment they stepped into the warehouse, everything was as Grace had\n described it. The candles, the cauldron, the stench. And standing in the\n middle, surrounded by a trough of molten tallow, was a deranged Russian\n professor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Antopov.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For a moment, everything was still. And then, wax creatures were\n everywhere: lions, apes, tigers . . . Menchú couldn’t tell if they were\n transforming before his eyes or if his brain was simply refusing to process\n what he was seeing. But it didn’t matter. Because Menchú realized that they\n were not, in fact, everywhere. They were all making a beeline right at\n Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Jesus, Mary—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The end of Liam’s exclamation was cut off by the sound of gunfire from Sal,\n who was already falling back to put herself between Liam and the wax\n creatures. She threw a glance over her shoulder at Menchú. “If you have a\n gun, use it. It slows them down, and we only have to buy Grace time!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook himself out of his surprise. They had always known this wasn’t\n a moment for negotiation. He ran over to Liam and Sal and watched as Grace\n ignored them all, moving straight toward Antopov.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s heart stopped as he saw her consumed in a fountain of molten wax,\n as the Russian reached for her, and realized too late that she hadn’t\n closed to attack him, but his candle. Grace had eighty years of experience\n to remind her where his weak point was. Her fingers, still dripping hot\n tallow, closed around the burning wick. The candle went out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Antopov and the wax figures fell to the ground, senseless. So did Grace.\n Menchú rushed to her, barely noticing as Sal and Liam’s unerring aim picked\n off the few flesh-and-blood goons Antopov kept for his protection.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wasn’t moving. Of course she wasn’t moving. The candle was out. But it\n wasn’t her candle, was it?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú fumbled in her pockets, looking for a match. He had to light the\n candle again, had to wake her up . . . No. He couldn’t. It might wake her,\n but it would definitely wake the others. But how could they . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThe only way out is through\u003c/em\u003e. He had to find the oracle bone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Without conscious thought, Menchú searched Antopov’s body, as still and\n cool as a mannequin. He suppressed the thought that he was as still and\n cool as the dead. Menchú had never touched Grace when she was not awake,\n and did not like to think of her sleeping form as a corpse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The oracle bone wasn’t there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú sank to the floor, staring at Grace’s unmoving body, and beyond it,\n the thick, yellowed candle that she had knocked to the floor when she\n collapsed. The thick, yellowed candle with a line of black a few\n centimeters from the bottom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was no ring on Grace’s candle. Menchú got up, examined it more\n closely. It looked as though something had been trapped inside when the\ncandle was formed. \u003cem\u003eA string? A plate? The edge of an ancient turtle shell . . . ?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had always treated Grace’s candle as an object of reverence, acutely\n aware each of the few times that he had held it that it was, literally, her\n life in his hands. He tore at it now, scraping away the wax with his nails,\n pounding at the candle with the sole of his shoe until . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The candle cleaved at the line, across the shell, leaving its upper surface\n exposed. Menchú had planned to wrap it in a cloth. Even if it wasn’t a\n shroud, it seemed as though touch had triggered the transition from one\n memory to the next. With Antopov neutralized, in theory they could wait\n here, bide their time. Make a plan.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú looked down at Grace’s unmoving body.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He reached forward, and touched the shell.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The world cracked open, and Father Arturo Menchú dove through.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even before the world resolved around him, Menchú knew what he would see.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He was standing on the steps of a church in a tiny village in Guatemala. At\n his feet lay the oracle bone. Before him, he could see Sal and Liam in the\n crowd of residents gathering in the town square amid the remains of a\n massacre between government and rebel forces.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He caught a movement in the corner of his eye and saw Grace climbing to her\n feet, alive and whole. His chest flooded with relief, and Menchú nearly\n choked on the sense memory that came with it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was what he had felt at this moment when he had lived it. When it seemed\n as though he had done a good thing. When he thought that he had at least\n managed to save the innocent from senseless slaughter. In those few\n heartbeats before . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú forced himself to look away from Grace. To look in front of him, and\n slightly down, because the boy had been so small.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There he was, his eyes shining silver-white, and smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hello, Arturo,” the boy said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then he changed. In a burst of light and the sound of wings, the boy\n vanished, replaced by Hannah, with her same pale eyes, just as she had\n looked when she posed as a real-estate agent in San Lupino. The smile was\n as chilling on her as it had been on the boy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace drew a sharp breath. “What are \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e doing here?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah’s smile morphed into a pout. “Arturo, I’m hurt,” she said. “Didn’t\n you tell the others about me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Asanti landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Perry was\n waiting at baggage claim with a limo sign reading \u003cem\u003eGale\u003c/em\u003e and a\n crook-handled black umbrella hanging over one arm.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Gale?” asked Asanti as she allowed Perry to take her bag and escort her to\n the parking garage where she trusted something less obtrusive than a limo\n would be waiting. “And how did you get here so quickly?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Gale is an excellent name for women of power,” said Perry, “and magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti sighed. “One of the many reasons the Society’s rejection of magic is\n so short-sighted: Time is of the essence and I just got off a fourteen-hour\n flight.” She decided it was probably safe to ignore his answer to her first\n question. Asanti wasn’t sure whether this was an instance of Aaron’s\n sometimes idiosyncratic understanding of humanity or Perry’s even more\n eclectic personal suite of references leaking through, but as intriguing as\n untangling the two usually was, they were on a clock. Fortunately, both\n halves of Perry’s mind were proficient drivers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As they headed into the city, he gave Asanti the brief. “I’ve been at the\n hotel where the accelerator is sited since I got here. No sign of Sal or\n the rest of Team Three, or this Tom person, or the oracle bones, but\n there’s definitely something mystical happening on the eighth floor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have you seen Team One?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shah’s on the ground, along with a couple of her people.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Have they seen you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think so.” When Asanti did not immediately respond to this, he\n added, “So what do we do now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti frowned. There was plenty she would \u003cem\u003elike\u003c/em\u003e to do.\n Unfortunately, Team One sniffing around made the situation more complex.\n The last thing she needed was to have Shah come bashing down \u003cem\u003eher\u003c/em\u003e\n door because she thought Asanti was in league with Tom and his people. At\n last Asanti said, “Fox was very explicit that I am still not cleared for\n fieldwork. I am here to observe and report only.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What does that mean?” asked Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It means I will observe,” said Asanti. And then, she would consider making\n a report.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Neither Mark nor Amber paid the slightest attention to the African woman\nand her younger companion sitting on one of the lobby sofas, engrossed in \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c/em\u003e crossword. After all, they were on the other\n side of a row of potted ficus plants. Mark and Amber were also distracted\n by the fact that they had a meeting with a VC in less than an hour, their\n app was crashing, and one of their team members had gone missing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m telling you,” hissed Amber, “the problem isn’t the code. It’s never\n been the code. It’s whatever Tom did when he locked himself in his room\n after he got back from that trip to China.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mark made a dismissive noise. “Tom is the one who fixed it. The code\n wouldn’t even run before that. Did you fuck with something that he did? I\n keep telling you, we don’t need the code pretty, we just need it to work\n well enough to get our seed funding. Make it look like it’s working and\n then make it actually work later.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are such a slimeball.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s what Steve Jobs would do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Proving my point.” Amber tucked a lock of dark hair behind her ear.\n “Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I didn’t touch what Tom did. I couldn’t\n if I tried.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I mean I don’t know what he did. He didn’t change my code.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What? But the app wasn’t working, and then it was.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know. And I wanted to know why, so I checked. He didn’t do anything to\n my work. What did he tell you he was doing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He said it was technical. That he had been through all the details with\n you and that I didn’t need to worry about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And pressing for more details would have cut in on your time with the\n press, so you let it go at that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am the CEO and face of this company. Talking to the press is my job—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Running this company is your job. And you let Tom do something to our core\n product that you don’t even understand. And now the app isn’t working, Tom\n is missing, and we’re left holding the bag.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tom’s not missing,” said Mark, sounding only a little defensive.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s been locked in the suite for more than twenty-four hours. He won’t\n come out; he’s not online; he’s not answering his phone or texts, and I\n checked the room charges—he hasn’t ordered room service. Are you sure he’s\n even in there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a pause. “Shit,” said Mark, so far under his breath it was barely\n there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No kidding. I told you—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, our meeting just walked in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shit.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go back to the suite. Either get Tom out of there, or get the demo mode\n working again. I’ve got to be able to show her something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m supposed to be in this meeting. You keep cutting me out—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This meeting is \u003cem\u003esupposed\u003c/em\u003e to have a working product. Do you want\n to explain in person why your beautiful code randomly stops running for\n reasons you don’t understand?” A pause. “I didn’t think so. Now go on, I’m\n not going to throw you under the bus, I promise.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A scoff from Amber. “I’ll stay for the introductions, then excuse myself.\n Maybe she’ll think we have another investor.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine. Am I too shiny?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t borrow my powder again. She’s spotted us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never should have let you talk me into shaving my head.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could always go back to the toupee.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shut up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a rustling as Mark stood and waved to the woman approaching them\n from the hotel elevators. “Ms. Shahzad,” he called. “So glad you could take\n the time to meet with us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Unnoticed by Mark, Amber, or their new companion—a slender Persian woman\n with hard eyes and strong handshake—the pair on the other side of the ficus\n screen quietly abandoned their crossword and slipped away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Amber approached the door that led to the two-bedroom suite that Mark had\n managed to procure using a combination of AmEx points, flattery, and\n possibly sexual favors to the girl behind the desk. She had assumed that as\n the only woman on the team, at least she could get the perk of a room to\n herself, but Mark had decided that one bedroom would be for work, the other\n would be for meetings, and that they “weren’t at an accelerator to sleep.”\n It was the kind of bullshit unilateral decision that Mark tended to bust\n out with, which was both his most endearing and most annoying quality. In\n the last twenty-four hours, however, the split had become: one room for Tom\n to mysteriously blockade himself into . . . and the other room for Tom to\n mysteriously blockade himself into.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Amber tried her key first. It hadn’t worked before, but she’d feel really\n stupid if she made a scene banging on the door and it turned out not to be\n locked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Amber put her mouth next to the jamb. “Tom. It’s Amber. Open the door.\n Right now.” No response. Amber tried pounding again. Nothing. “Tom. I mean\n it. If you think I won’t get a SWAT team to take down this door for me, you\n are so wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n God, she really didn’t want a SWAT team breaking down the door to a hotel\n room where she still had her computer, even if it was just her backup. On\n the other hand, she also didn’t want to have to move in with her sister,\n her brother-in-law, and their four children under the age of five. Ever\n again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me,” said a low voice behind her. Amber jumped. The voice belonged\n to a black woman, her dreadlocks flecked with gray. Tucked under one arm,\n she carried a copy of \u003cem\u003eThe New York Times\u003c/em\u003e crossword. “Are these\n your rooms?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I just wanted to confirm. This is the suite where the team for Polly\n Mnemonic is staying?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, but—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you. And I apologize.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “For what?” asked Amber, but the question had hardly left her throat when\n she felt a light touch at the back of her neck, a surge of warmth, and\n everything went abruptly very light and cozy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry caught Amber’s unconscious body and eased her to the floor. “I told\n you these were their rooms,” he said. “And now she’s seen your face.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti gave Perry a look. “Is she going to remember any of this when she\n wakes up?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If an angel could be said to pout, Perry pouted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not impressive,” said Asanti. “I have grandchildren. Now let’s get through\n this door while the other one is so conveniently keeping Shah distracted.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the central square of a Guatemalan village, Grace stepped forward and\n very calmly socked Hannah in the face. Not the reaction Liam had been\n expecting. Okay, the \u003cem\u003ereaction\u003c/em\u003e wasn’t surprising, but he had\n expected Menchú to throw the first punch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Instead, Menchú grabbed Grace’s trailing arm and yanked her away from the\n demon, placing himself between them before Grace could follow up her attack\n or Hannah could retaliate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah dabbed one hand at her lip, wiped a drop of blood that welled there,\n and examined her fingers with amusement. “No one’s ever done that before,”\n she said. “Interesting.” Grace, for her part, had turned her anger toward\n Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know her?!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She is the thing that destroyed this place. She had a different form\n then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m also the one who helped you with your little werewolf problem in\n Spain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Be quiet!” Menchú hissed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace was uncowed. “She is also the one I encountered inside the hydra. You\n read my report. Why didn’t you tell me it was her?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You weren’t on the team,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was.” Sal’s voice was very low, almost too quiet to hear, but each word\n struck home. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or Liam? Did you even let Asanti\n know?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú shook his head, mute.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The thing that caused the greatest trauma of your life is back and you\n never mentioned it to the rest of us? What the hell?!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You never told us about the shootout in the warehouse,” said Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It never came up. If I were being stalked by Russian mobsters, you better\n believe I would have said something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wanted to protect you,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “By keeping secrets? Forget the threat that \u003cem\u003eshe\u003c/em\u003e represents to the\n world,” said Sal, gesturing to Hannah. “How can we support you if we don’t\n know what’s wrong?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s my job to take care of you. I’m the leader of this team. It’s my\n responsibility—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam was about to interrupt, to tell Menchú the truth, that it wasn’t his\n responsibility. But Hannah beat him to it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Spare me. I did not compromise the experiment so that you could spend\n decades wallowing in self-pity and despair. If you’re still not over\n this”—Hannah gestured to the bodies lying in the streets around them and\n the villagers, standing as if frozen in time—“how are you going to handle\n what’s coming next? Surrender? Capitulation? Prayer?” The disdain on the\n last word was palpable. “You have a job to do. Now get your head out of\n your ass and do it. All of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú growled. “And what exactly is our job? Jumping at your beck and\n call? Serving your agenda?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah laughed. “You don’t understand anything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why don’t you explain it, then?” said Sal. “Starting with what the hell\n you mean by ‘experiment.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ask me a question that matters and perhaps I will.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam stepped forward. Because he needed to know. “Is this all you? Did you\n make this trap for us?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah turned to Liam, smirk back in place. “Better. And no. This little\n maze is the work of your old friend. But his choice of . . . milieu . . .\n gave me a way to slip inside and see how you were doing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can you get us out?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam put his hand forward. “Then give it over.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah bristled. “I beg your pardon?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The oracle bone. There’s only one place in this memory that it can\n possibly be, and that’s with you, or the boy, or whatever you are. So stop\n fucking around and give it to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re sure you don’t want to stay here and see what happens next? It’s\n impressive. Might help you all get your heads on straight for once.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We know Menchú’s story. What you show us can’t be worse that what he’s\n described or we’ve imagined.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You really think that’s the way this works?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú reached out to touch Liam’s shoulder. “Liam, don’t let her goad you\n into this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam sighed. Gestured to his wounded leg, now accompanied by wax burns in\n the shape of claw marks along one arm. “I don’t know if you noticed, but\n everyone’s worst memories seem to have it out for me. This is Tom’s trap\n and we’re not getting out of it without going into my head.” He turned to\n Hannah. “Now give me the damned thing so we can get this over with and keep\n a bunch of tech idiots from destroying a lot of people’s minds.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah quirked a smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman was a small boy again, the oracle bone in his hand. The\n expression hadn’t changed. Neither had the voice. “As you wish.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam took the bone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The world cracked open.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \n \u003ch3\u003e 5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam was falling, spinning . . .\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n No, he wasn’t. He was in the center of the dance floor of a Swedish\n discotheque. The lights spun; the room throbbed. Bodies surged, ebbed and\n flowed around him. But Liam was completely still.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He knew the faces in the crowd.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He could see Menchú, Sal, and Grace. They were already threading through\n the packed floor, trying to reach him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He knew without looking that Imogen was in the booth, fucking the DJ and\n not missing a beat. Stuart and Clive were at the bar, doing body shots off\n each other and drawing a crowd. Christina was in the VIP section, every man\n and woman in the place already wrapped around her slender fingers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal fought her way to Liam’s side. She had to nearly scream in his ear to\n be heard over the pounding music. “What is this place? What’s going to\n happen?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It already has,” he shouted back. “This was the first consilience.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s face went pale. “Why the hell do I know what that word means?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because it’s working.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Everything had come to a climax in Prague, but before that had been Sweden:\n the test run to combine minds and machines. They had chosen the discotheque\n specifically. The music had a side effect of tending to synchronize the\n brainwaves of everyone listening. That most of those people were high on\n mind-altering and -opening substances was another plus. When the goal was\n to test technology that would meld a human mind with the sum of all human\n knowledge, to erase the boundaries between self and other, a few hits of\n LSD wasn’t a bad place to start.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But also, and mostly, the location had been selected because the club was a\n death trap, an underground gathering with too many people and too few\n exits. If it all went horribly wrong, no one would ask many questions about\n a disaster that happened in a place that was a disaster waiting to happen.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Of course, what went horribly wrong was that everything had worked\n perfectly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The test had been a flaming success. For a night, an entire crowd of people\n had moved, breathed, and thought as one. It had been everything Liam could\n have hoped for. Less than a month later, he’d been on a train to Prague,\n where Menchú had eventually found him slaved to a computer and half dead\n from exposure to more than the human mind was meant to encompass.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam waited for the shock and horror to register as the others realized the\n depths of his shame. For them to know that the worst moments of their lives\n had involved the death of friends, coworkers, an entire village. His lowest\n point had been a fucking party. Sure, half of the people in this room were\n going to be dead or insane within a year. But they were most of them\n strangers. Liam had been unscathed by his reckless experimentation. Even\nnearly dying at the hands of a demon he had \u003cem\u003ewillingly allowed himself to be possessed by\u003c/em\u003e had ended in nothing\n worse than a few years of amnesia and a new job. Why the fuck was he\n allowed to roam free? What made him any more worthy than Stu and Clive, who\n had electrocuted themselves trying to recapture the high of this night on a\n rooftop in a lightning storm?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The room throbbed. Liam was shaking. No, someone was shaking him. Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam, snap out of it!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The others had reached them while Liam was distracted. Menchú confused but\n resolved, Grace’s face lined with annoyance.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú was shouting now. “What’s going to happen? What do we have to stop?\n A fire? A stampede?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam shook his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then what?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t you understand?!” Liam was on the verge of pleading, it was too much\n waiting for the other shoe to fall, for them to finally get it. “The Index,\n the Network, Middle Coom, Frances, everything started here. Everything they\n did is on my head. Because of this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Finally, Sal’s expression turned from urgency to disgust. At last. But then\n she spoke: “That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t understand—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I understand you’ve got issues that a girl could subscribe to, but this is\n neither the time nor the place. You can beat yourself up, literally or\n figuratively, as much as you want, but only after we stop Tom and get out\n of here. Now where is the oracle bone?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú was shaking his head. “Tom stole three of them. We’ve already found\n them all.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then how do we get out?” asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why don’t we ask him?” Grace’s laconic tones somehow sliced through the\n background noise, as though sheer disdain allowed her voice to ignore the\n din around them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam was about to ask, “Who?” when the answer became obvious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There, in defiance of every scrap of logic that said a man his size simply\n should not be able to crowd-surf, was Tom, carried toward them on a tide of\n anonymous hands lifted over ecstatic faces.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace was glad to have something to punch. Emotional resolution was great\n for the soul and all, but sometimes a body needed good, honest violence.\n Plus, she was discovering a truly burning dislike for house music. As his\n bearers either crumpled or fled from her fists, Tom fell to the ground with\n a thump, promptly lost in the throb of the bass that penetrated every\n molecule in the room. Grace wondered if Liam would mind if she knocked out\n the DJ next, just on principle.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As it turned out, it wasn’t necessary. As Tom coughed and gasped, he\n managed to wheeze out, \u003cem\u003eKill the music\u003c/em\u003e, and the room fell silent\n around them. The crowd danced on, oblivious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The others clustered in a rough circle, creating a tiny clearing in the\n middle of the floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal, looking to shed some aggression of her own, gripped Tom by the shirt\n and hauled him to a sitting position. Menchú positioned himself beside her,\n squarely in the middle of Tom’s field of vision. “You took something that\n didn’t belong to you,” said the priest. “And now it’s time for you to\n answer for your crimes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think any of you are innocent?” Tom snarled. “This is the consilience!\n I’ve seen your minds. You’ve got blood on your hands, all of you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you don’t?” said Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How many people are going to lose their memories thanks to your little\n start-up?” asked Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At least I’m moving the world forward, not trying to turn back the tide\n with a sieve.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace punched him in the head. Tom reeled and spat blood. “Doesn’t matter\n what happens to me,” he said. “You’ll never recover from this. Your darkest\n secrets have been laid bare before the others? The knowledge that in your\n worst moments, none of you could protect the ones who were counting on you?\n How will you ever trust each other now?” A split lip made his grin bloody.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú calmly withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket, wiping a spray of\n Tom’s bloody spittle from his own face. “You are wrong,” he said. “Yes, we\n have all failed. But this is not new knowledge, even if we did not know the\n particulars before. What you have shown us is how hard each of us will\n fight never to disappoint our teammates again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom jerked his chin towards Liam. “Even him?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Liam has nothing to prove,” said Menchú. “We see him live his penance\n every day.” His face clean and his handkerchief tucked away, Menchú\n extended a hand to Tom. Tom shied away and Grace saw a flash of yellowed\n cloth peeking out from under his shirt. Quicker than thought, she darted\n forward, and an instant later she was back standing beside Sal with the\n shroud, stolen from them in China, in her hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She offered it to Menchú. “Yours, I believe.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú rose to his feet and nodded to Tom. “Thank you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Tom sputtered, but no one was listening. Menchú collected the three oracle\n bones: one from his pocket, one from Grace, the last from Liam.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The blackened, cracked bones vanished into the shroud.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing happened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From his place on the floor, bloody and surrounded by silent dancers, Tom\n threw back his head and laughed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Breaking the lock and avoiding a magical trap on a hotel room door when you\n have an angel on your side was a trivial challenge. What Asanti found next\n was the problem. While Tom’s body lay on the floor of the hotel suite,\n Menchú, Sal, Liam, and Grace were nowhere to be found.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry laid the unconscious woman from the hall on the bed. Asanti knelt,\n shaking the insensate Tom in an attempt to rouse him. He was still\n breathing, but even knuckles to the sternum failed to elicit any kind of\n response.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry reached down and stilled her hand. “It won’t work.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is he dead?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No?” Perry’s hands fluttered in distracted frustration with his inability\n to express himself. “He’s not dead, but he’s not . . . here, either.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Could we bring him back?” Asanti asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A shrug. “Maybe? Do we want to?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you have another way to find out what he’s done with the rest of the\n team?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fair,” Perry allowed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti sat back on her heels with a sigh and reached for her satchel of\n supplies. “Well,” she said, “we all knew I wasn’t just going to observe and\n report.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The first sign that something was wrong was when Tom began to glow. Then\n the world cracked open beneath him, and they were all falling after.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Falling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Falling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until they landed in a very posh hotel suite where Tom was blinking back to\n consciousness on the floor and Asanti was pointedly packing something that\n looked a whole lot like magical supplies. A cold breeze from the open\n window carried away a wisp of sage smoke and Sal shivered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú gathered his tongue first. “Asanti, what are you doing here? Does\n Fox know—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She cut him off. “Of course he knows. I am here to observe and report.” Her\nraised eyebrow said just as clearly: \u003cem\u003eAnd as far as he’s concerned, that’s all I was here doing.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We need to talk—” Menchú began, but whatever he might have been about to\n say was lost in the bang of the door from the hall, which flew open to\n reveal Shah and a very confused man wearing distressed jeans and a\n thousand-dollar watch. “Shah.” Menchú transitioned smoothly, “Has it been\n thirty-six hours already?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah’s raised eyebrow was nearly as expressive as Asanti’s. “Give or take.\n Everything under control?” she asked. Her eyes took in the details of the\n room, coming to rest at last on Tom, whom Grace was tying up. Ever since\n her sojourn with Team One, Sal reflected, Grace seemed uncannily well\n supplied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As you see it,” said Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shall I take custody of him for you?” Shah indicated Tom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Please.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At this, the man in the ripped jeans finally put two thoughts together and\n connected them to his mouth. “Now, wait just a minute!” he said. “This is\n our private suite. I don’t know who you are, but you can’t just arrest my\n engineer—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Shah reached into her back pocket and pulled out a badge. “Homeland\n security. This man is a known hacker—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course he is!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “—who is suspected of transporting classified technology to mainland China.\n I believe he’s traveled there recently?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, yes . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “In that case, I suggest you will want to cooperate with our investigation\n . . .” Shah steered the man from the room as she discreetly touched a\n hidden earpiece. Soo and Ellsdale entered the room, hauled Tom to his feet,\n and escorted him out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Team Three watched them go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e 6\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sat next to Father Menchú on the flight home. Not that it was an\n unusual seating arrangement. Both liked to use the downtime of travel\n productively, and—unlike Liam and Sal—Grace and Menchú had years ago come\n to an understanding that productivity went hand in hand with quiet. Which\n was why Grace was surprised when, somewhere over the Great Plains, Menchú\n reached out to touch her arm. “Can we talk?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace marked her place in \u003cem\u003eThe Remains of the Day\u003c/em\u003e. “What do you\n want to talk about?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I should have told you about Hannah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shrugged. “Like you said, I wasn’t technically part of the team\n then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This isn’t about telling the team or not,” said Menchú. “Yes, clearly I\n should have told the people I worked with that a danger from my past had\n returned, but regardless of that, or whether you were on Team Three or not,\n I should have told you. You’d encountered her. And there’s too much between\n us to add secrets to the mix.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace let her hand close over Menchú’s. “I was the one who started the\n secrets. I should have told you I was requesting a transfer.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You were angry. I can’t say you were wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, but I was angry with you. So I should have talked to you about it.\n Not run off to Fox so he could write you a memo.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He sent Shah, actually. Or she came on her own. So that I’d know she\n hadn’t poached you, I think. In any event, it wasn’t a memo.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace took a deep breath. She wasn’t one for long speeches, but maybe over\n the years they had become too dependent on assumptions about each other’s\n silences. “When Fox ordered me to start working with Team Three again, I\n wasn’t happy. I had asked for the transfer. I didn’t want to come back.\n That’s changed, for me at least, but if you’d rather not have me, I can\n tell Fox I won’t do it anymore. He won’t like it, but he’ll find something\n for me to do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú cut her off. “Do you want to return to Team One?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace. I value you as a colleague, a partner, and a friend. The only\n reason I would ever not want to be at your side was if you didn’t want me\n to be there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace looked into his eyes, and saw the truth of his words. She considered\n burning, just a little bit, to make the moment feel longer. She settled for\n a smile instead. They both went back to their work in companionable\n silence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal nudged Liam from their seats a few rows back from Grace and Menchú. “So\n freaking adorable,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam huffed a laugh. “It’s good to see them back on the same page again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good to have the whole team together again. When was the last time we were\n all in the same place at the same time?” Between Grace working for Team One\n and Asanti being taken out of the field, it had been a while.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nothing like spending a day marching through each other’s nightmares to\n bring people together. This whole fighting demons thing doesn’t work out,\n we could do team-building seminars.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal ignored the sarcasm, her gaze sliding over to Asanti, asleep in the\n seat across the aisle. “Is it going to be weird now, because Asanti missed\n that? I mean, the rest of us saw each other pretty psychically naked.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wasn’t serious about the team-building seminars, Sal.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know. But this was big, and she missed it. It doesn’t have to be weird\n though, right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam ran a hand over his scalp. “I don’t know. Maybe it is weird. But\n honestly, I’m kind of glad one of us was outside that horror show. Four\n nightmares were bad enough. I’ll take it as a win that we didn’t have to\n get through a fifth.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sighed. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Back in Rome, Asanti watched Menchú pretend not to circle her desk. He\n paced, approached, and retreated on various private pretexts, but\n gradually, his feet led him to her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She let him speak first.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Does it bother you?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Does what bother me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The countdown clock.” He indicated the frozen numbers above her head,\n 36:00:00. “It’s always there. Looming.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why do you think I let them put it behind my desk? This way I don’t have\n to look at it.” She smiled, and as she had so many times in the last\n months, hoped that it would prove convincing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú remained sober. “There’s something, someone, I need to tell you\n about,” he said. “An encounter that I left out of my report. Twice, in\n fact. I had my reasons, and I still believe that this information is best\n kept within the team, but I don’t want there to be secrets between us\n anymore. Something is coming, Asanti, and we all need to be on the same\n side.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m always on your side,” she told him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know you are,” he said. “But I feel we’ve grown distant recently, and I\n regret that. You’re a good friend.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti felt her heart sink at his words, but did not let it show in her\n expression. Instead, she listened as he unburdened himself of the truth\n about Hannah. She heard him, and offered him what reassurances she could.\n He left feeling lighter. She remained silent, her own secrets still\n weighing upon her soul.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam and Frances sat across from each other in one of the Vatican canteens.\n It was the first time Liam had seen her since her accident. He had sent\n flowers, and Asanti had relayed Frances’s thanks, but mentally, he was\n still hesitating outside her hospital door, too much of a coward to knock\n and face the fruits of his sins.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks for seeing me,” said Liam. “I know you don’t like going out in\n public.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t like going out in public because Rome has terrible wheelchair\n accessibility.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam felt himself flush. Already he was fucking this up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Also,” Frances continued, “people do stare. But at least here people stare\n because they’re trying to figure out why I’m not a nun, instead of . . .”\n She gestured vaguely at her wheelchair and the lower half of her body,\n concealed beneath a blanket.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not your fault.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, I mean. I wanted to see you because I wanted to apologize for what\n happened in Middle Coom. If I hadn’t been working with the Network for all\n those years, maybe they wouldn’t have developed the shit that did this to\n you. Or if I hadn’t . . .” he trailed off, gathering his thoughts. Frances\n seemed content to let him. He appreciated that. “I’ve spent years not\n taking responsibility for my past actions. If I had, maybe we could have\n stopped Christina and the Network sooner.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances chewed her lip. “So I take it it’s true that you ran into some old\n friends on your last adventure?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam snorted. “Yeah.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances shifted her weight in her chair, and Liam forced himself not to\n flinch in guilt. He didn’t want her to read it as disgust.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She picked up her tea, and put it down again. “I appreciate and accept your\n apology, but can I ask you a question?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you really want to make amends for your past, why are you apologizing\n to me? Surely there are people you hurt more directly, more personally.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam sighed. “Fewer than you’d think. Few enough that could appreciate an\n apology, anyway. Tom’s locked up in some Society vault. Christina’s dead.\n So is everyone who was with her in Belfast. So are Stu and Clive. Imogen’s\n . . .” Liam trailed off. “I’m not sure what happened to Imogen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances considered this, her expression difficult to read. “If you’re\n serious about confronting your past, maybe you should find out.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nSal left her job with the NYPD to join the Bookburners, but she’s definitely brought some baggage with her. Many years ago, Grace accidentally stumbled into an experiment with a magical candle that irreversibly encased her life in its wick and wax. Menchú watched, helpless, as his entire Guatemalan village was murdered before his eyes by a mysterious being…a mysterious being that has recently reappeared, calling itself Hannah. Liam finally regained his memories of his days with the Network, but was racked with guilt at what he had wrought. Asanti was barred from any sort of fieldwork with Team Three, despite her history with the group.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrances\u003c/strong\u003e: Asanti’s former assistant, whose legs were replaced by tentacles after an unfortunate magical incident. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShah\u003c/strong\u003e: Leader of Team One.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e Tom \u003c/strong\u003e: Liam’s former friend from his Network days. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Margaret Dunlap \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.148","slug":"Bookburners-s3e07","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E07.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E7.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E7.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E7.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 7"},{"id":"595fa949fd9a2b0001c3eb3b","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":8,"title":"Making Amends","released_date":"2017-09-06T10:25:15.164+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Liam makes amends. ","byline":"Mur Lafferty","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E08_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-09-06","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So tell me about this step nine thing,” Liam said, his hands worrying at a\n sugar packet.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú sighed and put down the file he was reading. Liam stared at him\n earnestly over the coffee he’d insisted they get together.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Step nine is the making amends step in the twelve-step program. As part of\n the healing process, you have to approach the people you harmed and\n apologize, acknowledge the harm you did to them, and ask for forgiveness.\n They are under no obligation to give it to you, but for your own healing,\n you must ask for it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you have to go through the other eight steps to get there?” Liam\n asked, frowning. He pulled out a battered pocket notebook and flipped\n through it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not necessarily,” Menchú said. “While step one, admitting you have a\n problem, is crucial to the beginning of the process, the other steps you\n can do in pretty much any order.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, I’m powerless, that’s for fucking sure,” Liam said. “We’ve\n established that.” He held up two fingers. “I’ve accepted God into my life\n and handed my problems to him. Long time ago.” He looked at his hand.\n “That’s two and three, I think. Not sure I understand the difference\n between them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s because you’re already a practicing Catholic,” Menchú said. “You\n know who you are in God’s eyes and asked him for help before this process.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So I’m ahead of the game!” Liam said, smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú picked the folder back up. “Recovery isn’t a race, Liam. Or a\n checklist. And I don’t think your problems are connected to addiction, per\n se.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam leaned forward, his hands grasping the table. “But you see, that’s\n where you’re wrong, Father. I am powerless when confronted with the dangers\n of the Network. I need God’s support to keep me safe. I’m ready to call\n myself a worthless worm in His eyes, and that’s like three steps right\n there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s not—” Menchú started, but Liam continued.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The big thing I’m missing is making things up to people. I need to\n apologize. I know I’ve hurt people. It’s, uh.” He blushed and paused, then\n continued. “It’s mostly women I dated while I was with the Network. So\n that’s step eight, making the list.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú frowned. “Your cavalier attitude makes me worry that you’re not\n taking this seriously enough to actually heal. I’ve not guided many people\n through this program, but I know that it’s not like crossing off a to-do\n list. There’s a lot of revealing of self and inner demons—metaphorical, in\n this case, as you’ve already faced your literal inner demon.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had tried to make a light joke, but Liam stopped smiling. “Father, I\n finally found the courage to show my face to Frances and apologize to her.\n When I did it, I felt free for the first time. I’m remembering other people\n I hurt, and I want to apologize to them. I think it’ll help me heal. Why\n are you trying to stop me? Do you really think I’m not serious?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s chest cramped with shame. Liam was right. If he approached his\n recovery honestly but with a smile on his face, who was Menchú to chastise\n him that he wasn’t properly somber enough? God knew that the team had too\n many somber faces these days.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His mind went to Grace, and then slid off her like water from a duck. It\n landed instead on his upcoming meeting with Asanti, and he almost preferred\n to think about Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re right. You must heal, Liam, and I’m sorry I was resisting the path\n you chose to walk.” He smiled at possibly the only person on the team who\n still trusted him. “I’ll help you however I can. But for now I need to see\n Asanti. Go and approach step eight. Make your list, and I’ll talk to you\n later.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam’s face fell when Menchú mentioned Asanti and his upcoming meeting,\n reminding him that Menchú had withheld information from them all about\n Hannah. Menchú gave Liam a strained smile and exited the booth, leaving\n some money on the table for their coffee. “Good luck.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam watched him go with a strange look on his face, and Menchú had the\n sickening feeling that Liam possibly didn’t trust him as much as he’d\n hoped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was pouring rain that night, and Sal sat reading a book, wrapped in a\n blanket. She was getting to the good part when a knock sounded at the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Through the peephole she saw Liam standing, shivering and soaked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Jesus, Liam, what’s wrong?” she said, opening the door and ushering him\n inside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why should something be wrong?