Wild Thing (5 page)

The arrival of the two attendants for this wing was a relief.  A small blonde woman, and that black fellow who looked like he'd been a quarter-back.  What were their names?  Monica?  Miranda?  And the man – it was Martin, wasn't it?  M-something, anyway.  The two stopped by their table, the woman crouching down to Sara's eye level.

'Hi, sweetie, I'm Nerida, and this is Dwayne.  You must be Sara.'

'Um, yeah.  I just got here today.'

'I know, sweetheart, you're already in the system.  And not as an inmate, either,' she winked.  'So our Dr Harmon has adopted you, has he?'  Her eyes swung to his, a definite challenge in her glance.  'A little odd, bringing up a child here of all places,' she said to him, before looking back to his ward.  'What happened to your parents, dear?  If you don't mind me asking?'

Sara looked down at the table, her jaw set stubbornly.  'They sent me away ’coz they thought I was bad.'  She looked up defiantly.  'But I'm not, I'm good.  And I'm
not
going to do the devil's work, nuh-uh.'  She shook her head.

Silence reigned until Sara helpfully filled it.  'I'm not going to kill anybody, either. 
People
kill only for food.'

The silence stretched even longer.  Before Sara could explain further, Nerida stood, and both attendants, smiles now frozen to their faces, took a step back.  'Uh, that's good.  That's good to know.  But, ah, we just dropped by to say hi, and Dwayne is taking me out to dinner.'

Dwayne's mouth opened.  'I-?'

'
Come on
, Dwayne, we don't want to be late.  Bye, Sara.  G'night Dr Harmon.  I'm sure you and Sara will get along
just fine
.  You two seem a nice match.'  Tugging Dwayne's hand, she backed away and left the cafeteria.

'
They
were a bit strange, weren't they, um, Uncle?'

Someone at this table certainly is
, he thought.

After dinner he'd taken her back to her room and left her to unpack.  Instead, she went straight back into her bathroom –
her
bathroom! – and hugged herself.  Her own bathroom!  She-, uh…

She frowned.  It seemed real nice to have her own bathroom, but all of a sudden, she wasn't quite sure why.

Anyway.

She looked around, checked out the cupboard under the sink – spare toilet paper, tubes of cream, shampoo and more – stood on tiptoe to eye herself in the mirror, tried the taps for the bath, flushed the toilet, and then froze, staring at the ceiling.

Oh, wow!

It had a secret trap door up there, just like back at, back at, the…  oh, yeah, how could she have forgotten?  Back at the orphanage!  But instead of being down the end of a corridor, out in the open and tricky to get to, it was right here
inside her own room
!  She looked around, biting her lip, wondering how she could get up to it.

But without warning, the tiredness washed back through her.  Besides, she didn't want to explore everything all at once.  She should save stuff up for later.

She smiled, sleepily.

It sure looked like she had lots of exploring ahead of her!

A knocking sound from outside made her start, and she tiptoed back into the main room –
her
main room! - to investigate.  It came again, from the door, and she realized someone
was knocking on her door! 
With a delighted smile, she crossed the room and opened it, to find her new uncle standing there.  What were you supposed to say…?

'Can I help you?' she asked.

He blinked several times before shutting his mouth and frowning slightly.  He held a bunch of smartsheets at his side. 
For me?
  'Would you like to come in?'

He looked at her sideways, still frowning a little, but stepped into her room.  What was she supposed to do next?  'May I get you a glass of water?'

Still frowning, he transferred the ’sheets from his right hand to his left and stretched and wriggled his fingers in a funny little dance, like he'd done back… before, then looked at her.  Really deeply, actually.  It made her a little uncomfortable, like he could see inside.

This wasn't how things worked in the vids, and she looked around, trying to remember any stories where the guest behaved weird.  Suddenly, though, her uncle laughed, ruffled the hair on her head, and started acting like visitors were supposed to.

'Thank you, Sara.  Yes, a glass of water would be wonderful.'

