by Jean Rabe
“Nothing good,” she said, remembering Adiella’s pit in the subway. “And nothing I can tell you about.”
“You have too many secrets, Brie. But I’ll let you keep them. I like you mysterious.”
She’d intended the shower to be short, just enough to pound away her awful odor. Then she’d planned on a brief nap, setting an alarm so she’d be awake before Otter returned from school. And so she almost stopped Dustin, but his hands were at the same time insistent and relaxing, his lips too soft and traveling everywhere. Bridget couldn’t get enough of him, soft skin, hard muscles, and gorgeous eyes.
She’d dally with him in the shower for just a little while—she’d allow herself that small pleasure. Bridget coaxed him to gently scrub her down to her toes. He lifted each foot in turn, cupped her heel and lathered her ankles. When he was finished, he stood and pressed the bar into her hands, turning his back to her.
“Your turn.” His voice was husky, and his eyelashes looked long and thick because of the water, like an artist had used a charcoal pencil to gracefully apply them.
Neither said anything for several moments, the only sound that intruded was the spat-a-tat-tat of the water jetting against them.
“Dance with me,” Dustin said when Bridget took a turn soaping him and sluicing off the scented foam. “Dance with me, Brie,” he repeated louder.
Bridget raised an eyebrow.
“Dance with me, I say, Brie O’Shea. Dance with me before your son comes home from school and you have to talk with him about unfortunate things, a funeral for his father. Dance with me to music only we can hear.”
She shook her head. “Not now, Dustin, I—” Bridget turned off the water and opened the shower door, stepped out and grabbed a towel. They shared it. She noticed the demon had squatted on her discarded clothes, probably fouling them. Bridget would toss them out in the morning. The demon belched; the cloud more visible than usual because of the damp air from the shower.
“Dance with me.”
Dustin bent and hooked his arm under the back of Bridget’s legs, picked her up and cradled her against his chest. She nested her face against his neck and nuzzled it, and let him carry her to the bed and slip her between the sheets. The demon followed and settled itself next to the nightstand, all eyes trained on the couple, no longer appearing bored.
“One dance,” Bridget said, riding a wave of pleasure that followed where his fingers traveled across her bare skin.
“One long and wonderful dance,” Dustin said.
She gave herself over to the rhythm and feel of him.
O O O
Bridget woke to a persistent tapping on her bedroom door. Dustin’s arm was draped across her, pleasantly pinning her, his eyes hazy with sleep. She looked at the clock on the nightstand: 6:03 p.m. The “4” dropped down, then the “5.” The demon’s eyes were closed, and it appeared that it was oozing less than usual. Perhaps it slept sometimes, too.
The tapping continued. “Miss O’Shea?”
“Yes, Michael. I’ll be out in a minute.”
“Dinner, Miss O’Shea. In the formal dining room. Otter is used to eating early and so asked that it not be postponed any longer.”
Bridget disentangled herself from the sheet, kissed Dustin’s cheek, and hurried to the closet.
“We will dance again after dinner, eh?” Dustin laughed. “Dance and dance. I hope dinner is something tasty. I’ve worked up quite an appetite.”
“I suspect we’re having pizza. Otter said he likes pizza.”
It was pizza, two large pies served on silver platters on the dining table. Thick, one was topped with broccoli, mushrooms, eggplant, and peppers, the other with sausage and pepperoni.
“From Vesuvio’s,” Michael said. “I warmed them in the oven, Miss O’Shea. They were getting a little cold.”
Otter grabbed two slices of the meat pizza and gave Dustin a slight smile. “Glad you’re here.” He tucked the linen napkin into the collar of his shirt. “That veggie thing is all yours, Mom, since you seem to be counting calories.”
“Otter, I am very sorry about your father—” Dustin began.
“I know,” Otter said. “Thanks.”
