He was. He ate a whole bag of fast food burgers, minus the one he gave me. He didn’t talk much, although he made happy noises and licked his fingers as he ate. I put some music on, and that didn’t seem to bother him. So we traveled in relative peace (if you didn’t count all thousand of my worries), until I pulled off the highway twenty minutes from home. Then Max asked where we were going.
“There’s a friend of mine who wants you to stay with her,” I said. “She likes company, and she’s really nice. You can be nice to her too, can’t you?”
“I can be nice,” Max said. “I’m not crazy.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. “No?”
“It’s not the kind of problem they can find in a book and treat with medicine.”
“What kind of problem is it?”
“Tilda says I just stopped. When it happened.”
“When what happened?”
“I saw him. I saw him with Madeline. I wasn’t supposed to. Tilda says he broke my mind.” He shrugged and wiped ketchup off his chin with his sleeve. “I think he cast a curse on me. I didn’t die. But I stopped. I’m still nine. I don’t have birthdays anymore.”
“But you grew up.”
“I did?”
“You’re big.”
“Oh. Well, I’m still nine.”
“Okay.” I shook my head, unable to believe that Penny would rather kill five people than just walk in there and march his ass out. While we were on the subject of him being punished and abused, I asked him what happened to his finger.
“Mark broke it because Tilda made a mistake. They do things like that. They make her watch. She cries, but if she doesn’t come to watch, they do worse stuff. So she always comes.”
He said this plainly and without emotion, the way he reported everything. If I hadn’t seen him freak out, that first night I met him, I’d have started suspecting he was a robot. But the whole thing made me feel sick enough for the both of us.
“What kind of mistake did Tilda make?” I asked.
“You weren’t dead.”
Lovely. So this was my fault. Sort of.
“I usually just get hit, or maybe cut a little,” Max went on. “But when it’s a dying mistake, then they break bones.”
“What do you mean, a dying mistake? Were there other people who weren’t dead?”
“No, but the wrong people were dead.”
“Five victims, three hearts,” I said, more to myself than him.
“I can do math,” Max said.
“I’m sure you can. Do you know which people were the wrong people?”
“Yes. They always talk in front of me. They don’t think I can understand them, because I’m stupid.”
“You aren’t stupid.”
“Sometimes I am. But not always. And the spiders show me things. Two of the dead bodies weren’t any good. Terry Fowler was supposed to have the right blood, but he turned out to be a store-bought baby.”
“You mean adopted.”
“Adopted.” Max nodded. “And someone else drank the beer that Wes Landry was supposed to drink.”
“The tourist.”
“I guess.”
“Max, since you hear so many things, do you know anything about a man named Phineas? Who Madeline and her, um, friends might be mad at? Or planning to hurt?”
“Is he the one who was with you when you visited me the first time?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. I liked him. He wasn’t like the other one. He was nice.”
“He is nice,” I agreed. “And I’m worried about him. Have you heard anything?”
Max nodded. “I know about Phineas. They’re going to put him in the cold gray room.”
“What cold gray room? Can you tell me where it is?”
“In the ground.”
It didn’t take long for me to put that one together.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
A cold gray room in the ground had to mean the hotel vault. We’d already established that it was made of iron.
So Penny was telling the truth, then. Despite all the mounting evidence to the contrary, I’d still half hoped she was lying or wrong, that Phineas was just caught up at home, that he’d show up, grinning and saying something smug, any minute.
But instead he was in the vault.
Madeline wants his eyeballs and his tongue and his heart…
And I’d been right there. Right there. But instead of getting him out, I’d driven away.
Two and a half hours since I’d left the hotel. And two and a half hours back again. A lot could happen in five hours. If it wasn’t already too late before, it might very well be by the time I got back.
…and the devil wants his soul.
Fuck.
A picture of Max settled someplace safe, and she got to talk to him. That was my agreement with Penny. Not that I was feeling very agreeable.
I was out of my car for less than two minutes. I rushed into Martha’s house without knocking, ordered Max to sit on the couch, and took his picture. I texted it to Penny, then called her and, without a word to her myself, let Max talk to her for less than thirty seconds before I snatched my phone back again. Then I hugged Martha, took a quick assessment of Max’s demeanor, wondered if he was about to start shrieking again, then decided I didn’t have time to find out. I’d make it up to Martha later.
Wulf whined when I got back in the car.
“Fine, but fast,” I told him.
He tried to trot toward Charlie’s house, but I only let him walk maybe three feet to pee before pushing him back into the car.
“Sorry buddy, but I need you with me. You might have to bite some people before this night is over.”
There was no rush to call Penny back. I had more than two hours in the car to tell that bitch to fuck off. I waited until I was back on the highway, so as not to get in an accident. Then I told her to fuck off several times before she finally caught the word vault.
“That’s where he is?” She sounded genuinely surprised.
“You didn’t know? You made this whole fucking deal with me and you didn’t know where he was?”
“Well, I thought you could use my information to figure it out.”
I told her to fuck off a few more times.
