...Comes Due
The hallway wasn’t familiar, and Winstead proceeded with determination. Emptiness taunted her from each room she checked.
Giving up on the hallway, she randomly chose a room to examine thoroughly. It was bare of anything of interest except the interior window covering a large portion of one wall. Winstead ran over to put her face against it and looked in.
A gathering sat around a long table in the center of the room. There was Marweg, sitting next to some seemingly faceless hunters. Beside him was Ward, and by Ward sat Rhea. Hunters flanked both ends of the table, each bearing a pole with a pushmi-pullyu head. Kithri had just walked into the room. And a massive, familiar figure presided over all of it.
Winstead called out to them, screamed at them, slammed her hands on the window, but no one even looked in her direction. Her clenched fists hit harder and harder, willing the others to hear her, but they might as well have been on another planet. They didn’t hear a thing. Nothing she did mattered.
Nothing . . . until one final blow caused the window to shift, pivoting along the diagonal and opening one corner into the large room.
She could hear voices now. She angled her body for maximum pressure in the tight space and slowly levered the opening wider until she could drop into the space below.
“See, here’s where we saw you captured. And . . . here’s the page where we saw this place and you in it, so since Rhea had already been in here, she took me back with her until we walked inside. This whole book seems to be a record of our time here.”‡
Marweg pulled the book closer while Ward talked, flipping further along the pages. He gestured to Ward to look at the page. “We’re raising a toast here. Why’re we doing that?”
Ward had craned his neck to look when their host stood up and barked an order in a strange language. Marweg understood it to mean “Detain her!” The three of them looked up.
Four hunters had risen to face the wall behind them. Marweg, Rhea, and Ward turned in their seats as the hunters approached Kithri, who immediately looked defensive. She also looked disgusted.
Marweg jumped to his feet and ran between her and the hunters. “It’s all right, it’s all right, she was just our guide to get here, that’s all. There’s no need for this aggressive behavior, please!”
The two nearest paused their stride and looked back for approval.
Their host was already focused elsewhere. “You’re back. Have you returned for new seed? The first have already fruited.”
Marweg followed its gaze and saw Winstead sprawled in a heap on the floor.
"Winstead! We found you!” he exclaimed.
She got up slowly. “I want to leave with my friends. I don’t want to be here at all.”
Their host frowned. “That may not be possible,” it said coolly. It stood up, walked around the table, and strode out of the room, ignoring Kithri’s shudder as it passed. The hunters surrounded Kithri as Marweg babbled, “Please, you don’t understand, we’re not trying to hurt anyone, she’s part of our group, we just got separated early on, that’s all! Look, she’s found us now, it’s all right, just let her join us.”
Without the eye of their master on them, the hunters agreed that as long as she wasn’t leaving, their duty was fulfilled. They returned to their seats to keep watch in comfort.
“Can we get out the way you came in?” asked Rhea. “I came in through a mirror.”
Marweg led Kithri to the table, but she resisted. He paused, noting her repulsed face. “What’s the matter, Kithri?”
“Don’t touch anything.” Her lips were pressed together firmly, and her face screwed up like she had just stepped in feces.
“Why, what’s the matter?”
“Can’t you see it? Look at this place, really. Look at it. Don’t you see where we are?”
Winstead approached them, clearly also ill at ease with her surroundings. Kithri looked at them, then said quietly, “We’re inside a hate cyst.”
As the words left her mouth, Marweg suddenly became intensely aware of a subconscious voice that had been screaming at him for some time. A smell that he hadn’t noticed before now filled his nostrils with a horrible, pervading stench. The saccades of his eyes began to omit elements he had thought were correct in favor of far more gruesome and appalling details. He sensed a slight squelch under his feet and closed his eyes in horror.
When he opened them, the table appeared more like a rock covered in oozing skin, a tumorous growth from the floor. Coralesque growths drew in the fetid air, and hardened extrusions stood as cups filled with viscous scum. A moment later, the table appeared to him as he had last seen it. He could still sense the horror at the edge of his vision, even though he could only catch it for mere moments before it was swiftly supplanted by the masque of finery.