“After dinner,” Bridget directed this to Otter, “you and I will—”
“Make arrangements for Dad? Already did that. I picked Carle-Rotzski’s, they do cremation. Stopped there after school. I want Dad cremated. I know what happened to him. They were talking about it at school. All tore up by the serial killer. I don’t want any closed casket thing. I want him cremated. I picked out the urn. It’s better this way. Who goes to cemeteries really? I’ll have the service catered by Dad’s restaurant … my restaurant … it would be appropriate, don’t you think. Mom, you’ll have to sign papers or something, pay for it, the cremation. The funeral home said you’d have to sign. I’ve set it all up and e-mailed a notice to be printed in the Times. I had enough on my debit card for the newspaper announcement.” He took a breath and kept going. “Cops aren’t releasing his body for a few days anyway. I stopped there, too, at the precinct, but the cops aren’t telling me anything. Nothing more than I heard at school. And they didn’t ask me as many questions as I thought they would. It wasn’t like the cop shows I’ve seen on TV.” He took a bite of the pizza, and nodded his approval. “Grandma Adiella’s going to help me go through some photos tomorrow … for the service. You know, put them up on a couple of posters, Dad’s life in review. Gotta have something like that for people to look at. I called her, Grandma Adiella, and I’m going to meet her at the condo, go through photo albums and see what pics he has … had … on his laptop. Download some on a flash drive so Carle-Rotzski’s can display them on their big TV.”
Fifteen, not fifty, Bridget thought. Otter had already planned Tavio’s funeral. “Otter, I can help with all of that and—”
“Dad’s attorney called an hour ago,” Otter cut in. “Seems I’m the only beneficiary. I get everything, the condo … which I’ve been thinking about. I’m going to sell it. I don’t want to live there after Dad’s … you know. It would give me nightmares. You’ll probably have to sign some of the paperwork, the attorney said, ‘cause I’m a minor. I get the restaurant, too. Dad owned the building, apartments above it and everything. He owned half of some famous restaurant in Italy, too. Explains the vacations he’d take there. I didn’t know that, about the Italian place, he probably hid that from you in the divorce. Anyway, he’d sold his Microsoft stock to buy into that restaurant. Besides that, he had a good amount—but nothing amazing—in an investment portfolio. Looks like I’ll be set for life if I’m not extravagant. But it’s all fixed so I can’t withdraw anything or move the assets around until I turn nineteen.”
“Otter, I—” Bridget was flabbergasted: not that Tavio owned part of a restaurant in Italy, but that Otter was going to be so well off that he wouldn’t need her. And he’d likely leave her in the proverbial dust when he hit the magic age of nineteen. At best, she’d have four years with her son.
“I’m keeping the restaurant open here, I called Enrico earlier. Told him to keep everyone working, keep everyone paid, that someone’ll go over the books with me next week. Figure maybe I’ll use one of your accountants. Don’t worry, Mom, everything’ll get handled.” Otter stuffed his face with pizza, and his next words came muffled. “I have an appointment with the attorney early next week to sort through things.” He waved at Michael. “Get a plate and join us, Mike. This is a lot of pizza. And I’m not touching that one with the eggplant. Hey, I want to go to Italy when school breaks at Easter. I want to see the restaurant there that I own half of. I suppose you’ll have to come with me.”
Bridget reached into her slacks pocket, the buckle was there, though she’d thought she’d left it on the bureau—apparently it was indeed affixed to her just like it had been affixed to the briefcase. She felt rested enough, so she might venture into the buckle tonight to watch the ancient alchemist at work and try to get more information; that might keep her mind
off her quickly-growing-up son. Her stomach rumbled loud enough for Dustin to hear, and he cut her a curious look. She grabbed one of the veggie slices. Certainly not something she would have ordered, though Dustin was refining her tastes and coaxed her to try new things. But she was hungry enough to eat just about anything. She held it to her nose—the sauce smelled good, and the cheese was considerable. So not completely healthy. She took a bite and found it actually quite good.
Bridget was debating whether to tell them she caught the New York Yankee’s fan this morning when the dining room intercom buzzed and Michael got up to answer.
“Miss O’Shea,” the voice on the other end said. “Is Miss O’Shea there?”
“Yes.” Michael looked to Bridget. “But she’s eating dinner with her son and—”
“Mike? That you?”
“Yes.”
“You tell Miss O’Shea she’s got to come see something downstairs. In the basement. Her dinner isn’t going to be sitting too well afterward. You tell her she has to come right now.”
