Eximere (The River Book 4) (19 page)

“A legend shelf,” Eliza said, turning from the book to look
at Steven, “is a little different for each person who uses one. In my case, I
use it to set the physical boundaries of the protected area of artifacts. It’s
almost like a map. It lets me monitor the lines where the protection starts and
stops.”

“So you’re able to change the boundaries,” Roy asked, “if you
want.”

“Yes,” Eliza said, “but I don’t. It takes a lot to get them
set up in the first place, and a lot to change them. So you make sure you get
them right once, and leave them.”

“What does ‘a lot’ mean?” Roy asked.

Eliza stared at him, seemingly unwilling to answer.

“Come on,” Roy said, “I’ve never worked with them. We need to
know. I think the marchers are controlled by the same method, something James
set up.”

“There are two ways I know of,” Eliza said. “The first is to
pay a lot of money to someone who will start it up for you. We used my legend
shelf to set the boundaries we wanted, but we saved for almost five years
before we had enough money to pay someone to start it, to like, ‘turn it on.’
It takes a huge amount of power to do that, especially for as large an area as
we were intending to protect. We had endless fund raisers, bake sales, you name
it. Several of us took mortgages out on our homes. It wasn’t easy, but it was
important to all of us, so we made the sacrifices we needed to. We made sure we
had the boundaries we wanted, then we engaged someone to start it for us.”

Steven thought of Albert in New Mexico, and the portal he’d
maintained for Robert Maysill before they shut it down.

“Exactly like your friend Albert and the portal at Mason
Manor,” Eliza said, smiling at Steven.

“What’s the other way?” Roy asked.

“I hesitate to say it,” Eliza said, “because I find it so
abhorrent.”

“Just tell us,” Roy said.

“Well,” she said, “as you know, Albert is above board. If you
don’t have the money to set up something like this with someone scrupulous like
him, then you have to set it up with…”

“Yes?” Roy asked.

“…someone less scrupulous,” she said.

“Someone who’ll take something other than money, you mean,”
Roy said.

“Yes,” she said.

“And if not money,” Roy said, “it must be pretty
substantial.”

“That’s what I understand,” Eliza said.

“Wait, let me guess,” Steven said. “A soul.”

Eliza nodded, a look of disgust on her face.

“It’s always souls with these people,” Steven said under his
breath.

“So James set up the parameters or boundaries for where the
marchers would be,” Roy said, “using a legend shelf somewhere. Then he used the
soul funnel to pay for it to engage.”

“And presumably,” Eliza said, “for it to keep running for a
long time.”

“How does it work?” Steven asked. “The soul funnel?”

“According to this,” Roy said, looking at his book, “once the
arrangements are made, you press the open part of the cone against the chest of
the person whose soul you’re taking. So I guess James must have used it on
himself, which would explain why it’s still in his hand.”

“Why were we able to communicate with James,” Steven asked,
“if his soul had been taken?”

“James’ body would have gone comatose once he used the
funnel,” Roy said. “It’s likely his body was kept alive for a while, before it
died in that bedroom. Perhaps Anita kept him going; we’ll never know. Being
able to communicate depends on the deal he struck. He must have had enough
freedom to at least return to that room.”

“Probably to keep an eye on things, make sure things were
still running,” Eliza said. “I know monitoring my shelf is important to me.”

“He must have hated her a great deal,” Steven said, “to be
willing to sacrifice himself just to torment her.”

“Love and hate within familiar relationships,” Roy said,
looking up at Steven, “are often deep waters that outsiders never understand.”

Steven didn’t know if he was talking about James and Anita,
or himself.

 “It’s well known that some children hate their parents,” Roy
added, returning his gaze to the book.

“And it’s well known,” Steven said, taking the bait, “that
some parents deserve to be hated.”

Roy looked up at Steven, a mischievous grin on his face.
“It’s OK,” he said. “I hated my father sometimes.”

“I didn’t say I hate you,” Steven said. “I said that some
parents deserve the derision they get from their children, that’s all.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Roy said.

