The Dark Remains (53 page)

The air folded and blurred in front of the door, then grew smooth again.

Quiet
, Vani mouthed.

Travis swallowed his words. Vani tried the doorknob, but it didn’t move. This did not seem to faze her. She cupped the knob with both hands, shut her eyes, and pressed her body against the door.

He never saw exactly what she did. A single ripple seemed to pass over the red-painted surface, as if it were a pond into which a pebble had been tossed. Without a sound, the door swung open. Vani’s hands went up, ready.

Nothing came through the door.

Her hands went down. “This way.”

They stood at the end of a long, featureless corridor. A line of fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, stretching toward the vanishing point. Half of them were dark, casting the hallway into alternating brilliance and shadow. Travis thought of a ball bouncing along the tracks of a roulette wheel. Where would it land? White or black, life or death. Everyone place your bets.

Vani moved down the corridor with barely a whisper of sound. Grace and Travis followed after, trying not to sound like a herd of wild pigs in tap shoes. They passed several doors, all of them open and leading into empty rooms. Dread crept down Travis’s spine. He almost wished they would just show themselves, burst out a door, laugh, and throw nets on them. Actually getting caught couldn’t possibly be as bad as fearing it.

More doors, more empty rooms.

“Where are they?” Grace whispered, then bit her lip at a harsh glance from Vani.

Travis pressed his shoulder against hers.
I was about to say the same thing
, he verbalized in his mind, just in case she could use the Weirding to tune in to his brain. He didn’t know if it worked, but she pressed back.

They reached another door. This one was shut, and it was larger than the others. Travis heard a faint humming noise. He touched the surface of the door. It was vibrating slightly.

Vani gave them sharp looks. The message was clear: This was it. Grace and Travis stepped back as Vani gripped the handle of the door. Once she turned it, the time for subtlety was over. It was up to Grace and Travis to stay close but to stay out of Vani’s way while she worked. And they had to get to Beltan the moment they saw him.

“Now,” Vani whispered.

In one fluid motion she turned the handle, threw open the door, and dived through in a black blur.

Travis and Grace rushed after. He tensed, expecting to see Vani’s limbs moving at impossible speeds, throwing Duratek agents around like rag dolls, clearing the way.

“Oh,” Grace said next to him, her voice echoing.

Vani stood motionless, hands on her hips. Travis took a staggering step forward and tore off his sunglasses.

“Empty,” he said. “It’s empty.”

The room was large, a hundred feet across, and there was nothing in it. A few empty boxes, some crumpled papers; that was all. High walls stretched toward bare beams and shadows overhead. There were only a few murky lights, and on one wall was a large exhaust fan, spinning slowly—the source of the hum.

“Maybe they’re somewhere else,” Grace said, hugging herself. “There are more doors.”

“No,” Vani said, her words like knives. “They are gone. All of them.”

But it didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t all have gone after him and Grace. “How can this be?” Travis croaked.

Vani turned toward them. “They knew we were coming.”

It struck him like a blow. Somehow they had known and had cleared everything out. The artifact. Beltan. Everything. He felt Grace’s weight as she sagged against him.

“Now what?” he said, holding on to Grace, wondering what was going to prop him up when his own legs gave way.

Vani started to move. “Now we must—” Her words ceased, and she halted.

“Vani,” Grace whispered. “What is it?”

Even as Grace said this, Travis saw them. Lean, gangly, hunched shadows scuttled from behind fallen boxes, crept from dim corners, and dropped down from the steel beams above.

“It is a trap,” Vani said.

Deirdre sank back against the leather seat as the limousine accelerated, leaving behind the dilapidated rental house where they had made their phone call to the police.

“You know,” she said, arms crossed over her black-leather jacket, “that was completely illegal.”

“Only on this world,” Farr quipped.

He didn’t look well. He hadn’t shaved that day, and the stubble of his beard cast a shadow over his face. His dark eyes were sunken, and his lips—usually so full and sensual—were drawn in thin lines. He fiddled with the controls on a small radio. Voices crackled out of the speaker. He was scanning the police bands.

Deirdre sighed and supposed she didn’t look so marvelous herself. “So, do you think the police will really come?”

