by J. D. Horn
The financier’s face gave way to another, then another, of whom she’d begun to collect bits and pieces of information, tidbits that might prove effective in either befriending or blackmailing them. Others were strangers, people she’d never seen before even at Myrna’s parties, but she sensed they held something in common with the others she did recognize—the same cool, unsympathetic expression. As the thought registered in her clouded mind, Ruby realized for the first time that this was more than a theatrical performance. These people intended to kill her. Still, the opium she’d smoked left her feeling distant and removed. In a dim and claustrophobic corner of her mind, a part of her was screaming, but the rest of her remained aloof, watching on with a nearly clinical dispassion.
“You won’t feel a thing,” King had said, as she slid the needle of a syringe beneath her skin. Ruby had never liked needles. Only real addicts did. She tried to draw her arm back. “Now don’t be a child. This, my dear, is your chance to become something greater than yourself. No longer just a darling backwoods hayseed hoping to make it here in Tinsel Town. No more a simple schemer, preying on the weaknesses of others.” She held up the syringe, and the man took it from her. “No, my dear, you are to be a gateway, an opening through which something much greater than yourself will come.
“Now this bit, you’ll feel,” Myrna said as rough hands forced Ruby up into a near-sitting position; others pulled her head back. She choked as another woman, with cruel black eyes lined with kohl and long, straight dark hair parted down the center, poured a liquid, a metallic taste, down her throat. She forced Ruby’s mouth closed, and massaged her throat in a downward motion. But Ruby had felt something. The burning cold.
It had been at her fifth birthday party that she’d first experienced this type of sensation. Impatient to taste the ice cream Marva was making, she’d touched the side of the ice cream maker’s metal cylinder, chilled to below freezing by rock salt and ice.
The cold burned, shocking and fascinating her in the same instant. She’d felt compelled to experiment, so she grabbed a girl’s hand—what was her name, Missy?—and held her soft pink palm against it until the girl cried out. Ruby wasn’t sure why she’d done it. She’d just wanted to see what it would feel like—both for herself and for her playmate. To experience the effect the surprising source of pain would have on the girl, and how she herself would feel as the one who forced the suffering on her. In the end, she felt nothing, not even when Missy slapped her with her free hand. Missy’s attempt at revenge had been half-hearted at best. The Judge witnessed the slap, and dragged the child outside, giving her several rough shakes along the way. Ruby seemed to remember that her little friend’s parents moved away sometime afterward; at least she couldn’t remember ever spending time with Missy after that.
For the first time in years, she thought of the nearly forgotten girl at her birthday party, and as she looked into Myrna King’s eyes, she finally understood how it must feel to be the one taking pleasure in another’s pain. She whined through gritted teeth, the numbing effect of the opium not strong enough to alleviate the sensation of being frozen and burned alive, at the same time and from the inside out. The hands propping her up then lowered her in a single rough drop, her head bouncing as it banged against the table.
“Careful, careful,” she heard Myrna say to the others. “This is a delicate operation here. We don’t want to damage the portal.” Then Myrna’s smooth and perfect face appeared over her, framed by blonde ringlets. “Great and ancient magic is passing through you now, my dear, magic first harnessed and forgotten long before the pyramids were planted on Giza.” She reached around her neck and unhooked the clasp of the necklace she’d been wearing, allowing it to dangle before Ruby’s upturned eyes. At first Ruby thought it was a cross, the kind the Catholics she’d met in California seemed so fond of wearing, but then she noticed the hoop shape at its top. The tip of the thing appeared sharp, a tiny golden blade.
