In the House of the Prophet.
The sky was almost fully dark when they exited the Lutece Labs, showing the searchlights of Comstock House clearly now as they moved in smooth circles.
“This way. I think.” Helena pointed right, and the two of them made their way up more stairs and down streets lined with more shops, shut down tight, or broken open and burning. The long swathes of red fabric covered half the street, it seemed, and they flapped in the wind, putting Sarah on edge.
She half-expected someone to jump out at them from behind one, but other than the wind and that ever-present crackling of lightning, Emporia was silent. Except…Sarah cocked her ear.
There was the faint sound of tinny piano music drifting around the corner, and she felt her fists clench, but when she and Helena rounded the corner, the Luteces and their piano were nowhere to be seen.
♯ welcome to your life ♯
The music continued, voice crooning over the piano, and now the slight scratchy quality made it clear that it was a recording. It seemed to be coming out of a small building that had cracked away from the foundations, leaving a gap between the cobbled footpath, and its frontage.
♯ there’s no turning back ♯
Sarah stepped forward carefully, Helena right behind her, and they both looked down into the gap. It was too dark now to see much, but Sarah got the dizzying impression of a bottomless drop between the bricks and cobblestones. The path that led around the building had sunk down several feet, and an exposed pipe was dribbling water down over it, creating a tiny waterfall that vanished into darkness.
♯ even while we sleep ♯
The door was open. Then Sarah realised of course it wasn’t the door, because that was somewhere down below. The entire building had fallen downwards and they were looking into the first floor. The ground floor was now at basement level. She could see a body on the tilted floor inside, a smashed up grand piano, and gramophone records scattered everywhere.
♯ we will find you ♯
The tune was coming out of the flared trumpet of a gramophone, precariously balanced on what was left of the piano.
“It’s Albert Fink’s house!” Helena blurted out, then she nudged Sarah in the ribs, and pointed.
A Tear was flickering in the middle of the room, just to the side of what Sarah supposed was Finks body. Music flowed out of it, intermittently overpowering the gramophone as the Tear grew and subsided. It was different from that song that had sent electricity up Sarah’s spine earlier, and different again from anything she had ever heard. A woman’s voice sang something about girls wanting to have fun, and then the Tear shrank and disappeared in front of their eyes, and the gramophone merrily continued to spin in the background.
♯ acting on your best behaviour ♯
“ Should we jump up and look around?” asked Sarah, doubting the records, and other assorted instruments with snapped strings and torn skins would do them much good.
♯ turn your back on mother nature ♯
Helena stared into the room unblinkingly, then sighed and shook her head.
“If he was anything like his brother...” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Let him rot.”
♯ everybody wants to rule the world ♯
As they carefully made their way down onto the sunken path beside the building and up the other side, Helena grabbing hold of Sarah’s hand and not letting go until they were on the level cobblestones of the next street, Sarah found herself humming along with the melody that still tinkled out of the broken windows that were above them now.
“Catchy, innit,” she muttered, when Helena began to hum as well.
“Hmm,” she nodded. “I wonder. Where it came from. Another time?” She hummed louder and swung Sarah’s hand back and forth before letting go.
♯ there’s a room where the light can’t find you ♯
The street ahead opened into another little plaza, this one with a long balcony overlooking the open sky, and straight up to Comstock House, looming ever larger over them. Sarah stared at it, the inky clouds that boiled around the base and the endless lightning bolts that cracked.
♯ holding hands while the walls come tumbling down ♯
“How do we actually get there?” she asked, leaning on the railing and kicking at the cobblestones with a boot. “No bridge. Gondola? Don’t tell me we hafta go steal another airship?”
♯ when they do I’ll be right behind you ♯
Helena was staring upwards too, her lips tight.
“I think,” she said slowly, “there is a bridge. Locked down.” She turned to Sarah. “We just have to make it across.” Her hands dug back into her coat pockets. “Songbird,” she added, giving Sarah a meaningful look.
Sarah hesitated.
“What you said back there...when he came.” Her throat was dry, and Helena hadn’t looked away. Sarah found her own eyes dropping at the need in the others. “I won’t…I mean. I don’t think I’d be able to.” She glanced up. Helena’s gaze didn’t waver.
♯ so glad we almost made it ♯
“If he were to take me back. After...all of this.’ Her eyes softened. “After you. Sarah. It would be...death. Worse than death.” Now her eyes dropped as well. “Now I know. What I’m missing.” Helena stepped closer and took Sarah’s hand again, tucking her fingers against the palm. “Don’t send me back.”
♯ so sad they had to fade it ♯
Sarah looked at her. The pink skin around the eyes was darker now and she looked tired, and small in the oversized coat. But her jaw was set in that determined way that Sarah’s own often was, and she felt the overwhelming need to both protect her, and set her loose on everyone who had hurt her.
♯ everybody wants to rule the world ♯
She squeezed the fingers in her hand.
“I won’t. I promise, yeah?” Her face felt hot, and she cleared her throat, silently cursing herself for making promises she wouldn’t be able to keep. There was no way she’d be able to just…
But she’d deal with that when it happened. If it happened.
The tune faded into the distance as they walked further along. There were rather pretty signs for the Memorial Gardens, green with art nouveau stylings, that lay to the left of them, and as they passed underneath an ornate archway, a helpful map informed them that the gate to Comstock House was just around the corner.
Victory Square, as the space that the archway led to was named on the map, was a large open area with a huge statue in the centre. Not an angel, Sarah was surprised to see, but a bearded man holding aloft a sword. Deep holes pitted the stone, but the Vox’s weapons have evidently not been strong enough to topple Comstock. At least, that was who Sarah assumed the statue to be, and her gaze passed over it indifferently.
