Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls - Jane Lindskold [79]
Moving slightly so that I can see the upper Jungle, I catch sight of Eleanora, her back to us, clambering down.
Softly, I warn my companions, “Don’t move. She may think me unconscious or dead.”
We wait, a frozen tableau, but the pose is for nothing.
“I know you’re conscious, baby sister,” Dr. Haas purrs. “So don’t bother with the possum thing—or is it the ostrich one—not playing dead, but hiding your head?”
I hear echoes of forgotten nursery rhymes in her words, but let them slip away as I roll to face her.
“That’s good enough,” she commands as I start to get up. “Stay where you are. I rather like the picture, you languishing among the pillows.”
As I shove myself into a sitting position, bruises scream at me for abusing them. Eleanora doesn’t try to stop me.
“So, here we end it,” she says, walking towards me. “I can’t trick you like I did Dylan, but you’re still in my way.”
She seems different as she approaches, her walk stiff, her lithe grace missing. And something is wrong with her face—a network of lines seams her exposed flesh: hands, face, throat, legs. I shake my head and look closer, but the lines are still there.
Ignoring her warning, I shove myself to my feet. I feel as Athena flutters to my shoulder, landing with a faint tug on my hair. Betwixt and Between march from their pillow to stand between my feet.
Muscle aches fade instantly as I ignore them to focus on the woman stiffly lurching toward me—her image more menacing, more distorted than I know her to be. She smiles crookedly and, reaching into her bag, withdraws a tranq gun similar to those which had armed the Institute guards.
“Believe me, the slivers aren’t sleepy dope; they’re crystalline poison. Instantly dead—unfortunately painless. Believe me, I’d have it another way if I could.”
Believe.
The word resonates in my mind. Of course. I look at Eleanora and see that the lines on her face and hands are seams, stitched there by an awkward hand. I remember Professor Isabella reading to me the story of a man who made a son from spare parts, but wasn’t willing to accept the monster he had made. The monster, however, never stopped wanting the love and appreciation of the people who had rejected it.
Somehow, Eleanora—brilliant, pretty woman that she was—had never stopped wanting to be the chosen one, had never forgiven Dr. Aldrich for making her feel like the unwanted monster.
All of this flashes into my mind in the same instant that I am scooping up a large chintz pillow and hurling it at Eleanora. She dodges stiffly and fires her gun, but her movement ruins her aim. I cannot spare the energy to doubt that the slivers will kill me, just as she promises—our minds are too intimately intertwined at this point.
Unlike Grey Brother or Midline, I have no idea how to disarm her, but a strange idea comes to me as I scoop up an oval sofa cushion and fling it into her face. Dropping low, I reach and snag her ankle, pulling her off-balance to come thudding heavily to the floor.
She drops the tranq gun to catch herself and as she scrabbles to regain it, I reach out and grab her ankle. There, as I had expected, is a lumpy seam. Somehow, I find the loose end and, grasping it firmly, I begin to pull, feeling the familiar sensation of stitches coming loose, the faint popping and tugging gaining velocity as the thick surgical thread accumulates in a fluffy pile around Betwixt and Between.
Athena sees what I am doing and grasps a thread end from Eleanora’s face and flaps upward.
“What are you doing?” Eleanora screams, forgetting her gun, clawing at herself.
And as she sees, she begins to come apart. Literally. Ankle drops from calf, calf from knee, a growing heap of body parts. There is no blood as they separate and the pile looks less like a dismembered corpse than a bunch of spare mannequin parts.
From where Athena pulls, the lovely