Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

Mrs. Alvarez took a set of keys from a pocket in her skirt. “Padre, could you bring a candle? I’ll push the cart out, if you’ll mind the light, and the door.” She knew he was aware of what waited behind that door, and she didn’t care for anyone else to see it. Maybe the darkness would hide the carnage, and maybe not—but it was best to keep it out of view, regardless. The mood was tense enough without any reminder that the hotel was every bit as bad as the weather outside it.

“Of course,” he said, and when Violetta protested at the thought of losing her light, Sister Eileen said, “Take ours. It’s half gone by now, but so is everyone else’s.”

Mrs. Alvarez thanked her, and said, “There might be more candles in the buffets. I’ll look.”

Juan Rios led the way with his thick stub of wax, now barely as long as his index finger. He hoped there was more to be found in the dining area, and he wished they’d thought to collect more before they’d secured themselves in the central portion of the hotel, but there was nothing to be done about it now. Either they’d find more, or they’d find darkness.

Either way, dawn would find them in a few hours.

With one eye on the lobby, Mrs. Alvarez unlocked the dining hall and ushered the padre inside it. Their candle was only bright enough to give them a small bubble of vision…and it was blessedly too dim to show any of the blood stains left on the curtains, on the floors, or anywhere else.

All the details blended into the background, and for that, the padre was thankful.

He did not listen for ghosts. He did not look for phantoms. He did not see or hear anything, except the woman with the keys jingling in her hands, and her footsteps as she led him deeper into the great hall.

“This way,” she told him, and she guided him to a place where two sideboards and a buffet cabinet were stationed. One had been knocked over; it was close to the nearest window—which had not been secured any better than the ones in the great hall. The window had broken, and part of a tree had collapsed inside, tearing down a curtain, breaking a table, and disrupting everything else within its reach.

Glass crunched beneath their shoes as Mrs. Alvarez opened the drawers and cabinets, collecting bottles in her arms, and then in her apron. “I don’t see the carts, do you?” she asked. “There is one for tea, and one for spirits. I’d take either one of them, right now.”

The padre didn’t see them. They might have been beneath the curtain, or they may have been sucked outside. Without better light, it was hard to say. “Give me some bottles, I can help carry them,” he said, crooking his elbow and offering his free arm.

She held up some brandy in a crystal decanter, still intact despite the tree and the tempest, and reached inside for whatever was next—anything that hadn’t broken, and might keep people gently drunk and quiet.

But then they heard a heavy thunk.

And then they heard voices back in the lobby.

Forgetting the brandy, and forgetting even that he was holding the only light source, the padre darted to the dining hall’s entrance, where a fresh breeze on his face told him something was wrong, and yes—back in the lobby the main doors were wide ajar…their heavy bracing beam discarded like a matchstick on the ground.

“What happened?” he called.

“Vaughn!” the Ranger snarled. “I’m going after him!”

“How did he…?” he meant the brace, lying on its side. Too heavy for one man to lift.

Sister Eileen said, “No one knows. No one saw it. It was there, and then it wasn’t—and Vaughn was gone!”

In the dining area, Mrs. Alvarez called anxiously for help. “Don’t leave me alone! I can’t see!” she cried.

The padre looked at the open doors, and the calm, featureless dark beyond them. He came to a decision.

Handing his candle to the Ranger, he said, “I’ll get Vaughn. You see to Mrs. Alvarez—and watch these people. Do not let them leave, not for any reason. If I’m not back when the storm begins again, help them close the doors.”

Sister Eileen began to object, but he interrupted before she could mount her protest. “You knew when you brought me here. This is what I’m for.”

He tossed a nod of his head at the Ranger, who took a deep breath but didn’t fight him on it. The old man said, “You’re younger and faster. Go get that son of a bitch and bring him back so I can pistol-whip him.”

Out the

door the padre ran—straight into the cool, calm nothing of almost-midnight.

The padre opened his eyes, and he looked.

Instead of nothing, brightened only by flashes of distant lightning for instants at a time, he saw outlines…shapes…motion.

The broken, dangling limbs of trees; the hulking shadow of the Jacaranda with its front doors open behind him, and faint candlelight burning within; drag-marks on the ground where the storm-surge had pushed timber, glass, rocks, bricks, fences, fish, shells, sand, crabs, railroad ties, doors, shingles, and God-alone-knew-what-else onto the shore and over it.

The road was gone, nothing left but a muddy mess where not even ruts remained. The walkways around the hotel were likewise washed over with muck, or broken and carried away. But there were footprints, squished into the wet and treacherous ground.