Chapter 35
Bianca Giuliani. The painter who wrote my name in a letter, despite having died centuries before I was born.
I try to tell her I know her name, that I’ve been chasing her paintings and her writings for some clue as to what’s happened to me. To ask for the answers I so desperately need.
But wait—this is just a memory. I’ve been hypnotized. I’m really sitting in Danvers State Hospital, recalling a time before I’d ever heard of Bianca Giuliani or Aion or any of it.
The attempt to speak jolts me free of the memory. I try to grasp it, put myself back there…
“Sterling?” Adrian asks.
“Don’t try to move yet.” Dr. North stands beside the examination table I’m lying on, his voice and demeanor comforting.
“Sometimes this happens—the hypnosis ending abruptly, that is. Generally it’s a sign the patient has drawn close to whatever truth they refuse to confront, but which is the root cause of their insanity.
Which means we’re already making progress in your case! ”
I can’t let myself think about the memories I just uncovered, or I might start screaming.
North is already speaking of me as one of his cases; I can’t lose my composure in front of him.
I turn my head, see Adrian watching me with great concern from near the door.
“I—I forgot it was just a memory, I wanted to tell her, ask her…”
“Clearly this wasn’t an actual memory,” Dr. North says with a pained smile.
“You spoke of monsters and someone named Bianca. My hypothesis is this ‘Bianca’ figure represents a person you know or knew, and the monsters are your brain’s way of protecting yourself from some truth by presenting a distorted version of your actual trauma.
Now, if you will consent to admission to the hospital, I think a few more sessions and some rest will be all that’s needed to restore you to perfect sanity. ”
I sit up in alarm. “Admission? No. No, I’m not staying here.”
I look frantically to Adrian, but he’s already moving to stand beside me. “Thank you, doctor, we’ll certainly take your suggestion under advisement.”
North frowns at us. “Mr. Evans, you heard the same things I did. It’s clear Mr. Caine is suffering from a more serious problem than simple amnesia.”
He doesn’t know the half of it. A hysterical laugh tries to bubble up, but I trap it behind my teeth.
“A few weeks of rest and treatment can cure him,” North continues, “but returning him to the outside world will only make his condition worse.”
Adrian puts a hand to my upper arm, and I slide off the table. “As I said, we’ll consider your suggestion.”
North clearly isn’t happy, but he shrugs. “On your head be it, Mr. Evans. Let me show you out.”
He’s irritated with us, but I can’t bring myself to care, my mind drowning in terrible knowledge. The hypnosis, as brief as it was, has given me answers far worse than anything I’d ever imagined.
Maybe North is right, maybe it wasn’t real. I don’t want it to be real; I want to be an ordinary madman. But no. It happened.
God, I wish it had only been simple amnesia after all.
North leaves us with the receptionist, who phones for a taxi to collect us.
We don’t say anything the entire wait, nor during the ride, until the taxi deposits us in front of a hotel near the train station.
We secure a room, and as soon as we’re within its walls, Adrian locks the door and turns to embrace me.
The hug catches me off guard, but I relax into it gratefully. He smells of lilacs and warm skin, and I breathe deep. His arms around me are strong but gentle, and he whispers in my ear, “Are you all right?”
My throat tightens and I blink rapidly. “I don’t think I am. What…what did I say while I was hypnotized?”
He steps back, though his hands linger on my elbows. The room is small but neat, furnished with twin beds separated by a night table, a chifforobe, and a writing desk with chair. The clatter of a train filters in through the window, then fades away.
“You spoke of Hart and Myers drugging you, of falling for a great distance, then waking up in the body of something inhuman.”
“The Swarm.” The name fills me with a sense of dread, as though more memories linger that I can’t access except through emotional impressions.
“Yes. They took you to a room to be looked after by your own species—other humans in Swarm bodies, I think? Judging by what Bianca Giuliani told you.”
“They project themselves through time, she said. Swap places with us.” I sink down onto the bed and cover my face in my hands. “With me.”
Adrian gives my shoulder a squeeze, then the chair at the writing desk scrapes across the floor. I look up to see he’s taken out the piece of paper where we listed our facts and questions that day in Cleo’s apartment. “Things are starting to make sense.”
“You believe me?” I ask, then, “They are?”
“Yes and yes.” He studies the list.
Buoyed by the air of determination surrounding him, I cross the room and stand at his shoulder. “I’m afraid you’re going to have explain it to me, then.”