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She fetched a towel from the bathroom and tossed it to him. He caught it\n and started toweling his head off. “Because you didn’t text. Or call. It’s\n not your style to just drop by. What’s wrong? Did Grace leave us again?\n Does Menchú have more secrets? Is that angel attacking again?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I just wanted to see you,” he said, rubbing the towel over his head. “It’s\n not Team Three business, so I didn’t think to text.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That had to be a lie. Liam would always think to text first. He looked\n nervous and avoided her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal gestured to the couch and sat on the other side, turning to face him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s going on?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He sighed. “All the shit with the Network, and Frances, and Menchú holding\n stuff back, it’s just . . . made me think about me and my life and my role\n in others’ lives.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Okay,” Sal said slowly. “And you’re here because?” \u003cem\u003ePlease don’t want to get back together.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took a deep breath. “Sal, I treated you poorly when we were together. I\n struggled with my own faith and I took that out on you. When I needed\n someone and you were there for me, I pushed you away instead. That wasn’t\n fair. So I am here to apologize.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal blinked. “You—apologize?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He nodded, his face earnest. “I do. I’m sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you don’t want anything? Like to start things up again? You’re just\n apologizing?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He frowned. “No, I didn’t mean to imply—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, no, you didn’t imply anything. I just haven’t had a conversation like\n this that didn’t have some kind of other motive, like getting me back.\n You’re just here to say you’re sorry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes. You don’t need to accept it. But I need to say it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at him suspiciously. This phrasing sounded familiar. “Liam, are\n you in AA?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “AA?” He shook his head. “No, I’m not quitting drinking, are you daft? But\n I am trying to go about this in the same way. Sal, I got really into the\n Network. And I hurt a lot of people. Mostly women. I worked things out with\n Frances and realized I had others to apologize to.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So you’re addicted to women? Or the Network? I’m confused.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fuck, Sal, do you have to make this so hard? Do you accept my apology or\n not?” He calmed instantly. “It’s all right if you don’t. That’s not what’s\n important here—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She laughed at him then; he was trying so hard to be both Liam the\n impatient and Liam the contrite. “Yes, I accept your apology. I wasn’t\n completely perfect myself. I’m sorry for that too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So we’re good?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re good. We’ve been good.” She leaned forward and hugged him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank God. Now will you help me find the others?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal knew there’d be a catch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The new way of going about things with Fox in control brought a great deal\n of structure to the lives of the teams who preferred to work on their own.\n They chafed against a lot of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But there was one thing he did give them, and that was guaranteed time off\n when the world wasn’t on fire. Sal and Liam had a full weekend to\n themselves, and when they told Menchú what they had planned, he suggested\n taking Grace with them “to rebuild Team Three camaraderie.” Sal assumed\n there were a hundred other reasons; he wanted to get Grace out of town\n because of their recent discoveries, or he thought she and Liam needed\n protecting, or he wanted to be alone for his continued meetings with\n Asanti.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She asked him as much, when Liam and Grace had left the Archives to pack.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why is she coming?” she asked bluntly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked alarmed. “Do you not want her to go? Is there a conflict I need\n to know about?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, but you don’t send three of us on a vacation together. That’s not your\n style. It’s got to be more than team camaraderie. You wouldn’t send the\n majority of the field team away without a reason.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He smiled slightly, his eyes dark and tired, and Sal felt a moment of pity\n for him. “Perhaps there are more reasons regarding our team dynamic. You\n all deserve a break. There isn’t much going on here except meetings. But\n really I want you three to get a sense of working together again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The unsaid words hung in the air between them, and Sal decided to give him\n a break. “All right. So long as there isn’t some kind of danger we’re\n walking into that you haven’t told us about.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “With Liam’s ex-girlfriends? I can promise nothing,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal leaned across Liam, who had drawn the short straw and gotten the center\n seat in the row on the flight to Dublin. “So are you regretting joining us\n again?” she asked Grace with a grin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace exhaled, her nostrils flaring. “I’m not sure yet,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Luckily, most of Liam’s ex-girlfriends lived in the British Isles, so they\n could address most of them in a few days, if they hurried. As usual, they\n each kept to themselves, Liam surveying the Alcoholics Anonymous website,\n Sal reading a newspaper, and Grace reading a huge, dusty book she’d gotten\n from Asanti.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That doesn’t look like a classic,” Sal said, trying to read the fading\n print on the spine and failing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti let me look through the Vatican libraries. The non-dangerous ones,”\n Grace said. “I figured if Hannah is going to be hitting us close to home,\n I’d learn a little more about our home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think \u003cem\u003eThe Book Thief\u003c/em\u003e would be more of a page turner,” Sal said\n as Grace sneezed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I may drop by the airport bookstore,” Grace said, sniffling and squinting\n at the archaic type.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Too bad she didn’t give you one of the good ones,” Liam said, eyes not\n leaving his computer. “The Vatican has a surprisingly large collection of\n ancient porn.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ancient . . . porn?” Sal asked. Grace’s face grew pink as she attempted to\n read.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah. I’ve seen some of it. It’s pretty out there.” He frowned and clicked\n on the page. “Did you know I have to develop a new code of behavior? What\n does that mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t fuck women when you’re messing around with demons?” Sal asked, and\n he elbowed her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just saying,” she said, laughing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe the Catholics wanted to better understand the demons they were\n fighting,” Grace said. “Like lust demons or something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal laughed at her. “\u003cem\u003eStudying\u003c/em\u003e them? Oh come on, next you’re going\n to tell me that priests and nuns are really celibate and straight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sobered and Sal kicked herself. Something was up between Grace and\n Menchú, something that had happened on a previous mission. Neither had\n responded to her gentle inquiries for information so she wasn’t sure, but\n she had always suspected there were some unspoken things between them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And once we reach ten thousand feet, we’ll be serving complimentary sodas\n and coffee and, for the woman in seat 18F, her own foot,” she said. Grace\n rewarded her with a ghost of a smile, but she opened the book and didn’t\n look up again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sat back and sighed. She’d felt like she’d been walking on eggshells\n around Grace lately, and wasn’t sure what was going on between them. She’d\n thought that once Grace rejoined them, it would all be okay again, but\n nothing was ever that easy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who’s first on your list, Liam?” she asked. “What’s the name of the woman\n in Dublin?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “K-Stag is first, then December, then Imogen. Imogen’s in Bath, but the\n other two are in Dublin. We can get to Bath tomorrow.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “K-Stag? December?” Sal repeated their names as if they were foreign words.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did you ever date anyone normal?” Grace asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, Imogen was pretty normal,” he said defensively.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And me! I don’t have a stupid Internet name,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “December is her real name. She had hippie parents,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure,” Grace said. “What’s K-Stag’s excuse?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam didn’t answer her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n K-Stag lived in a small Dublin flat in a part of town that Sal didn’t want\n to ever visit again. Three people tried to sell them drugs and/or sex on\n the way to the flat—and they’d taken a cab to the building.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From the sidewalk, Liam looked up at the door, rubbing the back of his\n head. “You two wait here. She was really jealous, and if I show up with two\n women, she’s going to start out in a bad mood.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But we’re not—” Sal began. Liam waved her protest away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Doesn’t matter. She makes her own reality.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shrugged, and Grace sat down on the stoop. Liam went inside the\n apartment building.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace leaned her head back, looking at the gray sky. Sal read the names on\n the mailboxes, if only to ignore the drug dealer appraising her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What the hell kind of name is K-Stag anyway?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is it on her mailbox?” Grace asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t see that name. There’s a Katiee with two \u003cem\u003ee\u003c/em\u003e’s. Maybe\n that’s her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If my name was Katiee with two \u003cem\u003ee\u003c/em\u003e’s I might go by K-Stag too,”\n Grace said. “Maybe she identifies with a stag as her, I don’t know, spirit\n animal?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah but I’ll bet everything I have that she’s not Native American.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe she’s stupid. Maybe she’s genderqueer. Maybe it’s none of our\n business,” Grace said, closing her eyes and reclining against the stairs as\n if they were an easy chair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I guess you’re right.” Sal walked over and joined Grace. The stoop was\n narrow, and their thighs touched as she sat down. Already crammed against\n the edge, Grace inched further from her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did he tell you what he did to this one?“ Grace asked, eyes still closed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Treated her ‘poorly,’ was all he said. He was a love ’em and leave ’em\n type. I think he may have also introduced them to the Network.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe he also got someone into a situation that turned their legs into\n tent—” A door opened behind them, and Grace clammed up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam stuck his head outside. “Going to take a bit longer than I thought,”\n he said. Someone screamed at him inside. A glass something shattered\n against the wall, and he flinched. “Why don’t you two go out for a bite to\n eat or something?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He disappeared and slammed the door, and the screaming continued.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe ‘stag’ stands for Screaming Terrifying Angry Girl?” Grace said,\n finally opening her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “At least now it does,” Sal said, and got to her feet. Grace rose next to\n her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s a pub down the road,” she said, and started walking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think K-Stag could use a drink more than we could,” Sal ventured.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Another breakable thing shattered behind the closed doors. “I think she’s\n getting what she needs,” Grace said. “Sounds like closure to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They sat next to each other at the bar. Grace had chosen the bar stools\n instead of a booth, which seemed odd to Sal since Team Three rarely liked\n to have public conversations.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace stared at her white wine. Sal sipped at her beer and fidgeted on her\n stool. Finally she said, “All right, I know you’re not still trying to\n figure out why her name is K-Stag. What’s going on with you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace took another drink of her wine, stalling, Sal thought. She downed it\n in one gulp and motioned to the bartender for another one.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t like a lot of change,” she finally said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal frowned. “Well, the world has changed a lot around you while you slept.\n And most of your life has been affected by change. For the worse.” Sal\n paused. That sounded obvious and stupid. “I mean, stability is where you\n find peace. It makes sense that you’re unsettled by change.” She fiddled\n with the wet napkin under her pint glass. “What specific change are you\n worried about right now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Going from Team Three to Team One, and now I’m back with you guys,” she\n said. “I am starting to doubt my decisions, not to mention doubt my”—she\n paused, searching—“what I want in my life.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, what do you want?” Sal asked helpfully.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace gave her a long, slow, disdainful look. “If I knew that, we wouldn’t\n be talking about it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, you said you doubted what you wanted. Not that you didn’t know. What\n is this about, anyway? Team switches?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace picked up her wine glass and didn’t look at Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know you’re being difficult here,” Sal said, trying to catch Grace’s\n eye in the mirror behind the bar. “I can’t help if you don’t answer the\n questions.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Who said I wanted your help?” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal waited a beat to make sure she’d heard Grace right. “You did. When we\n became friends and fought demons together and saved each other’s lives\n about a hundred times. When you say you want my help when we’re fighting a\n demon from hell, I sort of assume you want my help when it comes to\n problems that are harder to punch.” She poked Grace in the arm. “Those are\n the problems you have more trouble with.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sighed and the tension went out of her shoulders. “You’re right. Why\n can’t we just punch the real problems in life?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can punch demons. Even Norse. But you can’t punch the Vatican. Or Fox.\n Or Sansone,” Sal said. “Or Menchú.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I could punch them,” Grace corrected, smiling slightly. “I just probably\n shouldn’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal laughed and settled onto her barstool, feeling as if a bullet had\n whizzed by her, and she was only glad that it hadn’t hit her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sobered. “But you’re right. My world is black and white. I don’t have\n a lot of room for grays. The fact is, Sal . . .” She finally met her\nfriend’s eyes, and Sal was shocked to see them slightly wet. “I don’t have \u003cem\u003etime\u003c/em\u003e for grays. I wake up. Punch shit. Go to sleep. The gray\n problems are solved without me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You also read, and spend time with us, and make fun of Liam, and spar with\n me,” Sal said gently. “You do have more going on than you admit. Even if we\n aren’t gray, per se.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re gray,” Grace said, her face suddenly naked with emotion. “You’re\n very gray. Menchú is gray. Asanti is—I don’t even know what color. See,\n Sal, Team One is black and white. I fit in there: Wake up. Punch shit. Go\n to sleep.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then why are you here?” Sal asked, anger flaring. “If you’re so unhappy\n and don’t know what to do with us, why did you come back?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because this is home,” Grace said immediately. “And if I am not home, then\n I might as well just stay asleep.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal let Grace compose herself and instead focused on the television behind\n the bar. A football match was just starting. Then she reached out and took\n Grace’s hand. It lay limp within her own, but then, slowly, her fingers\n curled to hold Sal’s. “We’re glad to be your home, Grace. I’m glad to be\n your home.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace smiled slightly, and for a moment Sal thought she wasn’t going to let\n her hand go, but she did. Then Sal noticed a definite shift in Grace’s\n mass. She took a deep breath and the tension left her shoulders completely.\n Sal felt the reassuring pressure of Grace’s knee against hers as they sat\n side by side.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Liam found them an hour later, they were yelling at the television to\n support Arsenal, along with the rest of the pub. They didn’t comment on his\n swollen lip.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam collapsed back onto Sal’s bed, swearing at the ceiling. “I can’t\n fucking believe you went drinking without me,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You told us to,” Sal said, unpacking her overnight bag onto the dresser.\n Grace was in the tub.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah, but you were supposed to stay,” Liam said. “Fight me! Support me\n even if I push you away!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is that what you really want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. What I really want is a pint.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did she eventually forgive you?” Sal asked. “That K-Stag person?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yeah. Well, no. Not really,” Liam said. “She said she would forgive me if\n I jumped into hell and never bothered her again. And I tried to explain how\n that was very literally something I could do for her, but she didn’t want\n to hear about it.” He sighed mightily. “Whatever. I said what I needed to\n say to her. That’s done.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They’d gotten two hotel rooms and unpacked after the much-less-eventful\n visit to hippie-descended December. She hadn’t been home, but her apartment\n had been in a much fancier part of town than K-Stag’s. Grace had said\n something about how the name made the person, but Liam ignored her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam left December a note.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What time is the ferry to Wales?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Eight in the morning,” he groaned.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Then we should get some sleep.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right,” he said, and got up. He straightened his shirt and smiled at her.\n “To the bar, then?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Naturally,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal woke up with her mouth tasting like fur and her head pounding. Grace\n dressed, looking as if she had been up for hours. She handed Sal an orange\n sports drink.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What—God,” Sal said as her headache spiked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What God, yeah,” Grace said. She sat on her bed, which was already made.\n She should know she didn’t have to make a bed in a hotel room. “You and\n Liam shared stories last night of lost loves. We learned of the tragic\n story of December, and the tragic story of Ryan.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ryan?” Sal said. Ryan had been her unrequited high school crush.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Grace said dryly. “I finally got you two poured into bed around\n three.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thanks,” Sal muttered. “What time is it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s six thirty. We have to leave for the ferry in half an hour.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shit. Is Liam awake?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I pounded on his door before I got you up. He swore at me, so I know he’s\n conscious.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal trudged by her icy friend to the bathroom, opening the sports drink as\n she went. What had gotten into her last night? She remembered stories, and\n some tears, and some disdainful looks from Grace. She remembered leaning on\n Grace on the way back to the room, and telling her how much she appreciated\n her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She groaned as she turned on the full force of the hot water. She’d gone\n all \u003cem\u003eI love you, man \u003c/em\u003eto Grace. How embarrassing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n With Tylenol and thirty-two ounces of orange electrolytes in her belly, the\n clean and refreshed Sal felt much better. They made it to the ferry just in\n time, and secured a cushy booth by the window so they could watch the\n gloomy Irish sky turn into gloomy Welsh sky.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did I tell you about Imogen?” Liam asked, waking Sal out of a doze.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I honestly don’t remember,” Sal said, rubbing her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You didn’t. She’s got to be the only one we didn’t hear about last night,”\n Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She was wild. If she wanted you, she’d take you. Anywhere. Everywhere.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know whether to ask if she was ever arrested for sexual assault,\n or plagued with STDs,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arrested for indecent exposure many times,” Liam said, smiling. Then he\n sobered. “Then, of course, she liked a DJ’s spinning so much that she just\n fucked him right then and there in the club.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Charming,” Grace said. “Can’t wait to meet her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And the woman had stock in a condom company. Or she should have,” Liam\n said. “As crazy as she was, I never knew her to ride bareback. If she’d\n gotten knocked up then there went her lifestyle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t understand how one carefully plans to protect a wild, hedonistic\n lifestyle,” Sal said. “Seems like someone ready to fuck a stranger in a\n club isn’t the kind to be prepared.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She was always prepared in case she wanted to fuck someone in a club,”\n Liam said. “Girl was uninhibited.” He chuckled, “This one time, we—” He\n slowed down when he saw the look on Grace’s face. “Never mind.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, go on. I’m going to walk around the ferry,” Grace said, and got up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal watched her go. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her, unless she wasn’t\n up for seeing us get sloppy drunk last night.” She paused, considering.\n “Which is probably the case.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam stared at her. “You don’t remember?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head. “I remember bits and pieces. What the hell did we\n drink?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “High-gravity beer,” he said. “I’ll never drink again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Until the next time,” Sal agreed. “But what did I do?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You started talking about an ex-girlfriend, Amy, telling us how you met,\n your sex life, how you broke up, everything. Grace just clammed up and got\n really uncomfortable. I didn’t know you were gay either—you certainly\n didn’t seem gay when we were together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ohhh . . .” Sal said, understanding. “I’m not gay, I’m bisexual. I thought\n you knew that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam shrugged. “Maybe I wasn’t so attentive a lover. I already apologized\n for that, right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right,” Sal said absently.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Although I think I would have remembered \u003cem\u003ethat\u003c/em\u003e,” he continued.\n “Anyway, after that you started pushing Grace for her history, asking her\n who she had dated, who she had fallen for in her time. She wouldn’t answer\n any of the questions, and finally said it was time for us to go to bed, and\n she dragged us upstairs.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Guess I got too personal,” Sal said. She shrugged. “So are you going to go\n all weird on me now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nah,” he said. “I’m just glad we aren’t dating anymore. I would probably\n say some things I would definitely regret.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How self-examining of you,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace remained quiet through the six-hour train trip to Bath, and Sal\n napped on and off to kill the last of her hangover.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey, if I said anything last night to make you uncomfortable, I’m sorry,”\n Sal said as they got off the train, when Liam was out of earshot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You didn’t,” Grace said flatly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Really? Cause you have been avoiding me all day,” Sal said. “I figured you\n were mad about something.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not,” Grace answered, and walked away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head. What had she said?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When they got to the outside of the Bath flat where Liam had tracked his\n ex, Imogen, Grace finally spoke again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What exactly are you expecting here?” she asked. “More plates and vases\n thrown at you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hope to let her know I’m very sorry for hurting her and for getting her\n involved with the Network, and to tell her I’ve changed,” Liam said, almost\n as if he were reciting something.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you just think she’ll forgive you?” Grace asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Probably not. K-Stag didn’t. But that’s not the point. I can only do what\n I have control over. I control whether I apologize or not. She controls\n whether she accepts it or not.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sent a skeptical look toward Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We had a sergeant in my old precinct who went through AA,” Sal explained.\n “Step nine was very uncomfortable, but we were all glad she acknowledged\n everything she had done to make our jobs hell for so many years. Even if\n Imogen doesn’t forgive him right now, she may feel better about it later.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace shrugged and Liam knocked on the door.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It opened so violently that Liam jumped back and bumped into Grace. The\n small woman in the doorway began shouting at them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll have your bloody rent by next week, ya cunt, you can’t expect me to\n get anything done if you’re knocking on my fucking door every hour!” she\n shouted, and then recognized Liam. “Oh. You. You’re not here from my\n landlord are you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam looked baffled. “No, I just wanted to come see you,” he said. He\n looked over his shoulder. “Is your landlord bothering you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She grabbed Liam’s arm and pulled him inside the flat. Grace and Sal\n managed to make it in after him before Imogen slammed and locked the door\n behind them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He keeps bothering me about the rent,” she said, straightening and patting\n her curly brown hair. “I told him I just had to get some work done and then\n I could get it to him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked her up and down. Imogen wore a short frilly robe over a white\n corset, white stockings, and heels, and impressive cleavage peeked out of\n the opening of the corset. “Did we, ah, interrupt your work?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Imogen put her hands on her hips, making no effort to cover herself\n further. “Who the hell’s this?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is Sal, and that’s Grace over there,” Liam said, pointing at Grace,\n who was studying the photos on the wall. “They’re my friends.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Imogen sighed and rolled her eyes. It was clear what she thought of the\n women Liam was friends with. “What do you want, Liam? You want money? I got\n nothing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sat on a love seat and leaned back, watching them. Liam took a deep\n breath and then let it out. “Imogen. I wanted to say I was sorry. I got you\n involved with the Network, I broke your heart, and I was a wanker. I’m\n trying to make up for some things I’ve done and I wanted to find you and\n apologize.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re sorry? You’re \u003cem\u003esorry\u003c/em\u003e?” Imogen said, and then she took a\n deep breath and seemed to swell to twice her size.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eHere we go\u003c/em\u003e, thought Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They met in the Archives, Menchú settling into the cracked leather couch\n and Asanti sitting at her desk.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want to know?” he said plainly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smiled at him, lips closed, as if she knew something he didn’t. “I’m\n glad you’re finally willing to trust me with this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He raised his hands. “It wasn’t about you. It was me. I see this\n being—Hannah, it calls itself now—as . . .” He groped for the words.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As a personal failure?” Asanti suggested, her face sympathetic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He didn’t like how she came up with that so quickly, but he nodded. “Yes.\n Admitting it existed meant digging up some still-rotting corpses. I didn’t\n want to uncover the smell.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How descriptive,” she said. She pulled out a notebook. “So you are\n absolutely sure, even though this one is an adult woman and not a young\n boy, this is the same being as the one you encountered during the slaughter\n of your village?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She said it so matter-of-factly. He winced. “Yes. It’s the eyes. You don’t\n forget those eyes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She looked thoughtful. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. So it’s unlikely that\n the being driving that monster is the same as the one inside Sal’s\n brother.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is it?” Menchú asked bitterly. He wasn’t so sure about Perry, but was\n usually polite to him out of respect for Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” she said. “So what is this one capable of?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s capable of handling armies,” he said. “Slaughtering innocents. It\n manipulates life on this plane as if it’s kneading bread.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But why?” she asked. “What motivates it? And Perry?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He thought for a moment, not saying all of the obvious answers, like\n “They’re God-damned demons straight from hell who want to destroy us.” If\n that were entirely true, they would have destroyed everything by now.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It mentioned something about an experiment,” Menchú finally said, reaching\n for the elusive memory.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti snapped her head up. “An experiment? What kind?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know. It felt like an aside. Like she let something slip.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “An experiment. Interesting word,” she mused, writing something down. “So,\n you don’t know her motivation. But she’s here. And she’s interested in\n you.” Menchú shook his head. Asanti’s eyebrows raised. “No?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. It’s interested in \u003cem\u003eus\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam sat patiently while Imogen let him have it. She blamed him for\n everything from the sorry state of her current bank account to the case of\n crabs she’d gotten the previous year (which seemed like an exaggeration to\n Sal, since they were last together a few years ago, according to Liam).\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n To his credit, Liam’s temper didn’t flare and he didn’t argue. He was\n actually taking this twelve-step thing seriously. He sat through all the\n abuse she threw at him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When she was done, she stood, panting, and then said, “Well, aren’t you\n going to give some of my own back at me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He shook his head. “No. I said what I needed to say. I’m sorry. Now it’s\n your turn.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Huh.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So what have you been doing with yourself?” he asked conversationally.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well my credit is shot and I can’t get a job. I’m making money as a webcam\n girl,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, that’s why . . .” Sal said, and gestured vaguely at Imogen’s outfit.\n She sat down next to Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No, I just hang about the house like this,” Imogen said archly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whatever makes you comfortable,” Sal said. “I don’t judge.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Imogen rolled her eyes. “Listen, Liam. You’re good with the tech. You wanna\n make things right with me? Come figure out what’s up with my cam. It’s\n older and doesn’t always work right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam stood immediately. “I’d be delighted to.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She led him into the bedroom, with a little too much sway in her hips for\n Sal’s comfort.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace sat back on the love seat with Sal beside her. She shifted irritably.\n Imogen kept her flat too warm—Grace supposed she would need to as well if\n she had to be in a nightie all the time—and she could feel sweat begin to\n bead on her forehead.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n After Imogen led Liam to the bedroom, Sal sighed. “Do you think he’ll be\n all right in there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know. Liam may be doing a special kind of apologizing. Something I\n don’t want to see,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal snickered. “He’s doing a good job, though,” she said. “He’s mature. I’m\n impressed.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s true,” Grace said dimly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sat next to her in jeans and a white button-down shirt, the top button\n casually undone, a cross warming against the skin on her chest. Grace\n focused on it, hearing Imogen and Liam talking in the bedroom, but not\n thinking much about it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal caught her. She gave a small smile. “What’s up?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace swallowed and glanced away, annoyed. “Nothing,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal frowned. She halfway stood as if she wanted to go into the bedroom to\n check on Liam. Then she settled back on the love seat, where her shoulder\n leaned against Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace moved away, feeling as if she had been shocked. She shifted on the\n seat to put her back to the couch arm, opening herself up to Sal, who\n leaned into her. Now they half-reclined on the love seat, Sal leaning\n against Grace’s chest, her hair tickling Grace’s nose. Grace froze, unsure\n of what to do. She was trapped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She didn’t \u003cem\u003efeel\u003c/em\u003e trapped, though. She had the strength to easily\n move away, but Sal wasn’t a monster to pick up and throw across the room.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you comfortable?” she heard herself ask.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Very,” Sal said, and shifted to lean further into Grace’s chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace didn’t know where to put her hands. She finally put one arm across\n the back of the love seat and the other over Sal’s arm, her hand resting\n lightly on Sal’s wrist.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at Grace’s hand on her wrist and reached over with her other\n hand and twined her fingers with Grace’s. Grace barely breathed as she saw\n their two hands clasped, so casually, as if it meant nothing, as if there\n weren’t two other people in the room with them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were two other people in the room with them. Or at least there had\n been. Where were the other two people? Sal cuddled up to Grace even further\n and made a soft, comfortable noise, and Grace’s other arm went around her,\n her forearm going across Sal’s chest, her hand touching the open collar of\n her shirt, her fingertips tentatively teasing the collar open a bit more so\n they could rest on the suddenly hot skin underneath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s breath hitched raggedly and she looked up at Grace. Her lips parted,\n and her other hand came up to take the back of Grace’s head and pull\n downward.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Liam screamed from the bedroom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace could apologize to Sal later, but for now the reality was that Sal\n was on the floor, probably bruised, definitely annoyed, and Grace was\n across the room, bursting into the bedroom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Inside was an amateur porn star’s boudoir. A bed sat on the far side of the\n room, with black satin sheets and a pristine white bedspread. Light\n diffusers sat in the corners, casting light all around the room and nearly\n eliminating shadows. Beside the bed was an honest-to-God fainting couch,\n upon which Liam writhed. He was held by nothing and apparently attacked by\n nothing, but he screamed as if he were on fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Beside the door, facing the bed, was a video camera and tripod, currently\n filming.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Imogen was on the bed, kneeling, legs spread lewdly, her tongue out at the\n camera. She paid no attention to Liam, but instead began to do what amateur\n porn stars do on webcams.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The camera was plugged into a laptop that sat on a small desk. Grace saw\n that the feed was live and already had hundreds of viewers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t touch that,” Imogen panted. She’d removed her robe and was only in a\n corset, panties, and stockings. “I need it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace had seen enough. She started forward, figuring she could take Imogen\n without burning any of her candle. She could definitely punch a porn star.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam managed to pull himself off the couch and place himself between Imogen\n and Grace. “No,” he panted. “Don’t hurt her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you? What is she doing to you?\n Are you mind controlled?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam gritted his teeth, clearly still in considerable pain. “N-no. She’s\n using my existing connection to the Network to boost her signal. It’s\n letting her feed off the men who are watching. Like a succubus.” He glanced\n over his shoulder at his ex-lover, who was still trying to writhe for the\n camera, using the intruders as peekaboo props instead of people blocking\n her from her viewers. “I made her this way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How?” Sal asked from the doorway. She massaged her hip and glared at\n Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She, ah, liked to make love on camera,” he said, rubbing the back of his\n head. “So we would connect and log on.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Could you get more disgusting?” Grace asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam collapsed, and Imogen was down another scrap of clothing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fight evil now, insult Liam later,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah, God, forgive me, Imogen!” Liam cried.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal went to the computer and typed a little. “It would be good if he could\n snap out of whatever spell he’s under and fix this,” she muttered. “All I\n know how to do is pull the damn thing out of the wall.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace grabbed the laptop and the camera and yanked both, severing their\n connection and taking part of the wall with it. A wave of energy came out\n of the computer and knocked Sal and Grace back, and the apartment was\n swallowed in darkness.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThis is wrong. It’s midday. Why is it dark?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal floated in the darkness, furiously blinking her eyes to try to\n acclimate. She saw a spark to her right and tried to maneuver towards it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSal\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n That was her. Someone was saying her name. She thought it was the spark.\n She floated toward it with more urgency. It grew, and warmth emanated from\n it. She wanted nothing more than to touch the spark and feel its heat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSal\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She had no real body, she realized with little surprise. She had been\n distilled to the essence of herself. Was this her soul? Was she dead?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The spark got larger and larger and kept saying her name. She got the hang\n of her locomotion once she grasped the concept of her lack of body and\n suddenly she was there beside the spark, which had grown to a pillar of\n fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eSal\u003c/em\u003e, it said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She reached out her hand, or what she thought was her hand, to touch it.\n Some corner of her head screamed at her to stop, to think, to not merge\n with an unknown entity because that was how every single problem in her\n life recently had begun.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The pull was too strong. She reached out again and touched her fingertip to\n the pillar of flame.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It devoured her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The warmth was delicious. She felt a release of a breath she didn’t know\n she held, a satisfaction like the final piece of a puzzle fitting in with\n the whole. She had a body now, and eyes, which were shut.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened them and saw Grace floating with her. Their hands were entwined.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What happened?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace craned her head around. “I’m not sure.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their eyes met. “I’m not sure I care,” Sal admitted.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Grace agreed. “This feels right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They no longer had any fingers; their hands glowed brightly where they\n touched, as if they were becoming one pure being.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I haven’t felt . . . right in so long,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve been alone for so long. You don’t let anyone in,” Sal said, not\n unkindly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You got in,” Grace whispered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their knees touched, the light growing brighter. “I feel like we should be\n afraid,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It doesn’t feel bad. It feels—” Sal searched for the words.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “—Right,” Grace gave her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was the only word that worked. “It’s like it’s a gift,” Sal said. “What\n do you want?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You,” Grace said. Her lips hovered an inch from Sal’s.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Something \u003cem\u003epinged\u003c/em\u003e in Sal’s mind, something that was outside of this\n perfect light she was making with Grace. Something that was her,\n individually, the things outside of her emotional need for Grace. Her\n determination. Her fear. Her sense of duty.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eWho?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal pulled back. “Who?” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace increased her hold on Sal. She closed her eyes and leaned in. “You,”\n she repeated. “You know. You’ve always known.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shook her head against the temptation. “No. This is a gift, but from\n who?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Does it matter?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Grace, think about what we do for a living. Of course it matters.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her dark eyes opened and a bit of the shrewd thinking returned to them.\n “But it doesn’t feel evil, or wrong,” she said. “Sal, I—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know, Grace, me too. But not like this. Not here. We need to save Liam,\n remember?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace’s eyes flew open. “Liam. The cyber-succubus. Oh \u003cem\u003eno\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal leaned back from the temptation of Grace’s lips, and pulled. It was\n physically painful when their connection broke, leaving an ache she feared\n would never go away. When they released their hands, they landed hard on\n the floor in Imogen’s bedroom.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is there anything else?” Asanti asked, turning to a fresh page in her\n notebook. She’d filled several pages with Menchú’s information.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think so,” he said slowly. She raised her eyebrows. “I mean it.”\n He met her eyes, and she slowly nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I’m sorry, Asanti. Things haven’t been the same between us in a while,\n and my actions regarding this didn’t do anything to help. I hope we can\n rebuild the trust between us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She waved her hand, focusing on her notebook. “It’s forgotten, Arturo,” she\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n His insides tightened. It wasn’t forgotten. And it wasn’t all right. He\n would have felt better if she’d raged at him, or cried, or even quit the\n Archives. Those would be honest emotions he could trust. This indifferent,\n almost calculating, response was worrisome.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But you couldn’t fault someone for forgiving you.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Could you?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you angry?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her attention snapped back to him. He could see her considering her answer\n carefully. “I was. As you said, you and I have a problem with trust, and\n it’s not getting any better. This is just another incident.” She adjusted\n her glasses and looked down at her notes again. “But we have so much\n information here, I think I can look past it and we can get some work done\n again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look past it? You’re going to look past the fact that you can’t trust me?”\n he asked, outraged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She smiled. “Arturo, do you want me to be angry with you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I want honesty from you. I want to be honest with you. I want to trust\n that I \u003cem\u003ecan\u003c/em\u003e speak with you honestly. And I don’t feel like we have\n any of that.” He threw his hands in the air, giving up. “And it feels\n damned strange, yelling at you for not being angry enough. But I want an\n honest reaction, Asanti! Is that too much?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She put down her notebook and came to him. She gently took his hands and\n her brown eyes met his. They were full of kindness, the way he remembered\n them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Arturo, we have years of history between us. We’re not going to let a few\n rocky months end our friendship. You have trusted me with this information\n now, and I am grateful for that. This can be a first step to rebuilding\n that trust between us. I was hurt. A little angry. But I forgive you.” She\n pulled him close and hugged him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He hugged her back, but couldn’t help but wonder if she was going to be\n willing to take the next step in rebuilding that trust.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal blinked her eyes, dazed and aching all over, physically and\n emotionally. She was very aware of Grace beside her, burning like a beacon.\n She felt like she wanted to sob, but she climbed painfully to her feet. She\n staggered toward the bed, where Imogen was about to undress a barely\n conscious Liam. She grabbed the woman’s arm and wrenched it, hard, behind\n her back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Caught by surprise, Imogen screamed, and Sal yanked her upright and\n presented her to Grace, who was standing with fists clenched.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They didn’t need to speak. Their eyes met and Grace nodded once. She\n stepped forward and hit Imogen hard, knocking her out. Sal dropped the\n woman like a sack of potatoes. They looked around the room; it had been\n destroyed by the wave of whatever had caught them when Grace tore the\n computer out of the wall. The bed was charred, the dresser and fainting\n couch were splinters. Liam was still unconscious, but breathing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you all right—” Sal asked, and then Grace had her in her arms, pulling\n her close.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Their foreheads touched, and Grace’s eyes met hers. “Just this. Give me\n this and I’ll ask for nothing else.” Their lips met, tentative at first,\n but then with more passion.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s hands came up and touched the sides of Grace’s face, stroking her\n soft skin and then tangling in her silky hair.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal wasn’t sure how long they stood there, holding on to a scrap of the\n intimacy they had shared in the throes of the succubus, but Liam groaned on\n the bed, and she and Grace reluctantly stepped away from each other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you all right?” Sal said, going to his side. Her voice was ragged.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think—” Liam licked his lips, his eyes still closed. “I think I will\n send email to all the other people I need to make amends to.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good plan,” Sal said, smiling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They identified the source of demonic power as the video camera, a camera\n Liam remembered once being the property of the Network. They’d been\n practicing putting scraps of demons into technology.