“No, you don’t,” Steven said. “I’m referring to James and
Anita. I can understand why James hated her. She’s capable of awful things. God
knows what she did to James over the years. If he hated her, there’s a reason.”

“That’s probably true,” Eliza said, “and I can’t see what any
of that has to do with you two.”

Roy returned to the book, and Steven felt a potential fight
was averted.
Thank you, Eliza.

“You’re welcome,” she said to both of them.

“If we were to locate James’ legend shelf,” Roy said to Eliza,
“would you be able to reconfigure it? Redraw the boundaries that define where
the marchers go?”

“There’s a chance,” Eliza said. “I’d have to see it to be
sure.”

“Then,” said Roy, standing and closing his book, “I think we
have a way to take Anita out.”

“How?” Eliza asked.

“We let the marchers do the work,” Roy said. “We just need to
redefine their boundaries to include down here. She’s so mired in her routine,
they’ll surprise the hell out of her when they appear. She’ll be trapped;
she’ll have nowhere to go. They’ll finish her off.”

“So I’m guessing,” Steven said, “that you’d have Eliza
redefine the boundaries, provided we find James’ legend shelf.”

“Yes,” said Roy.

“Then use the soul funnel to pay for the changes,” Steven
said, “since none of us have the funds.”

“We’ll give Jonathan the option,” Roy said.

Eliza sat stunned. “You can’t be serious,” she said.

“He got us into this,” Roy said. “He can get us out.”

“Does he have that kind of money?” Steven asked Eliza.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He’s always seemed well off, but
what’s the alternative? Take his life?”

“Well,” Roy said, “his soul.”

“I can’t believe you’d even suggest that,” Eliza said.

“That’ll be the motivation for him to come up with the
funds,” Roy said. “And he’ll need to believe I’m crazy enough to do it, or it
won’t be much motivation.”

Eliza looked back at Roy as through he was a man from outer
space. “That’s a truly twisted idea,” Eliza said.

“He lied to us,” Roy said. “He put our abilities at risk. And
I believe his final words to you were ‘fuck you’.”

“Percival is more to blame,” Eliza said. “Why not him?”

“OK,” Roy said, “he’ll do. Either one. Though I don’t think Percival
will have the funds. But I could be wrong.”

“He had ten thousand to pay Jonathan,” Eliza said, turning
and walking away from the table. She seemed to be mulling it over. “We’d have
to contact the person James made the deal with, and find out if they’re even
willing to make the change. And how much it would cost.”

“OK,” Roy said.

“And then we’d need to confront Percival and see if we can
force him into it,” she said.

“Sorry, Roy’s right,” Steven said. “It has to be Jonathan.
Even if Percival has the money, he won’t do it. He’s a zealot. Jonathan doesn’t
care about James and the legacy of it all – he’s gifted, so he understands what
we’re talking about. He is more likely to take the threat seriously. If Roy
threatens Percival first, and Percival refuses, but Roy doesn’t follow through
and take his soul when he refuses to pay, Jonathan won’t believe he’d do the
same to him. We get one shot at this, and it needs to be Jonathan.”

Eliza looked at both of them, worried. She clearly felt
troubled about the plan.

“I won’t have anything to do with this,” she said, “unless
you both promise me that even if he doesn’t pay, you will not use the funnel on
him.”

“And wind up drained?” Roy asked. “Are you willing to let
that happen to all of us, and let Jonathan continue on?”

“I’m not willing to kill anyone,” she said.

“He won’t be dead,” Steven said. “He’ll just be a shell, a
body without a soul. Fair play for what he’s done to us, I think.”

“Well, I don’t,” Eliza said. “I think it’s horrible, the idea
of him a vegetable, a body waiting to die.”

“It is,” Roy said, “but the alternative is worse.”

“I can’t believe there’s not a better option,” Eliza said.

“I’m open to whatever you can come up with,” Roy said.

