During the last few weeks, the dream had come over and over, always stopping just before the monster’s return. This was one of the reasons I’d come to Santa Fe. It had taken a while to realize I was being haunted by someone who wanted to be a client. I had no idea how I was going to get paid for this gig. Normally, I’d not take a pro bono job, but—once in a long while—I break this rule in order to balance out my karma. Besides, total evil would be monotonous, and I’d been coming here on business anyway.
A door slammed.
That’s new.
I continued to wait. That was my purpose here; to see, to understand.
There came a sound, a tuneless trilling, notes strung carelessly together with no regard for key. Creating a sense of tempo, footsteps sounded on the lower steps. Slow, plodding, laborious. The sounds froze the girl on the horse. Her eyes were wide, flashing blue desperation. She tugged hard on the ropes on her wrist, tightening the knots she’d barely loosened.
The steps approached the attic door and stopped just outside. The tuneless notes of the flute settled into clear melody that soared, leaping in brilliant cascades, and fell back in breathy riffs, dragging melancholy resonation from the depths of the soul. The monster played well, genius technique and unlimited scope. Yet the beauty remained somehow sterile, antiseptic, refusing the flaws that add character and heart. For all the mastery, there was a lack of true emotion—a psychopath’s serenade.
I laughed without sound. Takes one to know one.
I was the audience, an observer. If I had power to do anything, I’d draw one of my Berettas and empty a magazine into the door. The flautist would wind up with as many holes as his instrument. That’s my idea of fun. Testing the dream, I reached into my coat and drew the weapon that ought to be there. What
came out was a baked turkey leg smelling of sage.
This is safe, I thought, with all that mad cow out there. I took a bite, spit it out, and dropped the leg onto the newspaper. Tasteless.
The playing stopped. There was a pause. A key rattled in the lock. The door swung open with exaggerated slowness. A ten-year-old boy with dark brown hair stepped into the attic. He had the kind of haircut you get when a parent puts a bowl on your head and takes the scissors to you. His eyes were hidden by the window light reflected off his round glasses. The loss of visible eyes added an inhuman quality to him. He wore a dark suit with shirt and tie. A school uniform. No matter how hard I tried to focus on the jacket’s school crest emblem, I only got a vague impression of a blob.
The girl’s overly fond of Harry Potter books. All the kid needs is a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.
Holding his flute like a magic wand, the boy advanced on the rocking-horse girl. His face never turned my direction. He stopped near her, sitting on an old toy chest. He set the flute beside him and reached down for something at his feet. He lifted a violin case. It hadn’t been here long enough to gather a coating of dust.
The girl’s eyes clung to the violin. Her fear deepened, peeling off her like a dark acrid vapor. I think the girl was more afraid for her violin than herself.
A born musician.
The shadows drank her fear, gaining strength. Several of them took on the shapes of little girls. The eyes of the specters were red, hungry, reminding me of vampire eyes. The fear gave them density, but neither the rocking-horse girl nor the boy paid them any mind.
There was no tension in his posture as he spoke in slow, flat tones. “They say you’re promising, gifted. What was the word our teacher used last week? Ah, yes, expressive.”
I took a few steps to get closer, but it was like walking up a down-moving escalator. I stopped and waited, knowing I wasn’t going to like what the little sociopath had in mind. Being one myself, I objected to the competition on general principle. He’d doubtless worked his way up from stray pets to people. Me, I’d never wimp out by picking on something helpless. Where’s the fun in that?
The girl’s voice trembled as did the friendly smile she tried to wear. “You’re good, too.”
His fist balled up. It bashed the top of the black, plastic violin case. “Good! Any moron can be good, any idiot that practices. I don’t want to be good. I want to be the best!” The emotion drained from his voice, as he regained composure. “You know what they say about me?”
She shook her head no, which meant she did, but wasn’t going to draw a lightning strike by admitting it.
“They say I’m esthetically pleasing,” he smiled a big, fake smile, “but a little robotic.”
