“His name’s Dumbarton,” I gasped.
He inspected the raw burn marks on my wrists, a narrow red ring circling decoratively the older silver scars. His voice held grim, cold outrage. “What the devil happened to your wrists?”
I closed my eyes and took a couple of deep breaths until I could drive the howling memory back to its lair and I could answer reasonably. With my wrists held like that, I felt open, vulnerable, trapped. He was very big, very male. His hands were large and firm, warm and solid. I liked their touch. I realized that, for me, strength seduces. The knowledge shocked me. But a simple and temporary expression of concern and compassion was a frail thing on which to place any trust. His would fade like Dumbarton. I could rely only on myself.
“Lillie…Lillie, what happened? Tell me!”
“I was careless this morning on an exorcism. Impatient. It was a strong, very sentient entity. Serves me right. I haven’t been that stupid for quite a while, and I paid for it.”
“These are exorcism marks?”
“What else?”
It was mostly true. Nathan had been a timid sadist, physically. He’d only dared try it once. When I was asleep. I wondered later if he had drugged me. At the time, I thought he meant to throttle me. Needless to say, that was the end of conjugal sex between us. No great loss, really.
In dreams sometimes, I revisited the pressure of his body straddling mine and the feel of his long fingers closing on my throat while I wrenched at my wrists bound to the bedposts.
It’s not good to examine memories in company. One’s face tends to give too much away.
Johnny gave me a long penetrating look and his nice mouth twisted. He said, evenly, “Lillie. A cop gets to recognize a lot of damage. Those look more like ligature scars. Or manacle marks.” He dropped my hands.
I unscrewed the cap and squeezed out some cream, smoothed it on with shaky fingers. He could think what he wanted. Surely, he didn’t expect me to blurt out details of my sex life. Or lack of it. Or of Nathan’s predilections. They were hardly germane to the situation at hand.
“Okay, then. Forget it,” he said, when I refused to elaborate. “So these are your equipment? Mind if I handle them?”
At my nod, he picked up my bracelets, ran a finger along the intricate copper inlay and over the polished roundels of blood garnets.
“Your wrists are delicate. Don’t you find these things heavy? They look ancient.”
“They belonged to my mother, or so I was told. One of the few things of hers I have. I can conduct a dispatch without them, but they make it easier, reduces the energy drain and overload. When I’m careful, that is—which I wasn’t this morning.” I twitched at the memory.
“Energy drain? Would you explain?”
“It goes both ways. Sometimes I’m the negative pole, sometimes the positive. A disrupter. In a sense, I short out the energy field that forms and maintains an apparition, or I set up a dissonance, which disperses the field. Sometimes I absorb it.” Unhelpful. But how could I explain something I didn’t really understand? Except that it worked sometimes like reversing polarities. I often thought the proper term for the sort of thing I do should be paraphysics, not paranormal.
Johnny laid my bracelets back on the kitchen counter, picked up his French fries and went back to leaning by the door. I took down mugs and made coffee. Filled a plastic bowl with water for Dumbarton, from which he slurped with noisy, messy abandon. If Dummy was going to stay solid for any length of time, I supposed I would have to buy dog food.
“Does it run in your family? Was your mother an exorcist?”
“You’re wondering about a genetic link? A Freak gene? Sorry, I have no idea. She died when I was very young. My guardian had strong views about duty, child rearing and the paranormal. She wasn’t forthcoming. In any case, it seems my mother was adopted.”
“Your father?”
“He died at the same time. You probably have never heard of Flight 308. They were on it. His older cousin raised me. The court appointed her guardian.”
Between bites of hamburger, I used the foil wrap to polish away the light cloud of tarnish this morning’s exorcism had deposited on my bracelets.
“How old were you?”
“Five. She was a good woman, an excellent guardian. She did her best. I must have been an uncomfortable responsibility.”