He bent his ear to the radio. More voices hissed and popped. Farr looked up, eyes glinting. “It seems they’re already on their way.”

If the police were coming, Duratek couldn’t be far behind. Which meant the plan had actually worked—at least their part of it. Deirdre could only hope the others were having similar luck.

Not that luck would have much to do with it. Travis
and Grace had described the things Vani was capable of. Duratek would leave the complex sparsely guarded in order to follow the police, and Vani would get them inside, get the artifact, and free Beltan. Even if they couldn’t find a way to activate the artifact and return to AU-3, at least they would be able to escape with it, which would keep Duratek from discovering the secret of the artifact themselves. It wouldn’t be a total loss.

And may the spirits cast woe upon you, Deirdre Falling Hawk, for that is an untruth. You don’t want them to find out how to activate the artifact. You don’t want them to leave
.

Perhaps that was just the Seeker in her, the part that wanted to be able to continue studying her fascinating subjects. And yet that was a lie as well. The reason she didn’t want Travis and Grace to go was simple: She was going to miss them.

“How long until the police arrive?” she said.

“Their ETA is three minutes. We’ll be well away by then.”

Farr had set down the radio. He was flipping through a folder of papers now—documents related to the cases that had all become inextricably linked: Sarsin, Beckett, Wilder. And what other cases were connected to these without their knowing it? When she joined the Seekers, she had always hoped one day she would find those who had otherworldly connections. She never thought she would be the one with such ties herself.

More chatter on the police radio. Farr seemed not to notice. He stared at something in the folder on his lap, brushed it with a finger. It was a strangely tender motion for the usually brusque Farr. Deirdre craned her neck, then saw what he was looking at. It was a photo. A tall, elegant woman with pale hair ran down a set of steps before a concrete building. She was looking to one side, gazing into the darkness, her expression desperate and regal.

In the space of a heartbeat it struck Deirdre. Her grandfather would have said it was a message from the spirit world, for such messages come suddenly, and often with pain, and they were always true.

“Damn you,” she murmured.

Farr looked up, brown eyes startled. “Deirdre?”

She sat up straight on the seat, heat rising. “Damn you, you really think you are him, don’t you? Marius Lucius Albrecht. The greatest Seeker in history. You’re not just trying to follow his career. You’re trying to
be
him.”

Farr splayed his hand on the photograph. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

“No, this has nothing to do with Earth.” The words exploded out of her: angry and true. “Albrecht fell in love with her—Lady Alis Faraday, the woman the Philosophers sent him to study. And now you think you love
her
. Grace Beckett.”

He opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t let him.

“By the Book, are you insane, Farr? Do you have a list of all the accomplishments of Albrecht’s life so you can check something off once you’ve matched it? All of this—everything we’ve done here in Denver—it was all so you could have her, wasn’t it? Well did you? Did you get your moment alone with her? Did you check that off your list as well?”

She was shaking now, fists pounding against the knees of her black jeans. “The others were right; I didn’t want to believe them when I first started working with you, but now I do. You are one cold, arrogant son of a bitch, Hadrian Farr. And if you really are the next Marius Albrecht, then he was a bastard just like you are.”

Deirdre flung herself back against the seat, glaring. He did not move, did not counter her words with smooth, eloquent arguments as she would have expected. Instead he gazed at the photograph through his fingers. Then,
slowly, he closed the folder and looked up at her with haunted eyes.

She gasped, and the anger drained from her in a cold flood, leaving her hollow.

“No,” she whispered. “God, no, don’t say it.”

It was too late.

“I do love her,” he said.

The words were small and broken. There was no room for irony in them, nor carefully calculated effect. She had never heard Farr speak like this—this plainly and without guile. The cost to him must have been more than she could imagine.

“You can’t have her,” she said. “Everything in the Book forbids it. In the end, even Albrecht gave up Lady Faraday.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, head bowed. “I know.”