She smiled, relieved that she was doing it right after all, and dashed back into the bathroom where she'd seen a mug standing on the basin.  She filled it to the brim and carried it back carefully with both hands so as not to spill a drop, and handed it to him.  She felt strangely grown-up as he smiled and took it, despite the tricky business of getting it from her hands to his while both hers were still wrapped around it.

But then he just stood there, and she had to ask him if the water was nice before he even took a drink.

After that, though, he seemed to settle down, and together they browsed the net for books and vids to download to the ’sheets.  Mostly he steered her to really old stuff, ages before the Unfolding, just like at the, the… just like she was used to.  They found lots of stuff on African animals, as well as one that sounded ’specially good, about a king of the lions.  He also loaded a map of the Institute like he'd promised, and then spent some time pointing out stuff like where she could put her dirty clothes for the ’bots to launder; and zooming around the grounds.  There were also a couple of smaller buildings quite close by.  One of them was Mr Shanahan's, he said – the security man who'd spoken to her from the drone.

A lot of the map of the Institute building itself was kind of sketchy, though, and marked as unused.  She thought her uncle looked a little sad when she asked why, but he just said it was complicated.  Which was what grown-ups said when they didn't want to tell you stuff.

There were a whole bunch of “interview” and “treatment” rooms, mostly on the levels below and above this one.  She noticed there were two basement levels, too, which he tried to distract her from.  Which probably meant they'd be especially good to explore.  But she was extra careful not to look
too
interested in them.

Finally, he helped her unpack her clothes and craft stuff.  By that time, though, her tiredness had come back and she could hardly keep her eyes open.  At last he said goodnight and left her to clean her teeth.  She clambered onto her bed and fell straight to sleep.

-

From his office, Harmon activated the holovid he himself had concealed in Sara's room.

She lay on her bed, surrounded by a scattering of the smartsheets to which they had “printed” all the pre-Unfolding and copyright-expired children's vids and books they had downloaded.  And the free superhero trids and movies she had been so keen on.  He focused his trideo camera upon her little form, until her small face floated in the air before him, just within arm's reach.  She seemed tired still, and slightly confused.  The more he considered that fact, the more it indicated a problem.

Deep in thought, he tapped a stylus against his teeth.  The conclusion, unfortunately, appeared quite clear.  She still suffered from the effects of his magical adjustments in the nun's office.  Although… perhaps that was as interesting as it was annoying?  The spark he sought to fan to life, though unquenchable by normal means, seemed in some ways delicate when shaped by the currents of magic.  It
could
be interpreted as striking confirmation he was on the right track: that the human spirit itself was akin to the paranormal patterning of magic.  Perhaps even, was constituted of the same stuff.

He stared at the girl, tapping his stylus.  Shutting his eyes, he mulled the possibilities.

And gently, slowly, drifted into sleep…

He stood in an American forest – old, undisturbed.  Searching.  Searching for something he had trained, some animal.  Down dark trails he traveled, following faint scents.  Gradually, though, he grew aware of another presence; and sensed that it, too, felt
him
.  Searched for him: hunting.  His pulse quickened as he realized he had come too far, that he needed to leave.  He turned, retreating.

It followed.

He ran, knowing it drew closer, gaining ground.

Running, bushes tearing at him, he burst from the forest, heart pounding in fear.  Turning to look back he saw it emerge from the trees: a mountain lion.  With feline grace it padded closer, jaws a little open.  He met its eyes.  And saw Death.

It gathered speed, padding faster, accelerating, but now he stood transfixed: the eyes were not a cat's: the eyes were amber-flecked – Sara's.  A growl escaped its throat as muscles bunched for the attack.

The noise broke his paralysis.  Suddenly free, he wrenched himself around, leapt-

And sat up straight in his office chair, panting.

A dream!

His heart still raced.  He also realized he felt strangely disturbed, and had the beginnings of an erection.

Dismissing the physical reaction and shrugging off an odd feeling of unease, his fingers drummed as he contemplated the rest of it.  Perhaps… could his dream have taken him through the strange layers of the Imaginal?  Had he in reality tapped into the great Unconscious?

