I ate some peanuts and pondered everything she’d told us. “If we could cut off Miko’s meat puppet supply, well, that would be a wedge we could use against her. But I need your help. If we’re going to stop David and the shadow, I need to know that you’re not going to back out at the last minute. I need to know you won’t decide to give up and surrender to Miko like the major did.”
Now the girl looked downright angry. “I put those zombies out of their misery for you, didn’t I? I’ve been doing horrible stuff like that for more than a year. If I were in the army, I’d have done my tour by now, but it ain’t over, and I ain’t giving up. I used to think I was weak, but I know I’m a strong person now. And if you need proof, just look at all the other people who gave up. And I’m still here.”
She paused, then continued, speaking more softly. “Do y’all know where I should be right now? I should be at my aunt’s house, visiting on summer break from NYU. I got my acceptance letter right before everything went crazy here. But I can’t ever see her again. She and my uncle and everybody else in my family are dead. Because of the shadow, and because of Miko. I’ll never give myself up to a monster ever again.”
“Okay, then.” I sat back in my chair. “Come upstairs with us. I need to get a little more information, and then we can figure out what our next move is.”
My father was quick to answer his mirror. I was beginning to wonder if he ever left his workshop. He looked grave after I told him about Miko taking Cooper and the Warlock hostage.
“I hoped that you might be able to avoid a direct confrontation with her, but it seems she has left you no choice,” he said. “I have some information that I hope will help you. A soul harvester like Miko would find much better hunting in large cities. I did a series of forensic spells to try to discover why she came to a town as small as Cuchillo. And while much of the divination I gleaned was muddled, all of the spells turned up the name of a dead man: Henry Schleicher. I believe his bones have a tale to tell, and the information within his story may give you the means to defeat her.”
“Is he a meat puppet, or is he in the ground?” I thought of the old man I’d seen in Miko’s memories.
“His body has been laid to a Christian’s proper rest, although I don’t believe his soul has met a comfortable fate.”
“How many graveyards are in this town?” I asked Charlie when I came back to my body.
“Well, there’s a Jewish cemetery, I don’t know exactly where, and a Catholic cemetery over by Sacred Heart, but the main cemetery is off Avenue N,” she replied.
“Is the main cemetery very far away?”
“Just a couple of miles … why?”
“We’ve got a body to dig up.”
Once we’d gathered some digging tools, hand-crank lanterns, and a couple of burlap sacks, and had gotten my shotgun and Charlie’s AK-47 out of the dorm’s weapons check, Pal flew us and the black kitten he’d claimed to the fifty-acre Fairmount Cemetery. We landed in the courtyard beside the cemetery office, and I broke into the building to rifle through the filing cabinet. The graveyard was laid out in different numbered blocks, and after a bit of hunting I discovered that he was buried in no. 84, the section reserved for World War II veterans.
The sun was starting to fade below the horizon as we finally found his plot. His marble headstone had a purple heart symbol etched on it, and the date said he’d died nearly a decade before at the age of seventy-four.
“We need to get back before it gets really dark; this place isn’t very—”
“Defensible. I know. So let’s get to digging.” I turned to Pal. “Unless you know a spell for this kind of thing?”
Pal cocked his head thoughtfully. “You know, I think I do.”
He began to play a new calliope tune. A few seconds later, the ground began to shake, and a crack formed in the earth covering Henry Schleicher’s grave. The soil bubbled and foamed as if it had been turned to liquid, and suddenly the plain black casket bobbed to the surface. The soil went still and firm again beneath it, and the casket settled slightly.
“That’s hella slick,” I told him.
He took a bow.
I hefted the pick and used it to crack open the lid. The corpse inside was little more than a skeleton in a stained army uniform; short strands of white hair still adorned the parchmentlike scalp adhering to the top of the skull.
