* * *
Thanks to Brice’s charms, I don’t have any trouble getting into the prison. It’s disconcerting to be invisible again. I don’t like the way it feels, but it’s easier this time than the first time since I know what to expect. I don’t have any problems looking over shoulders to see where my father’s cell is either. So, very quickly, I am walking through the halls of the prison on my way to find him.
The thing that seems the most oppressive about the prison is its blandness. The colors are beiges and grays. Everything seems lifeless and dull. The worst thing is the lack of windows. That’s what makes it feel so closed in. As I wander down the bland hallways, I think about what it must be like to be here all the time, shut away from everyone and everything, trapped in this sterile world. It must be horrible.
But I don’t feel sorry for my father. I can’t allow myself to think of him as having any kind of emotion. Not if I want to do what I came here to do. I shove aside the things that Brice said to me. I don’t think about whether this is the right thing to do or not. But I can’t help but remember the way I felt after Tommy and I disposed of Vincent’s body, when I worried that it might get easier to kill people and get rid of them, and that I’d become hardened and hollow. Is that happening to me? Has it happened already? Should I feel something else now? What does it say about me that my first instinct after talking to my father on the phone was to put a bullet in his skull?
I finger the gun I’ve brought along. I keep walking.
When I get to my father’s cell door, all I have to do in order to get inside is place my hand on the door. Brice’s charm does the rest. My father doesn’t share a cell—another perk of the Calabrese last name. I push the door open, and I see him.
He wears an orange jumpsuit, and he is lounging on his bed reading a paperback book. He looks up when the door opens, and seems confused when he doesn’t see anyone come through it. I shut the door after myself.
“Hello, Dad,” I say.
He can’t see me, and I can tell that confuses him. “Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” I say, coming closer. “Olivia.”
“Olivia?” He is looking all around the cell, wondering where my voice is coming from.
“I’m invisible, Dad. Seriously, you sell charms like this all the time.”
“Invisibility charms don’t sell,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“I said you’d pay, didn’t I?” I take out my gun then, and make sure to cock it in the noisiest way possible.
He scrambles off the bed, then, grabbing at air, trying to find me.
I easily step away from his grasp, trying not to giggle at him. He looks kind of ridiculous.
He stops. He sits back on his bed. He smiles. “You came to kill me? Maybe you are a lot like me.”
This makes me angry, even though I used those words against him just a few hours ago. “I’d never do what you did.”
He just laughs. “What will you do after you kill me? Take up my spot as head of the family? Keep selling illegal charms?” He gets more comfortable on the bed. It’s as if he’s not afraid of me at all. I should just shoot him now and be done with it. Why am I listening to him talk? “I was young like you were when I first took over the Calabrese business. It was amazing to be that powerful and that important. But there was nowhere else to go, Olivia, and a man can’t live out his life knowing he reached his peak before he was twenty. I had to have more. You’ll need more too.”
I haven’t thought about this, I realize. I haven’t thought about what I’ll do once I’ve killed my dad. Can I still keep working with the jettatori, if we don’t sell charms that hurt people? What if there are more people like Vincent? Do I want to have to kill them too? Can I live that life?
“You can kill me, I suppose,” my father continues, “but you’ll just be setting yourself back. I’m right on the cusp of something huge and exciting now. Something that’s going to propel both of us to heights of power and influence you can’t even imagine. It would be a shame to mess all of that up.”
“I don’t want power,” I say.
“Of course you don’t,” my father chuckles. “That’s why you’ve spent the last five years of your life doing everything you could to get it. How much have you sacrificed for power, Olivia?”
“I didn’t want to be the head of the family because I wanted power,” I say. And I didn’t. I wanted it because...because it would mean that I was important. Because it would mean that I wasn’t insignificant. Because... “You’re trying to make me feel unbalanced. It won’t work. I’m going to shoot you for what you did to Mom. But before I do it, because I’ve got nothing to lose, you might as well tell me what you’re planning on doing with all of those berserkers.”
“Tell you?” He smiles. “Stick around for just a little while longer, and I’ll show you.”
What? What does that mean?
“I hadn’t planned on moving quite so quickly,” he says. “But after you found your mother, I knew it was only a matter of time before you set about making things difficult for me, splintering the family. I had to act sooner than I’d planned. But things will still work out well, Olivia. You’ll see. Only it would be much nicer if you didn’t shoot me.”
