She followed, not knowing what to say and needing to say something in order to learn more. She had to know more, it was the first principle in defending yourself against an enemy set to kill you.
Two dressers against the wall, two beds whose footboards were each below a casement window. No rug. Two wardrobes. Ben was at one, yanking out clothes and stuffing them into a suitcase scarred with frequent use. A shirt fell to the floor and he kicked it angrily under the bed; a shoe dropped and he groaned; and when a handful of folded socks tumbled from his hand, he dropped to the other bed and covered his eyes.
"Doc? Doc, I'm scared."
She sat quickly beside him, an arm around his shoulders, thinking this wasn't the way it should be at all. Her fury was still contained, but she should be out on the hunt, not sitting in a dark room comforting a boy trying hard to be a man.
"I am, too," she whispered. "And that's why you have to help me, Ben."
"I can't!" he said, almost wailing. "They said before they'd kill me if I said anything. And I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't believe it. My god, how the hell can you believe something like this, huh? How can you?" He looked up at the wall, eyes blinking furiously.
He'll leave, she thought then; he'll leave and find a new place to live and in a few weeks, a few months, he'll convince himself it never happened. It was a dream. A nightmare. He'll shunt it aside and live again, and every once in a while he'll wake up screaming and not know what it was.
"All right," she said calmly, tightening her grip briefly. "All right, Ben. But you at least have to tell me where they went. I have to find them, tonight. You do see that don't you? It's my life we're talking about here, and I'll be damned if I'm going to give it up just because Ollie wants me dead."
Ben laughed.
Pat dropped her arm and stood quickly, backing toward the door as Ben threw himself flat on the bed and laughed hysterically. She lifted an impotent hand, opened her mouth, almost turned to leave so she would not see him finally go insane. But she stood her ground. Listening. Waiting. Watching as he rolled over on the mattress until his legs swept over the side. Until he stood and closed the suitcase, wiped his face with a sleeve and shoved her to one side.
"Ben!"
He opened the door.
"Ben!" She ran after him.
He stopped.
"Please," she said. "Just tell me where Ollie and Harriet are and I'll leave you alone."
"It's funny," he said. He was grinning with no mirth at all reflected in his eyes. "It's really funny."
Confused, she glanced to the desk, the windows, back again to him. "What? For Christ's sake, Ben, what the hell's so damned funny?"
"You," he said. "I thought you knew."
"Knew what?" A fist was at her throat to stifle a scream.
"Ollie," he said. "Weren't you listening to me, Doc? Didn't you hear what I said?"
"Benjamin," she said, lowering her voice as the last shred of her patience died and became dust.
He leaned casually against the jamb, the suitcase between his legs. A slow look around the room before he met her gaze and sighed. "Doc, sometimes you can be really dense, you know? Do you really think Ollie has the brains to think up all this crap? Ollie? Our Ollie?" His expression darkened to scorn. "He hasn't got the imagination of a flea, and you know it. If it wasn't for her, he'd just be spouting garbage like everyone else on this godforsaken campus. He'd be a freak like all the other freaks, only this one wears a cowboy hat. Christ, a cowboy hat in Connecticut." The scorn began to slip. "When he met her for the first time we all thought it was great, you know? Ollie finally finds someone who likes his act and lets him know she knows it's an act. But in a nice way. I honest to god, Doc, thought she was good for him."
Freckle-head, they called her. Pat couldn't believe Ben was talking about the same woman.
"Then it turned out she only needed him because there has to be two. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has to do with however it is they get things to work. More power, something like that. And Ollie—he was getting frustrated because the show wasn't coming off and it was just what she needed. She used him, only I didn't see it until it was too late and I couldn't stop him then.
The scorn was gone, and Pat saw him pale again, saw him tremble. And what had she once called Harriet? A redhead trying to be an all-American blonde? God almighty, how wrong she'd been.
"That's when they said they'd kill me if I told."
