half-lich 02 - void weaver

by martinez, katerina

  But she had felt something and, considering she had been living in a power-void for a week, welcomed it.

  She considered opening the chest and checking its contents, but decided against it. The chest was there, it was safe, and her connection to it was intact. But she couldn’t find the object that had fallen to the floor. Nothing in the little closet was out of place, at least nothing that looked like it had dropped from a shelf as the sound she had heard a moment ago had suggested.

  Maybe the sound had come from another part of the apartment?

  “Elvira?” she said, drawing herself up and shutting the closet door. “It’s me; can you come out of hiding?”

  But the cat wouldn’t come, and this wasn’t just odd anymore—it was worrying.

  Alice headed into the kitchenette and noticed Elvira’s food and water bowls were almost untouched, and she hadn’t flung her litter out onto the floor. Her hackles rose again. Spiders crawled all the way up her arms and across her shoulders, and she could still smell that fucking awful stench. Looking across from the kitchenette and into the hall she could see the bathroom door and bedroom door were closed, just as Alice had left them, but the laundry-room door—which was more of a closet than a room—was slightly open.

  In there, she thought, that’s where she’s gone. And she probably wasn’t wrong. The laundry room, which contained her water heater and a washer-drier, was dark and there were many nooks for a cat to hide in. If she didn’t want to be found, that was where she would likely have gone. Still, Alice’s senses were on high alert, and the corridor was dark. Almost unnaturally so.

  She swallowed hard and pulled a knife out of a drawer as her heart began to thump inside her chest. Carefully she went down the stub of a hall, passing the bathroom door and then her bedroom door. She was about to nudge the laundry room door open with the tip of the blade when she realized the smell was fainter here than it had been a moment ago.

  A thought like a sharp icicle suddenly invaded her mind: what if she got stuck in the bedroom? For one horrible, terrifying instant, she could almost see an image of her cat lying dead at the foot of her bed. Alice felt a lump wedge itself into her throat, and then emotion took over. She turned on her heel, grabbed the bedroom door, pushed it open and spilled inside on her stride, yelling for her cat.

  The wall of stench hit her almost immediately, disorienting her and causing her hand to fly to her mouth and nose. It wasn’t a warm smell. No, this was the cold, hard stench of spoiled meat which had been left to rot in the fridge. She noticed the broken glass strewn all over the floor, beneath the busted open bedroom window, and then—as if her mind had been trying to prevent her from seeing that which would shock her most—she saw the body lying stiff on her bed.

  The world began to spin and Alice staggered, putting her hand out and grabbing the dresser for support.

  Her empty stomach threatened to heave and expel bile, but Alice swallowed the awful, acidic sensation and regained her senses. Slowly the world stopped spinning and her equilibrium returned. When it did she saw who was lying on the bed, cold and dead and gray: it was Raegan. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her chin was up, and upon her eyes were two silver coins.

  “Fuck,” she said aloud while backing away from the bed, “Fuck, fuck.”

  The cold, clammy hand of death gripped Alice then, and caused her movements, her thoughts, to slow to a crawl. So much so that she didn’t see the man whirling out from around her bedroom door and clock her in the jaw. A flower of pain exploded on her cheek and the world spun again for an instant, causing her to drop the knife she was holding. But the hit had snapped her back into her own mind, and instinct took over. The man came at her with another solid right hook, but Alice ducked out of harm’s way, into the hall, and backed into the kitchen.

  “Get the fuck out of my house,” Alice said, but she had made a mistake in entering the kitchen. From here, the only ways out were through the front door or out the window, and to do either, she would need to leap over the counter. But as she looked at the man steadily advancing toward her, she knew who he was. The blue coveralls with the waste-management logo on the breast, his slicked back hair, his heavy farm-boy accent—this was the man from the diner; Doug, the garbage man.

  “Get out?” Doug asked, “But you just got here, an’ we’ve got so much to talk about.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  “That’s alright, because I’ve got plenty to say to you. All I need is for you to listen, an’ I promise I’ll make this quick and painless. Struggle, an’ this’ll get ugly for y’all.”

