Charity pulled away from him. "Oh, that's great. That's wonderful. It's a damn good thing Al Diaz can't hear you now."
Kettering whirled on her. "What the hell do you know about it? Have you seen your family ripped apart and brain-blasted? Have you had a friend with his head twisted around backwards? Have you got this ... this thing from Hell dogging your footsteps, controlling your life?"
"No to all of the above," Charity said quietly. "But I did come close to getting barbecued in my own house, and I do have a big, dumb cop I care about who seems to be crumbling in front of my eyes. I do have some kind of a stake in this."
Kettering sighed and sat back. "Shit. I'm sorry. Having you hang with me through this has meant a lot. I guess I haven't told you that."
"No, you haven't."
"Okay, consider it said. So ... what next?"
"You're not quitting?"
"I can't. There's this tough redheaded broad who won't let me."
She reached up and kissed him. "That sounds more like my macho cop boyfriend."
"Okay, so we're back in business. Got any suggestions?"
Charity placed her fingertips on her lips and frowned in thought. After a minute she said, "Maybe ... no, that's probably not it."
"Maybe what?"
"A crazy idea."
"Let's hear it. I'll be the judge of how crazy it is."
"You said a minute ago that your father had the power of the Church and ... something else. What do you think that something else was?"
"I don't know. Everything I saw through the window that day is cloudy. I seem to remember Dad holding something in his hand when he died. But I can't clear up the picture in my mind."
"It could be the weapon we need, Kettering. Maybe you have it now but you don't know it. Maybe the other guy has to get it away from you so nobody else can use it."
Kettering stared at her.
She grinned sheepishly. "Ah, I told you it was crazy."
"Sure it is, but isn't everything? Go on."
"Well, your father used it and he won, didn't he?"
"My father died."
"Think back. You told me your father was inside arguing, fighting with somebody."
Kettering frowned, trying to remember.
"I heard the voices."
"You felt the threat of whatever it was."
"I was six years old."
"But you felt it. Your father was fighting against someone ... something. He had a weapon. You saw him hold it. What was it?"
"I don't know. I can't see it."
"Try, Brian."
Kettering leaned back and closed his eyes. He tried to force his mind back to the long-ago afternoon in Prescott, Indiana, and the front porch of his home. He could summon up again the angry voice of his father. And the other. He remembered being told about how his father was found lying dead. Near his feet an unexplained scattering of ashes. But whatever happened in that room was hidden. It was like a heavy curtain had been drawn forever across the window in his mind.
"It's no use," he said. "I can't remember."
"Try harder, dammit. It might be the difference."
"Don't you think I am trying? Christ, I've lived that day over so many times, awake and in nightmares, but I can never see clearly into that room. What the hell do you want from me?"
She turned toward him and lay a hand on his arm where the biceps bulged into a rigid knot.
"Hey, ease up. I'm on your side, remember?"
"Sorry."
They sat for a minute in silence.
"Can I make a suggestion?" Charity said at last.
"Could I stop you?"
"That doctor you told me about ... the one down at the Police Building?"
"Protius?"
"You said he wanted to try hypnosis."
"He said it was a possibility."
"Why don't you think about it?"
"Even if it worked on me, I don't see what good it would do. They use it for witnesses who get rattled. The idea is to help them - " He broke off.
"Yes?"
He spoke slowly and deliberately. "Help them remember what they saw."
"Well?"
"I don't even think I can be hypnotized."
"You can't know unless you try."
"Uh-huh."
"So will you try?"
"I'll think about it."
"God, you have got to be the most stubborn man I've ever met."
"Okay, I've thought about it."
"And?"
"And I'll try it."
Chapter 28
Clang!
The heavy square blade of the shovel bounced off the lopsided head of the Doomstalker.
It was an old-fashioned wooden-handled coal shovel, the kind people in the midwest used to load up their coal-burning furnaces. Brian took his best baseball grip on the handle and swung it again.
Clang!
Another direct hit on the side of the terrible Doomstalker head. And again no effect.
The Doomstalker smiled, a ghastly grimace of jagged teeth and blackened gums. He reached for Brian. The talons wriggled, each with a life of its own.
The coal shovel crumbled into dust in the boy's hands.
Riiiing.
"What the hell?"
Kettering sat up in the sofa bed, blinking away the remnants of the dream. Charity Moline stirred beside him.
"That's the telephone," she said.
"Right."
"Aren't you going to answer it?"
Shreds of the dream still clung to him like wisps of fiberglass. "Let the machine get it."
Riiiing.
"It sounds important."
"Balls."
Kettering swung his feet out of bed and, sitting, reached for the telephone.
"Mr. Kettering?"
"Um."
"This is Tricia at Good Shepherd."
It took him a moment to clear away the dream and remember what the hell the Good Shepherd was. And why didn't anybody have last names anymore?
"Yeah," he said. "Hello."
"I'm sorry to have to tell you that your sister is in bad shape."
"I know that."
"What I mean, Mr. Kettering, is that she's taken a turn for the worse."
