“Looking to chartah?” the man called down, noticing Joey’s interest. His accent was pure New England.
“Just passing by.”
“I do a river cruise, if you’re interested.” The man’s dog began barking hysterically in the cabin. “Shut up, Blackie!”
“Not today, but thanks.”
“I don’t blame you.” He stomped the deck with a thin leg. “Piece of shit, ain’t she? The club’s going to turn me out if I don’t fix her up. Want a beer, kid? They card in the restaurant, but I don’t. You look like you could use one.”
Joey shielded his eyes. The stranger’s face was craggy but friendly. On impulse he said, “Sure.”
“Two shakes.” The old skipper went into the cabin, holding his dog at bay with one foot, but she escaped, ran between the skipper’s legs, barked three times, took a running leap, and jumped off the deck into Joey’s arms, clawing his chest and licking his face.
“Sorry about that!” the man shouted, returning with beers. “She’s a pain in my ass.”
“I don’t mind,” laughed Joey, trying to evade the big pink tongue attacking him. He held the dog at arm’s length and looked it in the eyes.
He knew this dog.
“Charley?” Joey slipped to the boards, cradling Jason’s poodle in his arms.
“She likes you.” The old man popped a beer can. “Little bitch hates me.”
“Where did you get this dog?” Joey said, his voice level and deliberately calm.
“Why? You want her?”
“Is she yours?”
“Unfortunately. Crazy thing won’t give me a minute’s peace. Barks like a car alarm. Middle of the night. It’s as bad as the damn ice cream trucks on my block. Almost.”
“But when did you get her? I think she belonged to a friend of mine.”
“That boy that almost drowned?”
“He… did drown.” Charley whined at this, as if following the conversation.
“Oh? That’s a shame. He didn’t look too bad.”
“When?”
“When I pulled him out of the Hudson.”
Joey stood, feeling bewildered, shocked, and hopeful. He set Charley down. The dog circled his legs, jumping at him. “Tell me.”
“Well, July the fourth—night of the big wreck—this man come running up throwing money at me, saying his son had gone off the bridge. Banged her right over the rail. We took the Rip out half the night, way later than I’m s’posed to, but the fella wouldn’t give up. That’s a good dad.” He held up the other beer can. “Still want this?”
Joey did. He caught the can, popped it, and drained half in a single swallow.
“Shit, kid. Come up for air.”
“Just tell me. Was the man… blond?”
“Yeah.” The man frowned now. “Real well dressed, too.”
“Did he leave a name?”
“I… don’t want to say any more. What’s your business?”
“I think the kid you rescued was my best friend. Just tell me. Was he breathing?”
“Oh, sure. Waterlogged, out like a light, but alive.”
Charley darted back and forth, begging Joey to pick her back up. Joey took her in his arms again and stroked her fur, fighting back tears. “And the dog?”
“We pulled her out first. The fella didn’t want her. He said, ‘Take the rat.’ He put the boy in his car and drove off—just left the dog behind. Seemed like a nasty thing to do. So I’ve been taking care of her. You okay, kid?”
Joey laughed. “Yeah. I think I am.” Charley licked his face, giving him beer-flavored dog kisses.
“She’s never sweet like that with me. Thing hates my guts. It’s mutual. You want her?”
Joey nodded, unsure of his voice.
The man studied him, then did a little mental calculation.
“Hundred bucks.”
Anything’s possible, Valerie thought, watching Mike chat with his buddies across the room.
She moved deftly about the kitchen of the firehouse, chopping herbs, checking on her chicken paillards, plating perfect little ratatouille pizza slices. The men of the Pocantico Hook and Ladder Number One had taken a real shine to her cooking, as Eliza used to say. And to her. In two short months she’d become mother hen to the entire group—to grey-headed Frank McDonald and hipster-scruffy Holden Lee. To Duncan McGregor and Neil Carmichael, Mark Streed and David Snellen. To Silent Charlie, a fire-scarred veteran with one ear, a patch of bald skin up his left temple, and a tracheostomy valve like her own. She and Charlie had cleaved to each other at once—sensing kindred sorrows. Mike said Charlie’d spoken more words since Valerie had come than in the whole nine years since his injury—which he’d suffered saving twin girls from an apartment blaze. She and Charlie broke into mutual tears the first time they laughed together, though she could never say exactly why.
