Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  “Yeah,” Joshua said. He and Joy had spent several hours the night before washing dishes, and he’d been surprised how quickly the menial job had gone by with Joy doing the time beside him. “But I want to visit Simon at the hospital first.” Then, at his mother’s half-pitying look, he added, “I know. But I just don’t quite get it. I keep thinking about the key image that you saw. That must mean something, and I can’t think of anything that would connect Simon to a key. It just doesn’t seem to fit.”

  “And you still don’t believe it’s him.” It wasn’t a question.

  Joshua took a deep breath of the cool inside air and felt his frustration heat it to a steamy gust as he exhaled. “No, I don’t.”

  The sound of Sterling’s car on the gravel distracted them from the conversation until he and Jenny came inside and helped themselves to coffee as Greer inducted them into the conversation.

  “Joshua and I were talking about the fact that I’ve seen an image of a key over each of my premonitions of the fires.”

  “And that must mean something.” Sterling echoed Joshua without knowing it. “But what?”

  “Well, that’s what we don’t know,” Greer said. “It could be representative, or it could be literal, part of an expression, like ‘all keyed up.’ ”

  “But it must have something to do with the arsonist!” Joshua exclaimed in frustration. “It must.”

  “Not necessarily.” Greer’s voice held a cautioning note. “It could just represent something to me. It could mean that, oh I don’t know, that I was ‘unlocking’ the location of the next fire.”

  Joshua leaned toward her and used some of her own advice back on her. “Does that feel right to you?”

  Caught, she grimaced into her coffee. “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Okay,” Sterling said, and reached a long arm across the counter to pick up the pad and pencil by the phone. “Let’s make a list. Who could a key represent?”

  “Uh, a locksmith?” Joshua asked.

  “Good. Okay.” Sterling wrote that down.

  “How about a home owner?” Jenny suggested.

  “Doesn’t help us much,” Greer said. “Although, I did think it could have signified Rowland Hughs handing out keys to many people. But based on the fact that his property has been a casualty, I think he’s safely out of the running.”

  “He’s out,” Jenny chimed in, and in a few succinct sentences, she told them about Leah’s aborted attempt to trap him, his denial, and Leah’s subsequent apology.

  A brief hush followed her story, a moment of respectful silence for the destruction of the eyesore they would have cursed in existence. Then Greer spoke up. “I did have my doubts about R.J.”

  “Yes.” Sterling was nodding. “I was hesitant to put that out there, but he did paint all the locations that have been targeted.”

  “And the rest of the entire county as well. At least the scenic bits,” Jenny reminded him.

  “That, and the fact that just outside his door he had a wind chime made with an old-fashioned, heavy, metal key. Just the kind I’ve seen in the visions.”

  This announcement was greeted with a contemplative silence until Jenny tossed another horseshoe of common sense onto the stake. “But he was being arrested for obstructing the parade right in front of us when the first fire broke out.”

  “True,” Greer conceded.

  “But”—Jenny’s face looked thoughtful—“he did have a motive. If you remember, he was shouting something about how our behavior was going to be our destruction, or words to that effect. Could he have preset the fires, you think?”

  They all looked at Sterling, who, rather than being insulted, merely nodded and said, “It’s definitely possible. Any good arsonist should be able to find a multitude of ways to delay combustion.”

  “Well, then you’d better put him on the list,” Greer said sadly. “Damn it,” she added. “I really liked him.”

  “I know he’s a nice guy and it seems unlikely, but every freak lives next door to somebody,” Sterling said as he wrote the name and a short list of reasons underneath it.

  “Who else?” asked Joshua, deliberately not mentioning Simon.

  Jenny squirmed. “What about Reading?”

  “Who?” asked Sterling, looking up sharply.

  “Mindy’s husband. You met him at R.J.’s party,” Greer reminded him. “He did seem rather enamored of fire. And he seems to enjoy killing things, if the number of hides nailed to his barn means anything.”