She hadn’t loved me—I had been too wild and strange a child for love. However, she had cared for me and protected me as best she could. With humor and understanding and compassion, though she had an absolutely rabid dislike of anything paranormal. But when it became apparent that I was one of the few Natural Born Talents, she’d made sure I received proper training in control and defense.
“Sounds pretty bleak. Being left an orphan like that.”
His comment sounded like an invitation to trot out a sad story, but I wasn’t buying. People who like to get inside your head usually do it so they can later cut it off. Beat you with the information. Besides, I hated the poor-me-unfortunate-childhood sympathy bid excuse for faults and weaknesses.
“One survives. Everyone has baggage, Sergeant, including you, I imagine.”
“Hunh. I’m sorry I startled you.”
“I over-reacted. Nervous from last night, I suppose. Put it down to an ingrained impulse to avoid human touch.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t the answer to that obvious? I might hurt people.”
“But you were married. That usually involves touch of some kind.”
I searched his face, but he didn’t wear a smirk. A shit-eating grin usually accompanied innuendoes and indirect inquiries of this type. Maybe because sex and death are so closely entwined in all our psyches. For the first time in our short acquaintance, he didn’t meet my gaze head-on.
I put down the rest of my hamburger and put my plate on the floor for a grateful Dumbarton to inhale. The burger didn’t taste good anymore. Memories are like ghosts, and much harder to exorcize.
“Usually it does, Sergeant, but how is that relevant? Now about this warrant. What are you looking for?”
“Lillie, I understand because of your Talent you’ve developed a habit of reticence, your mistrust and your suspicion—but I need to know. Have you, to the best of your knowledge and belief, ever deliberately harmed a living person with your Talent?”
What was he really asking? I stared into my coffee mug like a skryer at a black divining bowl. Talents like me are considered Freaks. We’re called that, sometimes to our face. People’s revulsion and fear of contamination when they recognize us often results in physical avoidance. That segregation is natural, and probably good, because Talent is a funny thing and side effects are hard to calculate. So I couldn’t honestly blame them for their fear. Sometimes I felt like a walking Taser after I’ve done an exorcism. What if I triggered an epileptic seizure in someone too curious to keep their distance? What if I bumped into someone with a pacemaker and fritzed it? I had nightmares about that very thing. For them, I could be walking death.
I glanced over at him. Outlined against the painted door, black on white, he looked for a brief moment like a figure on a gun-range target. Maybe he did understand, dimly, the isolation, the responsibility, the alienation. But cops have the support of their own kind, the brotherhood.
“Some of them blame me for Bobby, don’t they? Because of the zombie.”
“Maybe some. He was well-liked, I gather. When did you know that he died?”
“That he’d died? After the apparition at the cemetery.”
“You could have said.”
“I could have been wrong. You could have said too.”
It struck me then what he was really asking. Nathan. I had definitely harmed Nathan. And Johnny had just seen evidence he could construe as motive.
I gulped the last of my coffee. It tasted bitter.
“Are you angling for a confession of some sort, Sergeant?” I checked the old mantel clock on the shelf above the table. I could do one more cas
e today, if it were clean and uncomplicated.
I picked up my bracelets and angled them gingerly over my wrists. The silver bracers might cause scars but they also covered and hid them. They were like armor, of a sort, and I couldn’t afford to neglect their extra advantage.
“You should leave those off so your arms can heal.”
“It’s only a first-degree singe. Besides, can’t afford the risk of being without them. I’m tired. And I’ve got to do another exorcism today or I’ll never get caught—”
His cell phone chirped. I went to the front hall to wait out the call. Johnny hadn’t answered my earlier question. Of course, I hadn’t answered his either.
Dumbarton heaved himself to his feet and padded after me. He cruised through the living room, sniffing stiff-legged and suspicious, circling and growling at the spot where Nathan’s body had lain.
