Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

The padre listened to them argue, but then he listened to the rest of the room, in case of ghosts who wished to be heard. He was rewarded by a soft, garbled sigh—coming from the space between the great staircases, where the twisting mosaic of colored tiles darkened a wide spot on the floor.

It will not be the rain. It will not be the wind.

He did not see anyone or anything speaking. He did not think anyone else could hear it, either.

It will be the ocean, that takes you all.

“Who said that?” he asked in a whisper. No one responded, except for the Ranger—who gave him a strange look.

He still didn’t see anything. Or did he? Was he looking for the wrong things?

He closed his eyes again, exhaled every trace of air. Opened his eyes.

Yes.

Something flickered around the edges of the room, something dark and unfriendly, but unfocused. He tried his mantra again, and combined it with a small prayer—he only asked for clarity—and this time when he opened his eyes, the vision was clearer indeed: a throbbing set of shadows, cluttering the corners like cobwebs or tumbleweeds…each tendril too thin and brittle to measure, but collected together the bits and pieces showed themselves a shape…a puddle, no—more like a snowdrift that shifted and slithered. Not one thing, but many things that gathered up to make a whole.

All of it dribbled in weird, trailing, tumbling rivulets toward the center of the hotel where the pattern on the floor was not just a circle, not just a spiral, but a thing that moved when he looked away.

His breath caught in his throat; his eyelids flickered, trying to chase the image out of his head. It worked, more or less. The sinister shadows and their edges, being drawn down that inexorable drain…they faded back into the corners to mix with the ordinary shadows, cast by the ordinary lamplight.

Never before had the padre wished so badly to see the sun.

“We aren’t safe here!” cried William Brewer, his plump, pink face flushing fever-hot.

Sister Eileen did not much comfort him, when she said, “We aren’t safe anywhere, my dear. There’s a hurricane outside, and there’s no pretending otherwise. It’s a bad one, a huge one—with wind that could drive a pencil through your skull, if it caught you just right.”

David McCoy dropped himself onto one of the couches that populated the public space. “That’s awfully specific.”

“I’ve seen these things before; I’ve even lived through them, once or twice. Storms like this, and worse ones besides.”

“Worse ones?” Mrs. Anderson broached, almost hopefully. “You’ve survived worse?”

“Yes, and so can anyone, if you’re sma

rt.” She climbed up on top of a small coffee table—in order to give herself some height. She was a small woman, for all her unexpected strength; but the storm was loud and the crowd was uncertain and muttering. “Listen to me, we’ve been as smart as we can. We’ve sealed up the hotel, we’ve covered up the windows—and closed up spaces where the windows can’t be covered. We’ve checked all the rooms, and gathered together in the center. The center is…” she faltered, but finished the thought anyway. “It’s always safest in the center.”

She was wrong, just this once.

The padre knew it, and maybe the Ranger knew it too—but the Texan kept his mouth shut when Juan Rios added his lie to the nun’s. “She’s right, and you all know it. If one room should fall, then the center will hold. If one wing should be pulled down by the wind, then the center will stand its ground. If the roof above us is torn free by the rain, then the floors above us will still remain. We must stay together, and watch out for one another. The fire doors are closed, anyway,” he concluded. “We are secure, and we will stay that way.”

Frederick Vaughn had a bottle in hand. The padre wasn’t sure where it’d come from, but he would’ve liked a drink himself—and he almost said so, but Vaughn griped, “What if we don’t? What if the walls blow down, and then what?”

“Then…” the nun threw her hands up, exasperated. “Then we all wash out to sea, and that’s the last anyone will ever hear from us. But it won’t come to that.”

It will not be the wind. It will not be the rain.

That whisper again, that menacing voice that came from the dark place on the floor—the dark place that moved, that gyred ever so slightly when the padre’s eyes were elsewhere. “I know,” he breathed. “You already told me.”

He might have said more, and there might have been more arguing, but then there was a crack—a pop, and a loud crash that came from somewhere at the far end of the northern wing.

The lights sputtered, and went out.

Up above, the ceiling fans ground to a stop.

Outside, there was nothing but the rain, louder than an orchestra.

Valeria started to cry—or it might have been Violetta, as the sisters sounded much alike. It was purely, perfectly dark, and the padre knew where the girls had been standing, and that the soft weeping he heard came from their direction, surely from one of them—over by the reception desk.