  “Oh yeah, him.” He gave Joshua a knowing glance. “We actually saw him with a dead deer draped over the front of his truck, remember?”

  “And he gives me the creeps,” Jenny confessed. “Whenever I’m up there riding King, he’s always sort of lurking around. I just get the feeling that, I don’t know, he’s the kind of person who would get off on the power of it.”

  “But what has he got to do with a key?” Sterling asked.

  It was Joshua who answered. He had put it together now, the image of the dead buck across the hood of the king cab and the salacious pleasure on the faces of the men around it still stuck in his mind. He could see the animal’s eyes, reflective and without depth, the red-black of the fresh blood as it dripped down over the white paint of the truck, across the black lettering stenciled there. In a voice that cut forcefully through the air like a well-aimed rock, Joshua barked out, “He installs security systems.” He squinted, trying to recall the wording on the side of Reading’s truck and at the same time forget the blood dripping pathetically down over it. “And his logo, it says, ‘The key to your peace of mind.’ ”

  “Jesus, you’re right,” Sterling exclaimed, smacking his hand down on the paper.

  They all looked at each other. Finally, Greer cleared her throat and said, “Guys, I don’t think that’s much to go on. I mean, as far as calling the police to say we suspect somebody.”

  “At least they could talk to him, find out where he was when the fires were set,” Joshua suggested. “Do you think Detective Sheridan will go for that?”

  The corners of Greer’s eyes crinkled as her mouth twisted into a frown. “I don’t know.” Joshua’s eyes were beseeching, and it physically hurt her to not be able to give him what he wanted.

  She knew how much he hoped that these fires had been set by anyone but Simon, for whom he had assumed the role of protector, but she could not in good conscience put suspicion on someone else just to ease his mind. So very gently, she said to him, “And what about Simon? Doesn’t Detective Sheridan suspect him?”

  It was Sterling who voiced Joshua’s doubts. “But a key? What does a key have to do with Simon? The only thing I can think of is that he was in fire camp lockup, but it isn’t even real jail. I mean, I’d like to give the kid a break—people certainly gave one to me, which is the only reason I’m sitting here right now—but the fact remains that he was at or near the location of every fire, and that does look bad for him.” Sterling turned hard eyes on Joshua. “What does he have to say for himself?”

  “Nothing,” Joshua said bitterly. “He won’t say anything. It’s almost as if he expects the worst and for everyone to expect the worst of him, so what’s the point?”

  “Maybe that is the point,” Greer said, trying to gently lead her son to his own conclusion. “Maybe he needs to expect something different for it to be possible.”

  Sterling was nodding. “Or maybe,” he suggested, “he expects the worst for a different reason: a conclusion to his actions.”

  Joshua did not want to think about that reason. It would mean that everything he felt was wrong. And as disturbing as it was to have these frightening visions, it would be far worse if he couldn’t trust them. He stared out the window at the sky. If he let his eyes go out of focus, he could almost imagine that the sky was actually overcast, not with smoke, but with forgiving clouds and their promise of sweet rain.

  Chapter 54

  Even the light through the ward window looked thick and dusty from the ash in the a
tmosphere, blown in from several miles away. Joshua stood at the edge of the curtains pulled around Simon’s bed and wondered if Simon was asleep or faking it. He saw the boy’s eyelids flutter and cleared his throat. “Simon?”

  Slowly, the head on the pillow turned. Half of Simon’s head was bandaged, near the left temple, but both his eyes were open and he regarded Joshua warily—yet, Joshua thought, there was a hint of something more, an almost infantile flash of trust and pleasure that broke fleetingly through Simon’s otherwise impenetrable shell. “Yo.” Simon’s voice was dry and cracking as though his throat had been recently stripped and sanded. “Wha’s up?”

  “Well, shit,” Joshua started self-consciously. “Not you, that’s for sure.”

  “They got cops outside?” Simon asked.

  Joshua couldn’t think how it would help to lie, so he said, as flippantly as he could manage, “Just the one.”

