THIRTEEN: HELLMOUTH
JODI
Truly, Jodi cannot dance.
Still. It was worth it just to see Tacoma's face. There's only so long you can be serious before it starts grating your mind down to the bloody core, and Tacoma had been serious for far, far too long. So: some music, some dancing, or rather some stumbling around the tower as Tacoma led and Jodi tried her inadequate best to follow. Tacoma laughed then, with the tears and the blood still wet on her cheeks, and Jodi knew she was going to be okay even when the alarm clock rang and Jodi had to leave.
That's all it was, really. She just … had to be sure. And she still says it's worth it, even if she might actually be dying right now.
Jodi opens her eyes to the shrilling of the alarm, struggling for breath. Everything hurts – leg, head, chest; it feels as if most of her organs decided to take advantage of her absent mind to try and break out of her body. She can't breathe for some reason, and then she opens her mouth and realises her nose has bled and blocked her sinuses.
"Lothi," she wheezes, though not much sound actually makes it out. "Lothi …"
He is there, turning her head so the blood can run free, squeaking and dropping chocolate on the pillow. She tries to take it, fails, lies still again.
Six minutes, she realises, was probably a bit much to ask.
Lothian's humming intensifies, are you okay are you okay are you okay, and Jodi smiles.
"Actually feeling pretty good," she says, voice barely above a whisper. "Think she's all right."
The hum travels from bone to nerve, changing in timbre until it is an unmistakeable but what about you?
"Uh. Feel like I might die? But pretty good all the same."
A familiar soft whoosh, and Tacoma's face swirls into existence above the desk.
"Jesus," she says, staring. "Are you okay?"
Jodi gives her a thumbs-up.
"Trying to be," she mumbles. "Just gotta eat something."
The clock is still ringing. Tacoma scowls, and without Jodi quite catching how switches it off.
"Nikki," she says. "Sit her up, yeah?"
Clawed paws descend upon her shoulders, and the next thing Jodi knows she is being forcibly propped against the headboard. Nikki is not the gentlest nurse around, but at least she can lift her; Lothian struggles to get leverage if he isn't in the air.
"Oof," she gasps. "Thanks, Nikki."
"Should we get your parents?" asks Tacoma. "Lothian, go get―"
"No," says Jodi, shaking her head, fumbling for the tissue on her bedside cabinet. "No, don't."
"You need help―"
"It's my body," says Jodi, too drained to mask her irritation. "Might be busted, but let me deal with it myself."
Tacoma stares, mouth working silently, and bows her disc.
"Yeah," she says. "Sure."
Wonderful. There's all that effort Jodi put into cheering her up down the drain, then. But okay, it had to be said.
"Sorry," she mumbles, pressing the tissue against her nose. "I'm just tired."
"No, you're right," says Tacoma, without looking up. "You're right."
There is a conversation to be had here, but Jodi can't manage it right now. All she can do is sit and wait for the blood to clot and her head to stop spinning, and then finally she feels like she might be up to opening the chocolate bar. She drops it twice, but eventually she manages to make a little tear at one end, and after that the hard part is over.
Tacoma watches her the whole time. She probably doesn't mean to look this horrified, Jodi tells herself.
It's fine, anyway. Jodi gets that a lot.
"God," she sighs, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "Okay. Okay, next time I'm only gonna go for five minutes."
"There isn't gonna be a next time," says Tacoma. "Please. Don't do that again."
She doesn't say not for me. She doesn't have to.
"I'm pretty sure how I destroy my body is my own prerogative," replies Jodi. "Ouch. No. Sorry, I didn't mean …" She sighs again. "I'm really sorry. Can I have a minute?"
"Sure," says Tacoma, much too quickly. "Sure, as long as – as you need."
Jodi nods her thanks, closes her eyes. The dark beneath her eyelids seems to rush and roar, like the waterfalls thundering in the pitch black of the Mount Mortar caves. There seem to be voices in it, just a little too quiet for her to catch; she resists the temptation to try and listen. You pick up things, when you send your mind out of your body like that. Giving them an opportunity to follow you back in is not advisable.
Lothian puts another chocolate bar in her hand. She's going to need more than that – when she can walk, it will be time to raid the fridge again – but it'll do for now.
"Okay," she says, opening her eyes. "Okay. I'm all right."
Tacoma and Nikki share a look. It's so unexpected that Jodi almost laughs.
"You sure?" asks Tacoma.
"I mean, it's a relative thing, but like it's always a relative thing." Did that actually make any sense? Hard to be sure. Jodi's thoughts still haven't quite found their way back to their usual seats yet. "Anyway," she says. "Thank you for the dance lesson."
Tacoma goes a darker shade of purple.
"Um," she says. "Was my pleasure."
"Not sure when I'll get to put what I learned into practice, but you know. Glad I did it."
"Dork."
"Ah," says Jodi, with her best sententious nod. "You're insulting me. So. Guess you're feeling better?"
She hopes she hasn't asked too soon. Tacoma's face does close a little, but Jodi senses this is more out of habit than actual annoyance.
"I dunno," she says, voice serious. "I … I really liked that, Jodi. But. I still – I mean if I didn't …"
Jodi waits for her to finish, although she knows she won't.
"I know, Tacoma," she says, after a few seconds have passed. "But I'm glad you liked it. I liked it," she adds, and is rewarded with another spectral blush.
"Like I said," mutters Tacoma. "My pleasure."
"You dance much?"
"Not for a long time." Tacoma hesitates. "I … you are sure, right? About the tyranitar?"
"Yes."
"Right. Right, sorry, I don't – shouldn't doubt you."
She takes a breath. "It was good, though. Dancing. I'm – grateful."
It sounds like each word has to be pushed uphill before it makes it out her mouth. Pretty much what Jodi was expecting. The Patsy Cline and the dance was only ever meant to calm her down. And to make the most of an opportunity that might never come Jodi's way again, but the important thing is that it helped calm Tacoma down.
"It's okay to still be hung up on the avalanche thing," says Jodi. "Really. I mean it."
Everything about Tacoma's face and mind says she's about to argue.
"Yeah?" she asks, instead.
"Yeah," says Jodi. "If you wanna talk more about it …"
"No. I mean, yes. I mean – I dunno." Tacoma shudders, ripples spreading through her face as if through disturbed water. "What else is there to even say?"
"Well, um … sorry, but there is one thing."
"Yeah?"
Wary, guarded. Tacoma is calm, yes, but that could change. Jodi has to ask, though, and this is still probably the best time.
"I kinda – sorry if this is the wrong time – but I kinda need to know how you missed the news. 'Cause if no one told you, that's – something went really wrong, you know?"
Tacoma's lip twists.
