The Other Side Of This Life (ABANDONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE)

Trompe L'Oeil

A cloudburst. Rain. Buckets of it. Terence ran. Caul ran too, but his knobby bird like legs could not carry him as fast, and he was lugging their suitcase. Terence reached shelter,a barn near the main road. On getting through Barnaul, spending the night in a grocery store bathroom, a truck driver had given them a ride halfway to the next town. The past several hours, however, had found them afoot. The rain came when they were sixteen miles south of a settlement called Sannikovo.

The barn was dark.

"Terence?" Caul said.

"Over here," Terence replied. He was sprawled on a couple barrels. "I'm so cold, and that rain is going to turn into snow soon," he said. "I wouldn't mind if this whole thing caught on fire and burned me alive." He was hungry too. Starved. Last night they had dined on what they could steal from the grocery store. Their only nourishment came from cold soup, crackers and weird gel like candy they snatched. "Any more thin sliced?" Terence asked.

No, but there was still a pack of chewing gum. They split it and got down to chewing it, each chomping on two and a half sticks of flavorless rubber. Money was the problem. There was none, that led Caul to decide they had to find a place around here to settle down and set up their operation while stealing food and other supplies from the nearby towns. Barnaul was a mining city, and they were in the middle of nowhere, far enough to be safe from nosy passersby, but close enough to survive. 

Huddled together in the cold darkness, listening to the freezing rain, they planned their next move out. Terence, listing the dangers of settling out here. Too many people passing through, getting lost in old mine shafts. Surely Caul would come to his senses. But Caul was not to be dissuaded. Mine shafts, he again insisted, were the one place he was sure the operation could run smoothly without anyone finding it where they would have enough room to work. 

"Hell, I know we've got to be careful. I know the Council has spies out. But we'll move fast, like through the mountains. And once we're under, it'll be good." But Terence chewed his gum and shivered and sulked. Caul said, "What is it? Akane's deal? Why the hell can't you forget it? They won't be part of this one, they can wait forever for that phone call."

Terence said, "But they could have helped. And if you let them, it could mean finding Myron." Neither one had ever before mentioned actually finding the other Bentham sibling and killing him. So they had laid low until they could find a decent place to work again, pick up scraps from the last time they were in Siberia, and somehow get to a place called Devil's Acre in London.

Caul said, "The comedian. You kill me." He struck a match, intending to smoke a cigarette, but something seen by the light of the flickering match brought him to his feet and carried him across the barn to a cow stall. A car was parked inside. The key was in the ignition.

...

I was determined to conceal from the local peculiar folk any knowledge that two ymbryne's were tracking down a wight. So determined that when Miss Gannet had emerged from her loop for the first time in years to speak with Esmeralda and I, we decided to tell her we were picking up a parcel from over east for Miss Wren. Not that the Irish ymbryne would check, given that the lie was coming from Esmeralda, practically Balenciaga's second in command. In outlining the situation, I had emphasized my reasons for considering absolute secrecy of the first importance: "Remember, there's a possibility that she's no longer in contact with, um, Jack."

It was a possibility too valid to dismiss. The source of Akane's whereabouts in Japan had explained that she had been shacked up and living what seemed a perfectly normal life. Absolutely no contact to anything Peculiar. But even if she was so stealthy as to conceal all connections to Bentham, Esmeralda and I had not yet unearthed one bit of evidence suggesting she still worked to kidnap children for him. What we had discovered could not be interpreted as plausible, though exceptional, coincidence? Just because Akane had locked herself up in the outskirts of Tokyo and cut off contact with every single wight, and just because she had been following the routine of a normal person, and just because no one else even knew where she was, didn't mean she was completely innocent and free from Caul's command. "But I'm pretty sure she's it. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't have arranged passage for us both from Dublin all the way to Tokyo. But keep in mind; she may not be willing to talk. Her and Caul, they may have separated. But there's a chance she's still loyal. The longer we wait, the harder it will be to approach her. Frankly, as matters stand, we don't have much to talk to her about anyhow. We could meet up with her tomorrow, no information could come out of it."