Up wide semi-circular stairs sat a stone building - Comstock House etched into a large bronze sign mounted over the doorway. The gate itself was wrought iron, decorative but sturdy. Helena took one look at the lock and sucked in her cheeks. It consisted of a metal plate in the shape of a hand, which made a harsh buzzing sound when Helena tried fitting her hand in. Sarah wrapped her hands around the bars and shook it ineffectively, then stepped back and studied the top of the gate, eyes narrowed.
Helena turned to say something, but stopped with her mouth open and followed Sarah’s eyes.
After a moment’s calculation, she announced confidently,
“I will fit!”
Within a minute, she had scaled the iron bars and squeezed over the top. Sarah watched, a half-grin on her face, shrugged and followed.
A short arched walkway with wooden doors led to another walkway, this one ending in an open-air deck flanked by two brick and sandstone towers. Flags fluttered atop both of them but they were too ragged from the howling wind to look like anything.
A metal lever stood straight ahead, below rails that curved slightly upwards towards Comstock House. It seemed to hover over their heads now, the shining windows oddly inviting against the threatening exterior. Even the constant wind and the lightning strikes weren’t loud enough to drown the sound of Sarah’s pulse in her ears, quickening as she looked up, and up.
“Another gondola, looks like,” Sarah said loudly, over the din. Just keep pushing forward , she thought, get in, find Sister Rachel, and then… she shook her head, then ran a hand through her hair, and breathed deeply. Helena stood close, eyes darting around the sky a little nervously.
“Well…” Sarah reached out and grasped the lever, thumb pushing the little catch at the top and yanking it to the right. It clunked into place, and Sarah lifted her hand, smiling at Helena, who stumbled backwards with a terrified expression as the Songbird swooped up from below, mere inches away from them both.
“Sarah!” she cried.
The screech it let out felt loud enough to burst eardrums, and Sarah winced while reaching for her gun as Songbird smoothly spun in the air above her and then dove right towards her. She heard Helena scream as Sara was knocked backwards and pinned down by those huge metal claws.
“Helena, run,” she yelled, still fumbling for her gun. The great bird moved its head side to side, studying her with each eye in turn, and they shifted from amber to red. Sarah swore she could hear the mechanical clicking as they changed, even as the weight of the Songbird pressed down and she felt the edge of a claw slice through the trouser fabric above her thigh. She stifled a groan and tried to raise the pistol she’d finally managed to work into her hand, only to hear another ear-splitting screech.
Songbird brought his other huge claw around to pick Sarah up, shook her like a rag doll, and then tossed her aside almost off-handedly. As she sailed through the air, she thought she could still hear Helena screaming, not in fear, but angrily, and then she hit one of the windows at the top of one of the towers. All she could hear was splintering wood and shattering glass as she crashed through, and the thud of her body landing on dusty wooden floorboards, just before her head hit the opposite wall and she blacked out.
Her eyes opened, and she saw a rug and a floor and heard a whooshing noise. When she rolled onto her back she saw a ceiling fan, rotating slowly. whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. Her head didn’t hurt. Am I dead, she wondered, and sat up. Wait...this is my office, how did I…
“Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt.”
It was the Luteces voices but with a nasty, urgent edge to them.
Sarah staggered as she stood. The Luteces stood in front of her office door, the green light shining through the glass pane making them into unmoving, unreadable silhouettes.
“Bring us the girl...wipe away the debt.” echoed another voice behind her and Sarah turned to see Helena, dead-eyed and expressionless, sitting on her desk. One of her feet moved back and forth mechanically, bang-bang-bang.
Her head snapped around as music started playing, staring at the other door in the office. But it wasn’t a door anymore, or rather, it was a door but not the right door. Big and square and metal, with a wheel in the centre, it looked like a ship bulkhead, or…
Somewhere, a voice warbled, beyond the -
Helena lifted her face to the ceiling and screamed and Sarah
Sarah was suddenly awake and in pain and still lying on a dusty floor. Outside the wind and lightning still roared and crackled and then -
“Oh shit,” Sarah mumbled and tried to sit up, the screeching of the Songbird getting closer and closer. She looked up - an engraved metal plate encircled a soft ceiling light, and it shook as something heavy landed on the outside. Dust drifted down as the entire tower vibrated. The metallic scraping noises were the same as they had been back in the tower, the first time he had -
A terrible grinding sound filled the room as a section of the roof was torn loose by great metal claws, and the blazing red eyes shone down at her. Sarah scrabbled in the debris. Bricks had toppled in, and crumbled bits of mortar were stuck in her hair, and the remains of the ceiling light spat sparks, and she couldn’t find her gun.
Songbird moved his head back and forth, then he gathered his wings up and leapt down, advancing on Sarah.
“Bugger off,” she spat, trying to wriggle backwards, seeing for the first time how oddly human his shape was when standing. A huge clawed foot came down on her legs and she muffled a scream of pain. The big red eye studied her, then Songbird lifted his huge clawed hand and -
“Stop!”
Sarah craned her neck to see Helena standing close, too close.
“Don’t! Don’t hurt her!” She moved closer to Songbird, trying to get in between his eyeline and Sarah. “Please.” She held her hands out, conciliatory.
Songbird stopped, and looked at her, tilting his head back and forth, huge beak clicking. Then he used one of those huge claws to push her aside, absurdly gentle, raising the other claw and bringing it down towards Sarah’s face, as she desperately tried to push herself through the floor. Her ears echoed with Helena’s voice saying don’t send me back.
“I’m sorry!” Helena screamed.