On his video feed Sara, asleep, moaned as if in frustration.

Chapter 3 

At breakfast the next day, eating her second bowl of muesli, the girl seemed fully recovered.  Harmon tried to mull all the various possibilities, but thoughts of the upcoming session with his most challenging patient kept distracting him.  His wristcomm chimed, and he took the call from the Director.

'Just checking that you'd seen your patient's latest missive, Dr Harmon.'

He didn't need to ask which patient Professor Sanders referred to: ninety percent of his attention went to the Institute's most troublesome case.  'You mean last night's one, where he wrote of sensing a “disturbance in the Force?”  Rather mixing his metaphors.  You are aware, Director, that it's a quote from a very old Hollywood movie?'

'Really? Odd timing, though – matches your arrival last night.  The Synchronicity Effect, you think?  We know he can't sense beyond his cell.  Not through
those
Wards.'

'I agree, Director.  I really don't see that it would be possible.  I'll check their integrity however, as always, when I see him.'

'Good, good.  Do take care, though.'  The Director disconnected.

Sara looked ready to burst with questions, but he waved her off.  'Just my work.'  He ignored her pout, easing back in his chair as he recalled “Godsson's” arrival.

Not that he would ever forget it.

Five years ago Godsson had been brought in, not by ambulance, nor police escort, nor even by FBI helicopter.  No, Godsson had been carried in, unconscious, in the arms of a Chinese man.  A man whose arrival had made all the Barriers at the Institute's boundaries flare into alert, clawing at the pair as if they were spirits rather than corporeal beings.

The magical Barriers were only there to counter arcane intrusions.  At the time, they had assumed the trespasser was attended by unseen entities, now held at bay beyond the walls.  Otherwise, he could not have entered…

No one who had raced out to confront the intruders had had the slightest idea how they'd arrived: there had been no vehicle of any kind.  Just the front gates wrenching opening and the powerfully-built oriental man stalking up the long winding road to the main entrance, somehow traversing the half kilometer in under a minute.

It had been Harmon and the previous Director – and at that time, the more-numerous orderlies – who had faced the fellow, then, on the graveled path.

The sheer force of will radiating from the man had been disconcerting, even as Harmon had noted the strange injuries to them both – not burns, or cuts, or bruises, but stranger
alterations –
patches of skin with a glassy sheen, the flesh itself a sheath over something black underneath.  Twitches and movements where there were no muscles or tendons; disturbing ridges…

He still didn't like to think too deeply about that.

There was something strange about the man's eyes, too: as if tiny chips of gold gleamed in the near-black irises.  A cosmetic alteration?

'It is done.  Melisande d'Artelle is dead.  We won.'

It was only then that they realized who he was.  Who
they
were.  Harmon remembered how Director French had gasped beside him, as they all belatedly recognized Lord Lao Pi Shen, the New Emperor of China and self-proclaimed dragon.  He and his small team – the second team to make the attempt – had been missing, presumed lost or dead now for three months.

'This is… Benson?' the Director had asked.  'But what of your third member?  The monk?'

The golden motes in the man's dark eyes glittered as he stared at them, considering.

'Victory, as ever, came with a cost.  My companions fought bravely, but…'

The powerful voice shivered, almost cracking.  Hearing
that
had been strangely disturbing; seeing a fissure in the indomitable certainty that wreathed him.  In the sudden silence, Harmon had found himself wishing the man would hold back the words on his lips, as if he expected a curse.

'She had chosen to retreat to a place where no… person… should ever stand.  A place that casts long shadows.  Where every action has consequences.  It was well for us all that she reached it only shortly before we did.'

No one spoke.

'And there we slew her.'

He had gazed at Harmon then; and as if the man had spoken, the young magical researcher sensed that there had been some
other
price for that death; a price as yet unpaid.  Those dark eyes had held his before tracking very deliberately down to the young man held casually in his bronzed arms.  Harmon felt his own eyes dragged down to the unconscious, innocuous-looking man cradled there.  Held out now to him
.