David Baldacci - The Finisher

I picked up my pace, imagining that Domitar would be on the lookout for anyone who did not come in on time. I hurried along, keeping a watchful eye out for signs of Thomas Bogle and that mighty blue carriage. I thought back to what I might have said to Morrigone that would make her believe I had told her something useful. She was so smart that perhaps it was what I didn’t say that gave her what she needed.

I slowed down. In another few yards, I would be there. I decided to approach the cottage from not the front or rear, but the right side. This had the most cover, with bushes and a couple of trees nearly as large as my poplar. There was a low fence of piled stone that ran around the small patch of weedy grass that constituted Quentin’s property. I jumped this and landed lightly in the side yard. I heard birds in the trees and little creatures roaming the bushes. I did not hear carriage wheels.

This did not make me any less suspicious. Or less scared. But I swallowed my fear and moved forward, keeping as low as possible. I thought of what would happen to me if I were found here. They would believe I was in cahoots with Quentin. Whatever laws he had broken, they would believe I had helped him do so. They would also arrest me for breaking into his cottage. I would be sent to Valhall. Fellow Wugmorts would hurl spit and curses at me through the bars while Nida and the black shuck looked on.

I scampered over another low wall and dropped to the ground. Directly up ahead was the cottage. It was made of stone and wood, with dirty windows. The rear door was only a few feet away. I ran to a window on the side of the cottage and peered through it. It was dark inside, but I could still see if I pressed my face firmly to the glass.

The cottage was all on one floor. From this window I could see most of the inside of the place. I moved to another window, which I judged would let me see into the only other room there. This was Quentin’s bedroom, though there was only a cot with a pillow and blanket on it. I looked around but I saw no clothes. And the old pair of boots that he always wore to Stacks was not there either. Maybe that’s why Council had assumed he had gone off on his own accord. He had packed his clothes. A Wug didn’t do that if he’d been eaten by a garm or suffered an Event. I tried to remember if Quentin had been carrying a tuck with him when he went into the Quag, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d really only seen his face.

I took another deep breath and headed to the rear door. It was locked. That was not surprising. I defeated the lock with my little tools. I was becoming quite a cracking lawbreaker. I opened the door and moved inside, closing it behind me as quietly as I could manage. Still, it seemed to make a sound like a creta slamming into a wall. I was shaking all over and felt ashamed for being so scared.

I stood up straight, drew another long breath and willed the shakes away. I was standing in the main room of Quentin’s cottage. This was also his library, for there were some books on a shelf. It was also his kitchen, for there was a fireplace with a blackened pot hanging in it. And it was also where he ate his meals, for there was a small round table with one chair. On it was a wooden spoon, fork and knife on top of a plate made of copper. All neat and orderly, just like my friend had been.

As my eyes adjusted to the poor light inside, I focused first on the books. There weren’t that many, but even a few books were more than most Wugmorts possessed.

I lifted one book out. The title was Engineering through the Sessions . I looked inside the pages, but the words and drawings were too much for my feeble mind. I pulled out another book. This one puzzled me. It was a book on ceramics. I knew for a fact that Quentin hated working in ceramics. I did all the finishing on ceramics at Stacks because of that. So why would he have such a book?

I opened it. The first few pages did indeed deal with ceramics, and I looked at sketches of plates and cups in various colors and styles. But as I kept turning the pages, I found something else. A book inside a book.

The title page brought a chill to my skin: The Quag: The True Story .

This inner book was not printed. It was on neatly cropped parchment and handwritten in ink. I turned through some of the pages. There were words and precisely hand-drawn pictures. And the pictures were truly frightening. Some were of creatures I had never seen before. They all looked to be things that would eat you, given the chance. Some made the garm look downright cuddly.

I looked to see if the author’s name was anywhere on the book, but it wasn’t. Yet surely Quentin must have written this. The conclusion spawned from this was equally shocking: He must have gone into the Quag before the time I had seen him do it last light. And come out alive.

I slipped the Quag book out of the other and stuck it in my cloak pocket. What was contained in the pages would fulfill my curiosity but nothing more. Quentin Herms had no one to leave behind. He was free to try his luck in the Quag. I was not, even if I could have mustered the courage. I was Vega Jane from Wormwood. I would always be Vega Jane from Wormwood. At some point, I would be planted in a humble grave in a quite ordinary section of the Hallowed Ground. And life here would go on just like it always had.

The next moment I heard a key turning in a lock to the front door of the cottage.

I slipped behind a cabinet and held my breath. Someone came into the room, and I heard the door close. There were footsteps and low murmurs, which made me realize there was more than one Wug about.

Then a voice grew loud enough for me to recognize and with its rise, my heart sank to the floor.

It was Jurik Krone.

I TRIED TO FORCEmyself into as small a ball of flesh as possible as their footsteps echoed over the wooden floor.

Krone said, “We have found nothing useful. Nothing! It is not possible. The Wug was not that capable, was he?”

I could not hear the other voice clearly, but what I could discern seemed vaguely familiar.

“The ring is the puzzlement for me,” said Krone. “How came it to be back here? I know they were friends, close friends. But why would the accursed Virgil not leave it to his son?”

The other voice murmured something else. It was driving me mad that I couldn’t tell what was being said or who was saying it. And why had Krone used the word accursed in defining my grandfather?

Krone said, “He’s gone into the Quag, that we know. And I believe that Vega Jane knows something about it. They were close. They worked together. She was there that very light.”

The other voice said something, in an even lower tone. It was as though the other Wug knew someone was listening. Then Krone said something that nearly made my heart stop.

“We could tell them it was an Event, like the others. Like Virgil.”

I had to stop myself from jumping out and screaming, What the bloody Hel do you mean by that?

But I didn’t. I was paralyzed.

The other voice murmured back in reply but I could not hear the words.

I knew it was risky but I also knew I had to try. Fighting against my seemingly dead limbs, I eased forward on my knees. There was a bit of looking glass on the far wall. If I could just stretch out enough to see if there was a reflection of Krone and the other Wug in —

The door opened and closed before I could move another inch.

Throwing caution to the wind, I leapt up to find the room empty. I raced over to the window next to the front door and looked out. Disappearing around a corner of a hedge was the blue carriage.

How did I not hear the clops of the sleps as they approached the cottage? Or the turn of the wheels? Was it Morrigone in the carriage? Or Thansius?