The Machine (An Ethan Stone Thriller) (49 page)

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Far away,” said Barbegris and his bitterness was unmistakable.

Barbegris worked as the hammering continued.

“Nowhere to run,” came Tattoo’s muffled shout. “We’ll get you both in the end.”

Barbegris chuckled dryly.

“Homph. We’ll have a month’s head start on them. It’ll take them a week just to get to the seagate at Muchmiel.”

There were gunshots. The soldiers had changed tactics and were trying to shoot their way through.

“Father!”

“Shhh! Almost there.”

A pinprick of light, so bright in the utter darkness of the crypt, appeared on the nearest wall. By its tiny starshine gleam, Celandine could see Barbegris’ hands enticing the gateway into a larger shape. The pinprick expanded smoothly until the gateway was a rough circle, two feet across. The oneirium was stretched to a wire-thin band around the circle’s edge but it held.

Through the gateway, Celandine could see tall grass and low cloud. A cool wind blew slowly but steadily in from the new world.

“Pressure differential,” noted Barbegris. “Never mind.”

The door to the crypt gave an ominous crack and Barbegris pushed Celandine through the gateway. She tumbled forward and onto soft earth. Tough blades of tall grass crinkled underneath her.

Barbegris was through too and rapidly closing the gateway, which on this side hung in the air, seemingly unsupported.

Celandine stood up and regarded the world they had landed in. They were on a slight hillock that, in every direction, overlooked a vast grassy plain which stretched to the unbroken horizon. There were no trees, no buildings. There was nothing but grass, tall, thick and rippling in the breeze.

“Where are we?” she said.

Barbegris didn’t reply for some time.

“I had such plans for that money,” he said softly and there was a quality of regret in his voice that Celandine had never heard before and she turned to look at him.

Barbegris stood unsteadily at the very summit of the hillock. The gateway was closed. The oneirium was a formless lump in his hand. The front of his robes was soaked from stomach to thigh with blood and it was quite clearly his.

Barbegris fell down, very slowly. Celandine dashed forward to hold him as he finally collapsed onto a bed of grass. She helped him straighten his bent legs. He clutched his stomach and gazed up at the sky.

“This is Aphid,” he said faintly. “Mount Tepper. Highest point in the whole world. Not been here since…” He trailed off into silence.

Celandine tried to lift his hands away from his bloodied robes so that she could perhaps get a look at the wound but the old man resisted.

“Divinities! He wasn’t even aiming properly. Why does nothing ever go right for me?”

“I…”

Celandine could feel panic starting to rise within her. There were things she knew she should be doing. She told herself she needed bandages, a medicine chest but she knew what she really needed was a hospital and someone else to take charge. Panic swiftly soured into frustration and anger.

“I’m going to kill them.”

“No. No profit in revenge. You not learnt anything from me?”

She cast about her again but the landscape hadn’t miraculously changed in the past minute.

“Why did you bring us here?” she asked desperately.

“Such plans,” Barbegris groaned. “I didn’t want to die poor. I wanted to make it up to you, to your mother. I let her die. Didn’t tell you that.”

He had never mentioned Celandine’s mother’s death before. He never spoke of it. She had never asked.

“I fought against the demon Otokuma in Immonda,” he said. “I drove him away but your mother…” He shook his head and smacked his lips dryly. “You got any drink?”

Celandine shook her head. Barbegris tutted.

“Then your father…”

“You knew my father?”

“Homph.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes.” He paused for breath. “No. Your father…” He raised one hand and laid it over his eyepatch. “All messed up now. They found Gibberdog together and Maria left a gateway, hidden away.”

“What is Gibberdog?” asked Celandine. “What was that about me being the key to it?”

“The last great treasure,” he managed to whisper. “Maria hid the gateway so I … We couldn’t find it.” The effort of speaking was becoming too much for him.

“Hush, father,” said Celandine gently.

“Don’t hush me, girl!” he replied firmly, with a smidgeon of his old fire. “Homph. I’ll have an eternity of hush soon enough. You’ve got to go to Library of Souls in Nachista.” He fought for breath and coughed weakly. “Repeat it.”