  “They let you in though?”

  “Yeah, they know I came in with you.” It seemed to be paining Simon to turn his head to the side. Joshua took a few hesitant steps in so that Simon could look at him standing at the foot of the bed. “Did he charge you?”

  Simon looked away but nodded slightly without any hesitancy or emotion. Joshua waited, letting his weight bear down so heavily on first one foot and then the other that he thought he could feel the arches of his feet flattening to the floor.

  Finally, he asked, “Did you do it?”

  He did not think that Simon was going to answer, and was about to succumb to the overwhelming urge to give up when Simon spoke. “It don’t matter,” he said, so softly that Joshua had to think about the words for a minute before interpreting their meaning.

  This was it. He had to try now, or never. “Sy,” Joshua said, ignoring the other boy’s three-word statement because he knew that to argue or dispute it would be exactly what he was expecting, used to, and skilled at defending, “you know how you said I was a freak?”

  That definitely had not been what Simon was expecting. His eyes opened wide and his right hand gripped the sheet. “Ye-ah?” he said cautiously, the word sliding out of his slack mouth a little bit at a time, as though only willing to emerge after checking to be sure it was safe.

  “Well, I know I am. I mean, I see stuff. Believe me, this isn’t something I picked as a friggin’ hobby; it just started to happen to me. You know the first time I saw you, up on the fire road? The first day we spoke?”

  “Yeah.” Simon wasn’t letting anything else out.

  “Well, I saw something near you. Two things, actually. One was a little dog, a shaggy little thing, friendly, and he was yapping at me, as though he was trying to protect you.”

  Simon’s mouth had closed rigidly, and his eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere behind Joshua’s head.

  “And I saw something else. I know you read it in my notebook: I saw a figure of a man.” Joshua wanted to pause for breath, but he was afraid that if he so much as hesitated he would lose his nerve, so he bulldozed on. “And this man was definitely the most evil thing I’ve ever sensed around somebody. I think that man was your father. Am I right?”

  Simon’s eyes flickered to Joshua’s, and then he turned his face toward the window. Joshua could see a muscle in his jaw twitching. “Could be,” he said.

  “And if it is,” Joshua rushed on, “and I’m right about what I think, then you have to make an effort to cut the tie that he’s got on you. You’ve got to do something, make a gesture, or change the way you think, or . . . something, I don’t know, but otherwise, he’s going to go on having this influence on you that’s . . . that’s fucking nasty.”

  Simon still didn’t look at him, but the jaw muscle was working furiously now, and Joshua could make out a wet sheen over Simon’s eyes that he seemed to be trying to blink away.

  There was a long moment when they both struggled for breath, and then finally Simon said, “That motherfucker won’t ever be gone. He’s waiting for me.”

  “Because you shot him?” Joshua could hardly believe he had said it so simply.

  Neither could Simon, from the stunned look on his face.

  “But you shot him because he was going to kill you, right? I mean, he killed the dog that was trying to protect you, and then he came for you.”

  Simon’s eyes had narrowed and he was looking at Joshua the way someone would look at their fairy god-mother if she ever really appeared. It was a look that was equal parts awe and terror. “How do you know that?” he croaked. “Who told you?”

  Joshua exhaled; he had been most afraid that Simon would just tell him he was crazy and throw him out. “Listen to me, Sy. I know this is going to sound very weird. Hell, it sounds twisted to me, and it’s coming from my head. But he’s not supposed to be here. Don’t ask me how I know this. I just do. Like I just know that you didn’t start these fires. You didn’t do it.”

  As though on their own volition, Simon’s eyes shot up to Joshua’s face and he stared at him, his lower lip quivered, and after a visible struggle for control, he asked, “Can you make him go away?”

  This was the crucial part. “No,” Joshua said firmly.

  “But I can help you do it. At least I’m pretty damn sure I can. But I think that you have to do something that will change the energy that’s around you, you have to change the way you are.” Joshua paused. Even to himself he sounded inane and unbelievable. “Does that make any sense to you? Can you think of anything?”