At home, Mike was the cook. He had a talent for barbecuing, grilling, searing, charbroiling, basically anything that involved lighter fluid. But at the firehouse, Valerie was chef, digging into her repertoire from four years of culinary college, a dream abandoned once she became unable to breathe in a busy kitchen. She hadn’t exercised the skill much in the years since, only on the rare occasions when she cooked for guests—as she’d cooked for Jason last Christmas Eve.
She liked the little firehouse kitchen. It reminded her of the fellowship hall of the church she’d attended as a girl—not the old brick church of her grandmother’s compound, which had terrified her, but the community chapel up in Danvers, where she’d grown up. She’d sung in the choir there—had been much praised for her singing voice—and afterward, there had been cupcakes with her father.
Mike sat chuckling with the other men, a row of blue-shirted and shiny-headed rogues. He saw her looking at him. He spread a spoonful of her rillette on a toasted baguette slice and took what he intended to be a soulful, sexy bite. He accidentally put his elbow in the pâté dish. It was silly and wonderful.
Yes, anything was possible.
Valerie had slept with men before Hadewych. Boys in college, a dalliance with an older man—the second violinist of her mother’s chamber group, on the sly, under the piano. But that was before her accident. Afterward, she counted herself lucky to have someone. Hadewych rescued her from her mother. He stayed by her side through her surgeries. He accepted her, and her voice. She thought he loved her, and she loved him. For ten years, she gave him a free apartment above her own, money for Zef and for his own interests. She’d been his enabler, and he’d played on her fear of the Horseman to further his schemes.
She sensed no such agendas in Mike.
She’d read his cards too.
No pentacles. Only cups.
After dinner, after the firemen had tossed napkins into plates with exclamations of gratitude and praise, she offered to do readings for the group. They cleared an end of the table and gathered around. Mike kneaded her shoulders as she concentrated and dealt cards.
Frank McDonald would meet a beauty, and move to a new city with her. He was delighted.
Hipster Holden Lee would go into finance. He was appalled.
The firemen grew more and more fascinated as the readings continued, as she explained the powerful Major Arcana and the lesser Court Cards. But her good mood evaporated when the conversation turned to the Tappan Zee Bridge accident.
“I swear I saw the Horseman up there,” said Neil Carmichael. “A headless dude, no shit, standing on the top pier, way up high. It was—”
One of the men bumped Neil’s shoulder, tilting his head subtly in Valerie’s direction. They all knew she’d lost a friend that night. They changed the subject to the meal, thanking her again. She took a bow, made an excuse, and went into the kitchen, pretending to clean up. Her grief for Jason was still raw. The grief and the guilt. First chance she got that wasn’t obvious, she closed the shutters between herself and the dining room and let the tears come.
Mike came to her and kissed her hair, holding her. “I know. I know.
It’ll get better.”
She lay her head against his chest and listened to his strong, straightforward heartbeat. He always knew, somehow, when the grief came, and she comforted him after his own nightmares too, which came often. He never told her what those were about. She imagined that, in his line of work, he’d lost some friends himself.
After Mike returned to the group, Valerie stood staring at the cards in her hand. The deck seemed to quiver, to pulse. She stared at the back of it, at the intricate Celtic embroidery of emerald green. She rarely paid attention to that side of a tarot card, did she? At center, one single all-seeing eye stared into her own. It seemed newly awakened somehow, gentle and strangely generous.
She cut the deck. She cut it three times, lifted the top card, and laid it face up on the mirror-bright countertop.
The Fool.
The Fool carried all his possessions in a bundle. A dog barked at his feet. He stood on a precipice, his eyes skyward, fixed on a vision only he could see. This card had been Jason’s significator. It had appeared in every reading she’d ever done regarding the boy. She’d not seen it, even once, since the Fourth of July.
She dealt the next card.