“The Library of Souls,” said Celandine obediently.

“Where?”

“Nachista.”

“Good. Find your book. That’s the key. Gibberdog will be the making of you.” He relaxed visibly, exhaling hard. “Now, pray for me. I’m going to need it.”

“No, father. You can’t die.”

Maybe he grinned or maybe it was a grimace of pain.

“Of course I bloody can.”

He closed his one eye and almost immediately slipped into sleep. Celandine moved his pale hand aside and inspected his injury but it was just a mass of dark red stickiness across his scrawny torso and she had no idea what she could do for him.

So she prayed. She took the sealed pot of blue tilak from the pouch at his belt, daubed the powder on his forehead and prayed. As afternoon tumbled into evening, she prayed to Dv Bunuel, the Lady of Thorns, who heals the sick. She prayed to Dv Pantaleon, the patron of doctors, to Dv Cascia who looks after those who are alone and to Dv Liminis the gatemaker, whose course Barbegris had tried and failed to follow.

The red sky of evening deepened into the purple black of night, the grasses came alive with the rustling sounds of a billion insects and Celandine continued her vigil by dim starlight but now she invoked different divinities. She prayed to Dv Madron who eases pain and to Dv Nicholas of Tolentino who comforts the dying, and when she could no longer see Father Barbegris’ breath misting in the air, she prayed to Dv Kinneal who pleads for the souls of the faithful, to Dv Constant who weighs the hearts of men and to Dv Magortam who holds the keys to the Waters of Heaven.

The Million Dollar Dress by Heide Goody
 

In this modern-day Cinderella story, cutting edge technology gives Justine the body of a supermodel at the flick of a switch. She uses her new-found confidence and sex appeal to snare her ideal man. But hot on her heels are the police and the inventor. Can she avoid jail and humiliation? Can she keep hold of her ideal man once he discovers her secret? Most importantly of all, has she really found what she’s looking for?

The Million Dollar Dress - Chapter 1
 

Justine pushed the vacuum cleaner across the floor, strutting to Slam Dunk’s newest hit. For the evening shift cleaning the studio, she rocked and shimmied her way from one task to the next.  

She was usually alone in the evenings, unless Serge stayed late. Their routines could overlap easily, and they worked around each other like a carefully tuned machine.

The studio was near to Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, and Serge had said that he chose it because it used to be a ribbon-maker’s workshop, years ago, which was why it had such huge windows. Justine had tried to picture how you’d weave a ribbon and decided that it didn’t sound like a rewarding job. She reminded herself of the ribbon weavers when she grumbled at cleaning the large windows. There were definitely worse jobs. Occasionally Serge asked her to help him which Justine loved, it made her feel part of something important. Serge was a fashion designer. She didn’t think he was the rich, internationally famous kind, but she was confident that he was up and coming, so being his model was a huge treat. Serge didn’t mind that she was a bit lumpy in places, as most of his clients wore larger sizes.

“Justine, would you mind slipping the dress on for me?”

Serge had his head round the door and she smiled at him. He even looked like a fashion designer. Skinnier than most people thought was healthy, punky hair that steered just clear of being a mullet and he always wore stripes. Stripes were Serge’s signature and he combined them in ways that flattered and deceived the eye when designing for his ladies. For himself he used them to more attention-seeking effect and sometimes Justine thought he looked as if he needed tuning in properly.

Serge put his arm round her shoulder and whispered in her ear.

“I have a visitor tonight – we must impress him, he’s the money!”

Justine gave him a look.

“Money? You’re not hard up, surely? You’ve got loads of clients.”

“I have big plans, Justine, and he is a potential investor. Smile for the man Sweetie!”

She rolled her eyes and followed him into the workshop. She looked at The Money, who acknowledged her with a curt flip of his hand. She went to the dress stand with Serge who handed her the dress. She took it behind the screen and put it on. 