I touched one of Henry’s desiccated fingers; instantly, my mind was filled with his nightmares and memories of his death, still painful and bright even after ten years in the dry darkness:
—Miko pulled me tight, her breath hot and ragged in my ear. As I gasped for air, I felt a strange tugging in my chest, my testicles, my mind. Something deep inside started to peel free. “Oh yes, please, yes …” she whispered. My soul tore away. Her body convulsed against mine, and she let out a hoarse, animal groan of delight.—
—I knelt beside an eighteen-year-old soldier with a chest full of shrapnel, and I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I could hear the Zero making another pass over the island. The kid was dying, no matter what I did. The plane was zooming closer, and I knew we had to get to cover.—
I shoved his memories aside and regained enough focus to jerk my hand away, breathing hard. “He’s the guy, all right.”
Using one of the burlap sacks as a mitt, I reached back in, grabbed the skeleton’s closest wrist, and pulled. There was a crack as the bones came loose at the elbow. I pulled the half arm into the bag and tied it off.
“I’ve got what I came for.” I heaved the casket lid closed. “Can you put him back where we found him, Pal?”
“Certainly.”
chapter
twenty-seven
Izanamiko No Oni
Once we got back to campus, we checked in our weapons and went up to the eighth floor.
“Guys, I need to try to find some useful memories in Henry’s bones,” I told Charlie and Pal as I picked up my mouthpiece. “My gut’s telling me that there’s something here we can use against Miko. But the imprints are so strong … the old guy went through some horrible things. The Goad might slip out and take over my body while I’m under and try to do some serious damage.”
Charlie stared at me. “Are you possessed by an evil spirit or something?”
“Yeah.” I winced. “Forgot to mention that part. Sorry.” I sat down in the restraint chair. “Anyway, I need you guys to strap me back in this thing.” I popped the mouthpiece in. “Please leave my jaw and my flesh hand free.”
They did as I asked.
“Pal, put his bone in my hand; take it away if I have a seizure or lose consciousness or anything like that.”
“I will.”
He put the bone in my outstretched hand; immediately I was hit with Henry’s primary death-memory. I bit down on the mouthpiece and tried to ride it out, tried to catch the memory-threads I could feel drifting below it—
The girl stood at the new releases shelf, and God almighty, she was a looker. She wore tight worn-out cutoffs that barely covered up enough to keep her from getting arrested, and she was barefoot. The first three buttons of her black silk blouse were open, and I could see her breasts swaying free under the fabric. Thick hair, as shiny and black as her blouse, hung nearly to her waist. I wondered if her hair would feel like silk.—
I pushed that thread away and moved on to the next.
The girl had the spooky, unnatural grin I’d seen on the faces of shell-shocked soldiers who’d cracked to the point of endlessly giggling at the horrors they’d seen. Her eyes were glassy, and I wondered if she was sick, or on drugs.
“I came to apologize, Henry.” Her words came out in a breathless rush as she stepped toward the cash register. “I was a bitch, wasn’t I? Shouldn’t be bitchy to a nice old man like you. So very nice.”
The scent of her rose perfume was thick in the air, but under it was the faint stink of sulfur and scorched metal.
“I mean, I can’t be mad about what happened, can I?” she said. “America f
ixed Japan up so nice afterward, and put in bases to protect us. My own father was a GI, and if not for the bomb … I wouldn’t even be here, and I should be glad to be alive, huh, Henry?”
I was sure the girl was utterly out of her mind. “What do you want from me?” I stammered, starting to inch toward the telephone mounted a few yards away on the wall.
“I want what everybody wants … that special someone who’ll make me … complete. I feel so alone, and I think you do, too. Are you the man I’m looking for? I said yesterday that you’re a part of things, but I’ve got to make sure …”
She lunged forward and pinned me to the wall. I struggled and hollered for help, but her arms were iron. She pressed her body against mine. I couldn’t help but thrill at the feel of her silky hair tickling my neck, her hard nipples brushing my chest.
“Sh, I’m not going to hurt you. Just relax.”
She started to kiss me, and her right hand slid down my belly to rest over my fly. I squeezed my eyes shut. Trapped between terror and lust, I could do nothing but moan as she unzipped my pants and pulled my johnson free.
When she went down on me, a blue shower of sparks exploded behind my eyes. Oh dear God in Heaven, my wife, Violet, had never done this, never would have done it if I’d begged and pleaded, oh dear God!