"Yeah," she says. "Guess it did. I dunno, Jodi, I guess I just wasn't there when he said."
"But you never left." Jodi can see her in her mind's eye, through the haze of seven years and half a ton of painkillers: little Tacoma, tall even then but not as broad or strong, clinging to the chair by Jodi's bed like she was afraid someone would drag her away. "People kept saying you should go back to the Centre, but you didn't want to. I remember that. You lived in that hospital ward."
"The ranger came there?"
She says it like she really doesn't know. How is this even possible? She had to have been there. She had to.
"Yeah," says Jodi. "He did. Don't you remember?"
Tacoma shakes her head.
"No," she says. "I don't."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. I think. Or …" One of those patent Tacoma scowls, like she thinks she could intimidate the past into revealing itself. "I dunno. Was he tall? Light brown hair?"
Jodi's own mental image of the ranger is a little shaky; she wasn't at her best when he and his colleagues flew in to rescue her, or when he visited her in hospital. But this seems broadly right to her.
"I think so, yeah."
Tacoma's frown deepens.
"I remember … I remember he visited," she says slowly. "I think. Dunno why. I guess I assumed to see if you were okay?"
"That's when he told us, though," says Jodi. "All of us. You, me, my parents. I'm sure of it."
Tacoma sighs.
"Maybe you're right," she says. "But I don't remember."
"How, though?" Jodi is pushing too hard now, she can tell, but it's so difficult to stop. She has to know how this happened, how someone like Tacoma ended up so convinced she was the bad guy. "Sorry. I guess … I guess maybe you forgot. Maybe you didn't want to know if it meant it wasn't your fault."
Tacoma snorts dismissively, but what she actually says is:
"Yeah, maybe. I think … I think I remember looking at the floor. Scared. Knew he knew it was my fault, and …" She sighs again. "I don't know whether I'm actually remembering this or just making it up," she says. "Can we leave it? For now?"
"Sure," agrees Jodi, relieved that they haven't started fighting again. "Sure."
"Not like it matters," says Tacoma. "Must've been a pretty dumb mistake, whatever it was."
The words sound like they're meant to hurt them both. Jodi ponders this one for a little while, trying to come up with an answer that both of them can accept, and settles in the end for something that responds to what Tacoma means, rather than what she says.
"You know if you carry something really heavy for a really long time, it's hard to straighten up again afterwards?" she asks.
Tacoma rolls her eyes.
"Jodi, I know where you're going with―"
"So yeah," she continues. "You thought you killed them and broke my leg for seven years, Tacoma. I don't think you should expect yourself to be able to put that down right away. But …" She shrugs. It's much harder than it should be to raise her shoulders, but it's the right gesture for the sentiment, and that means she has to make an effort. "Whether you want me or not, I'm gonna be right here to help you while you try."
Tacoma blinks the kind of blink that's probably hiding tears. Jodi is reminded of the last time she saw Tacoma crying, inside the tower, and isn't sure she manages to hide the little stab of pain it sends through her chest. It took everything she had to stay calm and soothing then, seeing Tacoma – actual Tacoma, in her actual body – in that awful place, looking so … defeated. She'd imagined what Tacoma's existence was like before, of course, but nothing could have prepared her for that.
"Thanks," she says. "I … God, are you sure? Are you seriously sure you wanna do this?"
The sound of her voice just breaks Jodi's heart.
"Yes," she says, smiling regardless. "Absolutely."
And though Jodi is absolutely certain that she isn't feeling it either, Tacoma smiles back.
Neither of them are okay. It's all right. They're here, together again after all this time, and though they don't even know what they're going to do with tomorrow when it comes they have that much at least. Nikki brings Tacoma over to the bed, and they sit there for a while the way they did when they were kids and small enough to both sprawl over it, listening to the radio. Sometimes they speak. Mostly they don't. Both of them need to rest, after everything.
After a while, Tacoma nudges Jodi with the edge of her disc and asks her if she'll go get something to eat. Jodi accuses her of acting like her mother in addition to sharing her musical taste; Tacoma laughs, albeit weakly, and says she won't ask again. So Jodi goes, Lothian following her with quick, nervous footsteps, and is caught in the kitchen by her father, who takes one look at her and orders her back up to bed immediately.
"What were you doing, Jodi?" he asks, plying her with bread and cheese and fruit. "You look like you died and someone dug you up again."
"Homework," Jodi lies. "I … wasn't in the right frame of mind. Sorry. Kinda messed up."
A sigh, aggressive, exasperated.
"I know your work's important to you, kiddo, and I want you to do well, but I can't help but feel that the weekend after Tacoma's funeral isn't the right time."
"I know," says Jodi, with unfeigned shame. "I know."
Her dad looks at her for a long few seconds, the crows' feet at the corners of his eyes crinkling in concern. He looks like he might say any number of things, but in the end he just tells her to eat and take a nap.
"Come down later, okay?" he says. "Because I'm going to have to tell your mother about this, and she's going to want to know you're all right."
"Sure, Dad," she replies. "I just need some rest."
He nods.
"I don't need to tell you to keep an eye on her, amigo," he says to Lothian, who puffs out his chest in a way that suggests he is the very best at keeping an eye on things in general and his partner in particular. "You too, Nikole."
Less of a visible reaction from her, though even weakened by fatigue Jodi's empathy can pick up on something that might be agreement. Her father waits for a response for a while, evidently not noticing the shift in her facial ridges, then turns away awkwardly and says he'll see Jodi in a bit.
Tacoma reappears as the door closes, unfolding from the rock in Nikki's claws like a complicated umbrella. Her face is unreadable; her mind, dark.
"He's right," she says. "And, uh, I'll be okay without you for a bit." Pause. "Promise?"
She clearly doesn't mean to sound so uncertain about it, so Jodi pretends not to have noticed and just says okay instead.
"Got to send Lothian out first, though," she adds. "I think we should still watch Nick, even if we're not breaking in."
"But what― no, fine, okay. Guess you're right."
That's as much resistance as she offers. Some corner has been turned here, Jodi realises. God. Tacoma probably wouldn't want to hear it, but she is so proud of her right now.
"What are you smiling about?"
"Nothing," says Jodi. Then, aware that this probably won't be enough: "Dancing."
That stops that line of enquiry pretty fast. Tacoma goes all stumbling and hesitant (and cute), and Jodi is able to send Lothian off without any further interruptions. He's much more reluctant this time, with his human looking so ill, but after making some enormously extravagant promises that neither she nor he really believe will be fulfilled, Jodi manages to get him out the window and flying off to Tacoma's house.
"Right," she says, after a protracted and kind of embarrassing struggle to get the window closed again. "Definitely got to sleep now."
