Jack? I says. I feel a haunt comin on me.
It’s a waste of time, he says. If you don’t wanna kill ’em, I will.
No. We’re doin this my way, I says.
They’re in such a high state of nerves already. So close to real terror it seems cruel to push ’em over the edge. I feel kinda sorry fer ’em. I feel kinda bad about doin it. But not so bad that I don’t.
Jack sets the guards up. Unner strong protest, but he does it. Startin with wolf howls that—to my ear—barely pass muster, but they shake the guards pretty bad. As he does the wolf thing, he moves in closer, chuckin stones to rustle trees an bushes all around ’em. They’re panicked to such a frenzy of gunfire, it’s a wonder he don’t git shot. But he keeps his head down an stays on the move. Meantime, me an Nero an Hermes make our way behind the hill an sneak into a good position right on top.
We don’t have long to wait. Nature piles in on our side. She picks three of the brightest stars from the sky, loads ’em on her bow an lets fly. All three at once, side by side. In a show of unspeakable wonder, they scorch through the night like three small suns, their tails burnin fury behind them. The sky lights bright with their flash of fire.
Now. Go now. I throw Nero in the air. I haul the reins sharply. Hermes rears an squeals with his front legs flailin. Nero screams as he wheels above us.
It’s the Angel of Death. Back from the dead. Flung from the sky as a fiery star.
The guards stare, mouths open, frozen with fear. Then their guns hit the ground as they rush fer their horses. They stumble an trip an yell. In a panicky scramble, they race off pell-mell. The drum of their hoof beats fades to silence. An that’s it. They’re gone. We dared an we won.
Jack took a shot through the seat of his pants. He tells me next time I hold a target shoot he ain’t available. Then he picks the padlock an we go through the door in the hill.
I let Jack find DeMalo’s white room. I let him lead the way, with his rushtorch held high. After all, I’m s’posed to of never bin here before. I follow him down the steps, into the ground, through the long, narrow rooms with the bunks set into the walls. Each room leads on to the next one. Our torches splash shocks of orange light over the rough, packed-earth walls, roof an floor.
It smells jest the same as it did that summer day. Musty an earthy an cool. It feels jest the same as it did that day. Heavy aginst my skin. I hate unnerground. My brow wets with sweat. An I’m back in our Silverlake storm cellar.
That eight by eight hole in the ground hacked out by my folks with pick an shovel. Their first home when they settled at the lake. Where they lived while they built the tyreshack. Then it was our shelter from wild weather. Bad enough we had to fret out the storms in there. But on scorch days too—when the sun flays the earth an all that cling to her—that cellar was our only refuge. It never bothered Pa or Lugh or Em. But it surely did bother me. I felt I was buried alive. I take a deep breath. I ain’t buried. I’m fine.
This was a Wrecker bunker, says Jack. I seen somethin kinda like it before. It was a lot smaller’n this one, though.
I cain’t tell him what I know about it. That DeMalo found ten skellentons here when he discovered it an opened the door. Lyin on the bunks where they died. Probly shelterin from some calamity. One of the many that ravaged their world. If it was anybody else, you’d pity ’em their plight. Not the Wreckers. No pity fer them.
Jack says, We must be near the centre of the hill by now.
We are. We’re in the tight little corridor. It squeezes us towards the white room. We’re at the closed door. Jack opens it with caution an peers inside.
He says, Nuthin beyond here. You think this is it?
Must be, I says.
We’re talkin in whispers. Like there’s somebody here besides us. An there is. DeMalo. This is his special place. I got this crazy notion he’ll be able to tell that we was here. Maybe right now, this moment, wherever he is, he knows that I’m in his vision room. It’s foolish, I know. Impossible, how could he? But still. My heart’s thumpin hard.
Well, yer the one with the feelin, says Jack. After you. He bows me through the doorway.
I step inside. Close it behind you, I says.
The darkness here is deep. Our torches dash at the shadows an retreat as we play ’em around the room. It’s completely different from the rest of the bunker. Smooth white walls with rounded corners. Twenny paces across each way. A smooth white floor with a domed ceilin. It seems much bigger’n the last time I was here. Mind you, as well as DeMalo an me, there was a dozen Stewards an two Tonton guards in here.
Jack walks slowly around the room, scopin out the walls. What these’re made of, I got no idea, he says. He runs a hand along them. Smooth an cold, he says. Still in good shape, after such a long time. Some kinda fancy Wrecker tech. They seem to be made in sections. I guess that’s how they brought ’em in.
On these very walls, I seen light bloom to the dawn of day. Daylight brightened around us as the music of birdsong an stringboxes sweetened the air. All that was wonder enough. But it was only the start.
I touch the walls where I seen eagles fly. Where giant fish leapt through the oceans. Where herds of beasts galloped vast plains. Where forests an mountains an rivers an lakes an creatures an birds an people dazzled my eyes with sights of such glory that a lifetime ain’t enough to think on ’em. To recall the rapture that shattered my heart. Even if I was to live a hunnerd year.
I stand in the middle of the room, like he did. I close my eyes. But I don’t feel a thing. It’s cold an it’s dark an that’s all. Without DeMalo, it’s dead.
Nuthin, I whisper.
Jest a room where a man has visions, says Jack. People do. Like yer friend, the star reader girl. What did you think we’d find here?
I dunno, I says. There was somethin, Jack. There is, but I cain’t git at it. It’s like it’s … jest at the edge of my sight or my hearin or— I let out my breath in frustration. I smooth the wall with my hand. I says, Auriel’s th’only other person I know who has visions. Whadda you know of such things?
Me? He shakes his head. I hang with the lowbrows, he says. Readers of salt spills, entrails an ashes. Every last one a humbug. The only visions they have is from too much white lightnin.
DeMalo has his at dawn, I says. His visions, I mean. Ain’t that right?
I think so, I dunno, he says. Listen, Saba. We came, we had a look, there ain’t nuthin here. But, hey. It ain’t bin a complete waste of time. I got my butt shot at. You must be pleased about that.
I’m sure you deserve it fer somethin, I says.
Oh, I most certainly do, he says. He kisses me. Softly. Sweetly. C’mon, he says. Let’s scram, we seen enough.
He waits while I take a last look around the room. So what was that about? That click of the trigger in my head an my gut. The tingle, the tremble of possibility. It grabbed me last night, so powerful, when Jack was talkin about DeMalo. The sudden certainty we needed to come here. That here we’d find some kinda answer. This was pointless. A fool’s errand.
As we make our way back through the rooms with the bunks I says, So why’d you think the guards?
Jack says, Why the guards, why the dogs, why does he move from house to house, why does he only eat an drink what his hands touch an nobody else’s.…