The whir of traffic seeped through the windows. They were heading toward her even at that moment—Grace Beckett. But now Deirdre found herself hoping that she and Travis and Vani did manage to use the artifact, that they did step through an impossible gate into another world. Farr had always been the very paragon of a Seeker, sometimes admirable, sometimes despicable, always mysterious, powerful, and alluring. To see him like this—undone by his own fallibility—it was almost more than Deirdre could bear. She reached a hand toward him, although whether to comfort or strike him she did not know.

An electronic chime pierced the air. Deirdre and Farr stared at the pager that rested on the seat next to him.

He grabbed it.

“Is it them?” Deirdre said.

“It can’t be. It’s too soon. And I told them to call, not page.” He pressed a button, frowned. “I don’t recognize this telephone number.”

“What is it?”

“It’s 268-533-7128.”

“I don’t know it. Maybe whoever called entered it incorrectly by mistake. Can you see what phone number the call originated from?”

Farr pressed another button. “Yes.”

Deirdre fired up a small notebook computer. It was good to have something mundane to focus on. He read off both numbers, and she punched them in. Before coming to Denver, she had loaded a database of all Colorado phone numbers on the computer. Standard procedure. She started the search, then in a moment she had it.

“The number where the call originated belongs to an address in Denver. On West Colfax. It’s a business. Name is …” Her fingers froze on the keys. “Marji’s House of Mystery.”

Deirdre pushed aside the computer and grabbed a cell phone. “I’m calling her.” She punched the number, waited as it rang. And rang. She pressed a button and lowered the phone. “Marji’s not answering.”

“Nor will she,” he said softly. He had been bending close to the police radio. Now he turned up the volume.

“—that’s on West Colfax,” a sharp, disembodied voice spoke over static. “Denver Fire and Rescue just arrived. Right now we think one person is trapped in—”

More static. Farr turned down the volume, his brown eyes wide. Deirdre realized this was the first time she had ever seen him frightened.

“It’s her, isn’t it? Marji. She’s the one trapped inside. But maybe they’ll …”

Deirdre didn’t bother finishing. It didn’t take a message from the spirits to know that, just like in Brixton, no one would be coming out of that fire. Duratek didn’t work that way.

“They know.” Anger transmuted Farr’s dull expression. He slammed the seat with a fist. “Damn them, they know everything!”

“They must have heard us. At Marji’s. They must have
followed us from the hotel and heard us talking there. Or maybe they had the place bugged. The police had been there, looking for—” A cold hand clamped around Deirdre’s heart. “Travis and Grace.”

Farr had already grabbed the cell phone. He dialed, then a moment later set the phone down. “It’s not turned on.” He laughed—a forlorn sound. “I told Grace to keep the phone turned off until it was time to call us. I didn’t want a wrong number ringing it while they were sneaking around the complex. I guess it’s a little late for worrying about that.”

“Now what?” Deirdre said.

Farr raised the phone. “I’m calling the Seekers. This is beyond us now. We may have to get law enforcement involved. Get the police there, on scene, just to keep anything from happening. Even Duratek can’t kidnap someone with the police standing watch—that’s just the kind of attention they can’t afford. We can sort out the mess later, even if it means having to pay a bond to get Travis and Grace out of jail. It’s not like the Seekers don’t have money and lawyers enough.”

Farr dialed. Deirdre hoped he was right. It was true that the Seekers had good lawyers. And if the police were involved, even Duratek would have to play by certain rules.

Farr spoke into the phone. “Yes, hello, it’s Farr. This is a crisis. You must get a message to the Philosophers immediately. We have lost control of—”

He stopped speaking. Then, slowly, he lowered the phone and switched it off.

Deirdre nearly screamed the words at him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“They hung up.”

She dug her fingers into the seat. “Hung up?”

He looked up, visage weary. “Yes, hung up. It was Sasha. Once I spoke my name, she said she was sorry, that she couldn’t talk to me, that no one was allowed to
talk to me or to you, that they could not interfere. Then she disconnected.”

Deirdre lunged for the phone. “We have to call them back. We have to let them know what’s—”

Gently, Farr pried the phone from her rigid fingers.

“No, Deirdre. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner. I guess I’ve always been blind to what it’s like for those on the other side of the investigation. They won’t talk to us. We’re on our own now.”