And the claw stopped an inch from Sarah’s face. She stared up in horror, mouth gaping, and then dragged her gaze to Helena. Tears were pouring down her face and her hands shook as she held them out. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left.”
Songbird regarded her with his red eyes, head tilted as if listening.
“I...I’ll come home.”
No, thought Sarah dully, don’t. She shifted slightly, and the claw holding her down became heavier.
She stopped moving, staring at Helena, finally hissing her name as quietly as possible in an attempt not to piss Songbird off any more.
Helena glanced at her, shaking her head, then looked back at Songbird. Mechanical trills emerged from the curved beak. She reached a hand out and touched him softly on the weirdly jointed claws.
“Please…” she said, “Leave her alone. And you can take me back.”
Sarah’s eyes kept jumping around the huge figure that was so close to her. The skin that was leather and metal, the wings, the glass eyes that were now glowing amber over Helena’s face, the stance that was more man than bird, the size that was too big to be human. For the first time she noticed what looked like a small oxygen tank attached to his back, the information banging around her brain like a moth in a candle.
What is he, she wondered, not for the first time, and why does he remind me of…
Songbird finally moved his claws away from Sarah’s face and lifted his other from her legs, and she let out a long shuddering breath, wondering if she could even stand up. The huge hand opened and Helena stepped into it, wrapping her arms around what passed for a thumb. The eyes blinked, closing like a camera shutter, his huge head bowing and touching Helena’s softly. When they opened, they were green, lighting up the small room and something else banged at the back of Sarah’s mind, but was forgotten instantly as Songbird kicked another window out.
Helena was looking miserably back at her, eyes swollen and red, face utterly defeated.
“I’ll find you,” Sarah mouthed, hoping she'd understand.
Helena just shook her head and reached a hand out, as Songbird cleared a space big enough, and took to the sky, cradling her against his chest like she was a child.
Sarah couldn’t move at first, weighed down by everything they’d been through the last few days...all the people that had died...the promises she had made...and broken.
Manning, you useless piece of ...she spat at herself and crawled over to the hole in the wall. She could just make out the shape of Songbird over Comstock House, circling around the searchlights and then down behind the building. Grabbing at the bricks that now stuck out at right angles, Sarah hauled herself up, testing her legs one at a time. Great, not broken. Nasty cut on one thigh. She pulled at her shirt, yanking the tails up and set about ripping a makeshift bandage out of the now-grubby linen. She tried to move as fast as possible, heart thumping in her throat, anger and fear and the adrenaline from her close encounter speeding around her body and making her hands shake.
When she tried leaning on the leg, it hurt but it was bearable. Her gun turned up under the heavy velvet curtain twisted around the glass and splintered frames of the window that she’d been thrown through. As she looked out the hole again, she saw the big metal hooks on both of the towers that stood either side of the deck. Sarah blinked.
I guess that’s how Helena got up here, didn’t even think...
And the bridge was opening.
Sarah didn’t stop to think - she’d wasted enough time already. The Sky-hook clanged onto the hooks as she made her way back down, landing with a wince as pain shot through her thigh.
Instead of the gondola that the rails had led her to expect, massive partitions of metal and wood were rising and slamming down on the tracks. Lightning strikes sizzled as they struck. Sarah had no idea if that was part of the process, or some sort of warning, or a defense system, and she didn’t care.
She began to run as fast as she could as the bridge was laid down in front of her. She kept running until the pain in her leg was a searing ache. The wind was wilder and colder and it whipped her hair around her face so she could barely see, but she kept running.
“Helena,” she tried to shout but ended up panting instead. “I’m coming!” They can’t take you from me again, she thought grimly, and kept running. A lightning bolt hit the bridge right in front of her, the light making her eyes squeeze shut and she stumbled, but didn’t fall. She opened her eyes to more white light, but this was…
At first she just stared, almost coming to a complete stop before she shook herself and kept on.
“Snow?” she muttered to herself, pushing her hair back and squinting upwards at the white filled sky. “It’s bloody July!” The snow was already piled up, like it had been falling for hours, and she scooped up a handful, pressing it against her leg wound. Her steps got faster after the pain was numbed somewhat.
There was a cry from ahead, and she tried to quicken her stride even more, the snow crunching under her boots.
“Helena?” she yelled.
“Don’t touch me!” Helena screamed. “Just take me back! Why are you - .”
As the front stairs of Comstock House came into view through the falling snow, Sarah saw a Tear, and her steps faltered as she realised that’s where the voice had been coming from. There was another scream before the Tear twisted and closed and she grimaced, pushing herself up the stairs and through the huge front doors.
That were unlocked and unguarded.
Sarah barely thought about it, running down the entrance hallway, past alcoves alight with candles, and pushing through another set of doors into a cavernous hall under a domed ceiling. Shadows flickered. Candles lined the edges of a shallow pool, wax dripping down into the water, setting blobs floating like tiny water lilies. Sarah heard music - scratchy and warped, it sent a shiver down her spine. And the voice...
It was Helena’s voice. She was sure it was Helena’s voice. But it too sounded scratchy...and very tired. Sarah itched at her hand, the scars burning.
Some dream of money. Some dream of love. My Sister dreamt of a flood of fire.
We were given Eden. And we turned it into Sodom. Why do we deserve salvation?
The Lord gave Noah a fish in the form of a flood. But He was not so easy on me...
He said, "Prophet, I want you to train a nation of fishermen.
Then there was the statue. It was Helena, no doubt about it. But she wasn’t an angel anymore. She held a sword aloft with a fierce expression on her stony face, clad in a long dress, stone curls somehow still wild. Candles glowed around the room, hundreds of them. She looked up at the words emblazoned on curved stained-glass above the statue, light pouring through from behind and making it glow a hundred times brighter than the candles.