“Esthetically?” she echoed.
He sneered at her. “Pretty.”
She brightened. “But that’s good.”
He looked at her from a deep silence, head cocked to the side. “You are stupid.”
Her face reddened. She pressed her lips into a thin, hard line, her fear slipping away for a moment. “Yeah, but I’m expressively stupid, so there!”
His head fell forward. His hunched shoulders shook. He lifted his face, staring up at the rafters, laughter escaped a few moments until he choked it off, his shallow chest heaving. He set the violin case aside and heaved to his feet, drawing a Swiss pocket knife from his coat pocket.
Fear was back in the girl’s face, her stricken gaze locked on the small blade. He seized her bound hands.
She shrieked.
He cut. The ropes fell away. Her hands were free, but stiff and swollen, lacking circulation. He leaned into her, his face inches away from hers. “For an expressive idiot, you’re kinda cute, so I’m going to give you a chance to live.” He jabbed the knife blade into the rump of the horse, and backed away, picking up her violin case. He opened it and pulled out the violin and bow. He shoved these into her fumbling hands. “Here. If you can still play better than me, I’ll let you go.”
She wiggled her fingers, flexing them, wincing at fresh pain. “That’s not fair!”
He grinned at her. “Yeah, I know. Still, it’s the best offer you’re going to get. One more thing, there’s a penalty if you lose; you get to pick what I break next—your fingers or your violin.”
“Not my violin! My mommy gave me that for my birthday.”
“Then you’d better not lose. Of course, if you don’t want to try and beat me, I can just tie you up and go away for good. You’ll die alone. Eventually. Just one more ghost in this place for me to play with.”
The boy was really stacking the deck against her. I was surprised he didn’t glue her fingers together while he was at it. I did a quick calculation. If the boy was ten years old in 1996, in my time, he’d be about twenty-eight or twenty-nine. I hadn’t heard a name yet, but if I identified the girl—the murder victim—then I knew her killer would be a classmate, one who played the flute. I hoped more of the pieces would fall into place. Someone really needed to hunt this punk down and make him eat some ground glass.
“All right,” the girl said, “I’ll play, but you better keep your promise.”
I doubt it’s possible.
He crossed his heart. A look of extreme integrity fell over his features like a mask. “I give you my word.”
Yeah, right.
She was still working her hands, her violin and bow pressed to her chest. “So, how do we do this?”
He moved away from her, gathering up stuffed animals, action figures, and dolls—one of them with a bright yellow dress and blue eyes. He lined them up in front of the rocking horse. “This is the jury. They’ll decide.”
She looked at him like he was crazy, as well she should.
He said, “I’ll ask them to pick. Whoever gets more votes wins.”
She looked doubtfully at the toys. “You’ll ask them, and they’ll tell you?”
He smiled. “Sure. Toys talk to me all the time. Sometimes, the TV, too, even when it’s off. And the shadows. Things live in shadows, you know.” He looked over at the red-eyed ghosts. “But don’t tell anyone. Our little secret, right?”
She followed his gaze but scanned the air without focus, se
eing only nothingness. “Riiight.”
He sat on the toy box once more, lifting his flute to his lips. “I’ll start. You follow, if you can. He played something classical I couldn’t name. The violin started slow, haltingly, like a voice in search of a song, but those fragments strengthened, coloring the flute’s melody the way a canvas defines the strokes of a painter’s brush. What sounded at first like poor playing converted into sobbing, piercing slides, moving in counterpoint to the first melody. The girl—suffering depravation, chilled with fear, a heart full of dread—hi-jacked the performance with a dancing spirit that brought light, hope, and laughter into the crushing void of darkness. The flute notes were well-ordered death, but the violin brought a sweeping defiance of the grave.
The red-eyed ghost she couldn’t see, which I did, drew close to her. Their eyes cooled to silvery blue. They reached and touched her gently like a precious gift fallen into hell. And their feeling filled her. Just a child, she played better than many celebrated musicians. If the monster had played with her, following where she led, he might have learned just what it was his music lacked, but he was determined to beat her, to show off, to fight against the passion he did not have.