Michael dropped his hand from the intercom. “Miss O’Shea—”
Bridget pushed back from the table so fast that she tipped the chair over. “Michael, don’t let Otter out of your sight. Dustin, stay with them. Stay together. Understand? All of you stay together!”
She thought the demon had been sleeping by the nightstand in the bedroom. It had been making a noise that could have passed for snoring, all of its eyes closed. Though she had the buckle in her pocket, she realized the demon hadn’t followed her down here to dinner.
Bridget had a very bad feeling that it hadn’t been sleeping at all.
***
Twenty One
Jimmy was in the weight room and apparently had been doing bench presses. On his back, the bar of the two-hundred pound weight rested on his throat, his mouth open. That alone would have been enough to kill him, cutting off his oxygen; eyes bugged out like a something in a horror film, as though he’d fought for breath. But it was the gaping chest wound that had done it. Jimmy was ripped open down to his lifting belt, ribs broken and protruding at grotesque angles. Blood had spattered the wall behind the bench and had pooled on the floor. Blood continued to drip into a box of chalk, the powder Jimmy had used on his hands to help his grip. Shimmering bright red, Bridget couldn’t shake her gaze away from the growing pool of blood.
“Bridget.” Louder: “Bridget!”
Bridget looked away and into the face of the Aidan Murphy, her head domestic. Aidan was in his sixties, a Westie who had come to work full-time in the brownstone after it had been renovated, the only employee who never addressed Bridget as Miss O’Shea. It was Aidan who had summoned her.
“I was doing laundry, Bridget.” The brownstone featured a state-of-the art laundry facility in the basement. “I heard Jimmy scream and came straightaway. I’d thought he’d hurt himself, not having a spotter. I saw the weight had dropped on his neck, and before I could get to him his chest exploded. His heart came right out and disappeared in front of my very eyes.” Aidan reported this matter-of-factly, with little fluctuation in his low, thick brogue.
Aidan’s visage, however, revealed his utter shock and disgust. Aidan was bone pale, and blue veins on his nose stood out starkly. Blood had spattered on his shirt and pants and the tops of his shoes.
Bridget again looked at the blood pool beneath Jimmy and saw that a line of it led away, ending at the demon, which squatted in the shadows between the scale and a rack of dumbbells. Of course, Aidan couldn’t see the demon.
The demon opened its maw, so wide that Bridget saw Jimmy’s heart inside. It deliberately chewed with its lips pulled back so Bridget could get the full effect of the atrocity.
Bridget tottered and felt the bite of pizza rising into her throat. She leaned back against the doorframe.
“I know you don’t favor the police, Bridget,” Aidan continued.
“We can’t call them,” Bridget croaked. She hadn’t been a suspect in Tavio’s death, but calling the police for this would bring down far more scrutiny than she could manage, and would put her under a spotlight that could jeopardize not only her freedom, but the people who worked in the brownstone and the antique shop. And then what would happen to Otter? He’d be shoved off on Adiella. Dear God, Bridget couldn’t let that happen.
The police wouldn’t believe an invisible demon was responsible. So very few people in the world knew there was magic. “No cops. No cops ever. The cops won’t—”
“I understand.” Aidan closed his eyes and crossed himself, lips working in a prayer.
The sound of a dryer tumbling a load of clothes and a washing machine draining seeped into the weight room.
“He was a good one, Jimmy.” Aidan opened his eyes. “Wanted to please you, Bridget, and fit in.” He gestured to a couple of college catalogs next to a stack of folded towels and the boy’s LMFAO sweatshirt. The blood hadn’t yet reached that side of the room. “Told me he was going to enroll in some business courses come the next semester, at your suggestion.”
Tears slid down Bridget’s face and her hands shook. “We can’t call the police.”
“I understand,” he said again.
A four-bar chime sounded, signaling the washer had finished. The dryer continued to softly rumble.
“I have seen things in this city,” Aidan’s voice had grown quiet. “Things that defy explanation. Dark things, Bridget. Mouldy, desperate, diabolical things.”
Another chime played, the dryer shutting off,
“There is something very dark in this house.”
Bridget nodded.