Harriet weeping in the living room. Please, she'd said, don't be angry with them.
"See, it was her. She wanted Doc Billings—"
"What?" She blinked, unsure she'd heard the name right.
"Well, who the hell else, Doc?"
"No." She put a hand to her forehead, to her lips. "That's—"
"Doc, you don't know, you really don't know."
"But she's just a girl, for god's sake," Pat protested softly, suddenly aware the door was open to the landing. But when she looked at him he would not close it. "Just a girl. What does she know about men? About life? God, she's been locked up in this damned town all her life, how can she—"
"Hey, Doc," Ben said, his head tilted, one eye almost closed. "Hey, are we talking about the same thing?"
It was an effort not to stutter. "Yes," she said. "Yes, we are. We are talking about Harriet Trotter and what she's done to Ollie. That, Ben, is what we're talking about."
Suddenly the desk lamp sputtered out, the bulb over the landing sputtered. A wind battered at the panes, a draught fluttering papers greyly to the floor. Ben snatched up his suitcase, ran out and down the stairs. Pat followed, calling to him, shrieking while she held onto the banister. He paused for a moment on the next landing down, behind him the campus lights wavering through the narrow slit windows.
"Ben, please!"
"Doc, you're great, but I ain't sticking around, not now."
"But Harriet—"
"Jesus Christ, Doc!" he yelled. "Jesus Christ, will you please wake up? It isn't Harriet that's doing it, it's that bitch Abbey Wagner!"
Chapter 21
And the lights went out.
The afterimage of Ben's face floated in the black, a distorted grimace of anguish and fear that faded each time she blinked until she was alone on the landing, listening to the rising groans of protests, the opening and slamming of doors, the receding slap of footsteps. Her mouth had opened to call Ben's name, but she made no sound. It was futile, and she knew it. He had driven himself into a nightmare which would cling to him like a second skin, and no amount of screaming would ever wake him again. As much as she was determined to end it, he was determined to flee in its shadow. It was a choice she had almost made herself, and only the dark prevented her from collapsing on the top step and giving way again.
Slowly, then, she moved downward, her right hand clutching the worn and smooth banister while her left was outstretched, searching for the wall, or for obstacles that had no business being there in the dark. Every few seconds a light would flare outside, from candle or flash, but it would fade before shadows had an opportunity to form and accentuate the black that settled over the campus.
It was out there.
She had the front door handle in her grip.
Out there.
She had braced herself for the swarming cold.
Out there. Waiting.
She stepped back as if slapped and listened to the wind soughing through the bare trees, smothering the voices of students passing along the Long Walk. The doors trembled slightly, and she needed no further prodding. She turned and headed down, belowground, fingers trailing along the wainscoting until she swerved left into the tunnel that would, if she didn't get herself lost, release her at the front parking lot. It would have been easier, much easier, if she could locate a flashlight, but all the doors she passed were locked, and none of the students had come down with her.
There was laughter. She could hear it faintly, filtering through the building's thick walls. A pane of frosted glass glared and da
rkened. A door slammed, echoing after her as she forced herself not to break into a run.
Out there.
Her foot kicked against something that skidded away ahead of her, and she ground her teeth to keep the scream from escaping. It was no time to panic. She had to keep moving, had to keep hoping that she would be able to find a way off the campus without the red-beast discovering exactly where she was. Without anyone else being killed before it found her.
Abbey. Abbey Wagner.
A splinter in the paneling thrust into her thumb and she whimpered, jammed it into her mouth and sucked. And with the movement the wall fell away, she was in the middle of the floor and she was falling. She knew it. She could feel the darkness giving on all sides, could feel her weight shifting until there was no weight at all, nothing left to anchor, and she threw out an arm, her fist crashing against the wall, opening so her palm could diffuse some of the pain. A moment for a deep breath, another for a choked sobbing, and she was walking again, almost trotting. Her ears aching with the strain of listening, her throat so dry it felt coated with sand. She stopped several times to allow the sounds of her own footfalls a chance to fade—but there was nothing behind her, nothing ahead, the roaring she was hearing swelling somewhere inside.
