I didn’t even know where to start, but part of me wanted to go back and start tearing through the house right now. But I resisted. Cassie had already gone off on her own. While I had Melanie right where I wanted her, at some point she was going to realize my deception and head back.
No, it was better to take care of her and her minions right here and now, in a landscape that favored our attack. If we could keep them pinned inside the hut, we could get the authorities involved.
What if they don’t cooperate?
I grimaced. Pulling the trigger on the minion had been one thing; it was a monstrosity, something wrought of magic. Could I do the same to Melanie, if she refused to bow down at the point of a gun?
Banishing a ghost felt bad enough. Could I kill someone? A living, breathing person?
It’s an easy thing to debate in abstract. Yes, of course, if someone is a threat to you and you have the opportunity to defend yourself, you do it. You pull the trigger. But in the case of Melanie, she was not only a girl, she was physically unimposing. Any attempt on my part to claim that she posed a viable threat would be laughable at best. It didn’t take much to imagine how the police would look at that scene. Even with Cassie’s word to back me up, both of us would probably be on the way to jail. There were limits to what Kent and Esteban could vouch for. A quadruple homicide was not on the list, even if forensics found some weirdness with three of the victims. They’d ignore or discard the mystery of the clones in favor of the dimpled college student. A life cut tragically short.
I could practically see the news coverage in my mind’s eye. ‘Son of a murderess snaps and murders victims of his own.’ Nancy Grace and the rest of her ilk would be slobbering to crucify me in prime time. They’d Photoshop my mugshot to make me look dark and brooding and use the happiest, most cheerful picture of my victim that they could find to draw the contrast.
Well, shit.
I clenched my jaw and shrugged to myself. The judgment of the mortal authorities was moot. If I could stop Melanie and throw a wrench into my Mother’s machinations, I’d take up that task regardless of the consequences. What I would do, though, is try and shield Cassie from as much blowback as possible. If it came down to a shootout, I’d wipe the Mossberg down and send her on her way. There was no need for her to go down with me if that was what it came to.
Enough dithering. I patted the back of my waistband to assure that the Serbu was still secure under my shirt and resumed my slow march toward the hut.
Chapter 15
To my surprise, the chain-link roof we’d assembled for the hut had not only endured but flourished. The sporadic ground cover that had grown up after Jimmy any I had spread dirt across it had swelled until most of the area was overgrown. It was lush with what mostly looked like weeds, but it was a surprising difference from what I’d expected.
Other than just a bit of sag toward the center, our construction still stood. We must have done a better job than I’d thought. The fruits of our labor had endured well beyond the end of our friendship.
The entire scene was backlit by a couple of electric lanterns on the edge of the roof. I wasn’t close enough to see down inside of the depression. I could see where Melanie sat at the edge on top of a folded towel or blanket and I could hear the scrape of tools on dirt. That, I judged, might work just fine. I hoped that despite their strength and speed, the climb out of the pit would slow down the goon squad long enough for Cassie and me to pull off our plan.
I couldn’t see her out in the darkness, but I had to take it on faith that she’d be there. Crossing mental fingers, I stepped forward with no effort to obscure the sound of my passage. Spreading my arms wide, I announced, “Can you dig it?”
Melanie tried to climb to her feet and spin around at the same time. The result wasn’t pretty. She fell back to the ground, then pushed herself up in a confused sputter. “You — what — how! Uno?”
“He’s splattered all over my basement,” I replied. “Well, what’s left of him, anyway. No worries, though. It’s my house, I’ll take care of the mess.”
Melanie’s rising shriek turned into a growl. She raised both of her hands to point at me. “You piece of shit!”
I winced, unsure of what to expect, but nothing happened.
The Edimmu’s voice wasn’t as painful outside of the confines of the basement. Enough, child. You forget yourself.