"Yeah," says Tacoma, as she falls back onto her bed. "Talk later, Jodi."
Her attention never wavers. Right up until the moment she falls asleep, Jodi can feel it curling around her mind, as soft and dark and comforting as a summer night camped out on the trainer trails.
Jodi really isn't up to accessing Lothian's memories that night – not that she wants to just yet, anyway; she couldn't bear to put Tacoma through that. She comes down later, is told off and fussed over, and then wakes up at eight to her mother shaking her arm. Go to bed, chickadee, she says. Else I'm gonna be carrying you there.
The rest of the night is lost to her. In the morning, Lothian is back, though she has no memory of his return; at some point, he must have wedged himself artfully under the duvet with her, because when she wakes she has her arms wrapped around his angular shoulders.
"Huh," she says, blinking sleepily. "Missed me, did you?"
He clicks his nose at her and buries his head in the curve of her neck.
"Yeah, I know." She sighs. "I'm sorry, Lothi. I know you don't like to leave me."
A tingle in her palate: Lothian is declaring he won't do it again. They're probably going to have an argument about this later today, when they have to send him after Nick for a third time, but fine. No sense getting him upset now.
"Okay," she says, hugging him a little tighter. "Let's stick together for now, huh?"
Most pokémon don't like hugs – reasonable enough, when you consider the fact that they must feel like they are being captured by some big predator – but noivern have a habit of enfolding noibat in their wings, creating echo chambers so they can teach them the vocal signatures of the colony. They tend to keep doing it into adulthood, less to teach them than to signal to another noivern that they like them, and though Lothian has always been a little concerned that Jodi's wings seem to be missing a few vital components he accepts her hugs as somewhat clumsy attempts at the same behaviour.
It's always been a comfort. Helen would tolerate hugs, when Jodi was too young to know any better, but Ash never would. That the last surviving member of her team actually seeks them out is something rare and precious.
Lothian clicks his satisfaction at her answer and pulls his head back, his hug quota fulfilled. Jodi sits up and sees Tacoma on the desk, dark wisps of something fading away around her.
"Morning," she says, leaving it unmentioned. It was already obvious Tacoma has been practising her ghost powers; it's also obvious she doesn't want to talk about it yet. "You okay?"
Tacoma hovers on the edge of a lie for a moment, and then backs off.
"Not really," she admits. "Keep thinking about … everything."
Figures. Jodi takes a moment to think of a good response.
"I need to shave and stuff," she says. "Then I'm gonna go eat my parents out of house and home. Wanna come listen to the radio with me while I do it?"
Half-smile, hurt eyes.
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "That sounds pretty good."
And it is pretty good, honestly. Jodi's parents are working, and without school to get her up Ella sleeps late; the two of them have the kitchen to themselves, to listen to the oldies station that Tacoma likes and watch Lothian and Nikole argue wordlessly about who gets the last red apple.
They don't talk about Tacoma being dead, or about Nick, or about the capacity of ordinary people to kill their friends and neighbours over rocks. They don't talk about anything that cannot take place in a warm kitchen with snow on the windowsill and the smell of coffee in the air, and so when the phone starts to ring and Jodi goes out into the hall to answer it she does so without the slightest suspicion that anything might be amiss.
"Hello?"
"Hey. Is Ella there?"
Jodi doesn't recognise the voice, though that isn't unusual. She often struggles with recognising people on the phone; apparently it's an empath thing, a failure to identify a voice without the familiar psychic mindprint to go with it.
"I don't think she's up yet," she says. "Who's calling?"
"Charlie." Who on earth is that? Jodi knows pretty much everyone in town, and the only Charlie she can think of is Charlie Rackham, out in the Cedarshade development. But he's far too old for this to be him. "Charlotte Fay?" the voice clarifies, and suddenly Jodi gets it: Jessica's daughter. She was following her round at the wake, helping out.
She was also in the library that day, staring at Jodi while she went through the microfiche archives. And walking around town with Ella on Saturday.
Hm. There is something here, but Jodi can't quite see it yet.
"Okay," she says. "Can I take a message?"
"Oh. Um – hang on, is that – is that Jodi speaking?"
Jodi can't tell what that is in her voice, not without her empathy. It might be fear.
She really hopes it isn't.
"Yeah," she says, uncertainly. "Is something … can I help you?"
"Um, uh, no," stammers Charlie. "It's – it's fine, really. I – actually I guess you'd wanna know too? I mean – uh – sorry, I was gonna say, I saw – and I thought since she's been following the whole investigation thing she'd wanna know – and, um―"
"Slow down a minute," says Jodi, trying not to sound too defensive. "What's happened, exactly?"
"Uh … they just arrested him? Like Chief Wicke and Sergeant Winter, they came over with that – um, I mean they got him to come outside and open the garage, and there was like – apparently it was his car? They were looking for it? And―"
"Wait." Jodi can feel her pulse in her chest all of a sudden, like the slow rumble of an incipient landslide. "Wait, Charlotte – Charlie – who did they arrest?"
"Oh. Right. Um – like Nick. Annie's brother? Nick Wroth. Yeah."
The rumbling is louder now, so loud it cannot possibly be her heart. It sounds almost like the roaring she heard when her mother told her that Tacoma had died.
"Shit," she says, unthinking, and hears as if from a great distance a nervous laugh come down the line. "Sorry. I didn't mean to swear. I'll … I'll let Ella know you called, Charlie. Thank you."
"Oh, it's fine. I mean I was just going to say, you know, because – because I thought that – well, I mean …"
"Thank you, Charlie."
"Ah. Um, yeah. Cool. Uh … bye?"
"Goodbye."
Jodi puts the phone down without waiting to hear more, although the rumbling is by now so loud that she isn't sure she would hear it anyway, and walks back into the kitchen.
Lothian looks up sharply. Tacoma narrows her eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asks, suspicious, afraid, and Jodi tells her, and everything that they had shut out of their warm kitchen with the snow on the windowsill and the smell of coffee in the air piles back in again in an instant.
"Oh," says Tacoma, her voice cracking. "Oh, fuck."
He didn't do it. This is what Jodi keeps telling Tacoma, to try and reassure her. He didn't do it, and when the cops find all the evidence they'll come to that conclusion too. The fact that Jodi can't make herself believe this will happen doesn't do much for the strength of her argument.
They argue quietly, furiously, making sure their voices stay low enough to be concealed by the radio, and then when Tacoma's panic has blown itself out Jodi suggests diffidently that now might be the time to take a look at Lothian's memories.
"But you're not going, right?" asks Tacoma, the fear stealing back into her voice. "You won't actually – I mean you promised―"
"I did," agrees Jodi, although the way she remembers it she never actually made it a promise. "We're not gonna do anything that you don't want to, Tacoma. I just feel like we need to know as much as we can before we can decide what we are gonna do. You know?"