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was my idea to put the succubus in there,” Liam said sadly. “Before, I\n mean. And I forgot about it. So this time she turned it on and I was lost.\n She had a focus for her energy right here, and she reached more men than\n ever. I’m sorry, Imogen.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They shrouded the camera and stood looking at Imogen, whom Sal had covered\n with a blanket after she and Liam had lifted her onto the bed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I feel like I should be sorry for taking her toy away. It looks like she’s\n made a good living with it,” he said. “Except for paying her landlord, but\n she was never responsible with bills.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked at him as if he were insane. “Are you fucking kidding me?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know it’s evil, but come on, it’s like we’re taking away a taxi driver’s\n car. How will she make a living now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She can buy a webcam for twenty pounds on Amazon! She doesn’t even have to\n put on pants! Buy it! It comes to her door! Hook it up! Do dirty things!\n Profit!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam frowned. He knew things were overall better, but poor Imogen had felt\n attached to the camera, and built her life around it. And it had devoured\n her while it tasted the men she connected with.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In the car on the way to the airport, Liam bought a high-quality webcam and\n had it sent to Imogen’s flat. She might get kicked out because of the\n damage to the apartment, but at least he could replace the tech they had\n confiscated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He and Sal sat together on the way home. Grace sat across the aisle,\n staring at her new novel, \u003cem\u003eThe Book Thief\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What’s up with you two? She’s like an ice queen over there,” Liam said,\n nodding toward Grace.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know what you mean,” Sal said. Grace didn’t raise her head, even\n though they were both looking at her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sure, yeah,” Liam said. “So I didn’t wake up to see you two lip-locked\n like one of you was going off to war?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s face went crimson. He grinned at her. “Don’t worry, my manhood isn’t\n threatened.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The last thing I ever worry about is your manhood,” she whispered\n fiercely, but then sobered. “I guess it was the succubus’s mind control. It\n made us—it made us almost too late to save you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam shook his head. “That mind control’s a real bitch, isn’t it?” He\n sighed. The “mind control” defense was too common an excuse for real\n feelings if anything magic was involved. It was a damn shame that Sal\n wouldn’t admit to what had happened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Should he tell them that the succubus energy they’d felt had only amplified\n existing feelings and desires? Liam had desired Imogen—how could any\n straight man not desire her? —and he’d been caught. And Sal and Grace\n clearly had wanted each other.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He thought back over the last little while and finally figured out what was\n behind their odd silences. Even if they didn’t know it. Or wouldn’t admit\n to it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They’d have to figure it out themselves. He wouldn’t tell them. It wasn’t\n his job to atone for this; he’d done nothing wrong. It wasn’t his job to\n try to figure out how to make his ex-girlfriend come to terms with her\n feelings about someone else. There was only so far he would go to help a\n friend.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He looked out the window and thought of Imogen, and hoped some day she\n could forgive him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He checked his email with the plane’s Wi-Fi. Menchú had written to say he\n and Asanti had met and made some headway in figuring out Hannah’s\n motivations and goals. That was a good sign. Still, Liam couldn’t believe\n Father Menchú would have hidden such a secret from them, and let them walk\n around and work beside such a hellish creature. He might ask for his own\n meeting with the Father.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He read the email again. At the end, Menchú had said:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003e\n I understand if you have questions, and I am here to answer all of\n them. You’re facing your inner weaknesses and atoning, Liam, and I\n admire you so much for that. It’s shining a spotlight on my own\n weaknesses that I must admit to and address. Please drop by when you\n get in. I would very much like to talk to you.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam wrote a quick reply, agreeing to see Menchú after they landed. He felt\n something release inside him, something he hadn’t known was tight. Menchú\n was his rock, and someone he could never lose faith in. If he didn’t have\n Menchú, no one else in the world truly believed in him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well, there was Sal. He glanced over at her as she tried to doze. He smiled\n slightly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal,” he whispered, leaning in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Napping,” she said, not opening her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just thought you should know that the succubus energy wasn’t mind control.\n Neither of you did anything that you hadn’t already considered.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her face grew pink, but she didn’t answer. Let her feign sleep if she\n wanted. He’d gotten his message across. He was glad she and Grace had found\n each other. So long as they admitted it before one of them got eaten.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He settled back and closed his own eyes, and wondered how he could get\n himself a girlfriend who wasn’t possessed by a demon and didn’t end up\n cursed by the Hand or half turned into an octopus.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nLiam revealed to Team Three his connection to the Network, along with some of his wild escapades during that time. Tensions between Asanti and Menchú ran high as their contrasting ideas about the best way to combat magic clashed. Grace and Sal overcame each other’s barriers to form a strong friendship.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Mur Lafferty \u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.149","slug":"Bookburners-s3e08","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E08.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E8.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E8.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E8.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 8"},{"id":"595fa9b2c7dc8d000126a93a","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":9,"title":"Homecoming","released_date":"2017-09-13T11:36:54.555+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"The team tries to get ahead of the game. ","byline":"Brian Francis Slattery","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E09_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-09-13","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Professor Sifuentes had been in the jungle for a week, and the animals were\n starting to get to him. They weren’t bothering his project; they were\n either frightened or noncommittal about the work he and his archaeological\n team were doing. But all night they kept him up, screeching and scrambling\n in the branches over his head, and small objects kept falling on his tent.\n In his midnight delirium, he imagined the monkeys were deliberately\n throwing these objects. He slept no more than three hours at a stretch,\n woke up feeling almost like he was coming down with a cold, and stretched a\n shaky hand toward the cup of coffee that Teresa Alarcón, his graduate\n assistant and the foreperson for the project, always seemed to have ready\n for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Alarcón was cut out for the project in a crucial way that Professor\n Sifuentes was not. She was up before dawn, planning the day for the work\n crew, and went to sleep soon after dark. She claimed she slept better in\n her tent in the rain forest than she ever did in her apartment in Oaxaca.\n Before Professor Sifuentes had his cup of coffee, Alarcón’s morning\n enthusiasm made a rage that he struggled to contain boil in him. Once the\n caffeine kicked in, he was merely grateful. The funding for this dig, here\n in the rain forest on the border of Mexico and Guatemala, was not\n limitless. They had only the summers to assemble the crew before Professor\n Sifuentes had to return to teaching during the school year. Every day\n mattered, and Alarcón was helping him make the most of it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Central American archaeologists had known about the site—nicknamed La\n Lágrima, the Teardrop, due to the shape it made in the jungle in aerial\n photographs—for decades, but its small size and remote location had made it\n less than desirable for excavation. Even now, Sifuentes was a little unsure\n what drew his attention to La Lágrima in the first place. It was a couple\n of local stories, a hunch, a gut feeling. It had taken him days to get to\n the site; he questioned his own actions. But he and Alarcón, who’d been a\n first-year graduate student at the time, were rewarded. In the unexcavated\n walls, they had found sets of etched glyphs that seemed unique to La\n Lágrima, figures in stone that appeared nowhere else. It justified further\n research even from a linguistic perspective. And now, three years later,\n their early explorations were yielding so much more. Including an anomaly\n Sifuentes could not explain.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes was poring over a new set of glyphs on the eastern side of La\n Lágrima’s small temple building when Alarcón tapped him on the shoulder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You need to see something,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What is it?” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” she said. “You need to see it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The room was in the back of a small apartment that, they guessed, once\n constituted a priest’s quarters. Stone walls, stone ceiling, stone floor,\n all covered in glyphs. A slit in one wall allowed a beam of light, a breath\n of air, into the place.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wow,” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Alarcón nodded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How is this possible?” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Because after a thousand years of abandonment, as the jungle turned the\n temple into a hill, the ball court into a grove, and all the other rooms in\n the house into caves for bats, warrens and dens for mammals and reptiles,\n nests for birds, sanctuaries for a thousand varieties of plants . . . this\n room was bare.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s like the Maya just left,” Alarcón said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But why did nothing take their place?” Sifuentes asked. “What kept the\n jungle out? What was it so afraid of?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You make it sound so sinister,” Alarcón said. He could hear in the tone of\n her voice that she was teasing him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re right,” he said. “There’s no need for drama.” But something passed\n through him, a sense of dread. Something was wrong.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Orb was dark, quiet, like the rest of the Archives. Menchú looked\n upward at the vaulted ceilings, then lowered his gaze to the stacks. Now he\n let his eyes move from one member of his team to the next. Sal. Grace.\n Liam. Asanti. The Vatican had drawn lines between them lately, sometimes\n forced them to draw lines amongst themselves. Yet they still kept coming\n back together, Menchú thought, this little family of his. By age and\n experience, he should be its father, he and Asanti its leaders. He could\n never quite let them know just how much he was making it all up as he went\n along, how much he relied on them. Though maybe, he thought, that’s what\n all fathers did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So what brings us here today?” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ve been thinking about Hannah and her experiment, doing some research,”\n Asanti said. “Trying to get ahead of her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n By instinct, Menchú searched the faces of the people around him—his team,\n the assistants in the Archives within earshot. He was looking for those\n eyes, the sign that Hannah was with them. He didn’t see them, and felt his\n nerves ease.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What have you found?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A pattern,” Asanti said. “Well, maybe \u003cem\u003epattern\u003c/em\u003e is too strong a\n word. But at least a trend, a preference she seems to show in what she uses\n to conduct this experiment—whatever it is. Put simply, all the magic she\n uses seems to be old.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All the magic is always old, and new again,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Don’t start,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You hated those crusty Team Four eejits as much as I did,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Grace nodded. Even chuckled. “Still,” she said. “Shut up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t mean that the magic itself is old,” Asanti said. “I mean that it’s\n magic that has been here, on Earth, a long time. She uses cave paintings.\n The tooth of the Wolf of Gubbio. The oracle bones. The magic she used here\n at the Vatican.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam nodded. “You’re right. Even the hydra she summoned seems kind of\n old-school.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Straight out of Greek myth,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There was nothing mythological about the inside of its throat,” Grace\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “True,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The point I’m trying to make,” Asanti said, “is that if I’m right that\n Hannah prefers old magic, then we can perhaps anticipate where she will\n appear next. Or head her off before she gets there.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam’s voice rose with excitement. “There may be something to what you\n say,” he said. “I’ve been hearing a little chatter about an excavation in\n Central America. A few weirdos are excited about it. It’s a site way out in\n the rain forest that they’ve always claimed is magical. You know, the sort\n of place where gringos pay a local who knows what they’re doing to lead\n them out there so they can get high and watch the sun rise from the top of\n a temple and not get lost in the jungle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sounds unpromising,” Grace said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Well, except for the fact that there have always been a couple local\n legends about the place being a way into another world,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s not that unusual,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Right,” Liam said. “But now an archaeologist has led a team out there to\n do a little digging.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you happen to know the archaeologist’s name?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sifuentes.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Huh,” Asanti said. “My friend in Mexico told me about him. Said Sifuentes\n was coming back with pictures of some very interesting carvings. Glyphs.\n Things no one’s quite seen before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And you’re saying that’s the sort of thing Hannah’s been interested in,”\n Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It seems like it, doesn’t it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Though it also sounds like a wild guess on our part,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I agree,” Menchú said. “I don’t think we can get the authority to dispatch\n the team officially.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you think it’s good enough that a couple of us can just . . . go?”\n Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú sighed. This was what passed for Asanti playing by the rules these\n days. True, she wasn’t trying to break them. Not in this case. Still, he\n needed more convincing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If your guess is right,” Menchú said, “what do you think Hannah is trying\n to do? Why only old magic?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” Asanti said, with a candor that Menchú found refreshing.\n “Maybe it’s what she’s comfortable using. Maybe the older magic works in a\n way the newer magic doesn’t. Maybe it suggests some sort of change in our\n world, or theirs, that Hannah is trying to work around.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Or subvert,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Asanti said. “Maybe she wants things back the way they were,\n somehow.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Killing everyone in my church’s parish was a very interesting way to\n express that,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti looked at Menchú with compassion. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t\n mean to be so cavalier. I don’t like her any more than you do. But she has\n some sort of plan, and apparently she feels strongly enough about it to\n justify doing some horrific things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Alongside some very banal things,” Liam said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe they’re all the same to her,” Grace said. “God knows we’ve met\n plenty of deranged kooks who get too much magic on the brain and lose sight\n of . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Their humanity?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I was going to say ‘everything that matters,’ but yes, that will do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But whatever her plan is,” Asanti said, “it’s possible that this dig in\n the jungle is part of the puzzle.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Unless she doesn’t know about it yet,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She may not,” Asanti said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I suppose I’m asking if we can really tell the difference between getting\n a step ahead of her and leading her right to whatever she’s looking for,”\n Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe we can and maybe we can’t,” Sal said. “But speaking for myself, I’m\n getting tired of being surprised to find her. She’s the demon behind the\n curtain in half the cases we’ve taken on lately. I’m ready to learn a few\n things, to figure her out. If this is even a first step toward that, then\n count me in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” Asanti said. “I can contact Sifuentes and make arrangements.\n Arturo,” she added, gently, “given where the site is, I think you need to\n go, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know,” he said. \u003cem\u003eI don’t want to\u003c/em\u003e, he thought. He didn’t have to\n say it. He knew the rest of the team already understood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Through most of the flights, most of the connections, and the time waiting\n in airports, Menchú and Sal talked about nothing. Menchú could tell Sal was\n looking for an opening, a way to talk about where they were going and what\n it meant to him. At first he was irritated. She already knew what had\n happened to him, his congregation, his town. What was there left to say?\n And taking the magic out of it, what Menchú had experienced was not\n special. So many people had lost so much in the civil war, and it had\n changed them, too, bent their lives into a shape they couldn’t recognize\n and never wanted. Everyone had to live differently afterward.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But he understood Sal’s impulse. She was trying to be compassionate and he\n respected that. He tolerated how she kept steering the conversation back to\n where they were going.\n \u003cem\u003e\n What is Guatemalan food like? I hear it’s beautiful there. I’m looking\n forward to seeing it.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n He took a deep breath every time.\n \u003cem\u003e\n It’s hearty. Sometimes hot, like Mexican food. We have chilies there\n you don’t see outside the country. And yes, it is beautiful. I’ve never\n seen anywhere else quite like the highlands.\n \u003c/em\u003e\n He could sense her working him like a detective, or a swindler setting up a\n long con. He wouldn’t let her in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Until, just two hours out from landing in Guatemala City, he realized Sal\n was worried about him. Not only because they were friends, but because she\n needed to know how much she could depend on him for the mission. She needed\n to know he was all there, one hundred percent, like she always was for him.\n He picked a rare break in the conversation when they were talking about\n something other than Guatemala.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Look,” he said. “I won’t deny that it’s hard for me to come back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I wouldn’t expect it to be easy,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The memories are still so vivid, and they always will be,” Menchú said. “I\n can’t do anything about that. But they won’t distract me from what needs to\n be done here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He watched Sal relax a little.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m worried about you apart from the mission, too,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t need to be,” Menchú said. He had chosen those words with care.\n Hannah’s constant appearances were bothering him, gnawing at him. Apart\n from wanting to know why she had come back to haunt him, what she was\n planning now, her return was forcing him toward a reckoning with himself.\n Something was opening in him, a question was being asked. But he was\n telling the truth when he said that Sal didn’t need to worry about it. He\n was the only one who could answer that question.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The airport in Guatemala City was new, gleaming like so many other airports\n all over the world. The only real difference was that it was so quiet. A\n small row of empty gates, waiting for a volume of traffic that hadn’t\n arrived yet. But its polished floors were ready. Menchú and Sal waited a\n few hours in the air-conditioned silence for the plane to Flores. On the\n flight, Menchú watched from the window as the sprawl of the capital turned\n into fields and towns nestled among dead volcanoes. Then the land dropped\n away beneath them and there was almost unbroken rain forest as far as he\n could see. A road cut through the greenery. Now and again, a cluster of\n rooftops, small fields. That was it. They landed in the little airport near\n Flores at sundown. The plane’s door opened and the heat fell on them. It\n was a weight, thick and heavy. They walked from the plane to the terminal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There you are,” Perry said, when he walked up to them outside the airport.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And here you are.” Menchú felt tired, and not from the flight. On the list\n of reunions he dreaded in Guatemala, Perry Brooks fell somewhere near the\n bottom. Perry had turned up so often on their recent missions that Menchú\n almost wanted to welcome him. For all his supernatural connotations and\n occult motives, he was a known, comfortable oddity. Sal was turning an\n impressive, furious shade of reddish purple. “Our supposedly angelic\n friend. Once more in our way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry shrugged. “Only half an angel. Not even. I mean, we’ve been over\n this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What, exactly, are you doing here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought you might want some backup,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have to ask how you knew we were coming,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry just smiled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can at least tell us how you got here,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not going to,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t have to be a brat about it,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not being a brat,” Perry said. “I’m—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Never mind,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Fine,” Perry said. “I just took an earlier flight.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That doesn’t answer my question.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s all the answer you’re getting, Sal. I’m sorry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father.” Sal didn’t finish the question, but she didn’t need to. Menchú\n saw the conflict in her. On the one hand, her brother remained an unknown\n commodity. On the other hand, he was family.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re here to help?” Menchú asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And when Perry said, “Yes,” Menchú believed him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They took a cab into Flores. On the way, out the dusty window, was the\n Guatemala Menchú remembered. Houses of cinder block and rebar, painted in\n bright colors. Places that would fix your tires on the spot. Men sitting\n outside restaurants with fluorescent lights. He had never been to Flores as\n a kid, only heard about it. It was a vacation spot for people who had more\n money than his family, or anyone in the congregation he led later, ever\n did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “When do we get started?” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not tonight,” Menchú said. “We’re too late to drive out to the rain\n forest. We’ll go at dawn. We’re supposed to meet Sifuentes where the road\n ends. Then he’ll take us through the forest to the site.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How long will that take?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A couple days,” Menchú said. He noted Sal’s surprise. “It’s like that\n around here more often than you’d think.” He turned to the driver and\n negotiated with him to pick them up the next morning, haggled him down to a\n fair price. He enjoyed that. It felt good to flex that muscle. He hadn’t\n done it in a long time.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The houses ended at a wall at the shore of a lake. The cab followed the\n road over a low, narrow bridge onto an island covered in houses. For some\n reason, the driver said, the water level of the lake was rising—no one was\n sure why. The road closest to the edge of the island was flooded in places.\n But one block away was higher and dry. The cab brought them to their hotel,\n a clean place with white tile floors and a laconic man behind the counter\n who seemed genuine in his happiness to see them. He showed them to their\n room. There were three beds in a row, from the door to the window.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I call window,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have got to be kidding,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am kidding,” Perry said. He turned to Menchú. “You first.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think I’m ready to sleep yet,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If we’re getting up at dawn, I am,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” Menchú said. “I’ll be quiet when I get back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It took Menchú only ten minutes to get to the other side of the island,\n which was much more lively than where their hotel was. Rows of restaurants,\n people outside right on the water. Boats pulled up to the wall at the edge\n of the ring road amid the last people who were still swimming that day. A\n gaggle of children still out. The sounds of norteño music. He turned onto a\n quieter street and was just thinking about how nice it was to be back when\n he ran into her. She was a little boy. But she still had those eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Why did Hannah have to possess children?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I never thought I would see you back here again,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s thanks to you,” Menchú said, “though I think you know that already.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This represents some new initiative on your part, doesn’t it? Trying to\n get ahead?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú decided not to answer that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Learn to play the role you’re assigned,” Hannah said. “The situation must\n be controlled.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Our archivist used the word \u003cem\u003eexperiment\u003c/em\u003e, lately, to describe what\n you’re doing,” Menchú said. “You have used it yourself.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think you’re figuring me out?” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You tell me,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do your job,” Hannah said. “Otherwise we get mayhem.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t think what you did to my town was mayhem?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It served its purpose,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Would you care to tell me what that was?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s complicated,” Hannah said, “and I hope I don’t have to do it again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “If you dare—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You will do what, exactly?” Hannah said. “Hit a child?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That poor boy you’ve taken is already dead to you,” Menchú said. “And the\n day you stop using children as human shields is the day you learn what I’m\n capable of.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think you don’t have that quite right,” Hannah said. “When you see me in\n my true form, you will have already seen what \u003cem\u003eI \u003c/em\u003ecan do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All the same,” Perry said, “using kids is a little dramatic, don’t you\n think? And here I thought I was the theatrical one.” He had just rounded\n the corner behind Menchú. The priest realized that Perry had been following\n him. Maybe looking out for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah’s anger contorted her child host’s face a little beyond what it was\n capable of. Something popped in the child’s jaw; Menchú could hear it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are a traitor to your team,” Hannah said to Perry. “How can you side\n with them?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“Well,” Perry said, “for the human part of me, my sister’s on \u003cem\u003etheir\u003c/em\u003e team, so it’s easy. I wouldn’t describe the angel part of me\n as taking a side so much as being curious how everything’s going to work\n out. And maybe being interested in dabbling a little, too. Meddling, you\n know.” He smiled. “It’s complicated.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not funny,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now Perry’s face changed, too. Just a little stretched, a little unnatural.\n “What is not funny,” he said, in a voice that wasn’t quite his, “is your\n misguided attempts at control. How far you’re willing to go to have your\n way.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t need to explain myself to you,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry held his smile. “I had no idea it would be so easy to get under your\n skin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A few other people coming down the street had stopped a respectful distance\n away, watching them. Menchú hoped they didn’t understand English. He\n pictured what they were seeing, a priest and a foreigner arguing with a\n child in the street. \u003cem\u003eWhat must they think is going on?\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Clearly, you need a reminder of what I’m willing to do to keep you in\n line,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah made the little boy scream. Menchú braced himself, expecting the kid\n to make a run for him. But Hannah apparently had something else in mind.\n The boy got down on his knees in the street, arched himself back, and\n slammed his head onto the cobbled street.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The people watching gasped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy’s head rose. He had a cut across his nose and a gash on his\n forehead that started bleeding, a lot.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Play your part, priest,” Hannah made the boy say. She then made the boy\n rear his head back to bang his head against the cobblestones again, which\n was when Menchú dove for him. He caught the boy’s head in his hands before\n it hit, then took the boy in his arms and held him tight. It was an\n embrace. It was a constraint. He could feel the boy resisting, trying to\n wrest his hands free. \u003cem\u003eMaybe now she’ll make him attack me\u003c/em\u003e, he\n thought.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n An energy surged through the boy, made him stronger than he should have\n been. His whole little body jerked in Menchú’s arms, enough that it seemed\n possible that the boy would dislocate one of his shoulders.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perry,” Menchú called, “help me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do I do?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Take his legs. I’ll take his arms. Hold him and don’t let go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The child writhed. Menchú could swear he felt the boy’s forearms bend as he\n strained to get away, as if he’d push himself hard enough to break his own\n bones. But together Menchú and Perry were too strong to allow that to\n happen. The boy screamed, his fingers convulsed. Menchú just kept holding\n him. He glanced up at the people watching.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s okay,” he said in Spanish. “I know how to help him.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The people watching seemed reassured, but they didn’t leave. The boy\n kicked. He had strong legs and almost pushed Perry over, but Perry kept\n both of them where they were. The boy screamed again. Menchú looked in his\n eyes. They were still that same pale color. The boy got his right hand free\n and, sure enough, raked his nails across Menchú’s face. Menchú grabbed that\n hand by the wrist and brought it back down.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Leave this boy alone,” Menchú whispered in the child’s ear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah made the boy scream once again. Menchú could feel the stinging where\n his nails had cut deep, tracks of wetness where drops of blood were running\n down his face.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Leave this boy,” Menchú said again, a little louder.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy’s face contorted one more time and he let out a roar, more like an\n animal—a monkey, then a lion—than a human. The people watching jumped back.\n The boy went limp and closed his eyes. Menchú checked the boy’s pulse.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “He’s still with us,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wake up,” Menchú said to the boy in Spanish.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy turned his head from side to side, eyes still closed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wake up and open your eyes,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy did. His eyes were deep brown, and full of fear. A drop of blood\n fell from Menchú’s face onto the kid’s, and Menchú realized how scary he\n must look.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Are you okay?” Menchú said, in the kindest voice he could muster.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy nodded. Menchú let him go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Go home,” Menchú said. “You’ll be all right.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The boy ran off. Menchú rose to his feet. The spectators in the street were\n still staring. One of them reached into her pocket and pulled out a\n handkerchief, walked over, and gave it to Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Keep it, Father,” she said. “For your face.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú thanked her. He sat down on the curb to blot his cuts, but really he\n was waiting for them all to leave. In time, they did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Am I still bleeding?” Menchú said to Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A little,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you think we led Hannah here?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No. I think she saw us coming.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So it doesn’t change anything?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t think so,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They began walking back to the hotel.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have to ask what you’re really doing here,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Backup,” Perry said. “Like I told you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The time for being coy is over,” Menchú said. “I need some real answers.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry sighed. “There are certain answers I can’t give you,” he said. “There\n are hierarchies among angels, and I am not at the top of it. As a fellow\n bureaucrat, I think you understand that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Understand it and hate it,” Menchú said, without thinking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m getting to that,” Perry said. “But here’s what I can tell you. There\n are flaws in the world, fatal flaws, and without maintenance, it will come\n apart.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean, come apart?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry paused for a second. “What I mean is . . .” he started. He clasped\n his hands together, and then, mimicking the sound of an explosion, spread\n them apart. “The world becomes magic,” he said. “All magic. The world as\n you know it can’t survive that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “So what are we supposed to do?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There has been debate among . . . us . . . about what to do about it. Some\n say we should let things take their natural course. Others—just a few—say\n that we should be running around fixing things.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Like the boy with his thumb in the dike,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Except that sometimes you have to release the pressure to prevent a bigger\n explosion. You have to let some magic into the world.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And destroy a part of it,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Perry said. “Which is why I’m breaking protocol by telling you all\n this. While this debate has been going on, Hannah has taken it upon herself\n to do the maintenance. She’s good at it. She’s also ruthless. I’m worried\n that she’s going too far.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She has broken protocol herself,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes . . . somewhat. About as much as I’ve just broken it now. She’s at a\n higher pay grade, you might say, and I used to be better about toeing the\n line. But becoming part human, part angel has changed my perspective on\n things. The angel in me sees the changes in the world as transformative.\n The human in me sees the destruction. The angel in me admires Hannah’s\n diligence, her willingness to work hard and make tough decisions about when\n and how to release pressure to keep the project going. The human in me is\n appalled at how many people she kills in the process.” He shrugged. “So as\n you can imagine, I’m torn.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This . . . big transformation,” Menchú said. “How much time do we have?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It won’t happen tomorrow, if that’s what you’re asking,” Perry said. “But\n magic is a chaotic system, as you’ve probably noticed. And the clock is\n ticking.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The clock is always ticking, isn’t it?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You can’t tell the others what I’ve told you,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is a confession, then?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Kind of like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They reached the hotel and settled in. The car didn’t leave until dawn, and\n it was two days’ walk through the jungle. Menchú lay in bed and stared at\n the ceiling. Somewhere along the shore, someone set off fireworks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú saw Sifuentes waiting for them at the trailhead where the road\n ended. He had a small pack on his back, his clothes already damp with\n sweat. The archaeologist extended his hand as Menchú, Sal, and Perry got\n out of the car, and he nodded to their own small packs.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We have a camp halfway to La Lágrima,” Sifuentes said, in strong English.\n “It will take most of the day to get there, but we have what we need for\n you to stay there, as long as you don’t mind sharing tents. Then it’s\n another half day, much easier than the first.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Good,” Menchú said. “Let’s go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The road vanished behind them within minutes. On the first three hours of\n the trail into the rain forest, they kept running into signs of modern\n human activity. A blue plastic bag. A Coke can. A sock. Fragments of the\n world. Perry’s words lingered. It would all become magic. Menchú heard\n water drip from leaves, watched light colored by the canopy, the same as\n ever. How much longer would it stay the same?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They met an older man heading back toward the road with an enormous bundle\n of sticks on his back, held in place partly by a leather strop that looped\n around his forehead. It got really hot. They stopped for water all the\n time, stopped for lunch. By the afternoon, Menchú realized he hadn’t seen\n evidence of any people except themselves for quite a while. The trail was\n narrow, even prone to disappearing a little. They would never have been\n able to do this without Sifuentes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You grew up here?” Sifuentes said to him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes, in the highlands,” Menchú said. The conversation distracted him from\n the end of the world. “It’s where I began my priesthood, too. Where are you\n from?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Mexico City,” Sifuentes said. “Do you come back here often?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I haven’t been back since the war,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It seemed almost unfair to bring up the war. Menchú knew Sifuentes had just\n been trying to make conversation. But he also knew that, once he’d brought\n it up, he wouldn’t need to elaborate on what had happened to his town.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My own family is all still in Mexico City,” Sifuentes said. “My\n grandfather was a small businessman and did well for himself. We have some\n means. But a few of my students from the south talk about how there is\n almost no one left in the towns they grew up in. There’s no work. No way of\n getting by there, and that means that if you leave, there’s no reason to go\n back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where do they go?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oaxaca. Mexico City. The United States. Other cities in South America.\n Even Europe. You name it, I suppose. The worry is more about how to get\n out, I think, than where it takes you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That was my experience as well,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The priesthood was your way out?” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You could say that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But you felt called, too.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said. “It was my best chance to accomplish what I wanted to\n accomplish.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Which was?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “To help people,” Menchú said. “If not to save them, at least to help them\n when they could not be saved.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It had been a long time since Menchú had thought about his past in those\n terms, let alone explained it to someone else, and it struck him how simple\n his motives had been then, how narrow the path to priesthood had felt.\n There were few other options at the time, if he wanted to both escape and\n help people. Now everything was so much more complicated. It was easy to\n lose sight of the simple reasons he had joined the clergy amid the Church’s\n machinations, the politics he hated, even as he couldn’t help but be caught\n up in them. But he had succeeded, he realized, at one of the things he had\n set out to do. He \u003cem\u003ehad\u003c/em\u003e gotten out. He had come a very long way.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Was he still helping people?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “People become clergy for far worse reasons,” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said. “I’ve met some of them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes laughed. Menchú was serious.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The rain forest seemed even louder at night than during the day. Monkeys\n and birds called to each other in the trees above them. Animals scurried in\n the leaves around them. Sifuentes reminded them to zip the tents up tight\n and heated a can of beans and some tortillas on a small stove, sliced up\n ripe avocados that tasted to Menchú like home.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The truth is that I wish we could keep going,” Sifuentes said. “I’m\n anxious to get back to La Lágrima. There have been some strange things\n happening around the site, and I’m told you have some experience with\n this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What kind of things?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hard to explain,” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s a good start,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes took a breath. “At first I thought I was just pushing the crew\n too hard,” he said. “We all know each other well and we’d gone into the\n field with a real sense of camaraderie. But as we continued, the crew got\n more and more irritated with one another. There was a fight. One of the\n crew went after another with a shovel. These are grad students we’re\n talking about. Nothing like that has ever happened on one of my expeditions\n before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s not unnatural, though,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Sifuentes said. “But the . . . blurring was.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Things would, well, blur,” Sifuentes said. “Sometimes it would seem as if\n time were speeding up, or slowing down. Or the ground would seem suddenly\n less solid. The air seemed more solid. As if everything were blurring\n together.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Did this happen to you?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It was happening to everyone. Just for a few seconds, here and there. But\n to everyone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Could be hallucinations,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I thought the same thing. I considered heatstroke and made everyone rest.\n I had our food checked, our water checked. I tested the air as best I\n could. But I don’t think it was in our heads. The last time it happened to\n me, I was with Alarcón, my assistant. We were talking about how to decipher\n some of the glyphs we had found, and at once it seemed to me that she was .\n . . well, melting. Her speech slowed. It changed pitch. Her face looked\n like it was beginning to collapse in on itself. It lasted a few seconds,\n and then stopped. And she looked at me and blinked. ‘What happened?’ I\n asked. And she said, ‘I don’t know. But it looked to me like you were\n flying apart.’”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It happened to both of you,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Sifuentes said. “And then I got the message from you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you know what’s going on at the site now?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Contact is spotty,” Sifuentes said. “But Alarcón is worried. And she’s\n never worried.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How much longer will it take to get there?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Five hours or so.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can start as early as you want,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “As soon as it starts getting light,” Sifuentes answered.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The next morning, Menchú, Sal, and Perry followed Sifuentes through the\n rain forest in silence, stopping only for water and for Sifuentes to try to\n contact La Lágrima. No one answered. As the sun climbed overhead, a steep\n hill rose through the trees, covered with trees, itself.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The southern temple,” Sifuentes said. “We’re here.” Menchú saw the\n archaeologist’s pace quicken. He, Sal, and Perry followed suit. The trail\n took them to the left side of the temple and into a depression in the land\n between two more mounds. Now Menchú could see for himself the carved walls\n peeking out from the moss and dirt, the outlines of what were surely stone\n buildings that continued to the north.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Something’s wrong,” Sifuentes said. “We should hear them now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There were no voices.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Maybe they left,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Alarcón would have told me,” Sifuentes said. “Something is definitely\n wrong.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They found the first body a minute later, facedown on the trail. It looked\n to Menchú like the dead man had tripped and fallen there and just needed to\n get up, until they got closer and he saw the deep gashes in the man’s back.\n Something sharp had been driven into him, twice, while he’d been trying to\n get away, the wounds bad enough that whoever had inflicted them must have\n been satisfied to let the victim stagger off. As though the perpetrator\n knew the wounded man wouldn’t get far.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s Felix,” Sifuentes said. He was shaking. Menchú looked farther down\n the trail. Someone else was lying there, on her side. Even from here,\n Menchú could see that her head was open. Sal had seen it too. She looked at\n Menchú and shook her head. Didn’t say a word. Menchú knew what she meant.\n Whatever they found, it was going to be bad.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now Sifuentes raised his head and saw the second corpse. He cried out, a\n sound Menchú hadn’t imagined his voice could make.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Shhh!” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A flash of anger passed across Sifuentes’s face. Menchú could see he was\n getting confused, starting to lose it. Menchú took a couple of steps toward\n him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry, but you must be quiet,” Menchú said. “Whoever did this might\n still be here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, God,” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Whatever happens,” Menchú said, “we’ll face it together. Okay?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay,” Sifuentes said, but he didn’t sound sure.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Okay?” Menchú said again, a little more firmly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes cleared his throat and nodded. Menchú was a little more\n convinced.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “All right,” Menchú said. “Let’s go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They found two more bodies as they headed into the main part of the temple\n complex. One lay on his back, staring up into the trees, his head\n half-severed from his body. The other was curled on the side of the trail\n in a fetal position. There was a gash in his side that laid him open like a\n sliced ham. Now clouds of flies hovered all around. Menchú could see that\n Sal was keyed up, full of adrenaline. She was ready for whatever was\n coming. Perry was calm, his breath slow and steady. Maybe the angel was\n taking over. Sifuentes shook harder, dropped to his knees, and threw up.\n They waited while he retched and sobbed. Then he raised his head and looked\n at Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know where to go,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He led them into a low stone building that seemed to be broken up into\n apartments. More bodies, slumped against the walls, lying across doorways.