Melanie’s arms jerked down stiffly. Her eyes widened in shock. The air of her motions was that of a marionette and I realized that the entity riding shotgun under her skin had taken control. Her mouth worked as she tried to push her way past whatever force was preventing her from moving.
“I forget myself?” Melanie shrieked. “You were nothing until I found you. How dare you—” her voice cut off as the Edimmu took control of her mouth and snapped her jaw shut. She continued to try and scream through her lips like a bad ventriloquist.
Quiet. It’s my turn to talk.
I had the sense that unseen eyes turned upon me and I resisted the urge to cringe. “So, talk. I haven’t got all night.”
You misled us. How?
“Not as smart as you think you are, huh? You should get out more.”
Despite the prodding, the bodiless voice exhibited no sign of annoyance or anger. Tough room.
Where is the book?
If there was anything to the inquiry, I couldn’t feel it. I didn’t know if that meant it was trying to push me and it wasn’t working, or if it was just asking an idle question.
I smirked. “The better question would be, ‘what condition is it in’, but you didn’t think to ask that, did you?” Melanie’s eyes widened, though her mouth was still clamped shut from within. I winked and said, “I torched it, sweetheart. It went up in smoke.”
The Edimmu’s scream of rage rocked me back on my heels. I heard the clatter of tools from down in the depression as the minions added their own chorus of agony to the cry. Staggering, I clutched my ears and just managed to keep from collapsing to the ground. A sense of overwhelming pressure bore down upon me, far worse than anything I’d ever felt on an aircraft takeoff, but just as immediately, it was gone.
Melanie’s mouth opened, but the voice that came forth now was a mixture of her words as well as the Edimmu’s. I don’t know if it had bored itself deeper into her, or if it had shed the illusion that it was a passenger along for the ride, but the puppet act was over. Her motions were smooth and crisp as she jabbed a perfectly-manicured finger at me and hissed, “Dos, Trace — tear his arms off.”
The minions blurred out of the depression with a speed that took my breath away, even after I’d watched them sprint up the basement stairs. They came at me from me either side, looking to pin me. I shouted, “Left!” as I reached back and whipped the Serbu out from under my shirt. I pivoted to the right, tracking the oncoming blur.
I don’t know if I hit or missed with my first shot, but high-velocity muscle and bone slammed into me and knocked me end over end. I managed to both hold onto the shotgun and roll out of the fall and up onto my knees. Inches away, the minion who’d attacked me made his own recovery and reached out with hooked fingers. Two quick booms sounded off to my left. I laughed involuntarily — the cavalry had arrived. I racked the slide of the Serbu. The minion that came for me took the barrel full in the chest as he leaped for me, and I pulled the trigger again. This time I knew it was a hit as I got a shadowed glimpse of black filth spraying out of his back.
I twisted, fought, and pulled myself out from under the attacking bulk. He was still moving, still trying to kill, but the chest shot had taken the wind out of his sails. I racked the slide again and took a step back. For a moment, I thought I saw the resignation and acceptance in its eyes, but a fresh wave of mindless fury washed it away as the thing tried to push back to its feet to maim, to attack.
I pulled the trigger again. His head came apart in a spray of gray and black.
Breathing heavily, I racked the slide again and made a quick scan of the su
rrounding area. The last clone was down and clawing at the dirt. Cassie had hit him in one thigh and in the gut. The growing puddle of blackness around him was quickly mixing with the dirt. She stepped out of the shadows and headed in his direction, but I waved her off and stepped over to administer the coup de grace.
Maybe it was just a monster. I hoped so. I hoped that what Trace had truly been was long gone after the tearing apart of his essence, but I didn’t want the weight on Cassie’s soul if it weren’t. For better or for worse, I’d take it upon myself.
It was yet another tally on the list of Mother’s transgressions. Melanie had done the deed, but Mother had inspired the act.
I racked the last round into the chamber and began the process of reloading with shells from my pockets. The Melanie-Edimmu thing just stood there watching me. Even as Cassie stepped around the perimeter of the hut, the thing’s attention never wavered from me once.