"Yes?"
"Massive circulatory collapse."
"What does that mean?"
Tricia's voice turned unprofessionally snappish. "It means she's going to die."
"What's being done?"
"We're keeping her comfortable. That's as much as we can do."
"Yes, I see. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Good. She's asked for you."
"She what?"
"She wants to see you."
"Jessica said that? My sister spoke?"
"Mr. Kettering, at a time like this I am not inclined to make things up."
"My sister hasn't spoken for thirty years."
"Well, she spoke this morning. I think you'd better hurry if you want to see her."
"I will. Uh, thank you, Miss ..."
"Tricia."
"Tricia."
Kettering hung up the phone. He turned to see Charity sitting up in bed watching him quizzically.
"Your sister?" she said.
"She's dying."
"I'm sorry, Brian."
"They say she spoke. She asked to see me."
Charity swung out of the bed in a single fluid motion. "Well, let's get up there."
***
The morning was cold and gray and thick with mist when Kettering and Charity Moline arrived on the grounds of the Good Shepherd Convalescent Home. The Topatopa Mountains were invisible in the gray murk, and today no one strolled the paths through the chilly grounds.
Inside the main building residents were being led back to their rooms after breakfast. There was a gray emptiness in the faces and a hint of puzzlement in the dim eyes that brought a pang of precognition to Kettering.
"It's hell to get old," Charity said softly.
"Yeah. The one
incurable illness. The one sin society will not forgive."
They were greeted at the desk by the same gray-haired nurse with sad eyes who had met them here last time. Like the weather outside, she was melancholy and vaguely damp.
"I'm glad you came quickly," she said to Kettering. Her eyes flicked sideways at Charity.
"Miss Moline is a friend of the family," Kettering said, then was angry with himself for feeling he had to explain.
"I remember," said the nurse. "She was here with you last time."
She accompanied them as far as Jessica's room. "I'm afraid your sister doesn't have much time."
"I was told she spoke," Kettering said. "Asked for me."
"Yes. It was about three o'clock this morning when she had the attack. At first no one could understand what she was saying, her vocal cords had been unused for so long. When she made herself understood, we called you."
"What exactly did she say?"
"Your name. Your name and one more thing."
"What was that?"
"It was hard to make out, but it sounded something like 'baby.'"
Kettering and Charity exchanged a look as they reached the door to Jessica's room. The nurse opened the door for them.
"You go ahead," Charity said. "I'll wait."
"You might be able to help."
"No. If your sister has something to tell you, it might inhibit her if a stranger is there. I'll wait."
Kettering nodded. Charity gave his hand a squeeze, and he went into the room.
The curtain had been drawn to close off the middle bed. Jessica's two roommates looked at Kettering, then quickly looked away. The nurse pulled the curtain back on the overhead rail, and Kettering approached his sister.
Jessica looked smaller than the last time he had seen her. Near the head of the bed a cathode-ray tube monitored her heartbeat with spiky green blips on a black background. An IV tube was taped to a vein in the back of her hand.
With the bed cranked to a semisitting position, Jessica looked like a little girl with the covers pulled up to her chin. A very old little girl. The unlined flesh of her face was a gray color that matched the wedge of sky visible through the window. The outline of the skull was sharp beneath the skin.
The biggest difference in Jessica from the last time was her eyes. They were bright and feverish. And they looked directly at him.
The nurse moved off to a corner of the room while brother and sister faced each other.
"Hi, Jessie," he said.
The seconds ticked by with no sound from the woman on the bed other than her ragged breathing. Then the colorless lips twitched and rolled over the yellow teeth. Her tongue peeked out like a shy nocturnal animal. A rasping, creaking sound like old rusty hinges came from Jessica's mouth.
Kettering moved closer to the bed. He put his face down beside his sister's. Her breath was shallow and smelled heavily of medication.
"Br ... Bri ... Brian."
"I'm here, Jessie."
"Find it ... Brian."
"Tell me, Jessie. Find what?"
"Find ... the ... baby."
"Your baby."
"Yes. Danger."
"From the baby?"
The bony chest rose and fell. A little color returned to Jessica's face. When she spoke again her voice was a little smoother.
"It's not a baby."
"Yes, I know. He'd be grown up now."
"Not a natural baby. Not then ... not now. Find it, Brian."
"Where Jessie? Where can I find him?"
The woman in the bed rolled her head from side to side. Her eyes blinked rapidly, and for a moment Kettering thought he was going to lose her right there. The nurse took a step toward the bed.
"What is it, Jessie?" he said. "What can I do?"
"No!" The sudden strength in her voice startled him. The nurse stopped, looking alarmed.
"I don't understand you," Kettering said.
"The baby. Not ... not a boy."
"What? What are you saying?"
Jessica drew several more rattling breaths before she spoke again.
"My baby was not a boy."
Kettering stared at her.
"Not a boy," she repeated. "My baby was ... female."
"But - "
Kettering got no further as Jessica threw her head back against the pillow. Her mouth gaped open and she screamed. A terrible, broken, agonized scream to make up for thirty years of silence.