This was different to Serge’s usual style of clothing; the dress was almost drab. It was a plain beige dress with a high neckline and a very low hemline. She had asked him on a previous occasion if he was making a sideline for nuns. She stepped out from behind the screen and did a twirl for them.

“Keep walking around, Justine,” said Serge.

He went to his desk and opened up a laptop. The Money looked rather bored.

“So tell me, did you see the James Bond film, “Die Another Day”?” Serge asked.

The Money shook his head.

“That’s a shame, because it might have helped. He had a car that could become invisible. It had tiny cameras along each side, with a corresponding projector on the opposite side of the car. So when James Bond hit the switch, the image from behind the car was projected forward, making it invisible.”

The Money shrugged and looked confused.

Serge pressed some buttons on the laptop and the Money gasped. It was the first time Justine had heard him make a noise. He was staring at her. She looked down at the dress and saw why – her body had disappeared. 

The Money recovered his cynical snarl.

“So you made an invisibility cloak. But I can still see her head.”

Serge pressed some more buttons on the laptop.

“Well that is just one thing that this dress can do, but it’s not the real selling point. If I can make you see nothing then I can make you see anything!”

The Money rolled his eyes impatiently.

“If I choose to project Justine’s body as that of Angelina Jolie, then I can do that.”

He pressed a button with a flourish.

This time Justine gasped. She looked down to see the kind of body that she had always dreamed of. It wasn’t hers of course, but just for a moment she was prepared to believe that it might be. Hello-boys breasts that pushed out over a tiny waist. Hips that flared provocatively. And the dress that she was wearing, where had that come from? It was a shimmer fabric that hugged the curves as if she’d been misted with water. She looked up and saw the Money ogling her. She blushed. Even though she knew he wasn’t ogling her own body it was impossible not to feel that he was.

Serge cleared his throat gently.

“So, you see what it is I have done? I can give to women what they most desire. I can let them change their body as they want to. I am in the course of plotting Marilyn Monroe’s vital statistics into the computer, but they can be as curvy or as skinny as they want to be. They can also change their outfits to be anything that they can think of.”

Serge clicked his mouse and Justine was wearing a wedding dress. He clicked again and she was wearing a demure trouser suit. He clicked a third time and she was wearing the skimpiest bikini she had ever seen.

“Hey!” she shouted, seeing the lecherous smile on the Money’s face.

Serge clicked hurriedly and changed Justine into a 1960’s Austin Powers mini dress with platform boots.

As she looked at herself and walked slowly around the room, Serge put his arm around the Money’s shoulders and led him gently away, seeing that he was going to get no reaction while he was transfixed by Justine’s curves. Serge indicated the view from the window where the sun was setting across the city.

“Do you see what we have here? This is so huge that I can barely imagine it myself. No woman will ever want to wear normal clothes when she has seen what this can do. I have never met a woman who is happy with her body. Even the ones that look great to me have some tiny thing that they worry about. So we sell them the dress, and we sell them the service of programming the changes that they want.”

Justine was grateful that the two of them were distracted. She studied herself in the mirror. Her haircut suited the style of the dress. She would never have even looked at clothes like this, but here she was wearing them! She felt as though her life had been changed in the last five minutes. She walked over to see what was on the laptop. There were icons showing the different outfits. It looked so easy to use.

Serge was still talking.

“And it doesn’t end there! Fashions change all the time. Women crave variety and individuality in their attire. We can release software for a ready to wear line. They can download those from the internet and we won’t even need a point of sale. And maybe we can even return to the golden days of couture. It can be more attainable because the work will be done by computer programmers instead of seamstresses, and the client doesn’t even need have to have fittings! There are so many ways that we can sell this to the world.”

The Money was nodding and looking slightly animated. Justine imagined he didn’t often get that way. Serge seemed to be encouraged by his response.

“The technology is fairly expensive right now, but I know we can drive down the costs with the sort of demand that we’re going to get. This prototype here is the only one I have at the moment, and it cost me as much as a semi in Solihull.”

Justine sighed at that. The chances of her owning a dress like this were nil. She really wanted to enjoy it for a little while longer.