“Don’t get any closer to her,” I said to Cassie, keeping the Serbu pointed toward what had once been Melanie Gennaro. She stopped dead in her tracks but kept her own weapon aimed at the young witch. “This is what we contemporary-types call a cross-fire, Edie.” My words were calm despite a growing sense of worry. “You make a move toward one of us, the other cuts you down. It’s over. You lose. Time to give up.”
“And what would you have me do? Return to my prison?”
I shrugged. “Somebody broke it, I’m sorry to say. I don’t know. You’re a ghost of some sort, I guess? Maybe it’s time for you to just leave Melanie be, and move on.”
The thing chuckled. The incongruity of the sound caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stiffen. “She hates you with all her heart right now, Paxton. I am the only thing stopping her from unleashing everything I was able to teach on the both of you.”
“I’ll take my chances. It’s not like you have a whole lot of other options. The book is gone. Your muscle is down for the count.”
“Oh?” A smile spread across the Melanie-thing’s face. “Confident of your own abilities, aren’t you?”
A sense of dread filled me. I opened my mouth to shout a warning to Cassie, but it was too late. Melanie snapped her fingers and tore the Serbu out of my hands at the same moment that the Mossberg leaped out of Cassie’s. The shotguns went spinning into the night. I couldn’t have made that sort of move with the telekinesis spell on my best day and the Melanie-thing had done it without even breaking a sweat.
I didn’t have much time to mull it over, though, because an instant after my shotgun flew away an invisible force heaved at me. I flew through the air in a shallow ballistic arc that terminated in the bottom of the hut.
In retrospect, I should have just shot her.
Monologuing with the villain is a classic blunder, and I’d have taken the time to lambaste myself if I wasn’t in a fight for survival. The impact at the bottom of the depression knocked the air out of me and sent a now-familiar twinge of pain through my ribcage. Despite that, I pushed myself up on hands and knees, intent on scrambling up and over the side of the pit. I needed space to move. The shadow monster would tear me apart in these close confines.
Cassie’s cry was the only warning I had before a weight slammed into my back and drove me back into the ground. I just lay there as an iron grip seized me by the neck and threw me against the side of the pit, under the chain-link roof. I missed the vertical pillars, thankfully, but slammed into the opposite side and crumpled to the ground.
There were a couple of lanterns down here, as well. They provided enough light that I got a vague impression of holes and a couple of shovels sticking out of the ground before the Melanie-thing grabbed hold of me and rolled me onto my back. At this point, I was too stunned to fight, but I gave it what I had left as she straddled my chest.
She smacked my attempts to fend her off with a frightening ease, pinning both wrists to the ground in a perverse imitation of a lover’s embrace as she brought her face closer to mine.
Ink surged up either side of her neck and pooled into her cheeks. She smiled wickedly as tendrils of the ink began to bridge the space between us.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I screamed like a little girl as she whispered, “It’s time you and I got better acquainted.”
The tendrils caressed my cheeks, then plunged inside of me with a burning sensation that cascaded from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.
Suddenly, oddly — I was in my living room.
I stood near one wall and blinked in surprise not only the sudden shift in location but at the difference in circumstance. The low-grade pain I’d been ignoring for the past few hours had dissipated, but I realized why as I raised a hand to check the lump at the back of my head. I looked faded, washed out.
Ghostly.
And then I realized that I wasn’t alone.
Mother stood in the center of the living room, and I suddenly understood that it wasn’t so much about where I was as when I was.
It was the night that dad died.
She wasn’t alone. Dad and I made the other two points of an equilateral triangle in the room with her. The sharp pain of memories I’d rather have forgotten struck me again as I took in the slack look on dad’s face, then realized that I presented the same look on my own, younger features. It was weird seeing myself with brown hair again, but even more strange where the things that I could see in this state that I’d been unable to see at the time. Whether this was a hallucination or some form of altered consciousness, I could see inky, almost translucent wisps of blackness trailing through the air and orbiting around mother. Back then, I realized, the Edimmu had still been a prisoner. It must have been unable to exert its influence on Mother to the extent that it had Melanie.