“Life. Eternal,” she said, then laughed, “or at least a hell of a lot longer than any of us could ever expect otherwise. You’re about to house the source of it.” She dropped the necklace on Ruby’s breast, and let her finger run along her clavicle, up the sensitive skin of her neck to the side of her windpipe. “All that mummification nonsense the Egyptians got up to. It stemmed from the folk memory of the practices a debased priesthood forgot. Still what has been forgotten can be rediscovered, my dear.” She paused. “But let’s forget ancient history and focus on the now. Do you feel it awakening in you? Yes?” Ruby felt unable to move, even to blink her eyes in response. “You must be so frightened. Or at least you should be. We welcome the force into you by infecting your blood. It will take three times, just like in a fairy tale, to seal the charm.” She leaned over Ruby and placed a kiss on her lips. “But you’ll be no Sleeping Beauty. You’ll be aware. Trapped in there as your own life force fades. But we’ll be out here working to manage your transition, keep you alive as long as possible so to expand your period of usefulness. These sigils will help with that,” Myrna said as she let her hand slide back down Ruby’s breastbone to the rounded cross pendant she’d dropped there. Myrna lifted it and pressed its sharp tip into the skin of Ruby’s breast. The pain was enough to drive away the last of the opiate fog. Ruby bucked upward, raising her arm to fight.
“Secure her,” Myrna said in a flat, almost-bored voice. Ruby felt her arm being pulled back with nearly enough force to dislocate her shoulder. She fell back, trying to kick her legs or strike out with her other arm, but before that impulse could be realized, thick leather straps and cuffs were fastened around her limbs and tightened. Another strap was pulled over her legs near the knees, and two men, one of them the financier, moved to pull another over her chest. “No, not there. It will be in my way,” Myrna said. “Use your hands.” The two men leaned over her, using their weight to pin Ruby’s shoulders down as Myrna began carving out bits of her flesh.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Myrna said, nearly cooing her words, “I will take it on as my personal duty to make sure that this experience lasts as long as it possibly can before we finally dispatch you to whatever hell is awaiting you.”
The Judge moaned, pulling Ruby’s mind from California back to Conroy. Ruby turned toward the sound, and as her eyes focused on the old man before her, she wondered if that wasn’t exactly what had happened. Maybe this was her hell.
Her father’s eyes were open and fixed on her, foolishly still seeming to be begging her for mercy, but in Ruby’s stilled heart, there was no mercy to be found. “Can’t forget the best part now, can we, Daddy?” She let herself ride on a wave of magic to his side, never taking her eyes off him as she opened the drawer of his nightstand. She pulled out the bottle of colloidal silver, and unscrewed its lid.
“Open wide, Daddy.” He shook his head, trying to resist, but he couldn’t. The days of his ability to refuse her ended when she first forced him to taste her blood. After that, she was the mistress of his will. His lips slid open, as his eyes widened in fearful anguish. She tilted the bottle over his mouth and poured, fascinated by the popping sound as the silver burned his tongue and then his throat. “Swallow,” she commanded as he choked on the burning liquid. He did as she told him, leaving her to savor every moment of his pain. She waited until his body stopped spasming, until his last whining moan silenced itself. She ran her finger along his quivering jawline. “Might as well finish this bottle up, no?”
TWENTY-TWO
Night fell quickly over the Dunne farm. The mass of trees to the west was just tall enough to block out the setting sun, so the sky seemed magically to shift from pink to plum to black in mere minutes once the sun had been hidden away. Corinne sat on the Dunnes’ porch, rocking calmly on the porch swing, pushing herself back and forth with the tip of her right shoe, the movement absentminded, unconsciously synchronized to a choir of croaking frogs. The Dunnes knew she was waiting there for their son to return, but they hadn’t offered to turn on a light, and with the way Ava re
acted to simple questions, Corinne was a bit wary of making a full-on request, let alone risking committing the crime of turning it on herself. Just as well, Corinne told herself; the porch light would only attract bugs.
She focused on the stars she could make out beyond the porch’s overhang, wondering if any of them might grant power to her wishes, but knowing she’d long since given up on wishing. This was to be her new life, a chance to put the past behind her. She’d hoped to find a family here, one to make up for the one she’d never really had. She tried to be optimistic, chalk the bad first impression up to nerves, but it looked like the Dunnes were going to be just as much a disappointment as the family she’d been born into. And what about Elijah himself? Was he, too, bound to be another letdown?