Tacoma is boiling over on the inside, all her anxiety sublimating into anger that rolls off her in thick waves like the heat from a funeral pyre. Jodi expects at least a little of it to show, but all Tacoma does is nod.
"Yeah," she says, with a certain unconvincing calm. "I guess that's … I hate that you're always right," she adds, a little of the anger breaking free.
"It doesn't always feel so great for me, either."
"What?"
Jodi shakes her head.
"Never mind. C'mon, let's go upstairs. Ella will probably be down soon anyway."
Back in her room, tissues and chocolate at the ready, Jodi climbs stiffly back onto her bed – she's getting a little sick of it, honestly; she seems to have spent half her waking life this week lying down here – and sets up with Lothian. She puts her hands on his temples, feels him send the required vibes buzzing down her arms, and―
in the eyedark I must use the CLICK and wall and CLICK and oddbat and CLICK and colony of metalthings scattering CLICK sounds all tumblewise on their clustered sphereselves and I am very patient, am goodbat, CLICK and oh? oh? someone else is CLICK and CLICK and it is littlebat! fluttering away scared of me HELLO but it does not want to play and―
Forward, the staccato bursts of sound that make up Lothian's night exploding all around her so fast that the world is one huge silvery firework; nothing changes but for littlebat and featherbat, out to hunt but driven away by the presence of a dragon on the rooftops, and then―
door closing and CLICK and oddbat in the street, crawling all biped (balance! how!) with CLICK lightningape behind, foot drags pain slow would be easy fight not fruit but sometimes meat good for growing babybat CLICK oddbat and metalthings hiding in eyedark but CLICK lightningape smells pauses CLICK oddbat in street I know sounds: come on too cold to be playing silly buggers like this CLICK lightningape follows ah partner! I have partner in homenest worried but swirlghost and bignik there so but wait CLICK another oddbat, tiny little featherbat riding so tiny! HELLO but it is not listening―
She cannot pull herself away, but that's what Lothian's for; he knows what needs to be done by the movements of her mind and switches to vibration three immediately, disrupting, cancelling, gently sliding her out of his skull and back into hers.
"Augh," she mumbles, wiping blood off her lip. "God …"
The room comes slowly into focus, Ella's painting and the shelves of books swimming through one another until they find their places on the walls.
"You okay?"
Tacoma's voice.
"Sure," says Jodi.
"Liar."
"Yeah, okay. You got me."
She sits up, stiff and painful, and starts to fumble open the chocolate bar. She's going to need more snacks soon. Maybe some dried fruit this time. Jodi likes chocolate, but she feels like she's eaten half a cacao tree this past week, and she could use a change.
Three sets of eyes on her face: Nikole's red glare, Lothian's anxious yellow gaze, Tacoma's opaque green lozenges. Jodi ignores them as best she can, eats, and settles back against the headboard.
"He found it," she says. "The chapter house, I mean. It's kinda difficult to tell from the memory 'cause it's all in echolocation, but … I think it's in the store."
She closes her eyes, sees again the strange shadow world of Lothian's ears open in the dark beneath her eyelids. It isn't what it's really like – Lothian doesn't experience this visually – but it's as close as her brain can get to the way his functions. Even that took years of working with him to achieve. Jodi is not a great telepath, and accessing sense-data your brain can't read is difficult even for those who are.
"Yeah," she says, watching silvery lines shimmer in the night, describing rooftops and walls. "From the sound of it … I think that's the florist's? Where Lucy Fisher works? So. Yeah. Around the corner there … that has to be the store."
"Nick knows that?" asks Tacoma. There is an urgency to her voice that makes Jodi want to offer her a hug, though right now she's certain she can't even get up. "He knows where it is?"
"Yeah. I think he does. And also – the reason he knows is because he saw some people leaving." She frowns at the echo-picture, trying to figure out who it is she's looking at, but it's hopeless. "I can't tell who from the memory, though. Except the first one. That thing behind him – I'm pretty sure that's an electivire. So that's Harry, I'm guessing."
"Right." The information seems to go in one ear and straight out the other; Tacoma's mind is still full of that first thought, casting a long, dark shadow over everything she's feeling. "So Nick knows, right? And he can do it? If we clear his name, he can do whatever it is he's planning?"
"I think so." Jodi pauses. "Wait. If we clear his name …?"
"If we had evidence," says Tacoma. "I mean, there has to be something in the chapter house―"
"Tacoma, I just promised you that I wasn't going to go there―"
"―and if we could tell someone―"
"Tacoma!" cries Jodi. "C'mon. Calm down a sec, please."
She reins herself in with a visible effort, her disc juddering as it slows.
"Right," she says. "Right, I just – Christ, Jodi, you know he'd hang for this. You know?"
"Yeah," says Jodi. "I know." She hesitates, wondering if she's supposed to ask just yet, but before she can decide Tacoma continues anyway.
"Right now all the evidence points to him," she says. "The car, the cabin – all that weird stuff he left in there, all the lies about being in Alola. None of that looks good. So …" She takes a breath. "Would your parents believe us if we told them?"
"Yes," replies Jodi, without a second's hesitation. "If you showed yourself to them, then they definitely would. But … you know they'd just go to the police, right? We can't ask them to break into the chapter house."
"Oh. Shit. Of course." Angry sigh. "Sam and Gabriella?"
"I think they might," says Jodi. "But I don't know if I can ask them to do that, Tacoma. You know how Sam and Nick investigated the chapter house, way back when? I think they both got found out, and that's why they had to leave town. If people found out that Sam was investigating again … well, I don't think they'd give her the option of leaving this time."
Tacoma's disc stands still for a moment.
"You think they'd kill her?" she asks.
"I do," says Jodi. "Maybe Gabbi, too. And I'm really sorry, Tacoma, I can't ask them to take that risk."
"No," says Tacoma, sullenly. "No. Guess you can't."
The silence feels like a living thing, some thorny monster sitting in the room with them and hissing its fury whenever anyone tries to speak. For a long time neither Jodi nor Tacoma can meet each other's eyes, busying themselves in picking fluff from Lothian's fur or in watching Nikki scratch dead skin from her armour, and then because it is her job to take on this burden Jodi steels herself and speaks.
"Okay," she says. "Tell me what you want, Tacoma. I'm not gonna do anything without you."
"Course you aren't," snaps Tacoma, her anxiety sublimating into anger. "Sorry. I mean. I mean, fuck." She moves her mouth as if she's grinding her teeth, although Jodi isn't sure that's a thing she can do any more. "Why is it … why?" Plaintive now, her mind setting thin, sour notes chiming through Jodi's own. "Why?"
