by Jackie May
He follows me in a daze. I drag him down more steps, now toward a red glow. Instead of trickling water, this time the stones are wet from dark, sticky blood.
“What’s the next circle of Hell?”
“Hard to say. The interpretation varies. What do you see?”
“Blood. Lots of blood.”
“Violence and murder. Don’t stay there.”
We get to another landing, where horrifying screams of pain jolt our nerves. Russo wants to look down the hall, but I slap his face away and muscle him forward. “How many more are there?”
“Should be one,” she says. “Leopard, lion, wolf. Three animals, three sins.”
“What’s the third sin?”
“I told you, it’s hard to know.”
“Take a guess!”
“Just tell me what you see.”
“Green. There’s green light down here. I don’t understand. How could there be anything worse than lust and violence? What else is there?”
“Are you serious? How about greed. Gluttony. Wrath. Blasphemy. Use your imagination.”
There’s no landing this time. The steps end in a circular room bathed in a pale green glow. There aren’t any torches. The ghostly light comes from underneath the floor, which is clear, as if it’s made entirely of…
“Ice,” I announce. “The floor. It’s like a lake that froze over. I can see down into it—” I jump back with a startled shout. At my feet, just a few inches below the surface, a man’s face is frozen in the ice, twisted in agony, his mouth and eyes gaping.
“What is it? Did you say ice?”
I turn in circles, losing count of the faces, the bodies trapped in ice, their hands reaching for the surface. “Ice,” I repeat between rapid breaths. “The floor is ice. There’s people in it. Frozen.” Hillerman gives no response, which scares me. “Say something. Which sin is this? What does it mean?”
“There’s nothing else there? What else?”
“Tell me what sin this is.”
She dodges the question again. “Where’s Russo? Why’s he not saying anything?”
“He’s out of it. Russo?” I wave my hand in front of his glassy eyes. “I don’t know. He’s checked out.”
“Not good. The timer—”
Jay’s voice interrupts. “Shayne, get out of there. You’ve got a couple minutes, tops. Turn back.”
“Okay, wait, here’s something.” At the center of the frozen lake, a deep cavity is carved into the ice in the shape of a coffin. I approach cautiously, scared to see who or what is inside. To my relief, it’s empty. “Like, a tomb or something. It’s empty.”
“Don’t get in it,” Jay blurts.
My patience runs out. “Holy shit, babe, it’s a good thing you said that, because I was just about to climb down in there and take a nap!”
“Just get back up here!” he grumbles.
Hillerman tries to reach Russo. “Danny? Talk to us. What do you see?”
I watch him closely. He seems to be thinking hard—too hard. He drops to a knee at the edge of the ice coffin.
“Danny, if you’re hearing whispers, you need to do what they say.”
My heart goes bump. “What? I thought whispers were bad. You said to listen to your voice. Only your voice.”
“We’re out of time.”
“Then we bail! We don’t give in.”
Russo reaches down into the tomb, and when he pulls his hand back out, he’s gripping a long, pointy dagger made of ice.
“Guys, there’s a dagger. He just pulled it from the coffin. Russo?”
“That’s it,” Jay decides. “I’m coming down.”
“Give it a damn second,” Hillerman hisses.
“Russo? Buddy, what you got there? Charlotte, I’m asking you for the last time, what is this place? What’s the final sin? And don’t tell me you don’t know. There’s bodies trapped in ice. That seems pretty specific to me. If that’s from the poem, then you know exactly what’s supposed to happen.”
“Tell me what he’s doing,” she responds. “Tell me, and I’ll tell you.”
“He’s not doing shit. He’s just staring at the dagger. Now tell me! Whatever is supposed to happen, I’ll do it myself.”
Jay shouts, “No! Just wait for me.”
Hillerman makes up her mind. “Russo won’t do it. We’re coming down.”
“Don’t!” I shout. “Jay, if the timer runs out, we’ll all be trapped.”
