The Mortal Sleep (Hollow Folk Book 4)

by Gregory Ashe

  “You ran into him, didn’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “Who? I’m not stupid, tweaker. I saw him drive up with his dad. I thought you guys were over.”

  “We are over.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  I slid off the bike and took a step toward the road. I didn’t know what was going on—not with me, not with Emmett, not with anybody except Austin, who had made it perfectly clear that there was nothing going on, at least, not between the two of us. But I couldn’t stand here and talk to Emmett about it.

  He hooked a belt loop on my jeans and tugged. I staggered against him, and those lean, muscled arms went around my waist, drawing me closer. The rain had soaked through my coat and sweater, and when he nuzzled into my chest, the sudden bloom of heat followed a trail of gunpowder inside me.

  “You’re such a fucking mutt.”

  “What?”

  “I swear to God, you’re a mutt. And all I can think about is that you need a bath and you need someone to comb your hair, and you need clean clothes, and you need a bed and someone to watch you sleep. It’s never that easy, though, is it? Half the time you’re trying to bite my hand off. Half the time I’m . . .” He didn’t finish, but he didn’t need to.

  “I’m a mutt?”

  “Hush, tweaker.”

  “I’m a dog?”

  “You know what I mean, and I know you know what I mean, so don’t pick a fight.” He pushed me away and looked up at me. “Are you going to storm off to God knows where if I let go of you?”

  “If I stay, am I going to get syphilis just from walking inside that damn place?”

  “That’s a little more like it. Do you want to bitch some more? Do you want to hit something? Maybe you want to swing your shoulders and stomp around in circles for a while?”

  “You’re such a fucktoy.”

  He grinned. “I’m your fucktoy. Come on.”

  He led me to a room near the vacancy sign, rattled the handle, and called out his name. When the door opened, I blinked. Becca stood inside, and for a moment, all I could think about was Emmett’s earlier reference to pod people. She wore a long, transparent plastic poncho, and her peroxide hair was pinned back so that all I really saw was the silver of her eyeshadow and then the glossy translucence of the poncho. It was like something straight out of a bad 50s sci-fi show. She didn’t smile or nod or say anything when she saw us; her eyes slid across Emmett’s ruined face, and she flinched as though she had forgotten. Then she moved aside, holding the door open, and shut it behind us when we entered.

  I stopped just inside the door, and Emmett crashed into my shoulder. It was your standard motel room, two queen beds and some particle board furniture. On the second bed, the one farther from the door, sat Jake. His massive belt buckle was shining almost as brightly as Becca’s eyeshadow, but the knife laid out across his knees—a knife as long as my forearm—caught none of the light. His knuckles were white around the hilt. Then they flooded with red. Then white again.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  Becca nodded at Emmett, and Emmett squeezed my arm to move and stand in front of me. The three of them—Becca and Emmett and Jake—formed a loose triangle. A little, I thought, like the point of a spear driving toward me. I swallowed the urge to repeat my question; better to wait and let them tell me.

  “Things have moved beyond a certain point, Vie.” Emmett folded his arms. White bandages peeked out of his sleeves, marking the most recent wounds Emmett had suffered for me. The scars on his face, on the wedge of chest that was visible, the scars that covered the rest of his body—those were marks of the same suffering. I felt a dark thrill at that: what he had suffered for me. It turned my stomach. It made me want him even more. “And we’ve reached a moment,” he said, “of making hard decisions.”

  “We should be finished already,” Jake said, his eyes still on the floor, his knuckles blanching and flooding with red in a frantic pulse. “We’ve wasted too much fucking time already.”

  “Finished with what?” I said.

  “We talked about this,” Becca said to Jake. “We agreed that we’d let Vie be part of the decision.”

  “What decisions? What are you talking about?”