“I’m going to,” I say. Do it, I think to myself. Do it now. But I hesitate. Why? Don’t I want this man dead?
Of course I do. It’s just that now, sitting this close to him, my finger tensed on the trigger, I can’t help but think of what it will be like afterwards. His body will be lifeless and bloody. Everything will be messy and ruined, and he’ll just lie there like a side of meat, and I’ll know it was me that did it to him. Me that took the life out of his body—turned him into something dead and worthless. And I just don’t know if I can do it.
He can’t tell, but I lower the gun so it’s not facing him. I let it dangle at my side in one hand. I don’t know if I’m going to shoot him or not. I should. I came here to do that. But...
Then I hear it. It’s a strange sound, something like a crowd at a baseball game or a concert. A sound of footsteps and yells. A sound of a lot of people together. “Did you stage a prison riot?” I ask my father.
He laughs.
The yells sound more like grunts and growls now. Suddenly, I understand. The berserkers. They’re here. “Are you crazy? Why would you set loose that many berserkers on a prison?”
He gets to his feet. “Bait and switch, Olivia. Distraction. Besides, digging a hole with a spoon is passé.” He walks to the door of his cell—a metal door with a small glass window—and bangs on it.
I walk around behind him. Through the window, I can see berserkers filling the hallway. When my father bangs on the door, they turn and look at it. My father throws back his head and bellows, “Oh Great Diana, hear my plea, Goddess of the wild ones and of the night!”
The berserkers begin to throw themselves against the door to my father’s cell. Thump. Thump. More join in. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Then there’s a frenzy of thumps on the door as even more begin to bang on it. Dents appear on the inside of the door. The door begins to strain on its hinges. The berserkers keep throwing themselves at it. The window is getting bloody, because they are hurling themselves at metal so hard that they are breaking open their skin.
I watch in horror. My father made himself a berserker army to break him out of prison. And he is offering prayers to pagan goddesses in order to have power over the berserkers. He’s gone completely off the deep end. If I hadn’t known it before, I know it now.
The door buckles under the weight of so many human bodies. My father has destroyed these people. He turned them into berserkers, and now he will use them until they die. I am disgusted.
Berserkers pour into my father’s cell through the busted down door. My father holds up his hand at them. They stop. Some crouch. Others twitch on their feet. Many are bloody from breaking down the door. They cock their heads and watch my father. He points out of the cell and down the hall. They b
reak into a run, clearing out immediately. My father steps over his twisted door and into the hallway. He follows the running berserkers as if he’s a king, and they’re his entourage.
Shoot him now! says a voice in my head.
But last night’s incident with the berserkers is too fresh in my mind. If I kill my father, they will come for me, and there are no bars to lock them behind this time. Instead, I just hurry to catch up with my father.
The rest of the prison is in disarray. My father and I are on the top tier of a cellblock, and as we walk through the hallway, I can look down in the common area. The berserkers have swarmed it, knocking over tables, smashing televisions. And there are bodies lying everywhere. Some of them are berserkers, dirty and unclothed, bullets in their heads or chests. Others are guards or other prisoners, their bodies bloody and scratched, torn at by berserkers. One guard’s body is particularly gruesome. His head has been nearly ripped from his body. It is connected only by his spinal cord, so his head flops unnaturally away from his body. I turn away from the melee. This is horrible.
Amidst the chaos, no one notices my father escaping the prison. I’m sure there are others who manage to get away as well.
And as we walk out the door, my father reaches out and grabs my hand as if he’s known exactly where I was this entire time. “Come along, then, Olivia,” he says. “I want to show you more.”
I slide the charms over my head and shove them in my pocket. There’s not much point in wearing them anymore is there? We slide into a nondescript car parked on the curb. Tommy is driving.
As we pull away, I watch the prison growing smaller and smaller in the back window. From the outdoors, you almost can’t tell what’s happened inside. And the farther we get away, the harder it is to see the telltale signs, like the busted windows and ripped open fences. How many people did my father kill just so that he could escape from jail? And why didn’t I shoot him when I had the chance? What’s wrong with me? And what worse things could happen now, because I didn’t do it before?
I face forward. “What’s going to happen to all those berserkers? Where are they going now?”
“Don’t worry about that,” says my father. “I’ve got that under control. Everything’s working out fine.” The radio in the car is babbling words at a low volume. My father leans up. “Turn that up,” he tells Tommy.
Tommy does.