She swallowed hard and pulled back her hand to claw lightly at her neck.
She stumbled forward, her stride shortening as she estimated the turn that would take her to the left. She did not want to enter the wrong tunnel now, to find herself caught beneath the English building or Science. At least here, despite the dark, there were people overhead; there, if she screamed, no one would hear her.
The turn.
Abbey Wagner. How many times did they have a drink together and laugh over Kelly's escapades and commiserate whenever poor Kelly came home crushed. How many times had Abbey been thinking that Pat had to die? How many months had it been before the woman had discovered the way to drive off a rival?
She stopped and sagged against the wall.
In all the literature she'd read, all the novels, all the stories, the seeking of some manifestation of supernatural power was done not for the gold or for the silver or for the assurance of immortality—it was, underlying all, for the power. The power to achieve all those things and more. It seemed almost comical then that Abbey should have discovered the workings of stone simply because she was different, was different and in love.
No, she thought; there has to be more. Life means more; my life means more. How in this day and age can something so precious be threatened by something so . . . so . . . She shook her head and pushed back into a shambling walk.
Hand along the wall.
Feet flat on the ground.
Sounds fading, sounds dying.
"Oh!"
Her toe stubbed against the bottom step of the tunnel's end. Immediately she fumbled in the dark for the railing, hauled herself up and fell against the door, the brass bar snapping down under her weight and the door flying open. She wasn't prepared, and she tripped over the threshold, was able to negotiate the first two steps before balance failed her and she fell on her buttocks, sliding to the bottom where the ice took her into a snow bank.
A moan she couldn't stifle; her back stung, and her elbow where it had cracked against one of the stairs. She rolled onto her side, unwanted tears burning to her cheeks until she swiped them away angrily and scrambled to her knees. To her feet. Swayed as she looked around for orientation, for a sign.
The parking lot lay below her, the buildings of the quad lifeless in spite of the candles she could see, the voices she could hear already preparing for a nightlong party. She was tempted to join them. It would be such a simple thing to lose herself in the crowds now filling some of the rooms, to have a drink, to be cajoled into laughing, to wait safely inside while the red-beast waited. A simple thing, and too simple. One girl was dead (and Kelly, where was Kelly?), and herself nearly dead. If Abbey was truly that filled with hate, it would be easy enough to talk herself into sacrificing a handful for the one.
The tails of her muffler were pushed to her chest. Her nose ran. Her ears burned. The back of her neck felt as though a razor had been drawn over it by the flat of its blade. She glanced at the dark rows of cars in the lot, made darker by the glow of the snow as the clouds shredded and the moon came out. There would be no keys there, and she had no idea how to hot-wire an ignition.
Walk. She would have to walk. Once on Chancellor Avenue she would be able to hitch a ride into town. To see Wes and tell him and not care if he thought her crazy as long as he didn't send her home for a rest. He would apologize, of course, for nearly accusing her earlier, would feel guilty and perhaps want to accompany her to the door. But the last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near the apartment tonight. There were shards of that marble lying in the workshop, and as long as she stayed away she knew she was safe.
Her hands, then, unbidden, dove into her pockets. Searching. Her heart stopping a beat when her fingers closed on a lump, starting again when it proved to be lint.
Safe. For the moment she was safe.
And she walked around the lot and down the road to the trees. Where the moon was sliced in ribbons and the branches clawed for the stars, where patches of ice glittered too much like water, where the wind sighed down to a breeze and toyed with her hair, the hem of her coat. She kept to the right side, every few yards glancing over her shoulder in case a car should come along. But it did not take much time before even the few faint glimmerings of window-based candles were screened by the firs and she was left alone with the remnants of the moon. Teeth chattering. Chin quivering. Her only accompaniment the crack of her heels and the whisper of the breeze.