Judgment. The dead rise at the blowing of the celestial trumpet.
She whirled and threw the shutters open. Nine firemen blinked at her with puzzled expressions.
“He’s—alive!”
Sunset flared over the Hudson River, reddening the dark clouds, little by little, until they were almost auburn. The day looked to end on a dreary note, overcast and joyless. But a wind rose, happily, and pushed them out of the eyes of the sun. Somewhere high above, the soul of the Fool returned from its long exile. Not with the turning of a page, but of a tarot card. It fell to earth like a shooting star, plummeted down a last keyhole of blue, and fell back into its mortal body.
The body it found was thin and weak, lying comatose on a rectangular cot. The balled fists on either side clutched an emerald green blanket, tangling it into intricate, almost Celtic patterns. The boy took a generous breath and opened one eye.
“I beat him,” whispered Jason Crane.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“The Good Doctor”
“I beat him.”
Jason opened his eyes to blinding lights. He recoiled, rolling onto his side and covering his face. He opened one eye again, just a little, squinting against the glare. He felt an irritating dart of pain in the crook of his right elbow. A plastic tube—secured with white tape. He tore the needle out, threw the tube aside, and pressed his eyes shut, squeezing tears into his lashes. He was on the embalming table again… On the embalming table… On the…
On the what?
Embalming table? Why would I think that?
“I beat him,” he croaked.
Beat who?
Where the hell am I?
He opened his eyes in gradual stages, blinking against the blur. The lens flares all around dimmed and resolved into windows. Small round windows, like the portholes on a ship, reddening with sunset or dawn. He raised his head. The room was round, with walls of red brick. The aqueduct? Was he down in the aqueduct?
He lay on an iron-framed cot, his body half-covered by a green blanket. He tried to rise, but only managed to roll from the deep groove of the mattress and tumble over the edge. The floor jumped up and struck his shoulder, then his forehead. The entire room flipped upside down for a moment before righting itself again. The portholes rocked. Maybe he was on a ship. In heavy seas.
“Hello?”
His voice was deep, cracked and dust-dry as the groan of a mummy. Maybe he was in his tomb, under the sand of the Valley of Kings, waiting for Howard Carter to crack the seal. Some shroud twisted around him. He kicked at it, breaking out of his wrappings, and threw off the blanket that had followed him to the floor.
A rank odor hit him in the nose. He puckered his lips and twisted away. He’d jostled some bedpan beneath the cot, raising a reek of ammonia. The stink had the same effect as smelling salts. His senses returned to him. He sat up, weakly, and pushed the hair out of his eyes, taking stock.
He sat on the floor of a round room of reddish-orange brick, dotted with eight porthole windows. A black spiral staircase stood in the middle, like a DNA strand from floor to ceiling. It led to a trap door above. Across the room from Jason stood a grey metal door, the only other exit. The bed was the only furnishing. It was an old bed, like a hospital cot from the fifties. The bedpan below it was brimming. A shallow cardboard box next to it contained skin creams and a toothbrush and toothpaste. A pile of soiled but neatly folded towels lay nearby.
I’ve been sick.
For how long?
He felt his body for changes. His hair was unruly. He had a beard. He was skinnier than he could remember ever being, even skinnier than when he’d awakened in Phelps Memorial Hospital after weeks of pneumonia. He was truly Ichabod’s heir now. All elbows and knees and bony wrists. He stank of stale sweat and had small red splotches of food on his shirt. He raked rubbery flakes of dry soup from his chin.
I’ve been here a long time.
What’s wrong with me?
He felt a dull ache in his right bicep. He rolled up the arm of his T-shirt and found a wide white bandage. He frowned, already wanting to cry, but peeled the bandage back. The wound had almost completely healed, but it had been bad once. How had he been injured? A memory came back to him. Fighting Eddie in the tunnels below Gory Brook. He’d picked up a rusty bone saw for a weapon. He had escaped by wriggling into a narrow water pipe, but had dragged the bone saw across his own bicep. He taped the bandage back down and rocked, feeling sorry for himself. But he couldn’t mope.