  “Ginny is a traitor,” Emmett said, spreading his hands, those bandages like signal beacons in the motel room’s shaded yellow light. “And she’s on the side of an enemy who is vicious. She would have killed you, Vie, and she would have done it without a second thought. Now we have her, and it’s time we took advantage of that fact. We need information—”

  The knife. The frenzied, cramped whitening of Jake’s knuckles. The plastic poncho. The way Becca looked anywhere but at me.

  “No. You’re—Jesus Christ, Emmett. You want to torture her?”

  “I want to get information out of her. She was taken by Urho and the Lady. She knows where they are. She knows their weaknesses. She knows a lot, Vie.”

  “No.”

  “And the fact is, we need whatever she knows.”

  “No.”

  “You’re being stupid!” Emmett’s chest rose and fell in the silence that followed his shout. “You’re being so fucking thick-headed about this. Listen to me: you don’t have a chance. None. If you go up against Urho and the Lady like this, you’re going to die. And if that doesn’t mean anything to you, then consider the fact that the rest of us will die too. They’ll hunt us down. They’ll exterminate us.”

  “No, Emmett. That’s the last time I’m going to say it.”

  “You don’t understand, Vie. I—” His whole face curdled, and he tucked his hands under his arms. “I faced one of those things. Your—” His mouth shaped the word mother, but he didn’t speak it, and he finally said, “You know what I’m talking about. I faced it, and I know. You don’t know. You don’t have any idea what they’re capable of, not really, because she took her time with you. She had to be careful. But the real thing, when she finally lets loose. The power. The hunger—” His chest snapped out like somebody had hooked him and reeled him in hard, and he sucked for air. “Jesus, you don’t have any idea—”

  “I don’t have any idea? I don’t? I’m the one that’s faced Urho on the other side. He chased Becca and me through a dream, once. Remember that Becca? And he tore open the back of my neck, here, in the physical world. I’m the one that faced the Lady. I’m the one who looked at her with my second sight and saw the real thing: that shriveled abomination hiding inside her body. You haven’t seen those things. You haven’t faced them. I’m the only one who knows how bad this is, and I’m saying no.”

  “Fuck you.” Emmett looked ready to cry, and the green-white of his pallor made the scars more livid. “You fucking idiot, I’m doing this to help you.”

  “No, Emmett. You’re doing it because you’re scared.”

  If I’d drawn a .45, leveled it at his chest, and squeezed the trigger, it couldn’t have been much worse. He didn’t take a step back, but he did rock onto his heels, and his mouth drew back into a thin line that tightened all those scars and made his expression savage and horrible. He launched himself at me, and for a moment I thought he was attacking me. Instead, he checked me with his shoulder, knocking me out of his path, and plunged into the drizzle and the gray emptiness of the Wyoming night.

  The humid air snaked around my ankles, and I shivered as I shut the door and blocked out Emmett and the rain and the night. When I looked at Becca, she still wouldn’t meet my eyes. When I looked at Jake, his head came up as though on a string and he jabbed the knife in my direction.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “Fine.”

  “He’s right. You’re a fucking idiot.”

  “Fine.”

  “Temple Mae was unconscious for four hours. She’s stronger than you, a lot stronger than you, and she almost died fighting that guy.”

  “I didn’t want her—”

  “Fuck what you want. I don’t care what y
ou say. I’m going to get answers out of that bitch one way or another.” He rose off the bed, and for a moment I glimpsed the athlete, the rodeo star, the liquid grace that I had seen—in a less refined way—in Austin. As he surged toward the bathroom though, Becca raised one hand, and Jake flowed to a stop. The huge knife flowed too, as liquid as every muscle in Jake’s body, coming up at Becca’s body. The tip dimpled the poncho. Where the plastic folded under the point of the knife, light gathered in a starburst. “Get out of my way.”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  “I’m getting answers. I’m not going to let anybody hurt Temple Mae.”

  “Let me talk to him for a few minutes, Jake. Ginny’s not going anywhere. Go check on Emmett.”

  “Fuck him.”

  “Then go call your dad and see how Sara’s doing.”