The Elijah she’d known in Korea had been so gentle, so thoughtful. There, an ocean away, he’d been a spinner of simple, wholesome dreams. A home, a family, companionship. They’d sat together beneath these same stars, holding hands. The words they’d shared were warm, early imaginations of what their life together could be. The silences between them, for there were many, were comfortable, intimate, a wall built around them, unlike the hostile taciturnity of the Dunne household, a wall that kept them apart. Still, Elijah seemed to feel comfortable in this environment, though she couldn’t for the life of her imagine the man she’d known overseas being so. Was the man she’d come to marry some kind of quisling, or had she just filled in the blanks herself, turning him into a man she could feel safe with? So odd that she’d find happiness with Elijah in a war zone, but that a single day in this backwater town could threaten their relationship.
Corinne felt as if she’d found herself in a play with a whole team of characters she’d never heard of. She pushed the thought of the beautiful Ruby aside. The woman was probably a cousin, or even just a friend of the family. Corinne comforted herself with her certainty that if Ruby had any interest in Elijah, Elijah would never have chosen Corinne over her. No, they faced real issues; Corinne was not going to entertain petty schoolgirl insecurities now. These friends of Elijah whom she’d never heard one word about until they’d been found slaughtered. The old doctor on the train had warned her that his friends were the rowdy type. Still she couldn’t help but feel the type of behavior that gets your headless body strapped to a church steeple must have gone beyond boisterous.
Corinne had experienced enough of this kind of man, all whiskey sweat, and wadded, losing racing forms. Physical strength used to intimidate, to overpower.
The scent of gunpowder rose to her memory. All right, she, too, had secrets she would probably never share, but there were thousands of miles between her and the skeletons she harbored.
A flicker in the trees, the beams of headlights pulling around the corner. She held up her arm to shield her eyes, relieved to see that it was the Dunnes’ truck pulling up the drive. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, the sound prodding Corinne to rise. The swing groaned as she abandoned it and headed across the porch. She waited at the top step, until the sight of the truck door opening spurred her on. She wanted a moment to get Elijah alone. To speak with him privately before his parents could cut him off from her.
The dry grass crunched beneath her feet. The air was still. The world around her, lit only by a spray of blue stars and the bright sliver of a new moon, seemed somehow dreamlike. Elijah climbed out of the truck cab, and closed the door behind him. He came around the front of the truck to meet her, stopping and looking down on her with tender eyes. Was his forehead creased with worry, or were the lines witnesses to his regret? He tilted his head, leaning in toward her. His lips found her. A gentle kiss that spoke of his caring. His beard tickled her, but she didn’t mind. His kiss had broken the evil spell that had fallen on her. Corinne felt her shoulders relax, and she went up on her toes, leaning into him. His arms tightened on her, tentatively at first, but then almost as if he were clinging to her for dear life.
He pulled back, but his calloused fingers touched her cheek, then cradled her jawline with great tenderness. Corinne watched silently as he struggled to find the words. “I’m sorry.” His voice broke as he spoke to her. He coughed. “I’m sorry.” He leaned down and placed a kiss on the top of her head, then another on her forehead. “What I did. Leaving you here like that. That isn’t me. Or at least I don’t want it to be me.” He tilted up her chin so that their eyes met. “Things will be different from now on. I promise. I just . . .”
“You just learned of the murders of very dear friends.” Corinne found herself making his excuses for him. She was so desperate for what he was saying to be true. For everything to be all right. For him to be the man she’d come to care for. For coming to Conroy not to have been a gross mistake. “Don’t shut me out,” she said. “I’m going to be your wife, Elijah. Your helpmeet. Let me share your burdens.”
As he nodded, his hand released her and fell to his side. “I want that. I do. I just don’t know where to start.” He began to turn away, but she reached out and caught ahold of his hand. He stopped, but still he looked away, seeming incapable of meeting her eye to eye. “Sometimes lately I feel like I’m two different people. There’s the man you know. The man I want to be. Then there’s the guy I used to be before I left here. A guy I don’t like very much. I came back here thinking he was gone, but he was just waiting here for me to get back. He’s here. Haunting me, like some kind of ghost.”
