Peak of the Devil (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “Which would kill the baby, so we can’t do that. And— Oh, fuck.” A horrible thought had occurred to me. “Is the baby Gemma’s, somehow, do you think? I mean, I know it can’t be genetically hers, but did it happen after…”

  “No,” Phineas said, with enough certainty to make me feel better. “She’s way too far along. Suzanne Warner was definitely pregnant before Gemma took her body.”

  For a second I wondered whether Gemma had specifically chosen a pregnant body to steal, as insurance against this very thing. But being pregnant hadn’t saved her the first time she died. No, it had nothing to do with fear of being banished again. Gemma was just trying to get her baby at last. I could relate to that, but I quickly pushed away a pang of pity. Her particular baby-getting quest was responsible for the deaths of six people. Plus almost the death of me.

  “So we have to wait to deal with Gemma until the baby is born,” said Phineas. “For now we can focus on finding Amias, how this sanctuary he has in Bristol works, and how to break it.”

  “Fine. Three, wait until Gemma has the baby, then kick her ass. Four, find Amias and kick his ass now.”

  Phineas finished writing, then stood up as he tore the page off the pad and handed it to me. “Your face seems better. Keep doing milk compresses. I need to leave.”

  “What do you mean, leave?”

  He gave me his left-sided shrug, and his left-sided smile. “It’s a synonym for exit, go away.”

  “Not funny. We have a list!”

  He nodded. “I know, but I need to report back at work. Let them know what we’ve found out here and see if they’ve got anything new on their end. We’ve got a murder investigation going on, you know. Plus I want to go through a few old records.”

  “Yeah, we’ve got a few murder investigations going on here, too,” I said. “And here is where the ghost and the devil are at large. What am I supposed to do while you’re gone?”

  “Go home,” said Phineas firmly. “Stay here until tomorrow morning, to make sure your eyes have recovered enough for you to drive safely. But then go straight home. Don’t go back to Bristol, and don’t confront anyone. Wait for me to get back.”

  “Easy there, cowboy. I’m not a delicate flower that needs to be protected. I can—”

  “You do need to be protected!” Phineas’s jaw was tight, his eyes hard. “You need to be protected from Amias. Everyone does.”

  “Phineas—”

  “What is today? Tuesday? And you told Charlie you’d be back for Easter, right?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Fine. So go home and spend Easter with your family. A week your time will be long enough for me to do what I need to do. I will knock on your door first thing next Monday morning.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I promise. Do not go back to Bristol yourself.”

  And I wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for Penny Dreadful.

  I spent my week at home pretending to work while really mostly thinking about Gemma. Remembering her smile and her laugh and her mansion. She told me, when I first saw the latter, that her lover had had a house like it. So I guess it was based on Kerr House as she’d known it when she was alive, before it became such a freak show. Was she responsible for the freak show, too? Did she do some kind of mind control to get them to mess with it, to make sure they didn’t get to live in her perfect house?

  I would have bet my savings (such as it was) that she was the one who started the fire the night she was banished. And people had died. One of the very few bad things that happened in Bristol on the devil’s watch. Was that because he approved of it? Or because Gemma Pierce was actually more powerful than he was? I could almost believe it of her. I’d seen her fight a fiend once before, and almost win. Almost. She probably saved my life, and Tom’s.

  And in return, we left her there.

  I emailed the genealogy guys and told them the Phearson family was no longer the priority. It was the Pierce family tree I needed. I didn’t know how much good it would do at this point, now that I knew who the ghost was, and almost certainly who the devil was, too. But Phineas wanted to know how Gemma was related to Mercy Tanner, and he was, after all, the one paying for it.

  Penny called me that Saturday night and said, if you can believe this one: “I kind of wanted to apologize.”

  I was so stunned by this that it sucked me into having a conversation with her.

  “You kind of wanted to apologize? For coming very, very close to killing me?”

  “I knew Finn would save you. I know what he is.”