  “You’re going to let her go. You agree with him, and you’re going to let her go.”

  Becca’s eyes were luminous, almost as bright as the plastic poncho puckered around the knife. “I’m telling you we’re just going to talk. Ginny’s not going anywhere.”

  For a moment, the knife could have slid into her, parting plastic and flesh, driven by the same muscles that gave Jake his lean, long build. Then Jake swore and stormed toward the door. I angled away from him, and the door clapped shut behind him, and then it was Becca and me.

  “He’s right,” she said with a shuddering breath, one hand hovering above the crease in the plastic where the knife had rested. “It’s not going to be hard to talk me out of this.” Her eyes came up, meeting mine for the first time. “I didn’t like the idea when Emmett came to me about it. I didn’t like how eager Jake seemed to be when Emmett called him.”

  “But you’re here. With a poncho.”

  “I’m here.”

  From outside the room came low voices—angry voices, Jake’s and Emmett’s voices—and then a rattling thump that put my heart into panic mode for half a second. Then I recognized the sound: the exterior ice machine churning out new cubes. I caught a mirrored look of fright on Becca’s face, and we both smiled.

  Her smile faded. “Vie, I don’t like this idea. But I don’t know what other options we have. Right now, Urho and the Lady hold all the cards. They have Kyle and Leo—both of them a lot more dangerous than any of us, even if Temple Mae weren’t out of commission. They have Lawayne and however many guns and guys he can supply. They have—”

  “They have Tyler and Hannah. That’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Those are the kids? The ones from the hospital?”

  I nodded.

  “Why are they so important?”

  “They’re kids, Becca. They don’t deserve to be caught up in this, and Urho and the Lady have already done some horrible shit to them. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you, of all people.”

  “No, I mean, why are the kids so important to Urho and the Lady? They’ve been kidnapping kids for decades. For centuries, probably. And they’ve always either killed them or let them go. This time, though, they want the kids. Need the kids. Why?”

  I ran through what Emmett and I had unraveled between us: the need for a psychic, a real psychic, who could bring Urho back to this side of reality; Ginny’s capture and betrayal; her ability to guide unlocking—or enhancing—the Lady’s ability to awaken; and my newfound status of being totally disposable.

  “So the kids are psychics?”

  I thought back to what I’d seen in the Hunt Public House and shook my head. “Not psychic.”

  “Then why does she need these kids?”

  “I think they might be able to do what she wants anyway. Their abilities, whatever they are, are linked by the fact that they’re siblings. Let me show you.” I lifted the end of the thin quilt on the bed and pointed to one side. “Tyler is here, on this side. But he’s totally here. Not like a normal person. His spirit wasn’t even visible on the other side, and that’s never happened to me before. He’s completely here on this side so he’s . . . he’s like a nail that’s been pounded into this side of reality.” I indicated a spot on the other side of the quilt. “Hannah’s over here. She’s been split out of her body, and her spirit is sitting on this side, completely separated from her body.”

  “She’s nailed to the other side?.”

  “I don’t know, Becca, I’m trying to figure this out too.”

  “I’m not making fun of you.” She frowned, tilting her head. “They’re connected. That’s what you think? Because they’re blood?”

  I nodded.

  “Why else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Think about it, Vie. Why these kids? She could have picked up a brother-sister pair anywhere. It didn’t have to be Tyler and Hannah. Why them?”

  “Cribbs was working for Lawayne—”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Lawayne probably has siblings in one of those fucking brothels that he could have given her. He definitely could have picked up some stranger’s kids. They’re using Tyler and Hannah because they know it hurts you. Because they hope it’ll make you stupid. They’re using them because if you won’t leave town, they’re going to kill you, and the kids are an easy way for you to mess up.”

  I blew out a breath.

  “So you see, right? Whatever you’re planning, they were counting on you coming after Tyler and Hannah. If you wouldn’t leave town, they were counting on this.”

  “Ok, Becca.”

