Life and Limb

by Jennifer Roberson

  I opened the passenger door, looked at the step down. Oh, this was so not going to be fun. Remi offered to help, but I just shook my head, reached carefully for the overhead handle, began to slowly lever myself out.

  As expected, and despite the brevity of the ride, I’d stiffened. I felt a hundred years old as I worked my way down from the seat to plant feet on the ground.

  With great care I stretched, rolled my neck. Muscles and bruises protested, but I needed to move. While bedrest was recommended, I knew from experience I’d feel better if I didn’t just lie around.

  Since I had no desire to spend the night puking, I did indeed intend to grab some dinner so I could take the tramadol. But as we walked into the bar, with billiard balls clacking, loud country music playing on the jukebox, people laughing and dancing, I resolved that dining in one of the booths downstairs was not a good idea.

  Remi realized it, too. “I’ll have them fix something, and I’ll bring it up to you.”

  I nodded my thanks. “Something juicy.”

  “Steak, or burger?”

  “Definitely steak. Medium. Baked potato, loaded. Corn on the cob if they’ve got it.”

  “It’s a cowboy steakhouse/dancehall. They’ll have it.”

  “Okay. Just don’t flirt with the waitress and let my dinner go cold.”

  He grinned. “Only if she flirts first.”

  Not fun climbing the stairs because it put pressure on my body in different areas. But I made it, dropped off the holster and jacket in my room, walked down the hall to the common area. I figured while I waited for dinner I could start Remi’s search for murdered women.

  It booted into a black screen. I thought maybe the video card had gone bad, but then a name appeared: ‘La Llorona.’

  When Remi brought dinner he had two of everything, set the plates down on the table. He saw me staring at the screen and looked himself. “La Llorona? Well, it’s Spanish for weeping woman, but after that I’ve got no clue.”

  I remembered he spoke Spanish, so he knew to turn the double ‘L’ into a ‘Y’ sound. “It’s a legend,” I said.

  “I figured.”

  “Hispanic in origin, but has since been adopted by others. There are variations, but the basic story says a woman killed her two sons by drowning them in a river, then felt terrible remorse and now wanders around looking for them. Mourning them. Weeping.”

  Remi collected a beer out of the fridge for himself though nothing for me. Painkillers and booze don’t mix. “So she’s a ghost,” he said.

  “So she’s a demon.”

  He stopped dead, saw the expression on my face. “What? What is it?”

  I’d been thinking about it, knew I was right. “The woman who ran out into the road. White shirt, white pants, black hair. La Llorona is always seen in white.” I looked at him. “She came out of nowhere, ran right into my lane. It’s why I wrecked the bike, why she wasn’t hurt, why you couldn’t find her.”

  Remi took off his hat and set it on the table upside down, away from the plates. He deliberately avoided meeting my eyes.

  “I saw her.” I was absolutely certain. “It was her, Remi.”

  “I’ll take your word for it, but I didn’t see anything.”

  I shrugged, wished I hadn’t. It hurt. “I don’t know the reason for that, but she was there. White clothes, black hair.”

  Remi pulled out his chair, sat down to start in on his steak. When I didn’t move, he glanced up, stilled. “You want to go back there tomorrow.”

  “Apparently we’re supposed to,” I pointed out. “The name was sent to us. If we weren’t intended to look for her, why would the name appear? She’s a ghost, a demon, and we’re supposed to take her out. But not exorcism; if the story is true, the host is much too old to survive. So it’s guns or knives.”

  He paid deep attention to cutting his steak. “Not tomorrow. You need the rest.”

  “I’ll be fine. Painkiller tonight, ice, the muscle relaxant tomorrow. And anyway, we need to kill this demon before it can cause more havoc.”

  “I’ll go. On my own.”

  Something rose up in me, something imperative. Not just a wave, but a tsunami. “No.” I didn’t know what it was, just that I couldn’t let him go alone. Even the idea of it was highly unsettling. Primogenitura, maybe, that need to protect. “Besides, she’s not visible to you. I’ll be your seeing-eye dog.”