My scandalized “Dumbarton!” halted a leg half-lifted against the corner of the couch and earned me an apologetic wag of his tail. Good God, did he need house training? Satisfied with his inspection, Dummy settled by the front door, right below the neat hole in the door panel where one of Johnny’s .38s had been extracted last night. He proceeded to cuff one floppy ear with a great paw.
“I don’t know what’s on your canine mind, but I trust that you’ll have taste enough to make yourself invisible if Animal Control comes around asking why I don’t have a dog license,” I told him between thumps.
I sat on the stairs, took out my emergency sewing kit and went to work putting a few awkward stitches in the dragging hem of my pant leg, while considering the question of whether Dumbarton in spectral form was bedeviled by spectral fleas from spectral squirrels and ghostly groundhogs. It made a kind of sense. I also wondered about flea soap, dog collars in mega-size and dog hair on everything.
Johnny came down the hall and stood, long legs spread, in the middle of my tiny entry, punching at his keypad with a pen and frowning like a dark lord.
As soon as he snapped the phone shut I said, “I have to go soon. The pertinent papers are in the filing cabinet. Nathan kept all his association files in the middle drawer. This exorcism shouldn’t take too long, but if I’m not back by the time you’ve finished rooting around, will you lock the door behind you? Since the door was locked this morning when I woke up, I assume you used Nathan’s key, so—”
“I am interested primarily in any membership lists he had… What case is this you’re going on?”
“Likely a recorder type. Suicide. Only notable thing about it is the frequency. Rapid cycle. Very unusual. The top file.” I nodded at my clipboard on the hall table.
“This one? Hmmm. At the old courthouse. I’ll drive you,” he said.
I just missed driving the sewing needle under a nail.
“Why?”
“A couple of reasons. I’d like to observe your methods.”
“I prefer not to have an audience,” I said, making a quick knot, and snipped the thread. “There’s nothing much to see anyway.” I put my kit back in my bag and stood up. “I don’t go in for ceremonial ritual, candles, incantations and that crap.”
My phone rang. I skimmed past Johnny’s bulk, snagging my coat on the way.
“Lillie, glad I caught you, heads up.” Ted’s usually lazy, laid-back voice hit my ear staccato sharp.
“You got a priority zinger on the courthouse case. Bad publicity over that one. But maybe you should hold off. Didn’t think anything of it until I saw your schedule on your desk after lunch. There’s going to be a protest of some kind down at the courthouse. That SOS bunch of hooligans. You might want to skip that case until another day. You got another zinger from Planning over that graveyard case outside of town. They want you to resolve it ASAP. Developers on their ass. And another thing—heard down at Tilly’s that the other guy, Ricky whatshisname, is in hospital. Wife came down and found him by the front door this morning covered in blood. Watch your back.”
I stood there, staring at the dead phone until Johnny took it out of my hands and put it back on the machine.
“A problem?” He held my coat so I could get my arm in the other sleeve.
“Several. That was Ted. From Bylaw Control. We share an office. There’s a planned protest. And I have to call the hospital, maybe I’ll get a more forthcoming receptionist this time,” I said, pawing for the phone book. “Ric, he’s the other Talent I mentioned—he’s been mugged.”
“Mr. Vanderveen isn’t seriously injured, thanks to your warning. He’s been released.”
Finally, I cranked my mouth closed. My warning? Not a simple home invasion, then. Of course. No doubt Thresher had already interviewed Ric. And Thresher hadn’t said a thing, the closemouthed bastard. I slid my hand up under my collar to check.
“I think you could have told me straight off that Ric had been attacked. After last night…”
He shrugged. “Not a priority. More important to make sure you had a ward.” He flipped up my collar. “I see gold links. I’m glad you do.”
“Details, please. Did Ric confirm it was a dullahan? Did the attack follow the traditional pattern like the others in the reports? How ‘not seriously injured’ is he?”
“Yes. Standard style. A bucket, he said. The blood. He’s nursing a bruised cheekbone and right eye. Fortunately, his sight will be unimpaired. His father’s gold tie clip is missing. Seems it was a sufficient deterrent. Shocked, of course. By the way, how would you rate his Talent?”