Our Lady Helena.
Godspeed
Thy Judgement.
“What the hell…” Sarah breathed, residual anger turning to confusion. The spoken words caught up with her. Had Helena called herself a prophet?
Snow was still falling, and she looked up to see the domed ceiling was made up of panes of glass, cracked and broken. It looked...old. She tore her gaze away from the statue and started to make her way around and behind it, following a shallow ramp also lined with candles.
Helena’s voice was ahead of her again, anger and fear evident in every word.
“What is this place? Why won’t you let me. Go back to my tower? What are you...planning to do to me?” Sarah heard other voices, muttering in the background. She rounded into another corridor, and saw another Tear wink out of existence.
“Damn it!” she snapped. There was so much she didn’t understand about how these things worked. She was sure that Helena was in this building somewhere, though, and the Tears were just...she shook her head. There was another set of doors ahead. This time she drew her gun first, and quietly pushed one of the doors open enough to slide though.
This room was grimmer than the last - grey stone stained with soot or possibly mould, huge columns that reached up stories high, snow falling lightly onto the cracked paving stones. Piles of masonry lay in the corners. From the look of it, ceilings had partly collapsed and never been repaired. Colourless curtains rippled on the broken windows.
Sarah started around in horror, not so much at the decor, but at the occupants. They stood in corners, or crouched on the floor, shoveling snow into their mouths, or stared into space.
Children. Or at least, children-sized.
They seemed to be little girls, all with blonde plaits, and all wearing the same little pinafore dress in varying states of raggedness and filth. Sarah felt a coldness that didn’t come from the gaping windows and the snow.
They all had golden glowing eyes.
Suddenly, every weird dream, or vision, or whatever, that she’d had since arriving in Columbia pressed into her mind. The little girls, the garden, Songbird...they were all connected somehow. She gasped as pain tore across her temples, leaning forward and shutting her eyes. When it passed, she straightened up, noticing none of the girls were paying her any attention. At all. She carefully moved closer to one, and realised it...she...was shimmering slightly, flickering. It reminded her of - she bit her lip as the vision of those guards she’d killed being alive in another reality, the way they had wavered, like their reality was too thin.
But the girls noses weren’t bleeding, and they didn’t seem to be in any pain.
What were they?
Sarah stiffened as she heard Helena’s voice again. In the centre of the room was an elevator shaft, surrounded on three sides by angels a full story high. She could see three or four floors above her, balconies running around the shaft, topped by another cracked glass dome.
Straight ahead of her was a small billboard which read NO SIN EVADES HIS GAZE above a picture of...Sarah felt sick.
Still, the strange little girls didn’t seem to any threat, so she carefully passed around them, and the elevator shaft, following the sound of Helena’s voice, not seeing the other figure until it was too late.
She froze. It was small, and had a contraption on its head that exactly mirrored the one in the picture. Metal, with a golden sheen, covered its face completely, with only a small allowance made for the nose, and a hole for the mouth, out of which light shone like a miniature searchlight. Flared trumpets, like the ones on a gramophone, pointed outwards like two huge ears, and the whole thing rested on the shoulders. It was wearing a kind of little suit, knickerbockers and a jacket, boots, and it’s hands grasped about in the air.
Then she took a few cautious steps. Helena was screaming now, and this...person? Didn’t seem dangerous, and -
The head turned and caught her in its light, and a howl rent the air. A small finger pointed straight at her, and suddenly there was movement everywhere, as the little girls came running at Sarah. Some were now armed with lengths of pipe and broken stone, and the others just attacked with tiny fists and kicked at her with their bare feet. She pushed them away, but they kept coming at her, pulling at her trousers and jacket, hitting her with their makeshift weapons.
Luckily, they seemed to only have the strength of children, and Sarah easily wrestled away one of the pipes. She waved it at them.
“Oi!” she shouted, “Get away!” The pipe swished through the air, and without even meaning to, Sarah hit one of them on the side of the head. She collapsed. Sarah sucked in a breath, but the rest of them kept hitting her and kicking, and her leg hurt, and so did her head.
“Bloody hell,” she cried, poking at them with the pipe, “Look, I don’t wanna hurt you...shit!” One of them had hoisted a rock with enough force for it to hit Sarah in the head and split her scalp. She could feel blood running down her neck, and tried to stay calm - scalp wounds always bled a lot. She’d be fine. But she’d have to…
“Shit,” she said again, and started laying about with the pipe, expertly using enough force to knock the girls out, but not enough to kill them. She hoped. Shooting soldiers who were shooting at you was one thing, but children? She could hear Helena alternately sobbing and screaming, and some sort of weird noise - a kind of sinister electric thrumming.
By the time she’d laid all the girls out, her shoulder ached, and she had to rest for a moment, feeling like she was going to throw up. The other...thing...had disappeared when the girls had attacked.
She forgot about the pain when another scream tore out nowhere.
“No, don’t...please. I...I don’t understand. Please stop. Please…” The thrumming was louder and so were the screams. Sarah banged on the big metal door opposite the lift. A sign said AREA RESTRICTED and ENTRANCE ONLY BY WARDEN’S APPROVAL. The screams sounded like they were coming from beyond the door, but it could be another Tear, she thought, anger and fear knotting up in her gut. She tried pressing the button that sat next to an intercom, and spoke loudly when it hissed.
“Look, I just want to see the girl, I…” She broke off as a maniacal wheezy laughter emitted from the speaker and then it was dead air again. She rested her head on the cool metal door and banged it a few times. She needed Helena to get to Helena, she thought, and huffed out a croak of laughter.