  She cocked her head at me. “Are you connected to anyone?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a psychic. You said you’ve gone to the other side. Are you connected to anyone by blood?”

  I blinked. “I was.”

  “River.”

  Another nod.

  “That’s why you could sense his ability. That’s why you could tell, sometimes, where he’d been, or where he was going.”

  “Yeah. I kind of assumed . . . I don’t know what I assumed.”

  “Anyone else?”

  My heart tumbled against the hollow space in my chest. My mom. My dad. Did I have the same connection to them? If I did, what did it look like? How had it manifested? Or had all the hate and hurt burned away those threads?

  “I don’t know.”

  “It might be important.”

  “I don’t know, Becca.”

  “Ok, ok.” She squinted at the places I’d indicated on either side of the quilt. “If what you’re saying is right, then Urho coming back to this side is just a matter of time. They’ve got the kids. Their connection is like some kind of bridge or tunnel that Urho is going to use to cross back to—to where?”

  “This side of reality. The real world. The physical world.”

  “No, to what body? His own? If he died two hundred years ago, that body isn’t going to be much use to him.” She shook her head. “This is such a weird conversation. Where’s he going?”

  “He’s going—Christ, I don’t know. That’s the least of our problems. Whoever it is, they’re going to have to hurt him bad. In order for a body to be open like that, it’s got to have its chakra torn apart. At least, that’s how Mr. Big Empty did it.”

  “Luke.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “No, Vie. His name is Luke. That other name, that stupid kiddo name, that’s what he wanted people to think of him as. But he was just Luke. Calling him that other name, that’s giving him power.”

  “He’s dead, Becca. He’s gone.”

  “You still shouldn’t play into his games. No matter what kind of power these people have, they’re still people. Dead people. Crazy people. People who have lived a long time. But they’re just people.” Her mouth twisted. “Do you think he’s going to take Tyler’s body?”

  I envisioned that blank spot on the other side where Tyler should have been. I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He wasn’t . . . he hadn’t been hurt in the right ways. But maybe.”

 
“Where, then, Vie? Hannah’s? You said her spirit is totally out of her body.”

  “Maybe.”

  “We need to do better than a maybe.”

  “Well, we can’t. We don’t have enough information.”

  “That means we’re back where we started.” Becca shivered, and the poncho crinkled. “We need to do it now, Vie. Before I lose my nerve.”

  “No.”

  “Vie, you’re condemning two innocent kids to suffer, and you’re letting a nightmare come back into the real world. Urho has been terrorizing this part of the world for centuries, and he’s been dead. Imagine how bad it’s going to be if he’s alive. Lawayne, the Biondi—he’s going to make them look like bullies on a playground.”

  “No. That’s my final answer.”

  She shook her head sadly. “You don’t get to decide this. I insisted that we at least talk to you about it. I made the others agree to that much. But we’re all in danger, Vie, and we all get a vote. And the rest of us have voted yes.”

  I loomed over Becca, and she shrank back, the poncho creaking and whispering as it crumpled under her, the bed springs squeaking, my shadow slapping like a long dark hand across her face.

  “I said no, Becca. We’re not doing this. We’re better than they are.”

  “They’re torturing children. They’re kidnapping and murdering children. Comparing us to them isn’t fair.”

  “They’re people. That’s what you just said. They’re not monsters. They’re not soulless goblins created by an entity of pure evil. They’re human beings, and yes, they’ve got powers, and they’ve used those powers to do horrible things, but they’re still people. And we’re people too. No, don’t interrupt me. I want to finish this, and then you can talk. You know my dad hits me.”

  Her face turned to chalk. “I didn’t—I mean, Vie, if I’d—”

  I swallowed. I knew the path I was on. I knew where it led, to that dark sun at the back of my head, to its corona of shadows. I knew what it would do to me. But I had to. I had to walk that path for a moment. I had to tell Becca. So that she would know. So that maybe she would understand.