Trapped

was, he might soon have shot himself by accident; but before that could happen, the Mind-Lord burst through the deck of Jode's ship.

Deck planks are solid: thick lumber, nailed down securely and braced with cross-beams. Yet the Spark broke through like a cannonball, smashing up from the captain's cabin into the open, scattering hunks of wood and splinters into the rigging.

He came out headfirst, and the impact should have killed him; armor or not, the jolt of having your cranium slammed through a wooden floor should snap your neck. But the armor was surrounded by that violet glow of unnatural fire. It had flared to blinding intensity as the Mind-Lord crashed into view — so fierce, Zunctweed thought it might have incinerated the wood in its path a millisecond before the Spark Lord hurtled upward. Like a battering ram of flame, it hit so hard and hot that it vaporized a section of decking before the armor actually made contact with the timbers.

Whatever saved him, the Mind-Lord was still alive as he soared into black sky. He writhed like a snake with a nail through its belly, rocketing haphazardly as if his suit was out of control. Now and then, the boot-jets misfired, cutting out for a second of sputtering… and in those moments of silence, one could hear muted gagging inside the armor. The sounds of a man choking to death. Then the suit's engines would gust back to life, spewing steam into the cold night air and drowning out the strangled noises within.

High overhead the Spark Lord flew, tracing a zigzag path. When his jets fizzled out, he would plunge toward the water; when they caught fire again, he would aim himself upward, as if height might offer salvation. No telling why he didn't head for shore… but he remained above the anchorage, glowing in the darkness, a bright purple star—

—until he exploded.

A sunburst of light and hot flame. Perhaps deliberate destruction; perhaps some disastrous malfunction, a tiny electrical discharge igniting the tanks that fueled the suit's rockets. Whatever the cause, it was ferocious: a ripping blast that boomed through the night, scattering orange armor in all directions. The man inside plummeted, hair on fire. A human match-stick, falling through blackness… until he smacked the surface of the water with an ear-cracking slap. The flames on his head were doused out. One nearby fisherman caught a glimpse of charred flesh and a face with its eyelids burned off; then the blackened remains sank into the lake's embrace.

Bits of armor rained down on the ships. Zunctweed claimed he was almost brained by a falling glove — an orange plastic gauntlet that struck the Dinghy hard enough to chip the deck. The plank beneath the glove caught fire, smoke curling up between the fingers until Zunctweed grabbed a water bucket and dumped it over the blaze. (A hiss of steam. The smell of wet ash.)

Zunctweed nudged the gauntlet with his foot. The motion dislodged a nodule of gooey white from the wrist of the glove — something that must have been clinging to the Spark Lord's hand when the armor exploded. Gingerly, Zunctweed picked up the glove and shook it; more curds plopped onto the deck. Zunctweed stared at them, then backed away. Later, he would order the NikNiks to swab the little white nuggets into the lake.

But for now, he kept his distance and turned back to look at Jode's ship. Jode had come up on deck… if it really was Jode. To Zuncrweed's eyes, the creature returning from the captain's quarters was the same color Jode had been in the IR and UV parts of the spectrum. To everyone else, it must have looked different — a beast wearing Jode's clothing but no longer close to human.

It was oozing and puffy, its skin resembling white sponge toffee covered in syrup. Milky fluid dripped on the deck and sloshed as the creature walked. Jode's head was a lump of wet bread dough, unmarked by hair or facial features. The hands showed no fingers now — just bulging stumps, as if all traces of human physiology had been kneaded into undifferentiated protoplasm. Slowly the creature moved to the railing; then it spoke in a gargling version of Jode's voice.

'I should kill you all.'

The words carried eerily over the water; the only other noise came from waves lapping against boat hulls. 'I should kill you all, but that goddamned Spark may have sent a mayday before he died. If reinforcements are coming, I can't waste time silencing you.'

The creature made a fierce cluttering sound. Jode's crew, a group of NikNiks purchased from Papa Kinnderboom when Jode first arrived in Dover, scurried up from below and began to weigh anchor. 'Now pay attention,' the monster called to the people on other boats. 'Keep your fucking mouths shut, or I'll come back and kill you. Trust me on this. If you talk, you'll die. I can look like anyone — your mother, your wife, your very best friend — and you won't know it's me till your throat is slit. So not a word! To anyone!'

The thing slapped its hand on the railing… a heavy wet sound. 'Sooner or later, more Sparks will show up — asking what happened to their precious brother.' Jode pointed to where the Mind-Lord's body had sunk. 'Not a word, you hear me? Or you'll regret it.'

Jode spat over the railing — a clot of maggoty white. Then the creature turned to his NikNiks and shouted more orders at them in their ratty tongue. Preparations for departure didn't take long; Jode must have kept the boat ready to leave at a moment's notice. Within minutes, the ship drew away from the anchorage, heading farther out into the lake… and in all that time, no one else uttered a word.

Next dawn, the anchorage dispersed. Few people spoke to their neighbors; those who did, mumbled they were leaving because the thaw had finally come.

