Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It was almost too late.

It would be if she didn't move faster.

Behind her, fireworks suddenly turned the night sky into a tentacular waterfall of twitching brilliance and color and artificial eyes winking in and out. Golden stars in the Naga coils hailed down in a background of sea-green and people oohed and ahhed, except for the Select; it was fashionable to flinch away from all but medium-low illuminations now. 

How oddly reassuring that monsters could fall victim to the whims of fashion too.

Night sky.

Hah.

It was more night than day anymore.

Move.

She picked up the pace.

Rockets screamed all the way from earth to the firmament. They had never bothered her before, but the high-pitched shrieking reminded her too much of the November Beast when It first rose out of the Bay.

That night. The night. The worst night in her life.

And there had been a time when she had believed murdering her friend had been the worst night in her life. What an innocent she had been.

Co-incidentally, he –(she didn’t dare mention his name or even think it; he might know somehow; Their powers were strange and terrifying)-- He had been part of both nights. The only difference was, he hadn’t smiled when he killed Dave. This Barnabas smiled far too much for the wrong reasons.

Quit it, she thought. You know you can’t compare.

And quit thinking of his name; he might hear it!

Quit thinking, period. Move.

She moved.

It was grueling. The county fairgrounds had always been a scene of steaming hot late-summer chaos, but it had been fun; an all-ages experience with a small threat of risk and danger—robbers, predators, losing everything in the gambling machines—normal, human dangers. The crowd ebbed and flowed, swirled and fought with itself at every chance. It ate and drank, laughed, quarreled, flirted, romanced, broke up with itself, made plans for the future and above all, wallowed in the moment because the fair only came once a year. 

Not like this; not like now. Less fun; more reminders and worship.

In the Human Days, everyone went home at 10pm.

Now, the fair lasted around the clock, but the best draws, the best events, cheapest food, shows and rides and the best of everything happened from dusk to dawn; a pointed commentary and representation on the actual state of things.

She circled around a flimsy tent full of sidewalk-art; pretending to admire renditions of the Earthen Court in their ‘finery’ if you could call Their ugly as sin, drab cowls and robes that.  Maybe Their big, abstruse neck-chains and medals counted. She hadn’t been to anything approaching an arts-show in almost a year. Doctors were supposed to show up at those things; that expectation hadn’t changed.

Just as well she wasn’t officially a doctor now.

…Or was she. News was hard to find, and harder to sort out on which was real and which was make-believe.

POOF! Another many-limbed image twisted in the night sky, all pale green sparks fading to deep purples. Unsurprisingly, all the children from infancy up to the age of five began wailing; They were no doubt pleased at this reaction. The terror of human children was a sincere compliment to their craftsmanship.

She slowed, turned up her head and pretended to watch the latest image of the November Beast dissolute into darkness. Just another hypnotized or smitten adult; nothing to see here; keep moving… The sight itself wouldn’t hurt her, but she slept badly enough without pulling in more nightmare fuel.

This was not going to end well.

Of course it isn't, she thought as she moved, bending and twisting her skinny body to blend in with one swarm, then another. She wasn't moving in a straight line: it drew Their eye faster than anything; predator's eyes, resentful and overweening.

They liked to watch humans. It reminded Them They had won. They never passed over a chance to make an Arena out of this world and the humans who belonged to it.

She hoped her clothing wasn't standing out; she had a reasonable worry that They saw differently, and for that reason she avoided certain soaps and detergents. She had taught her people to clean with clematis leaves and rock lilies and soapwort or ivy if they couldn’t get soap. Nobody under her command, as it were, were allowed to wash their clothes in buckeye saponins like other fugitive groups; some wild animals saw those clothes as fluorescent; and if a wild animal could see them at night because of the wash, then perhaps They could see too.

And so far, her people had eluded discovery.

But the numbers of the rest were dropping.

Which wouldn't matter in an hour if she fell into Their clutches now.

You're fast approaching middle age, and you may not be clever enough to compensate for the limits of your ageing body. Eventually you’re going to run out of chances.

More fireworks blasted off. Her insides quailed. In the mixed light anyone could see her--human, Select, or Leviathan.

Keep moving.

Keep running.

Run.

No. Running is panic.