He grabbed the rail of the staircase and attempted to pull himself up, but fell onto his rump immediately. His legs didn’t work. Did he have some spinal injury too? He looked at his white-socked feet and told his toes to wiggle. They did. Good. He wasn’t paralyzed. Just weak.
And… chained.
A bright steel manacle hung around his left ankle. The sock beneath was browned with dried blood. His ankle felt chafed and bruised; he’d worn the restraint for a long time. A chain ran from his leg to the central pylon of the staircase, wrapping around it twice, secured with a padlock. He gave it a yank. He wasn’t going anywhere.
I’m in trouble. I’ve been sick for a long time and I’m a prisoner.
The realization gave him a surge of adrenaline. He grabbed the rail again, pulled himself up with difficulty, and stood, holding tight, struggling to keep his balance. When he was ready, he let go and managed to lurch across the room to the nearest porthole, pressing his forearms to the brick, bracing himself.
He was… up in the air. He could see water down below. He was high above the Hudson River, and he could see… the Tappan Zee Bridge.
Everything came back to him in a rush. The Horseman. The ghost of Eliza, wearing chains. Going over the rail in the Mercedes, kicking to the surface. He’d been in the water and…
“Charley?” he croaked. “Charley?” He searched the room for his dog. Where was she? Tears rose. What was going on? He went for the door, but his chain was too short. He wandered around helplessly, clattered into a metal stand and fell, taking it with him. Something cold exploded beneath his belly. He’d burst a plastic bag. The label read 5% Dextrose IV. He glanced to his elbow, where the tube had been. A trickle of blood snaked down his forearm like the stripe on a barber pole.
He staggered back to his feet, dripping dextrose, and cupped his hands around another porthole. The Hudson again, pale and still. Was that Nyack off in the distance? He was facing west, then. Where was shore? He turned around and checked the porthole on the eastern side of the room. Far below him stretched the endless wastes of the GM property. How could he be seeing them from such a high angle? He was—
I’m in the lighthouse.
He circled the room, going from porthole to porthole. He let out a strangled cry and began banging on the thick glass.
“Help! Help
!”
He heard footsteps below. His cries had caught someone’s attention, and, oh, he could guess who it was. He had no doubt who was responsible for his situation. No doubt at all.
He searched for a weapon. He stumbled across the room and seized the little metal stand, tossing aside the glucose bag. He heaved it to one shoulder like a jousting lance, ready to poke out the eyes of his jailer.
The door opened. Jason lunged, lance high, but he’d forgotten the chain on his ankle. It caught him short and he toppled forward, dropping his weapon. He would have fallen face first, but two strong hands shot out and caught him under the armpits. Jason went limp, overcome by dizziness and exhaustion. He stared vacantly at the drifting wall as he was dragged back to the bed and deposited there.
“Thank God,” the man above was saying. “Thank God you’re alive. Oh, thank God. Thank God.”
The man’s features came into focus. Jason recognized him from… somewhere.
“Easy, kid. Easy. Lie still.” He held up a finger. “Be right back.”
Jason lay panting on the cot, trying to remember where he’d seen the man’s face before. He knew that face. He was… he was…
When the man returned and Jason saw what he carried—a black leather doctor’s bag—he remembered. This man had taken care of Eliza, too. When she’d been in her coma after her fall on the stairs. His name was…
“Dr. Tamper?”
Tamper gave a nod and opened his bag. “Do we know each other?”
“You took care of… my grandma.”
Tamper picked up the blanket and laid it across Jason’s legs. “Just rest. How are you feeling, kid?”
“Like shit. What’s wrong with me?”
“You’ve been in a… I don’t know what to call it. A coma, maybe.”
“How long?”
He shrugged. “Six weeks.”
“Six weeks?”
“At least. That’s when I got pulled into this. Maybe… two months?”
“What?” Jason thought of Kate, of Agathe, of the Horseman. Anything could have happened while he’d lain on this stupid cot! He struggled to rise. “I’ve got to get out of here—Aaagh!” Jason’s leg went into spasm and cramped violently. The pain was terrible. He screamed.
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 13