“Let’s start with the premise that everything you just remembered is one-hundred percent true, and not a fabrication of your mind. Considering we both saw Irvin transform into a monster, that isn’t as much of a stretch as it might have been otherwise.”
“True.”
“So: there is a species of creature called the Swarm. They are capable of projecting their essences through time to swap places with human beings. Why they’d do such a thing, we have no idea at the moment.
” He adds the information to our list. “There’s a cult that calls itself the Timekeepers, which seems to be in cahoots with them.
Hart lured you to his mansion…no, wait, he meant to lure James. ”
James. I grip the back of Adrian’s chair as the strength drains from my legs. “James was the one with the contacts, the one who knew collectors personally.”
“They wanted him so they could more easily get their hands on things like the Key of Mithras or the Lettere Segrete or whatever else they were looking for. Why the Swarm and the Timekeepers would even want these things to begin with, I have no idea.”
I shake my head. “Neither do I. It all has something to do with cyclical time, but what?”
Adrian writes that down, ending with a large question mark. “When you showed up instead, Hart and Myers made do with the bookman they had, rather than the one they wanted. Any idea why they drugged you?”
I consider for a moment. “My thoughts felt sluggish, as if I couldn’t fight back. Maybe it made it easier for the-the swap to occur?”
“That seems possible.” A dark shadow passes over his face. “And the Timekeepers are making and distributing batches of Chrono-Flav. Which the pharmacist, Davis, also referred to as Chrysalis.”
“It renders people passive. Unable to fight back, so they can be more easily taken over.” My blood turns to ice in my veins. “Oh. I don’t like that.”
“Neither do I.” Adrian’s mouth thins, then he shakes himself and returns his attention to our list. “When we encountered Davis, he mistakenly thought you were still…someone else.”
“Something else,” I say. Something that had taken me over, that…
No. If I let myself think about it too long, I’ll have a breakdown.
“Then there’s another group, which seems opposed to the Timekeepers and has been trying to kill you,” Adrian goes on. “They also seem to be under the impression that you’re not you. Of course, that didn’t stop Irvin when he learned the truth.”
What had Irvin said, before he’d spoken the prayer that would turn him into a fiend? “…this will be an easier end than what’s coming for you.”
“So, you were drugged and switched, your mind traveling in time—to the past or future?—to inhabit the body of a member of the Swarm. While there, you encountered Bianca Giuliani, also dragged out of her own time. Like you, she’d been replaced—that explains why she suddenly left her family and went to Rome.
It wasn’t the real Bianca at all.” He taps his pencil absently against the table.
“When she returned, she remembered your name and wrote it down. Did she have the same amnesia as you, or something lesser?”
“I’ve been remembering a little, in dreams,” I admit. “I thought they were just nightmares, but instead they were memories leaking back. Maybe it was the same for her.”
“If we could have read the damned book, we’d know more.
” Adrian sighs. “So, when the Swarm and the Timekeepers have finished with you, the swap is repeated. You’re returned to your own body and time, with the memories of your sojourn blacked out in some fashion.
The member of the Swarm presumably returns to its original body and time as well. ”
My attempts to push away my growing horror crumble, and I stumble over and sit down on the bed again. “Something stole my body,” I say. “It did things, wrecked my life, and I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t…”
The sense of violation overwhelms my ability to speak. Some creature took my body and did God-knows-what with it. What terrible things had it done with my hands? What orders were given through my lips?
The mattress sinks as Adrian sits down beside me. His hand rests on my back, rubbing a gentle circle. “At least you know you’re not guilty of anything. You’re not a cultist or a murderer.”
“I know, but…” How can I explain? “It was my body, and I didn’t want any of this, and…”
Tears sting my eyes as Adrian twists on the bed to pull me to him. I accept the comfort a second time, burying my face in his shoulder and trying to muffle my helpless sobs in his coat. He strokes my hair and makes soothing sounds deep in his throat.
At last, I regain control of myself. I lean back a little and find myself staring into his face.
His handsome features are drawn in an expression of concern, but as I gaze into his warm brown eyes, I think I detect something else as well.
His full lips are right there, breath ghosting against my cheek.
There are a thousand reasons I shouldn’t do what I do next. I’ve just received an enormous shock, we’re in danger of our lives from not one but two cults, none of this has improved my already shell-shocked mind and emotions…
But none of it matters as I close the small gap between us and press my lips to his.