  “And why am I worthy of such consideration? I don’t hear you apologizing for the other five you killed. I assume that was you, too?”

  “Yeah, but they were different.” She didn’t sound put out or ashamed. “They deserved it. I didn’t mind so much, with them. I know that sounds shitty, but it’s true.”

  “You sound awfully cool talking about it, Penny.”

  “I upped my meds.”

  “Under a lot of stress lately?”

  “Something like that.” She was quiet for so long I thought she’d hung up, and was just about to do the same, when she said, “I have a proposal for you.”

  “I’m flattered, but I was already married to a toxic person once before. Although not quite so literally as in your case.”

  “A bargain, if you like that word more.”

  “I like it less. Why would I possibly—”

  “They’re going to get Phineas,” she said. “There’s a trap.”

  I was sure that was bullshit. Well, pretty sure. Was I sure?

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They’ve got it all planned out.”

  “What kind of trap? What are they going to do with him? Where will they take him?”

  “Those are my bargaining chips,” said Penny. “But I’ll give you the second answer for free. They’re going to kill him. In a ritual. Madeline wants his heart and his tongue and his eyeballs, and the devil wants his soul.”

  “His eyeballs?”

  “She’s a witch, if you couldn’t tell,” Penny said. “Certain body parts of his kind, dried, ground into powder or whatever, are powerful things.”

  “And what does she need them for?”

  “She’s had a few problems come up that she’d like to solve. And it seems like the boss has had a grudge against Finn for a long time.”

  “By the boss I assume you mean Amias?” Might as well get confirmation.

  “I don’t like to use his name,” she said. “The point is, Finn knows where the boss is now. And he was on his way to tell his people all about it when he left, right?”

  Shit. That was exactly what Phineas was on his way to do.

  “Plus the boss hates him,” Penny went on. “He’s not just going to let him go.”

  I didn’t say anything. But it all sounded just far-fetched enough to be true. I mean, if Penny was lying, wouldn’t she come up with a less outrageous motive than harvesting his tongue and eyeballs? I wasn’t entirely convinced—this was, after all, a girl who’d already lured me into her poison enchilada web once before—but I was listening.

  “That should be enough detail for you to get that I know some things,” Penny said. “Things I can tell you, before it’s too late to save him.” She paused for a second, I guessed to let the words too late sink in. “I can help you get him back. If you help me.”

  “Help you what?”

  “A rescue for a rescue.”

  I thought I knew where this was going, but I let her go on.

  “We have a little brother. Max,” she said. “He was born right before my parents died, so my brother and sister and I are the only ones who’ve ever taken care of him. He’s our responsibility. But he’s… ruined.”

  “What do you mean, ruined?” I asked, but in my head I heard what Phineas had said that night. His punishment for looking at the devil.

  I heard Penny swallow. Her voice was thick when she answered. “He was broken. His mind. He… saw so
mething he shouldn’t. He lives with Madeline now, and she’s awful to him. And when I say awful, I mean she beats the shit out of him on the regular. Or has my brother Mark do it.”

  “Why don’t you call someone and get him removed from her care?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

  “I meant someone qualified. Like social services or s—”

  “She threatened to kill him, you know,” Penny blurted. “If I didn’t use the poison. She needed someone expendable to do that. So she told me to do it without sassing her, or else she’d kill Max and make it look like a suicide.”

  It was a sad story, but it had holes in it. “Then why, if the stakes were that high for you, did you call me? You knew if I went there I’d see Gemma. You knew—” I stopped, feeling something cold in my stomach. “Was that part of the plan? Did Gemma want me to come there so she could punish me?” I’d meant to say so she could kill me, but somehow the word punish had slipped out instead.

  “No,” said Penny. “I’ve never even met Gemma. I mean, I know she got Suzanne Warner’s body, but I didn’t even find that much out until later. They wouldn’t tell me why I had to kill them. I think they should have at least told me why, don’t you?”