Never run from predators. It catches Their eyes

It would catch his.

Why did he have to be here?

If she were the screaming type, she would have screamed. Instead, she had to bottle up all the rage and grief and the numbing terror that hit her whenever he showed up in her life, be it real or just a ghost of her mind, a memory that tortured.

She knew why.

He knew her. 

She knew him better than anyone else in the world, but for that matter, He knew her, better than any of Them. At the very least, he knew how she was likely to react when frightened or furious or pushed too far; he knew the range of her possibilities when she was trapped or feeling desperate.

Everyone else who knew her better was dead. He was the last one who could possibly predict her movements. Quentin was the exception, but he was back in the Safelands; out of the equation. She had to stay away if she was to stay free to fight.

Sometimes, They had hunts. 

Sometimes, They made sport. A spectacle. Made an arena out of life.  All to teach the newly Shorn into this world how to "take care" of Their mortal worshippers when they strayed from the fold.

And he was a very good referee for Their lessons.

The man who had resisted being anyone’s slave was one of the leading figureheads for the new rule.  

God, the irony.

She dipped again, joining a human eddy full of sugar and fizzy drinks and cheap booth prizes; that sent her back a bit in the opposite direction, but better that than be obvious. Her clothing was drab and dull; her shoes the solid soles for the common laborers, capable of traveling hard.

Far away, the church bell rang; two hours from midnight.

It was almost too late.

It would be if she didn't move faster.

The next salvo of pyrotechnics was a riotous festival of purples and blues—the hardest fireworks to craft. They were showing off just a bit; demonstrating their higher levels of wisdom against humans.

Not that she was impressed; if it was science, it would be discovered eventually. That was a fact of life. She’d grown up in the Pennsylvania karstlands where you could still see the graffiti the escaping slaves left on the walls on their way North. Those same caves were excellent sources of saltpeter, a vital ingredient in home-made gunpowder.

As a teenager, she had bitterly resented the fact that the only summer-weekend-holiday jobs available to the poor immigrant kids like herself were those of a cave tour guide. Later as a medical student she had tossed that resentment because it had taught her so much about chemistry and biological sciences, and not a small amount of slapdash ceramic engineering.

Right now, her reluctant knowledge of cave geology was keeping Chris alive. Bar—he--might know everything there was to know about the sea-caves and smuggling of his family, but the Collinses had been almost single-mindedly focused on shore and sea and coast until Edmund’s time. Quentin had managed to share what he knew a hair’s-breadth ahead of Them before he yanked Carolyn and Liz to safety up in—

No. Don’t even try to finish that thought. If you really wanted to, you’d figure out where he took them. They’re safe as long as you don’t know.

She thought instead of Roger. She and Chris and Quentin had all tried to rescue him too, but he wouldn’t leave his son. Who could blame him? And where was he now?

More than likely, alive. For all his considerable flaws, Bar--he wouldn’t wish his family dead. He protected them. The Leviathans hadn’t utterly eradicated his hard-earned moral compass; she knew he still puzzled Them with his avoidance of cruelty, but in all other ways he was Their good and faithful servant. Valuable. Useful. Trusted. If They had begun the Invasion just a few years ago…perhaps. Perhaps he would have been more amenable to Their thinking and Their way of doing things.

David was doubtless still walking about free, but his father was holed up somewhere, and did David have enough David left inside him to care? She desperately hoped that would be the case. Roger reminded her a little too much like herself in his struggle to demonstrate love and affection to the people who loved him.

Fully aware of the irony, she paused by the wall of wanted posters. Hopefully They hadn't found a newer photo.  Nevertheless, it was a spot to rest up by the wall. And shaded. She drew up and set her back against the sun-warmed planks, closing her eyes for a moment to breathe. Behind her she knew the boards were liberally papered with faces and names of the proven thorns in the Leviathan side, under WANTED ads or OF CONCERN and the most insidious of all, HAVE YOU SEEN ME?

Odds of her face under one of those sections? 250%.

It was a cool comfort that the photo They used of her was out of date; an old one from 1967; one of her last stints in the short bob (sun-bleached blonder than her natural red) and holding a cigarette—she’d given that up in ’68. Also, her professional clothes. For better or for worse, she had been cursed from birth to look as though she would forever be on the wrong side of fun and games; a repressed old maid in love with boring old suits.