It’s too late to stop them. I already hear their quick steps. They rush onto the ice. Jay immediately slips, falling on his ass. As I help him, Hillerman stalks up to Russo and wrenches the dagger from his hand. Her face is red with anger. “As always, I have to do everything myself. You’re right, Shayne. Bodies frozen in a lake of ice is in the poem, when Dante reaches the final circle of Hell. It’s reserved for the crowning achievement of the worst, the most degenerate of sinners. This place is for the betrayers.”
I’ve just helped Jay to his feet when Hillerman plunges the dagger into his back, burying the ice blade all the way up to the hilt. It’s razor point thrusts out of his chest, spraying me with hot blood.
After that, I remember only still images. No sound—sound went away, like hitting a mute button. I remember that I saw the confusion on Jay’s face. I saw him lifeless on the ice, and Hillerman shouting at Russo, and Russo wrapping his big arms around me. I remember seeing my own feet kicking at the air. Russo carrying me away. The last image was Hillerman dragging Jay’s body into the ice coffin.
I see pine needles in the snow. It’s strange-looking snow. Not white—it’s green from the candlelight in the courtyard. But it feels like snow. It’s cold and wet where my hands are buried in it. I’m on hands and knees. My hair falls down around my face. Tiny, smoldering holes form in the snow where tears fall from the tip of my nose.
I’m aware of Russo somewhere behind me, breathing hard. Muttering something about whispers and fog in his mind.
With a deep rumble, the mausoleum door begins to close. Hillerman rushes out of the darkness, then turns and helps Jay to stumble out just before the door seals shut. The green candles extinguish all at once, leaving us with only the moonlight.
Breath surges into my lungs. Leaping to my feet, I throw myself at Jay, crushing him with my arms. He crushes me back, gasping and wheezing. “I’m here,” he says between painful breaths. “I got you.”
“Son of a bitch, Brenner,” Russo exclaims. “How are you standing here right now?”
I rip open the front of his shirt. There’s no hole, no blood. But he drops to his knees with a painful grunt, obviously wounded. Steam rises from under the back of his collar. I push the shirt up his back. There, where he had been stabbed by the dagger, bright red burn marks sizzle like bacon. Two words and a symbol are branded into his skin.
GRANDE BALLROOM, it says. The symbol is a half circle.
“That’s a first quarter moon,” Hillerman says quietly. “It’s the time and place of the next masquerade. The Grande Ballroom on the night of the first quarter moon. That’s two days from now.”
Her voice sounds odd to me. It’s soft. Too soft. Too careful and controlled, as though she’s trying to tiptoe. It won’t work. There’s no tiptoeing around what she’s done.
I rise to my feet, and when I turn my eyes on her, I see that she has taken a defensive stance, with her hand hovering over her gun in its holster. She won’t take her eyes off mine—watching my every move. Very slowly, she raises her other hand in a placating gesture. “Shayne. Think.”
I don’t. Can’t think right now. Only stare.
“Think about it, Shayne. We talked about this. King Paul came through here. He went in, and he came out. What does that mean? Now we know. It means he had to bring somebody with him. Takes two. Who would he have brought? Think about it. Who?” I don’t answer, so she keeps talking. “Ronny Fencher. The ogre.”
“You don’t know that,” I say, but so quietly that I’m not sure she hears it.
&nbs
p; “It had to be Fencher. King Paul used him for everything. Fencher trusted him. All right, so…if King Paul brought Fencher here, and Fencher lived, then we know it’s safe.”
“But you didn’t know.”
“As soon as I dragged Brenner into the ice coffin, the dagger disappeared. It was just a test, is all. He was fine.”
“He was fine,” I repeat flatly. “You couldn’t have known it would work that way.”
“I did.”
“Say it again,” I threaten with a growl. “Say one more time that you knew. That you knew it!”
She doesn’t say it, but her jaw sets and she glares at me, so that I know she’s thinking it. I’m starting to piss her off. Good. Maybe she’ll push back, and then I can really go at her. I’ve got an ace up my sleeve with her name on it.
“Babe,” Jay starts.
“Don’t, Jay. Don’t you dare.”
“She took a risk. We all did.”