“Please...please…” The thrumming grew louder and Helena screamed, babbling a string of words as Sarah started to bang on the door again with both fists. “No, just tell me what I did! Please...please just let me go! Just...just let me go! No, please! I'll be...I'll be your sister. I'll be your sister! I'll beyoursisterI’llbeyoursisterI’llbeyoursister!”
Silence fell. Sarah felt tears running down her own face and she sniffled, wiping her nose on her jacket sleeve, then slammed her hands against the door one more time. When she turned, the elevator was sitting there, gate open, empty except for a flickering Tear. Helena spoke again, sounding less hysterical.
“What is this place? Why won’t you just send me back?”
“It’s too late for that now, child,” answered a man’s voice full of fake concern. “Your sister gave you a lovely home...but you chose to destroy it.”
“She’s not my sister,” snapped Helena, and the Tear shrank into nothingness.
“Well, at least the elevator works,” Sarah muttered, hesitating before stepping in. Could be a trap. Could be the only way to get to Helena. She bent and picked up the length of pipe she’d dropped, the weight of it a cold comfort. She took a deep breath and pushed the button. Her boot kicked against something and she looked down to find a voxophone sitting in on the floor. Crouching down, she pushed the lever and was somehow not surprised to hear Helena’s voice, speaking in the same scratchy, measured way as the speech she’d heard in the first room.
I suppose theSiphon. Is a kind of leash. Yes, mysister put it on me. But when the time came. Neither did I remove it myself. What would happen. If I took off the leash, and I found I was...as obedient as ever?
A leash? Like whatever Rachel had done to her head? Or some other sort of leash? What the hell was the Siphon? How had she even made these recordings? She’d only been taken twenty minutes ago, when did she have the time to....
Something was swimming around the back of her brain, but she couldn’t grasp it. Helena’s voice sounded so...old. Old and full of regret.
Sarah stood, taking a few steps back and forth as the elevator slowly rose, creaking a little. This place looked more like a prison than the luxurious mansion she imagined Rachel living in. Dark and dank, and collapsing into ruin. When the elevator groaned to a halt, she saw more of the little girls in the next room, and hefted the pipe in her hand. The light of another whatever-the -hell that thing had been swept back and forth across them.
A sign above the door just said HER LOVING EMBRACE.
Sarah clawed her hair back off her face, scowling. If the girls did nothing until instructed by the...other, then if she just avoided it’s light, maybe she could sneak by. She didn’t have the stomach for clobbering another group of children into unconsciousness. By timing it right, and with the help of the big square pillars everywhere, she was able to slip through the room without incident.
Helena’s voice crackled over the speakers.
Likemy sister, I could see all that Would be, Might be, and Must Not Be.
Sarah chewed at her bottom lip. Nothing in this place made sense. Rubble blocked hallways, rusty wheelchairs sat in odd corners, papers that looked vaguely like medical forms were scattered everywhere, doors lay locked behind iron gates. She was starting to change her opinion from ‘prison’ to ‘asylum’.
The next room she could get to was through a large square doorway, a sign stating simply
WHERE WE LIE.
“Lie...down? Or…” Sarah wondered, then heard voices ahead. Another Tear shimmered inside a round glassed-in area, white-tiled and brightly lit. There was a table with medical implements, a chair with restraints attached to it...and pools of blood on the floor. Sarah clutched the pipe tighter as she heard another voice she recognised come out of the Tear.
“My dear,” said Sister Rachel, voice almost syrupy, “would you like to pray with me?”
“They’re...hurting me.” Helena sounded weak now. “Please…”
“Come now, Helena. We’re going to cure you.” Rachel said. Sarah imagined she could hear her tapping her cane methodically.
“I’m not sick,” said Helena insistently. Rachel sighed.
“Your spirit is. My dear sister, all I ever wanted was for you to live up to your potential .”
Sarah snorted as the Tear blinked out of existence. “I bet,” she muttered. There was another narrow room to the side labeled WHERE WE WEEP. She stuck her head in and found a furnace blazing away, and piles of shrouded corpses haphazardly stacked in front of it.
“Bloody hell,” she breathed, then covered her nose and mouth with a sleeve. The smell was more than ripe. A voxophone lay on the floor next to the door, and she stooped to pick it up, glancing around sharply.
Was someone leaving her a trail?
The voice that came out of the tiny speaker this time was stronger, and more assured - the assurance of the intensely faithful.
Our minds are born festering with sin. Some are so blighted, they will never find redemption. The mind must be pulled up from the roots. Mychildren are without blame. Without fault. And without choice. For what is the value of will when the spirit is found wanting?
Sarah dropped the voxophone back on the floor with a crash. What the hell have they done to you? You don’t even sound like you anymore.
The corners of the larger room were dark but she could see shapes of hospital gurneys and upended tables with chains hanging limply. The entire place was giving her the serious creeps. Out in the central atrium, the snow was still falling, and Sarah could see her breath. The next room was titled WHERE WE CLEANSE, and she entered, hoping not to see more bodies, dead or otherwise. But there was nothing but a long room with dirty bathtubs in a line down either side and a bare globe that flickered on and off. At the other end was a Tear and she moved towards it, pressing a hand down on her thigh as the wound complained.
“I’m Dr Pettifog, Helena. I’m going to be taking care of you.” Sarah distrusted the man's voice instantly. Any doctor working with Sister Rachel had to be crooked.
“Get...away from me,” Helena sounded exhausted, but like she still had some fight left. Sarah couldn’t wrap her head around the differences between the Tears, the voxophones, and the recorded announcements.
The doctor made an interested noise, like he was making a note.