“I honestly thought he’d be somewhere in Charlotte,” she said. “That’s where they caught him, and his kind can be hard to transport.”
“Why would you think they caught him in Charlotte? He wasn’t there.”
“Yeah he was, or he should have been. It was probably today, although I don’t have all the details.”
“Seems like you don’t have any of the details. What was he doing in Charlotte?”
“Trying to rescue you. They told him they had you.”
“And he fell for that?” I ignored the fact that I might be, at that very second, falling for that.
“They had props.”
“What kind of props?”
“They sent him a bloodhound’s ear.”
That one greasy burger I’d eaten was not sitting so well. “Listen up, you are going to get me the combination to that vault,” I said. “You are going to text it to me by the time I get to Bristol. Or you will never see your brother again.”
I hung up.
An hour later I got a text from Penny, but it wasn’t the one I was hoping for.
have combo, meet u @witch’s brew
Bitch.
It was getting dark by the time I walked into The Witch’s Brew. I’d been in the car most of the day, stewing and fretting on a mostly empty stomach. And for the brief stretches where I wasn’t driving and worrying, I was doing something risky and worrying. I was feeling drained already, with what would no doubt be a long night ahead.
Penny was sitting at the counter. Wendy waved from behind it, and I waved back, wishing I could ask her to come with me. She seemed like she might be scrappy in a fight. But other customers had already come in, and Wendy had turned away. I didn’t even have
time to ask her for a poppet. (Whatever the hell that was.)
“I got it off Mark’s computer,” Penny said without preamble. “He actually keeps his passwords in a file called Passwords. He is such a shitbird.”
“Give it to me, then.”
“No. I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“I have my reasons, and you’re wasting time.”
From where I was standing, it seemed more like she was wasting time. But I wasn’t sure it mattered. Either way, time was wasting.
I thought there were probably decent odds on her trying to kill me as soon as she got me alone in the basement. On the other hand, Phineas might already be dying. And I did have a gun.
Penny shrugged at me. I sighed.
“Hurry up, then. My dog’s waiting in the car.”
I parked in a remote corner of the hotel lot. We tried the bulkhead door to the basement, but it was locked, as were the other two back doors.
“Shit. Shit.” Penny’s courage was apparently flagging already. “They can’t see me walking through the front door! With you!”
“Wait here,” I said. “Maybe I can figure something out.”
Wulf and I went inside. Fortunately for me, Nolan was still there.
Less fortunately, he walked up to me like he didn’t recognize me and said, “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Without looking me in the eye, he grabbed me by the elbow and pulled me toward the door. Wulf growled. Nolan whispered something. I didn’t catch what, but whispers usually encourage you to play along, so I did. He led me out, then off to the side, out of sight from the entrance.
“We’ve all been warned to watch for you,” he said. “We’re supposed to call the cops if you show up. Someone else already might have, if they saw you.”
Penny walked up beside me. Nolan gave her a confused glance before looking back at me.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “They’ve got Phineas. You know enough about your boss to know she is not a nice lady. She intends to hurt him. Please get me into that building.”
Nolan looked down at his shoes. It was a good solid minute before he answered. Finally he took a plastic card from his pocket and walked the few feet to one of the side doors.
“I guess the Grand South won’t take me without a reference,” he said. “But there are plenty of Holiday Inns, right?”
I squeezed his shoulder. “They’ll never have to know it was you.”
He shook his head. “I’ve been lucky with that so far, but luck always runs out eventually. My time here is up. I’m cutting out tonight. My dad will be pissed, but my mom’s wanted me to come home since the deaths started anyway.”
“Thank you, Nolan.”
He held the door for us.
Penny, who’d been listening in silence, got on her tiptoes and kissed Nolan’s cheek. “She’s not easy to stand up to. Believe me, I know.”
We made it to the basement without passing anyone. The whole place seemed quiet, enough to make me nervous. That feeling only intensified when I saw that there was nobody in the basement, either. Nobody was watching the vault. I looked sideways at Penny.
“You need me. You don’t know where I’ve got Max,” I said.
“You don’t have to remind me,” she snapped. She sounded as anxious as I was. If it was a trap, I didn’t think it was of her making.
The only one who didn’t seem nervous was Wulf. He was sniffing furiously around the door to the vault, but his tail was up.
Penny punched in the combination, and we went inside.
I was standing on a black iron floor. The walls were black iron. The ceiling was black iron. Phineas was lying on the floor, chained—you guessed it, in irons—to a ring in the wall. There was nobody else in there. Phineas didn’t seem awake.
Wulf beat me to him, and started licking at his face. Phineas lifted his head enough for me to see he’d been beaten up pretty badly.
I got on my knees beside him and said, “How bad is it? Will you be able to walk if I manage to get you out of these…” I looked down and grimaced. “These are actually fucking shackles.”
I pushed at the one on his left wrist. He groaned. It didn’t give much, but I could see burned skin beneath it.
There was no furniture in the room. No place to look for a key. And Phineas still hadn’t said anything. I looked askance at his bulky frame. I didn’t see how I could carry him.
