Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

“It tells me that I’m out of my depth,” she said flatly. “Yet I must remain.”

A small spatter of rain flicked against the padre’s cheek. He wiped it away and waited for a second drop to come, and it did, followed by another. He looked up and saw only the swirling clouds, backlit from second to second by fractured bits of lightning that never hit the earth.

“It’s not the storm. Not yet,” the nun said. “Merely a promise.”

“This place doesn’t make promises. It makes threats.”

“Then never mind all this. Let’s go back inside.”

He was not quite surprised by her antsy inclination to return to the hotel.

He did not share that inclination, not in the slightest—he’d just as soon pack his things and leave immediately, and only his sense of duty prevented him…or duty, combined with some fatalistic certainty that it wouldn’t matter. He already knew there wasn’t time to leave. The storm was too near, and too big to escape from, now; it’d take him one way or another, if the gaping maw beneath the Jacaranda didn’t take him first.

Constance Fields stood pale and motionless in the lobby, standing squarely upon the storm-shaped mosaic as if she were pinned there. She faced the front doors. They were open, and though the woman stood unmoving and gazed with hard intent, there was nothing to see outside except for the immense and gusty darkness, staggering past.

She did not speak, and she did not blink while the wind rose and fell, not so strong yet—not really. It did not billow and bluster with enough power to slam those heavy doors, on their oversized hinges. They were oak, each one the size of a dining room table; but still they rattled back and forth.

The hotel’s office opened with a creak, and Sarah appeared behind the counter. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, and she charged toward the swinging, swaying front doors to wrestle them shut. “We can’t have that, not with a storm coming in.”

“Tomorrow,” the nun said softly. “This is only the preamble.”

No one but the padre heard her.

When the doors were closed again, and the last of the breeze died down, Sarah turned her attention to the woman in the lobby. “Mrs. Fields, are you all right? Did you open those doors? We ought to keep them secured, so the tempest stays out. I hate to lock them,” she nattered on in the face of this particular new strangeness. “Other guests might arrive, but I suppose they can always knock if they want to come inside that badly.”

Constance Fields relented, and wrenched her eyes away from the doors—to fix them now upon Sarah. “We ought to lock them all, immediately. And the windows too. Keep the whole world out, for its own good…because it’s too late for ours.”

“Now, Mrs. Fields,” she chided. “Come on, and I’ll see you back to your room. Are you feeling well? Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No. To all of that.”

Sister Eileen lifted her face, and her eyes flashed. Her nostril twitched. She whispered the word, “Blood.” Then she stepped forward, out of the rear entrance corridor where she and the padre had lingered. She approached Constance Fields. “You’re not all right, are you? No, you’re not all right at all.”

Constance Fields gave a great sniffle, and a trickle of blood slipped out of her nose. It pooled briefly in the divot above her lip, then curled over it, and splashed down the front of her dress.

Sarah’s eyes went wide, her pupils as big as coins. She stepped aside, and the nun tried to take Mrs. Fields by the shoulders. When the woman wouldn’t be turned, Sister Eileen walked around her, and paused.

She looked over her shoulder at the padre, then again at Mrs. Fields’s back. She took a deep breath and said to Sarah, “My dear, I’ll need some rags and hot water.”

But the steadfast Mrs. Fields said, “Don’t trouble yourselves.”

Sister Eilee

n insisted calmly, “You need to sit down. You’re bleeding.”

“I’m aware.”

The padre joined them, and he saw how the rear of her dress was slashed, raked by claws or knives or something else that had cut her deeply. Gouges bubbled with every breath she took, and bits of bone showed through in bright white flecks. Shreds of fabric dangled down to trail the back of her legs, all of it wet and ruined.

“Señora,” he urged. “Please, come take a seat.”

If she felt any pain at all, she did not appear bothered by it. “I do not wish to take a seat. I wish to wait for my husband.”

The nun persisted: “Please, lie down. You need medical attention and I…I have a little training. You can’t possibly have the strength to stand much longer.”

With a rasp at the edge of her voice, she replied, “I have what strength it gives me. I lose what it takes, the same as everyone else.” One shoulder drooped, and a dribble of blood ran down the back of her arm, her hand, and off the tip of her longest finger. A puddle formed while they watched. More blood spilled out of Mrs. Fields’s nose, and onto her bosom.

Sarah shook her head wildly and retreated, unwilling to touch the woman again—unwilling to touch any of them, or look at them either, if she could help it. Her hands were only just big enough to cover her mouth and her eyes at once. She stumbled back behind the counter, back into the office.