“Defiance, even after all this time...Sarah Manning just left you here, Helena. You need to give up on her.”
“She...will...come.” Helena insisted. She sounded like she could barely hold her head up, but the belief in her voice made something in Sarah’s gut twist.
“Shite, Helena…” she whispered. Wait, what did he mean ‘after all this time’?
The next room was WHERE WE SLEEP, and Sarah peered around the doorway to see rows of single beds with iron frames on wheels, bare mattresses stained and worn. The floor was cluttered with medical screens, more mattresses, and a few toys. Ragged curtains waved as snow blew in the broken windows, and Sarah wasn’t surprised to see another cluster of the weird little girls, blonde braids limp as they sat aimlessly on the floor, or on the beds facing the walls. Their faces were blank as their forms shimmered slightly in the moonlight.
She ducked backwards as the light of another thing swept the room. The blankness of the mask it wore chilled her to the bone. It stood atop of a bed in the centre of the room, and she mapped a route in her head to bypass it. Lucky there was so much clutter to hide behind, and there was a certain regularity to the way it moved.
Sarah crept along the length of the room, practically holding her breath the entire way. A close examination of the girls made her think that somehow, they weren’t really here at all. As she reached the next doorway, a Tear flickered open in front of her. There were two men talking now, one the same doctor as before.
“The specimen needs to be destroyed! We couldn’t even hold her in that tower and now the Prophet is…”
“Destroy the Lamb?” The second man’s voice was incredulous. A true believer, Sarah guessed.
“If we modify the procedure, we could…” Dr Pettifog went on smoothly. “It would be safer for everyone. It would seem an accident…”
The Tear winked out and Sarah stood, wincing as pain flared in her thigh. She had to get to Helena before... She had circled around back to the atrium, but now she was at the rear of the elevator. There were iron stairs leading upwards. The hallways to left and right were full of masonry and fallen rubble, but there was something else to the right...Sarah followed the glimmering light to another Tear. It was Dr Pettifog again.
“You’re not eating, dear,” he was saying, “Is something the matter?”
“I’m...not...hungry.” It was still the weak-but-defiant Helena, and her voice tore at Sarah’s heart. You have to eat, Helena, you have to stay strong until I...
“You'll need to eat sooner or later.” His tone never shifted from steadfast reasonableness. “If you hold out for Sarah, you'll just starve to death. Come now…”
And then that Tear was gone too.
There’s so many of them, Sarah mused, and getting closer together. Maybe she’s opening them somehow, doesn’t even know it. She made her way up the stairs, limping a little, jumping slightly as Helena’s voice came over the speakers, steely and righteous.
And what did the Lord receive. In return for His gifts? Eve and her apple? Sodom and Gomorrah? Humanity wrote a bad check...and the flood was the only way to settle accounts. For what isColumbia, if not a different Ark, in a different time?
The room at the top of the stairs was blocked off by bars, the way to the right blocked by rubble, so Sarah followed the hall to the left.
“The Lamb is ready. It's time.” The Tear spoke decisively in Rachel’s voice.
“Prophet, even if we cure her...why do you think she'll do what you ask?” The second unnamed doctor said doubtfully.
“My sister has two problems, doctor.” There was something smug about the way she said the word 'sister'. “One is the condition your science will cure her of. The other affliction is of a... spiritual nature.”
“What affliction is that?” The doctor asked.
“Hope.”
Rachel, you bitch, when I find you, Sarah spat through her teeth, walking unevenly over layers of rubbish and into a weird L-shaped room filled with shelves and shelves of heads. Sarah stared around the room, lip curled in distaste. They seemed to be models of those Motorized Patriots, with a general air of the founding fathers, or so she supposed. Old men in white wigs, they all looked alike to her. It turned out to be a series of small rooms, each with shelves of metal parts and rubbery looking masks. Sarah spent the whole time feeling like something was moving just out of sight, and she tried to move faster. She nearly walked right through the next Tear.
“Your surgery is tomorrow, you know. You better eat.” Dr Pettifog said evenly. “Hmmm...you still expect Sarah to burst in and rescue you, don't you? It's been six months.”
The Tear shrank and shut on Sarah’s shocked face.
“Six months?” Her voice came out in a whisper. “How can it be six bloody months?” She rubbed her face. Unless...these Tears, or some of them at least, were windows into the future? Shit, this stuff was still way over her head. Six months...jesus… Walking numbly, welcoming the pain in her thigh now, she almost missed the voxophone sitting on a low shelf.
“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.” But in the end... who'll have to pay down all of our accounts? Where does her guilt start... and mine end?
This time Helena sounded old again, voice trembling and weary. Sarah was coming to think of her as being three different people - Old Helena, Prophet Helena, and...her Helena. The Helena she was gonna save.
After she crossed the next room, she was back at the atrium again. Going around in bloody circles. But she was inside the barred-off room now. Maybe she was getting somewhere after all. It was so quiet that she was sure every step could be heard throughout the entire house. The way to the left was a ceiling-high pile of fallen masonry, and to the right was a sign that read WHERE WE LEARN.
This should be interesting, Sarah thought sourly, and limped on.
Even before entering, the organ music playing something vaguely hymn-like filled her ears, and it was joined by Helena’s voice - Prophet Helena, Sarah thought. The room was dimly lit in order to show the film being projected on a small screen. There were a number of small wooden desks, school desks, but they were piled up on top of one another, making a precarious stand for the projector. A pulpit stood before the screen and chalkboards covered with tiny writing on either side.
Sarah rested her leg, lowering herself onto an overturned bookshelf and stared at the screen. It seemed nonsensical - a series of images of the downtrodden, of angels, images of Sister Rachel, the tower, Songbird outlined against the sun. But as Helena’s voice droned on, they took on an ominous quality, somehow both warning and reassurance.