\n At last, they were in a room that seemed untouched by time. The\n glyph-covered stone walls were bare. A slit in the wall admitted a beam of\n light that illuminated a woman lying on the ground, her eyes open. Blood\n had come from her mouth, run down her cheek, and dried already on the\n floor. There was a machete in her gut. It went all the way through her. Her\n own fingers were clutched around the handle. It seemed clear to Menchú that\n she hadn’t been trying to pull it out. She was the one who had driven it\n in. There were two panels in the floor and they were open. Through the\n panels, below them, was open sky. Open, pink sky.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s Alarcón,” Sifuentes said. “That’s my assistant.” He started to cry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What did you find here?” Sal said. She was a little too impatient, Menchú\n thought. Sifuentes was in no shape to answer any questions.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” Sifuentes said, his voice scrambling over choking sobs. “I\n don’t know what this means. Any of it. Oh, Teresa.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal turned to Menchú and Perry. “Do either of you know what’s going on?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I can guess,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Spare yourself,” Sifuentes said. The sobs were gone. He wiped his mouth on\n his sleeve and dried his eyes. When he took his hand away, Menchú found\n himself staring into those familiar pale eyes again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I have to thank you for bringing me a fresh body,” Hannah said. She made\n Sifuentes smile at them. “I had run out. Once they figured out I was here,\n and what I was doing, they would kill me before I could finish. I thought\n when I got down to the last person, this professor’s lovely assistant, I\n would at last be left alone. But she was stronger than I expected, and look\n what she did to herself. It was all very, very annoying. They were a strong\n bunch, all of them. But this professor, thankfully, is much weaker. I’m\n almost out of time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes’s head tilted toward the ceiling. His eyes rolled back in his\n head. His mouth clicked open and a guttural noise rose from his throat,\n modulated only by his tongue.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, crap,” Perry said, a tone of recognition in his voice. He reached down\n and grabbed the handle of the machete that was in Alarcón and pulled it\n out. Sifuentes stopped chanting and lunged. He caught Perry’s hand, the one\n holding the machete, by the wrist. Then took the wrist in both hands,\n brought it to his mouth, and bit, hard. Perry shouted in pain. The machete\n dropped to the floor.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú made eye contact with Sal. “You go high. I go low,” he said. Sal\n nodded. They both tackled Sifuentes and Perry, trying to keep them away\n from the open portal. For Menchú, the next few seconds were a tangle of\n wrenched limbs, elbows to faces, faces ground into the floor, the feeling\n of bones being strained, joints starting to be pulled out of alignment.\n This was no monster fight. There were no martial arts. No spectacular\n kills. This was a desperate scramble on a dirty floor, just three people\n trying to keep a man from killing them all and himself. The problem, Menchú\n understood, was that Hannah didn’t care what she did to Sifuentes. She\n threw him against them with more strength than Sifuentes had in him. A fist\n smashed into Perry’s face opened the skin on three of the professor’s\n knuckles. Then the professor twisted around and began choking Sal until she\n let go of him. Menchú had enough of a hold on Sifuentes’s leg to pin him\n down. Hannah made Sifuentes jerk hard enough to knock the wind out of\n Menchú and get away, though even Menchú heard the pop in the professor’s\n hip when he did it. For a single instant, Sifuentes was free of all his\n attackers, and Hannah used it. She made Sifuentes flop away from them, both\n his arms and his one good leg making up for his other unusable leg. He\n lurched toward the open portal. He was almost there.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No you don’t,” Perry said, and caught the ankle on Sifuentes’s bad leg.\n But it wasn’t enough. Sifuentes made a final chant, and the air in the room\n began rushing toward the portal, dragging the professor into it. Dragging\n Perry with him. They both fell in. The air stopped again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú and Sal both scrambled over to the portal’s edge. They could see\n Sifuentes and Perry falling away from them, still attached, still fighting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I am not losing my brother like this again,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I am not letting you go alone,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They both stood up fast. One of Menchú’s hands found one of Sal’s. They\n locked their fingers around the other’s wrist and jumped in together.4.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú thought he would be more frightened. But the fall didn’t feel like\n falling. It was more like sinking. He looked at Sal, whose teeth were\n gritted, her eyes fixed on the figures below them. Menchú remembered that\n she had done this before, and he took strength from her closeness. Perry\n and Sifuentes were still locked together, fighting. It seemed to Menchú\n that they were getting closer, though any sense of motion was faint at\n best. The luminous pink sky all around them got even thicker as they fell\n to wherever they were going. He allowed himself a quick second to worry\n about how they were going to get back out, return to the world, and looked\n behind him. To his surprise, he found that the portal they’d jumped through\n was right above them. He thought if he turned around he might be able to\n swim back up to it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In time, some sort of terrain appeared below them. At first it looked to\n Menchú to be an endless tangle of threads, until he realized those threads\n were bigger than he’d thought. They were tentacles. They were limbs.\n Whatever they were, they were coming up fast. He and Sal were now floating\n down among them. The pink sky was blocked out, and they continued to move\n through an orange gloom. Menchú and Sal could choose to land on one of the\n limbs if they wanted to, but Perry and Hannah were still fighting. They\n crashed into one of the thicker limbs, rolled off it, hit another one, kept\n falling. At last, they stopped, and Menchú and Sal caught up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes’s body was failing. Hannah could push it far enough to be a match\n for Perry, but no longer for all three of them. This time, Menchú, Sal, and\n Perry didn’t even have to communicate. Menchú took Sifuentes’s right arm.\n Sal took the left. With Perry, they pinned the archaeologist down. Menchú\n put one hand on the archaeologist’s wrist, the other on his shoulder. The\n way Sifuentes was moving, Menchú was pretty sure the arm was broken, maybe\n in two places. Sifuentes couldn’t feel it now. He would later for certain.\n Sifuentes roared twice. Then he fell silent.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Where are we?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Hannah said. Now that they were standing\n still, Menchú understood more clearly that the light was shifting because\n the limbs all around them were moving, knotting together, fusing, coming\n apart again. Everything changing. When he looked down, he saw that the soil\n at his feet had extended several tendrils over his shoe, up his sock.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah made Sifuentes grin at him. “The land rose to meet us. It is alive.\n I called it and it came to get us. It is getting you a little now, if you\n didn’t notice. It’s harmless, but the bigger animals who are coming are\n not. You’re going to have to do what I say if you want to live.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n More mind games. But Menchú was starting to see the power he had.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’ve tormented me so much,” he said to Hannah. “But you’ve had every\n chance in the world to kill me and you haven’t yet. Why is that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah’s grin faded.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not saying I don’t want to live,” Menchú said. “I do. So much. But I’m\n starting to think that you need me to live even more than I do.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thick limbs all around them began to rustle. Through the gloom, Menchú\n could see massive shapes moving toward them, getting closer. He could hear\n their slow, ragged breaths. They smelled tangy, like melting metal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think one human matters to me that much?” Hannah said. “With all the\n slaughter you’ve seen?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think maybe I do,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “How is that possible?” Hannah said. She was trying to mock him. Menchú\n could hear it in Sifuentes’s voice. But the blows weren’t landing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know,” Menchú said. “But I think I can get you to tell me. Perry,\n take his arm.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry moved off his legs and pushed down on Sifuentes’s right shoulder.\n Menchú’s hunch was right; the archaeologist was too weak to fight back.\n Menchú stood up and waved at the shapes moving ever closer toward them in\n the shadows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey!” he said. “We’re here. We’re here if you want us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You wouldn’t commit suicide just to prove a point,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Wouldn’t I?” Menchú said. “After what you’ve done to me? The things you’ve\n made me see? You took away my town and everyone I loved there. I have tried\n hard to move on from that, but I think you and I both know the truth. In\n the end, I don’t really have anything to live for. Nothing is keeping me\n here. And a meaningful death doesn’t sound so frightening to me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He took a step away from them. One of the shapes resolved itself into a\n massive creature with seven legs. A head with three mouths perched on a\n stalk that bent down toward the priest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Here I am,” Menchú said. “I’m ready.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah cried out. “Enough!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stayed where he was. The portal was still open. Other shapes drew\n near. They were hooting to each other, unifying their voices in a rising\n crescendo, getting ready to charge.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Menchú?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Take us back or let me go,” Menchú said. “Take us back or let the work of\n decades go to waste. Your choice. I’ve already made mine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The animals’ voices tore into howling. Their feet shook the land beneath\n them. Hannah sighed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Let me up. I’ll take us back.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The animals thundered forward as Hannah barked out a series of words Menchú\n couldn’t understand. The four people shot upward, toward the portal. As\n they left, and just before the portal closed behind them, Menchú got a look\n at the creatures colliding beneath them. They collapsed into each other as\n if they were made of clay. Pieces flew off of them and stuck to what was\n left of the tangle of limbs around them after their stampede. And the parts\n that had collided stayed together. They made new animals that were all legs\n and no faces, one leg and half a mouth, an eye dangling from a flap of\n flesh. They howled in pain, their prey gone, no direction left to go in,\n and the land still trying to consume them, as Menchú thought it must have\n since the day they were born.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The four of them lay in the bare room in the ruins of La Lágrima. Menchú,\n Sal, and Perry, battered and out of breath. Sifuentes, possessed and\n broken. Still speaking with Hannah’s voice, seeing with her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This man is spent,” Hannah said. “You’ve made me take everything he had.\n First his crew. Then his life. I would never have conducted myself this way\n if you hadn’t shown up so fast. I would have been patient. Done what needed\n doing in the time it needed. But you made me rush. You can consider all\n this your responsibility.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal, panting, caught her breath. “I won’t, though,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Excuse me?” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I won’t accept responsibility for what you’ve done when we came to stop\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Stop me?” Hannah said. A retching shudder came out of Sifuentes’s throat\n that Menchú realized was laughter. “Child. Your every action for months has\n been in my service. Why do you think I have spared you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your service?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have all played your roles well,” Hannah said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is this about magic flowing into the world?” Menchú said. “Are you trying\n to hasten it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “My boy,” Hannah said, “to begin with, you have it backward. More magic is\n not flowing into the world. The world is moving into magic. To use an\n analogy you might understand: The tide is not rising. The land is sinking.\n The flaws in the world are starting to show.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You mean from when it was made?” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah ignored him. “Pressure needs to be released in some places. For\n many, many years, our goal was suppression. For which I cannot thank the\n Vatican and the Society enough. I have been watching its work for a long\n time, with great satisfaction. I have helped, in my way, when necessary, to\n make sure the right people are involved. And Father Menchú, you have\n exceeded my expectations for you on every count. Until now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because now you’re letting magic in,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There is no alternative. There is too much pressure from above on this\n world, this universe. Too much pressure from below. It used to be enough to\n keep the magic out, but now it’s a question of releasing stress. Of\n controlled bursts, to prevent explosions. Do you understand?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The hydra,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Was a test. The magic needed to be let in, just enough to keep the borders\n stable between this place and the next. I was counting on you to help me\n contain it, and you did.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We are not your puppets,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, child,” Hannah said, through Sifuentes’s ragged throat. He coughed\n again, couldn’t stop for a minute. His face contorted, just like the boy’s\n had in Flores. “I have been trying to do the right thing,” Hannah said. “I\n have been trying to save this world, because I believe that the world is\n worth saving as it is. We put too much effort into building it to let it go\n now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There,” Sal said. “You said it again—you built the world. What do you\n mean?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah smiled again. “Where did you think all this came from?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Everything. Sun. Sky. Earth. Forms distinct from other forms. Time, this\n beautiful odd arrangement where after always follows before. We made all\n that: a project. An experiment. Because it intrigued us to try. And it’s\n falling apart, now, while responsible parties dither on the correct course\n of action. Under pressure. I keep trying to save it, because someone around\n here should do her job.” Blood leaked through her teeth. “No matter how\n unpleasant. And now it gets worse.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What are you talking about?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sifuentes doesn’t have time to explain.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why tell us all this now?” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Because,” Hannah said, “I have to change my plan. Since you’re no longer\n cooperating.” Sifuentes gave another long, hacking cough.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eThat’s it\u003c/em\u003e, Menchú thought. \u003cem\u003eI’ve had it with this.\u003c/em\u003e He dropped to his knees,\n bowed over the dying man, and brought his face in close to look into\n Hannah’s eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Listen to me,” he said, “and listen well. You have talked so much about\n your plan, about the greater good you think you’re doing. You have talked\n about saving the world. But here, in the world, all I see from you is\n devastation. Chaos. A slaughter. You have hurt and killed so many people I\n might say that I’ve lost count, but the truth is that I haven’t. I remember\n every single person that you maimed and destroyed in my sight. I remember\n the looks on their faces, their surprise, their terror. I remember how\n their eyes begged for mercy before they became yours, and how broken they\n were when you left.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He put his hand on Sifuentes’s chest.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This man,” he said, “this smart, inquisitive, and compassionate man, his\n death is your fault. You, and no one else, have murdered him. And if he’s\n just part of the cost of saving the world to you, then I say that the cost\n is too high. I say let the world change, and let us deal with what’s\n coming, one person at a time. Let us see if we can save ourselves. Though I\n know you’ll never do that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sifuentes’s body gave out a rattling breath. His eyes were still Hannah’s.\n His parched lips parted, and he showed his teeth. He was trying to smile.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You’re right,” Hannah said. “I won’t.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And as Menchú watched, Sifuentes’s eyes darkened, from Hannah’s pale gray\n to his own deep brown. The expression on his face changed, from Hannah’s\n serene superiority to a twisting mix of pain and fright. The look of a man\n who knew he was about to die.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m sorry,” Sifuentes said. “I tried to fight her.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We all did,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Pray for me,” Sifuentes said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And Menchú did, as the professor took his last gasping breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú knew Cardinal Fox wouldn’t be happy to learn where he and Sal had\n gone, or about Perry’s involvement, and he was right. Fox first lectured\n him over the phone in Flores, saying that he had been foolish to go on a\n mission in an unofficial capacity. He accused Menchú of doing so just to\n avoid the thirty-six-hour clock. Though even the cardinal understood that\n thirty-six hours wasn’t enough time to get to La Lágrima unobtrusively. And\n in time, Fox also agreed that they couldn’t just leave the archaeological\n crew dead in the jungle. It wasn’t humane. Everyone had been trying to do\n the right thing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do you think you stopped this demon?” Fox said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had a small debate with himself, decided that the truth was best.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” he said. “Not yet.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Even the cover-up story required only a small lie: that Sifuentes had not\n met them at the trailhead north of Flores, but given them instructions on\n how to get through the jungle themselves, including a stop at the camp\n they’d set up. So in the official telling, Menchú, Sal, and Perry had come\n upon the crew at La Lágrima already slaughtered. No one alive to tell them\n what happened. It was an international incident, requiring Sansone from\n Team Two to work with both Mexican and Guatemalan authorities in delivering\n the Vatican’s official positions on what had happened and why it had been\n Menchú who found the crew. Sansone landed on the idea that the Vatican, in\n this case, had simply been lending a hand in an academic’s scholarly\n research, never imagining that anything so horrible could happen. There was\n no reason for the authorities on either side of the border to doubt the\n narrative. Meanwhile, police in Guatemala questioned Menchú, Sal, and\n Perry, who corroborated the official story. They only needed to be careful\n not to mention that Sifuentes had met them where he had, and that they’d\n spent a day and a half in the jungle together. That was easy enough to do.\n There was a half day of quiet tension, of Menchú holding his breath, while\n the policeman who interviewed them sought for and found the driver who had\n taken them to the end of the road in the first place to make sure their\n story checked out. But it turned out that the driver agreed with their\n version of the story. Menchú suspected that maybe Sansone had bribed the\n driver, but this turned out not to be the case. According to the detective,\n the driver hadn’t been paying much attention at all. It was dawn; the\n driver was sleepy at the time; and he had given so many people so many\n rides that he was foggy on the details, beyond remembering that he’d given\n a priest a ride to the edge of the jungle a couple days ago. The detective\n chuckled a little when he told Menchú that.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s like the beginning of a bad joke,” the detective said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Yes,” Menchú said, forcing himself to smile. “It happens to me a lot. I am\n often the beginning of a bad joke.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003cem\u003eHa, ha\u003c/em\u003e, he thought to himself. \u003cem\u003eHa, ha.\u003c/em\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The story made the papers in Guatemala and Mexico. The official line was\n that the prime suspects were drug runners. Perhaps gangs had been using the\n site as a stop to move drugs north toward the United States. Maybe a\n shipment had been passing through when the crew happened to be there. In\n any case, the authorities said, the crew had seen something they shouldn’t\n have, and paid for it. A few journalists and public commentators cried\n foul. It didn’t look quite like the normal gang violence, which usually\n left bodies only to send a message, and tended to dig mass graves\n otherwise. What kind of message would a gang be sending by killing a bunch\n of academics? The public conversation about it generated heat but no light.\n The authorities vowed to investigate further. And two days later, Menchú,\n Sal, and Perry were free to go.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They had not spoken much since the jungle. There had been too much to do,\n and Hannah’s last words, her explanation—if it had been an explanation, and\n not just another lie—felt too big to address. The silence swelled between\n them, like a blister after a burn. Sal tried, on the hotel balcony the\n night before she left, where she found Menchú at prayer with a small glass\n of rum. “Father, if it’s true what she said, about the world sinking . . .”\n There was no second half of the sentence.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It changes nothing. Before, we saved people. We will save people now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But if the angels made\u003cem\u003e \u003c/em\u003eeverything . . .” She trailed off again,\n and he understood why, or thought he did. The consequences seemed too vast\n to comprehend—yet what did they mean for her life? For his?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What does it change?” Menchú asked. “If she is not lying, she still didn’t\n make the world. Only the part where we live. She calls herself an angel to\n confuse us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t know, Father.” Sal stared off into the hot, dark night. “The way\n she talked sounded a lot like Genesis, didn’t it? The world without form\n and void. Dividing dark from light, day from night. Land from sea. Before\n from after. What if we’re just an abandoned science project?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’re not abandoned.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I know you believe that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s not belief,” he said. “It’s faith. It’s a way of being: sheltered,\n grateful, humbled, and always striving.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Toward what? If she’s right—if we’re really abandoned, then what is the\n point?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Faith and work are how we make purpose. How we fulfill purpose.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I hear you,” she said, but he could tell she was still unsure. She did sit\n beside him, though, at the table, in the dark, while the moon rose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú saw Sal and Perry off at the airport in Guatemala City, then took\n his bag and headed outside, out of the new part of the terminal, through\n the older part, and into the scrum of shouting cab drivers and relatives\n holding signs at the airport’s exit. He waved down a friendly-looking man\n in a baseball cap and a plaid shirt, who drove Menchú to a corner a half\n mile away where the local buses—old school buses from the United States\n painted in bright colors and fixed with racks on the roof—were heading into\n the highlands. He boarded early, waited as the bus filled with women, men,\n children, while the \u003cem\u003eayudantes\u003c/em\u003e hauled their luggage and packages to\n the roof and tied them down with ropes and bungee cords.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The bus growled to life in a cloud of diesel fumes and headed out of the\n city, past apartment buildings, offices, and movie theaters, none of which\n had been there when Menchú was a kid. As the bus got out of the suburbs,\n headed up the highway, and gained altitude, though, the landscape changed.\n There were the mountains Menchú remembered, the dormant volcanoes. The\n farms laid out on the floors and steep walls of the valleys. Half the\n people who had started out on the bus with Menchú got off, other passengers\n had gotten on. Now there were no more factories by the side of the highway,\n no more industry at all. At a crossroads, young men jumped aboard the bus\n and tried to sell snacks—nuts, dried fruit, candy—as fast as possible\n before the bus took off again. The \u003cem\u003eayudantes \u003c/em\u003ehanded down luggage\n from the roof, hauled more luggage up; they were still standing on the roof\n when the bus headed up the highway again, climbed down a ladder bolted to\n the back as the bus gained speed, and swung in through the emergency exit,\n the buzzer for which they’d disabled long ago. The speakers above Menchú’s\n head blared out ranchera music. A group of women got on the bus wearing\n clothes woven in bright, dizzying patterns. Menchú looked and remembered.\n He knew from their clothes what town the women came from. Who was married\n and who was not. Then, at last, there was that smell in the air. Earthy.\n Like straw and dirt, rich and tangy. Menchú realized he hadn’t smelled it\n since he left, but had never forgotten it. It opened a door in his memories\n he’d kept closed. It felt like he was recalling everything and everyone,\n all of his childhood spent in these highlands. An old woman in a mud-brick\n house playing marimba music on a battery-powered radio, nodding along by\n the light of a single candle. The taste of chicken in \u003cem\u003epepián\u003c/em\u003e. The\n rain pounding on the tin roof of the school, drowning out the teacher’s\n voice. The images played in his mind, and he wept.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Now the landscape was completely familiar to him. He looked at the\n mountains on the opposite side of the valley from the highway and realized\n he could have traced their profile from memory if he wanted. He was very\n close to the town where he’d grown up, and remembered how to get back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He got off the bus where the highway intersected with a road he remembered\n as being dirt, paved near the highway with a thin layer of flattened\n garbage. But the road was paved for real now. He began walking until a\n pickup truck laden with passengers, but with room for him, beeped, and he\n handed the driver a coin and climbed into the back. There were electric\n lines running along the side of the road now. He knew where to get out\n again, five minutes later. But he almost didn’t recognize the place where\n he’d arrived.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n All the houses were different. Newer. Not a single one made of mud brick.\n All were cinder block and plaster now. All the streets were paved. And the\n town was alive, more full of people than it had been when he had lived\n there. He walked through the streets to the central plaza, where the\n massacre had happened. It was still there, still the same cobblestones,\n though much cleaner. Where Menchú had stood when Hannah slit her own\n throat, a man in a T-shirt stood now, talking on a cell phone. In front of\n the church, a man was selling tamales from a cart. A row of trucks was\n waiting to take people deeper into the countryside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n People had come back after the massacre, after the war, Menchú realized. He\n didn’t know any of them. But they had brought his town back to life. They\n had made it better.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Yet there was the church, just as it had always been. Parts of it had been\n repaired, other parts were heading toward dilapidation, but it was standing\n as straight as ever. The doors were open, and he went inside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He had remembered, in an abstract way, what Catholic churches in the\n Guatemalan highlands could be like, but being back, the details assailed\n him as if he’d never seen anything like it before. For even if the Spanish\n had subjugated the Maya, they knew they had to let the Mayan beliefs into\n the Church. So Christian and Mayan iconography mixed on the walls, on the\n altar at the head of the church. So there was a second altar in the middle\n of the church, and while the official altar was cold and empty, the altar\n in the middle was filled with flowers and burning candles, and a few people\n were kneeling before it and praying in their native language. And Menchú\n could feel a stirring in him, something new being born. He didn’t know what\n it was. But he understood that it was what he’d come for. A sense of\n freedom. A sense of how enormous the world had become to him. His own faith\n could grow to match it. Grow far beyond what he’d been taught in his\n training for the priesthood. Grow larger than the machinations of the\n Vatican that he’d been caught up in for so long. There was something much\n bigger out there. And Menchú wanted to find it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father,” a voice said. It was an old woman in clothes of brilliant colors,\n from her head wrap to her dazzling dress. “Are you new to this church?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Menchú said. “I grew up here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The old woman grinned. “Welcome back,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nMany years ago, Father Menchú fled Guatemala after his village was destroyed by a magical being. Only recently, he’s again encountered this old enemy, now calling itself Hannah. Sal’s brother Perry reappeared, now half human, half angel. He tried to get Team Three to trust him, but his progress has been slow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCardinal Fox\u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Brian Francis Slattery\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.150","slug":"Bookburners-s3e09","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E09.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E9.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E9.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E9.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 9"},{"id":"595faa0448e97e0001b644bf","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":10,"title":"Into the Woods","released_date":"2017-09-20T11:49:35.826+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"A walk in the woods.","byline":"Andrea Phillips","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E10_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-09-20","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The picnic was supposed to bring them closer together. It was an earnest\n effort at bonding and creating family togetherness. Stepfamily\n togetherness, anyway. But Silvester had to run into the office to fix some\n urgent email problem at the last minute, and left Magdalena on her own with\n his kids.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The afternoon had been a never-ending squabble: Hugo pulled Gudrun’s hair,\n she pinched him, he took the charger for her tablet, she took his\n headphones, and by the way it was \u003cem\u003eher\u003c/em\u003e turn to play music now and\n Hugo’s ears were ugly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Magdalena loved her husband, and so she must love his children. She\n kept telling herself that. “If you keep arguing like this,” she threatened,\n “I won’t let you have any lunch.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Your lunch is terrible anyway,” Gudrun shot back. She tossed her braids\n over her shoulders. “Nobody should have to eat that kind of garbage.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Magdalena regarded the picnic lunch, which consisted of a stack of\n inoffensive sandwiches and some perfectly acceptable salad greens with a\n mild vinaigrette. “You can’t talk to me like that!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was Hugo’s turn. “Don’t you be mean to my sister,” he said, and never\n mind that he’d been the one tormenting his sister until that very moment.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You stay out of it,” snapped Magdalena.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The children both screamed. Magdalena looked around nervously. “Shh, you’re\n bothering people,” she hissed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t care,” Gudrun cried. “I hate you and I hate my father and I wish\n you would just \u003cem\u003edie\u003c/em\u003e.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Magdalena was, all things considered, very calm about this. “I’m taking\n away your screens,” she said. She reached toward Gudrun’s tablet, but the\n girl kicked at her and curled around her precious electronic companion.\n Magdalena tugged at the corner and pulled it out of Gudrun’s hand.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hugo pummeled Magdalena in the back of the head with his tiny fists. “Why\n you little—” she started. She reared up and turned toward them with venom\n in her eyes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The children shrieked and fled from her, toward the thick bushes at the\n fringe of the woods. “Go on and run!” Magdalena shouted. “Try to hide! If\n you know what’s good for you, you’ll never come back, either!” They didn’t\n answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She collapsed onto the grass, overcome. No sense in chasing them; they’d\n just run farther away. And anyway, soon enough they’d be hungry. They’d be\n back.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun and Hugo crept into the woods, hand in hand, all prior animosity\n forgiven and forgotten, as is the way of children. “Do you think she’s\n still mad?” Gudrun asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s always mad,” Hugo answered. His lips twisted up. “I wish we had\n something to eat with us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun turned out her pockets, but all she found was the wrapper for a\n sweet she’d snuck earlier in the day. “Maybe we can find something in the\n forest,” she said. “Berries, or . . .” She forged a path through the\n underbrush. Hugo trailed along behind her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n As they went deeper among the trees, a warm aroma settled upon them,\n inviting them to go farther still. “Do you smell that?” Gudrun asked, her\n eyes bright.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hugo raised his chin and sniffed, then sighed with pleasure. “It’s like\n honey cookies. Or ginger? Or—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m finding out what it is.” Gudrun plunged between the trees, and Hugo\n followed suit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They emerged onto a narrow trail meandering its lazy way through the trees.\n A sign read: \u003cem\u003eHugo and Gudrun, Go This Way\u003c/em\u003e. The children looked at\n each other, wide-eyed, and followed the trail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The forest grew brighter around them as they walked. Gudrun snapped a twig\n off a tree and stared at it. It was translucent like glass, and sticky in\n her hands, like sugar. She stuck her tongue out and tentatively touched the\n twig to it. It was sweet, like the caramel glass her \u003cem\u003ereal\u003c/em\u003e mother\n had made when she was small. Gudrun laughed out loud. “The plants are made\n of candy,” she said. “Try it!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hugo plucked a small white mushroom from the side of the path. It was\n spongy and dry to the touch. He popped it into his mouth and then lit up\n like a beacon. “Marshmallow,” he mumbled around the sticky blob.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They followed the trail, sampling leaves of marzipan and chocolate bark as\n they went. There was a cottage up ahead, not too far away. It was a pretty\n thing, with lollipop flowers planted all around its walls. But the house\n itself, though painted bright colors, was ordinary enough. Not anything so\n ridiculous as gingerbread. A warm glow shone out of the windows, speaking\n volumes about baking and family and love.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun stared at it with trepidation. A memory struggled to catch her\n attention. A story. A warning. Something about being lost in the woods,\n about candy, about cottages. “Do you think . . .” she started.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hugo, younger and much less fearful, marched up and tapped on the door.\n “Hello?” he called. “Is there anybody in there?” He tried the latch. “It’s\n locked,” he announced. He knocked again. “Anyone home?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nGudrun tipped her head. “Do you hear that?” she asked. She could \u003cem\u003ealmost\u003c/em\u003e hear a song in a language she didn’t speak. But she heard\n it with her bones, not her ears. It was a promise of sweets and games and\n all the joyful things of childhood.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s coming from the ground over here,” her brother said. “Look.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Beside the walkway leading to the cottage, a piece of pale stone jutted\n from the ground. It was carved into the shape of a pair of delicate,\n rounded feet. Rain and wind had begun to dig the stone out of the earth,\n but hadn’t yet finished the job.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun pulled at the little feet, but the thing wouldn’t budge. It might as\n well have been held down by an anchor. “Help me get it out,” she said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hugo found a stick and dug at the ground with it. Gudrun pulled at the\n earth Hugo had loosened with her bare hands. It was soft and loamy, and\n came away in satisfying clods.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The stone was, much like an iceberg, far bigger than they had imagined from\n seeing just the tip. Those tiny feet ballooned into broad legs, which\n ballooned further into a round derriere.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last they revealed a fat figurine of a woman, slightly bigger than\n Gudrun’s hand, with no clothes and no face. “What is it?” she asked. “A\n doll?” She brushed the last of the dirt from the figure’s enormous belly\n and pulled it out of its hole. It was very heavy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door to the cottage opened.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The Orb flared, so bright it left spots in front of Menchú’s eyes. He\n blinked away his bedazzlement. Asanti swept toward the device to get the\n news. “Germany,” she said. Her brow furrowed. “Wait, this is . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti looked over her shoulder to where Sal and Liam were poised watching,\n like puppies ready to dive toward a dropped scrap of food. “I need to speak\n to you privately,” she told Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He nodded, slowly. Sal and Liam busied themselves trying to put up the\n appearance of not paying attention, but he could feel their eyes on his\n back every step of the short walk to his office.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti closed the door behind them. She turned toward Menchú and smiled\n apologetically. Before she could speak, Menchú asked, “It’s an exclusion\n zone, isn’t it?” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. He hadn’t been to\n such a zone in some ten years, now, and had quietly hoped he’d never have\n to go to one again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When everything went right, the Society captured and segregated magic when\n it could, and obliterated magic when it couldn’t. But the Society had not\n always won. There were times and places where magic could at best be\n contained, but never eliminated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti nodded. “I'm afraid so.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Do we know what’s being contained in there?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not sure.” Asanti spread her hands wide. “There was a fire at some\n point that took out a three-year stretch of records on the Society’s\n activities, including what happened there. All I have left are fragments\n culled from later entries. Something about . . . women leading people into\n temptation? Hungry children? Though I’ll be honest, it’s hard to\n distinguish any of that from the baseline Church writings of the period.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú leaned back against the edge of his desk. “I wonder why it would be\n disturbed now.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti sighed. “That’s not as much of a surprise as I wish it was,” she\n said. “I’ve been expecting this for a few years now. Team Two has had a\n hard time keeping people away over the last ten years, as the local\n population has grown and new construction gets closer and closer to the\n exclusion area. They’ve got a cover story about a protected species, I\n think. But sooner or later somebody was going to stumble in.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded grimly. Easy enough to keep it a secret when magic had taken\n over a patch of desert a hundred miles from the nearest scrap of habitable\n land, or a remote fishing village clinging to a stony coast, unknown to\n anyone who didn’t live there to begin with. But some bubbles of magic had\n never been far from civilization to begin with. And civilization was always\n growing.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti pulled a pair of spectacles from her pocket and pressed them into\n Menchú’s palm. The lenses were round, thicker at the edges than the center,\n and made of crystal streaked with pink and green. The frame was brass and\nelaborately hinged. They wouldn’t have looked out of place on the set of \u003cem\u003eThe Wizard of Oz\u003c/em\u003e. “Here, take these. They can help you see what’s\n real and what’s been affected by magic, so you can find your way past the\n barrier the Society placed there,” she said. “Or that’s what the records\n say.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’ll get the team ready,” Menchú said. “Thank you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti placed a hand on his forearm. “Wait. Can you leave some of the team\n behind?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti hesitated. “I think we should keep some of the team in reserve here,\n so we can react immediately in case Hannah strikes again. This silence from\n her doesn’t seem like it can last. Certainly not after everything that\n happened in Guatemala.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú felt a brief pang of guilt. He had held back some of the truth of\n Guatemala—Hannah’s curses, her revelations about the angelic design. The\n universe as a project, as a work of art. He had left that part out of his\n report. They had no proof, no confirmation; only Hannah’s word that the\n world was sinking, and that she was murdering people to seal the cracks.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The omission was another small betrayal, to add to all he’d committed\n already.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “And I’m confident this thing in Germany isn’t going to be too difficult\n for you to handle, if it’s been contained before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s a good point.” Menchú mulled it over. “I’ll take Sal with me,” he\n said. “And then if something happens, you’ll have Grace and Liam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you,” Asanti said. She looked more relieved than she strictly should\n have.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú paused on the way out, struck by a new thought. “Why did you have\n these in your pocket?” He lifted the spectacles.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti shrugged. “I was studying them,” she said. “It’s possible we can use\n them to give us a better way to identify Hannah than looking deep into\n someone’s eyes and guessing.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Ah,” Menchú said. “I’ll let you know how things go in Germany, then.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti nodded. “I’d appreciate that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When Sal and Menchú arrived at the German national park, all the hiking\n trails had been closed off with red-and-white police tape, and uniformed\n guards with radios patrolled to make sure nobody could sneak into the woods\n undetected. “So much for not attracting any notice,” Sal said under her\n breath.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They’re looking for someone,” Menchú observed. “See the maps? The grid\n where they’re marking off areas?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You think it’s related?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú looked at her sidelong. “Do you think it isn’t?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal sighed. “Of course it is. It always is.” She made her way to the center\n of the whirlwind and approached the person who appeared to be in charge, a\n gray-haired, dainty woman with the bearing of a panzer. “Excuse me,” Sal\n said, flashing her badge and hoping English would get her though. “I’m\n Detective Sal Brooks. This is Father Menchú. We need access to this area\n for—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman’s eyes narrowed, ever so slightly. “What are you doing here?” Her\n English was precise and British.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal smiled. It was the smile that told colleagues she was a professional,\n and she understood how hard the job could be, but that she could make it\n better. “We’re here to help.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The woman sized them up. “I’m Police Councillor Ruhrpollen. And right now,\n we’ll take all the help we can get.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded toward the table of maps. “Who are you looking for?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The stepmother of the missing children was red-eyed and unkempt, clutching\n an untasted cup of coffee at a picnic table removed a ways from the bustle\n of police operations. “I promise you I didn’t do it on purpose,” she said.\n “I would never hurt those children, not even if—I mean I lose my temper as\n much as anyone, but—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The father, Silvester, was a bear of a man with a close-shaved head and a\n jovial face at odds with his current haggard extreme. “Nobody is accusing\n you, Magdalena.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Not yet,” Magdalena said. “But I know everyone is thinking that I’m the\n wicked stepmother, and I—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú cleared his throat and deployed his German, rough but passable. “I’m\n sure you didn’t mean any harm,” he said. “But can you tell me exactly what\n happened?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “The children were being horrible, and when I tried to stop them, they ran\n away into the woods,” Magdalena said. “That’s all. They never came back,\n and I couldn’t find them.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú quietly translated for Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Councillor Ruhrpollen shook her head. “We have no reason to disbelieve\n you.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do the children look like?” Menchú asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Magdalena pulled a phone out of her bag and showed them pictures of a pair\n of cherub-cheeked, curly-topped children. “Here are Hugo and Gudrun,” she\n said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Were they acting strangely before they ran off?” Sal asked. “Were they\n being unusually imaginative, or talking to people who weren’t there? Were\n they quieter, or . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú passed the question on to Magdalena. Her face twisted up. “They were\n being awful to me,” she said. “But I can’t say that’s unusual.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Her husband cleared his throat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú nodded. “Nothing else?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Magdalena said. “Not that I can think of.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They walked away from the parents again and switched back to English.\n “We’re going to need to go into the woods ourselves,” Menchú told the\n councillor. “We have some experimental equipment that might help us find\n the children quickly.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Councillor Ruhrpollen measured him again, and Sal. “We lose a surprising\n number of children in these woods, for such a small park,” she said very\n quietly. “At least one or two every decade. None of them have ever been\n found again.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú bowed his head and answered the question the councillor couldn’t\n bring herself to ask. “There must be rumors about these woods,” he said.\n “I’m sure there are rumors about people like us, as well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The councillor nodded again, slowly. “I’ll walk you over myself,” she said.\n “I’d call ahead for you, but we’ve been having trouble with our radios all\n day.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I bet you have,” Sal said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti drew her palm along the cover of a dark-bound book, so casually that\n Liam’s guard was instantly up. Asanti was many things. None of them was\n very interested in idle office chitchat. “Liam,” she said, in a tone that\n might have been offhanded for anyone else, “if something urgent were to\n come up while Father Menchú is away with Sal, do you know how to get to\n Grace to wake her up?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam drew back. “What? I can’t go into the dormitory at a convent,” he\n said. “There are rules. The nuns would slaughter me!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “They don’t harm Father Menchú when he does it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s different. And he only goes when we need her. Maybe they’d skin\n him, too, if he just popped in for a social call.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That’s what I’m asking,” said Asanti, drily. “If it came to that . . . if\n something were to happen and the two of you needed to go on a mission\n before the others get back, and I couldn’t do it . . . do you know where to\n go and what to do?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam shuffled his feet. “I guess so. Why are you even asking? Why wouldn’t\n you do it?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti picked up that dark leather volume and leafed through the pages. “I\n just needed some reassurance,” she said. Above her head, the\n thirty-six-hour clock was counting steadily downward. “It’s only nerves. If\n something were to happen, I need to know that we could count on you to\n handle everything.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam looked over at the Orb, now as quiet as it ever was. “What’s got you\n so spooked? Is it that business with Father Menchú’s angel?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I suppose it is,” Asanti said. She put the book down again, giving up her\n pretense of interest in it. “Every angel is terrifying.