A darker, more visible shadow rippled across the ceiling. Its low chuckle gave me goosebumps, which seemed odd, considering my incorporeal state. I came so, so close here. But you derailed my plans here, as you have again this very night. Tell me, Paxton, what makes you so special?
Despite the horror above my head, I couldn’t look at the tableau before me. Mother’s voice was murky and distant, but her words had seared into my memories like the pages of the spell book. This night had seeded my most terrible dreams for over a decade.
“Peter, it’s time for you to die. Lie on the floor.”
“Yes, dear,” my dad said in a dull tone. He complied without hesitation. Though I knew that I’d been mentally screaming the entire time for the horror to stop, younger me stood in stoic regard.
Do you understand the synchronicity here?
I glanced up at the shadow on the ceiling. I tried to tell myself that I did so to make sure that it wasn’t making a move toward me, but that was a lie. I couldn’t stand to watch Mother kill dad all over again. The scene replayed in my mind even as I pointedly looked away.
She’d used the butcher knife from the new set dad had gotten her for Christmas. The knives were ceramic, supposed to never go dull, and guaranteed to cut right through flesh and bone.
As I’d watched, back in the day, she’d found the seam between two ribs and pressed down with all her strength. The blade found a home in my father’s heart. I didn’t see it now, but the rattling wheeze of his last breath was just as I remembered.
That wasn’t the worst part, though. If it had ended there, I might not have snapped out of the push, and Mother might have been able to complete whatever infernal work she’d set out to do. When she’d begun the process of methodically sawing my dad apart, piece by piece, with little or no visible concern about her actions, it broke me free from my mystical paralysis.
I stared at the shadow even as my younger self shifted, pushing through air that had felt as thick as molasses at the time. In this nightmare realm, we screamed, simultaneously, though the targets of our anger differed in each case.
“STOP!”
“Go to hell!”
Back then, I’d put everything I’d had and then some into the push. This was a part I’d never seen before. The f
irst thing I remembered after this was waking up in the hospital, cuffed to the gurney.
Mother recoiled, dropping the knife and pressing her hands over her ears. The falling note of my shout seemed to carry on forever and now she was the one fighting through molasses. Something burst and blood of her own drizzled freely from both of her nostrils. She stood and fought the compulsion for a long moment until her eyes rolled white and she passed into unconsciousness. Across from her, the younger version of myself wobbled back and forth. I saw my brown hair turn abruptly white before I, myself, collapsed.
On the ceiling, the shadow chuckled and began to collect itself into a roughly man-sized pseudopod that stretched out and seemed to almost be studying me.
It doesn’t work on me, and even if it did that command would be a useless one. Foolish boy.
And then, all at once, the blackness rushed toward me. I met it with another cry. If this was to be my last moment, I refused to go out while cringing in fear. I grabbed great handfuls of the ephemeral shadow, ripping and tearing. The Edimmu’s own cries shook me to my core, but I had no way to tell if they were shouts of pain or merely anger at the affront.
And then the living room blurred into something else.
Chapter 16
Three hours ago, Cassie Hatcher had believed that the strangest thing she’d see that night was the toddler who’d climbed up onto and surfed down the conveyor belt at her register. The universe seemed to have taken that as a challenge because the crazy just kept coming.
The witch-girl made a twisty motion with her hands. Paxton lifted up off the ground and flew into the sinkhole. He’d made an offhand comment earlier about it being an old clubhouse, which was just yet another affirmation that boys were strange. She was no wilting violet — she’d spent plenty of nights and weekends on camping trips with her dad and cousins, but that was in a tent, for Pete’s sake. She’d never think to sleep in a hole in the ground, much less use it for a clubhouse.
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