  Simon shook his head and pretended to be rubbing his eyes, but it was a futile attempt to hide the tears that he could no longer subdue. Joshua forced himself to keep looking at the other boy. He knew if he looked away in embarrassment it would be an admission that he had seen Simon’s emotion, and that would be an irredeemable offense.

  They seemed to stay in that position for a long moment. Joshua could see the constrictive movement in Simon’s throat as he swallowed the sobs that were battling silently to escape him.

  The large, swinging ward door behind them suddenly opened with a distinctive vacuuming sound like the muffled popping of a hermetically sealed jar, but Joshua was so intent on Simon that he saw the spasms on his face of first raw fear and then hatred before he grasped that the large form of Detective Sheridan had entered the room and was looming just over his shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” the detective asked Joshua, stepping forward, and the intimation that he thought they had already settled this could not have been more clear.

  “I came to see my friend,” Joshua said, turning to face the meaty man with more bravery and defiance than he felt.

  “Your friend,” Sheridan said, “is in a whole heap of trouble, and you would do best to distance yourself from that large, steaming pile while I’m still willing to let you.”

  “Please,” Joshua said, but it was unclear whether he was saying please to Detective Sheridan or Simon, because his eyes started on Sheridan but shifted to Simon as he spoke the next words. “Please, give him a chance.

  Simon. If there’s anything you can do to help what we talked about, then now is the time to do it. I’m not giving up on you.”

  As he spoke, Joshua’s focal point rose up and seemed to Sheridan to fix on thin air about two feet above Simon’s head. Sheridan cut back the expletive with which his short patience had been about to relieve itself, and snapped his hard jaw shut. He’d seen this before with Joshua Sands, in this very hospital, and he was a smart enough man not to discount something he’d seen substantially validated.

  For a moment, the upright youth stood perfectly still, staring frozen; then his eyes flicked to the boy in the hospital bed, as though to check that he was still with him, then refocused on nothing.

  Very quietly, Detective Sheridan said, “What is it? What do you see?”

  “He’s here,” Joshua answered in a somewhat louder tone, which made it clear that he was speaking past Sheridan to Simon. “He’s here, and he wants you. You’ve got to do it now, Simon. I can help you cut this tie. I’m su
re I can, but you have to help me. You have to let him know that you are making a different choice in your life. You have to tell Detective Sheridan the truth.” Joshua’s voice dropped as though he were afraid of losing his target, and he stage-whispered, “One way or the other, it’ll release you from him.”

  Joshua was intently staring down the dark figure of Simon’s father, who, Joshua could now clearly see, was connected to Simon with black rope like lines of energy—or the absence of it. He didn’t know which, didn’t care, but he knew that those lines had to be broken. It was taking all his courage, and a great deal of strength, to keep looking at the darkness; he could feel the negativity and evil from the form like it was radioactivity that was nauseating him and making his limbs tremble.

  “Please,” Joshua said in a whisper, “you have to do it now.” He was gathering all the positive strength that he could find from every recess in himself, visualizing it as light and gathering it together like a weapon that he could use—not to shield this time, but to strike.

  Detective Sheridan had no idea what was going on in this unique young man’s brain, or even in the room, but he could see that it was real. Trusting his instincts over his violently objecting common sense, he turned to the boy in the bed and said, “How about it, son? Do you have anything to say to me?”

  There was a gurgling sound from deep in Simon’s throat as the last of his resistance crumbled, and his desperate plea for help broke forth with an implosion that sucked back the sound from his silent scream. His mouth opened and his throat worked furiously though nothing escaped, and through the cry’s choking strangle-hold, he managed to say, “It was Loc.” Then the sobs came full volume, his sorrow and pain at last victorious over his fear and misplaced loyalty. “I thought he was my friend. He killed that man and tried to make it look like I did it. He started the fires. He fucking liked them, acted like he was some kind of fucked-up god or something.”