As Quentin had said with a grin, one look at that photo, and anyone would walk straight past her. He’d looked her up and down, all resplendent in blue jeans and LL Bean shirt and hiking boots and chuckled in a way that compelled her to hit him with a dish towel.

Thank God for Quentin. And Chris. And all the others. They were why she wouldn’t give up.

She reached up under her sun hat and scratched her sweat-itching scalp. It wasn’t easy to do without taking off that stupid hat, but she couldn't do much about her hair. Once the public knew her as a real redhead, that would be one more thing to look for. There weren't many dyes out there that didn't cost time, cost energy, and left an awful mess. They were almost out of sterile gloves; if only they had enough to spare she could try to darken her hair again.

Patients were more important than her safety. Barehanded surgery was terrifying. The fugitives weren't that rich in drugs and alcohol either. They were damned lucky she wasn’t the only doctor!

This stupid hat had been the best of the bad options; weather was still a-tricky and fall winds were coming. So, she’d clipped her hair down again, stuffed it under the ubiquitous straw gardening hat, the kind a million women wore against the elements, and hit the fair. Her contacts needed intel; she needed supplies.

And for most of the day, the plan had worked. She’d wandered, followed the lead of the crowd, bought a precious cup of coffee and made it last an hour, one tiny sip at a time. It wasn't persimmon seed coffee. It had caffeine. It was so good. She was tired and hungry, and her mind worn to the bone from the nonstop strain of her fugitive lifestyle.

Her contacts ran The Blind Booksellers tent by the grandstands. They paid well for oak galls and other things used for the making of their authentic period inks; the old couple had bad hearts and couldn't afford medicines but she could supply them. The children back at the base needed winter boots if they were going to get to the Safelands up north. Her people needed small things like darning kits and strong silk threads (for sewing up clothes and people, silk was best); the fugitives in the forest were stuffing milkweed fluff into jackets and blankets for winter. Amy needed education; she wanted to be a doctor and, well, it wasn't any cheaper to learn now than it was for Julia. It was also a lot less safer. She needed books. And they all desperately needed lye and sulfur. And salt. Precious salt. The salicornia collected off the shore was keeping them alive (and considerably healthier), but they needed the real thing for putting up winter stores.

Business made. Everyone happy. Julia knew better than to walk out with heavy goods weighing her down. She boxed it all and dropped it off at the post office, using a fake return name and address and paying in cash (like nearly everybody). It would go to their safety drop outside of Logansport. But it wound up costing her more than expected; nearly everything she had; her book of stamps had fallen out of her pocket.

She needed food. She was lightheaded. Water at the fountain would have to do. Drink deep then head back. Take the back, twisty route. Hope everyone was still alive and well at camp.

She had to loosen the scarf about her throat; her hat would get in the way otherwise. She was gulping the cold water down gratefully and thinking of nothing else. She was tired.

And she sensed he was in the crowd.

Shock hit like ball lightning. Her head jerked back; to all appearances she had swallowed wrong. Her eyes swam with choke tears and she stepped away from the fountain, hand over mouth. She couldn't stop coughing. Her formidable will couldn't fight this. Her feet backed her into a corner, and she clapped both hands over her mouth, then buried her mouth inside her shirt front, finally coughing it out at last. Exhausted, she could barely see.

She hadn't hallucinated it. He was somewhere around in the crowd; close. She knew it; she’d felt him, almost heard his surprise.

And now he was hunting her.

The hat. Her hat had twisted down her back, exposing her red hair. God. Damn. It. She yanked it back in place, tied it with flying fingers as she threw herself into a clot of passersby—

Where is he?

She burned to look around, knowing that was pure suicide. Don’t look. He’s close; you’ll know if he gets closer; hopefully.

Panic clawed up the throat of her very soul.

No. No you don't.

Ever since they had accidentally learned they could sense each other--after his attempt to take over her mind in that awful dream--it had been a nonstop, circling dance with only one possible outcome at the end.