Rage and fear and desperation erupt in my voice. “You are not her risk to take!”
Hillerman relaxes her stance. I guess she has decided the threat has passed, which makes me smile inside. “Enough,” she says. “I did what I did, and here he is, so you can take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it, and I’ll just say this: I’m sorry.”
She looks confused and slightly suspicious. “For what?”
I shake my head. “Not you. I’ve got nothing more to say to Charlotte. I’m talking to Matt.”
As expected, her reaction is immediate and severe. You’d think I had pulled a gun and shot her. All the air leaves her lungs, taking with it the color in her face. She whips the sunglasses off, and tears already glisten in her eyes. I see something in her face that I didn’t think possible before—it’s fear. Mortal fear from a fatal blow. How’s that for a stab in the back?
As I said, her reaction is the part I expected. What I didn’t expect was how it would feel. Where’s the satisfaction? Where’s the triumphant show of reaching into the middle of the table to hoard all the chips I just won? If she’s the one who just went bust, then why do I feel like I lost?
I push all that deep down. What’s done is done. Got to finish this. “I know you’re hearing all this, Matt, and I promised to watch her back. But I just can’t, I’m sorry. She’s impossible.”
Hillerman’s whole body shakes. She takes a rattling breath. “He…he talked to you?”
“He’s a good listener,” I say, twisting the knife. “He’s open and optimistic and even a bit romantic, I think. A peacekeeper. Generous. Too generous, if you ask me. Oh, and his sense of humor? He’s funny, Charlotte. Who would have thought all those things were in you all this time?”
Her legs buckle. She falls to her knees, covering her nose and mouth with quivering hands. “Tell me more,” she whispers. “You? Why you, Shayne? He hasn’t ever…what did he say? What did he want?”
I can’t look at her like this. Hillerman’s not supposed to be vulnerable. It’s a dirty trick. I turn away to conceal the fresh tears forming in my own eyes. I decide to walk, and once I’m walking, I decide to jog, and then to run. Jay mutters some quick instructions to them about meeting back at the house, and then he comes after me. I hear the painful hitch in his breath with every step he takes.
I turn suddenly and throw myself at him. Catching me in a strong embrace, he lifts me off my feet, and I bury my face in his neck. We’re both out of breath, hearts beating wildly.
Taking me by the hand, he leads us through the dark woods. We don’t talk. We’re as quiet as the snowflakes sticking to my eyelashes. Jay’s hand is cold. Mine are warm. I wrap them both around his and marvel at his instinct to be silent. He must have so many questions about what just happened, not to mention the fact that he almost died just now, but he’s content to simply be here with me and let everything else and everyone else wait. He’s telling me something without saying a word.
I squeeze his hand to reply, I love you, too. He pulls me closer. I hug his arm for the rest of the walk. As we round the corner onto Laurel Street, where the truck is parked, my body goes on alert. Something doesn’t feel right. Scratch that. Something doesn’t smell right.
“Jay.”
“Hmm?”
“You smell that? No, don’t stop. Just keep walking for the truck.” I move my hand to the pistol on his hip, ready to pull at the first sign of trouble.
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Smoke.”
“Like a cigarette?”
“No. Something else.”
He walks me to the passenger side of the truck. As he searches my pockets for the keys, I keep my hand on his gun while scanning the street. The sidewalks are empty.
Jay finds the key, slides it into the keyhole. But he suddenly stops and lets go of the key, backing away. “Smoke. Like a bomb?”
“No, it’s more like…” A fresh wave of the scent washes over me, and I know for certain it’s coming from directly behind us. Drawing Jay’s gun, I whirl around and point it at a figure standing in the shadows under a tree. “More like a campfire.” Recognizing his red flannel shirt and lumberjack beard, I lower the gun. “What do you want?”
Nolan Cody steps out of the shadows. “We won’t need that, I hope,” he says about the gun.
“That depends. Is Ben with you?”
“He’s not.”
I jam the pistol back into its holster. My emotions are doing loop-de-loops. As much as I might try to deny it, I’m desperate to see my family again, or even just to hear from them. But not like this. Not from him.