“Well fuck,” I said. “This isn’t much of a rescue is it?”
The door opened, and a man who was clearly an Underwood walked in. Mark, I presumed.
Wulf showed his teeth, then howled. I stood up, took the gun out of my coat, and leveled it at him. “Key,” I said. “Now.”
Mark laughed. “And how would you get him out of here? He can’t cross an iron barrier without an invitation.”
“You must have invited him in, then,” I said. “I’ll invite him out.”
“It doesn’t work that way. You don’t own this place.”
Penny stepped out from behind me. “But I do.”
“What the hell, Tilda?” Mark looked completely flabbergasted by the appearance of his sister. “It couldn’t have been you… Max?”
“Yep.” She looked at me. “It’s mine as much as it is theirs, technically. I can invite him out.”
“Perfect.” I gestured with the gun I still had pointed at Mark. “Key,” I said again.
“I wouldn’t give it to you if I had it,” he said. “I assure you, shooting is much more pleasant than what Madeline and Amias would do to me.”
From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Penny flinch at Amias’s name.
“Fine.” I aimed for his knee and pulled the trigger. I hit him in the shin. Which was pretty good, considering I was under stress and hadn’t been to a shooting range in years. To this day I don’t know what possessed me. I didn’t even hesitate. It wasn’t even a decision. But then, sometimes I can be ruthless like that. Thoughts of Helen Turner flitted through my head quickly, but were scattered as Mark dropped to the floor and started screaming.
“MOTHERFUCKER!”
The rest of his words weren’t quite so coherent, but I gathered they were along the same lines. At first I worried about the racket he was making, but then I figured all that iron was probably pretty good insulation against sound.
“Still think I’m your best option?” I asked. “Because I’ll go for the balls next.” Yeah, by then I was in full cowboy mode.
Wulf, apparently satisfied that I had the situation under control, resumed trying to use dog spit to revive Phineas.
“I don’t think any more shooting will be necessary,” Penny said. She got down beside her writhing brother and reached into his jacket pocket.
“I told you I don’t have it!” Mark shrieked.
“Yes, but you lie all the time.” Penny’s voice was perfectly calm, but her hands were shaking. She pulled out a key ring and handed it to me.
“You’ll have to try them all, I guess.”
There were maybe ten keys on that ring. I wondered how he could possibly have that many things to lock up. I started trying them one by one while Mark kept screaming at his sister.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? She’s going to kill you!”
“Maybe. But she can’t kill Max,” said Penny.
It could have just been blood loss making him lose consciousness, but Mark’s voice was suddenly soft, all the softer in contrast to his screams from a moment before. “How could you possibly have found the nerve?”
“Well,” said Penny, “extra meds, for one. But also I guess it was a mistake getting me to kill people for you guys. Because that’s a good way to practice having nerves, you know?”
I found the key on my fourth try. By then Phineas’s eyes were open more than the slits they had been. He still looked pretty bad, but he seemed to recognize me, at least.
“Can you walk?” I asked him.
He didn’t say an
ything, but it seemed like he was trying to nod. I put my hands under one shoulder. Penny’s small hands appeared on the other side. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Mark had passed out, after all.
Between the two of us, we got Phineas on his feet. “Where do you think the rest of them are?” I asked. “Why would they leave Phineas unguarded like this?”
“Look at him,” said Penny. “I think it was unlikely he was going anywhere.”
“Not so unlikely, it seems.”
“They won’t leave him alone for long, anyway,” said Penny. “They had plans for him tonight. We need to move faster.”
By then we’d gotten Phineas to the door, but moving faster didn’t seem like a reasonable goal. He was insanely heavy. I wondered if phantasms were actually denser than humans, or if it had just been that long since I worked out.
I looped Wulf’s leash around my wrist and opened the door. We left Mark where he was on the floor. Someone would find him soon enough. Not that I much cared if he bled to death, except that I promised Norbert I’d try not to get into any traceable trouble with his gun.
I guess the invitation to cross the iron threshold didn’t need to be formal, because Penny didn’t actually say anything. She just went a little ahead of us, holding Phineas’s hand where it was slung over her shoulder, and we brought him out.
We left through the basement door. We passed a couple carrying overnight bags in the parking lot, mumbled something about our drunk friend, and did our best to pick up the pace from there. Finally, although not without a lot of struggle, we got Phineas to my car.
Penny hesitated, looking back. “I’ll have to leave. I obviously can’t stay in Bristol now.” She nodded at the hotel. “I’ll never see it again.”
“Yeah, can we maybe do maudlin later? I can’t imagine you have very good memories of the place, anyway.”
Yeah yeah, you don’t have to tell me it was mean. If I’d known then what I would know not three minutes later, I wouldn’t have been such a bitch.
Two things happened at once. The first was that Phineas pulled out of my grip, fell to the blacktop, and started screaming like he was being disemboweled.
The second was that Madeline Underwood came strolling up to us. There was someone with her.
Peak of the Devil (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 2) Page 16