She could hide and sob out her grief later, if there was a later. That flash of him in her mind, brushing against her very heart, her soul. The confusion, the torture of feelings between them—he’d use that to his advantage; he’d cheerfully play every trick to bring her into Their fold.

He could easily find her if he could just get close enough ...

She couldn't let him get that chance.

Her mind had already slammed down every defense she had begged, borrowed or stolen from other fugitives, those skilled in the mental arts, the occult, all the people forced to run first because They knew a threat when They saw them... Eliot had been a huge help before he fled to the Safelands with his newly-orphaned niece, gave her the sapphire to obfuscate mind-control and the one book he recommended for developing mental techniques. But it wouldn't do much against a true Leviathan mind.

Sapphire; her birthstone. ‘Sapphires on the brow to bind,’ went the poem, ‘twill cure diseases of the mind.’ And she would have loved it for that reason alone;

She also loved it because most of Them had no idea it had that power. They were paranoid of humans getting their hands on the Tourmaline that so severely weakened their control. Eliot had been the one to figure it out; why of all places, he had wondered, for Leviathans to invade, why here? And the answer was, Maine was the continent’s largest natural supply of tourmaline. Oh, there were other minerals that helped—the beryls, garnets… some frankly very strange freshwater pearls that he said was related to Their fear of drowning, but Tourmaline? They had to get their multitudinous little hands on all the tourmaline if They hoped to keep Their control over humans.

This was but one of the many, many reasons why there was an outstanding warrant for Professor T. Eliot Stokes, even if all They found were a pile of lightning-struck ashes. If humans had discovered monsters were real, then the monsters had learned to Their sorrow that humans like Stokes were real too.

Also, fun fact: Sapphires came in different colors besides blue. The Leviathans would someday regret being so out of touch with the race They were subjugating.

She was almost to the western gate.

It was still Bad Form to make an example out of someone in public; there were still too many humans blundering about free, or at least, freer than desired. For that reason alone, she figured she had a decent enough chance of getting out of the fairgrounds and then she could really take off; hit the forest trail that connected the fairgrounds with the original horseriding trails, dating from when the first harvest festivals were delivered a la hayburners.

They were all wondering how long it would take before the Leviathans sent human technology back down into the Dark Ages again.

Get through the gate; hit that trail; get over the Bridge of Ghosts and jump in that car and move!

Her main hope of escape hung on whether he could tell she'd been learning those mental skills. Surprise and invisibility were her only weapons now, and her nerve and brains were the emergency backups.

This was, of course, assuming any of the Leviathans would underestimate her after what she did to Windcliffe. She was the biggest reason why They were so low in True Followers in this part of the world.

And damned if she’d regret what she’d done. War was ugly. The best way to fight invaders was to fight back even harder.

Keep going. Keep running. Standing still will get attention. Moving too slow will get attention. Moving too fast will get attention. Moving against the flow of the crowd will get attention.

Would he even recognize her, the way she was? She looked like a worn-down farmer. No dresses. No neat hair or that fussy jewelry she was expected to wear as a staid and passionless doctor...was he looking for the woman she once was?

There. A faint feathering brush against the edge of her awareness. Eliot’s sapphire would take the edge off but if he got within twenty feet it wouldn't work nearly so well.  He was hunting, alright. His alerts were up, delighted.

Things have been boring for you, huh?  She wondered darkly. My heart bleeds.

Leviathans, True or Inducted, or the newly converted called the Shorn, or the willing volunteers They called the Select; They all loved a good hunt.

Don't think to post watch at the gates, she prayed. Not yet… 

He might not. Leviathans didn’t want their games to end too soon…

A flicker; a ripple; drawing in. He was close; too close!

The gatekeeper lazily turned as she approached and for a heart stopping second, she thought it was all over; he must have seen how frantic she was trying not to look; how she was breathing hard, but as he straightened up, the largest fireworks yet turned the sky into a kaleidoscope of every color under the sun, plus a hint of that Color from Space that absolutely sent every human under the age of twelve shrieking at the top of their lungs.

And the Gatekeeper, it seemed, was one of the Select; he lifted a reverent hand in salute, his badge, that damn skarn-stone ring with the hateful Naga set in gold sparkled back the lights of the fire-flowers. That easily, she was forgotten.