There was a time when I used to count the seconds until I’d get to see Nolan, back when he would make fun of my feet for outgrowing the rest of my body. By the time my legs caught up with my shoe size, I had also outgrown my feelings for him. They say you never forget your first crush. I probably could, if he would stop following me around.
I plunge my fists into my jacket pockets. “If you followed me here, you’ve been waiting a while.”
“Long enough to know you’re into something deep here. What’s this about a bomb?”
“I’m sorry, Nolan. See, sometimes I use too much subtext. What I meant by that is, what the hell do you want? Oh wait, I already asked you that, didn’t I?”
“Shayne, if I followed you, anybody could. You need to be more careful.”
I slap Jay on the back. “Feel free to jump in any time here, honey.”
“We can go somewhere to talk,” he offers politely to Nolan. Anticipating my attempt to stomp his toes, he deftly moves his foot away. “We can sit in the truck.”
Nolan quirks an eyebrow. “Is it going to blow up?”
Jay thinks about that. He pulls the keys out of the door, just to be safe.
Nolan frowns at Jay. “What happened to you?”
“Where?” Jay points to a deep cut on his hand. “Here?”
“No, more like…all of you.”
“It’s work stuff,” I say impatiently. “Did Mom send you here? Because you can tell her yes, I’m taking my pills.”
“Again with the subtext,” Jay says.
“That’s plain English, Jay.”
He shakes his head. “What she means is, ‘How’s everybody doing?’ And she misses them.”
“Okay, you can sit in the truck.” My anger vanishes when I catch sight of Nolan’s face. He looks crestfallen. “What? Everybody’s fine. Right? Nolan?”
“I shouldn’t be here. If Ray knew I was talking to you…”
“If it’s serious, Ray would understand, and you know it.”
“You’re probably right. But rules are rules. Even if it’s for Little Bunica.”
My heart stops. It takes my mouth three tries to form the word. “Bunica? Did she…”
“Not yet. But it’s close enough.”
I take deep, controlled breaths. “Okay…but…okay…” My brain is struggling to form thoughts. To know what to say. What to do. I just feel like running. All the way home. My wagon train home. �
��She was fine. We just had her birthday party. She was dancing with strippers.”
“Shayne, listen.”
“What happened?”
“Shayne.” He waits until I’ve focused my eyes on him. “Nothing happened. It’s her choice. She’s…she’s going to shift.”
“No.” I try to sound confident. Even defiant. “No!”
“At dawn.”
“Dawn…” I fall back against the truck. Jay grabs my arm to steady me.
Nolan shuffles his feet. He folds his arms. Unfolds them. “I’m sorry,” he mutters. “It doesn’t look like you were having such a good night to begin with. Bunica just told us today, or else I would have come sooner.”
“Don’t apologize,” Jay says. “That you came at all is…” After searching for the right words, he gives up and simply says, “Thank you.”
Nolan tugs awkwardly at his rolled shirtsleeve. Jay leans against the car next to me. Both men are waiting for me to find my voice again. I know what I want to ask, but the possible answer is too horrible to consider, let alone hear out loud.
Jay helps me to stall a few more moments, when he says, “I’m sorry, I don’t fully understand what’s happening, but I assume—when you say she’s going to shift at dawn—you’re talking about something like a funeral?”
“Something like that,” Nolan answers quietly.
Fighting back my fear, I finally spit out the words with a tremor in my voice. “Nolan, you have to give it to me straight. Is she doing this because of what happened? Because I left?”
Too quickly, he says, “No.”
“Did I do this?” I press.
More firmly this time, he states, “No, Shayne.”
“Because I’ll talk to her.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what? Why is she doing this?”
“You know what she says at every birthday—that this is the year. Well, this is the year.”
“No, it’s not.”
“That’s all. It’s just time.”
“It’s not! I’ll talk to her.”
“Can’t do that, Shayne.”
“Just let me talk to her, Nolan. Five minutes.”
“We can’t.”
“Nolan, don’t.” I pull my hands into fists. “Don’t do this.”