Codex Born

of what I was, or of anything save the need to destroy me. This was different. Instead of incoherent fury, I sensed both fear and determination. Her attack was similar, but more controlled.

She was also stronger. These books, and whoever or whatever was acting through them, had been holding back.

I felt her attention splinter. She lashed out to slap the bench, which broke in two and stopped moving. Another strike knocked the automaton to the ground. She had plunged us all into a whirlpool of naked power. Even Guan Feng looked afraid as she limped toward us.

Where had they come from, and why would they follow a man like Harrison? Their power dwarfed whatever magic he had managed to steal from the Porters.

“Lena, get out of here!” I crawled away from the book and used the wall to push myself upright. A wendigo was bounding toward me on all fours. “Tell them we’ve been chasing Saruman.”

I hoped she would understand. Saruman was a dangerous villain in Lord of the Rings, but he hadn’t been the true threat. If whoever or whatever was trapped in these books got loose, they would make Gutenberg look like an amateur stage magician fumbling his way through cheap card tricks.

Several hundred pounds of wendigo slammed into me like a wrecking ball. My head bounced against the ground, and I rolled several times before coming to rest. As my vision gradually came back into focus, I found myself looking up at a snarling, frostbitten face that retained just enough humanity to be truly monstrous.

“I think you and I both know Lena’s not going to leave you alone.” August Harrison strode toward us, one thumb hooked through his belt loop. Metal creatures crawled over his chest and shoulders, like piglets fighting for their mother’s teat. Many were larger than the insects we had seen before, more like those Madagascar hissing cockroaches some people kept as pets. I searched for the queen, the cicada Nicholas had described, but couldn’t find it.

Harrison pulled an old paperback from his back pocket and fanned through the pages. I swore when I spotted the cover art. A yellow-and-red border framed an image of two scantily clad warrior women fighting over a well-muscled man chained to an oak tree. Harrison had tracked down a copy of Nymphs of Neptune.

“You write well, Isaac. Such detailed reports. I can’t begin to tell you how helpful you’ve been to my little army.” He tugged a rusted metal millipede off of his shirt and held it out for me to see. “I might not have Victor’s gifts, but I know my way around a machine shop. If he had shared these secrets with me, let me help him build sturdier, stronger creatures, he might have survived that attack.”

I heard genuine regret, even grief in his words as he stared past me. Despite everything he had done, Victor had been a part of his life for years. What must it have been like when the cicada arrived? If it was telepathic, did that mean it had shared Victor’s final, agonized moments with August Harrison?

Harrison brought the millipede closer, and any sympathy I had disappeared. Pointed iron legs clicked together. A series of overlapping brackets formed the segmented shell. Instead of antennae, a single slender blade protruded from the center of the millipede’s face, like some kind of stiletto-headed unicorn bug. The millipede was long enough to circle Harrison’s wrist with several inches to spare.

He dropped it onto my chest. I tried to fling it away, only to have the wendigo stomp on my arm. If I had been on pavement instead of grass, he would have shattered bone. I lay perfectly still as the millipede crawled higher and circled my neck.

Harrison turned to shout. “Miss Greenwood, I’m tired of games. I’ll give you thirty seconds, and then I’m going to let one of my pets bore a hole through your lover’s skull.”

He was sweating beneath that coat of bugs. I could see the dampness as they moved. His face was red, and he was out of breath.

Guan Feng approached, hugging her book to her body. She scowled at me like I was the genetically engineered offspring of Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper.

“Perhaps she needs more encouragement.” Harrison turned to the trees again. “You’ve lost one oak this year. Are you strong enough to survive the death of another?”

“Going after Lena’s tree didn’t work out too well for you last time,” I said. “How many more of your son’s toys can you afford to lose?”

He waved a hand, and the millipede’s grip tightened with a metallic click.

“You have no idea what you’ve allied yourself with, do you?” I asked. I didn’t bother hiding my smirk. If he was going to kill me, the least I could do was piss him off before I died. “You’re nothing but a parasite. I don’t know what they need you for, but as soon as they get it—”

“August.” Lena emerged from the trees carrying a long wooden spear. One of the wendigos jumped in front of Harrison to shield him, but Lena only laughed and hefted the spear over one shoulder. “You think I can’t put this thing through both of you?”

The millipede raced onto my face. It was heavier than I had expected, and its legs stung like thorns. I heard a whirring sound, and pain pierced the center of my forehead.

Harrison raised his book. “Even if that were true, killing me would guarantee Isaac’s death, and we both know you can’t do that.”

Blood dripped down the side of my head. I turned my head to keep the blood from running into my ear, which brought Guan Feng into the center of my vision. She was staring at Lena, and her eyes had filled with tears. She didn’t seem to be afraid. Not of Lena, at any rate. If anything, she looked like she was afraid to trust what she was seeing, like she wanted to touch Lena to confirm that she was real. She noticed me watching, and her expression turned to stone.

Lena stabbed her spear into the earth. The millipede pulled back, obeying Harrison’s unspoken command. My jaw unclenched, and I forced myself to breathe normally.

“Search her,” Harrison barked at Guan Feng. “Strip her of any magic, and don’t let her have any wood. Not even a toothpick.”

Lena smiled and spread her arms, never taking her eyes from August Harrison. Her unwavering attention even made me nervous. “If you hurt Isaac, I will shove an acorn down your throat and force it to take root in your gut. Care to guess how tall it will grow before you finally die?”

Harrison stepped forward and backhanded her. I pushed myself up, but the wendigo gave me an almost absentminded kick in the head.

Lena never even blinked. “Is your hand okay?”

Harrison grimaced and rubbed his knuckles. “It doesn’t matter. As long as I have him, you’re mine. And once you’ve spent enough time in my company, you’ll kill him yourself.”

Lena’s gaze dropped to me, and for the first time, her confidence cracked. As strong as she was, we both knew Harrison was right.

11

I understand humans are unable to remember their first years of life. Their bodies and minds develop so much, and so quickly during that time. Perhaps that’s why I remember so little of those early sessions with Nidhi Shah. I’ve read her case notes, but much of the person she describes is a stranger.

Only two thoughts etched themselves into my memory during that first meeting. The first was Nidhi’s smile, beautiful and warm and reassuring. The second was my realization toward the end of the day that I was completely in love with her.

I learned so much from her. Nidhi said one way Frank controlled me was to make sure I never acquired the skills to be independent. Because it made her happy, I threw myself into study.

I mastered reading in three weeks. We began with children’s stories, like Doctor Seuss and the Berenstain Bears. (I learned later that she had deliberately avoided giving me a copy of The Giving Tree.) Once I could make it through those, she brought me a handful of comic books.

I devoured them. Tank Girl and Wonder Woman, She-Hulk and Batman, Catwoman and Katana.