On its own, one of Roger’s favorite quotes from Voltaire struck her mind as she turned and gave the show her own patriotic salute: It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

So true.

Thank God she had conformed and turned around to salute the false stars.

He was walking out of the edges of the sighing crowd.

The Inverness cape, that cane, the silver gleaming in the sparkling night. The darkness of his hair brushed to the side, contrasting that too-thin, too-pale face.

A hundred feet away.

Calmly.

Straight to her.

Walking.

And Julia ran.

Which, she knew—anyone with sense knew—was stupid. You didn’t run at night! You didn’t run if you couldn’t see the ground clearly!

Her IQ would have to deal with it; she wasn’t great for running more than a short distance, but he wasn’t either; his usual knack was to simply walk until his quarry gave out from exhaustion, following their psychic trail as patiently as a hound. He could walk forever without tiring.

The riding trail loomed before her, the pale dusty soils like chalk in the darkness. It would have to do; she could only hope against tricks and wires and traps.

And stay out of close range; don’t let him get close enough that he can lock on you again! It was only dumb luck that you got away that time; he learns from his mistakes!

There was only one way to go. The bridge over Shade Creek and the parking-lot for the stables. He didn’t know her car was there, but he was probably guessing on it. And the lot had only one way in and out for vehicles. He only had to get to that bottleneck while she was running for her car.

There.

Shade Creek Bridge loomed up. Single-suspension; plank deck held up by the rope on each side. Never had that ugly, cheap contraption over a haunted stream looked better.  The black iron lamp-posts framed each side from the banks, set in concrete and anchoring it all down, bending like flower-stalks. Bright for the comfort of weak human eyes; she still couldn’t dare hope they would hurt him enough to slow him down.

Her soles slammed on the deck of the rope-bridge, stinging her bones. She didn't want to, but deep in the water she could see the angry dead; the November Beast's first victims, still flowing upstream from the Bay, seeking True Leviathans to kill.

They'd found Shady Creek three months ago; and Shady Creek from the forest was now Shade Creek because Shade was an old word for ghost.

The burning eyes and white teeth of The Murdered were a forest of white speckles as they rose, breaking surface. They smelled him; he wasn't one of the True, but he would do if they could catch him. They would settle for an inferior revenge. And with each True Leviathan they did devour, they spread deeper inland, one fell step closer to the Earthen Court at a time.

Oh, the Leviathans had miscalculated so very much with the dead. Humans had only grown stronger in Their absence. The truth waited patiently under the water. If mirrors held up truth, then Shade Creek was an onyx mirror, its black waters reflecting the reckoning waiting for them.

The back of her neck cringed; he was gaining. The boards rippled and swayed from the impact of her foot-falls; one last burst of speed to the opposite bank.

With her last strength, Julia slammed her small hand into the black plastic box she’d mounted under the lamp on the right before entering the fairgrounds.

Saltpeter cave tour guides knew how to make gunpowder.

And after rigging up a full laboratory on acid-vat batteries in a basement, it was child’s play to make a detonator.

Barnabas had the intelligence to stop in time.

He was just a few seconds too late to catch up.

The rope-bridge fell into the water, the fuses still burning the strut-cords; it sank with barely a splash and drifted down towards the Bay. The Murdered watched it curiously, but the bulk of their glares were for the man standing on the other side.

She couldn’t move; she wanted to move, to run, throw her body backwards and out of the range of his eyes but everything she was had been frozen up from fear and exhaustion and too little reserves.  Her lungs ached; she could barely breathe. Delayed shock.

His eyes met hers thirty feet across the ruins of the Bridge of Ghosts.

They might have been three inches apart.

She’d forgotten what his eyes did to her; she’d had to block the memory to function.

All those long days and nights fighting him before the November Beast rose from Frenchman Bay (now November Bay) and sealed the Rule of the Leviathans…

They’d stared into each other’s gaze with every frequent fight, just like now. And each time, she had wondered what had happened to him to make those gorgeous hazel eyes so dark and dancing, so deadly and compelling at the same time. Even when he had been in the midst of his Curse, he hadn’t been this way.

Move, she screamed into her mind.

She couldn’t.  Her mind coldly told her she was just too tired; she’d spent everything she had in getting to safety and now there was nothing left.