“Who … who are you?” I gasped.
I felt the buzz of the girl’s muffled laugh, and she bobbed faster and faster against me to match the slamming of my heart, and suddenly I was afraid I was about to have a heart attack, but at my age maybe this wouldn’t be a bad way to go, and I came, a hot, sweet explosion that rocked my whole body—
The vision was yanked away along with the bone in my hand. Pal and Charlie peered at me, concerned. My shirt was damp with perspiration, and I was panting like I’d been running a marathon.
“Are you all right?” Pal asked. “You started crying out.”
“I’m fine,” I replied, my voice hoarse. “I think I’m getting closer to something useful.”
I wiggled my fingers at my familiar. Pal blinked at me uncertainly and put the bone into my hand, and I went right back into the memory:
The girl pulled away, and I slid down the wall to lie in a sweaty heap. When I finally realized I hadn’t, in fact, had a stroke or heart attack, I opened my eyes and fumbled my pants back on.
She was gone, but a book entitled The Myths of Japan lay on the floor a few yards away. She’d taped a note to the front cover: “Can you guess my name?”
Trembling, I crawled to the book and opened it at the page she’d marked. I began to read about Izanami, mother of the gods, who became ruler of the underworld after she’d burned to death giving birth to Kagu-tsuchi, the god of fire.
The memory faded, and I grabbed the one closest to it:
My best friend’s chest exploded in a crimson spray. The young soldier fell twitching in the sandy mud. I helplessly tried to do something, anything, for him with the pathetic canvas medical kit. My buddy’s eyes rolled up into his head as he let out an awful wet noise. Then he was dead.
I dropped the kit and stared over the palm log at the Japanese machine-gun nest. The Japs were still firing, black smoke snaking from the slits in the bone-pale concrete bunker. I looked down at the sticky blood on my hands, at the black flies that were already crawling over my buddy’s wounds.
My field of vision started to twitch in time with my pounding heart, and bile rose hot in my throat. Those filthy yellow cockroaches were gonna pay for this. I grabbed my M1 rifle and a grenade and vaulted over the log. Screaming at the top of my lungs, I pounded across the clearing. I felt lances of fire slash my shoulder, my thigh, as I pulled the grenade pin and hurled it into one of the black slits.
The percussive gust nearly knocked me down, but as soon as the orange bloom of fire died I kicked open the door and fired a half-dozen rounds into the bunker. When no one returned fire, I jumped down inside.
A half-dozen Japs lay sprawled on the concrete floor, faces and bodies torn apart by shrapnel. Then I heard a ragged moan and saw one of them start rolling around. The kid was maybe sixteen or seventeen, his face a blood-speckled mask of shock. His close-cut hair looked like the down of a black duckling.
In two strides I was on the Japanese soldier and bashed his face in with the butt of my rifle.
“Ah, truly the deed of a mighty warrior!” came a laugh behind me.
I whirled around, but found my arms were paralyzed, my rifle useless.
One of the corpses rose, and in the dimness I first thought it was a man dressed all in black. But when it stepped into a shaft of sunlight, I saw it was a naked woman, her whole body charred almost beyond recognition, cooked flesh peeling from the bones of her face and hands. Her eyes were bright amber, live coals glowing in the ruin of her face.
She raised a hand, and my dog tags slithered up my chest to my throat. The chain jerked tight, then broke, leaving a stinging track on my neck. The tags flew into her open palm.
“Henry Schleicher, corporal,” she read aloud. “You please me. You’ve sent many souls to my realm today. Now you’ll drop your weapon and please me more.”
My hands released the rifle and I staggered backward to fall against a pile of bodies in the corner. To my utter horror, I realized I had an erection, and the woman was coming for me, her grin baring rows of gray shark’s teeth—
The vision mercifully ended as Pal snatched the bone from my hand. My throat and jaw ached, and tears stung my eyes.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Charlie asked.
“You were screaming,” Pal added.
“Think I’m gonna be sick,” I croaked. “Get me out of this.”
They untied me and I lurched into the bathroom to throw up. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, calmed myself down, and went back into the room.