Get up, Jodi tells herself. Hug her. But it's the same old story, chronic pain, mutant brain, and after the weekend she's had she just can't seem to make it off the bed.
"Because they've been doing this for years," she says, hoping her voice is enough. "They're the ones with all the power and we're just two kids. And that's never gonna be an easy match-up."
She doesn't mention that the last time two kids went after the chapter house, both ended up being run out of town. That feels like it would be an unhelpful thing to say, and she's sure Tacoma knows this anyway.
"I … have to clear Nick's name," says Tacoma. "I can't let him be … I can't. So. I guess I'm going after all. But you should―"
"If you go, I go."
"I can't die. You―"
"―will never forgive myself if I let you go alone." Jodi raises an eyebrow. "Besides. Nikki's tough, but you're gonna want someone with hands for this, Tacoma."
"Jodi―"
"Can't have it both ways, Tacoma. Either we're friends or we're not. And if we are, I'm not letting you go into the lion's den by yourself."
"Friends. Right." The jagged green slash of Tacoma's mouth twists like a scar under strain. "Uh … thanks, Jodi. I'm sorry it worked out like this."
"Hey, no need to talk like we've already lost," says Jodi, with an optimism she can't quite make herself feel. "If they had a meeting yesterday, they're probably not gonna have another one tonight, right? Even if they do have one, Harry and the others left by nine, so if we go later, it'll be fine. We'll be in and out before they even notice."
"You don't believe that."
Jodi's smile fades.
"No," she says. "I guess I don't. But … but I'm hoping it, anyway. Is that good enough for you?"
Tacoma laughs. It is not a very pleasant sound.
"Not sure," she says. "Guess it's gonna have to do."
It's simple, really. Any teenager worth their salt is good at sneaking out, and Jodi is still a teenager for a few more days yet; she takes a long nap in the afternoon, is appropriately sombre and withdrawn at dinner when her parents ask if she's heard about Nick, and then at one o'clock she wakes Lothian and Nikki and makes her way out of the house.
Simple. Most of the time, Jodi is annoyed at the way people look at the cane and underestimate her, but sometimes it plays to her advantage. She's been doing this for years at this point, and as far as she knows her parents have never even dreamed that she might be capable of such a thing. It's going to be a shame to finally tell them, when all this is over and Tacoma can safely reveal herself, although she also kind of wants to see the look on their faces when they realise.
Thinking about this is less uncomfortable than thinking about what they're about to do, but as they make the long walk to the store, following Lothian through the freezing dark, it gets harder and harder to keep it up.
Tacoma says nothing, of course. She doesn't have to (streaming from her mind: relief that Jodi is coming with her; fervent hope that she can save Nick; shame at making Jodi promise not to come and then dragging her hear anyway; fear that Jodi and Nikki and Lothian will die; a vast and pitiless anger at the world in which any of this is a thing that can happen), but Jodi can't help but feel it would be nice if she did. The silence is making this much creepier than it has to be.
Lothian hoots softly, and a moment later something buzzes at the base of Jodi's neck: stop, he says, we're here.
"This is it," she says, squinting ferociously through the dark and not seeing much except a vague impression of something big in front of her. "Apparently."
I see it. Tacoma's voice is clipped, curt. Jodi looks around instinctively, and sees a glowing purple crack in the surface of the night, gleaming dully on Nikki's claws. What's going on inside that rock? Don't need light to see, if I concentrate. And …
Jodi catches a glimpse of indistinct movement out of the corner of her eye, and a moment later, something clicks.
Like turning your alarm off, says Tacoma. You know what the Pokédex said. Beat up a guy with his own shadow.
Jodi blinks. She was expecting to have to get Lothian to do this, honestly. He can scream a door off its hinges, or – with a little more time – vibrate the bolt in a lock till it shears in two. Usually he just does this to follow Jodi into rooms he's been shut out of, and so it's something she tries to discourage, but she's always figured she might have a use for it some day.
"You …?"
Unlocked it. The crack glows brighter for a moment, fades again. Not hard. Shoved a shadow in and twisted.
"You can do that?"
Yeah. Can we just get inside?
"Right, sorry." Jodi pats the door until she finds the handle, pushes it open and steps aside to let Lothian take point. He gives a vibrato all clear, Jodi passes the message on to Tacoma, and the next thing she knows, she's shutting the door behind her.
They did it. They actually broke in.
Jodi takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly through her nose. She has done a fair few things in her life that are technically illegal: underage drinking, some trespass, a couple of experiments with drugs during her first year at uni. But this is the first time she's done something whose consequences hang over her in quite this way. If she's caught … well, okay, she might just get murdered by secretive cultists, but even if she isn't, things won't ever be the same again. This is Mahogany, after all. It's a town with a long and very invasive memory.
Bloody hell. At least it's warmer in here..
"Okay," she whispers, although she isn't sure Sarah or Roy would ever be able to hear from up in the flat. "Let me get the torch―"
No, says Tacoma. Not yet. The glow intensifies again. Windows. No curtains. Someone could see the light.
"Okay. Where are we?"
Corridor behind the shop floor, I think. Trying to remember if Everett ever said anything …
"It's fine." Jodi reaches out into the dark and finds Lothian's ear with her fingertips. "Lothi? Time to do what we talked about."
She hears an affirmative hum, and the scratching of claws on floorboards as he makes his way down the passage. The plan was always to avoid going upstairs, if they could; the chapter house might well be in Sarah's flat, or even be the flat, but sneaking in there is a completely different proposition to skulking around on the lower level. Before they attempt that, they need to make absolutely sure that there isn't a hidden room on the ground floor, or an entrance to a secret basement.
Fortunately, you can't hide a room from Lothian and his sonar. If there's a space behind a wall, he will find it. Jodi waits there in the dark, trying not to shift nervously on her feet; after a moment, her eyes adjust, and she starts to see the faint outline of a window behind the curtains. Not quite such a moonless night after all, it seems.
Jodi, says Tacoma.
"Yeah?"
I'm gonna come out of the rock.
"Okay."
She appreciates the warning. If Tacoma had just jumped out, in the middle of the dark and the silence, Jodi thinks her heart might have stopped.
"Right," says Tacoma, shaking out her disc. "Now I can see better. Lift me up a bit, Nikki?"
A soft grunt from somewhere in the shadows, and Tacoma rises as if by magic; without the glow of the crack, Jodi can't even see Nikki's claws.
"Yeah, I recognise this," mutters Tacoma, her eyes glowing a brighter shade of green. "Door to the shop floor. That way to the stockroom in the back. Up there" – she motions into the dark with her head – "that's Sarah's flat."