  I made a few noises, trying to figure out an answer to that, but she went on before I put together anything coherent.

  “So when I heard about the hearts, I wanted to know why more than ever. I was afraid. Madeline’s not usually up to anything good with her magic, and I knew something big was going on. I figured you might be able to tell me what. Just the supernatural part. I didn’t think you’d figure out much else, like pin the murders on me or anything. I mean, you’re not a cop, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Right. And I thought, if you did figure out the supernatural part…” She paused, then said in a small voice, “I don’t know, I guess I hoped maybe you’d stop them. Before they made me do anything worse than I already had.”

  “Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, Penny.”

  “Fine,” she said. Was she crying? She might have been. Not that I gave a shit. “You can hate me all you want. But you need me.”

  “I’m not sure I do.”

  “Well, I’m entirely sure. So here’s the deal. Madeline will be gone for at least half the day on Tuesday. She has to go into Asheville to meet with some suppliers, or at least that’s what she says.”

  “And you would like me to break into her apartment and kidnap your brother, in exchange for some vague information I have no reason to believe is not a lie. Does that about sum it up?”

  “Not exactly. You wouldn’t have to break in. I have a key.”

  I pulled the phone away from my face to stare at it, then put it back and said, “Then why the hell don’t you get him yourself?”

  “Hello? Because she’ll know it was me? And she’ll catch me? And she’ll kill Max right in front of my fucking face?” Her voice rose to an increasingly hysterical pitch with each question.

  “Aren’t you afraid she’ll suspect you of being behind it anyway?” I asked.

  “No. I don’t have any friends. Why else would I be calling you? If you do it while I’m at work, and I have an alibi, she won’t see how it could be me.”

  Wulf chose that moment to come into my room and deposit his disgusting spitty rope toy on my foot. I looked down at it, then at him, and got an idea. “Penny, I’m going to need to think all this over. I’ll call you back.”

  After I ended the call, I fished Phineas’s old sock out of the bottom of my suitcase, put it under Wulf’s nose, and said, “Think you can go find Phineas for me? Like you did when I was poisoned?”

  It took a few more repetitions of the word Phineas, but finally Wulf dropped the sock (which he’d been chewing on), howled, and ran to the door. I let him out and watched, but I didn’t see any magic. Just Wulf running off down the street. I hoped to heaven that I wasn’t going to get a call from Animal Control later.

  I knew the whole time conversion thing meant it would probably take a while, so I didn’t worry (too much) when he didn’t come back that night. But when he didn’t come back the next morning either, I got a little tense. Plus it was Easter, and I had to go to Charlie’s house. What would happen if I wasn’t home when he finally did get back?

  Stop freaking out. If he can find people across planes or dimensions or whatever the hell it is, he can find you at a house he’s been to a thousand times.

  I wasn’t entirely reassured. I wished I’d sent him with one of my socks.

  And what if he came back alone? If Wulf didn’t find Phineas, and Phineas wasn’t back Monday morning like he’d promised, then I’d know Penny was telling the truth. Or part of the truth. Or something vaguely truth-like.

  But what then?

  Suppose I actually agreed to her stupid bargain, and got Max out of there. Which was not in itself an unpleasant prospect. I’d been haunted by my meeting with him. I loved the idea of rescuing him. Or at least, I loved it if I ignored Helen Turner’s voice in my head.

  You won’t be able to save any of them.

  I pushed the thought away in favor of more practical matters. Madeline would surely come after him. I’d have to find a place for him to hide. My own address was too easy to track down. I couldn’t bring him to Charlie’s house, either. No matter how bad I felt for Max, I wasn’t about to put an insane Underwood under the same roof with my eight-year-old nephew. Besides, Charlie would freak the fuck out.

  No, I needed an all adult household. Someone to whom I could explain the risks, who could decide for themselves if they wanted to take them on. Unfortunately, playing Aunt Mom to Warren since my divorce hadn’t put me in the best position for that. I had few—okay, no—friends from when Kevin and I were together. And pretty much every friend I’d made since was a stay-at-home mom. Or else a non-human entity of one kind or another.