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The national park was exquisitely manicured, with well-designed walkways,\n picnic areas, and hiking trails. That sense of habitation continued into\n the woods, which seemed less like a wilderness and more like something\n meticulously planned by a committee. Sal and Menchú hiked to the farthest\n reach of the gravel-paved paths, where a lone drinking fountain held vigil\n between the parts of the park meant for public use and those decidedly not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A sign was posted. Apart from such pivotal vocabulary as \u003cem\u003eschnitzel\u003c/em\u003e\n and \u003cem\u003eOktoberfest\u003c/em\u003e, Sal’s German was nonexistent. But from reading\n the pictograms, she deduced that they were forbidden to go any farther\n because of a scrubby-looking brown bird.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “This is about where we should find the entrance,” Menchú said. “There’s a\n seal in place so regular people just go around the exclusion zone without\n realizing they’re not going in a straight line. But we’ll need to get\n inside.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He put on the spectacles Asanti had given him, cartoonish and out of place\n on his serious face. He winced almost at once. “This is awful. And . . . I\n see the problem.” He pulled them off and gave them to Sal. “Give it a try.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal settled them on her nose. They were pinchy, and the world through them\n looked . . . off. Closed-in and far away. Insubstantial. Headachey. And\n then she saw the boundary, like an almost-mirror a dozen feet away. “How do\n we get past that? Do we just . . . go through it? Walk along the edge until\n we find a hole?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “There’s a fold,” Perry said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal jumped and looked around for her brother. He was leaning against a\n tree, hands in his pockets, digging a heel into the dirt. With the\n spectacles on, Sal could see an aura around him, something sparkling and\n strange. Sal pulled the lenses off. “What are you doing here?” she asked.\n She looked at Menchú. “I don’t call him. I swear. He just keeps showing\n up.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry held a hand to his heart. “I’m hurt. Don’t you want me around? I\n helped last time.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stared him down. “You nearly got us stuck in the demon world.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “To be fair, that was Hannah’s fault. And we got out eventually. So we’re\n fine, right?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I do not think ‘fine’ is the right word,” Menchu said. “And Hannah is not\n around now.” He stopped. “Is she?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry shook his head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You are not a part of the Society. You should not be here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Aren’t I part of the Society?” Perry shrugged. “As I see it, we share a\n lot of common interests. We’re colleagues. We can be collegial.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What do you want, Perry?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Can’t I just want to give my big sister a hand?” His eyes were round and\n pleading. “Last time was a bit of a mess. Let me make up for it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal paced away from him, one hand to her temple. They’d had this fight\n before. Sometimes she wondered if they’d ever stop having this fight. But\n he did want to help, and he hadn’t actively sabotaged them yet. If what\n Hannah had said was true, about the world sinking—she couldn’t think about\n the other thing, her claim that she’d made the world, not directly—but if\n it was true, he could be an asset. If he wasn’t just setting them up for a\n bigger fall. “Fine,” she said at last.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry took the spectacles from her hand and placed them on her nose again.\n “Look for the fold,” he said. “It’s pretty neat.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal turned back to the woods. She turned her head, looking at the boundary\n with the edges of her eyes. “What fold?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “It’s wherever you want to get in,” Perry said. He used the same\n condescending tone he’d always used as kids when he had cleaned his room\n faster than she’d cleaned hers, or knew she’d been sneaking cookies and had\n leverage over her. “You just have to look hard enough.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal waded through the leaf litter to get closer. The boundary shifted and\n swelled as she approached, like a balloon squeezed between someone’s\n fingers. She held up a fingertip to touch its surface, then thought better\n of it. She took two steps to the side, then back, watching the\n almost-mirror stretch. She turned her head to say something to Menchú. Out\n of the corner of her eye she saw a hole appear. It was gone again when she\n turned back to look directly. Huh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Father?” She waved Menchú over. “I want to try something. Do exactly what\n I do: look straight and walk sideways.” She turned until she faced directly\n parallel to the barrier and then stepped toward it—to the left, to the left\n again, keeping her gaze straight ahead. She passed through and into a\n different place entirely.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The forest inside the barrier was not manicured or colonized. Loggers and\n pavers had never touched this place. Trees arched overhead, some as thick\n around as a small car, their leaves blocking out the sky. An indistinct\n gray light trickled through, barely enough to see that the soil beneath\n their feet was littered with gnawed-up bones. The trees were old growth,\n the forest floor eerily clear of underbrush—not enough sun reached down\n here for bushes to grow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú emerged from nowhere, stepping sideways with Perry following after.\n “How could the children have come through that?” Sal asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry crouched down and tasted the soil, then frowned. “Wow, that’s pretty\n impressive. She’s corroded the seal, like acid eating away at the inside of\n a bathtub,” he said. “It’s weak enough that she can pierce through to\n snatch something she wants once in a while.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A kid or two, once a decade.” Sal stuck the spectacles back in her pocket.\n Looking at Sparkle Perry while wearing them made her too light-headed.\n “What ‘she’ do you mean, exactly?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry ducked his head. “Oh, you know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I don’t, actually.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t read minds like you do,” Menchú said, somewhere between\n apologetic and sarcastic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal snorted. “Oh, he can’t read minds, either, Father. Don’t let him fool\n you.” Sal turned away from Menchú and surveyed the dark stretch of trees.\n She forged ahead a few yards, down the dotted line of a rabbit track. “So\n Perry, if you have special inside information for us, I’d love to hear it.”\n She circled a tree, turning back toward her companions.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They were gone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun’s cheek rested against the bars of her cage. It was something like a\n birdcage made of wicker, or perhaps bones, she couldn’t be sure. Her\n brother was in a matching cage, sobbing quietly to himself. She would put a\n comforting hand on his, if only she could reach. But he was too far away,\n and she didn’t dare speak to him where the witch could hear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They hung over a roaring pit of fire. From time to time showers of sparks\n would emerge from below, and each time Gudrun worried about what would\n happen if her cage caught fire. Or if she did.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The inside of the cottage was nothing like the outside. The outside had\n been sunshine and lollipops; gumdrops and playtime. Inside, it was dark.\n Scratchy, sharp-fingered shadows crept across every surface.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was someone in here with them: round of breast and belly, faceless\n and naked. Mud was smeared over her flesh and in her plaited hair. The\n witch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then she wasn’t the witch anymore; she was a sweet old lady with pink\n cheeks and a dirndl. She shoved a handful of sweets into Gudrun’s hands.\n “Eat, eat up, my dumplings,” she cooed. “You must grow nice and fat for\n me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gudrun stared at the candy in her hand. It looked as delicious as anything\n she’d ever seen: bright red and orange and white candies with a shell of\n chocolate, something like gumdrops dipped in frosting. She took a bite, but\n where before, in the forest, everything had tasted like the most delightful\n sweets she had ever dreamed of, now it was like eating twigs and mud.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She let the rest of the candy fall into the fire. A fresh eruption of\n sparks rose up when the falling candy struck . . . whatever was down there.\n Maybe, Gudrun thought, there were worse things waiting to eat her than the\n fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But oh, she was so hungry. The feeling pierced her and brought floods of\n saliva to her mouth. She thought she might die. She thought she might\n vomit.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The kind-looking old woman gave her another handful of sweets, and this\n time Gudrun gobbled them down. They still tasted like mud. But for a\n second, they chased away the hunger. She pressed her face against the bars,\n hopeless, and begged for more to eat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal wandered the woods, calling out for Perry and Menchú. Her voice seemed\n small here, buried under a blanket of leaves and branches. She wished\n desperately that someone else were here with her, lost in the spooky forest\n where the leaves whispered ancient secrets and the trees wept blood-red\n sap.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Stupid forest. Stupid angels.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wished Grace were here. She could deal with anything, with Grace beside\n her. There was nothing in a forest so scary that Grace couldn’t punch it\n into submission. She thought about Grace’s hand, warm in her own.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In a pinch, she’d even take Liam. Not that there was anything to be hacked\n here, but it would be worlds better than being all alone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal shivered. Had it grown colder and darker, or was that just a side\n effect of her disposition? At any rate, she was definitely going to have to\n brain her way out of this. Not like she had a trail of breadcrumbs to\n follow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The problem was that she didn’t really know enough about the situation to\n handle it, not yet. She turned in a circle. So far all she really knew was\n that a pair of children had been lost in the woods. Something-something\n temptation and hunger. And Perry’s unexplained “she.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal dropped into a crouch and tasted the soil, wondering why Perry had done\n it. It was sweet and spongy, like a brownie. She spat it out again on the\n general theory that you shouldn’t let magic into your bloodstream.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Woods. Candy. Lost children. What did that all make her think of? The\n pieces slid together: a fairy tale. There were no breadcrumbs here, but\n there might be another kind of trail. She spotted the evidence almost as\n soon as she had the thought. There was a narrow deer track running through\n the trees, littered with shredded bits of leaves and twigs. She picked up a\n dropped mushroom bearing the clear and unmistakable imprint of human teeth.\n Small ones.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Time to get to work. There was, after all, a pair of children missing. Even\n if Sal couldn’t find Perry and Father Menchú, at least she still had a shot\n of doing the job.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was a roller-bag suitcase at the top of the stairs to the Black\n Archives. Liam thought, at first, that his team had come home again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n In his rush, Liam practically fell down the wrought-iron stairs and into\n the Archives, sounding for all the world like someone had dropped a bag of\n hammers. He always found it satisfying, like the army of captive demons\n below could be frightened away by something as simple as a gallumphing\n Irishman’s footsteps. “Sal?” he called. “Father Menchú?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He came across a curious scene: Asanti, hurriedly packing papers and books\n into her leather traveling case. “No, they’re not back yet,” she told him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He crossed his arms across his chest, lowered his chin. “Are you going\n somewhere, Asanti?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She stiffened, but didn’t look up. “I have to make a quick trip to London\n to gather some research materials,” she said. “It’s an opportunity I can’t\n pass up. I’m afraid you’ll have to keep watch here on your own for a few\n days.” She didn’t slow her pace. Piles of paper were tapped even and placed\n into a folder, then into the bag. She skimmed a stack of books, rejected\n four, took a fifth and placed it, too, into the bag.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Liam frowned. “You’re not supposed to be in the field,” he said. “What if\n Sal and Father Menchú need support?” He pointed at the clock over her desk.\n “They’ll be back soon enough. Can’t you just wait one day to—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I’m not going into the field,” Asanti told him. She clipped some papers\n together and stuffed them into her bag. “This is a research trip.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Researching in the field!”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti gave him a long, cold look. There had been ice ages warmer than that\n look. “I’m visiting a colleague in London,” she said. “It’s not a mission.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n He followed her up the twisting wrought-iron stairs. “But then I’ll be\n alone here. What if the Orb goes off again?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What if it does? I’m not allowed to go on missions anyway, so you’re no\n worse off without me.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But what if—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She turned back to him at the top of the steps. “You know how to wake Grace\n up,” she said. “If it comes to that, then that’s what you’ll do. Liam, it’s\n fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “But what will Father Menchú say when he gets back?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti’s face was closed off, her eyes distant. “He’ll say what he says,\n and it will be fine. I’m not under house arrest. Be brave, Liam.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The door closed in his face, then the echoes of it rolled back to him from\n the vast space below. Liam sat on the steps, surveying the entirety of the\n library from this vantage point. It wasn’t the first time he’d been all\n alone in the Black Archives, just him standing between the world and some\n thousands of demon-infested books. But it was the first time he felt like\n he was the only thing holding them in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t lose sight of each other,” said Perry. “Space here doesn’t work\n the way you expect.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I gathered,” Menchú muttered. Perry had trailed behind him as he’d circled\n the tree where Sal had vanished. Menchú went around the tree three times,\n clockwise and widdershins, and each time they had emerged into an entirely\n different part of the forest, or perhaps another forest entirely. Menchú\n had even placed stones to mark the way and never come across them again. “I\n wish I knew what Sal has gotten herself into.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry was a terrible outdoorsman. Menchú would have thought that angelic\n possession provided some skills or insight that would be more helpful; the\n ability to speak to the trees and rocks, maybe, or at least some idea of\n the right way to go. But Perry stumbled over every rock, snapped every\n branch, and was, if anything, more lost than Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The priest tried to shake off his annoyance and focus on the situation. He\n and Perry could try to search in an orderly fashion, but what did orderly\n even mean here? They could stay in one place waiting for Sal to come back.\n That was the best advice for anyone lost in the woods, to wait in one place\n for searchers. But what if Sal did the same? Or, more likely, what if she\n had found trouble and couldn’t return?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And if she could come back, wouldn’t she have just done so in the first\n place?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “She’s okay,” Perry mumbled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What? Sal? How do you know?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry shrugged. “I just know. She’s fine, even if she’s alone.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Is this special angel knowledge?” The words came out of Menchú’s mouth\n with more bitterness than he meant them to bear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Special brother knowledge.” Perry ducked his head and changed the subject.\n “This is one of the places where the Society couldn’t finish the job, isn’t\n it?” he asked. He examined the moss on a tree carefully, sniffed it, then\n scraped it with a fingernail.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hmm. Sal had said he wasn’t a mind reader, nor even halfway to omniscient.\n Menchú wondered what else he knew about angels that was wrong. Everything,\n probably. “How would you know that?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry flashed him a smile that would probably have been endearing, if\n Menchú were the target audience for a certain brand of learned\n helplessness. “We share some interests. I pay attention.” That again, with\n the interests.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nMenchú stopped in front of Perry to keep the young man— \u003cem\u003ethe angelic being, never forget that\u003c/em\u003e—from moving ahead. “What kind\n of interests are you getting at?” he asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry looked down at his shoes, as if screwing up his courage. “The thing\n is,” he began slowly, “I wanted to talk to you about some more things. The\n big picture.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You have terrible timing,” Menchú said. “What’s important right now is\n Sal, and those missing children. You know about the thing that lives here,\n don’t you?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry waved his hands vaguely. “Kind of. Something about women leading\n people into temptation, or hungry children, or some other typical Church\n nattering like that.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stepped toward him, sharply. That was . . . terribly familiar.\n “Where did you hear that?” he said. “Have you been speaking to Asanti?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry drooped. “Yeah,” he said. “Um. That’s what I wanted to talk to you\n about.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal knew before she arrived that there would be a cottage at the end of the\n trail. She had half expected gingerbread, given the setup. But when she\n finally found it, the little house was an ordinary squat thing with a\n thatched roof, its shutters hanging askew. Light flickered from within,\n throwing shadows on shadows.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was completely silent, as if it had slept for a hundred years while the\n dark wood grew around it. Like it was still sleeping.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She hung back for a moment, thinking through her options. She could\n continue to linger here in the creepy forest, with its catching branches\n and dark whispers, hoping the others would somehow come to the same place.\n On the other hand, there were children on the line. How could she wait\n around when kids were in danger?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But back on the first hand, how much help could she be to those kids if she\n stormed the cottage alone and got into trouble herself?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She thought through the same few terrible options over and over. There was\n one more choice: She should at least try to get a better idea of what was\n going on, without mounting a full-on assault. She would make better\n decisions with better information. Sal approached a window as slowly as she\n could, so as not to wake the house. Or anything else. She peered in through\n a crack where the shutter was loose. It was enough for a clear view of what\n waited inside the dwelling.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A pair of cages hung suspended over a roaring hearth. And inside them, a\n pair of children shoveling fists full of grubs and straw into their mouths.\n The little girl was alert, the boy less so. The shadows inside were\n constantly shifting.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A touch fell on her shoulder. Sal whirled, startled, and found herself\n facing a—what? A woman, full of breast and full of belly, round as if she’d\n been made from balls pressed together. Her face was blank, just as smooth\n and curved as the rest of her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well. This must be Mother Goose, then.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose raised her hand, and the world changed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal stood in a sunny glade before a charming little house; perhaps it could\n have been that same stone cottage if only it had been kept up, with flowers\n planted all around and brightly painted doors and shutters. The sky was\n blue. Birds sang. A pair of butterflies meandered by. The air smelled like\n something sweet baking.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And the faceless woman before Sal had changed, too. She was a full person\n now, with rosy cheeks and a head full of curly white hair. Her back was\n stooped a little, and her eyes had a kindly twinkle that reminded Sal of\n the librarian at her elementary school. She even wore the same kind of\n loose denim skirt and paisley blouse. When the woman spoke, it was without\n a hint of a German accent: “Well! Dear heart, you look famished. Won’t you\n come inside and have a bite to eat?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took Sal’s wrist to lead her into the little house, and Sal realized\n suddenly that she was hungry. Excruciatingly hungry. The delicious smell\n intensified. “Thank you,” Sal said. “That’s very thoughtful.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n How long had it been since she had entered the forest, anyway? The light\n had never changed, and of course her phone didn’t work here. Because it\n was—\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She pulled her hand away. “Stop it,” she said. “Stop. Let those kids go.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose turned and put a hand to her own chest. “My dear, what are you\n saying? Aren’t you hungry? Don’t you want something to—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And God help her, it was true; Sal was practically starving. But it was\n magic. This was magic. “I’m from the Society that put you in this prison.\n And we’ve learned a lot since then. So if you don’t let those kids go, I’m\n going to do a lot worse to you than this.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The beautiful day, the charming cottage, the sweet old lady all rippled,\n like the reflection on a pond when someone has skipped a stone across it.\n The woman’s mouth grew vast and full of teeth. “Just a bite,” she wheedled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s hand went for her service pistol. She fired at the monster once, then\n heard the distinctive whine of a ricochet, as if she’d fired at a stone\n wall. She clicked the safety on and used the pistol as a bludgeon, striking\n at the monster’s head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “That won’t do at all,” said Mother Goose in her sweet old lady voice.\n “Come inside. You must be so hungry.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The ground rumbled, as if something enormous were moving nearby. Sal spun\n to see the house rising up from its place, dirt showering from its\n underside. It wasn’t mere levitation. The house stood up on two legs,\n powerful and clawed like an enormous ostrich’s. It must have been thirty\n feet tall, in all, and loomed over the two of them like some ridiculous\n headless dinosaur.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The house tilted as if it were looking at Sal. Slowly it moved until the\n doorway hovered directly over her. She held her breath, forgetting about\n the witch, about the children, about anything but what it felt like in the\n moment before a house falls on you.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then the house swooped down and gobbled her up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry and Menchú traveled together in silence, punctuated by occasional\n outbursts from the angel: “So what happened was . . .” or “I want to be\n completely honest with you,” or, most mysteriously, “You can’t think Asanti\n is bad.” He trailed off every time, unable to conjure the words he needed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n For his part, the priest spoke little, but in his head the same few\n thoughts and feelings whirled around and around, a merry-go-round he wished\n he could stop. Perry and Asanti \u003cem\u003ehad\u003c/em\u003e been talking to one another.\n Which meant what, exactly? A terrible suspicion burned in Menchú’s heart,\n growing hotter with each minute Perry stalled.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Just get it out,” he said at last. “If it’s taking you this long to find\n the right words, there probably isn’t a better way to say it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry sighed a showy sigh. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. The thing\n is,” and here he paused again, so long that Menchú thought it was another\n false start, “I’m on Team Four. With Asanti.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú stopped short. “Team Four? Did the Cardinal authorize you to—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “No,” Perry said. At first he kept shuffling ahead, but slowed and stopped\n when it became clear Menchú was not following him. “We took it into our own\n hands.” He held out his empty hands by way of demonstration.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú felt he was suffocating under an avalanche of the terrible\n implications of this knowledge. “So you and Asanti have been, what, doing\n magic together? Who else is involved?” Then he growled the answer to his\n own question: “Frances.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry was the picture of misery. “Yes. It was important, we—”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n“For how long?” Menchú asked. What he meant was: \u003cem\u003eHow long have you been keeping this from me? \u003c/em\u003eHow long had Asanti\n been lying to his face? And after he had been so plagued with guilt for\n keeping Hannah’s existence from her, from his whole team.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A long time. Since a little after Dublin.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú leaned against a tree for strength. “Does Sal know?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry brightened, as if the worst was past. “No, nobody else has any idea.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Why?” Menchú asked. He meant \u003cem\u003ewhy would Asanti do this\u003c/em\u003e, but that\n was not the question Perry chose to answer.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti’s heading to London to look for Hannah,” Perry said. “She doesn’t\n know I’m here. She’ll probably be mad when she finds out. I’ve helped them\n to get ready for this fight as much as I can, but I don’t think the three\n of us can handle Hannah alone. Before Guatemala, I thought that, if we\n lost, there would be time to call for help, you and Sal might swing in to\n the rescue. But Hannah’s moving the timetable up. I don’t know what she’s\n trying yet, but it’ll be big. And if we fail, there won’t be a second\n chance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú held his temper in check, though there was no speaking for his blood\n pressure. “What is she planning?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Um. Hannah or Asanti?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Anyone.” Menchú’s voice was low and dangerous. He had never understood why\n Jacob might want to wrestle an angel, but he was getting a pretty good\n idea.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Uh, Asanti wants to—stop her? I guess? As for Hannah, we don’t . . . run\n with the same crowd. But it’s like I said. She wants to balance the\n project. Keep you from sinking. Only—” He squirmed under Menchú’s assessing\n gaze. But before Menchú could continue his interrogation, a sound came from\n the distance, through the trees. Rumble, creak. Shriek.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Sal!” Perry took off like a shot, hardly even dodging the grasping\n branches and biting twigs as he went. Menchú followed him as best he could,\n though it was slower and more effortful than it would have been in years\n past.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They followed the crashing noise they’d heard, arriving at a clearing in\n time to see a strange, enormous two-legged beast loping away from them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They gaped at the lumbering, impossible thing, Asanti and Team Four\n forgotten for the moment. “Is that a . . . walking house?” Menchú asked at\n last.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I think so,” Perry answered. “I think we’ve found what we’re looking for.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n They watched it crashing through the trees.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We can’t lose sight of it,” Menchú said. “Or we’ll lose track of it\n entirely, like we lost Sal before.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry nodded. “Good point. Let’s keep moving.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal woke slowly, brought back from sleep by a chorus of screaming\n discomforts. She was hot. Her muscles were knotted tight. There was\n something thin like ribs pressing into her spine. And she was hungry. Oh so\n very, very, very hungry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She opened her eyes and discovered that she had joined the children,\n swinging now in a cage of her own. It was hardly larger than a birdcage,\n just big enough for her to sit with her knees pushed into her chest and her\n elbows pinned to her sides.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The whole place was swaying, like a sailboat on the ocean. The cages swung\n gently from side to side.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The faceless figure of Mother Goose, no longer disguised as a kind old\n woman, shambled toward her, then poked her with a single bony finger.\n Hunger rolled through Sal at the touch.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal had been hungry before, of course. She was familiar with many of its\n flavors: the hangry of a missed lunch on a busy day, the twitching pang of\n going running before breakfast, the siren lust for a 2 a.m. slice of pizza\n after a late night out with her old friends.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The thing that consumed her now was another whole genus of hunger. She was\n dizzy, her stomach roiled and groaned, her limbs felt weak and heavy. Her\n fingers and toes tingled, sharp. Her tongue was dry and her head pounded.\n “What the hell,” she gasped.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The feeling receded, slowly, but did not go away.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose poked her again and a new wave of hunger filled her. The witch\n offered Sal a bowl full of somethings that were almost like food: leaves,\n scraps of leather, clods of sod with worms still writhing inside.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Am I supposed to eat this?” Sal asked. Her vision shimmered, and she saw\n the kindly old woman offering her a slice of New York pizza, dripping\n orange grease. “Take it, you’ll feel better,” said Mother Goose.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal looked toward the children. The little girl was watching her. She\n imperceptibly shook her head.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal took the pizza and let it fall. The illusion broke as it did, and by\n the time it hit the flames below it had turned back into leaves, leather,\n sod.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Tsk!” Mother Goose shook her sweet head, already shimmering back to\n facelessness. “Well, enough time alone and you’ll be begging me for such\n things.” The final scraps of the illusion rippled and broke apart. Sal\n faced the pale, round creature again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal began to understand. The monster must be a wraith made of hunger, or\n perhaps it had learned to feed off of hunger in long-ago centuries. It\n brought its victims here to starve them, slowly. In the fullness of its\n power it had been able to lull its victims into a happy death by making\n them think they were eating an endless amount of treats, but now, confined\n by the Society for so long, the creature had grown weak; it could only fool\n its victims long enough to lure them in, not to keep them fooled into\n thinking they were fat and happy.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Probably it preferred the sharper, quicker hunger of children. But beggars\n can’t be choosers.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She wondered how old this thing was, anyway. As old as fairy tales? Older?\n Had this thing existed side by side with man and magic for as long as they\n had known of one another?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The cottage lurched once, hard. It dropped, and then it was still. The\n witch turned and left the cottage. For the first time since she had woken\n up, Sal felt like she could breathe.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Hey,” Sal pitched her voice to be as quiet and as friendly as she knew\n how. “Hey, are you Gudrun?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The little girl stared at her. Her teary eyes were almost empty. Almost. A\n flicker of fight stayed in them. But she didn’t speak to Sal.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Right, right. German. “Do you speak English?” Sal asked, though not with\n much hope.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl stared and then shook her head no.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal bunched her fists around the bars of her cage. Talking wasn’t going to\n work, that much was clear. Instead, she began an elaborate pantomime:\n pointing to where Mother Goose had left. Pointing to her mouth. Elaborate\n shrug, to show a question.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The girl bit her lip. Then she pointed to her brother, and to herself. And\n then up.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Above them hung a stone figure, very like the witch: round, smooth,\n faceless. It was tied to the rafters with straw and leather thongs. Gudrun\n pantomimed herself digging, pulling something up from the ground. She\n pointed at the figure again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Well that was cryptic.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gerald met Asanti and Frances at the main entrance to the British Museum,\n where there was a lift that could take Frances’s wheelchair up the steps.\n The cool breath of London at night followed them in.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The caretaker hurried them inside with a limp. That was new since the last\n time Asanti had seen him in person, not that that had been recent. And so\n were those glasses, the kind that turned into sunglasses when it was\n bright, but never really became clear when it wasn’t. Asanti gave a moment\n to a short meditation on age and the frailness of the flesh.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Thank you for making the time to meet me, old friend,” she said. “I’m\n sorry to only ever come to you for favors.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Oh, it’s my pleasure,” he said. He finished locking the door, then turned\n a courtly bow on Frances. “And it’s a delight to see that the youth of\n today are still interested in these dusty topics of ours.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances nodded back. “Solving the mysteries of the past is its own reward,”\n she replied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti brushed her skirts straight. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like\n to begin looking around?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Of course, of course.” Gerald waved them farther inside. “Please, make\n yourselves at home. There aren’t any visitors left at this hour, and the\n guards know not to bother us.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The halls of the museum were cold and echoed with Asanti’s footsteps as she\n swept through the Great Court and toward the galleries full of antiquities.\n Frances wheeled behind her, only a hair more slowly.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You know what you’re looking for?” Gerald asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “After a fashion,” Asanti replied. She sighed. This task would have been\n infinitely easier with the spectacles she’d given to Menchú. But she still\n had other, less elegant ways of finding out what they needed to know.\n “Frances?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Frances took a device from the knapsack on her lap. It was an inelegant\n thing; a cowbell streaked with rust. Frances pricked her finger, then\n tapped the bell with the smeared blood. No sound emerged. “Not here,”\n Frances said. She pushed her glasses up with a knuckle. “Let’s try again\n from somewhere else.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti pushed Frances’s wheelchair this time. They walked to the next room\n down. Frances tapped the bell with a bloody finger again. Nothing happened,\n again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gerald coughed. “Is this meant to . . . ?” His British reserve didn’t allow\n him to outright call them insane or ask what the hell they thought they\n were doing. He’d only let them in, so Asanti had led him to believe, so\n they could examine a particular artifact for nebulous research purposes.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti smiled thinly. The British Museum all but throbbed with power taken\n from other lands and other peoples. Much of that power was symbolic, some\n of it represented by wealth; but no small amount of it was long-dormant\n magic, as well, a fact the curators did their best to euphemize and\n diminish. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much, Gerald. Just that this is . .\n . not theory. Not the way that you know it.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “I won’t get in trouble for letting a pair of sorceresses in here, will I?”\n he chuckled to chase away the reality of the situation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Nobody will ever know we were here,” Frances assured him. “Let’s try the\n next room.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Nothing turned up in that gallery, either. Nor in the fourth. In the fifth\n room, though, Frances tapped the bell, and something else chimed from\n somewhere close by. She tapped again while Asanti hurried through the\n display cases trying to identify the source of the sound. Finally, she\n said, “I have it, over here.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The object was unremarkable by the standards of the British Museum. It was\n only a simple ostrich egg, roughly the size of a cookie jar, with etchings\n scratched into its surface depicting sphinxes. It was not painted, not\n inlaid with gold or jewels. There was a hole in the top.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The sign said this Punic egg was a vessel, and had once had a mouthpiece\n and supports to hold it upright. This was only partly the truth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “We’ll need a closer look at this artifact,” Asanti told Gerald. “If you\n don’t mind, of course?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gerald’s eyes flashed white above his glasses. “I prefer to take it from\n here,” he said. He smashed the case with a fist and grabbed the egg within,\n tucking it under his arm like a football.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti’s eyes narrowed. “Hannah.” She reached into her bag and took out a\n slim wand, a blade on one end and feather on the other. “We were expecting\n you.” Asanti brandished the wand, chanting and tracing symbols in the air.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Gerald—or Hannah in Gerald’s body—pushed Asanti square in the chest before\n the incantation was complete. Asanti went flying across the room, crashing\n onto a display case. The wand clattered to the ground, snapping the\n feather. The pulsing symbols in the air fizzed and dissipated.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n While Asanti reeled, Frances hurled the cowbell at Hannah’s head. Hannah\n kicked out at her, pushing the wheelchair across the room. Frances’s head\n cracked against a priceless Greek urn, to the detriment of both vessels.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “You don’t understand,” Hannah said. “None of you. I tried to tell you—the\n project’s at risk. Your whole world’s in danger. My small attempts at\n balancing have failed. Now only major adjustments will do. Serious\n realignments. Hence: the City Eater.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Asanti staggered to her feet, shaking off the stars. She had to get to the\n wand; there was still time to lock this down. She felt around for the wand;\n her hand closed around it. She stood, unsteady, bracing for the next round.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n But Hannah was gone, in Gerald’s body. And she had taken the egg with her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \n The walking house stopped short, and then settled into place in one\n smooth motion. Menchú and Perry hurried toward it as if it might\n vanish. Not that a house can usually up and vanish, but they clearly\n weren’t playing by the normal rules of physics anymore.\n \n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Up close the house was ramshackle, speaking less of poverty than of\n outright abandonment. The thatching was falling away. Stones in the\n foundation were loose or outright missing. It was a miracle that it held\n together even as much as it did; supernatural forces were clearly at work.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n If the giant bird legs hadn’t given that away earlier.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n There was no sign of the mighty legs and talons that had taken it half a\n mile or more through the forest. To look at the house now, you’d have sworn\n it was precisely where it had been for a hundred years, five hundred.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n A pale figure emerged from the house, nosing around the trees as if it\n smelled something curious. Menchú would have staked his life that the\n children were here; he wasn’t sure if he’d rather discover that Sal was\n too, or not.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At any rate, it was time to act. Menchú nudged Perry. “Give me a minute,\n and then try to look inside the house,” he murmured. “I’m going to distract\n this thing for you, whatever it is.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Menchú approached the house and its occupant. The blank-faced figure\n looked at him, still for a moment, then shook itself. The world shimmered,\nand she became a sweet-faced \u003cem\u003eabuelita\u003c/em\u003e, nut-skinned and beaming. “ \u003cem\u003e¿Tienes hambre?\u003c/em\u003e” she asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú cocked his fist and punched her as hard as he could. She stumbled\n back. The veneer of sweetness popped like a bubble. That round, solid\n figure, pale and caked in mud, grew until she loomed over him. Menchú\n lowered his stance and put his hands up, ready to dodge whatever attack the\n creature had in store for him.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n From behind him came the thrashing sound of Perry making a run for the\ncottage. \u003cem\u003eHurry\u003c/em\u003e, he thought, along with a helpless, reflexive \u003cem\u003eGod be with you\u003c/em\u003e.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry crashed through the door of the cottage and stopped short at the edge\n of the pit of fire, looking from Sal to the boy to the girl and back again.\n “Ah, I see what’s going on here. I’ll get you out,” he said. He climbed\n onto the stone at the edge of the pit and pulled the door off Sal’s cage.\n Sal fell out into his arms and safely onto the floor, then writhed for a\n moment, overcome by the prickling of blood flowing back into her limbs\n after spending so long in such a cramped space.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry pulled the door off the little boy’s cage next; the sound, like\n snapping bones, gave Sal the willies. She helped the boy swing out over the\n flames while Perry attended to the girl. “Where’s Father Menchú?” Sal asked\n Perry.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Being distracting? I don’t know.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Once both children were freed, the two of them clung together, exclaiming\n over each other’s injuries in small voices. They looked from Sal to Perry\n and back again with mingled hopefulness and fear.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose loomed at the door. She was huge and round, her blank face\n empty of expression but her stance still signaling enormous rage. Her head\n swiveled, taking in Perry, the opened cages, the free children.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She came in and smashed a fist at Sal. Sal ducked and the fist whistled\n over her head. The plaster behind Sal was powdered by the blow.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú came to the door, bleeding from his mouth and nose and wavering on\n his feet. “\u003cem\u003eKommt her, schnell!\u003c/em\u003e” he shouted, beckoning at the\n children. Both kids rushed toward him without hesitation.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose stomped the floor hard with one dainty foot. The house lurched\n and \u003cem\u003erose \u003c/em\u003eat an angle that had nothing in common with the horizon.\n The kids were thrown back, away from the door and a chance at escape.\n Menchú, clinging to the doorway, grabbed for one of their hands but missed.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Perry caught them, instead, before they could fall over the edge and into\n the sizzling hearth: the boy by a belt loop and the girl by her wrist. He\n pushed them back up the sloped floor toward Menchú.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The witch rounded on Perry, now, and tried to block the children from\n scrambling toward Menchú. “Flank her!” Sal cried. She looked around for\n something to use as a weapon. There was nothing but the fragments of those\n bone cages, and they looked too brittle to be any help. Sal tugged at the\n witch’s arm, but she might as well have been made of stone.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Still, the ploy worked as a distraction, if not an attack. Mother Goose\n turned toward her again. Sal stumbled back and around, until she reached\n the far side of the open hearth.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Mother Goose rose tall, reaching for Sal’s throat across the empty space.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Then Perry pushed the witch into the pit with one well-placed foot. A\n pillar of flame erupted, consuming the last of the cages, setting the roof\n on fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal gasped for breath. “Get them out!” she shouted. Menchú took the boy and\n jumped from the doorway toward relative safety. Sal eased the girl out\n after, into Menchú’s waiting arms.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n And then Mother Goose rose from the fire, glowing red and flaming. She said\n something incomprehensible, something low and awful in the language of\n fire.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Come and get me,” Perry taunted her.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal’s gaze darted around the cottage again. Still no weapons, but usually\n there was a book, or perhaps an artifact. Something that could help to\n eliminate the threat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ashes fell from the burning ceiling and into her hair. Sal batted them\n away, then looked up to be sure nothing worse was about to fall.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She saw the stone figure of a woman—the stone figure of Mother Goose. The\n leather cords that held it in place were frayed and thin.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal tore off her shirt and covered her hands so she could snatch the Venus\n figurine as it swung madly from the burning ceiling. The stone figure\n writhed and steamed in her grasp, and the larger version, the living one,\n hissed like a volcano.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal ran to the door and jumped. It was a surprisingly long fall, and her\n shins ached on impact. The house had sprouted legs again, while she was\n captive in there. Mother Goose appeared in the doorway, ready to follow her\n out.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The children ran toward Sal. The boy pushed Sal’s burden to the ground,\n then began to scoop up loam around and under the figurine to bury it. The\n girl helped, frantically gouging fistfuls of dirt and packing them on top\n of the artifact. The stone doll hissed and shrieked with every handful that\n covered it. Above them, the witch screamed in harmony, in agony.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When the figure was completely covered with a thin layer of earth, the\n witch vanished. And so, too, did the house.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal and the children continued to bury the figurine deeper, as deep as they\n thought was wise and then a little deeper still. Menchú brought stones to\n build a cairn over it, to prevent a chance unearthing from happening again.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At last Sal looked around and realized something was amiss. Missing.\n “Where’s Perry?” she asked. There was a square shadow of ash where the\n house had been. And Perry had been inside the house when it vanished. She\n walked the perimeter. “Perry?” she called. “Perry, are you . . .”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú had each hand on the head of one child, a benediction for their\n safety. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We have to get these children back to their\n parents. But then we can return to look for him. Save him if we have to.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal squinted at the sun. “No,” she said. “I don’t think he needs rescuing.\n I feel like . . . he just left. He’s fine.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Special angel powers?” Menchú asked.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Special sister knowledge,” Sal replied.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Magdalena ran to the children the moment they emerged into the police\n command center. She knelt down to squeeze them in her arms fervently; she\ncould not have been more frantic if she had birthed them herself. “ \u003cem\u003eEs tut mir so leid\u003c/em\u003e,” she sobbed. The children wrapped their arms\n around her, too. Clearly all had been forgiven on their part. Silvester\n joined in the hugs, then began looking over their ashy faces and dirty\n hands, exclaiming over each mark.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Councillor Ruhrpollen appraised Sal and Father Menchú with something midway\n between respect and astonishment. “How much of it is true?” she asked them.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú ducked his head, apologetic. “All I can say is perhaps you will not\n be missing children in the woods again for a while,” he said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “A while?” Ruhrpollen’s nostrils flared.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Perhaps you once received a message from the police councillor who came\n before you,” Menchú said. “Perhaps you should leave such a message for the\n ones who come after you, as well.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ruhrpollen weighed him and judged him a final time. “I see,” she said at\n last. “Thank you for your assistance.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Father Menchú turned toward Sal the moment they were out of earshot of the\n swarming police. “I apologize if this is the wrong moment to ask, but I\n need you to tell me everything you know about Perry and Asanti,” he asked.\n “Anything he’s said, or hinted at. Anything that you didn’t understand, but\n ignored. Any mention of Hannah, or London, or Team Four.