The hunters no longer seemed even humanoid, but the two poles still held the pushmi-pullyu heads.
“That seems about right to me, and I want out NOW,” Winstead said emphatically.
“The pushmi-pullyu heads are real. . . .” Marweg said faintly, trying not to breathe either in or out. “After we get out of here, I’m burning these clothes, then learning how to burn this thing as well.” With a great shudder he mastered himself and turned to the hunters. “Please, if you would be so kind, I would feel much better if you were to stand guard by the grand curtain to ensure our safety. It will ensure that the lady you were asked to detain is able to remain. At least until our host returns.”
The hunters looked to their leader, who considered the thought. Then they nodded and rose to take up guard positions at the curtain.
“Kithri, how do we destroy a hate cyst?” Marweg asked in a hush, guiding her to the other side of the room.
“I don’t know,” she confessed. “But I have a strong urge to sterilize the entire warehouse.”
“Come with me.” Rhea led them back to the mirror. “We can go through this and walk right out of here.” She laid a hand against it and waited. And waited. And stared at herself. “Why isn’t this working?” she said, frustrated. “This is how I got here, why won’t it let me back?”
Marweg murmured a soft query to it, suppressing dry heaves at the proximity of the disgusting wall. “Because this path only works in one direction,” he said apologetically.
“Over there, the way I came in just now, it’s still open.” Winstead pointed discreetly at the window she’d entered through. It was easily five feet off the ground. “Someone give me a hand, and we can hoist each other up.”
The group walked as nonchalantly as possible across to the wall Winstead indicated. Marweg intertwined his fingers and tried to boost Winstead. His hands gave way on the first attempt; he took an elbow to the head but managed to break Winstead’s fall. Two hunters broke off their conversations and approached, suspicious.
Rhea motioned for Winstead and Marweg to try again and turned to the hunters. “It’s fine, it’s a dance they’ve been learning,” she improvised. “He’s still in the early stages, and it’ll take practice to get it perfection.”
To her dismay, the hunters were intrigued. Rhea took them aside and began to teach them some introductory steps, sending hurrying glances at the others.
Marweg hoisted Winstead up successfully on the second attempt, and Ward was quick to follow. As Kithri was lifted up, one of the hunters saw her legs disappear into the window above. They gave a shout of alarm.
Marweg stood there, caught with his hands interlocked in a panic. His eyes darted up at the others, then at Rhea, and then at the hunters quickly closing the distance on them.
Thinking on his feet, Ward magically produced a gallows rope.††(Close enough, he figured.) He belayed it and tossed it down to Marweg, who grabbed the noose in mute panic and was quickly pulled off his feet and through the window by the other three. He looked back as Rhea made a running jump for safety.
It seemed to happen in slow motion. Rhea had grasped the window ledge and begun to pull herself up, the first of the hunters shouting threats only a few yards behind her. Then the building shook and shuddered, and with a release of static, a beast appeared, looking like a bear from an absinthe nightmare. The head was squashed down into its shoulders, and the noseless face roared at the incoming hunters, slashing and snapping at them.*
“Quick, help me pivot the window back into place!” panted Winstead as the others pulled Rhea through. At their collective shove, the window swung back into place, separating them from the quickly and bloodily repainted throne room. The images were noiseless, almost unreal.
Winstead beckoned to the others to follow her. They left the window and walked through the hallway, back into her shabby old room, and out of the warehouse. The scenery of Gatesmithe looked exactly as they had left it.
Ward looked around, looked back, and looked at all of them, catching their breath. “I don’t know what that was, or where you’ve been, Winstead, or what in the world we’ve all been doing, but I do know one thing for certain. I’d like a good stiff drink.”
Four heads nodded in agreement.‡
Winstead cradled her copy of Crime and Punishment as she entered Vici again. The white noise of the waterfall soothed her psyche deeply after the ordeal she had just endured.
Annalise appeared in the doorway. She gave a cry of relief and wrapped Winstead in a massive hug. “I’m so glad you’re all right! I was worried sick about you.” She looked around and asked, concerned, “Is . . . is everyone else . . .”