“Tell me about him,” she said, realizing that she was now clasping the hand she’d been holding between both of hers, tugging on him, unconsciously trying to lead him away from the house, away from his parents. She’d like nothing better than if she could coax him back into the truck, and get him to drive off again, only this time taking her with him.
He would not be budged. He shook his head. “No.” His voice came out harsh, then softened. “No. I’m ashamed. I’m afraid of seeing the way you’ll look at me if I tell you.”
“All right, then. Tell me about your friends. This Dowd and Bobby.” She felt a tremor pass through him as she said their names. “They weren’t good men, were they?”
“If I tell you about them, I’m telling you about me. All the things they done. All the things they’re guilty of, I’m guilty, too. I’ve done the same things they did.”
Corinne took a step closer, slipping her arm around his waist and leaning her head against his chest. “No. You’re different. You knew whatever it was you fellows were getting up to wasn’t for you. You got out. You served your country. You received an honorable discharge and a Purple Heart . . .”
“For being shot by a sniper while carrying garbage to a pit.”
“For being an honorable soldier who was wounded doing his part in the war effort.” She leaned back so she could see his face. “There are always going to be people who want to tear you down, minimize the good you’ve done in this world. Don’t let yourself be one of them.” She lowered her head, trying to decide whether she really needed to know the details of Elijah’s past, or if it would be easier to help him be the man he wanted to be by letting the secrets die. She made her choice and looked up to meet his gaze. “Okay. I don’t need to know. I don’t care who these men were. I don’t care what type of things you used to do together. That version of you. The man you want to leave behind. I want to help you leave him and his crimes, real or imagined, in the past. I want to help you be the Elijah I know. The Elijah I came halfway round the world to marry.”
Elijah’s gaze drifted up and away from her, as the yard behind them was illuminated by the sudden flaring of the porch light. Corinne glanced over her shoulder to see her soon-to-be mother-in-law standing in the doorway. “You two need to come on inside now,” Mrs. Dunne called to them. “I’ve held supper all I plan to.” Ava turned and walked away, but she left the door standing open.
Corinne turned back to Elijah, whose attention had once again focused on her. “I appreciate what you’re saying. I do,” he said. “And I want what you want.” He pulled her in for a quick hug before relea
sing her. “I just worry he might not be put down so easy.” Elijah took her hand and led her toward the house. Even before they crossed the threshold, Corinne could feel an angry pair of eyes settle on them.
“Come on now, get cleaned up,” Mrs. Dunne snapped at them.
Corinne didn’t know what she would be facing when it came to helping Elijah put his past behind him. And tonight, she couldn’t even begin to imagine that she’d ever feel at home in this strange place. But if their marriage were going to succeed, Corinne was sure of one thing: she and Elijah were going to have to work out alternative living arrangements.
TWENTY-THREE
McAvoy took a swig of his bourbon and water. He wasn’t a drinking man by habit, but his afternoon with the Judge had left him on edge. Though the Judge’s medical problem appeared to be some form of anemia, guilt was what had consumed Ovid. Guilt and anger and the disappointment of finally learning he really wasn’t God after all. Ovid had spent two years and heaven only knew how many thousands of dollars locating Ruby after she left home. Watching his daughter die only weeks after getting her back had derailed the man.
McAvoy thought back to a day, eight, maybe nine years ago? A cold February morning. A heavy frost had descended on the town, painting it a shimmering white, and a yellow sun hung in a cloudless gentian blue sky. God had built that day for beauty, but man had found a way to mar it.
The Judge showed up at his surgery with Ruby in tow, the girl wearing a coat that was far too light for the cold snap that had hit Conroy. How old was she then? Thirteen? Fourteen? She was such a petite thing, he might have thought her younger, but there was no childlike exuberance in the way she carried herself. She came through the door, all hunched over and crumpled in on herself, her father following, on his face a look that spoke more of embarrassment than worry.