  In consternation, he stabbed his fork so hard into a piece of steak that tines scraped on the plate. He told me to type in a simple question, said what I should ask.

  I stared at him, then did as he suggested. Gabe too?

  The screen replied: Always both.

  I thought that over, typed in something else. Kept it clean. And if we are entertaining? Ladies, that is? Because I sure wasn’t going to have an audience.

  After a delay, the screen blanked, flickered, then disappeared and left me with a normal website.

  Remi’s tone was philosophical. “Well, I reckon that can be taken as either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no.’ I prefer the latter.”

  I dragged the chair back to the table, sat down with care. “And while we’re out there, after we kill the demon?” Remi asked a question with raised eyebrows. “I want to find my bike.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, saw my face and took the better route. He didn’t try to talk me out of it.

  Smart man.

  The tramadol took the edge off and, thankfully, did not make me sick. I didn’t want to contemplate how that would feel after my contact with asphalt earlier. I left Remi doing a search on missing and dead women who fit his parameters and went to bed.

  The only one sharing it was ice.

  * * *

  —

  Remi had promised to wake me. He didn’t. I woke up on my own, discovered it was ten o’clock and levered myself out of bed. Yup, very stiff, very sore. I wobbled my way into the hall, swearing I’d kill McCue if he’d gone by himself after the message on the computer: Always both.

  Then I found him in the kitchen making coffee, and revised my intention. “I thought you were waking me up.”

  “I let you sleep in. We’ve got time.”

  “Did you find anything about murdered women online?”

  “I found too much about murdered women online. But nothing identifying a Mary Ann or Annie. Well, that I saw. I didn’t have much to go on.”

  I cracked multiple eggs into the skillet, pushed two pieces of a sliced bagel into the toaster, poured myself coffee.

  “How you feelin’?”

  I couldn’t resist. “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”

  “You got pills for that.”

  “So I do. And I will not shirk them.”

  Remi opened his mouth to ask something more, then we heard the familiar five tones from Close Encounters.

  “Yours,” I said. “My cell’s in the bedroom.”

  Remi answered, went very still as he listened, then said, “Thanks, Ganji.”

  His expression was odd. I got a funny feeling. “What is it?”

  “Another envelope. This time tucked under one of my windshield wipers. Ganji saw it when he took the trash out.”

  I pulled the skillet off the burner and slid it onto a cold one, popped the bagels up, said, “Let’s go find out what this one says.”

  “You eat. I can bring it up to you.”

  “I’ve lost my appetite.” And I had.

  I took the muscle relaxant first, which had the effect of oiling my rusty joints, then got myself downstairs without falling. Remi was behind me.

  Ganji was sitting on a stool in front of the bar. We joined him, and without speaking he slid the envelope down to me.

  I dreaded it. I just knew what was coming.

  I opened it, pulled the note free. Just like all the earlier ones.
This time, it said: And another.

  I couldn’t look at the photo. I just couldn’t look. I handed off the envelope to Remi. After a moment he removed a photo, glanced at it quickly, then turned the picture over. Red ink, a woman’s name: Elizabeth.

  I dropped an F-bomb, and Ganji’s brows rose. Remi set the photo face down atop the envelope. “Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth. Not exactly unusual names,” he said. “Without last names, I doubt we’ll find them.”

  “If he isn’t killing locally, how is he putting the envelopes all over the place?” I asked. “Can demons translocate, or is there an accomplice?”

  “Not only that,” Remi said, “but the duration between deliveries is getting shorter and shorter. He’s escalating.”

  I paced because I had to, and because it knocked more rust off my bones. I was loosening up but not quickly. “What’s the end-game? What do these photographs mean? Why involve us?”

  “Maybe he figures that’s what he’ll do to us,” Remi said. “He’s previewing his work.”

  “We’re not women, so probably not targets.”

  “Seeing photos of women dead is worse than seeing photos of dead men.”