Winstead gave a tired smile in return. “They’re fine. Mostly.”
Annalise’s expression didn’t alter. “Mostly?”
The smile tightened. “We lost two days in there. Marweg sent a message home to find out if everything was all right with his menagerie, Rhea was griping about missing paper day, and Ward had to say goodbye to some ghost. Kithri went with them.” She sagged. “I just want to rest now.”
Annalise smiled with relief. “Then you’ve chosen a good time. Payday for the magecoins came and went while you were gone, and nothing’s happened. I think we’re going to be okay.”
Winstead stiffened. Without looking at Annalise, she asked, “The due date has passed?”
“Yes.” A note of confusion entered Annalise’s voice. “Why? What’s wrong?”
Winstead abruptly put her book down and strode out of the house, Annalise drawn into her wake. She headed straight for Minton House.
“Jeremiah was personally threatened by Maxwell. There’s no way there weren’t any consequences.”
Winstead tried the door handle. It turned. She walked in half a step and froze.
“Annalise,” she said in a strained voice, “go and get a ladder.”
“What is—"
“Don’t walk in here until you come back with the ladder. And bring me a saw, too.”
“A saw?! Why, what’s going—"
“Just go and get them quickly, please.”
Winstead waited outside. Five minutes later, Annalise returned with the tools. “Stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.” Winstead told her, then took the ladder inside.
The chandelier sat disconsolately on the floor against the wall, as though weeping over its macabre replacement. Winstead made short work of the rope with the saw. It jerked and swung as the weight released and fell with a wet smack on the floor. She took a deep breath, regretted it, tried to keep her nausea in check, and took the tools outside.
Annalise swayed on her feet. Winstead walked up to her and put a steadying hand on her shoulder. She took a deep breath and said as calmly as she could, “Jeremiah’s dead.”
Annalise burst past her into the house. She looked down and gave a cry, fell to the floor, and wept. Sobs shook her as she rocked back and forth, silence alternating with shuddering gulps of labored breath.
“I’ll never know what we could have had,” she mourned. Her eyes closed tightly, squeezing a flood of tears from their lids.
Winstead cautiously knelt beside her. She put her arms around Annalise as she cried and cried. Winstead merely felt numb and sat with the grief, speechless.
“It clearly wasn’t a suicide. There’s no pedestal to jump off for him to be up so high,” Ward mused, troubled. “Who does the debt fall to next?”
Winstead had gathered them in Jeremiah’s entryway. Annalise still sobbed in a chair in the next room, and Winstead stood near the doorway to it. Ward stood by the body, and Marweg hunkered down on his heels with one hand on Jeremiah’s forehead.
Rhea watched the proceedings, clearly upset. “What are you doing, Marweg?”
Ward held up a finger to his lips. “Psychometry,” he said briefly, then looked back down. Marweg was silent a moment longer and then slowly got to his feet, grimacing.††
“Resistance, unfairness . . . nobody listened to him. Two figures . . . one restraining him, one taunting him.” He shuddered. “It felt horrific. He was hoisted up, and then . . .” He turned to the rest with a pained expression. “Utter abandonment. We need to get Angela in here.”
“I’ll get them,” Rhea volunteered. She walked out and returned shortly with Angela and Brian.
The tableau explained most of the situation to Angela, and Winstead filled her in on the rest.
“I think we all know what this was,” said Angela in clipped tones. Her expression struggled to settle between fury and grief. “I need to contact Maxwell immediately. The rest of you, please, leave this to Brian and me.” She drew herself up and looked about the room. “I apologize for what you have had to see here. This is a terrible homecoming for you, Winstead. And I thank you for your calm in dealing with the discovery.” She paused for a moment, then nodded to herself. “I’ll arrange for his wake to be tomorrow afternoon. I hope to see you all there. We will all need companionship after this tragedy.”
‡ Gold Sun, Untrustworthy Mirror
†† Complaint of the Lost
* Result of magical flux with the magical jump attempt.
‡ Invisible Sun, Incriminating Skull
†† Psychometry