“...at least seven rumored jettatori crime bosses have been found dead today, victims of apparent berserker attacks,” says the announcer on the radio. “This is in addition to a huge attack on the city prison, which authorities are still trying to control.”
I look at my father, another segment of his awful plan becoming clear. “You killed all the other heads of families? What are you trying to do, consolidate all the jettatori in the city?”
“Smart girl,” says my father. “Think of it, Olivia. All the jettatori, working together.”
“With you as the head.”
“And you as my second-in-command,” says my father. “You may not have proved your loyalty to me, but you’ve proved yourself brave and tenacious. You’ve proved that you are indeed an asset to me. You don’t back down, and I appreciate that. The fact you came to kill me today makes me very proud. It shows just how tough you really are.”
Is that not the most twisted thing in the history of the world? “I don’t want to be your second-in-command. I don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Oh, I understand that you’re angry and confused now. Don’t make any hasty decisions. Think it over. Think of what I have to offer you. Power, wealth, importance. Imagine all the members of the jettatori all over the city showing you respect. Listening to your every word. Following your orders.”
And as much as I’m disgusted by my father, I can’t help but admit the prospect does thrill me. Maybe that is what I always wanted when I wanted to be head of the family. Importance. Respect. But I will never obey this man. Besides, there are berserkers running loose everywhere. “There’s not going to be much of a city to have power over is there? With all these berserkers, everyone will be dead before you know it.”
“How many times do I have to tell you that the berserkers are not a problem?” asks my father.
“What do you mean, not a problem? I saw what they did to all those innocent guards in the jail. Why did you have to kill so many people just to escape? They didn’t deserve to die like that.”
“Casualties of war,” says my father. “Unfortunate but necessary. This is all a show of my strength. Once people are sufficiently afraid of my power, I won’t need to go to such extremes.”
He really doesn’t care one bit about anyone but himself, does he?
“I’ll show you that the berserkers won’t be a further threat,” he tells me. He tells Tommy to drive us to the abandoned subway tunnel. We are in the city still, and it takes over a half an hour, because traffic is bad. I sit in stony silence the whole time, leaning against the back seat of the car with my arms folded over my chest. I can’t believe I left him alive.
Of course, I don’t suppose killing him today would have made much difference. By the time I got there, his plan was already in motion. He’d already let the berserkers loose. I wouldn’t have stopped anyone from dying. Not today.
The worst thing is that he doesn’t even seem like my father anymore. The father I remember was so warm and sweet. Now I realize my father was only pretending to be that way. This is who my father really is. And it terrifies me, because I don’t know what he’ll do next.
Finally, we arrive at the subway tunnel. By now, it’s dusk. The sun hangs heavy in the sky, turning the clouds shades of red and crimson. The water around the island sparkles like a black jewel, reflecting the lights of the city across the ocean.
We all get out of the car. My father lifts his hands over his head. He throws his head back. He calls out to the bleeding sky in Latin. I don’t catch any of the words I might usually catch from Latin prayers. There don’t seem to be any references to anything Christian. Instead, the words pulse over the darkening world like something ancient and evil. It seems like the ground responds. Like the darkness reaches out with unfurled claws.
I shudder.
The first of the berserkers appears on the horizon. They stumble and shuffle forward, dark shadows against the red sky. Their moans and growls echo over the water. They come in droves, rows and rows of them, all heading for my father, who they follow like the Pied Piper.
It is the most horrifying thing that I’ve ever seen, these monstrous people obeying my father’s every command. He stands before them like a demented god.
“You see?” he says to me, his eyes bright. “They obey me. I have complete control over them. So you don’t need to worry. They will only attack those that I want them to attack.”
But I can’t stand it anymore. I tremble all over as I say, “Never. I want nothing to do with you. And I will stop you. I will stop this.”
And I tear off into the growing darkness, not listening when Tommy calls after me. I run and run from all the things I’ve seen. From the berserkers. From my father. When taking breath feels like knives in my lungs, I keep running. When pain twists in my side, I keep running. I run and run. And run.
Chapter Sixteen
The door to my house is open when I get there, out of breath and exhausted. There is a bloody handprint on it. Blood streaks down over the door, smeared by human hands.
“Nonna!” I scream, scrambling into the house.
I should have realized when my father said the berserkers would only attack who he wanted them to attack that it was a veiled threat. He meant me to understand that if I crossed him, he would deal with me.