  He was right. I didn’t want to look at grisly pictures of dead men, but it definitely bothered me more that the victims were women. “Maybe he thinks it’ll flush us out,” I ventured. “We’re safe here, at Lily’s, those other places. But that doesn’t make sense. If we keep taking assignments, doesn’t that make us vulnerable? And easy to get to us, I’d think.”

  Remi shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t want to get to us yet. Maybe he’s just screwing with us. I mean, who knows what kind of games surrogates play, or how their minds work?”

  I thought about it. “Maybe he figures it’ll unnerve us, be easier to take us when the time comes, as the anxiety builds and builds. He’s playing with his food.”

  Remi look vaguely ill at that.

  “We’ve got to find him,” I said. “Or her. Kill the mofo before we get nailed, before the death-toll hits double digits.”

  “How do you reckon we can do that?”

  “Clues,” I answered. “We can talk to people. Details on the envelopes, the paper used for the notes, the cut-out letters, even the ink and handwriting. Even the photo paper the image is printed on.”

  “We’re not the police,” he said skeptically, “and this sure as hell is not CSI.”

  “No, but there are specialists. And maybe, with a nudge from Grandaddy, they’ll cooperate with two guys who aren’t angels yet.” I paused, stared at Remi. “Hell, why didn’t we think of this? We should have asked Grandaddy first.”

  Remi pulled his the magic phone from a pocket, hit “Contacts.” His cadences suggested no one was on the other end. “Grandaddy. Hey. Remi. Listen, Gabe and I got some questions. We need a little help. Can you come over to the Zoo tonight?” He disconnected, slid the phone back into his pocket. “Eat something, Gabe. Take a shower. We don’t know how long it’s going to take to kill off La Llorona or get down to your bike. Which proves you’ve got a big hole in your screen door.”

  “What?”

  “Texan for crazy,” he said. “Cuz that’s what I reckon you are.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Lily’s starter kit provided another box of cartridges and bullets. To be on the safe side we bathed them in holy water, then oiled them. No spit was necessary this time.

  My Taurus, shoulder holster; his Taurus, belt. My Taurus, iron buckshot; his, silver bullets. Then I rubbed holy oil into the blade of my KA-BAR. It wasn’t silver, wasn’t iron, but now it was half-assed blessed.

  “Should I make the sign of the cross over it?” I asked, thinking of a little more celestial backup.

  “You Catholic?”

  “No. I’m not anything.”

  “Well, I was raised Southern Baptist. We don’t do that.”

  I thought about it. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I mean, God is supposedly everywhere. Maybe he’s even in our guns.”

  Remi was feeding rounds into the chambers. His tone was dry. “Yup, I don’t doubt at all that God is a bullet.” He closed the cylinder, tested the rotation. “Now let’s get ourselves on down the road and take care of this woman you saw.”

  “And my bike.”

  He slanted me a glance from under lowered brows, then headed toward the stairs.

  * * *

  —

  When I told Remi again to make sure he reacted as soon as I said I saw the woman, he suggested I shut up.

  I protested. “Well, you can’t see her.”

  “We have established that,” he said. “As you’ve told me three times: You see her, you tell me, I hit the brakes. Hell, it would be easier just hitting her with the truck.”

  “The truck’s not iron or silver.”

  “You sure you didn’t clip her with your bike?”

  “It’s not iron or silver, either.”

  Remi had latched onto a topic. “I mean, can ghosts feel things? The demon inside, I mean. And then if it’s exorcized, does the host feel pain?”

  I shifted in the seat, hid an involuntary grunt of discomfort. The shower and muscle relaxant had helped, but I’d be creaking a while longer. “Mark that down as another question for Grandaddy.”

  McCue took us back to the chapel to be certain we wouldn’t miss the area where the woman caused my wreck, then headed us back toward town. We passed a few cars, but not many. McCue suggested I get online with my phone and see if there were reports of car accidents along this stretch.

  I checked. Was astonished. “Four in two weeks. Nobody died, but they’re all pretty banged up. But the accidents didn’t happen in the same location. Close, but not the same.”

