Jacaranda (The Clockwork Century 6)

You could always find cholera, or typhoid, or any number of similar illnesses in the wake of a storm like that one. No one would question the message, and it was more likely to keep curiosity seekers away than any mere admonition against trespassing, or a declaration that the building had been condemned.

And it was condemned. Not in any official sense, but heaven only knew how long it would take for word to reach the building’s owners. They were all somewhere deep in the heart of Texas, the padre assumed…and he had no plans to leave the Jacaranda Hotel standing long enough for anyone to claim or restore it. He’d made up his mind, and the nun agreed with him.

But the island needed to dry out first.

For a full week after the storm, the padre and the nun waited at the convent—which yes, remained standing, and fairly unscathed. They tended to the injured, composed letters, sent telegrams, and made themselves as quietly helpful as innocent, ordinary people might be.

And then they went back.

In the light of day, without any rain, it was clear that the Jacaranda had sustained terrible damage from the hurricane. The east wing was all but lost, and the north wing was missing its top floor. The bottom two floors might collapse in on themselves at any moment, or then again, they might not.

But the center had held, as everyone had prayed and promised.

The nun unlocked the great doubled doors, using the keys Mrs. Alvarez had left behind—not remembering she’d ever had them, or wondering what had become of them. Everything had been so foggy, in those first hours afterward. Everything was abandoned, even things that once had seemed important.

Like the hotel itself, tomb that it was.

It had been too wet to dig any more graves, so the nun and the padre had left the McCoy brothers where they were, and wrapped Ranger Korman in some blankets—then placed him in the dining hall. It didn’t seem right to leave him there in the lobby with the others, or with the terrible pattern on the floor, that swelling, hungry maw that would eat the whole world if they fed it long enough.

It didn’t make much sense, but it felt like the right thing to do.

Even with the front doors open, the lobby was bleak and dark. It smelled like rotting wood, wet rugs, and old blood. And it absolutely reeked of death.

The McCoy brothers were stacked on the far sofa, their lifeless limbs free of the rigor that held them taut for a while—and now they settled into a slumped puddle of parts that were drawing flies and rats. When the nun approached the bodies, she covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve, shook her head, and crossed herself.

“You aren’t going to bury them, are you?”

“I had not planned on it. The Ranger, though. He deserves a grave. Just in case it matters, I’d rather not leave him inside.”

She nodded, and said, “I’ll get the shovels out of the cart.”

They’d arrived in a small horse-drawn number, load

ed with the tools they expected to need. By the time the nun returned, the padre had relocated the Ranger’s body to a spot in the garden—not far from where he’d buried Constance Fields, who had mercifully remained underground, despite the flooding.

They dug together, shovels sticking in the muddy earth, moving scoop after scoop. Juan Rios did not comment on the small woman’s strength, for she kept pace with him as he jammed the tool down into the muck, and heaved it out again, over and over; both of them flinging the earth in great, dirty arcs that left a ring around the hole.

When they were finished, they held a brief, private service and covered up the Ranger. They did not have a stone, but they improvised a cross with rocks and seashells, and they said their final prayers.

The farewell was brief, but heartfelt.

Their farewell to the hotel was likewise heartfelt, but longer in the making—and much grander in scope.

Back at the cart, where the patient old horse chewed a mouthful of grass it’d nabbed from the lawn, there were three large barrels of kerosene lamp oil and an equally sized container of gunpowder.

“Do you think it will be enough?” the padre wondered.

“I don’t see why not. There’s water on the top floors, where there are any top floors left…but if we set the center alight, and open the fire doors…if nothing else, the place will collapse. Don’t you think?”

“Let’s find out.”

Carefully, methodically, they splashed and dashed and spread the flammables on every promising surface. Then they released the remaining fire doors, one by one. “I still don’t know why they worked,” the nun said, cranking the last to a fully open position. “I still can’t imagine why they held it all at bay.”

“Something about the metal, perhaps,” he guessed. “They’re very heavy—with these steel sheets for armor. There are a thousand stories about dark things being held back by lead and its kin. For that matter, there are wood beams in the center, beneath the metal. It could be rowan, or some other helpful tree.”

“Do your investigations always leave you with so many things unanswered?”

He ran his hand up and down the big door’s painted surface.