“It’s left to me?” Eliza said. “You two are settled on this
approach? You won’t even help me find some other way?”

“We’ve run out of time,” Steven said. “I’m fine with Jonathan
paying for what he’s done. Let’s just hope he takes Roy seriously, and pays
up.”

“First step,” Roy said, “is to find the legend shelf and get
a quote on what it’ll cost to make a change.”

“First thing in the morning,” Steven said, “as soon as Anita
comes back upstairs. We can’t wait any longer.” He looked at Eliza. She looked
as though she wanted to throw up. He felt sorry for her, and he understood
where she was coming from. But as far as Steven was concerned, Jonathan was
fair game. He threatened them, and now they were going to threaten him.

The next morning, Steven, Roy, and Eliza met at dawn and
traversed the path back down to the house. The light was bright downstairs,
just as it had been in the past. Walking into the front yard from the door with
the oval symbol, the openness and lightness of the air around him made Steven
take a deep breath and sigh.
This place is addictive
, he thought.
And
Anita must not have noticed anythin
g,
since she didn’t attack.

They didn’t talk about the previous night’s discussion. Eliza
was uncharacteristically quiet while they walked, and Steven worried that she
might not be able to go through with their plan.
It won’t come to
sacrificing him
, Steven thought.
He’ll pay up. Roy will put on a
convincing show. If not, I hope we can find some alternative that she’s
comfortable with.
He saw her look up and smile at him, then return her gaze
to the ground, watching her step. She seemed to appreciate his thoughts, but
she seemed miles in agreement from them.

They walked through the house to the library, Eliza
triggering the lever she’d found earlier that opened the book shelf to reveal
the stairwell leading down.

“I’m assuming the device is down there somewhere,” Roy said.
“So we need to find the legend shelf as quickly as possible and get back out.”

“Agreed,” Steven said, and Eliza nodded. They walked down the
steps, making a turn at the bottom down a short hallway. At the end was a door,
which was locked.
Unusual,
Steven thought,
given how every other door
and window here is wide open.

Eliza stepped up and had the lock picked in a minute, then all
three went through the door and into a large room that was half the size of the
house. There were large pillars spaced at odd intervals and work tables set up
over most of the space. On top of every table there were objects – some just
sitting, other disassembled.

“Jesus Christ,” Roy said. “This is the biggest shop I’ve ever
seen. How are we ever going to find anything?”

“The legend shelf is about three feet wide, and flat,” Eliza
said. “Mine glows green, and has little lines on it. Look for something like
that.”

“Let’s each take a section and spread out,” Roy said, “Cover
as much ground as you can. We’re looking for both the shelf and the device, so
holler if you see either.”

They split up and began scanning tables in separate parts of
the room. Steven was amazed by the items he saw – some were strange, almost as
though they came from another planet, and others were ordinary and mundane. Sometimes
he encountered something that was moving; there was something that looked like
a large erector set, except the pieces were made of ceramic, and it had an arm
that was continually swinging.
Perpetual motion?
he wondered, completely
taken by it. He found it hard to pull away and continue looking around. Every
piece he saw was fascinating and drew his attention.

He was disturbed when he entered the River and a large jar of
metal hinges sitting on the bench in front of him transformed into a jar of insects.
Each one had a tiny human-like face, and they all turned to look at him, as
through his entry into the River caught their attention. Their tiny mouths
opened and closed, like fish, but he could see, when their mouths were open,
rows of small sharp teeth. They forced themselves to the top of the jar, trying
to push the lid open. The lid appeared to be screwed on tight, and he was glad,
as he didn’t want to deal with the creatures inside – although they clearly
wanted to deal with him.
What the fuck would you use those for?
he
wondered.

“Torture,” Eliza said from a nearby table. “I’ve seen them
before. They have no legitimate use. Many of the things here are contraband, or
worse.”

So James was a lot like Jurgen, then?
Steven thought, referring to an evil
adversary Roy and Steven had encountered in Seattle while trying to help Roy’s
friends at Mason Manor.