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Sal boggled. “Team Four? What’s going on?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “Asanti and your brother have been up to something together,” Menchú said.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n “What?”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Menchú’s shoulders bowed from the weight of decades of secrets kept and\n obligations upheld. “Magic.”\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n \u003chr\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Deep under London, in a little-used space in the British Museum, Hannah\n crouched in the darkness with the sphinx-guarded ostrich egg. This was a\n task that would require care and patience. But what was she, if not\n infinitely patient?\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She checked her tools one last time to be sure she had everything close to\n hand: the tiny bowl of sawdust, the spool of hair-thin copper wire, the\n knife. She placed these items in an arc around her, each one easy to reach.\n And then she began the ritual.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She warmed the ancient egg in her hands for a while, holding it close to\n her stomach. Slowly, the chill left its shell. Then she began to fill the\n vessel with the breath and life she had taken from the poor benighted\n creature she had woken in Saint Peter’s tomb, mingled and made whole with\n the essences of power she had ingested from the cave paintings, from the\n werewolves, from the portal in Guatemala. She pressed her lips to the top\n and exhaled through her mouth (Gerald’s mouth), untangling the creature\n from herself. Slowly, slowly. The seething white vapor that emerged from\n her lungs whispered words never before heard in this place. She was filled\n with a kind of homesickness; but perhaps her work here would be done soon.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The sphinxes on the shell began to writhe in pain and sound an alarm, but\n their keening was no use. Hannah ignored them. They were guardians, but\n there was nobody left to heed their alarm. Certainly not here.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Eventually the egg was full; the mist curled out of its openings, clawing\n for a freedom it was not yet ready to endure. It was time to seal it closed\n and let the spirit within incubate.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah took the sharp knife from the table beside her and carefully removed\n the skin from her limbs—or, more properly, from Gerald’s arms and legs. She\n pasted the strips onto the egg, covering its holes and then the entirety of\n the surface with a bloody version of papier-mâché.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When her work was complete, the sphinxes shuddered and fell silent. Hannah\n set the egg down sat patiently beside it. Blood trickled from the skinned\n places on her body and pooled beneath her, but that was of no matter. She\n would need a new host soon anyway.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The egg smoked and sizzled as the heat within charred the scraps of skin\n that coated it. It wobbled faintly. And then the sides split apart—not in\n the crazed patterns of a broken shell, but the straight, clean lines of a\n new blossom. Its petals curled open until a white lotus rested before her.\n In its center was something new and old; an ancient spark, transformed and\n awoken into power. An old thing, an enormous thing, whose tiniest edge had\n now been brought into this world.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n At first it was nothing more than a breath of flame, hardly as solid as the\n mist it had quickened from. She fed it tiny grains of sawdust, one at a\n time, slowly, slowly, so as not to smother it. With each morsel, the\n creature shone just a hair brighter and grew just a hair larger.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n When it was the size of an almond, she began to feed it metal: she gave it\n the tip of the thin copper wire. The creature’s heat melted the wire into\n drops that it burned up greedily, a crude simulacrum of nursing at a\n mother’s teat.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n The spool became so hot that Hannah’s hands (Gerald’s hands) began to burn.\n The not-creature darted forward and snapped at her fingers, searing away\n chunks of meat with its tiny teeth of flame.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Ah, it was ready for more.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n She took it in one hand and brought it to her flayed arms, letting it have\n its fill of Gerald’s raw and bleeding flesh. It feasted, and it grew.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n Hannah’s thoughts strayed forward, toward her hopes for this fledgling\n creature. It would retreat soon after its meal, vanishing back into the\n ocean of magic, to gather the strength it would need. Once it had digested\n this meal, it would be ready to come through again, take a physical form,\n and do the great and noble work she had set before it.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n It was a delicate thing yet, fragile and new. But it would grow fast—and\n soon, it would devour nations. A high price, but one Hannah was determined\n to pay without regret. It was nothing more nor less than the cost of saving\n this world. The world that she had helped to make.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nPerry appeared in Guatemala unexpectedly, again causing the team to wonder just how he knows where to be and when. Father Menchú and Perry had an enlightening conversation with Hannah, but Menchú only shared some of what he learned with the team. Asanti tried to fight magic using some unconventional methods, and collaborated with Frances and Perry on a new, secret version of Team Four.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrances\u003c/strong\u003e: Asanti’s former assistant, whose legs were replaced by tentacles after an unfortunate magical incident. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Andrea Phillips\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.151","slug":"Bookburners-s3e10","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E10.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E10.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E10.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E10.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 10"},{"id":"595faa5dfd9a2b0001c3eb3c","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":11,"title":"Crossing Over","released_date":"2017-09-27T11:56:47.577+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"Hannah takes action.","byline":"Margaret Dunlap","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E11_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-09-27","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLondon, like all cities, never truly slept. But there was a quiet moment just before dawn, when the late night brushed fingers with the early morning, after the black cabs changed shifts but before the buses accelerated to their more urgent daytime tempo. In that moment, the city was quiescent: pulse slow, breath steady and even.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first rays of dawn pierced the fog to light the Thames near Greenwich, and a cleaning woman left the British Museum through a staff door. It was a little early to be going off the night shift, but most night shifts didn\u0026rsquo;t involve disposing of a burned half-eaten corpse. If the woman had been of her own mind, she would have felt quite justified in skiving off. From inside the woman, Hannah slipped Gerald\u0026rsquo;s sunglasses onto her face, letting the rising sun tint the lenses and obscure her too-white eyes. She had done what she could to save the experiment. Only time would tell if it had been enough.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFather Mench\u0026uacute; stood before what had once been a Roman clockmaker\u0026rsquo;s shop. From the outside, it looked abandoned. The windows were boarded over, the boards covered in posters for manifestations, underground clubs, and concerts, which were in turn overlaid by a patchwork of graffiti. The palpable sense of unease about the place peaked as he forced the bolt on the front door, but his blood was too hot to let that stop him, or to bother with the careful work of lockpicking.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eInside, Mench\u0026uacute; found and turned on the lights, ruthlessly banishing the shadows that clung to the interior. A heavy wooden table dominated the center of the room, its surface marred by gouges and burns, from what source Mench\u0026uacute; did not want to guess. There were fewer books than he expected. Mench\u0026uacute; thought of Asanti and her books as interconnected, as though she were part of the Archives she had devoted herself to maintaining. Looking at this room, filled with equipment, relics, candles, and powders, he realized that he had been wrong. The Archives, which he had thought of as Asanti\u0026rsquo;s calling, was simply her day job.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis was her \u003cem\u003ework\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe thought she had been\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. not happy, but\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. settled, after the trial. That everything had gone back to normal. Or as normal as it could have been with a new cardinal, and the rising tide, and Grace\u0026rsquo;s defection. But no, standing amidst the detritus of a magical research and development lab, the truth of Perry\u0026rsquo;s confession could not be denied. Asanti had recreated Team Four.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s knees shuddered beneath him, and he caught himself against the table, gripping until his knuckles went white. He held the rough edge as though clinging to solid certainties that had gone liquid in his hands. Which was foolish.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith conscious effort, Mench\u0026uacute; braced his knees, released the table, reached up to his throat to adjust his collar. The familiar action centered him, and he strove to put his emotions into order. Asanti had lied to him, hidden her work for months. They had their difficulties; he had betrayed her, yes, but he\u0026rsquo;d thought they had reached an understanding. Apparently not.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy rights, he should call the rest of the team so that they could contain this location, and then report Asanti to Fox. But as certainly as he knew the proper procedure, he also knew he wasn\u0026rsquo;t going to follow it. Whatever else she might be, Asanti was one of his oldest friends and colleagues. She was not some sorcerer gone power-mad who desired to uproot creation. If she had gone to London as Perry had said, it was because there was work that needed to be done.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWork. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; turned, left the shop, and secured the door behind him. He had work of his own.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal\u0026rsquo;s jaw cracked with the force of her yawn. Team Three had landed at Heathrow at roughly ass o\u0026rsquo;clock that morning, after a hurried departure from Rome under literal cover of darkness. Mench\u0026uacute; had gathered her, Liam, and Grace and driven first to Pescara, where they\u0026rsquo;d caught a flight to Milan connecting to London. Sal had managed to catch a few minutes of sleep on the plane, but the longer they sat, the more she could feel the lack of rest catching up to her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAt that moment, they were in the back of a mini cab driving through greater London. They\u0026rsquo;d been wandering the city for the greater part of an hour, much to the confusion of their driver. For the fifth time, he glanced back over his shoulder to give his passengers a worried look. \u0026ldquo;Where did you say you were going again?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam, hunched over his laptop, grunted, \u0026ldquo;Working on it\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo; Then: \u0026ldquo;Turn south here. Now!\u0026rdquo; The driver jumped at Liam\u0026rsquo;s tone and with a screech turned right across two lanes of traffic. The hour was early enough that this resulted in scattered honks, not the crunch of crushed fenders, but traffic was picking up, and the driver looked white beneath his tan.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe appealed to Mench\u0026uacute;. \u0026ldquo;Father, I\u0026rsquo;m happy to take you anyplace you want to go, but I need a destination.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal had some sympathy for the guy. Sure, their group didn\u0026rsquo;t fit the standard profile for a terrorist threat, but they certainly fit the brief for \u0026ldquo;a bunch of weirdos.\u0026rdquo; Sal leaned over to Mench\u0026uacute;, keeping her voice low enough that\u0026mdash;she hoped\u0026mdash;the driver wouldn\u0026rsquo;t overhear. \u0026ldquo;I know we promised him a good tip, but I think he\u0026rsquo;s going to kick us out pretty soon, fare or no fare.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Should have rented a car,\u0026rdquo; said Grace.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You can\u0026rsquo;t rent a car without a credit card or a lot of questions about why you don\u0026rsquo;t have one, and I don\u0026rsquo;t know how closely Fox is watching our accounts.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fair enough,\u0026rdquo; said Sal, \u0026ldquo;But we\u0026rsquo;re going to be really easy for the Vatican to find if this guy decides we\u0026rsquo;re too bizarre to be written off as harmless eccentrics and drops us off at the local police station.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the first time since they\u0026rsquo;d entered the cab, Liam pulled his attention fully from his laptop and checked their surroundings. They were near the center of the city, in a nexus of parks, hospitals, and train stations. \u0026ldquo;We may as well get out now,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;The interference is bad enough that I can\u0026rsquo;t tell whether it\u0026rsquo;s getting thicker. She\u0026rsquo;s somewhere around here, but I can\u0026rsquo;t fine-tune it any more. Sorry.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No need for apologies,\u0026rdquo; said Mench\u0026uacute; as he signaled for the driver to pull over. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;ll just have to change tactics.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;I\u0026rsquo;m looking for an African woman in her sixties. She might have been with a younger woman in a wheelchair\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace leaned against a false Corinthian column in the lobby of the only-slightly-shabby boutique hotel and partook of the simple pleasure of watching Sal in detective mode: calm and professional, kind but persistent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;They would have paid cash for the room\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnything that plausibly encompassed traditional police work generally had a centering effect on Sal, put her in a place where she felt confident of her skills and expertise. That was part of why Grace suggested that the two of them canvass the area. Whatever Asanti was up to was going to require all of them to be at the top of their game, and Sal was teetering dangerously on the edge of rage. An edge that had been honed razor-thin by sleep-deprivation and stress.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Have you been having trouble with your computers recently? Internet gone down?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnfortunately, so far the canvass had not gotten the team any closer to Asanti or Sal any closer to equanimity. And now the hotel owner\u0026mdash;in his polite, implacable British way\u0026mdash;was gently but firmly putting the pair of them out on the sidewalk, and closing the door in their faces. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite accurate to say the door had been slammed, but it was a near thing. Sal jammed the buzzer a few times, no doubt with the aim of continuing the discussion, with a change of topic from \u003cem\u003eHave you seen my friend?\u003c/em\u003e to \u003cem\u003eWho do you think you are, expelling a detective from your hotel?\u003c/em\u003e But there was no response.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eHow desperate are we that I\u0026rsquo;m the one who\u0026rsquo;s going to have to stop her from hitting someone?\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace smiled to herself at the thought. Of course, at just that moment, Sal gave up on the door and turned her attention to Grace.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s so funny?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Usually you play good cop when we do \u0026lsquo;good cop/punch-you-in-the-face cop.\u0026rsquo;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal rolled her eyes and continued down the street to the next likely business address. \u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s not a thing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Too bad.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot knowing what Asanti was up to, it was hard to make an educated guess as to where she would get up to it, but it seemed reasonable to expect that she would require time, space that she could secure, and privacy. And, if Frances was with her, not too many stairs.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;This is a waste of time,\u0026rdquo; said Sal. \u0026ldquo;She could be anywhere. Doing anything.\u0026rdquo; She muttered something else that Grace couldn\u0026rsquo;t quite catch.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What did you just say?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It does if it\u0026rsquo;s going to get you arrested for assault.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not going to get myself arrested.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tell me that you weren\u0026rsquo;t two inches from taking out your frustrations on that guy at the hotel.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m tired. I haven\u0026rsquo;t slept, and I need coffee. I\u0026rsquo;m allowed to be cranky.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sure. But low blood sugar is worse for you than fatigue, and we already stopped for breakfast, so you might want to use a different excuse.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Do you want me to punch \u003cem\u003eyou\u003c/em\u003e in the face?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace raised one eyebrow. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re welcome to try.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal declined the offer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace let them walk in silence for a moment, and then said, \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not fun when people you care about lie to you, is it?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal threw up her hands in frustration. \u0026ldquo;What was Asanti thinking?! You can\u0026rsquo;t claim to be part of a team and then spend every day for months lying to them. We shouldn\u0026rsquo;t all be finding out about secret Team Four from Mench\u0026uacute;. She must have had a hundred opportunities to come clean to us, and she didn\u0026rsquo;t.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I kept my curse a secret from Liam for years.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal shot Grace a look. \u0026ldquo;And he\u0026rsquo;s still kind of weird about it. Plus, this is different. Your candle. It\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. private.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What Asanti does in her off time isn\u0026rsquo;t?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It isn\u0026rsquo;t when she\u0026rsquo;s using her off time to undermine what we\u0026rsquo;re doing during our on time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Maybe she was trying to protect us. She had to know that Fox would fall on her head eventually.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And she had to know that once he did, he wouldn\u0026rsquo;t care if we claimed not to know anything about her extracurriculars.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You want me to believe you\u0026rsquo;re upset because we\u0026rsquo;re going to be in trouble with Fox?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fox can stick his mitre where the sun don\u0026rsquo;t shine.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace smiled at the image. \u0026ldquo;Cardinals wear biretti.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal flipped her off, but it was with considerably less heat than she had managed for her previous diatribe. \u0026ldquo;Get bent.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Feeling better?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes, damn you.\u0026rdquo; Sal stopped to lean against a bus shelter. Already, Grace could see her blood pressure returning to normal. \u003cem\u003eGood, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to think clearly when you\u0026rsquo;re giving yourself an aneurysm. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Just as well. I was running out of bait.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal raised an eyebrow. \u0026ldquo;Really? What was next?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I was going to ask if this was a weird form of sibling rivalry with your brother.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal skipped a beat. \u0026ldquo;What are you talking about?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Before he got possessed by an angel, you were the one Asanti was most likely to take with her on an off-the-books adventure.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal\u0026rsquo;s posture relaxed a fraction, and she easily waved this away. \u0026ldquo;Please. If I were going to be jealous, it\u0026rsquo;s clear Frances is her favorite.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace allowed the point and let the matter rest. \u0026ldquo;Come on. Let\u0026rsquo;s see if the others are having better luck.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the whole, Asanti was not a fan of the British Museum. The Elgin marbles were breathtaking, the Egyptian artifacts world-class, and of course, the medieval manuscripts made her archivist\u0026rsquo;s soul swell with joy, but on the whole, the place felt too much like a scrapbook of colonialism for her comfort. Of course, the same argument could be made for certain parts of the Vatican. Certain parts that might, in all honesty, include the Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerhaps it was best not to think too much about such things.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOf course, at the moment, she had plenty of other things on her mind. First they had needed to avoid building security, who had been alerted to their presence by the alarm system that went off as Hannah smashed antique pottery and hurled Frances about. And then they had been occupied searching the back corridors for Hannah and the Punic egg. Asanti was somewhat familiar with the layout thanks to previous visits with Gerald, but Perry proved invaluable once he joined them, even as he cursed the limits of his magical senses.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not that being Perry limits me,\u0026rdquo; he said, \u0026ldquo;but we\u0026rsquo;ve become much more integrated than I ever was with a body before. I\u0026rsquo;ve gotten so used to the way he experiences the world, it\u0026rsquo;s hard to remember that there\u0026rsquo;s anything else to it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Which one are you?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked. \u0026ldquo;Sometimes it sounds like I\u0026rsquo;m talking to Sal\u0026rsquo;s brother, sometimes like I\u0026rsquo;m talking to Aaron.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Exactly.\u0026rdquo; He paced. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re certain she said \u0026lsquo;City Eater.\u0026rsquo; Not something else?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Pretty sure. It sounded bad.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. bad is one way to put it. An old tool for resolving the balance between this world and the outside. It\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. does what it says on the tin, mostly. It eats cities and the earth on which they stand. Devours soil, souls, and then itself, consuming all evidence of its passing. We told ourselves we\u0026rsquo;d never use it again after last time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We? When was the last time?\u0026rdquo; Frances asked before Asanti could stop her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Um,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s hard to put modern names to memories and myths. Let\u0026rsquo;s just say\u0026mdash;Atlantis?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Oh,\u0026rdquo; Frances said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti had questions\u0026mdash;she\u0026rsquo;d spent months amassing them. But there wasn\u0026rsquo;t time, or breath, for any of that now. With every moment that passed, it grew more certain that their task would not be to prevent Hannah from doing whatever she had come here to do, but to contain the results.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey found those results in the dark corner of a boiler room in one of the lower basements. In addition to the old furnace, they found piles of assorted junk, a few cases of janitorial supplies so dusty it seemed improbable their use could result in anything getting cleaner, and a bloody egg, open like a flower on the industrial tiled floor. A dark sticky stain that smelled of copper and salt spread beneath it. Of Hannah, or Gerald, or the City Eater, there was no sign.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances looked from bloody mess to Asanti\u0026rsquo;s face. \u0026ldquo;Where is it? Would Hannah have taken it away?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;She wouldn\u0026rsquo;t have wanted to stay any nearer to that thing than absolutely necessary. Once the City Eater starts working, it isn\u0026rsquo;t picky. It\u0026rsquo;s just hungry.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first order of business was to clear space for Frances and Perry to set up the machine and for Asanti to begin her work. She\u0026rsquo;d tried a variety of different materials for marking floor runes, from chalk (too hard to get a line with no breaks in it), to permanent pen (too hard to correct mistakes) to lipstick (too prone to breaking, plus it smeared everywhere). Ultimately, for industrial tile, it turned out that nothing was a match for dry-erase markers: They made a good clean line, and while they were easily erased, they could also be stepped on so long as everyone wore shoes and didn\u0026rsquo;t shuffle their feet while they walked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti asked Perry, \u0026ldquo;Do you think you can manage to put up a magical \u0026lsquo;do not disturb\u0026rsquo; sign so we can avoid unwanted company?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances frowned over her device. \u0026ldquo;If we\u0026rsquo;re too actively concealed, we risk the City Eater not being able to find us either.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry rolled his eyes, an affect Asanti suspected did not come from the angel. \u0026ldquo;I would like to state again for the record that trying to lure a monster is a terrible plan, especially when that monster is a City Eater.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It needs food,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said as she scribbled runes on the floor. \u0026ldquo;If it\u0026rsquo;s a newborn, it must need a very specific food. If Hannah hatched it here, so close to her theft, that food must be in the area. Correct?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes.\u0026rdquo; Perry paced around between them, arms crossed, glancing into the corners of the room. \u0026ldquo;It feeds off magical emanations\u0026mdash;off age, off history. At first. When it\u0026rsquo;s stronger, it feeds off matter.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So we lure it down here, and trap it before it\u0026rsquo;s too big. Frances, are we close enough to the collection for your amplifier to work?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Just a moment and I\u0026rsquo;ll know.\u0026rdquo; Frances was out of her chair, gliding smoothly between her machine and a laptop she had propped on a flat of paper towels, her tentacles obscured but not concealed beneath her long skirt. Every time Asanti saw her move like this she seemed stronger, more adept, although the effort of supporting herself on the narrow appendages had to be massive. Frances checked another reading, and spun a dial on the globe at the center of her machine. \u0026ldquo;Yes, I believe so.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances made a final connection between her machine\u0026mdash;which she insisted they should not call an Orb, although it was based on the model of the original that had been built by the first Team Four, housed in the Archives\u0026mdash;and her laptop. \u0026ldquo;Perfect, it\u0026rsquo;s\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo; The machine made a soft chiming sound. Frances swore, typing quickly and then rose to check its readings.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What is it?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances did not mince words. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s coming.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No more than a few minutes.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti took a deep breath. \u0026ldquo;All right, everyone. You know what to do. Frances, count us down.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBANG! The door to the storage room slammed open. Asanti jumped and whirled to face the intruder.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the doorway stood Sal, Grace, Liam, and Father Mench\u0026uacute;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti\u0026rsquo;s world went red. \u0026ldquo;You have the worst sense of timing!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; stared at the scene before him: the boiler room filled with dusty cases and cleaning supplies that looked like they hadn\u0026rsquo;t been touched in years, the intricate lines and circles drawn on the floor, and the quietly clicking machine tended by Frances and Perry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe shouldn\u0026rsquo;t be surprised. He knew Asanti had not come to London to take tea and enjoy the sights. But there was a difference between knowing and seeing, like the difference between knowing that your partner was having an affair and catching them in bed with your old high school rival. Although until that moment, Mench\u0026uacute; would have sworn that the priesthood had saved him from that particular gut punch.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWell.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat was a reflection to consider for another time. The last words they had heard before Sal kicked in the door were \u0026ldquo;a few minutes.\u0026rdquo; A few minutes until what? He\u0026rsquo;d rather they weren\u0026rsquo;t there to find out.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Asanti,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;You need to go home. Right now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti\u0026rsquo;s expression, which had been oscillating between shock and outrage, took a solid turn into disdain. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m sorry, Arturo, I\u0026rsquo;m a little busy at the moment.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Listen to me.\u0026rdquo; He caught her arm, flinched as she drew back, but held on. When he didn\u0026rsquo;t move, she froze as well.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You have\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo; She turned to Frances. \u0026ldquo;How long?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances held up eight fingers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Six minutes,\u0026rdquo; she told Mench\u0026uacute;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; felt a surge of impatience. \u0026ldquo;I can count, you know.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Talking to you is not the only thing I need to accomplish in the next eight minutes. Now, speak quickly.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We know Hannah is up to something in London. You seem to have a pretty good idea what it is. Tell us what you know, then return to the Archives and let us handle it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Why?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Because we\u0026rsquo;re cleared for the field and you\u0026rsquo;re not!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you telling me Fox approved this trip of yours?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No. And he won\u0026rsquo;t be happy when I call and tell him that we\u0026rsquo;re here without going through his office first. But,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; cut off the incipient protest he could see forming in her eyes, \u0026ldquo;he will live with it. He won\u0026rsquo;t be happy, but that will be a problem for tomorrow. On the other hand, you have been expressly forbidden from the field. If he finds out you\u0026rsquo;re not in Rome, even if he never hears about any of the rest of it\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s gesture took in the magical equipment, sigils, Frances and Perry, and by extension the former clock shop back in Rome. \u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s nothing I can do to help you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti\u0026rsquo;s face softened, and Mench\u0026uacute; relaxed. Until she spoke. \u0026ldquo;I understand,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;But I don\u0026rsquo;t want your help.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I never asked you to help me. Not now, not last year at my trial. You just jumped in and did what you thought was best. Don\u0026rsquo;t misunderstand, Arturo, I know your intentions are good, and noble, and your heart is in the right place. But we don\u0026rsquo;t want the same thing, and this is where that becomes a problem.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTime had stopped. Mench\u0026uacute; could have sworn he felt the world turn over on its poles. All the clich\u0026eacute;s were coming true around him and he didn\u0026rsquo;t know what to do about it. \u0026ldquo;What are you saying? How long have you opposed the Society? Are you working with Hannah? Are you trying to let magic in and destroy the world? You\u0026rsquo;ve seen what it can do, Asanti, how could you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti shook her head. As though he were the one being dense. It was possible. He certainly didn\u0026rsquo;t understand what he was hearing. \u0026ldquo;Of course not. I\u0026rsquo;m trying to save the world.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then we\u0026rsquo;re on the same side.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re trying to save the team, which is laudable. But the Society is too set in its ways to see that the old approaches aren\u0026rsquo;t enough. The tide is rising, or the land is sinking, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter which metaphor you use. The Society is fighting a losing battle unless it radically changes tactics, and we both know that\u0026rsquo;s not going to happen\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; had heard enough. \u0026ldquo;So you stab us in the back?!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Five minutes,\u0026rdquo; Frances murmured.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Either get out, or get out of my way, but I am not going to let your interference doom the city\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Knock it off!\u0026rdquo; Grace\u0026rsquo;s voice cut, sharp and merciless, across their argument. The room fell silent. Grace continued in a more moderate tone. \u0026ldquo;This argument is both important and a waste of time. You are welcome to have it at some point in the future when I don\u0026rsquo;t have to be awake for it, and more importantly, when we are not on a countdown.\u0026rdquo; She turned to Frances, who looked pale. \u0026ldquo;What happens in five minutes?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;A little less than that now, but we believe that\u0026rsquo;s when the\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. thing\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. that Hannah summoned will fully manifest in our world. Here.\u0026rdquo; Frances glanced down at her computer, then up again. \u0026ldquo;Perry says it\u0026rsquo;s called the City Eater.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Because it eats cities,\u0026rdquo; Perry supplied. \u0026ldquo;Angels aren\u0026rsquo;t big on nomenclature.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace nodded. \u0026ldquo;Who in this room is in favor of preventing that?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a moment, everyone remained frozen, not sure how to respond. Grace\u0026rsquo;s expression did not encourage a vocal interruption. Then Liam slowly raised his hand. Sal followed suit, as did Perry and Frances. Mench\u0026uacute; put his own palm in the air and turned to see Asanti mirroring the gesture.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Good,\u0026rdquo; said Grace. She looked at Asanti. \u0026ldquo;You have a plan to send this thing back where it came from?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slightest hesitation. \u0026ldquo;Yes,\u0026rdquo; said Asanti.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then let\u0026rsquo;s save the city, and after that you two can debate operational philosophy.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; swallowed his anger, and his pride. \u0026ldquo;She\u0026rsquo;s right. I know you don\u0026rsquo;t want any help, but since we\u0026rsquo;re here, how can we assist you?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti didn\u0026rsquo;t seem any happier with the situation, but they had a common goal and a decade-plus of working together to fall back on. Surely that could be enough. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s rather complicated to explain,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Four minutes,\u0026rdquo; Frances supplied. Mench\u0026uacute; raised a brow.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So I suppose I will explain quickly,\u0026rdquo; said Asanti.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn truth, the explanations were not onerous. Since the plan had been conceived with only Perry, Frances, and Asanti herself available to execute it, it wasn\u0026rsquo;t as if any of the members of Team Three had a vital role. Liam came the closest to being truly useful. His knowledge of magic wasn\u0026rsquo;t very deep, but computers were still computers, and with him on the laptop it saved Frances having to go back and forth between her monitors and the machine.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal and Grace stood where they would be both out of the way and able to intercede quickly in case something went horribly wrong. If the creature broke free of whatever trap Asanti had laid, at least it would likely be vulnerable to conventional applications of force.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen Mench\u0026uacute; asked what he could do, Asanti told him, \u0026ldquo;Pray for us,\u0026rdquo; and was surprised to find she meant it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePrayer was a sort of magic, and they needed all the help they could get.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey were less than a minute from the creature\u0026rsquo;s arrival. Asanti could feel her heart pounding. At the same time, her mind was strangely calm. This was it. This was what she had been preparing for. Every experiment, every secret, every lie and omission. All of it, so that she could be ready for this moment.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Thirty seconds.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was all she had ever wanted. To be the right person, in the right place, at the right time to make a difference. For her children, for her grandchildren, for the world.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe brass and copper on Frances\u0026rsquo; machine gleamed. It had rather fewer silver accents than the Orb in the Archives, given the budget differential between being an official part of the Society and a secret group scrounging around the edges of the Vatican. But when it was active, as it was now, it glowed with the same warm and constant light.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Twenty seconds\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe light of the machine flickered, dimmed. She felt the power in the runes on the floor pulse and hum. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s here,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn her left, Asanti half-heard Liam and Frances exchanging a steady stream of readings and adjustments. The light dimmed again, and a shadow appeared inside the circle on the floor. It wasn\u0026rsquo;t black, but gray, with hints of blue and green, like looking over the side of a ship at the heart of the ocean. Its form was loose and shifting. One instant there was a flash of teeth, the next a bit of wing, a moment later it appeared to burst into flame only to then erupt in tongues and claws.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti sensed, rather than saw, Mench\u0026uacute; move to stand beside her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe shifting forms of the creature snapped at the edges of the circle, but did not pass over her wards. She waited for it grow larger, force its way out, but instead it pulled in on itself, becoming more dense. More solid. More\u0026mdash; \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s transitioning,\u0026rdquo; said Asanti, cutting through Frances and Liam\u0026rsquo;s background chatter. Not all demons had a physical form. Many, like Aaron and Hannah, had to borrow a body in order to take action in the world. But this one was trying to shift from being a creature of energy to one of matter. \u0026ldquo;Turn up the interference,\u0026rdquo; she told Frances. \u0026ldquo;We have to force it back where it came from before it solidifies in its physical form.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m trying,\u0026rdquo; said Frances, \u0026ldquo;but it\u0026rsquo;s not working. It\u0026rsquo;s like\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. it\u0026rsquo;s like it\u0026rsquo;s being pushed from the other side.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Or pulled from this one,\u0026rdquo; said Sal. \u0026ldquo;Hannah called this thing. She could have it on a leash.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If we can\u0026rsquo;t force it back, what do we do?\u0026rdquo; asked Mench\u0026uacute;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Give me a minute.\u0026rdquo; Frances was already at Liam\u0026rsquo;s side by the computer. \u0026ldquo;If we can\u0026rsquo;t send it back, we might be able to cut it off from the mystic energy of the museum and trap it in the circle.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti nodded, understanding Frances\u0026rsquo; aim instantly. \u0026ldquo;Trap it in limbo: in our world, but without a physical form.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s a good thing?\u0026rdquo; asked Sal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What do we do with it once we\u0026rsquo;ve trapped it?\u0026rdquo; said Mench\u0026uacute;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s make sure it stays trapped first,\u0026rdquo; Grace gritted out, \u0026ldquo;and then worry about step two.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti bent to the floor, using her marker to add more protective layers to the circle. \u0026ldquo;Without a physical body to process nutrients in this world, or a link to the metaphysical it\u0026rsquo;s currently feeding on, it should gradually lose cohesion. Starve to death, in effect,\u0026rdquo; she translated.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I have to cut energy to the machine, or the creature will just feed off it. Can your circle hold it on its own?\u0026rdquo; Frances asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Just a second\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026rdquo; Asanti drew a last line and quickly scanned her work. No breaks, no gaps. She murmured an incantation, made sure the circle was as strong and whole as she could make it. Her vision grayed around the edges. There was no more time for precautions. \u003cem\u003eIf it is now or never, let it be now\u003c/em\u003e. \u0026ldquo;Cut it loose,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances grabbed a dial on the base of the machine and spun it all the way to the left. The glow died.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti checked the circle. The creature shuddered as its connection to the nourishment of the collection terminated. It surged forward in the air, only to hit the invisible wall of Asanti\u0026rsquo;s wards.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe circle held.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe shadow fell back and Asanti, staggered, let out the breath she hadn\u0026rsquo;t realized she was holding. It had worked. They had won.\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam watched Frances\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. flit. There was no other word for it. He was watching her flit across the room, back and forth between her machine, her computer, and the circle drawn on the floor that was somehow trapping a half-manifested demon and preventing it from destroying the city of London and the rest of the world. And, okay, he had to allow that the shifting thing didn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be going anywhere at the moment, but he wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure that he believed some marks on the ground actually had it confined. He would have felt better if Asanti had at least drawn the damn thing in permanent ink.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut the point was: Frances, flitting, and maybe he should have been disturbed that she was flitting around on tentacles, but honestly, after all his years with Team Three\u0026mdash;and especially now that he had his memories of his time with the Network back\u0026mdash;Liam had seen some really strange things. A woman who was some kind of reptilian octopus from the hips down barely made his personal top ten. No, what was bugging Liam was how gosh-darned happy Frances seemed to be about the fact that they were all hiding in a boiler room with a demonic monster from another dimension.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe tried to point this out to her. But Frances was stubbornly obtuse to his point. \u0026ldquo;We really do need a better term than \u0026lsquo;demon\u0026rsquo; for these creatures. I mean, the Catholic Church has used \u0026lsquo;demonic\u0026rsquo; at various points in history to refer to everything from supernatural manifestations, to ideas they don\u0026rsquo;t like, to disease. In this case, I don\u0026rsquo;t even know that \u0026lsquo;creature\u0026rsquo; would be appropriate. Surely fixed physical form isn\u0026rsquo;t necessarily part of the definition in our work, but I haven\u0026rsquo;t seen anything that indicates the City Eater has responses more sophisticated than reflex, let alone a coherent sense of self.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSomething in that last sentence snagged at Liam\u0026rsquo;s attention. \u0026ldquo;Reflex? Are you experimenting on that thing?\u0026rdquo; He had a sudden vision of Frances looking for a knee on the shadow so she could tap it with a hammer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances scoffed. \u0026ldquo;Of course not. It\u0026rsquo;s in a sealed and warded circle. I\u0026rsquo;m just observing.\u0026rdquo; She let out a small sigh. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a shame. But even so, this is an amazing opportunity to learn.\u0026rdquo; She moved to return to her machine.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam interposed himself between her and it. \u0026ldquo;The only thing we need to be learning about something called a City Eater is how to send it back where it came from and keep any more from following after.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances easily skirted around him\u0026mdash;for a woman who spent most of her time in a wheelchair, she sure could move when she was out of it\u0026mdash;and adjusted a brass ring on the base of her device. \u0026ldquo;That is both simplistic and short-sighted.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Well, maybe I\u0026rsquo;m just a simple man\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo; Liam cut himself off. He hadn\u0026rsquo;t gotten this close to Frances\u0026rsquo;s contraption before, and now that he was, he noticed something that made his blood run cold. From a distance, the machine looked like some kind of hacked-together Orb knockoff, which was disturbing enough, but now that he could see into the guts of it\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. \u0026ldquo;Is that a circuit board?\u0026rdquo; he asked. He leaned closer and felt a shiver dance across his skin. Even from a foot away. Liam took a step back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances didn\u0026rsquo;t look up from her notes. \u0026ldquo;Probably. There are several melded with the internal mechanics. The original builders had more precious metals, but they didn\u0026rsquo;t have access to the kind of technology we do now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYeah, that was pretty much what Liam had been afraid she was going to say. \u0026ldquo;I suppose you tinkered with your laptop too?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances was staring at him openly now. \u0026ldquo;Of course I did. I had to harden all the components or it wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be any use at all this close to the machine.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So, in addition to building a new version of a magical device when we still don\u0026rsquo;t understand how the original works, you also decided to go ahead and make it a technomantic machine, you know, for shits and giggles, because that hasn\u0026rsquo;t gone horribly wrong every other time someone has done it before!\u0026rdquo; Liam could feel his voice rising and didn\u0026rsquo;t bother to bring it back into check. \u0026ldquo;Have you not been paying attention during the last two years? Did you not notice what turned your legs into tentacles?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances looked back at him, utterly cold. \u0026ldquo;I am aware of the dangers.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re not acting like it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Why do you think I started studying the union of magic and machines?\u0026rdquo; she demanded. \u0026ldquo;The Network is down, but they\u0026rsquo;re hardly the only group out there with a similar philosophy. You may be too squeamish, but I intend to use every tool at my disposal to save the world. I\u0026rsquo;ve come to terms with what happened to me, Liam. You should try it sometime.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;This isn\u0026rsquo;t about me! It\u0026rsquo;s about\u0026mdash;having morals, and if you don\u0026rsquo;t hold on to something, what exactly are you saving?\u0026rdquo; Liam shook his head. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re trying to save us from capsizing by drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat. We might not turn over, but only because we\u0026rsquo;re going to have bigger problems.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam turned away then, but Frances added to his back: \u0026ldquo;While you cling to the mast and curse the sea for being wet.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti sat on a case of dish soap. She realized dimly that she had been staring at the patch of floor between her feet without seeing it for the last\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. for some number of minutes. She smelled tea. Where was that coming from? There was no tea down here. \u003cem\u003eOh, please don\u0026rsquo;t let me be having a stroke.\u003c/em\u003e She didn\u0026rsquo;t think that she\u0026rsquo;d tapped herself that deeply to contain the creature. On the other hand, there was probably a reason why all the advice on the practice of magic she had been able to find stressed the foolhardiness of putting yourself directly into your work. Hair, blood, and other fluids were one thing\u0026mdash;their physical nature made it obvious how much of yourself you were using at any given moment. Otherwise, her sources warned, the first sign that you had given too much of yourself to a spell was when you passed out. Or died.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTea.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe could see it now too. Mench\u0026uacute; was holding a mug in front of her. It had a picture of a dog on it. That must be where the smell had come from. It all made sense now. Except\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe looked up. \u0026ldquo;Where did you find tea?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s a staff kitchen not far from here. Perry said opening the door wouldn\u0026rsquo;t hurt anything, and you looked like you needed it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti took the mug. The tea was hot and sweet and milky. \u0026ldquo;Thank you.