Someone once promised me she would free me of my chains. But in the end...she abandoned me to serve her own needs. But, in some ways, I thank her: she showed me exactly how much faith our species deserved. God put His faith in people once, too. It seems that we have something in common. Disappointment.
I did not always love the Prophet. In truth, I ran from her embrace. Instead I followed a woman who seemed to be...everything my sister was not. But she was a False Shepherd. And when the wolves came for me...she was nowhere to be found.
Sarah lowered her head into her hands, digging her fingers into her scalp. This was some kind of living nightmare she was wandering around in. When she slowly became aware of the weight of the satchel on her knees, her hands yanked out of her hair so fast she ended up with long strands clinging to them. She dug frantically in the bag for her flask. If she could have a drink, just one drink, maybe the world would come back into focus, and she could drown this horrible sick guilty feeling, and...her shaking fingers brushed against the cold metal of the flask.
There was only a mouthful left. Hot tears stung her eyes, and she pressed the heels of her hands into them until she saw stars.
“Right.” she said flatly. “You can sit here snivelling, Manning, or you can keep going until you find her. You still have a job to do.” When she stood, pain stabbed her leg, and she half-grinned. The only way out of the room without going backwards was through a broken window - she looked at it closer. A broken mirror. A small area on the other side looked like a viewing room. Sarah didn’t even want to think about who had been watching who here. She climbed over the broken glass carefully, and followed the sign that pointed to the WARDEN’S OFFICE.
Should be a way to open that gate downstairs. That’s gotta be the way to Helena.
The space beyond was a long dusty room, with glass partitions and desks behind them, and lockers at the far end. Crates were stacked up in the corners, next to wooden filing cabinets. It was all reminiscent of the Authority watch-house they had snuck into back in Shantytown.
That seemed like years ago.
Sarah turned to the stairs, hesitated, then did a circle of the room. As she was expecting now, a voxophone waited for her at the back of the room, sitting on a desk. The voice of Old Helena filled the dusty air, pausing in between words like the effort to speak was costing her.
As the days pass...I believe less in God. More inLutece. My powers shrivel...as my regrets blossom. All of this...because my sister failed me. By the time I realized...how far I'd gone...it was too late to stop it. But there is still one last chance...at redemption. For all of us.
Lutece? Redemption? Sarah’s brow furrowed as she placed the voxophone back on the desk. She rapped her knuckles on the wood, then walked back to the stairs. Her leg ached as she went up, grasping the rail tightly.
The Warden’s office was just a large alcove with desks and a wall of small screens. Sarah drew closer, fascinated despite herself. They showed different areas of the house, slightly fuzzy but enough for someone to know everything that went on here. She moved closer and squinted. The first room was empty now, all the little girls she’d left unconscious gone.
She pressed a hand over the cut on her thigh. Had someone been up here watching her ?
Beneath the screens was a panel of buttons and switches and a lever. And a voxophone.
What I've done...cannot be undone. I cannot stop...what I have put in motion. But perhaps...I can keep it. From ever starting. She was my first hope, and now...she is my last.
Sarah tried to picture Helena croaking into the voxophone, curls covering her exhausted face, believing that Sarah had left her to rot...and her heart felt like it was bleeding. She lifted her head and stared unseeingly at the glowing screens, reaching blindly towards the lever in front of her and pushing it forwards with a clunk. There was movement on one of the screens and she blinked, then saw the gate opening downstairs.
“Right,” she said, and turned around to find one of the masked figures directly behind her, it’s mouth-light shining directly in her face.
A startled yelp came out of her throat and she automatically struck out with a fist, her entire body jerking. There was a siren-like howl and it disappeared in a shimmering swirl of mist.
“What the bloody hell are those things!” she half-shouted, heart pounding. Taking a few deep breaths, she ran a hand through her hair and then drew her gun. Straight back downstairs and through that door and....if Helena wasn’t there, she’d… I’ll find her...I have to.
When she exited the Warden’s office and retraced her steps downstairs, she noticed the bars that blocked off egress to the atrium had lifted, and headed out that way instead. Down the next flight of stairs, the elevator was waiting, open on the opposite side now. She could see through it into HER LOVING EMBRACE, and those odd little girls had disappeared as well.
The speakers above her crackled to life, the voice was the one she thought of as Prophet Helena.
I am here to finish my sister's work. As she was baptized with water, I shall baptize the Sodom Below with fire...and prepare for the coming of the Lord. Are we worth saving if we will not save ourselves? There will be no salvation until fire floods the cities and covers the plains. Once this world has been born again...a million others wait their turn.
Baptism is the rebirth of the spirit...but sometimes the mind gets in the way. If the mind will not yield. Then you must expose the mind to every version of itself. Either the mind will yield...or be reduced to a blank.
A million worlds...but she couldn’t waste time thinking about it, she’d go mad. Before getting back in the elevator she leant down to scoop up some more snow, and the relief she felt as she pressed it against the wound in her thigh made her groan out loud. She could still feel the dried blood from her cut scalp down her neck, so she rubbed some melting snow into it, and felt a little less sticky.
The voxophone still sat in the elevator corner. Sarah frowned, her hand hovering over the ‘down’ button. No, it had been in the other corner. She pressed the button, and used the toe of her boot to flick the little voxophone lever.
Tomorrow. The leash comes off. Because all of this...has to end. But even if I destroy the Siphon, will I be strong enough...to see all the doors...open whichever I choose? And if I bring her here. Who is to say that she would be any match for the monsters...I have created?