“Never met him,” Eliza said, “but from what you’ve told me
about him, Jurgen sounded exclusively ‘dark side’. There’s a mixture of good
and bad here. But some of the bad is rather extreme.”

He exited the River, finding its perspective more of a
distraction than a help. Eliza hollered for the other two to come see what she
had found, and Steven and Roy hurried over to her. In front of Eliza was a three
foot section of black slate. In the slate there were faint blue lines, some of
them pulsing.

“Is that it?” Steven asked.

“I believe so,” Eliza said. “It’s not exactly the same as
mine, but the pulsing lines remind me of the one I have. So it’s probably it.”
She bent over it, examining the lines for a minute. “This outline looks to me
like the house upstairs. Yes, I think this is it.”

Roy removed a small mirror from his back pocket and held it
at an angle next to the slate. “I’m going to go into a trance, to see if I can
pick up a signature,” Roy said. Then he closed his eyes and stood frozen, the
mirror cocked at an angle and shaking slightly.

Steven knew what Roy was trying to do. They looked for
signatures when they worked at Mason Manor in Oregon. Using a mirror, Roy had
been able to see a signature of a mysterious portal that appeared there, and
with the help of his friend Dixon, an expert in signatures, Roy was able to
figure out who was behind it. He was hoping he could use the same method to
figure out who was maintaining the shelf.

Steven looked at Eliza. She was staring down at the shelf,
trying to make sense of it.
I hope she knows what she’s doing,
he
thought.

“If I spend a few minutes with it, I think I can figure it
out,” she said.

Roy opened his eyes and lowered the mirror. “I’ll have to
call Dixon to find out the owner,” he said, placing the mirror back in his
pocket and removing a piece of paper and a pen. He began sketching.

“What about the shelf itself, Eliza?” Steven asked.

She moved her hand over the area on the shelf and other
images formed above them. “Seems to work the same,” she said. “The colors are
different, but it’s responding the same as mine. The map is of the landscape
upstairs, the yard, the house.” She moved her hand again, and an image of
Russell in his bedroom appeared. He looked deep in a trance, or still asleep
from the night before. “There’s Russell,” she said. “I doubt he’ll know we just
looked in on him.” She moved her hands again, and other areas of the house
appeared. Then she pointed to the blue lines that had the brightest glow.
“These are the boundaries,” she said. “He’s got the marchers penned into the
entire estate on the surface, excluding the house itself, which has a twenty
foot buffer. Except for right here,” she said, pointing to an area of the
house, “he has the boundary go through her bedroom window and a couple of feet
inside her room. That’s to keep her scared, I expect.”

“Can you change the boundaries?” Roy asked.

“I should be able to,” she said. “Just need to find the Z
axis toggle.” She moved her hands around the edges of the slate, and suddenly a
three dimensional image of the house and yard rose from the shelf. She kept
moving her hands along the edge until Eximere appeared as well, with the
various stairwells that led to it. Eventually she had the whole area displayed
in three dimensions, including the main road and the tunnel. As she moved her
hands, the image rotated, offering each of them a change of view.

“I rarely turn mine on three dimensions like this,” she said,
“since we’ve set ours to go fifty feet underground no matter where we place the
boundary.” She pointed to an area of the upstairs house near the foundation
that looked like a blurry red smudge. “See this here?” she said. “This is the
protection that was placed on the foundation. That’s why we could never see
under the house when we tranced.”

“So you know how to change these boundaries?” Roy asked. “Can
you do it?”

“Yes, I think so,” she said, reaching into the three
dimensional display and letting her finger linger on one of the blue lines. It
pulsed and turned green, and she slid it to the right. She paused her finger,
and the line turned blue once again. Then she removed her finger from the display.
“There,” she said, “I just moved the boundary out past the main road, which
obviously we don’t want to leave in place,” she said, reaching in and reversing
the steps. “I can make these moves easily enough. The problem will be getting
the changes to engage. That’ll take the power of whoever is keeping this
running.”