The last notes fading into the dusty corners of the attic. Neither of the two performers moved except to lower their instruments. Beats of silence hung between them. The monster’s hands white-knuckled on his flute. Rage knotted his jaw muscles. Tension made him stiff and mechanical as he finally set his flute down and stood.
The girl used this time to palm the knife. On the side of the rocking horse away from the bow, she desperately sawed at a rope tying her to the saddle. The motion made the horse rock just a little. The monster didn’t notice, moving past her to where the toy judges waited to deliver their verdict.
Sadly, I knew the girl had too much talent to live, no matter what the monster had promised her. He glared down at the toys. “Well?” He listened to voices no one else could hear. An evil grin stretched his face. “Hah! I knew it. I win.”
Letting the bow slide to the ground, she’d been sawing on the ropes of her feet. She straightening just in time as the monster turned to face her, the toys at his back. He marched to the head of the rocking horse, and reached over to snatch away the violin.
With one hand, she grabbed after it. “Give that back, you liar. You know I won.”
He bared his teeth like an agonized beast, and swung the violin against the horse’ head. The violin shattered into pieces. Some flew away. Some hung, connect still by the strings. The monster laughed as he slung the remnants across the attic.
Freed from the horse, the girl slid to the floor, having difficulty standing. Her empty hand snatched up the bow. She held it like a sword, fending off the monster.
He looked at her with delight. “Oh, you’re going to fight me? That didn’t work out so well for you last time, you know? You got a spanking for that.”
Her face set into a display of grim determine. “The point of practicing is to get better. Too bad you never will.”
He growled and surged at her. One hand swept the bow to aside. It fell with small clatter. His other hand reached down.
She lunged up, grabbing his coat to stay erect. I saw a brief flash from something she held. The monster seized up, a startled grunt escaping him. He staggered back, falling to the floor. His head broke the line of toys. The handle of the knife jutted from his stomach.
The girl scrambled past him, barely managing to stay on her feet as she scooped up her twin, the blond-haired doll with the yellow dress and cornflower blue eyes. She reached the door, fumbled it open, and ran out—her small feet clomping on the stairs.
Hell, a happy ending? I’m not used to that.
Then came the sound of splintering wood, of breaking boards, and a child’s scream—quickly cut off.
Spoke too soon.
The monster was laughing weakly as he rolled onto his knees and struggled up. The little shit lurched past me, saying, “I guess she was in too much of a hurry to notice the hall rug sagged in the middle over the spot where I took out the floorboards. Oh, well, accidents happen.”
His fingers pressed around the entry point of the blade. I could smell blood in the air. So could the ghosts. Their eyes were back to blazing red as they swarmed the boy, following him out of the attic like a cluster of tethered birthday balloons. He was their anchor to the world, the source of their undying hatred. Soon, I expected one more to appear and swell their number, a ghost without her violin.
A wave of vertigo swept over me. The attic flickered, dancing, blurring, multiple images overlapping, and then…
…Like a ghost with nothing better to do, I occupied the dusty darkness; at my feet, the loose sheets of an old newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, March 20, 1996. One story caught my eye,
British alarmed at outbreak of mad cow disease. I’m back in the 90’s?
The sound of creaking wood drew my attention. I looked up at a nine-year-old girl framed by attic windows.
A reset. I’m caught in a dream loop. Got to … force myself … awake … or I’m beyond fucked!
THIRTY-TWO
“Facts have gotten in the way—I may
have to revise my opinion on fu dogs.”
—Caine Deathwalker
I lost track of how many repetitions there were after seven or eight. I looked for ways to distract myself, or introduce small changes in Ghost Girl’s memory loop. I’d tried breaking the loop all at once. Nothing. But if I could change one small thing, corrupting a piece of the pattern, then maybe I could eventually wear a hole in the memory and cause the whole thing to unravel. Or fail to reset. I might not be any better off, but it was the only plan I had.