Zunctweed traded away the gauntlet that had fallen onto his deck — the human glove didn't fit Zunctweed's alien hand. In exchange, he got the helmet. The woman who'd pulled the helmet out of her rigging was glad to get rid of it; she said it gave her the creeps because it always seemed to be watching her.

Jode's ship ran aground on nearby Long Point two days later. No one was aboard. The bodies of three drowned NikNiks washed up on a little-used beach the following night. The rest hadn't yet been found.

The Mind-Lord's body hadn't been found either. I doubted it would ever turn up. Fish must be ravenously hungry after a long cold winter.

When Zunctweed had finished his tale, the rest of us said nothing for a long while. Finally, Myoko broke the silence. 'Now we know why Dreamsinger came to Dover. Looking for her brother.'

Impervia sniffed disapprovingly. 'If this Mind-Lord Priest disappeared five days ago, why did it take Spark Royal so long to investigate?'

'Busy elsewhere,' I said. 'Nobody knows how many Lords there are at any one time, but it's probably less than a dozen… and they have to police the entire planet. A crisis or two, and there's no one left for other things. Besides, Sparks can take care of themselves; and they're given a lot of autonomy. The High Lord certainly doesn't organize a search party if one of the kids misses dinner.'

Pelinor sucked his mustache. 'So this Mind-Lord runs afoul of Jode… and eventually Dreamsinger comes to check her brother's last known location.'

'But what was Jode?' Gretchen asked. 'I've never heard of a demon who could look human.'

'I have,' I said.

I told them our chancellor's tale of stealing tobacco… and of the creature the Sparks called a Lucifer, waiting there in ambush. Annah helped with parts of the story, for which I was grateful; if Annah hadn't been there, Impervia might have thrown me over the side to keep Zunctweed company. As it was, she simply glowered like a thunderhead. When I finished, Impervia said, 'You couldn't have mentioned this sooner?'

'Opal wanted it kept secret,' I answered. 'She made Annah and me promise we wouldn't tell anyone else unless it became absolutely necessary.'

Impervia glared… but she couldn't very well say we should have broken our promise. Meanwhile, the Caryatid (ever a peacemaker) said, 'What's past is past. The point is, now we know what's happening.'

'Do we?' Pelinor asked. 'Oh good. What's happening?'

Myoko growled in exasperation. 'There's a shapeshifter thing called a Lucifer. It pretended to be a man named Josh Jode. It killed a Spark Lord, leaving behind little white nuggets. Rosalind died the same way… so she must have been killed by a Lucifer too.'

I remembered Dreamsinger grabbing me in Nanticook House, calling me a fool for thinking the curds had been a bioweapon. All along, it had been the Lucifer. Probably the same Lucifer. But Dreamsinger said it had mutated. Somehow it changed itself so its metabolism no longer matched its former profile.

Did that explain what happened to Mind-Lord Priest? He must have had some kind of detection equipment that registered Josh Jode as alien… but thanks to the Lucifer's mutation, the equipment couldn't identify what kind of alien Jode was. The Mind-Lord hadn't suspected he was dealing with a Lucifer; therefore, he'd been taken by surprise.

But why did Priest come after Jode in the first place? Had Jode done something to attract attention? Or had…

Wait. Opal told us she was stationed in Feliss because the Sparks believed something bad would happen in the neighborhood. Given that kind of advance information, the Sparks would take the precaution of sweeping the area now and then for anything unusual. Priest had shown up a few days ago; he'd set his detection gear to search for alien life-forms; and he'd got a reading on a species his equipment didn't recognize.

The Mind-Lord had confronted Jode. But Priest hadn't been careful enough.

'And now,' Myoko said, finishing her summary for Pelinor's benefit, 'the shapeshifting Mr. Jode is pretending to be Rosalind Tzekich. Heading for Niagara Falls with Sebastian.'

'Oh,' said Pelinor. 'And Sebastian doesn't know? I thought he was a top-notch psychic.'

'He is. But his powers don't usually activate unless he tells them to. What are the odds he's explicitly going to check if his girlfriend is an alien in disguise?'

'I've wanted to check that with some of my boyfriends,' Gretchen said.

Everyone ignored her.

'Zunctweed,' the Caryatid called. 'How long has Jode been in Dover?'

'Five years,' came a voice from just above the waterline. 'A long, long time. When one compares five years to the short period I've been suspended above this lake, I know I shouldn't complain. Still, there you are. They say one's experience of time is relative to one's mental suffering… and I discover it to be true. Isn't that interesting? Perhaps Dr. Dhubhai would like to write a scientific paper.'

Myoko, who'd been holding Zunctweed all this while (and who'd been so distracted by my tale of Opal and the Lucifer that she'd let her hair fall back to normal), made a disgusted face and flipped the Patata captain back onto the deck. Meanwhile, the Caryatid said, 'If Jode was here five full years, you have to wonder why.'

'Sebastian,' Impervia answered immediately. 'Jode was watching Sebastian.'

'You think so?'

Impervia nodded. 'You saw how Dreamsinger reacted when she realized a Lucifer was taking the boy to Niagara Falls. She squealed like a stuck pig. Obviously, Dreamsinger had a suspicion Jode would use Sebastian for something horrible.'