The leash...the siphon. When the elevator had rumbled its way back down to the ground floor, Sarah was lost in thought. Who was this her that Helena was bringing? ‘Opening the doors’ must mean the Tears. Monsters...the little girls? The masked others? Had Helena made them, like Rachel had made the Firemen? The doors opened and she stumbled out, gun at her side as she entered the gate.
Screams reached her, Helena’s screams, and she snapped out of the state she nearly fallen into.
“Helena!” she yelled, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “Hold on!” She ran past another looming angel statue, this one reading a scroll, and behind that was -
Another tear.
It vanished and she gritted her teeth and kept going, through another gate and into what might have been a grand hallway, once. Doors to her right were gated, a crooked sign stating OPERATING ROOM, and Sarah muttered no thanks.
Snow had drifted down from a huge gap in the ceiling at the other end, a collapsed chandelier was half-buried in a pile of white, and the floor had fallen in, exposing pipes and foundation blocks. Her gaze dragged up a shattered staircase to the open doors at the far left end, and her heart stopped at the sight of the silhouette outlined against the pale grey clouds in the background.
Sarah half climbed, half slipped down into the hole in the floor, pulled herself up the other side and limped her way up what remained of the stairs, not taking her eyes off the figure.
It turned slightly.
“Hello, Sarah," a voice croaked. "It’s good to see you.”
Despite of how terrible she sounded, Sarah broke into a grin. It was Helena, she’d found her, finally, but...why did she sound so - she moved closer, the doorway above her due to the sunken floor.
“As you can see. The monsters are running the asylum. They don't even listen to me anymore. All I can do is watch. What I set in motion...slide into its terminal stage.” A hand gestured, then dropped back to her side. “It took all I had left in me...just to bring you here.” Helena was facing her now, but it was still too dim to see her face.
“Helena, I don’t understand.” Sarah said, even more confused now. “I could hear you screaming. I’ve been running all over this damn place looking for you!” She limped closer. “But we can get out of here now, yeah? Screw Rachel, let’s just - “
Helena sighed.
“Sarah. Take my hand.” She reached down, taking Sarah’s hand in hers. It felt...different but Sarah couldn’t quite figure out why until she was face to face with Helena and her jaw dropped.
Helena was old.
The voice on the voxophones had sounded old but actually seeing it...her face was lined and wrinkled, lips thinner, and her hair, while curly as ever, was a mix of white and silvery grey. It was held up in a loose bun, tendrils spiralling around her face and down her neck. And she wore some kind of white gown, severely high-necked, long-sleeved and draping along the ground as she turned and gazed outwards.
Sarah turned also, and for a moment, she thought she was dreaming again. She dug her fingers into her thigh and felt the pain shoot down her leg and the terrible scene before her didn’t change.
Fire was raining down upon a city - New York, just like in the dream she’d had. But the buildings...she couldn’t recognize most of them. At least, not those she could see beyond the air-ships crowding the sky - air-ships and the entire floating city of Columbia, a sprawling war machine that looked unstoppable. Sarah stared down in horror. A billboard on top of a building, taller than any building she’d ever seen, bore the words New for 1984 and a picture of a car, not like any car she’d ever seen either.
nineteen eighty four, she whispered, a glimmering of understanding starting to dawn.
The whistling of bombs and explosions and gunfire provided a grim background for Helena’s words, spoken in that scratchy, tired voice. Sarah looked back at her.
Her eyes were deeper set, but the same green-brown as they had always been, the same as Sarah’s.
“ The blood of the Prophet shall sit the throne, and drown in flame the mountains of man." Helena intoned. “Maybe Rachel was a Prophet after all.” She turned back to Sarah, tilting her head. “It wasn't the torture that broke me. It wasn't the...indoctrination.” Fingers met, worrying at each other. “It was time. Time rots everything, Sarah.” Her hands stilled and she lifted one, reaching out to Sarah’s face. “Even hope.”
Sarah swallowed as Helena touched her cheek, the feel of her fingers papery thin.
“I was coming for you,” she said hoarsely.
“Songbird.” Helena let her hand drop. “He always stops you.”
“But,” Sarah protested, “I’d find a way, I’d never - “ Helena shook her head, and put a finger to her lips.
“It’s too late,” she said softly. “For me. I brought you here...for your sake. Yours and hers. Here.”
She held out a card. It looked like the card given to her by the Luteces about the Songbird. Sarah took it, examining it with a frown.
“What is it?” she asked.
Helena smiled crookedly, lines deepening even more.
“It’s for her. She’ll understand.”
“But what does it mean?” Sarah looked at the card again. Blot-filled writing, drawings of bird cages...
“It’s...advice,” Helena said evasively, stepping back from Sarah but fixing her suddenly bright eyes on her.
“Advice? What sort of bloody advice?”
Helena smiled again, drawing her hands together.
“How not to become me.”
She spread her hands as she spoke, Sarah realising what she was about to do at the last second. She opened her mouth to say wait and then…
...then she was standing at the end of a hallway, lush red carpeting beneath her feet, pristine white walls, chandeliers on the ceiling where they belonged. There was a tickle on her upper lip and she mechanically wiped away the blood.
A gramophone was spinning on a side table behind her. Next to it sat a gilded bird cage, empty. Huge bay windows showed a dark sky and distant stars...but no snow.
♯ -dom and of pleasure ♯
She was back in 1912. At least, she was pretty sure she was, and that meant there was still time to...
A scream made her snap to attention and she started to run towards the doors at the other end of the long hallway, gritting her teeth at the pain in her leg.
♯ nothing ever lasts forever ♯
This time, she wouldn’t let anything stand in her way.
♯ everybody wants to rule the world ♯