The nurse rushed to the bedside as Kettering stepped back, his hands moving anxiously, uselessly.
Jessica's scream died. Her face collapsed in on itself, her head fell to one side.
The Murse threw back the covers and thumped on Jessica's frail chest. The monitoring equipment subsided to a high-pitched beeeeeep.
Feeling helpless, Kettering stepped back away from the bed. At a sound from the doorway he turned to see Charity standing there. Her face was white, her eyes staring.
"The scream," she said. "What happened?"
Kettering could only shake his head.
An Oriental in a white jacket rushed into the room closely followed by another nurse. They brushed past Charity and Kettering and joined the gray-haired nurse at the bedside.
After a moment the gray-haired nurse stepped back. She turned to face Kettering. Her eyes told him the story.
"She's gone?" he said.
The nurse nodded. "It's good you got here in time."
"Sure." Kettering's jaw tightened. "In time."
***
Kettering was silent as he drove west from Ojai, then down the Ventura Freeway toward Los Angeles. Charity Moline let her hand rest lightly on his thigh. Every few miles she looked over at him.
"Stupid," he said as they rolled through the hills north of the San Fernando Valley. "I have been so fucking stupid."
Charity gazed out the window and said nothing.
"Elemental law of detection - do not assume facts not in evidence. I have assumed for thirty years that my sister gave birth to a boy. I've been looking for a thirty-year-old man who would be that boy today. Doomstalker. Now I find out it was a girl."
"You couldn't have known," Charity said. "All the records back in your hometown were destroyed. Nobody remembered. All you had was a name."
"Dorcas," Kettering said through his teeth.
"And that could as well be a girl as a boy. It sounds Greek. You couldn't have known."
"That's the problem," Kettering said. "I didn't know. But I went barging ahead just as though I did. I rousted Enzo DuLac all over the lot because I thought he might be it. I wanted him to be it. He's the right age, but it turns out he's the wrong gender."
"But when you've seen it ... didn't you tell me it looked like a man?"
"I was assuming again. It's big, it's humanoid, it's powerful. You want to call it something, so you call it 'he.' It's only an image, anyway. An evil, ugly image, but sexless. Whatever part of the Doomstalker is mortal lives in the child born to my sister. The female child."
Kettering slowed the car. He turned in the seat and looked at Charity.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"The woman at Harmony Village."
"Zoara Sol," he said.
"What are you going to do?"
"Go after her."
"Aren't you doing it again? Making an unjustified assumption?"
"Maybe. I don't think so. She fits."
"There's something else you ought to think about."
"I'm listening."
"Say you do go after this woman and you confront her, and say she does turn out to be your Doomstalker. What do you do then? You've seen what you're up against by what it did to Al Diaz and to your wife. Do you think you can handle that?"
"I'll have to."
"But maybe not with your bare fists. Or your gun either."
"Meaning?"
"Remember what we were talking about last night?"
"About my father."
"And the weapon he used."
"But I don't remember."
"Maybe you will under hypnosis. You said you were ready to try."
They drove on a mile in silence before Kettering spoke again.
"Let's do it."
Chapter 29
The closer they got to the Police Building, the more nervous Kettering became. In his years as a cop he had been in more life-threatening situations than he could remember, but he had the ability to shift into an emotional neutral so he functioned coolly at the time. Only afterwards, when he started thinking about what might have happened, did the tremors show up.
The only time he got nervous, when his jaw muscles tightened and his armpits sweat, was when he had to go to the dentist.
Or now.
"Maybe we ought to wait until tomorrow," he said when they parked in the police lot. "Go at it in the morning when I'm fresh."
Charity gave him a look.
"He might not be here."
"We'll find him."
"Or maybe he's busy."
"We'll wait."
"Okay, okay," he said. "Let's go."
They entered at the rear of the Police Building and headed for Dr. Protius's office. Lieutenant Ivory came out of a door in their path. Kettering looked around quickly, but there was no time to duck out of the way.
The lieutenant's glance passed over Charity without a change in his expression. He faced Kettering.
"Sorry to hear about Mavis," he said. "How's she doing?"
"Better," Kettering said.
"Were you on your way to see me?"
"No, as a matter of fact we're looking for Doc Protius." Kettering was annoyed with the embarrassment he felt at confessing a visit to the department shrink.
"Good idea," Ivory said. "By the way, your suspension's lifted. When you coming back to work?"
"Soon," Kettering said.
"Glad to hear it. Let me know if there's anything I can do to speed your return." He gave Charity a perfunctory nod and continued past them down the hallway.
"He doesn't like me," Charity said.
"Why should he? He's a cop, you're a reporter."
"Thanks a lot."
"That's the way life is."
They found Dr. Protius in his office, comfortably seated in one of the creaky leather chairs, reading a yachting magazine. He stood up when they entered and laid the magazine aside.
"Brian, glad to see you."
"If you're busy, I could come back."
"Just indulging in a little fantasy." His smile included Charity.
Gary Brandner Page 21