The living room is in shambles, a shattered lamp splayed over the carpet, pieces of glass glittering. But a trail of blood leads me past the overturned couch and chairs, through the kitchen and to the basement stairs.
“Nonna!” I yell again.
&nbs
p; And as I start down the steps, I heard the noise of the berserkers, moaning and mewling. But I also hear my grandmother’s voice, cold and clear, as she recites the St. Joseph’s spell.
I clear the bottom of the steps. There are about twelve of them. They’ve cornered Nonna, but she is huddled behind the washer and dryer. The berserkers are reaching for her. They aren’t at their full strength, because from what I saw today, I know that they could rip the metal washer and dryer away and get to her easily. Her spell is weakening them.
I draw the gun I meant to use to shoot my father. Instead, I take aim and shoot the innocent people who’ve been taken over by this virus. As I do it, I try not to think about Brice, who is going to become one of these things. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t deserve to die. But I shoot anyway.
My first shot goes wide and lodges in the wall of the basement. The second finds its target, however, drilling into the chest of one of the male berserkers. Blood sprays out as he falls to the ground.
I shoot another one—a girl who can’t be more than fifteen. My bullet explodes in her face, shattering her nose. Her eyes plead at me as she collapses.
Now the berserkers know I am here. At least five of them break away from Nonna and run for me, howling.
I shoot into them, but I’m nervous, so my shots don’t hit much. A shoulder. A leg. It does nothing more than slow the berserkers down. They are still coming for me.
I dash across the basement.
They switch direction too and keep coming for me.
I collide with the cage my mother is in. I open up the door and shove the cage at the approaching berserkers.
It’s on wheels, so it glides across the floor and runs directly into them. Most of them fall down.
I take the moment of distraction I’ve gained to run across the basement to Nonna. She’s still got four berserkers on her. I open fire on them, not thinking. I know I have to hit these shots just right. I look where I want the bullets to go. Amazingly, they do exactly as I intend. All four of the berserkers are dead in minutes.
Nonna is white-lipped. “Olivia, how long have you had a gun in this house?”
“Not in the house, Nonna,” I say, reaching out my hand for hers. She grasps it. “I keep it in the glove compartment in my car.” I yank her with me towards the steps.
“You know how I feel about guns!”
I glare at her. “Run, Nonna!”
But the berserkers have gotten free of the cage, and they’re coming for us.
I skid to a halt, looking from the stairs to the back door. The berserkers are between us and the stairs. The door is behind the steps. The cage is in the way. Which way to go?
Suddenly, my mother leaps out of the cage, roaring. She tackles two of the berserkers, sending them down onto the basement floor. My mother picks up both of their heads by the hair and cracks them against the cement floor. Both go lifeless. Blood begins to ooze out under one’s ear.
She crouches and growls at the other two, looking like a mother bear defending her cubs.
Maybe she’s in there somewhere. Maybe she’s protecting us.
I have a shot. I take it, getting another of the berserkers.
My mother drives her fingers into the face of another, burying her fingers in its eye sockets.
I cringe and look away.
The final berserker is the one that I shot in the leg. He hobbles toward Nonna and me. I level my gun at him and pull the trigger. He goes down.
I look around the basement. All of them. We did it. We’re safe. I let out something like a sigh and little cry all mixed together. “You’re okay, Nonna?”
She nods, wordlessly looking around her basement at the carnage.
“I’m sorry. This is my fault. I should never have told him—”
“This is your father’s fault,” she says grimly.
I look at my mother, baring her teeth, blood dripping from her splayed fingers. This is his fault. He is the real monster. “She saved us,” I say. “Maybe she’s still in there.”
“Olivia,” says Nonna, “I don’t think so. You’re going to have to accept the fact that she’s gone.”
“But she attacked...”
I trail off. My mother is advancing on us, a rumbling sound growing in her throat. She stalks forward like a cat.
“Shoot her,” says Nonna.
I look at Nonna in disbelief. “No. She’s in there. We can save her.”
My mother takes several steps closer. She swipes her bloody hand at us. She leans forward and hisses.
“I can’t see her like this, Olivia. There’s nothing left. Put her out of her misery.”
I shake my head. “Nonna.”
My mother bounds forward, knocking me onto my back. She surveys me for a second, an animal sizing up her prey. She opens her mouth. She strikes.
And I pull the trigger.
My mother’s body falls on top of me. I feel a gush of her hot blood. And for the second time that day, I’m crying.
The Toil and Trouble Trilogy, Book One Page 41