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; nodded, but didn\u0026rsquo;t leave. Instead, he sat down on the case beside her. \u0026ldquo;How long has this been going on?\u0026rdquo; he asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We got here yesterday.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Frances\u0026rsquo;s machine isn\u0026rsquo;t something you whipped up in a few hours after you got off the plane in London.\u0026rdquo; He paused. \u0026ldquo;Is all of this\u0026rdquo;\u0026mdash;a wave of his hand took in the machine, Frances, Perry, the lines on the floor\u0026mdash;\u0026ldquo;since the trial?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti huffed a laugh, sending ripples across the surface of the tea. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve been working with magic for years, Arturo. I\u0026rsquo;ve just been working in secret since the trial.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Perry and Frances?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If you want to know about their involvement, ask them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a moment, Mench\u0026uacute; looked like he wanted to press the point, but he let it go. \u0026ldquo;So for the last year, every time Perry has suddenly shown up in a useful location, or you just happened to have information about what we were working on\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. it wasn\u0026rsquo;t from the Orb, or some book, or one of your sources, was it?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sometimes it was research, just like always. Sometimes it was\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. other kinds of research.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How many times did you have information on the phenomenon that we were investigating because you had caused it?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMaybe it was the aftermath of making the ward. Maybe it was the caffeine in the tea on a mostly empty stomach. Maybe, after nearly a year, she was just tired of lying to him. \u0026ldquo;Only once.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The caves?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No, I sent Perry ahead of you to learn what he could, but he didn\u0026rsquo;t trigger it. It really was those poor girls.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; thought about this. \u0026ldquo;The apartment building in Rome, then, with the magical servants.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti nodded. \u0026ldquo;It was a very simple spell. A test run. It all went perfectly until we found out they had changed the rules on us. The information we gained was invaluable.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe followed Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s gaze to the creature, quiescent now inside the circle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Was it fun for you?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked. \u0026ldquo;Watching us run around in circles trying to catch up to what you already knew?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No, of course not!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then what, Asanti? No matter what our differences, it hasn\u0026rsquo;t stopped us from working together for years. I thought we trusted each other.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti sighed. She had assumed her reasons were obvious, but maybe not. \u0026ldquo;Of course I trust you. But I also know you.\u0026rdquo; He looked a silent question at her, and she continued. \u0026ldquo;For me, the Church is an employer. To you, it\u0026rsquo;s a vocation. It didn\u0026rsquo;t seem fair to put you in a position where you would have to choose between that and your loyalty to me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; was silent.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam frowned over Frances\u0026rsquo;s computer. His last dabble with technomancy had led to his possession, which made him reluctant to trust his expertise on the subject, even without the giant hole that used to be in his memory, but from what he could tell, Frances had told him the truth: She was analyzing the heck out of whatever was inside Asanti\u0026rsquo;s circle on the floor. But what she was measuring? That was another trick entirely. Liam let his hindbrain take over, scanning the numbers that scrolled across the screen while he half-listened to Sal and Perry\u0026rsquo;s quiet argument in the corner of the room.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I cannot believe you!\u0026rdquo; Sal hissed at her brother. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ve been secretly working for Asanti\u0026rsquo;s Operation: Resurrect Team Four this whole time?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be much of a secret if I told you about it, Sal.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That is not the point. I\u0026rsquo;m your sister. I can\u0026rsquo;t protect you if you\u0026rsquo;re getting up to your neck in\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No? What do you mean, no?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I mean it\u0026rsquo;s not your job to protect me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Isn\u0026rsquo;t it? Maybe you don\u0026rsquo;t remember all the times you called me to bail you out. I\u0026rsquo;ve covered for you since we were kids, and you depend on that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sure, when we were kids. But I\u0026rsquo;m an adult, I\u0026rsquo;m sharing my mind with a powerful supernatural being, and you still treat me like a kid! When are you going to trust me?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t give me anything to trust! You take off for a year, then start showing up randomly on missions, where you say something cryptic and swan off again. If you want trust, that road has to go both ways.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry made a sound of exasperation, all pretense of keeping their argument at an ignorable volume long gone. \u0026ldquo;You want me to be honest with you? All of you? Are you really sure?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes, I am, you patronizing asshole!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fine! Everything Hannah said back in Guatemala\u0026mdash;it was all true. You know the story about the world being created in six days? It was a rush job. A community project. God, angels, the demons, whatever you want to call them, we built the world because the higher-ups wanted to know how life worked: blood, cause and effect, time, all that fun, gross squishy stuff. And what better way to do that than create a habitat and let it run around for a few billion years while you took notes?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti looked first at Sal, then to Mench\u0026uacute;. \u0026ldquo;Arturo, what is he talking about? Guatemala?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe looked uncomfortable\u0026mdash;not half as uncomfortable as Sal felt. \u0026ldquo;Hannah told us this story when we saw her there. We didn\u0026rsquo;t know what to think.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;She was telling the truth,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;The whole truth.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You could have said something then!\u0026rdquo; shouted Sal.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I was trying to play by the rules! Just because she went rogue, doesn\u0026rsquo;t mean I should.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam half-closed his laptop screen. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re saying the whole planet is some kind of terrarium?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry rolled his eyes. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not just the Earth. That\u0026rsquo;s your problem\u0026mdash;you guys never think big enough! It\u0026rsquo;s a universarium. A cosmic jar full of dirt and moss. After a couple millennia the creators lost interest and now there\u0026rsquo;s a crack in the lid and the whole thing is growing mold.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe room had gone silent. No one moved. No one breathed.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal swallowed several times before she was able to speak. When she did, her anger was already dying off. \u0026ldquo;And Hannah has come to scrub out the jar?\u0026rdquo; she asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry shook his head; the heat was leaving him as well. \u0026ldquo;Hannah doesn\u0026rsquo;t want to destroy Earth. But our world is leaking into yours faster and faster\u0026mdash;your little island of sanity\u0026rsquo;s sinking\u0026mdash;and she believes the only way to save the experiment is to create controlled cracks to relieve the pressure. That\u0026rsquo;s what the City Eater is for. She wants to just scoop London off the map. The rest of the UK, while she\u0026rsquo;s at it. She believes that\u0026rsquo;ll even out the pressure\u0026mdash;for a while. Sacrifice some so that the rest may live.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What do you believe?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry blushed. \u0026ldquo;I was sent here to observe the experiment by living among humans. I went native. I don\u0026rsquo;t want to sacrifice anyone.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhich was when the alarm went off.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNot the museum alarm. The noise was too low, too brash and cinematic, and it was coming from Frances\u0026rsquo;s laptop speakers.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam glanced down at the screen, and when he looked back up, he was even paler than usual. \u0026ldquo;Hey guys? This thing isn\u0026rsquo;t starving. It\u0026rsquo;s getting bigger.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e4\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam\u0026rsquo;s announcement forced the room into motion.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Frances,\u0026rdquo; Asanti barked, \u0026ldquo;what happened?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. I don\u0026rsquo;t know. The manifestation must have found another energy source.\u0026rdquo; She checked the figures that had arrested Liam\u0026rsquo;s attention, then returned to the machine. \u0026ldquo;Liam\u0026rsquo;s right, it isn\u0026rsquo;t getting smaller.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti rose, swaying alarmingly on her feet as soon as she took her first step. Mench\u0026uacute; caught her elbow, and a moment later Perry had crossed the room to support her other side.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal had a sudden and horrifying idea what, or rather, \u003cem\u003ewho\u003c/em\u003e was serving as the City Eater\u0026rsquo;s new source of energy.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry reached the same conclusion at nearly the same instant. \u0026ldquo;Asanti\u0026rsquo;s still connected to the circle. The creature must be drawing off her through it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Get her unconnected!\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; practically shouted.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;She\u0026rsquo;s the only thing keeping the circle intact!\u0026rdquo; Frances rushed into the cluster gathering around Asanti. \u0026ldquo;If the City Eater has pulled enough energy to form a physical body, the power Asanti is putting into the circle is probably the only thing keeping it from breaking out and into London.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Has it?\u0026rdquo; Perry asked. \u0026ldquo;Does it have a physical body in there?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Why don\u0026rsquo;t you stick your hand inside the circle and find out?\u0026rdquo; Frances bit back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Everyone be quiet!\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; barked. Unbelievably, they all shut up. Sal was impressed. \u0026ldquo;We need suggestions, not questions. One at a time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile Frances tried to formulate her next argument as a statement and Asanti gathered her thoughts, Liam stepped into the gap. \u0026ldquo;If Frances and I work together, I think we have enough combined expertise to keep that thing contained in the circle without Asanti\u0026rsquo;s support, for a little while anyway.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What good does a little while do us?\u0026rdquo; Frances demanded. While this was technically a question, Mench\u0026uacute; let it go. Sal guessed it was because he wanted to know the answer too.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;First of all, it keeps that thing from draining Asanti dry,\u0026rdquo; said Liam. \u0026ldquo;Second, it gives us a few minutes so we can be ready to kill it when it does break free.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace cracked her knuckles. \u0026ldquo;Physical manifestation means it\u0026rsquo;s physically vulnerable.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Does it?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked Perry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry made a vague shrug. \u0026ldquo;Probably? The City Eater \u003cem\u003ereally\u003c/em\u003e wasn\u0026rsquo;t my area.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal caught Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s eye. \u0026ldquo;Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s time for you and me to clear the building. Just in case.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe could see him calculating the size of the museum, the number of visitors inside. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s going to take a while to get everyone out.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal couldn\u0026rsquo;t argue. He was right. But still: \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;d rather get some out than none out.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; took in the team\u0026mdash;the two teams\u0026mdash;the creature, and the rest of the room. Finally, he turned to Liam and Frances. \u0026ldquo;All right. Keep it contained as long as you can.\u0026rdquo; To Grace: \u0026ldquo;If they cannot, do whatever you need to tear it to pieces before it can hurt anyone else.\u0026rdquo; To Perry: \u0026ldquo;If you are here to help us, then help. But if you cannot contain the creature, I want you all to save yourselves. Failure here only becomes irrevocable if we do not survive to make our next attempt.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal moved to the door, and Mench\u0026uacute; joined her. He reached for the knob, but Asanti\u0026rsquo;s voice caught them before they could leave. \u0026ldquo;Are you going to call in Team One?\u0026rdquo; she asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was the briefest pause before Mench\u0026uacute; said, \u0026ldquo;No time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd then he and Sal were out of the room. It went against all of Sal\u0026rsquo;s instincts to leave her team behind with the monster while she ran to safety. Especially when her team included her brother. Even if she wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure he was quite her brother anymore. She consoled herself with the thought that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t as though she would be in any less danger than they were. If they failed, nowhere in Great Britain would be safe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhile the others worked, reinforcing the circle, watching Asanti, calling out readings from either the computer or Frances\u0026rsquo;s machine, Grace stood by the wall and watched. And waited.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe was used to it. Her work was characterized by long periods of inactivity punctuated by a few seconds of action that could encompass a lifetime\u0026rsquo;s excitement, surprise, and terror between one heartbeat and the next. The trouble was, you never knew when those heartbeats would occur. And so, while Grace was inactive, she was not idle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe watched her prey. In its current form, the City Eater resembled a blob the size of a Doberman. Every few seconds it would throw off a pseudopod and probe at the edge of its cage. Although\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. probe implied intent, and as she watched, Grace could see no indication that the thing inside the circle had a definitive goal. Since it had been trapped, it had fed, moved, reacted, but she could see no recognizable signs of\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. mood. It did not lurk, sulk, or seethe.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace shook her head free of such nonsense. Demons were not humans, and anthropomorphizing their motives and reactions was a tempting but dangerous trap. Grace had learned to trust the evidence before her, not theories. Turning to her other senses, Grace listened.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe could hear Perry speaking. \u0026ldquo;Asanti, you have to let it go. You\u0026rsquo;re going to kill yourself like this.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you ready?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It doesn\u0026rsquo;t matter.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are. You. Ready?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA frantic clacking of laptop keys and a soft click from the machine. \u0026ldquo;Liam?\u0026rdquo; That was Frances.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;As ready as we\u0026rsquo;re going to get.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA pause, more clicks and whirs. Asanti groaned. \u0026ldquo;Okay,\u0026rdquo; Frances said, \u0026ldquo;that\u0026rsquo;s all I can do. Let it go, Asanti.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was nothing to hear, but Grace caught a whiff of sulfur and ozone, and felt a tingle against her skin. But it was only a passing moment, and she couldn\u0026rsquo;t be sure.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe opened her eyes and looked at the creature. Frances confirmed what her eyes told her. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s holding.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe didn\u0026rsquo;t have to add \u0026ldquo;for now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace consciously relaxed her muscles as she readied herself. Whatever came next, she would be ready.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; let Sal take the lead out of the basement and into the service corridors of the museum. \u0026ldquo;Do you have a plan?\u0026rdquo; he asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If we have to convince everyone in the museum individually that they need to leave, we might manage to get half a dozen civilians out the door before that creature breaks free and we all become demon food.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s the alternative?\u0026rdquo; he asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All public buildings have evacuation plans. We need to find the person who can trigger this one, and persuade them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; nodded. \u0026ldquo;That would be my part of the plan, then?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Please.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was an art to appearing as though you belonged somewhere you had no authorization to be. Especially when you were in a tearing hurry. Walking without running, with intent but not panic, Mench\u0026uacute; continued down the hall until they came across a woman wearing a blue sweater and a nametag that said \u003cem\u003eFiona\u003c/em\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; approached her. \u0026ldquo;Excuse me,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;I seem to be lost. Could you direct my colleague and me to the office of the chief administrator? We have an appointment.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe woman startled, then smiled. \u0026ldquo;Of course, Father. I\u0026rsquo;m going that way myself.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re too kind.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMoments later, she was leading them through the warren of corridors with a businesslike stride.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt took only half a mind for Mench\u0026uacute; to keep up his end of their guide\u0026rsquo;s innocuous small talk. Had he come far to see the director? Indeed, he had traveled all the way from Rome. Was this to do with the new international cooperative exhibit on early Christian artifacts? Yes, as a matter of fact it was. Wasn\u0026rsquo;t it a shame how the government was making everything even more complicated than it had been before? Well, naturally, but personal connections could so frequently accomplish what international agreements could not. By the time they were nearing the office of the director, she had practically created his cover story for him. And from what? He had approached her without the name of the person they were supposed to see, without even a proper title. The woman should have seen through him in an instant. Probably would have, if not for one thing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe collar around his neck. That was all she had needed to see.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; had always liked that. No matter where he went in the world, when people saw the collar, he had a connection. Even for people who did not have warm feelings toward the Church, and there were certainly more than a few of them, the collar was a way to engage, and where there was engagement, even the thickest wall might be breached. Connecting was what Mench\u0026uacute; was good at. He liked people, and people liked him. But after what Asanti had said to him, he found himself questioning what that connection meant. When he talked to strangers, were they speaking to him, Arturo Mench\u0026uacute;, or only to the office he represented? If Asanti, a woman he had known, worked with, and considered his closest friend for more than a decade saw him as a cog in the great Catholic machine first, was there anyone on the planet who knew him as a person?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAfter so many years as a priest, was there a person left?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFiona left them with the director\u0026rsquo;s personal assistant and a warm farewell.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal waited for Fiona to vanish out of sight before flashing her badge to the befuddled PA. \u0026ldquo;We need to see your boss right now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge was just as effective as the collar.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe scream of a fire alarm echoed in the boiler room, and Grace held up a hand to shield her eyes from the flashing light above the door.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam barely looked up from his screen. \u0026ldquo;Looks like Sal and Mench\u0026uacute; are making progress on the evacuation.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Can someone shut that off?\u0026rdquo; Frances demanded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry waved a hand and the speaker in the room went silent, although Grace could still hear the echo of the alarm from the corridor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Thank you,\u0026rdquo; said Frances. Then, \u0026ldquo;No. It\u0026rsquo;s surging\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBefore Frances could finish her sentence, it was too late. A low crackle of energy burst against Grace\u0026rsquo;s skin, burning and intense for an instant before it disappeared as quickly as it had come. The lines Asanti had drawn on the floor vanished with it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe City Eater had escaped.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace did not hesitate. She did not hold anything back. She pressed off the wall, and leapt into the air to meet it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e5\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace leapt \u003cem\u003eat\u003c/em\u003e the City Eater. She landed \u003cem\u003ein\u003c/em\u003e it. But this was not like being swallowed, as she had been by the hydra. The hydra had been rooted in its physical body. Every caustic and slimy inch of it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNeither was it like her encounter with the demon trapped by the Network in Belfast. That had been incorporeal, intangible, but governed by a clear intelligence. That demon had been seductive, with obvious intent directed at her with a specific aim.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis demon\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. Grace wasn\u0026rsquo;t even sure \u003cem\u003edemon\u003c/em\u003e was the right word. It consumed her senses. Like being in deep water out of reach of the light, only without the chill or the wet, with no sense of temperature at all. She was smothered by a solid vacuum.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat had Perry said, that the jar had cracked and the demon world was leaking in? Hannah hadn\u0026rsquo;t unlocked a cage, she had opened a floodgate.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor the first time in many years, Grace felt the clench of true fear in her gut. She had just started a fistfight with the ocean.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam saw Grace fling herself into the air, collide with the shadow, and disappear. Asanti, Frances, and Perry were shouting at each other. Frances shoved Liam away from the computer.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Can you get it contained again?\u0026rdquo; he asked her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not sure.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Can you get Grace out of there?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;None of these readings make any sense. I think it\u0026rsquo;s still at the edge between having a physical form and not.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What does that mean?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know! This has never happened before!\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe City Eater, now a dense ball of shadow, getting darker and denser by the moment, roiled and grew to the size of a small horse. Liam hoped it was agitated because it had eaten something that didn\u0026rsquo;t agree with it. He turned to Asanti and Perry. \u0026ldquo;Well?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry was shaking his head. \u0026ldquo;It isn\u0026rsquo;t a creature. It\u0026rsquo;s\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. a big gob of magic that got loose.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s the technical term, is it?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not helpful, Liam,\u0026rdquo; said Asanti.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam ground his teeth. Asanti was one to accuse him of not being helpful, but she wasn\u0026rsquo;t wrong. The big gob of magic wasn\u0026rsquo;t contained. It didn\u0026rsquo;t look like it was going back to being contained anytime soon. He\u0026rsquo;d deal with that later. Job one, get Grace back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe looked around for something he could use. Could he throw her a rope? There didn\u0026rsquo;t seem to be any rope to hand. Plenty of Fairy liquid, though. Liam took a bottle of the dish soap and chucked it in the blob\u0026rsquo;s direction. It was absorbed with an audible \u003cem\u003eblooph!\u003c/em\u003e but no other obvious effect. Liam went back to rummaging through the contents of the room.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What are you doing, Liam?\u0026rdquo; asked Asanti.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Something,\u0026rdquo; he growled, coming up from his search of one of the junk piles with a length of rebar. Liam wasn\u0026rsquo;t trained in swordplay, but his early life had given him plenty of opportunities to become an expert in how to whack something really hard with a stick. And magic wasn\u0026rsquo;t supposed to like iron, right? That had a familiar ring to it. Muttering a brief prayer, Liam charged the ball of shadow and swung.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe bar slowed when it hit the edge of the City Eater, but passed through. Liam swung again, harder. It was like batting practice with a cloud. One more time. He leaned forward, putting all of his power into the swing, and extending so far that his hands disappeared to the wrists inside the City Eater.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe iron bar hit something, and stuck fast.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam braced himself and leaned back, not sure what he had on the end of his line. He didn\u0026rsquo;t care. Either it would be Grace, or it would be something he could kick to death once it was in range of his boots. But as he strained to pull it back, the rebar didn\u0026rsquo;t budge. Liam felt his grip slipping and fought the pain roaring up his arms to tighten his fingers. A second pair of hands grabbed the bar behind his. Perry, pulling too. He felt Asanti\u0026rsquo;s arms lock around his waist, bracing him. Behind Perry, Frances was doing the same. Together, the four of them gave one mighty pull.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace tumbled out onto the ground, the other end of the bar still clasped in her hands. They all went down in a heap beside her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace coughed once, then took a great and shuddering breath.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Thank you,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No problem. You okay?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Better than I was a second ago.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam nearly laughed with relief, but the sound died in his throat when he heard a low growl on the other side of the room.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe City Eater had settled on a form.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe form of a tiger.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA very angry tiger, crouched to spring.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs one, they ran.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sun was setting when Mench\u0026uacute; and Sal found the rest of the team in the courtyard surrounding the main building of the museum. In spite of the alarms, an impressive number of staff and tourists remained inside the fence, waiting to see if they were going to be allowed back in the building. Most of them had their phones out, taking selfies and recording each other to update the world on the latest wrinkle in their vacation. Mench\u0026uacute; was pretty sure they were all about to find something far more fascinating to record. Assuming their phones didn\u0026rsquo;t fry first.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What happened in there?\u0026rdquo; Sal asked Liam.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It stopped chasing us somewhere in the main exhibit hall. Not sure if that\u0026rsquo;s a good sign or not.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti\u0026rsquo;s dreads were falling out of their neat arrangement, giving her an uncharacteristically disheveled appearance. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s not,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;It got distracted by some of the artifacts near the Rosetta stone.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s heart sank. Hannah seemed to have an affection for the oldest texts she could locate, and he could only imagine what her summoned creature could find to feed upon in a place like this.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA crash, followed by a screeching roar, did not exactly answer Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s question about what the demon had found so distracting, but it did clear up any mystery as to what the result of its detour had been.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe creature that burst through the roof of the venerable British Museum was a chimera of mythological nightmares come to life. Part griffin, part sphinx, part Chinese lion, part snake that\u0026mdash;given their luck\u0026mdash;was probably part of an actual chimera.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe crowd in the courtyard screamed as pieces of the roof rained down. Sal was shouting at people to get back, to calm down, to evacuate the area quickly and calmly. In spite of her using her best authoritative bellow, she was having a negligible effect.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlapping its mighty wings\u0026mdash;one reptilian, one feathered\u0026mdash;the City Eater turned its serpentine neck down toward the people below. Its head looked like a cross between a bird and a dragon. It opened a hooked beak as long as Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s arm to reveal row upon row of gleaming teeth. Mench\u0026uacute; could barely stand in the backwash of its wings as it descended lower and lower and drew breath to let loose\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. what? A mighty roar? A gout of flame? Mench\u0026uacute; braced himself for either, for both, and then\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the distance, but closing fast, the thump of helicopter blades sliced across the sky. A cry of hope went up from the crowd, seeing what they supposed was rescue. Mench\u0026uacute; felt sick. There was no way the people in the two approaching helicopters could know what they were facing or how to defeat it. He was one of the foremost experts in the world, and he had no idea what to do. But as the mechanical beasts approached, the demon drew back from the ground, struggling and confused, no more familiar with helicopters than the crews were with demons.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe slicing rotors drew near, approaching the demon from either side, causing it to twist back and forth between them. It rose, and the helicopters followed, pinning it between them, unable to escape. The demon let out a scream so loud and discordant Mench\u0026uacute; felt his heart shudder under the assault. And just as the cry reached its apex\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. the creature shattered, bursting outward past the helicopters like a breaking murmuration. For an instant, the air was filled with a thousand wings.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA heartbeat later, they were gone. The cloud ascended and split, spreading over London like a bag of feathers scattered to the winds.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; stared after them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti was at his side. \u0026ldquo;I need to get back into the museum,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;All our research is still there. It\u0026rsquo;s our only hope.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; blinked at her. \u0026ldquo;Our only hope to do what?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;To contain it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; threw up a hand toward the flock scattered across the sky. \u0026ldquo;You think you can contain that? It just split into a thousand pieces. A thousand City Eaters. And it\u0026rsquo;s\u0026mdash;they\u0026rsquo;re?\u0026mdash;still growing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know!\u0026rdquo; she burst out. \u0026ldquo;But we have to try. We might not be enough, but we\u0026rsquo;re all this city has.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; took a breath. Then another. She was right. Away from the immediate threat of the helicopters, the thousand tiny pieces merged into an amorphous dark mist and descended on the city, vanishing behind the skyline. Not gone\u0026mdash;retreated, to gather strength. He thought he understood this rhythm. The creature would not be so easily dispatched next time.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSirens wailed out of sight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; took a steadying breath. \u0026ldquo;Let me find the director,\u0026rdquo; he told Asanti. \u0026ldquo;He should be able to get us back inside\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo; A buzz from Mench\u0026uacute;\u0026rsquo;s pocket cut him off and Mench\u0026uacute; drew out his phone. Cardinal Fox.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti looked up from the caller ID to meet his gaze. \u0026ldquo;You could let it go to voicemail,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe couldn\u0026rsquo;t. He was a priest getting a call from a cardinal. He had to answer. And they both knew it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; cleared his throat as he brought the phone to his ear. \u0026ldquo;Your Eminence,\u0026rdquo; he said, \u0026ldquo;Team Three is already on the ground. I believe we can contain the phenomenon, but there is a problem\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFox cut him off. \u0026ldquo;There are several problems, Father, starting with you sneaking out of the Vatican in the middle of the night and following on from there. Team One is en route to your location. I am placing Shah in charge of this operation and you will give her your full cooperation. Is that clear?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes, Your Eminence.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The instant your services are no longer required in the field, you and your entire team will return directly to Rome, whereupon you and I will have words about this little adventure of yours.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt wasn\u0026rsquo;t a question, but Fox paused, and so Mench\u0026uacute; repeated, \u0026ldquo;Yes, Your Eminence.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Good.\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; waited for Fox to hang up. Now was not the time to fight his superior for the last word. But Fox wasn\u0026rsquo;t finished. \u0026ldquo;One more thing,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;Tell Asanti she\u0026rsquo;s fired.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd with that, the line went dead.\u003c/p\u003e\n","description":"\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePreviously on \u003cem\u003eBookburners\u003c/em\u003e:\u003c/strong\u003e\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\nAsanti was put on trial for using magic to fight magic, and Father Menchú stepped in to save her. Things haven’t been the same between them since. Especially since Asanti has been going behind his back, along with Perry and Frances, to operate with a secret reestablishment of Team Four. Working from the original Team Four’s notes, they built a machine that is similar to the Orb in the Archives. Perry revealed this betrayal to Father Menchú when he followed Menchú and Sal to Germany. Asanti, taking advantage of Menchú’s absence, went to London with Frances to carry out her own plans. Hannah told Father Menchú that the world they know was just an experiment, and it’s time for that experiment to end.\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n Who's Who:\n\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eSal Brooks\u003c/strong\u003e: Former NYPD detective and newest member of Team Three.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFather Menchú\u003c/strong\u003e: Field leader of Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGrace\u003c/strong\u003e: Team Three’s human wrecking ball, whose life is tied to a magic candle.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eArchivist Asanti\u003c/strong\u003e: Archivist and guardian of the Black Archives.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLiam Doyle\u003c/strong\u003e: Tech expert. Former possession victim. Survivor.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePerry\u003c/strong\u003e: Sal’s brother; now half human, half angel.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFrances\u003c/strong\u003e: Asanti’s former assistant, whose legs were replaced by tentacles after an unfortunate magical incident. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCardinal Fox\u003c/strong\u003e: Head of the Societas Librorum Occultorum; largely antagonistic to Team Three. \u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHannah\u003c/strong\u003e: Current embodiment of the being that destroyed Father Menchú’s village. \u003c/p\u003e\n\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWriter: Margaret Dunlap\u003cbr\u003eCover Artist: Jeffrey Veregge\u003cbr\u003eEditor: Marco Palmieri\u003c/p\u003e","sku":"com.serialboxpublishing.serialbox.article.152","slug":"Bookburners-s3e11","audio":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/audio/season3/BBS03E11.mp3","epub":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E11.epub","mobi":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E11.mobi","pdf":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/ebooks/season3/BBS3E11.pdf","share_url":"false","item_price":199,"bundle_price":199,"subscriber_price":159,"header_bg_color":"#000000","number_display":"EPISODE 11"},{"id":"595faad9fd9a2b0001c3eb3d","issue_id":"595d3e7748e97e0001b644ba","number":12,"title":"Broken Vessels","released_date":"2017-10-04T06:27:02.478+00:00","released":true,"strapline":"A river of magic. ","byline":"Brian Francis Slattery","featured":false,"coming_soon":false,"background_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/covers/season3/BBS03E12_2.jpg","icon_image_url":"","divider_image_url":"https://serialbox.cachefly.net/bookburners/dividers/bookburners_episode1_divider.png","divider_color":"","display_date":"2017-10-04","body":"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e1\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe alleyway was like a thousand others in London, so no one took particular note on this evening as it filled with dark mist. The mist cascaded down from rooftops and landed heavily for something so insubstantial. Air moved and swirled, kicking up wastepaper, rippling the surfaces of the shallow puddles collected in the corners. The mist first thickened as it gathered, condensed, than congealed into a swarm as particles joined with one another, sought others, and joined again. The outlines of a creature formed in the air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut wait, the creature decided. Not one. Three. There was time to be one later. For now, one was too slow, too kind. Three was better. The creature was hungry and needed energy to grow, so that when it became one, eventually, it would be almost impossible to stop. So three beings formed in the alley, three that were one. They exchanged nods and glances, as if coming to an agreement, though as they were of one mind, there would never have been any dissent. Their sole desire was to feed, to grow. Resolved, they loped out of the alleyway, into the city. They were only looking for food. The mayhem left in their wake, at least for now, was none of their concern.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom the hotel room window, Sal could hear the sirens from ambulances, carrying a sense of growing threat, of pressure rising. It was all over the news in London, exploding on social media, though exactly what the \u003cem\u003eit \u003c/em\u003ewas, nobody could say. BBC commentators struggled with the lack of footage. Cameras, phones, microphones, anything that used electricity seemed to go on the fritz as soon as they got close. Reports from terrified eyewitnesses offered little more than what the witnesses were feeling. News outlets passed around tweets.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMy apartment is destroyed. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eJust saw something eat part of a car. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSmoke, mayhem. Mom I love you. \u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere was no dispute about the damage. By now it was clear that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t just an \u003cem\u003eit\u003c/em\u003e; it was a \u003cem\u003ethem. \u003c/em\u003eThree of them. Helicopters captured it best: three trails that meandered through the city with only some regard for the division between streets and buildings. The trails zigzagged down major thoroughfares and then burst into windows, burst out of walls on another side of the block, leaving stripes of wrecked cars, broken glass, and shattered plaster. People were being killed, going missing. The police were at a loss. The authorities called it a rolling attack, possibly the result of terrorism, and urged calm and caution. The mayor told people to stay inside, but stay alert. It was getting out of hand.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s our move?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam didn\u0026rsquo;t raise his eyes; he was too busy following the news on his laptop. Grace and Mench\u0026uacute; looked to Asanti, Perry, and Frances, who had her appendages hidden beneath a long skirt as she sat in her wheelchair.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s complicated,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;What we have here goes a little beyond your usual MO of capture and containment. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure you can do it without help.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It seems Cardinal Fox agrees with you,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said, a trace of bitterness in his voice.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But Team One might not be the right tool for the job either,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Like a screwdriver for a nail, eh?\u0026rdquo; Liam said, still without looking up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Maybe more like bringing a flamethrower to stop a flood,\u0026rdquo; Perry said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Nice image,\u0026rdquo; Sal said, \u0026ldquo;but not useful. We have only a few hours before Team One arrives with everything they\u0026rsquo;ve got. What can we do?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Punching might work,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;At least a little.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;She\u0026rsquo;s not entirely wrong about that,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;These are creatures of brute force. They might respond to rage and blunt trauma in ways that they won\u0026rsquo;t respond to bullets.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal thought Grace gave her a little smile.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Slowing them down is worthwhile if it means less people hurt,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;Even one less person. But do you think we\u0026rsquo;re enough to stop them?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;For that we might need help.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; sighed. \u0026ldquo;Magical help, yes?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But old magic,\u0026rdquo; Perry said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fight fire with fire?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;re mixing my metaphor,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;Fight flood with flood.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But doesn\u0026rsquo;t that just make a bigger flood?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a bad metaphor,\u0026rdquo; Perry admitted. \u0026ldquo;Though it might be accurate if we\u0026rsquo;re not careful. I know how all of you feel about the cavalry who comes to save you now and again, but I for one don\u0026rsquo;t think it\u0026rsquo;s bad that they\u0026rsquo;re on their way.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;They could kill thousands.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And save tens of millions.\u0026rdquo; Perry shook his head. \u0026ldquo;But there might be time to stop it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; sagged. \u0026ldquo;Tell us what you have in mind.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam looked up at last. \u0026ldquo;Something from the British Museum?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Frances said. \u0026ldquo;We think we should investigate something a little more local than that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The popular conception that London was founded by the Romans is a little mistaken,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said. \u0026ldquo;There was a town here before the Romans ever arrived. Not a city, even by the standards of the time, but not a village either.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That\u0026rsquo;s not surprising,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Right,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said. \u0026ldquo;It was an old town, and sacred to its people.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Which is why the Romans couldn\u0026rsquo;t just move in. They had to subjugate it,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;Because the Romans wanted to build a bridge over the Thames, and the Celts didn\u0026rsquo;t want them to. The Celts considered it sacrilege, a desecration. There were battles, which the Romans won. They got their bridge. But they had to keep rebuilding it for decades, because the Celts kept destroying it.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sounds familiar,\u0026rdquo; Liam said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Was there something in the river that made it sacred?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;The river itself was sacred. The entity that is the river is very old, maybe older than the bed it lies in. It sleeps almost all the time. Part of me is surprised that the Celts even knew about it, but they were more in touch with these things than we are.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You seem to know a lot about this,\u0026rdquo; Liam said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s the angel in me,\u0026rdquo; Perry said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And you\u0026rsquo;ve still been holding out on us?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I told Asanti and Frances,\u0026rdquo; Perry said, plaintive. Asanti and Frances nodded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What else do you know?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All kinds of things,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;Maybe you should include me more often.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal made a face and mimed his words back to him: \u003cem\u003eMaybe you should include me more often.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All right,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;So your idea is to wake it up?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;It has been asleep for more than a thousand years. It\u0026rsquo;ll be hungry\u0026mdash;for magic, for worship. To it, the City Eater will look like food.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And when we wake the river up,\u0026rdquo; Sal said, \u0026ldquo;will we be able to control it? Will we be able to send it back to sleep?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know, but I think so,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;The Celts could do it. They coexisted with it for generations.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re not as good at coexisting as we used to be,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If we fail at this,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said, \u0026ldquo;there will be consequences. Even more than we\u0026rsquo;ve already suffered.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If we don\u0026rsquo;t do anything right now, I\u0026rsquo;d say we\u0026rsquo;ve already failed,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Okay then,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s go.\u0026rdquo; Sal heard a new strength in his voice, the doubt she\u0026rsquo;d grown accustomed to replaced by determination. An awareness of the risks, a willingness to accept them. She was proud of him, but wondered too what it meant, and where it would take them all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; waited until Asanti, Frances, and Perry had left. Sal, Grace, and Liam were busying themselves, preparing to race around the city, joking with each other, employing humor to take the edge off. It reminded Mench\u0026uacute; how much he liked them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe got out his phone and made a call.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Fox,\u0026rdquo; said the voice on the other end.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How long before Team One lands?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;A few hours.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We are worried about loss of life before then,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;The creature has split into three parts.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ve been following the news,\u0026rdquo; Fox said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Part of our team is going to give chase. The other part is going to see if we can enlist aid from local sources.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Magical local sources?\u0026rdquo; Fox said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; took a breath. \u0026ldquo;Yes,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And who is leading this part of your plan?\u0026rdquo; Fox said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eTell Asanti she\u0026rsquo;s fired\u003c/em\u003e, Mench\u0026uacute; remembered. \u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re deciding that now,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Using unsanctioned magic on these missions is forbidden,\u0026rdquo; Fox said. \u0026ldquo;You know that.