  “What’s a few yards matter to a ghost?”

  “Or a surrogate.” I thought it over. “In the stories, she’s always near or in a river. She drowned her kids, so she doesn’t travel far from water.”

  “There’s no river here.”

  “But there is a ravine with a creek in the bottom. You said so.”

  “Why did she drown her kids?” Remi asked. “Does anyone know? That is, if the story were true?”

  “It varies. But she was reported to be so beautiful that all men lusted after her. She attracted a rich man, who married her, and she had the two kids. Then the husband admitted he never wanted kids and was going to leave her. La Llorona drowned them to hold onto her husband, but he left her anyway. So she died, and her ghost grieves to this day.”

  Remi shook his head. “What mother drowns her own kids?”

  I thought of a couple who had. “Andrea Yates drowned five in the bathtub, including a six-month-old. Susan Smith rolled her car into the lake and killed both children. Smith did it because her lover didn’t want kids and was going to leave her.”

  Remi was silent a moment. “Awful lot like the legend, ain’t it?”

  “And if it happened now—now now, I mean—I’d say both were possessed. But back then, the hell vents were closed and no surrogates were loose on earth.”

  “So she wanted you to wreck, but not necessarily to die?”

  I thought that over. True that no one had died. Then I remembered something Grandaddy had said about the master plan of heaven and all the Celtic knotwork. “Chaos. It’s chaos.”

  Remi took his eyes off the road long enough to shoot me a glance. “Chaos?”

  Counting off, I stuck thumb and two fingers into the air one by one. “It’s mythology, it’s philosophy, it’s religion. Chaos is said to be the first formless matter that existed before Creation. It’s cosmology. Chaos magic is a branch of occultism.”

  Remi got on board. “So this demon in ghost’s clothing doesn’t care if people die, only wants to cause chaos?”

  “I think so.”

  “So she won’t be actively trying to kill us.”
>
  “Well, she might if we actively try to kill her.”

  * * *

  —

  La Llorona, as hoped, eventually darted out in front of Remi’s truck. I blurted that information, and he didn’t try to swerve, as swerving and overcorrecting is probably what caused all the wrecks. He drove the pickup right through her.

  She was not corporeal. Therefore not killed or injured.

  And then, to my shock, she ran in front of the truck again. When I shouted, he didn’t swerve. Or, well, he did, but it was an intentional, controlled swerve. He took the truck to the side of the road, threw the gear shift into neutral, yanked on the emergency brake, told me to start driving as soon as he got into the bed of the truck. Up and down, back and forth.

  He was out by the time I shouted after him, “But you can’t see her!”

  “Then tell me where she is! Use a clock face!”

  I climbed across the console, which wasn’t particularly easy or comfortable, slid in behind the wheel. Dropped the emergency brake. Threw the truck in gear, goosed it to roll it off the shoulder into a turn without laying down rubber, drove back toward the chapel, turned around again. Heading toward town, she’d so far run into the right-hand lane, never the left.

  “She’ll be on the right!” I shouted. Saw in the mirror Remi’s body shift over.

  She ran onto the road. I slowed, shouted, “Two o’clock!”

  I saw a throwing knife zip by the truck, but she did not fall. And now we were heading right by her. “Three o’clock!”

  He missed again, but she nonetheless paused for an instant, eyeballed us, stared hard at Remi as if evaluating him, then turned and ran back toward the trees.

  “I can see her now!” McCue pounded on the truck roof. “Stop! I’m going after her!”

  I stopped. Before I could say anything Remi swung himself over the bed rail, jumped down, and ran after her. Amidst an array of blistering curses I shut down the engine, got out of the truck without falling flat, and ran stiffly after him.

  She led us a chase. It wasn’t merry, that’s for sure; in fact, it was painful. Remi was a fair distance ahead of me, and I had no second gear. The body just wouldn’t give it to me. But I did my best to make my way over fallen trees, through screening branches, and dodged stumps.