He could see that; she saw him read that.

Saw the corners of his thin starveling mouth turn up.

Saw his nut-brown eyes gleam.

Saw that he knew what she knew: she was running out of time.

He’d failed in this latest attempt to bring her back to the Court, but with each encounter, he drew a little closer.

So, yes, she was safe.

For now.

Until next time.

There was a phone booth on his side of the creek. He didn’t bother to call for help; by the time the authorities reached them, she’d be long gone. There was no point outside of ordering a lockdown between Collinsport and Rutland, the next stop down.

So, he just watched, amused.

It always felt like something was pulling her heart out of her chest with gaffing hooks.

And what did he feel under that smile? Was she what he said she was? An annoyance? An inconvenience? Someone more trouble than she was worth? Before they parted ways for good, he’d gotten strange, less antagonistic with her, even smooth and obsequious. He’d wanted her to open that terrible box in his hands.

What would happen to her if he showed her the box again?

She was afraid of that answer. If Barnabas, one of the strongest men she’d ever known, strong beyond belief, had fallen, what chance did she have?

But she still couldn’t look away. The past they’d shared was still too strong in her heart, even if her mind knew the truth. Each time they collided could be the last; either as they were, or her last time as a free person.

I miss you. I remember when we were friends. When we moved together against your family’s enemies. I remember. I remember how much you needed me, even when you were callous to my fear. I heard you scream at Aristede. You would have killed him for killing me, and you would have enjoyed it. You would have spent hours killing him, even though I never wanted that.

She still lived that terrible moment trapped in time, when she felt the bullet split her chest.

He was still smiling. That horrible, horrible corners-up smile of his thin mouth, the one he used when he was deep in the sociopathy of vampirism, when he knew he had all the cards and she was nothing more than a weakling, her life dependent on how useful or amusing she was to him.

She hadn’t given up on him then; but now?

Was she delusional in her suspicion that, deep down, he wanted to be free from all of this? After he regained his humanity, he hunted poor Tom; told her every night he returned to his own coffin he prayed for someone to end him once and for all. And that had shaken her to the bone; he had never once confessed to something so humble when the Curse controlled him.

What if she gave up on him now? Packed up and followed her people north? Would she then prove a hypocrite?

No.

She couldn’t.

Like it or not, they both knew she loved him beyond reason.

She loved him because she saw his capacity for love.

And he rejected it because he didn’t see it.

She knew he didn’t love her but that didn’t matter, did it? If she turned her back on him after all they’d shared, she would be no better than any self-absorbed monster who only lived to please herself.

He knew that too.

“Well done, Dr. Hoffman. Another round to you.” He was still smiling. One opponent to another; she was almost his equal in this moment.

She didn’t trust herself to speak. Honestly, she wasn’t sure if she could.

"Yes, another round to you...but each one is a harder victory, isn't it? We can wait, Dr. Hoffman. We have the patience of stone. How much patience do you have?"

I have the patience of sound, Julia thought. As long as there is someone left to cry for justice, or hear the complaints of the dead...I'll keep fighting.

“But you had best hurry, hadn’t you?” Still that smile. Still that amusement. A taunt. “It won’t take long for the others to catch up, and I can hold the Murdered back long enough for a few to ford.”

Damn. Another suspicion confirmed; the Leviathan powers were changing in Barnabas; hybridizing his original occult abilities with Theirs.

Prodding her to run, because a part of him wanted her to get away? Or prolong his hunt? She didn’t know, any more than she knew why he never carried a gun when he could have easily brought her down so simply.

It hurt like everything, but she mustered up the strength to lift her chin. From across the stream, she could meet his gaze; his ability to mesmerize her and put her to sleep was much weaker over the water.

She was turning away. Her back to him. Walking away from him again, even though it felt like she was leaving a piece of herself behind with him.

Because you are.

The forest swallowed her up; she didn’t dare one last glimpse of him. He might be using the phone after all; she didn’t want to know. Her car was so close, and he didn’t know what it looked like. She’d get it; get the hell out of here, take the Old Highway back, double around and ditch it, make it look like she was heading to Cribstone instead of Mt. Desert.

And then, finally, she could sit down and let the tears flow.