Jodi starts to fidget with the handle of her cane.
"Please don't remind me," she whispers. "I'm trying not to think about that."
"Oh. Right. Sorry." Tacoma withdraws a little, thread collapsing back into the rock. "It's, uh, my first time too. Breaking in someplace, I mean."
"I kinda hoped so."
Thin, nervous laugh.
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "Yeah."
Time ticks by. Jodi looks at her watch without thinking, only remembering that it was her old one that glowed in the dark when she finds herself unable to read the face. How long has it been? Probably only a minute or two, but it feels like hours. Where even is Lothian? She can't hear him any more. He would call if he was in trouble, right? Yes. Yes, he's just being stealthy, is all―
Found something, he announces, and Jodi starts so hard she almost trips over.
"You okay?"
"Fine," she says, trying to catch her balance against the wall. "Just Lothi. He's got something."
"Where?"
"Dunno. Hang on, let me …" Lothi? Come show me.
Finally, she can hear him again: there's the scratching, there's the familiar swish of his tail.
"Hey," she whispers, bending down and feeling around for his head. "Hey, Lothi."
He nudges her hand for a moment, broadcasting a soothing vibe, then turns and taps his tail against her leg.
"Okay," she says. "Lead the way."
Down the corridor. Around a corner – Jodi is glad of her cane; if she didn't have it to probe ahead before she takes a step she would have walked into the door frame – and into a space that feels in some indefinable way larger than the one she just left.
Nikki snorts, and Jodi steps carefully to one side to allow her through.
"Stockroom," says Tacoma. "Only window is on the other side of those shelves, I think, and it looks out onto the yard. So … you're okay to put the torch on, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Kinda hard to be sure. But, um, I think so?"
"Okay," says Jodi, trying hard to be calm, to put her empath training into practice and keep her own nerves and Tacoma's separate. "Here, um, here goes."
The light is dazzling, after so long in the dark. Jodi points it down at the floor and looks away, eyes watering; after a couple of seconds, she brings it up and her eyes down again, and sees rows of cans ahead of her. Corned beef, mostly. Some tomato soup. She has no real reason to read the labels but they push their way into her head anyway.
Lothian looks up at her, pupils shrinking to pinpricks in the sudden light. Absolutely fearless. He's concerned, because his human is afraid, but he has no idea where her fear is coming from, no real reason to feel it himself.
"Hey, there you are," she says. "That's better. Why don't you show me what you've found?"
He squeaks quietly and stalks off between the shelves, past unopened crates and still-wrapped pallets. It's probably Everett's job to unpack this stuff, Jodi thinks, and immediately wishes she hadn't. She follows, doing her best to put that line of thought from her mind, and swings the torch back and forth across the shelves, trying to assemble the circles of visible room into a coherent whole. How big is this room? Hard to say, and she doesn't want to raise the torch too far and shine it out of the window by accident.
Lothian stops. She lifts the torch a little, and sees the gleam of metal shelf fittings.
"Here?"
Apparently so. Lothian rears up and grips the edge of the shelf, then drops back down to all fours.
"O-kay," says Jodi. "Do we have to move that?"
"Nikki can," offers Tacoma.
"I know, but that feels like it would be loud. You know?"
"Oh. Crap. Should've thought of that."
Jodi runs her fingers over the shelf, searching for some kind of catch. People come in and out of here all the time, right? There has to be an easy way to move this thing.
"Help me out here," she says. "Tacoma? Lothi? Some kind of secret switch or―?"
A floorboard creaks upstairs.
Tacoma's eyes meet Jodi's.
"The light!" she hisses. "The―"
"I know!" Jodi replies, fumbling frantically with the torch. "I'm trying, I keep missing the bloody―"
The creaking develops into footsteps. Where are the stairs? Are they heading for them? And where the hell is the switch for the torch―?
The footsteps stop.
Jodi wasn't sure it was possible, but this is actually more worrying than if they'd kept going.
Something dark crawls over the surface of the torch, and it clicks off. Jodi starts again and this time she does trip, but Nikki reaches out with unerring accuracy to catch her as she falls.
"Thank you," she mumbles, too busy listening to pay attention to her words, and then―
A toilet flushes, and the footsteps creak their way back across the ceiling as Sarah makes her way back to bed.
Silence. Jodi clicks the torch back on.
The corner of Tacoma's mouth twitches.
"Your face," she mutters, an unstable bolt of raw affect ricocheting around her mind, and whether it's her own emotion or just her empathy mirroring Tacoma's Jodi feels the same burst of hysterical laughter welling up inside her. For a couple of long and painful minutes she and Tacoma are stuck choking on twin giggling fits, shaky and breathless and terrified, and then at last it's over and Jodi can gulp down a frantic breath of air.
"Oh God," she gasps. "Oh God, I … I don't think I'm cut out for this."
"Me either." Tacoma swallows. "Christ. I thought she was gonna … I mean I guess I could have, uh …"
She can't seem to finish. Jodi is okay with this. She didn't really want to hear how that sentence ended.
"Look, I think I saw something anyway," Tacoma says quickly. "There. See?"
A little purple flame appears beneath a shelf just above Jodi's head. She looks up, sees a square cut into the metal.
"Right." She hesitates. "D'you, um … d'you think it's gonna be loud?"
"Jesus. Don't jinx it."
"Right."
Breathless pause. Lothian sweeps his tail back and forth impatiently; Nikki sniffs and starts eyeing up the food.
"So are you going to …?"
"Yeah," says Jodi. "Yeah, I am."
She presses the button. Something clicks once, then twice, and then on the third click the wall swings silently inwards and takes the shelf with it.
The four of them peer into the darkness beyond.
"Stairs," says Tacoma, eyes glowing again. "Going down."
She glances at Jodi.
"Ready?"
Jodi supposes she could lie about it, but Tacoma would never believe her.
"Nope," she says, stepping through the doorway and angling the torch down the stairwell. "But it's okay, I'll go first."
As she starts moving down, step by painful step, she can feel Tacoma's gratitude at her back, burning as warm and bright as a fireside in midwinter; and despite herself, despite the dark and the murderers and the almost-being-caught, despite everything that has gone wrong with the world so that this night can even happen, Jodi finds herself starting to smile.
The stairs go down for far longer than seems reasonable or even possible, the winter cold thickening again with the dark and the dust, and when they finally make it onto level ground again, the torchlight picks out huge slabs of time-smoothed stone beneath their feet.
"What is this place?" murmurs Jodi, flicking the torch around. The walls look just as ancient: pillars with their flutes worn out, the stones in between pushed half-out of position with the weight of the years and the town above. No decoration; the pillars have no capitals, just push straight into the ceiling. Aggressively functional. Someone built this corridor to last, and not much else.