I thought it over. “Ric? Moderate. He seems competent at what he does, conscientious. I’ve not caught wind of any complaints, except the ones you’d expect—that we don’t get through cases fast enough. He appears to lack imagination and the ability to anticipate at times, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering the kind of straightforward dispatch he’s called upon to perform.”
Remembering my own words yesterday at the coffee shop, I added, “I wonder if he sent off a report to the national office about the first incident. He’ll have to file a follow-up.”
“He did. It was re-routed to me.”
“You? Is that why you’re here? I thought it had to do with Chief Secord.”
“He’s only part of it. The situation is more complicated, more involved than you might be aware. Among other things, incidents have escalated.”
“Escalating? No shit, Sergeant. Anyone can see that, or else people are coming forward with complaints and reports more often.”
“Don’t squint those green eyes at me, Lillie. I mean against Talents.”
“So your interest is not in my exorcism technique but more in riding shotgun,” I said at last. “I’m flattered. I think. But I don’t think a badge will prove efficacious against a dullahan, unless it’s made of gold. No matter how big and menacing and built like an armored vehicle you are, or whatever Talent you imply you don’t have, your size won’t matter. Besides, I didn’t encounter the Crom Dubh. Ric did.”
“No,” said Johnny. “But size does matter. A badge—and being big and strong and menacing as you put it—is always handy against a gang of protesters if they decide to get rough. And I’m very interested in your exorcism technique.”
“Believe me, there’s not much to see. Observers in the past have expressed acute disappointment at the lack of drama. As far as the pro-spook squad goes, I’ve run into that lot before. That bunch is mouthy but not violent. They parade around, hand out earnest pamphlets and chant.”
“Still, it might be a good idea to conduct your exorcism another day. Your call.”
The young man had been arrested on a misdemeanor and normally would have been released on his own recognizance with an order to appear. His detention was the result of a similar name and descriptors coming up on C-PIC with outstanding warrants. The regular cells were full and so he was stuck in the overflow for safekeeping until things sorted out.
By the anguished tone of the petition attached to my file, from the suicide’s family, those circumstances must particularly grieve. The “if only
s.” If only this had happened rather than that. If only one had done this instead of that. I knew all about those futile exercises, the twisted, criss-crossing paths of cause and effect that the mind trudges along over and over.
At least I could put a stop to the endless replay of his suicidal preparations and final moments. That alone would help, a little.
“Yes, it might. But I’ve been ordered by the town’s legal counsel to clear the matter as soon as possible. And there’s a more important thing…”
“What’s that?”
“His family needed it over last week.”
“Lillie,” he asked, following Dumbarton out on the porch. “What would you do if you came face-to-face with a new and strange entity, something worse than a Death Messenger?”
“That’s easy,” I said as I locked the door. “I’d pee my pants.”
15.
It didn’t look like much of a protest when we drove casually past the ugly, yellow brick courthouse and circled the block. The protesters were easy to pick out from the rest of the pedestrians by the SOS’s trademark white gloves.
Three young men hung around the open back doors of an old white van parked across the street, leaning on their signs. Two were eating burgers on a bench outside an insurance office. A kid loitered by the bank handing out flyers. Two women on the steps of the main entrance waved their signs at deliberately oblivious passers-by. Stationed where they were though, the women pretty well put paid to any hope of my slipping in, doing my job and getting out without notice or fuss.
A pair of uniforms cruised the sidewalk, with that definitive strolling gait. I wondered if they were on scene because they expected Nathan’s bunch to show up and counter-protest as they had the last time the SOS attended one of my exorcisms. We passed Ted working his way along a line of cars, issuing tickets and checking parking meters. Ted didn’t like protestors, but he liked protests.
On our second pass, Johnny pulled in the lane that led to the parking lot at the rear, disturbing the scavenging seagulls that patrolled the place each day after lunch.
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