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;But right now the loss of life is intolerable to me. I hope it is for you, too. And this problem is big and getting bigger. The more people are hurt, the more people are killed, the more everyone is going to demand a real explanation for what happened. Have you contacted British authorities?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I haven\u0026rsquo;t,\u0026rdquo; Fox said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Do you plan to?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; lowered the phone and prayed. Fox intended to do it: He would let London fall. He brought the phone back to his face. \u0026ldquo;The people of London aren\u0026rsquo;t safe right now. The mayor is advising everyone to stay where they are. I think he should be ordering them to evacuate,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t have enough sway with the British authorities to force them to make that decision,\u0026rdquo; Fox said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;To me, it sounds like you just don\u0026rsquo;t want to talk to them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t,\u0026rdquo; Fox said. \u0026ldquo;I see no need to waste whatever pull I have on this one. Not when we already have a plan in place. A plan you are now complicating, which will not be forgotten.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;People are dying, Fox,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Of course they are,\u0026rdquo; Fox said. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s a war. I know it might not seem that way to you, with your books and your research and your retrieval missions, but to me, it\u0026rsquo;s a war, or is becoming one, and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can learn to deal with it more effectively.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I think what\u0026rsquo;s happening right now, in the world,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; answered, \u0026ldquo;is something that you can\u0026rsquo;t fight. Not the way you fight.\u0026rdquo; He surprised himself with what he said. No one had ever forced him to articulate it in quite that way before, but now that he\u0026rsquo;d spoken, he realized he believed his own words.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You and I will have to disagree on that,\u0026rdquo; Fox said. On the other end of the line, Mench\u0026uacute; heard him clear his throat. \u0026ldquo;Listen,\u0026rdquo; he continued. \u0026ldquo;I have a lot of respect for everything you\u0026rsquo;ve done for the Society over the years, but I\u0026rsquo;m telling you to stand down from your plan and wait for Team One to arrive.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And I\u0026rsquo;m telling you I can\u0026rsquo;t do that,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then you had better hope this entire episode is tied up with the neatest, tiniest little bow that you can imagine. Because my tolerance for what you and your team have been doing lately has reached its end.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All right,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;You\u0026rsquo;ve made yourself clear and so have I.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So we have nothing more to discuss.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No, we don\u0026rsquo;t,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute;.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Report back later.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Maybe.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe hung up. He turned to see Sal, Grace, and Liam waiting for him.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That was Fox?\u0026rdquo; Liam said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; nodded. \u0026ldquo;He told us to do nothing until Team One gets here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Great,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s go.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e2\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe streets around the hotel had emptied out, leaving the city feeling underpopulated. It reminded Sal of New York on New Year\u0026rsquo;s Eve\u0026mdash;not at Times Square, of course, but everywhere else\u0026mdash;or when the police blocked off avenues for parades. Or, for that matter, the way older officers had described to her the way the city felt the day after September\u0026nbsp;11. She suddenly had a sense of what they meant, with the sound of sirens hanging in the air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Should be easy enough to catch up to this thing,\u0026rdquo; Liam said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll get the car.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t think we\u0026rsquo;ll need to do that,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She held up a finger to make them all pay attention. She was right: The sirens were getting louder. At first, Sal knew, she was hearing only the echoes of the sound off the buildings. But the edges of that sound were getting more distinct, the intertwining whines filling more of the air. Then a bank of flashing lights wheeled around the corner two blocks away, and three police cars in a tight line approached. There was nothing in front of them. Then the glass in a shop halfway down the block exploded, and a shape burst out of it, a blob with six galloping legs, the body surging forward and rearing back. A round head that seemed to be all mouth on a stubby neck. As the creature got closer, Sal could see big shards of plate glass embedded in its body, spiking its skin. She heard it snorting and wheezing. She still couldn\u0026rsquo;t see its eyes. It was heading in their direction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Is that all of it?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t think so,\u0026rdquo; Grace replied. \u0026ldquo;But let\u0026rsquo;s hit it anyway.\u0026rdquo; She stepped out in the middle of the street, assumed a stance like she was getting ready to run a race. Sal, Liam, and Mench\u0026uacute; fell in behind her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Go,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe creature was still barreling toward them, the police cars in pursuit. Team Three ran toward them all. Grace left them behind quickly. Sal could tell when the thing noticed her; it checked its stride just a little, let out a rising howl, but it was going too fast to change course. Grace leapt into the air and collided with the creature at full speed, enough to stop it in its tracks. The creature unleashed a confused roar; then the first police car slammed into it from behind. That knocked off the legs. The car shuddered to a halt. Brakes screeching and burning, the two cars behind it did the same. Grace rode the beast down to the street, stood up on it, raised a booted foot high, and pushed one of the biggest shards of glass deeper into its body. The animal shivered and parted around the glass, into two halves that lurched away from each other. Grace followed one of them, found what seemed like its neck, and got to strangling it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Someone get the other half,\u0026rdquo; she yelled.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal watched Liam and Mench\u0026uacute; tackle the other creature, Liam stomping on it like a soccer hooligan in a brawl. Sal went after the legs, which were flopping toward the sidewalk. She picked up one of them, expecting it to behave like a snake, striking, constricting, but instead it bucked in her hands, trying to get away. She snapped it over her knee. The others began moving toward each other\u0026mdash;in an attempt to reform, Sal realized. She stepped among them, pulled them apart, broke them all. Looked back at her teammates, who were doing the same to the weakened pieces they\u0026rsquo;d grappled with.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam was out of breath, covered in black slime up to his knees. \u0026ldquo;This isn\u0026rsquo;t so bad,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We got this one while it was still small,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Well\u0026mdash;\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; began, but was interrupted.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Who are you?\u0026rdquo; one of the officers said. He was out of his car, a little dazed. It had all happened so fast.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Special forces,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She had a thin glaze of black down the front of her, from neck to feet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;With a priest?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;In case things get bad,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Let me apologize for my colleague,\u0026rdquo; Liam said. \u0026ldquo;She\u0026rsquo;s having an interesting day.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What was that thing we were chasing?\u0026rdquo; the officer said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Who knows?\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The more important question is,\u0026rdquo; Liam said, \u0026ldquo;can you tell us where the other two are right now?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Who did you say you were again?\u0026rdquo; the officer asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Special forces,\u0026rdquo; Liam repeated. Sal noticed that it didn\u0026rsquo;t seem as flippant as when Grace had said it. Liam said it like he was trying to be helpful.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe officer looked at his fellow policemen, who were also out of their cars. The officer who\u0026rsquo;d been driving the first car was investigating the thick sludge all over his windshield, seemingly unsure how to get it off. The other officers just stood there. One shrugged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat was when Mench\u0026uacute; cleared his throat, as though he\u0026rsquo;d made a decision.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Officers,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said, \u0026ldquo;we\u0026rsquo;re a special team from the Vatican. We fight magic. Like the thing you just saw now.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Excuse me?\u0026rdquo; one of the officers said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Do you have some sort of identification?\u0026rdquo; another officer said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Only from our countries of origin,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s the kind of team we are,\u0026rdquo; Liam said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The point is,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said, \u0026ldquo;that we\u0026rsquo;re here to help you. We have information and abilities that we would like to share with you, if you\u0026rsquo;ll let us.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal could imagine what was going through the officers\u0026rsquo; minds all too well. They were too well trained to buy the story outright. But they also had a problem on their hands that needed fixing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Officers,\u0026rdquo; Sal said, \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m police myself, from New York City.\u0026rdquo; She reached into her pocket, pulled out her NYPD badge, and handed it to the first officer. She knew there was a reason she always kept it around.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t sound like you\u0026rsquo;re from New York City,\u0026rdquo; the first officer said, examining it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m not,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;But I was trained there, and I saw a lot in the line of duty there, too. The kind of terrible, crazy stuff I\u0026rsquo;m sure you all have stories about. I\u0026rsquo;ve been working with this team for a while now. I need to tell you two things. First, what you\u0026rsquo;re up against is nothing like what you\u0026rsquo;ve seen before. But second, we can help you put what you already know to the best possible use. We just have to collaborate.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe other officers were looking at the one with the badge. The first officer looked at them and nodded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m Officer Saunders,\u0026rdquo; the first officer said, and extended his hand toward Sal. Sal shook it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Sal Brooks,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;This is Grace, Liam, and Father Mench\u0026uacute;.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Officer Sharma,\u0026rdquo; said one of the others. She waved. \u0026ldquo;Bartlett,\u0026rdquo; said a third.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Tell us what you can,\u0026rdquo; Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re up against a magical creature that was amok in London for several hours before it caught the attention of authorities. That\u0026rsquo;s not a criticism. It\u0026rsquo;s our fault that we haven\u0026rsquo;t been able to stop it yet. But I think we\u0026rsquo;ve learned a couple things.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Seems like hitting it with a car can stop it,\u0026rdquo; Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Pulverization works,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Often does.\u0026rdquo; She caught Officer Sharma smiling at that and returned the smile.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The legs were trying to come back together, though,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;They would have if I hadn\u0026rsquo;t stopped them.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;But breaking the legs after that did stop them,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Right,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So what\u0026rsquo;s the verdict?\u0026rdquo; Officer Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam\u0026rsquo;s eyes narrowed. \u0026ldquo;My guess?\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;The creature grows by gathering energy, by eating things. You break the creature up enough and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have the energy to reform. Break it up even further and it doesn\u0026rsquo;t have the energy to move at all.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So I was right,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Punching really does help.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If the other parts of this thing aren\u0026rsquo;t too big before we get there,\u0026rdquo; Liam said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And if we can find something else like a car to hit them with,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Or something larger,\u0026rdquo; Officer Saunders said. \u0026ldquo;We might have something like that, if we can get it out of the garage in time.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We might, too,\u0026rdquo; Liam said, \u0026ldquo;if what our colleagues have in mind works out.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;What\u0026rsquo;s that?\u0026rdquo; Officer Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We are going to try to fight magic with magic,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOfficer Saunders took a deep breath. \u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know anything about that,\u0026rdquo; he said, \u0026ldquo;but if it gets these things out of London, it sounds all right to me.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;So where to?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The river,\u0026rdquo; Officer Sharma said. \u0026ldquo;The next one is there.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How big is it?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Unclear. But bigger than this one.\u0026rdquo; Sharma opened the back door to her squad car. \u0026ldquo;Get in. We\u0026rsquo;ll go together.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt cost less than Asanti thought it would to convince a man to part with a dinghy on one of the docks of the Thames. She offered enough, he didn\u0026rsquo;t ask questions, and now Frances was at the oars, her wheelchair folded behind her seat. She rowed them out to the middle of the river. She was using some of her transformed appendages to do it, and the strokes were strong and smooth, better than if she\u0026rsquo;d been using her arms. It didn\u0026rsquo;t even seem to wind her, Asanti noticed, and a thought flittered fast to its natural conclusion: that if there really was more magic coming into the world, maybe Frances\u0026mdash;with her exquisite mind, and her body half transformed\u0026mdash;was better prepared than any of them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey rowed out into the middle of the river. Asanti thought of the Thames as busy, full of boats. River buses, sailboats, small shipping vessels all jostling for room. But on this night the water was quiet, and though there was light from the city all around them, on the river itself it was darker than Asanti expected. She could hear the waves moving against the side of the boat, the dip of the oars into the current. It was almost romantic.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Here,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;Do you think you can keep the boat still?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances nodded and pointed the dinghy into the current, then kept up a little resistance.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I need to stand,\u0026rdquo; Perry said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Hope you got your sea legs,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Me too,\u0026rdquo; Perry said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis knees wobbled a little as he rose. Asanti reached out a hand and Perry took it. His free hand grasped at the air; Frances extended a tentacle, wrapped it around his wrist, and Perry stabilized.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom far away, the sound of sirens carried over the water.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You don\u0026rsquo;t need a book or anything?\u0026rdquo; Frances said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;You just need to know what to say.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All it takes is words?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Well, as long as an angel\u0026rsquo;s talking.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I see,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You will,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;It will take time. The river doesn\u0026rsquo;t like to be disoriented\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. I guess\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;.\u0026nbsp;. so as I wake it up, I have to tell it what\u0026rsquo;s happened since it was last awake. It hasn\u0026rsquo;t been awake in a very, very long time, so there\u0026rsquo;s a lot to tell.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How will we know it\u0026rsquo;s working?\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I think you\u0026rsquo;ll be more likely to know if it\u0026rsquo;s not.\u0026rdquo; He cleared his throat. \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t worry if this gets a little weird, though.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m more worried about you falling out of the boat right now,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said, still holding on.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry turned his head toward her, fast, and the expression on his face was a copy of a human\u0026rsquo;s.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;This won\u0026rsquo;t work if you\u0026rsquo;re not quiet,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. Just like his face: It was his voice, but the personality was gone.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry spread his feet. The muscles in his legs tensed. All the unsteadiness had vanished. Asanti still held his hand, though she wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure it was necessary anymore. Frances was barely rowing; it was as though Perry was keeping the boat straight himself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe sirens from the city wavered in and out. From the shore they\u0026rsquo;d left, there was commotion, a small plume of dust rising.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry let go of Asanti and Frances and flung his hands out in front of him, a supplicant. A torrent of syllables flew from him in a piercing monotone at the edge of what his vocal cords would allow. Asanti felt a long, slow pulse through the water underneath the boat, as though a swift tide had decided to come in. She looked at Frances and Frances nodded; she\u0026rsquo;d felt the same thing.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pitch of Perry\u0026rsquo;s voice rose a half step. Asanti looked toward the shore again. Two police cars were gathered there, a third speeding to the scene. She could see tiny figures running around, but it was impossible to see what they were doing. Another plume of dust rose around them. Where were Mench\u0026uacute;, Sal, and Liam? Grace? If they were there, Asanti was too far away to see them.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnother pulse ran through the water, moving in the opposite direction from the first. It was also bigger. This time, Asanti didn\u0026rsquo;t have to check with Frances; she could see the water rise and fall with its passing. That was also when she noticed that it was getting lighter. She looked up, expecting to see a helicopter passing overhead, maybe a searchlight trained on them. The police wondering what three people were doing in the middle of the Thames in a small boat after the authorities had told every to get inside due to a possible terrorist attack. She was already thinking of how she might talk her way out of that one. But there was no helicopter in the sky. The light appeared to be coming from the water itself. And it was, well, rosy. Almost like the beginnings of a sunrise.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe boat started to sway a little more, and Asanti had to shift her weight in response. Frances gave a measured pull on the oars to keep the boat where it was. Asanti looked at Perry. He was chanting away, the syllables spilling from his mouth as fast and furious as ever. But he looked taller. She thought she already knew why that was, but let her eyes drop anyway. Sure enough, there were six inches of air between his feet and the bottom of the boat. She pulled her phone out of her pocket just to confirm what was going on. It was dead.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe turned back to Frances to see if she had noticed Perry\u0026rsquo;s newfound ability to levitate. She had. Frances gave Asanti a look. Asanti knew what it meant. \u003cem\u003eWhat do we do now?\u003c/em\u003e Asanti put her hands out, palms down, pushed them gently toward the bottom of the boat. \u003cem\u003eStay calm.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePerry kept talking, faster and faster. Stopped. For the space of a breath, there was only the sound of the waves against the side of the boat. Then another voice rose from the water, slow and deep. Perry answered. Asanti couldn\u0026rsquo;t understand anything, but she thought the tone itself conveyed meaning. Respect given and received. Terms offered and accepted. A deal being made.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSomething on shore exploded. They were far enough away that Asanti saw the flash, then heard and even slightly felt the blast. She wasn\u0026rsquo;t sure, but it seemed as though a couple of the police cars had exploded. Then, for some reason, the fires winked out. Asanti hoped her friends weren\u0026rsquo;t anywhere nearby. But she knew better.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe caravan of squad cars carrying Sal, Mench\u0026uacute;, Liam, and Grace was a block away from the explosion. For a moment it blinded and deafened them, rattled the glass on the windows. Curses went up from the officers in the front seat. In the back seat with Grace, Sal blinked. The fire ahead of them now lit up the whole street. Over the ringing in her ears, she could hear the policemen at the end of the block shouting to each other.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Do they know we\u0026rsquo;re coming?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Yes,\u0026rdquo; Sharma said from the front seat. \u0026ldquo;Reception is a bit shoddy, but yes.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m going ahead,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She flung the door open and took off toward the flames. Sal saw Liam and Mench\u0026uacute; jump out of their car and follow her.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;ll come with you,\u0026rdquo; Sharma said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey reached the end of the block in time to see a policeman fly through the air and crash to the pavement. Two other policemen ran after him, crouched down. One of them lifted his head and yelled for help. It seemed more like a war zone to Sal than a police situation. Mench\u0026uacute; caught up.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Where\u0026rsquo;s Grace?\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt had only been a second; Sal hadn\u0026rsquo;t had time to look. A rising cry, broken by choking coughs, brought her attention to the source of the smoke. There were two cars burning. One of them was rocking a little on its tires, which wouldn\u0026rsquo;t last much longer in the heat. The other one was in the air, pointing toward the sky, thrashing back and forth. Sal couldn\u0026rsquo;t see the back of it. Then she realized that was because it was in something\u0026rsquo;s mouth\u0026mdash;another City Eater, three times the size of the car, trying to force the vehicle down its throat like a snake trying to eat a rat. Another choking grunt. Something in the car buckled, and it slid downward and disappeared. Now, by the light of the other burning car, Sal got a good look at what they were up against. It was shaped like a frog, a fat body on several fat legs, a head mashed on top of the whole thing, as if the creature had been designed by a sloppy child. It shook as it ingested the car, then opened its mouth and let out a smoky roar. It was at least twice as big as the beast they\u0026rsquo;d just dealt with, and seemed to be growing before her eyes. The police around it were backing away into a defensive position behind the couple vehicles they had left on the scene.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Is it breathing fire?\u0026rdquo; Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t think so,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;I think that\u0026rsquo;s the smoke from the car it just ate.\u0026rdquo; She had a moment to think: \u003cem\u003eThere\u0026rsquo;s a sentence I never thought I\u0026rsquo;d say.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;How do we attack this one?\u0026rdquo; Sharma said. \u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t have any speeding cars to smack into it yet.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Also, I think the other creatures are \u0026hellip; bigger,\u0026rdquo; Saunders said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe officer already in command of the police on the scene approached. \u0026ldquo;Is this the team of specialists you mentioned?\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSaunders nodded.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m Harris. Saunders has spoken very highly of you. The reserves are on their way.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;When do they arrive?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I don\u0026rsquo;t know,\u0026rdquo; Harris said. \u0026ldquo;How do we try to stop this thing in the meantime?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Piece by piece,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal looked at the creature\u0026rsquo;s legs again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Those are big pieces,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor a moment, they all took a breath. It seemed improbable to Sal that they could do anything to this creature. They watched as it started trying to ingest another car.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Every life we save is worth it,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;And it doesn\u0026rsquo;t look very smart,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She picked up a piece of twisted metal, a section of one of the exploded cars\u0026rsquo; frames. \u0026ldquo;I think I can get a couple of those legs off as long as it doesn\u0026rsquo;t see me coming.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then what?\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Have we ever had the chance to think much further than that?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal found herself patting Grace on the back.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Okay,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;I got you.\u0026rdquo; She turned to Harris. \u0026ldquo;Have you made sure everyone is clear of the buildings around us?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We\u0026rsquo;re making sure of that right now,\u0026rdquo; Harris said. \u0026ldquo;It looks promising so far.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;All right,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. She looked at Saunders and Sharma. \u0026ldquo;You with us?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSaunders and Sharma both looked uneasy, but Sal saw the resoluteness beneath the emotion. \u0026ldquo;Whatever you need,\u0026rdquo; Sharma said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Let\u0026rsquo;s make some noise,\u0026rdquo; said Liam. Without another word, he rushed toward the creature, hollering like he was on fire. Sal and the two police officers followed. \u003cem\u003eSo much the better\u003c/em\u003e, Sal thought. \u003cem\u003eJust that much more commotion. \u003c/em\u003eShe screamed as loud as she could. The creature turned its head to watch them come.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom there, it was hard for Sal to see quite what happened. She watched as the City Eater tottered, letting out a howl of pain that she felt as much as she heard. The beast listed to one side, then fell over, its remaining legs in the air, almost like a turtle, black ooze gouting in the air. Now Sal could see them, the two legs Grace had managed to sever. They were hopping under their own power toward the river. They looked like they were trying to escape. Sal knew Grace would never let them, and she was right. Within a few seconds, Grace had sliced them in two again with her makeshift meat cleaver. She halved those halves, too. Kept doing it, using the pavement as her butcher block, until she was ringing the blade against the asphalt. She was spattered now in the creature\u0026rsquo;s gore from head to toe. She caught Sal\u0026rsquo;s eye and smiled. But Sal could see she was getting tired.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I can do this, Arturo,\u0026rdquo; she called. \u0026ldquo;I can kill the rest of it.\u0026rdquo; She took a step and faltered. Righted herself. \u003cem\u003eShe\u0026rsquo;s pushing herself too hard\u003c/em\u003e, Sal thought.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace raised the metal in her hand and pointed to the creature, struggling to right itself. Sal realized Grace wasn\u0026rsquo;t just pointing at the creature; she was pointing at the biggest wound in it, from having lost its legs. That was a ragged gap flowing with black liquid, a hole with skin hanging around the edges like a curtain. A portal straight into the creature\u0026rsquo;s body.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;No,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; saw it too. \u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It worked on the hydra, didn\u0026rsquo;t it?\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It almost killed you,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Almost,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We don\u0026rsquo;t have to sacrifice ourselves to this,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Really?\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;Then what did we come here for?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe ran, dove into the wound, and disappeared. The beast lurched. Its body buckled. Grace\u0026rsquo;s metal cleaver erupted from its back, and Sal watched the blade turn like a corkscrew, drilling a hole, making a tunnel that Grace\u0026rsquo;s free hand, then arm, emerged from. The City Eater thrashed, fell on its side, made the piece of the car sticking out of it strike the sidewalk, but it was too late for it to stop what Grace had started as she dug her way out the other side. She\u0026rsquo;d made a hole clean through it. She spilled out like a newborn, stood up, and spat. She wavered on her feet. The creature wasn\u0026rsquo;t dead yet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Good God,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal ran over to Harris, who was watching, agape.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Harris,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u0026ldquo;Please tell me the reserve is almost here with something that can run this thing over.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Where did you say you were from again?\u0026rdquo; Harris said. \u0026ldquo;I have a lot of questions about what I\u0026rsquo;m seeing.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt occurred to Sal that she had no idea how she or anyone from the Vatican was going to explain any of this. Not the magic. Not Grace. Not anything. She thought herself lucky in that moment that it wasn\u0026rsquo;t her job.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam was rushing over to help Grace. She was still bobbing, but it seemed as though she was regaining her feet.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen there was only one more to go, Sal thought. The third couldn\u0026rsquo;t have gotten much bigger than this one. If they found it fast, the fight wouldn\u0026rsquo;t be much worse, especially if she could convince the police they were on the same side, that together they could put an end to this and all the officers really had to do was trust that she and her team weren\u0026rsquo;t here to do harm. Maybe they could beat this thing after all.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat was when Sal heard sirens again, another chorus of them. The sound of machine-gun fire.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;The reserves,\u0026rdquo; Harris said. \u0026ldquo;They\u0026rsquo;re here.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen there was a long, croaking wail from a block away. What was left of the wounded creature in front of them began lurching toward the sound, gargling and hacking. What rounded the far corner in response was bigger than the second City Eater had been. A lot bigger. A unit of soldiers ran in its wake, training gunfire on it that seemed to do nothing. It had one enormous foot like a snail; Sal wished it moved as slowly. Its behemoth of a body was four stories high. When it caught sight of the second creature, it grew a long tentacle of a neck that ended in an enormous oblong eye, topped with a clump of waving feelers. As the hulk of its body slithered forward, filling the street, the eye swooped forward and down on its stalk and examined its sibling. The wail gave way to something that sounded to Sal like dismay. With a speed and agility that the creature seemed incapable of\u0026mdash;and before the horrified faces of the multiple law enforcement units attempting to contain what was happening in their city\u0026mdash;the bigger City Eater leapt forward into the air and landed on top of the smaller one. Its wide, slimy foot smothered its sibling, engulfed it. The eye rose on its stalk, shivered, and melted back into the bulk of the body. For a second, it was all just a big throbbing blob in the middle of the block, taking up the entire street.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt exploded with a roar. Limbs shot out in five different directions, four of them bursting through the walls of the buildings around them, ending somewhere inside. The fifth shot straight down the street and ended in a sloppy, three-toed foot. Sal saw Grace tense, tighten her grip on her new favorite weapon, then relax a little again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s too big,\u0026rdquo; Grace said. \u0026ldquo;I can\u0026rsquo;t get through it. Not with this. Maybe if I had something better.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSomething like what she used to have on Team One\u003c/em\u003e, Sal thought. When were \u003cem\u003ethey\u003c/em\u003e going to get here?\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHaving planted its feet, the beast hoisted itself into the air and began to walk, its legs leaving long, striped gouges in the buildings around it, a trail of broken bricks and glass behind. It was paying no attention to the soldiers shooting into it. It was coming toward the river, toward Team Three. Toward Grace. The one human around here, Sal realized, who had been able to hurt it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Run,\u0026rdquo; she said to Grace.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you kidding me?\u0026rdquo; Grace said. She was keyed up, but her breath was still ragged.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;There\u0026rsquo;s nothing we can do with this,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;Not even you. You\u0026rsquo;re too weak. Fall back.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;You heard the man,\u0026rdquo; Liam said. \u0026ldquo;Fall back.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe creature grew three stalks from the center of its body, each with one furry eye on it. They fixed on Grace; there was no mistaking its intention.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;If it wants to come and get me, it can try,\u0026rdquo; Grace said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Don\u0026rsquo;t, Grace,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Didn\u0026rsquo;t you say every life we save counts?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;That includes yours,\u0026rdquo; Sal said. \u003cem\u003eIt matters to us\u003c/em\u003e, she almost added. \u003cem\u003eTo me.\u003c/em\u003e But kept it to herself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGrace was plotting a retort; Sal could see it. Then Grace\u0026rsquo;s expression changed, faded. The flicker in her eyes went out. Her eyelids slid shut, and she fell to the pavement.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMench\u0026uacute; dropped with her, held her head in his hands. \u003cem\u003eNo, no, no\u003c/em\u003e, he muttered to himself.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal wanted to lose it, but her police training kicked in. \u0026ldquo;We need something bigger,\u0026rdquo; Sal said to Harris. \u0026ldquo;Bigger than guns.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I hope to God we just found it, and that it\u0026rsquo;s on our side,\u0026rdquo; Harris said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe was looking not at the creature, but at the river. Which now gave off light almost as if it were molten, and was rising. Well, at least parts of it were. Something was emerging from it, even larger than the City Eater. The surface of the water stretched, almost like the skin of a balloon, then opened to let out a long column of light that curled overhead and glided back to earth. Something like an eel, Sal thought. A body that started slender at the tail and grew fatter in the middle, ended in a head with a short snout, big eyes, a wide mouth. Those eyes, even at the speed the new creature was going, conveyed intelligence, discernment. It was looking for something. It knew what it wanted. And it was hungry.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith a surprised cry, Perry fell backward into the bottom of the boat. Asanti and Frances shifted their weight to keep the dinghy from capsizing. They rose and fell on the waves.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Are you all right?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked, helping him into his seat.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m okay,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m still young.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I was worried,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said. \u0026ldquo;About everything.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe motioned to the shore and caught Perry\u0026rsquo;s gaze as his eyes took it in: the monster on the shore, terrifying enough even from the middle of the river. She wondered what it must be like for the people on the street in front of it.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I had no idea it would be so beautiful,\u0026rdquo; Frances said. She was looking upward at the river, which cast light as it circled overhead.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I\u0026rsquo;m sorry that took so long,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s old and cranky and didn\u0026rsquo;t like being woken up. Conveniently, the sacrifice it demanded is just the sort of thing I had to offer: a big meal.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Was that all you said, though?\u0026rdquo; Asanti asked.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Most of it was flattery,\u0026rdquo; Perry admitted.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe waves from the river being\u0026rsquo;s emergence from the water were beginning to subside. The City Eater on the shore began to change shape just as the river shot down from the sky to engage it. Asanti had read reports from witnesses to natural disasters and terrorist attacks. So many of them said how it was like watching a movie. She\u0026rsquo;d never managed to believe that; it seemed to her that reality would get in the way, that something would remind her that she wasn\u0026rsquo;t safe where she was, that she was a part of it, that there would be consequences to deal with after the mayhem ended. The two beasts collided, crashed into a large building behind them that then collapsed beneath their weight. Another small explosion shrouded the fighters in smoke while the humans around them scattered. The fighters wrestled their way out of it. The beast was bigger than it had been a minute ago. The river had a gash in its side. She was right about herself, at least, Asanti thought. It mattered that there was no screen between her and what she was seeing, that the water under her feet stretched to the shore where the monsters were fighting. Sometimes she could feel the reverberations of their collisions in the water, even as the distance between them made it seem oddly ordinary, as if there were a giant monster fight every day. It was too disorienting, too terrifying, to dismiss as fiction.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Huh,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. \u0026ldquo;It really is just like watching a movie.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances was transfixed. \u0026ldquo;Amazing,\u0026rdquo; she said softly.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMaybe it\u0026rsquo;s just me\u003c/em\u003e, Asanti thought.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen she noticed the river wasn\u0026rsquo;t calm yet. Strike that: It wasn\u0026rsquo;t getting calmer at all. What Asanti had first thought was the disruption from the emergence of the river spirit wasn\u0026rsquo;t that, after all. The current was no longer moving in one direction. It was squirrelly, curving around, spinning, eddying. She watched a buoy let loose during the river\u0026rsquo;s emergence travel downstream from them, then turn and start to travel upstream, like it was tracing a circle. Or a spiral. Like there were holes at the bottom of the Thames, and the water was draining out. It was an insane idea, but the alternative ideas she came up with to explain what she saw on the water seemed worse.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti pointed to the buoy. \u0026ldquo;We need to get off this river,\u0026rdquo; she said to Frances. Saw her assistant\u0026rsquo;s face fall. Frances leaned into the oars and pointed the boat toward shore. Toward the monsters, yes, and the armed forces, but toward their friends, too. There was no other direction to choose. As Frances got the boat moving, Asanti risked a quick look into the water. It was alive with light. But down at the bottom, unmistakably, it was lighter still. There was a line right down the middle of the river. It looked for all the world like a crack in the riverbed, and it ran as far as Asanti could see.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eShe called Mench\u0026uacute;. His phone wasn\u0026rsquo;t working. On the shore, the monsters were still fighting.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Head right toward them,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said. \u0026ldquo;We have to find the rest of the team.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrances looked concerned. \u0026ldquo;You really think Team Three is there?\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Where else would they be?\u0026rdquo; Asanti said, keeping her voice steady. \u003cem\u003eCome on, everybody\u003c/em\u003e, she thought. \u003cem\u003eLet\u0026rsquo;s get through this.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003chr\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSal was covered in dust. They all were\u0026mdash;Liam, Mench\u0026uacute;, the policeman who had helped carry Grace to a defensive position with them behind a small wall. She hadn\u0026rsquo;t even caught the officer\u0026rsquo;s name yet. The river was to their backs. Before them was a sight that they all had difficulty processing, as two monsters wrestled and thrashed their way across two city blocks.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;We had all those buildings evacuated, yeah?\u0026rdquo; she heard an officer say.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;I think so,\u0026rdquo; another answered. \u0026ldquo;I hope so.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey were helpless now. But the river wasn\u0026rsquo;t. The City Eater grew arms to hold it back, but in time the river\u0026rsquo;s coils fought through its grip and wrapped around it. The coil closed tight enough to cut through the monster, taking an enormous piece off. It seemed the fight might be over fast. But the gargantuan creature regrouped, put itself back together, reformed. Got bigger again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA captain gave the order to fall back as a couple new office buildings were dismantled. And Liam looked toward the river again.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s them,\u0026rdquo; he said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe ran closer to the banks, waving. Frances was rowing the dinghy toward a dock nearby. Team Three congregated there to help their friends off the water. Nobody smiled. But for Sal, it was still good to see them, good to be together.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Do you think it will work?\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Not unless our monster wins,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA throaty, coughing howl echoed across the London sky. It seemed the behemoth had gotten twice as big as it had been just a moment ago. At its feet, shop lights and windows went dark.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLiam whistled. \u0026ldquo;It must have figured out a way to siphon power off the city\u0026rsquo;s grid.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Then there\u0026rsquo;s no end to how big it could get,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Unless the river finds a way to disconnect it from the grid.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWith a singsong warble that ended in a squawk, the river wrapped itself around the giant and began pulling it into the air.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Huh,\u0026rdquo; Liam said. \u0026ldquo;Well, that\u0026rsquo;s one way.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe City Eater tried to resist. It extended its legs down to the ground, tried to embed claws into the pavement that would hold it fast to the earth. The river gave a sharp tug, another sharp tug, and with a roar of anguish from the creature, wrenched those new legs hard enough that they broke off at the ankles.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Should we order in the air force?\u0026rdquo; Harris said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Wait,\u0026rdquo; Sal said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Let the river do what it came here to do,\u0026rdquo; Asanti said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe two creatures were above the city now, chased by helicopters. The monster in the coils kept trying to wrench itself free. The river wouldn\u0026rsquo;t let it. In the light cast from the water below, everyone in Team Three could see; they gasped when the monster sprouted wings and began to overpower the river. The river keened like an enormous hawk, dove with its prey into the water with a splash as if a depth charge had gone off. The creatures emerged again, skyrocketing upward, then executing a sharp angle to crash, both headfirst, onto the opposite bank.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow the first monster had grown arms again, four of them, and was trying to punch its way out. The river uncoiled just a little. Both creatures were getting weaker, it was clear. They were maybe too evenly matched, too driven by primal urges to surrender. One wanted freedom. The other wanted a meal. At last the river caught one of the monster\u0026rsquo;s hands in its mouth and, with a coughing sound, drew that hand further down its throat and bit it off at the wrist. The monster roared, as much in anger as in pain. The river reared back its head to strike again. Two arms shot forward and got the river around the throat. They jerked the river back and forth, as if the monster were trying to twist its head off. For a second it seemed it might succeed. Then the river wriggled out of the monster\u0026rsquo;s grip, drew back its head, and snapped it forward. Its jaws closed on either side of the monster\u0026rsquo;s head. Its teeth sunk in. With a quizzical grunt, the river whipped its head to the side. The creature let out a scream, and as it turned, Sal understood why. The river had ripped its face off. There was only pudding-like infrastructure beneath it, a mass of seeping matter.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs the monster stumbled backward, the river struck again, and this time got the whole head into its mouth. It was fidgeting with its jaw position a bit\u0026mdash;it seemed to Sal that it was trying to get the best angle to eat the entire head at once\u0026mdash;when Sal heard a familiar flutter, a familiar whine, and people in suits she recognized by the river\u0026rsquo;s light streaked through the air toward the fight.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;It\u0026rsquo;s Team One,\u0026rdquo; Mench\u0026uacute; said. \u0026ldquo;They\u0026rsquo;ve arrived.\u0026rdquo;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Oh, great,\u0026rdquo; Perry said. His voice all human again, not even trying to hide his sarcasm.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsanti shook her head. \u0026ldquo;Just when it might have worked,\u0026rdquo; she said.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ch3\u003e3\u003c/h3\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTeam One had deployed straight from the airport. It was too late, Shah figured, to worry about their cover anymore. She tried to call Asanti and Mench\u0026uacute;. The calls couldn\u0026rsquo;t get through. And even when they landed, the talk in the terminal was beyond terrorism. The damage in London didn\u0026rsquo;t look quite like the work of human hands. In the news reports, mixed in with the language about bombings and attacks, was language about disasters. About infrastructure collapsing, gas lines breaking. Maybe it was a strange kind of storm, people were saying, or an earthquake, even if London almost never got earthquakes. And then there was the phenomenon that nobody could really explain: that cell phones and cameras, anything electronic, stopped working as soon as someone got close enough. That the radius for things not working seemed to be spreading. Shah could swear she even heard the word once: \u003cem\u003emagic. Maybe it\u0026rsquo;s magic.\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere were gasps around them when they deployed. Team One had been drilling well lately, Shah thought, and she noted with satisfaction how fast they suited up. People around them whipped out phones and cameras Shah knew would be unable to capture what they were doing; they would just be one more part of the foggy information flooding social media about what was happening in London. Maybe enough to have the police sweep the airport\u0026mdash;something, Shah thought to herself, they should be doing anyway right now. The members of Team One whose suits could fly picked up the ones who couldn\u0026rsquo;t, and they were off.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFrom a distance, as they flew over the city, nothing in London seemed out of place. There were its illuminated, overlapping webs of streets, as if dozens of giant spiders had raced each other to claim as much territory as possible, and reached an uneasy truce wh