"Dunno, but it's been here a while," says Tacoma. "Longer than the store has, for sure."
"Longer than Mahogany has?"
"Yeah. Probably." Nervous sort of smile. "Guess there really is a secret fortress down here after all."
"Yeah," agrees Jodi. "Just didn't really think there'd still be people hiding in it."
Lothian's ears swivel on his head, mapping the darkness. Jodi doesn't think the corridor is small enough for him to be scared – he's fine with houses, after all, and even cars as long as Jodi's with him – but something is bothering him. The dust? His nose is sensitive, even for a noivern; Jodi never takes him anywhere without also taking his special bat antihistamines. They're in her bag now, if he needs them, though it's always difficult to get him to take them without some fruit to hide them in.
She glances at Nikole, and sees her tense, one claw cupped around Tacoma's rock and the other held away from her side, ready to swing. Not just allergies, then. There's something else here. Something that the pokémon can sense.
"What is it, Lothi?" asks Jodi. "What's the matter?"
He scratches hesitantly at the floor for a moment, then sends a single vibe thrumming through her nervous system:
Big.
"What'd he say?" asks Tacoma. "You look, uh … well. What'd he say?"
"Big," says Jodi. "Just … big."
A brief pause, during which both of them try not to think about the possibility of a pokémon-based security system.
You could fit a tyranitar in here. Not one of the really big ones – the ceiling's pretty low – but given the starting point, that isn't really very much comfort.
"Maybe he meant this place," suggest Jodi. "Not, you know, something that lives here."
"Yeah," says Tacoma. "Maybe."
Jodi starts to fidget with her cane, rolling the handle between her fingers.
"We have Lothian and Nikki," says Tacoma, twisting uncomfortably on her thread. "Right?"
"Yeah," agrees Jodi. "We do."
When was the last time Nikki battled? Given what Tacoma said, Jodi can't imagine it was any time recently. And Lothian hasn't done more than scare people off for many years now; he didn't seek out human partnership for strength, as so many pokémon do, and so he hasn't needed Jodi to keep him in good battling form since her journey ended.
Can't back out now – and can't hang around being afraid, either; stand still too long and she might never move again. Before Tacoma can think of a response, Jodi starts to walk, and because she goes so too does Lothian, and Nikole behind her, padding along with a lightness of step that speaks to a readiness to pounce.
The corridor yawns ahead, dark and empty. Once or twice Jodi thinks she sees something, someone, but Lothian never reacts and so each time she tells herself it's nothing and carries on like everything is fine. Which it isn't. But you know.
God, she wishes she had something to put on the end of her cane. The dust muffles it a little, but the way it clicks on the stones is really starting to get to her. Not least because it's the sort of sound that carries in the still air, and somewhere in here is something that Lothian can only think to describe as big.
She never really noticed how ominous that word is before.
"How the hell has nobody ever found this before?" asks Tacoma, voice hushed. "This place is huge. And if it really is the fort, it has to be older than the water mains, right? So how didn't they find it when they dug those …"
"Not sure," says Jodi. "Maybe people have found it, and, um … you know."
She regrets saying this as soon as the words have left her mouth. So does Tacoma, although she doesn't actually say anything.
"Anyway," says Jodi. "Um, look, there's – crap, is that a fork?"
Worse: a crossroads. Jodi looks for footprints in the dust, but it looks like a lot of people have passed through here; there are a huge confusion of shapes and scuffs in the dirt, not all of which look like they were left by human shoes. Partners have come here too. Hopefully that means that the big thing isn't loose, whatever it is; Jodi doubts the pokémon wouldn't be too happy with some giant predator on the prowl.
Nikki sniffs the air, like she thinks she might be able to scent her way to their destination, but all that happens is that she sneezes.
"Bless you," says Jodi, trying to lighten the mood a little. "So. Lothian? What direction?" He cocks his head to one side, thinking, then looks back the way they came. "Yeah, okay, I'd like that too, but we can't turn back now. Which way is the big thing?"
He tenses, and she feels his no vibrating deep inside her.
"Lothi." She plants her cane, bends down as far as she can. "Lothi, listen, I know you're worried but you have to trust me, okay? We have to do this."
He fluffs up his mane and lashes his tail a little – but it's all just to make her wait; it's his prerogative as her partner to get snippy when she tries to do something like this. He concedes, as they both knew he would, and after some disconsolate squeaking flicks his ears forward again and slopes off down the right-hand path.
"Thank you," says Jodi, and gets a vibe in response that is the exact equivalent of a human harrumph.
It's not quite enough to make her smile, but she thinks about it, and given where they are and what they're doing that's more than she had any right to expect.
The footprints get thicker; the dust, thinner. In some places, the stones even look shiny, worn by decades (centuries?) of passing feet. They must be getting clo―
There's no warning whatsoever. The pain comes from nowhere, screaming out of the dark like a childhood nightmare, and cuts her legs out from under her in one savage motion. Her cane slips from her hand – the world spins – and she's lying on something warm and bony, clutching limply at her belly and trying breathlessly to scream.
"Jodi? Jodi, are you okay?"
Tacoma is spilling out of Nikki's claws, grown huge and shadowy with her panic. The bony thing wriggles beneath her, shifts her gently onto the stones, and then everything vanishes into a musky dark and the thin whine of Lothian's disrupting vibration cuts through the hailstorm in her skull.
Her training knows what to do, even if right now she doesn't. Jodi leans into the vibe, feels it echo and re-echo through her mind, and as the pain begins to fade remembers that she exists.
"Aah!" she gasps, trying to sit up and realising that the darkness is Lothian's wings. "What did they do to you?"
Lothian squeaks and rolls off her, clouds of dust rising all around him. Jodi barely even notices; the pain is fading, but it's still there, a hunger so deep it feels like her stomach has been scooped clean out of her abdomen.
"The big thing," she says, breathing hard. "It's – Tacoma, they're starving it. It's lost and alone and it's so hungry and―"
"Jodi," says Tacoma. She is still larger than she was, her fog stretched thin and wide into a disc half as large again as usual. "Jodi, what the hell is going on?"
Her fear is distant, drowned in the bigger emotion of the creature raging in the bowels of the chapter house. It is old – so old that even the sliver of its past Jodi is able to sense makes her head hurt – and it is as far from human as anything Jodi has ever encountered, but pain transcends species. And this thing is in a lot of pain. It's been trapped here for a long time, long enough that it barely notices its wounds, but it cannot forget the hunger.
Nor can Jodi, now. She's always hungry, but this is something else.