Briskly. Spine rigid. Eyes straight ahead. Refusing to think that perhaps she'd been wrong, that perhaps the red-beast no longer needed the spore of the marble. She assumed it was drawn to the pieces by order, that in whatever state it existed its guidance was limited to that and nothing more. Which explained Susan's death, and her own narrow escape. But what it did not explain—
A branch split, and she spun around wildly, hands to her chest.
And when she turned back toward the avenue there was someone in the road.
A stumbling step forward before she stopped. Her mouth open, breathing deeply, raspingly; the figure standing quite still just fifty yards away. The face was hidden, the outline hazed, its head oversized and grotesque until she realized it was wearing a wide-brimmed hat.
It was Oliver.
Waiting. While over his shoulder plumed streams of cold white.
"Doc," he said, his voice carrying though he did not speak loudly. He shook his head once. "You should have stayed up there, you know."
There were too many things to say to him, too many conflicts from pleading to rage; she lifted a hand toward him, pulled it back and turned to run.
And stopped when she saw Abbey step out of the forest.
"No." A whisper, a denial.
"Doc," Oliver said, several quiet steps closer, "you never should have left the quarry, you know. You were supposed to be up there looking for more stupid rocks. You were supposed to fall. You weren't supposed to run."
Abbey was standing in a wavering patch of moonlight. Her blond hair touched with grey, her eyes turned to shadow. She kept her hands in her pockets, but Pat could see her smiling.
"You're something, you know that, Doc?" Closer. Still soft. "I mean, you didn't take off and you didn't fall in the quarry and you should have been dumped for that car thing. 'Course, that was pretty stupid, I know that. Don't blame that on Abbey. It was my idea, and I put the stone in the wrong car. It was dark in the parking lot. Stupid, right?" Closer. Softer. A smile that carried the dark humor of execution. "It's like you always told me, Doc—you got to think it all out before you start to work. I should've listened to you, I guess. All these dumb mistakes just because I was too stupid to listen."
She turned her back on Abbey, startling Oliver into halting.
"Dumb mi
stakes?" she said, almost ending in a scream. "A poor girl's dead, and that's a dumb mistake?" When Oliver didn't answer, she advanced a stride, was grimly pleased to see him fall back. "And what about Kelly?" she demanded. "Where is she? Damnit, Ollie, where is she?"
"She found out," Oliver said, and needed to say no more.
"Bastard," she said quietly, suddenly too weary to be angry. Then she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "What does she do, Ollie? What's so special about her that you'd do such a thing?"
She could see his face now—hard-set and old.
"She isn't doing it for you, you know. She wants me away so she can have Greg. I don't get it. What's in it for you?"
"I got so I like it," he said with a shrug.
So calmly, so matter-of-fact. She would have preferred a shouting match, or a voice laced with consummate evil—any emotional tirade just to prove he was human. But he only stood there, watching her, talking to her as if they were discussing the results of a test or the prospects of the upcoming baseball season. I got so I like it; no apology, just speech.
The breeze grew somewhat stronger.
"Are you going to kill me?" So reasonable, she thought; I sound so goddamned reasonable.
Oliver shook his head. "Not me, Doc. I'm what you might call the spaniel in this. I hung out the game, if you know what I mean." He reached into his jacket and pulled out the statuette. "Then I set the trap."
It took her a moment to hear Abbey moving, but the girl was too fast around her, was standing next to Oliver before she could react. Abbey was smiling, softly, and pulled her hands from her pockets.
I was so sad about Kelly, she signed in the near darkness, but she couldn't understand me. Oliver does, though. And I was so upset until you came in and started talking about Greg. You were the one, Pat, who made me see I was right.
"My god, you're crazy."
I know things, Pat, and that's not the same. You have your brains to get what you want. I know things. And I use them.
"I don't kill."
The breeze, stronger still.
The Bloodwind - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels) Page 20