“Okay. Let’s try this again, guys.” I sat back down on the chair.
“You’re sure?” Charlie asked.
I shook my head. “Not really. But this is still the only idea I’ve got.”
Once they strapped me back in, Pal put Henry’s remains in my hand and I slipped into the next memory:
“Can you guess my name?”
My heart froze. The girl stood beside my bed. Her slim body was shoehorned into torn, faded jeans, a black T-shirt, and tall boots. She’d cut off all her hair, buzz-cut it nearly to the scalp.
“How’d you get in here?” I stammered, blushing at the hard-on straining against the elastic waistband of my pajamas. I crossed my hands in front of my fly.
“What, you won’t even guess? You’re no fun,” she pouted. “Anyhow, I’m Miko, and I’ll be your demon for the evening.”
“How’d you get in here?” I repeated.
She nodded toward the open window. “Climbed your ivy. Same as when I came for your wife.”
It took a moment for the implication of her words to sink in. “You … you killed Violet.”
Another nod. “She was distracting. Not very satisfying, though; I had to kill an old man in a nursing home today, just to make sure I’d be halfway sane when I came here tonight.”
I couldn’t keep from staring at the gun on the table. There was no way I could get to it before Miko did.
She followed my gaze. “Is that for me, Henry? You can’t kill me, you know … thanks to dear ol’ mom, I have no soul. What’d my mother look like when she raped you, Henry? Burned or wormy or what?”
“Your moth—Oh dear God.” The room started swimming before my eyes.
“She looks like a big smoke cloud now. She and my brother were fighting over the souls in the war, and Kagu-tsuchi tricked her into being at Hiroshima when Little Boy blew,” the girl continued. “Did you know that the mother’s responsible for giving her child a soul? Kind of an automatic thing, usually, but since mine’s the queen of the dead, she gave me a jones for murder, instead. Mother likes ’em young, and so she made sure I’d send plenty of kids her way.”
She sat down on the edge of the bed and ga
ve me a grim smile. “I guess you could say my soul is on lay-away; I get it as soon as I’ve made up for what my brother took from my mother. Kagu-tsuchi gets the souls of people who burn to death, and at Hiroshima and Nagasaki that was pretty much everyone. Mother was very angry about losing the souls, not to mention being vaporized, so I have to match the A-bomb body count: 236,962 people. And since I can’t use fire, bombs and guns are out, so I pretty much have to take lives one by one. So far I’ve only managed to send off 538. At this rate, I won’t be done for another twenty thousand years.”
She rubbed her face. “I wish you guys had just nuked one city, a much smaller city. I’d be lying if I told you killing wasn’t a kick, but I’m ready to do something else for a change, you know?”
“Why … why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“Because you can get me out of this. You’re my father, and if you willingly give me your soul, I’m freed from my birth curse.”
She seemed absolutely, horrifyingly sincere, but I reminded myself she had to be insane, or some sicko getting her kicks at my expense.
“Why should I believe this crazy story of yours?” I demanded nervously. “All that was just a dream I had, and you’re just playing with my head. I … I can’t possibly be your father.”
She dug into her pocket, pulled out a silver chain, and flipped it through the air. “Catch.”
I caught the chain. Two dog tags lay in my palm, gleaming like razor blades. They bore my name, rank, and serial number. The metal was flecked with brownish gunk that might have been blood or rust or both. I turned the tags over and saw the crude American eagle I’d etched with my pocket knife in a fit of barracks boredom. My heart dropped to the soles of my feet.
“Where did you get this?”
“Mother likes to play games. She gave me a box full of hundreds of dog tags a few decades ago, and told me one of them belonged to my father. I’ve blown a lot of old men, Henry, and you’re the only one who tasted of my mother’s poison.”
Her mother’s poison.
Miko met his mortified stare. “I’d always expected my father would be a man who was responsible in some important way, maybe Oppenheimer or the pilot of the Enola Gay or somebody, but it was just you,” she said quietly. “You didn’t ask for this, but neither did I. And if you don’t give me your soul, nearly a quarter of a million people are going to get something they didn’t ask for, either.”
Shotgun Sorceress Page 23