"I … there's something in here," she says. "The big thing Lothian mentioned? It's trapped somewhere in here. Being tortured, starved. God, it's so …" She stops, tries to take a deep breath, but her chest hurts too much for her to fill it properly. "It hurts so much," she whispers, holding her wrists close to her chest as if this might somehow dull the pain. "Like nails in my bones."
"Jodi," says Tacoma. She says it like she has no idea what to say, but it's okay; the feeling is there, glowing beneath the words like moonlight through curtains. Difficult to make out, through the pain of the big thing, but it's there. "Jodi, what the hell is going on?"
"I dunno." She hunches further over her aching joints. "We have to find out."
Lothian tugs on the sleeve of her coat, heedless of the dust that cakes his teeth. Jodi uncurls a little, lays a stiff hand on his neck.
"Thank you," she says. "You saved me. Again."
She feels him make some kind of response, but it's too hard to make out with all the interference.
"Sorry," she mumbles, smiling instead. "Can't get it right now." She brushes some dirt from his mane and looks up at Tacoma and Nikki, still watching her like they're afraid she might shatter into glass. "Um … Nikki?"
A snort, an outstretched claw, and Jodi is dragged back up onto her feet. Nikki holds her there until Lothian has given her back her cane, and then a moment longer, just in case Jodi falls – which, to be fair, she nearly does; her legs hurt as they haven't since the last surgery. But she stays upright, just about, and with an effort even manages to unhunch her shoulders.
"Okay," she says, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "Okay, we have to go."
"Just like that?" asks Tacoma. "C'mon. Seriously, Jodi, what the hell―?"
"We're close, Tacoma. Real close. And there's only one way we're gonna figure out what this is."
"I know, I just …" She shakes her disc furiously, shrinking back to normal size. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"No," replies Jodi. "Obviously not. But we're here, aren't we? And if there's anywhere in town we'll find something to clear Nick's name―"
"Yeah, I know," growls Tacoma. "I get it, Jodi. I'm the one who brought us down here―"
"Tacoma." Jodi wishes she could do more, but even standing is an effort right now, with the big thing's pain screaming in her veins. "We can't do this right now."
They almost fight about it. Even here, even now, they almost fight about it; Jodi doesn't need her empathy working properly to see Tacoma's fury. But they don't, of course; Tacoma gives in and turns away, glaring angrily into the dark.
"No," she mutters. "We can't."
Jodi isn't sure whether she'd welcome a hand on her thread right now. But she takes the risk, and at her touch Tacoma faces her again, and as their eyes meet a vast number of unspoken words pass them by, awaiting a better moment.
"Almost there," says Jodi softly. "I'm sorry I scared you."
"Thanks." It's not what Jodi was expecting to hear. From the look on Tacoma's face, it's not what she was expecting to say, either. "Let's just do this and get out of here, okay?"
"Yeah," says Jodi. "Let's." She takes her hand away and holds it out towards Lothian. "Can you get me my torch, please?"
He can. She thanks him, wipes the torch down on her coat, and points it back down the corridor.
One painful step forward, the big thing's wounds dragging at her flesh. Difficult, but manageable.
"You all right?" asks Tacoma.
"Sure," says Jodi. "C'mon."
Nobody believes her, not Tacoma or Lothian or Nikki or even herself, but they don't challenge her about it either, and the four of them move slowly onwards into the dark.
It isn't far now. Jodi knew it wouldn't be; her empathy's range is pretty limited, even for emotions as strong as this one. Just a little further, and the corridor merges with several others into a single broad hall.
She flicks the torch back and forth. At one end, the darkness recedes forever. At the other …
"Hold up," says Tacoma, her eyes burning green again. "It looks like the floor's busted."
"It's there," breathes Jodi, not quite hearing her. "Sleeping, but …"
She loses the sentence partway through, starts limping down the hall towards the hole.
"Wait!" hisses Tacoma. "Jodi? Jodi! God – Nikki, catch up with her!"
Lothian comes too, nose and ears twitching so fast now that they almost seem to blur in the air. Not much further to go. Jodi can see the hole better now, a huge rift in the floor stretching thirty feet or more across, and by the light of her torch she can make out strange shards jutting from its rim like pieces of glass from a broken window. Stone doesn't shatter like that, though. But is that even stone? Jodi moves the torch from the broken stone at the pit's edge to one of the shards and sees the light stick inside it, a perfect triangular slice of the beam standing there in midair.
"What the hell?" asks Tacoma. "That's not the floor, that's – that's the air."
"Space," says Jodi.
"Dimensions," says Tacoma, finishing the thought. "What Nick was monitoring …"
There are so many conclusions to draw and so few that seem to make sense. Jodi can see more of the shards now; they start to shine as she gets closer, the cone of light from the torch growing thin and moth-eaten as slivers of it stick in the fractured air.
And then, quite suddenly and without really knowing how, Jodi is right there on the edge, looking down, and at last she sees it.
The inside of the hole is as impossibly broken as the rim, sharp spurs of spacetime stabbing inwards and distorting her vision like warped glass, but it's not enough to hide the occupant. It fills the pit to the edges, its flanks and arms pierced in a thousand places by the crystalline knives that sprout from the walls, yellow ichor oozing from the rents in its black hide. As the torchlight scatters from spike to spike, Jodi sees first a tiny head, slumped with sleep or resignation, then skeletal arms, one buried up to the elbow in the broken spacetime and the other simply pierced through the wrist – and then at last the belly, split open down the middle as if by the blow of some cosmic axe. It gapes up at them like a mouth, and then Jodi sees the huge tombstone teeth at its edge and the forks of a massive tongue lolling from its corners like dying pythons and she realises that it is a mouth, that this creature's entire body is one single gaping thirty-foot mouth―
The head moves. Just a little twitch, as the light glued to the walls sneaks in beneath its horns, and then a sharp jerk as it snaps back on the bloated body, featureless blue eyes squinting up through the dazzling glare.
"Oh shit," breathes Tacoma. "Jodi? Jodi, I think we need to―"
It's like someone flipped a switch. One moment the big thing is startled, inquisitive – and the next it is suddenly, savagely mobile, wrenching uselessly at the shattered space pinning its arms in place, tongues rising up towards them and revealing great flabby pincers at the end, soft and wet and reeking of old meat, and its wounds bleed and Jodi's limbs seize up with phantom pain and it screams―
And they are gone, swept away in Nikki's arms while Lothian sprints after her with Jodi's cane in his mouth and the voice of the big thing echoes down the tunnel after them like exploding suns, like alien whales in Martian oceans, like nothing on earth that Jodi has ever heard or ever will again, and somewhere in the middle of the pain and the hunger and the noise she realises that they are completely and utterly out of their bloody depth.