“Which will require Jonathan’s cash,” Steven said. “We’ll
find out just how much it’s going to cost when we get back upstairs.”

“I think we should go now,” Roy said. “We know what we’ll
need to do, and how to get back to this shelf when we’re ready.”

“But we don’t know where the device is yet,” Steven said,
turning around and surveying the room.

“We can figure that out once we’ve eliminated Anita,” Roy
said, “and we need to make sure that happens tonight. We can’t afford another
day. I don’t know about you, Eliza, but entering the River has become much more
difficult for me.”

“It’s much harder,” Eliza said. “I should make the changes to
the boundaries now, before we go back up.”

 “And we should leave with the soul funnel,” Roy added. “We’ve
got to have these changes in effect before the marchers wake up at dusk. We’ll
just have to trust that the timing will work out, and that Anita won’t find the
missing funnel before the marchers find her.”

“Agreed,” Steven said. “How long to make the changes, Eliza?”

“Let me start now,” she said. “Gotta do this right. We’ll
want the marchers to be able to go into all the underground areas, including
the stairwells, so she doesn’t try to escape back upstairs. And if that’s the
case, there’s no reason for them to be upstairs anymore at all.  What about
this room? Should I exclude it?”

“No,” Steven said, “let them come down here too. She might
know about this place and try to escape down here.”

“We need a safety area somewhere, in case we’re trapped down
here,” Eliza said. “I’ll keep a small area behind the banyan tree off limits.
She won’t know it’s there to escape to, but it’ll come in handy if we need it.”
She reached into the model, moving and repositioning lines. When she was done,
she stepped back. “There,” she said. “That should do it.”

“So after this takes effect,” Steven said, “we’ll still only
be able to come down here during the day, because the marchers will be out at
night. Down here. And upstairs will be safe all the time.”

“Correct,” Eliza said. “But none of this will matter unless
you get someone to enforce the changes. The old pattern was what James paid
for, and that’ll stay in effect until this new pattern is paid for.”

“All right,” Roy said. “Let’s head back up and deal with
Jonathan.”

They started their walk back to the stairwell that led to the
library. Steven turned to Eliza, wanting to resolve the situation between them.

“I know this isn’t comfortable for you,” he said to her,
hoping she’d come around.

“No, it’s not,” she said. “Yet, the more I thought about it
last night, the more I felt you two are right. I just don’t see any good option.
I agree Jonathan has to own up for this. This kind of betrayal in our world
just isn’t taken very well. I know some people who would have killed him
already. But I’ve known him for many years. It’s taken a while just for me to
believe he’s done it.”

“I wonder what happens,” Steven said, “after we’ve forced him
to pay up. Another person out there with a vendetta against us, Roy?”

Roy’s initial reaction was somewhere between
he can get in
line
and
I don’t give a shit
, but he stifled himself and didn’t say
either. He remembered dealing with Frank Wilmon, a memory Steven and Eliza
didn’t share. That softened him to Steven’s thinking that leaving people out
there instead of finishing them off might be a big mistake.
I’m not a
killer,
Roy thought.
I don’t murder people. But if it’s between all
these people and Jonathan, Jonathan loses.

“How much of our ability is worth a person’s life?” Eliza
said.

“You won’t be able to continue your work in California,
protecting artifacts,” Steven said. “You’ll get home and not know what most of
the stuff in your house does.”

They walked out of the library and through the house to the
staircase leading upstairs, then over to James’ bedroom. They looked down at
him, but no one moved to take the silver fork in his hand. Finally Eliza
reached out and slipped it out of the bony fingers. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll
carry the funnel.”

Steven wasn’t sure if this meant she intended to use it on
Jonathan if the time came, or if she was just transporting it upstairs for
them.

“You ever wish you didn’t have these abilities?” Eliza asked
as they turned to leave Eximere and walk back to the stairwell leading up to
the main house.

“Never,” Steven said. “My only regret is leaving people like Jurgen
and Michael alive. You, Dad?”