  Pretty much, but not all. There was one. One who didn’t mind a little crazy, either. When I got ready to go to Charlie’s, I packed a couple of extra desserts to bring to Martha Corey.

  Charlie’s house was an uncharacteristically inelegant mish-mash of pastel Easter decorations and balloons in honor of Norbert’s birthday the day before. Warren had hung homemade signs all over the house, each noting something great about Norbert, with an accompanying illustration. You’re very good at video games. You walk me to the bus stop. You’re a funny dancer. He really did love Norbert. I felt the usual pang of hurt feelings and resentment, mixed with happiness for Charlie and Warren both, but it didn’t even slow me down. By then I was more than used to my own contradictions where children were concerned.

  Norbert was, in fact, playing video games with Warren when I arrived. On a brand new gaming console, hooked up to a brand new TV, much bigger than the old one. Probably birthday presents Norbert pretended he bought for himself, but really bought for Warren. Norbert’s job involved snooping on people’s browsing habits and analyzing their online activities, or something like that. It sounded kind of creepy-stalkery, but it seemed to bring in a lot of money. I gave them both hugs, scolded Warren for getting taller yet again, and left them to it while I went to help Charlie make dinner.

  “So, things are good?” I asked, once I was settled in the kitchen, and the video game sounds were once again blaring in the other room. “With Norbert?”

  “Why wouldn’t they be?” asked Charlie.

  “Well, you guys seemed tense when you got back from the funeral. Not just mourning a loss tense. Angry tense.”

  “Very perceptive.” He handed me a cutting board and an onion and made himself a switchel and bourbon while I started chopping. “His mother didn’t know. About us. None of his family did. He’s not out to them.”

  “But he brought you anyway?”

  “For moral support, he said. He needed me. And I get that, obviously, I know what losing a parent does to a person.”

  Charlie had lost both his, and Nat, all within a five year span. But there was a very sweet pictu
re on the built-in shelf in his living room, right next to the photo of Nat that I was so proud of him for not taking down when Norbert moved in. It was of Charlie’s mother, helping Warren frost his third birthday cake. She’d been supportive of Charlie and Nat in ways my parents never could be.

  In ways Nat knew they couldn’t be. But he told them anyway. Lydia, you have no right to judge. You have no idea how hard that is, except second hand.

  “But he wouldn’t let me come to the funeral or anything,” Charlie said.

  I stared up at him. “What, he made you sit in the hotel the whole time?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Okay, maybe a teensy weensy right to judge. “Geez, Charlie. That’s harsh. Either ask you to come or tell you to say home, you know?”

  “Oh, I know, believe me,” Charlie said. “But the guy’s mother just died. And his father was grieving and it wasn’t exactly an ideal time to come out, either.”

  I admired his ability to see both sides. That was Charlie.

  “So rather than express your resentment of the situation,” I said, “you just quietly seethed, in that passive-aggressive way you have.” That was also Charlie.

  “Pretty much,” he said again. “How about an abrupt change of subject so I don’t have to get into that part?”

  “Okay. Baseball?” I put the onions in a pan with a generous pat of butter and stirred them around.

  “You.”

  “My favorite subject!”

  “And this guy. This not human guy. What is he again? Demon? Angel?”

  I snorted. “He’s not an angel.”

  “He’s not a person.”

  “He is so a person! Just like Wulf is a person, even though he’s not human.” I felt a pang of anxiety at the mention of Wulf’s name.

  “Where is Beowulf, anyway?”

  “I left him home. He’s still tired. From his surgery.”

  Norbert would give me a very suspicious look when I gave him the same answer later, but Charlie was not a dog person. He just nodded and went back to the subject of Phineas. “You’re traveling with this person a lot. Staying together?”

  “In separate rooms, Charlie. Believe me. It is not that kind of thing.”