The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [83]
“Come on,” she said. “It’s not polite to keep members of mysterious international organizations waiting.”
26.
The Denver Art Museum loomed on the edge of Civic Center Park, just south of downtown. Travis knew the museum was considered a masterpiece of neogothic architecture, but to him it looked more like a castle seen through a fun-house mirror: big and hulking but distorted, containing none of the original grandeur. Only after a minute did he realize that both he and Grace stood before the museum’s glass doors, unmoving.
Travis could understand his own hesitation. After all, his last conversation with the Seekers had been anything but cordial. He had been furious with Deirdre Falling Hawk, accusing her and the Seekers of manipulating him. It wasn’t until he returned to Eldh and encountered the ancient, wise, and vastly cruel dragon Sfithrisir that he realized what a weapon the truth could be. Sometimes lies were the only things that made the hard realities of life bearable, and the Seekers had known that.
But why was Grace hesitating? The Seekers had helped her escape an ironheart at the Denver police station not three blocks from this museum. And certainly Grace’s analytical mind was a good match for the Seekers.
“There’s something wrong,” she said.
He looked around but saw only a scattering of tourists, skateboarding teenagers, street people, and one group of schoolchildren led by a harried teacher. “What is it, Grace?”
Her eyes were closed. “I don’t know. I can’t really use the Touch here. The Weirding is so faint. But I feel something—a shadow, a presence. Like something watching.” She sighed and opened her eyes. “I’m sure I’m mistaken.”
Travis wasn’t so certain. He didn’t really understand Grace’s abilities, but she was a scientist, and he had seldom heard her advance a theory she didn’t have evidence to back up.
“Come on,” she said. “There’s no use waiting around. If there is something, it will show itself.”
The interior of the museum was more comforting than the exterior. A maze of high walls soared upward to the random window slits that made so much more sense when viewed from this side. The two of them wandered past abstract canvases and sculptures of steel and glass. Farr had only said that he would meet them on the first floor of the museum. Travis wasn’t concerned. Knowing the Seekers, Deirdre and Hadrian would find them first.
“What is that?” Grace said, stopping before the entrance to a dim alcove. Inside, clear tubes dangled from the ceiling, each one holding a naked plastic doll. Scattered on the floor were books, video games, and movie posters. Red ribbons tangled over them like fire. Or blood. A card on the wall read:
Protecting Our Children
A. Becker
“It’s an installation,” Travis said.
Grace snorted. “I thought you installed plumbing, not art.”
Travis couldn’t disagree with that. But something about the art installation compelled him, drawing him inward as Grace moved on. It seemed to be saying that, in trying to protect others from harm, we could simply end up isolating them. But what was the alternative? To let them drop down into the blood and fire below?
Travis didn’t have an answer. He moved on, and a painting caught his eye. Its realism stood out among all the abstracts surrounding it, but it wasn’t this that beckoned him closer.
The painting was all in purples and greens. It showed a farmhouse standing on a lonely plain with only a single tree for company, crooked limbs bowing achingly toward the house. An empty path led to the front door. From the upstairs window a pair of haunted eyes peered outward, and a pair of small, white hands pressed against the glass. The card by the painting read, Coming Home.
Travis shut his eyes. He could see it again, half-lost in the deep, hazy twilight that came only to the moist fields of the Midwest: the farmhouse where he had grown up. Would it look like this if he were to go home? Had she been there all this time, waiting for him to return? Alice.
It was his fault. As a kid,