“I will make the calls and have this taken care of, his room cleaned out. Jimmy had been so long out of any system that no one—save us—will notice he is gone.”
“Thank you, Aidan.”
“And then Bridget—”
“Yes?”
“Consider my resignation tendered. I will be gone before the morning.” Aidan slipped toward the elevator, leaving Bridget alone with the carnage and the demon.
“Bridget break prisons. Liburrrrrate. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon said. Four of its eyes were closed, but the fifth widened and held Bridget in place. “Else unshackle Otter from life.” It tongue lolled out and it wiped the blood off its lips. “Mmmm. Jimmy.”
“You feckin’ gollier! I’m working on freeing your damn demons!” Bridget raged at it, feeling her face turn instantly red and veins standing out in the sides of her neck. Her anger broke whatever hypnotic hold the beast had used with its fifth eye. “I’m gonna buy a gun. And I’m gonna blow your slimy brains out! You’ve ruined my life! Everything!”
“Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” the demon repeated coolly in its long-dead language, all eyes open now and looking unfixed, like they were trying to find a place to settle on its hideous face. The effect was dizzying. “Else unshackle Otter from life. Unshackle Otter. Mmmmm Jimmy.”
“I’ll damn well unshackle you!” Bridget rushed it, knowing with every step it was the wrong thing to do. Fueled by grief and fury she dropped her shoulder and barreled into the beast, feeling it give like a rubber ball, like the thing had no skeleton. “You can’t hurt me, monster!” The buckle in her pocket made her indestructible, didn’t it?
The warty skin of the demon felt like sandpaper, and the goo that ran in streams from boils that appeared and disappeared was thick and blistering hot. It seemed like Bridget had stepped into a fire. The demon could indeed hurt her. She dropped to her knees in front of it, ignoring the heat and driving her fists into it, treating it like a punching bag. Connecting with it produced the same sound as pounding a bag.
The demon laughed, the sound deafening and horrifying and reverberating off the walls of the weight room and growing impossibly louder. Bridget was certain the entire neighborhood could hear the hurricane of malevolent cackling.
Then the monster slammed its enormous mouth shut and reached a blood-soaked claw up, thrusting Bridget back. Acid bubbled from nostrils tha
t flared wide below its eyes. Still Bridget wailed away, pummeling the creature’s outstretched leg since she could no longer reach its body. It leaned forward, like a dog on all fours, twisted its head curiously, then swatted Bridget with its tail, the impact sending her halfway across the room and into the bench.
Bridget fell into the blood pool, and she slipped trying to stand.
The demon casually padded over and flattened Bridget, pinning her to the floor with a talon that felt like a sledgehammer had come down on her chest. It brought its head close to her face and opened its maw, belched up a cloud smelling of sulfur and death and of foul, foul things that there were no names for. Bridget felt her bowels release.
She’d known fear many times in her life, especially in the past few days since she’d acquired the buckle. But the fear that coursed through Bridget now was absolute, and she was certain the demon would kill her in a horrible, painful manner, rip out her heart, her soul relegated to some abyss. The things Bridget had done; there would be no eternal salvation.
Bridget had never begged for anything, but she tried to do that now, for her life and for Otter’s. But her throat was desert dry and nothing would come out; her tongue felt swollen and unwieldy.
The demon laughed again—long and loud and terrifying—and it looked from Jimmy’s body to Bridget. Then it spoke in its dead language, a string of words she couldn’t understand. But it ended with: “Break prisons. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti. Liburrrrrate. Else unshackle Otter from life.” It spat a gob of acid for emphasis and backed away to circle the weight bench. Making sure Bridget was watching, it stretched a claw up, broke off one of Jimmy’s ribs, and proceeded to pick its teeth with it.
Bridget crawled toward the door, pulling herself up by grabbing on the bar of a treadmill. She sucked in air that was filled with the demon’s stench.
“Break prisons. Unshackle Aldî-nîfaeti,” Bridget said, her voice cracking from the effort. “Break prisons. Liberate all the feckin’ Aldî-nîfaeti in the world.” She reached into her pocket for her cell phone and pulled it out, nearly dropping it, hand so slick with Jimmy’s blood. She thumbed it open and called up Rob’s number.