The big drawback; I was a ghost here, unable to touch anything, an unseen observer. In the dream of the music competition, I’d held a violin and played it. I’d been solid with an interactive environment. What made a difference was the controlling power of the white jade flute, a cursed object.
Start small.
I stood by the rump of the rocking horse. A key moment was coming. The girl’s hands had been cut free so she could hold her violin. The folding knife had been stabbed into the wooden horse. The girl played her little nine-year-old heart out. No, it wasn’t Tiny Dancer. Both did their thing, a reenactment of the public competition the boy had lost. His failure had scarred him badly. His failure again would bend him even more.
The moment came when the toy jurors delivered their verdict—according to Paul Hastings. Hastings wasn’t his real name. It was Shawcross. After the notoriety of this event, and his father’s death, he’d probably been sent away under an alias to get some peace from the news hounds. My guess was that his grandfather suspected something, but couldn’t make himself believe his grandson was a serial killer. But Paul’s father had died, and Paul had come home. At some point, he started teaching flute. And the killings started up again. Maybe they were just cases of missing girls, or older female musicians. The M.O. could have changed. Maybe one or two of the students here went missing. I could see how Dr. Shawcross might eventually arrive at a compromise solution that protected his grandson and the school.
Lock up the boy, control him. The only thing to be done. I put my focus back on the loop. Here comes the moment I’ve been waiting for.
He smashed the bow aside and reached toward where she’d fallen. She sprang into his arms, and I moved with her, my hand laying on hers but feeling nothing. I visualized my golden magic shimmering along my fingers. I willed the energy to change her strike. The knife should have lodged in his stomach. With my help, the blade sliced across the side of his neck. He staggered back, gripping his throat. Red blood gushed through his fingers, spraying freely. He fell to the floor and died.
The ghosts in the corner drifted over and drank from the wound.
The girl ran out of the room, down the stairs, to the area with the damaged floor. She screamed. It ended abruptly. She was hurt, but not necessarily killed. It was possible
that if events had gone this way so long ago, she might have lived and had the future she’d always wanted.
Vertigo hit the attic like a wrecking ball. I staggered. The room listed and darkened. Here was a moment when the flute’s control was not absolute—the time of reset. I called on my magic, charging my whole body the way I had in Grace’s ghost realm to stay there. I willed myself awake from this dream built on a dead girl’s memory.
The dream reset anyway. I forced myself to patience, reining my raw magic back in. I might have to keep the point-of-change I’d made repeating from loop to loop to wear it out. I was
prepared for that.
I kept at it a number of times, killing the boy over and over. Each time, he died with a delightful look of surprise on his ten-year-old face. Each time the reset came, I strained at the leash that kept me here. One time, the darkness seemed to thin, leaving me a glimpse of Grace’s anxious face peering into mine. “Get Tukka!” I told her, as the darkness crowded in.
The reset brought the loop back into play from the start. I’d almost slipped out, so I kept at it, round after round. I was getting punch drunk like a fighter who’d gone the distance, and was seriously contemplating a nap when I heard thuds on the outer staircase. I sat on a crate and watched he door. The clomping stopped just outside. I watched for the knob to turn. It didn’t. Instead, something heavy crashed against the wood. The door splintered and collapsed. A giant teal-blue head with a curly afro and lavender pearl eyes stuck itself into the room. The rest of the immense beast remained in the outer hall. He grinned at me. “Herrrre’s Tukka!”
“About time. What are you going to do to get me out of here?”
“Tukka eat dream energy, so Deadwalker fall awake.”
“That’s Deathwalker, Caine Deathwalker because I walk with … hell, never mind. Just do it.”
He didn’t move. The colors of the room went dingy. The light in the windows turned sepia. The dream children flattened and crumbled around the edges. Soon, all the surfaces cracked and whirled away as black vortexes of wind swept clean. As entropy conquered, the darkness deepened to an infinite, starless field. Tukka and I drifted in nothingness.
Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper Page 26