Chapter Thirty-One
Hell had been the lesser nightmare.
My body no longer lay face-down on the cold earth where I had left it. It had been dragged back into the sunlight and now sat propped up against the roots of the great tree. Owen Finstern was crouching over my corpse. My ivory-handled knife was in his hand and a zealous fury was in his eyes. “Carefully, now!” he demanded. “Secure the clamp plate over the collimating lens assembly.”
Jackaby stood beside the inventor’s machine. He had erected the device near the shadow’s edge and he was making adjustments at Finstern’s command.
“Do it right,” Finstern barked. He pressed the silver blade against my lifeless neck. “Or the girl’s soul won’t have anything to come back to.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing, Mr. Finstern,” Jackaby said. “Please. Calm down.”
“I know precisely what I’m doing. Turn it on.”
“Don’t you dare!” Jenny cried. She hovered between Finstern and Jackaby. “She helped save your life! Without our help those monsters would already have taken you captive. They’re hunting you!”
“Let them!” Finstern roared. “I want them to come! I’ve been waiting for them to come since I was an infant! I said turn it on!”
Jackaby moved slowly around the machine. “To what end, Mr. Finstern? What do you hope to accomplish here?”
“My birthright.” He pressed the blade against my lifeless neck. The skin bent under the edge. He was one flick of the wrist away from ending me for good. “Do it.”
With a whir and a click, Jackaby turned on the machine. The mechanism hummed. “Power?” he said. “Is that all this is about?”
“It’s all anything is about. It’s the only reason you’re alive, or haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Jackaby scowled. “What are you talking about?”
“You haven’t got a clue, have you? She told me all about what you can do.” He tapped my body’s lifeless cheek with the knife. From behind the threshold I cringed. I wanted to hit him, but now would be the worst time to burst back into my body, leaping under the knife. “She told me how it works, your sight,” Finstern continued. “They’re building something powerful, you said. You figured out that much. Well, I know what it’s like, trying to work with powers you can’t see or touch or measure. You’re the missing element, detective. They need your eyes. The rest of us are working blind, but you can see it all as plain as day, can’t you? Energy. Potential. Power. You can observe it and quantify it, can’t you?”
Jackaby swallowed.
“You’re no good to them dead. They would have to hunt down the next Seer if you died. I figure that’s why they’ve kept tabs on you instead. That’s the only reason you’re alive. You’re a worthless storage container for a priceless power.” His eyes narrowed. “And I want it.”
“You really don’t,” said Jackaby. “It is as much a burden as it is a gift. Trust me.”
“Then let me lift your burden. It’s what my machine does. Nobody has to die today, Detective. I’m not a monster, in spite of what you think of me. You cross over. I activate the machine. Your soul waits safely on the other side while I absorb the power of the sight instead of letting it flitter away to just anybody. With your eyes I can propel my work forward and take my place in the company of those who actually appreciate my efforts. Everybody wins.”
Jackaby said nothing.
“There’s another way, of course,” Finstern added. “She dies. Then you die. Then I take it anyway. It’s your choice.”
Jackaby looked across the threshold and seemed to notice me, my spirit, for the first time. His gaze locked on mine, and he looked as helpless as I was. He was seriously considering going along with it; I could see it in his eyes. After several seconds, he turned soberly back toward Finstern and to my limp corpse.
My eyes blinked open.
They were my eyes, although not the ones I was using at the moment. I stared from behind the ethereal barrier as my corpse turned angrily to face the mad inventor. Jenny, I realized, was nowhere to be seen. Owen Finstern did not seem to have noticed.
“Go on, then,” Finstern said. “Cross the line!” He gestured toward the gap in the yew tree where I stood, using the silver blade to point. He looked as though he were about to say something else when the corpse at his feet suddenly lurched to life.
Jenny was clumsy and stiff as she possessed my limbs, but the element of surprise appeared to be more than enough for the moment. She launched herself bodily at Finstern’s legs, and he was thrown to the ground. The knife flew out of his hands as he slammed into the dirt.
“You shouldn’t threaten my friends.” They might have been my vocal chords, but it was Jenny’s accent that issued from my lips. She lashed out, punching him hard in the neck and landing a knee in his ribs.
He coughed and deflected her next blow with a swat of his hand. He shoved her off of him, but Jenny clung to the inventor’s shabby coat, and the two of them tumbled gracelessly together across the earth until they rolled to a stop with Finstern on top. He raised a hand to strike her, but Jenny raised the silver knife at the same moment, pointing it squarely at his heart.
Finstern dropped his hand and the two of them slowly stood. I felt a burst of pride at essentially watching myself win the fight. Jenny still looked a little unsteady in my skin, but she managed to keep the blade at his chest the whole time. “It’s over,” she said.
The words had scarcely left her lips when a tiny object flew over the towering roots beside us and coasted in a wide arc directly toward her. It looked like an acorn.
“Look out!” Jackaby yelled, but it was too late. The little nut missed Finstern’s shoulder by an inch and landed on Jenny’s chest—on my chest—with a flash of green light. She went instantly rigid.
Finstern stepped uncertainly aside. When the blade failed to follow him, he waved his hand in front of her face. Jenny managed to move my eyes a fraction to follow him, but otherwise she remained as still as a statue. Finstern turned to see where the acorn had come from. Twin mountains, one slate gray and the other dull brown, rose slowly above the mess of giant roots. The shapes unfolded and I realized I was looking at a pair of enormous men made of living stone.
“Elementals!” said Jackaby. “Oreborn. My word, look at the size of them! No quick movements.” I’m not sure whom he was addressing. Jenny did not appear capable of making any movements at all, and Finstern hardly warranted the warning. The giants could have him as far as I was concerned.
The gray colossus reached down. His forearm was roughly the size and color of a fully grown rhinoceros. Around one massive wrist was strapped a huge steel cuff, and his fingers looked like articulated boulders. As he spread them out I realized there was a figure standing within. She stepped down from his palm as casually as a countess from a fancy carriage. Her elegant sleeveless dress was an iridescent blend of blues and greens that hugged her slim figure as though it were soaking wet. Around her neck hung a necklace with two thick beads, identical in color to the looming creatures, and around her waist was slung a navy blue belt. A knife was sheathed on one hip and an olive green pouch was strapped to the other.
She raised her chin and the sunlight played across her strawberry blonde locks. I recognized her. The hard jawline and the faint asymmetry to her emerald eyes—she was the woman who had mimicked Jenny all those years ago. As she stepped into the clearing I realized why she had looked so familiar in Carson’s memory. It was the family resemblance.
“Hello, brother dear,” she said to Owen Finstern. “It’s been a long, long time.”