Codex Born

“That’s why you agreed to do this, isn’t it?” Nidhi asked. “To remember what life feels like. To touch what you lost.”

The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled, and for a moment his smile flickered. The amusement snapped back into place an instant later, along with a dismissive sneer. “You expect me to mourn my lost humanity? To weep for the forgotten days when I scurried about as one of you, an insect scavenging in the dirt?”

Deb cleared her throat. “Dr. Shah, please don’t play mind games with the sociopathic ghost-talker.”

“Victor fought well,” Nicholas said. “But he soon realized there were too many for him to defeat. That understanding broke his will. It marked the beginning of his death.”

“We didn’t bring you here to give you a peep show into Victor’s last moments,” I said tightly.

“No, you brought me because you need my help.” Nicholas turned. “There are too many dead. I have to find the moment the life left his body. Only then will he speak to me.” He scowled and crossed through the family room, then climbed the steps to the second floor. A narrow hallway separated two bedrooms on the left from the stairs and bathroom on the right. The right side of Nicholas’ face twitched as he looked about, his eyes tightening as if he could see through the walls. A moment later, he relaxed. “Ah, yes. Victor retreated to his workshop.”

Nicholas stepped down the hall and opened a door into a pink-painted bedroom. A rainbow-colored ceiling fan spun lazily overhead.

“Watch your step,” said Lena.

A young girl had stripped the blankets and pillows from her bed, turning them into a makeshift fort. She lay sleeping, a yellow pony clutched in one hand. From the array of toys spread through the room, it looked like the Jedi and the My Little Ponies had been fighting an army of Barbies and LEGO figures.

“Victor kills two more vampires here,” said Nicholas. “Metal creatures bore through the heart of the first, reducing him to ash, but Victor is injured. The life and will drain from his body with every step. Another vampire follows him into this room.” Nicholas stepped to the side, as if clearing a path for the phantom assailant. “Victor snaps his fingers, and the overhead light flickers. The vampire’s skin begins to sizzle.”

“Ultraviolet bulbs,” I guessed. They would have burned many species of vampire as effectively as sunlight. “Tell me about the metal creatures. How was Victor controlling them? Where did they come from, and how many were there?”

Nicholas ignored me. “Another enters through the window. His skin sparkles in the light. He smashes Victor into the wall. Pain and confusion flood Victor’s senses. He is angry. Frightened. He isn’t ready for death. There’s so much yet to do.”

“That sounds like Victor,” Nidhi said quietly.

Nicholas whirled. “Be silent!”

Nidhi jumped. Both guards moved in, and Jeff’s hackles rose, but I didn’t think Nicholas was talking to us. His attention was elsewhere, and he sounded genuinely angry.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Death attracts death. The ghosts are pulled to this place. They clamor like children.”

I looked to Deb, hoping she would know whether this was normal behavior or a sign that our ghost-talker was about to snap. She spread her hands and shrugged.

“Victor’s thoughts tunnel inward.” Nicholas’ words grew louder. “Why him? Why now? He doesn’t want to die alone.”

“Enough ghouling.” Deb swatted him on the back of the head like he was a misbehaving puppy. “Can you talk to the dead guy or not?”

“Yes,” Nicholas said grudgingly.

“Ask him about the insects,” I said.

Nicholas mumbled to himself, repeating the questions in another tongue. An old form of French, if I wasn’t mistaken. “He reverse-engineered one of Gutenberg’s automatons.”

Deb was the first to recover her voice. “He did what?”

“It’s all about miniaturization and user interface these days,” Nicholas said. The intonation was Victor’s. It was spooky. “Microscopic spells laser-etched onto the inner workings, telepathic interface, and as much memory and storage as I could give them.”

“Why?” I asked.

“To search out lost and forgotten magic. I sent six prototype scouts into the world. One was eaten by a bass. Another was struck by a locomotive. Three survived to report back, sharing their findings with the queen, and through her, with me.”

“A bass?” I thought back to the damage they had done to Lena’s tree. “That shouldn’t have stopped these things.”

“I could have ordered it to work free, but that would have hurt the fish.”

It was such a Victor thing to say, I couldn’t help but smile. “What about the sixth?”

“Lost overseas.” He shuddered, then stared blankly at the empty air where Victor had died.

“Tell us about the queen,” I said.

Nicholas relayed the question. “A cicada, three inches long, with carbon fiber wings and a titanium exoskeleton. A redundant twin-chip brain. The eyes were tiny black pearls. She was magnificent, Isaac. I wish I’d been able to show her off. You would have loved her.”

“The queen controls the other insects?” I asked.

“The song of the cicada can reach 120 decibels. My queen’s commands are silent to our ears, but her children can hear her even from the far side of the world.”

“What did you tell her as you were dying?” asked Nidhi.

Nicholas stepped back and seemed to come back to himself. “Victor cupped her in his hands.” He brought his own hands together, mimicking Victor’s final seconds. “Past and present flooded together as the barriers of memory crumbled. In his mind, he was a child once more. He was in pain, but didn’t remember where it had come from. He knew only that he wanted comfort. Like a child, he called out.”

“He wanted family,” Nidhi whispered, her words clipped. Her hands tightened into fists.

“Yes,” said Nicholas. “Victor sent the queen to fetch his father.”

7

Frank Dearing died in late autumn, after the trees had shed their leaves, but before the snow arrived to freeze the earth.

I was asleep in my oak when he died. The shock felt as though lightning had split my tree, blackening the exposed heartwood. I ran to the house as quickly as I could, but even before I reached the bedroom, I knew he was gone.

He looked little like the man I loved. His eyes were open, and his lips were pale and dry. He had been sleeping in red long johns, which smelled of urine. His upper body was bare, and the skin on his chest was unnaturally pale.

I scooped him into my arms. His limbs hung limp. Even his skin sagged loosely, emphasizing the bones beneath.

My thoughts were clouded as if I had been drinking, though I had spent much of the night in my oak, and time in my tree usually cleansed alcohol and its effects from my body. I didn’t know what to do. I had no other friends, nor had I ever wanted or needed any. Frank was my world.

I acted on instinct, carrying him from the house. I wove carefully through the trees, making sure not a single branch snagged my lover’s hair or scratched his skin. I hated the coolness of his body against me. My tears dripped onto his chest.

When I reached my oak, my first impulse was to bring him into the tree with me and never emerge, but that felt wrong. Disrespectful and wasteful.

I knew human burial customs, but I couldn’t let Frank be locked away in a box, buried forever in the earth while the ex-wife who had turned her back on him waited impatiently to scavenge through his belongings.