  Alice’s eyes flitted from right to left. She saw the still open drawer, sharp cutlery gleaming from inside, and reached for it, but it took her a second too long to find a solid object to grab, and that second was all it took for the much stronger garbage man to seize the advantage, grab the back of her head and toss her over the counter and into the solid back of her couch.

  Before she could even think about getting up, he was on her again with his hands around her neck.

  CHAPTER 20

  Quick and the Dead

  The garbage man released his hold on Alice’s throat and she gasped for a lungful of fresh air. She writhed on the floor, rolling to one side and coughing as he drew himself up and looked down at her. His slicked back hair had fallen forward in thin, mad strands. His eyes were wide and excited, but possessed of a cruel intelligence. This man’s actions weren’t fueled by emotion, but by cold, hard logic—and that made him even more dangerous.

  “Now that you know I mean business,” he said, flexing his fingers, “You may be a little more open to having a conversation with me.”

  Alice coughed away the last of the pain and fought to get to her feet, reaching for the kitchen counter and using it for support, but he grabbed her by the arm and tossed her over her couch like a discarded towel. This guy was strong, stronger than she, and fast, too, despite his size. She would need to be careful here.

  “What do you want?” Alice asked, pushing her hair out of her face.

  Doug circled around the couch and stared down at her. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

  “I want to hear it from you.”

  “Alright, then I’ll tell you.” He sat down on the coffee table, which creaked under his weight, then clasped his hands together in the gap between his knees. “You’re probably wondering a bunch of things right now. Maybe you’re wondering why I sent you to Raegan’s apartment, but I think you know that. You could be wondering how I got in here, but I bet you’ve got a pretty good idea about that too. Lemme tell you, climbing up the side of that building with a body over your shoulders is a good workout.

  No, more likely you’re trying to figure out who in the world I am an’ why in the hell I’m doing this to you.” Doug laughed inwardly. “This isn’t like some soap opera—you didn’t wrong me once upon a time an’ I’m not here to get revenge, but I am connected to your past because I’m connected to her.”

  “She’s lying to you,” Alice said, “Whatever she told you, she lied.”

  “That’s good. She told me you’d say something like that. She also told me to punish you if you tried to throw me off my mission. Now, I’m gonna let that one slide, but the next time you try to get clever, I’m gonna have to re-introduce you to a good friend of mine.” He closed his right hand into a fist. There was a spot of blood on his knuckle.

  “Why don’t you just get to the point?”

  Doug’s expression hardened, a cloud of anger rolling across his face. “You left our welcome party a little too soon yesterday. How’d you manage that?”

  He was talking about her visit to Raegan’s apartment. “You want to know how I got out? Doesn’t she know?”

  “She might, but I don’t. I know you had a man with you, but I can tell you aren’t the kind of girl to go into a potentially dangerous situation without your own means of protection—the present situation excluded, of course. You did come home after all, and w
hat place is safer than home? Anyway, whatever you did, it got her attention and she wasn’t exactly very forthcoming with the answer—assuming she had one. I was hoping you would be able to shed a little light on how you managed to get past all of her little critters.”

  Alice’s eyes narrowed. She reached for his aura, honing in on his signal, and found it more easily than she had found any other since losing Trapper. Maybe it was her proximity to the Chest of Haunts, maybe it was the fact that they were alone in her apartment, or that in this tense situation Alice was possessed of an almost predatory clarity, but she had found it.

  He was afraid. His aura tasted like blood and sweat, and she exulted in her ability to even take it in—never mind the fact that he was scared. It was as if she had been born again, as if she had been brought back into a world of sensory input from a lifetime of darkness and silence. But fear wasn’t all she could taste; the garbage man was also curious, and calm, and prepared, and a fearful man capable of thinking clearly was dangerous.

  “You don’t trust her,” she said, going out on a limb.

  “Now, why would you assume something like that?”

  “Because you want to know how to destroy the spirits she uses to hurt people. You’re scared she’s going to use them to hurt you.”

  “I trust her. She’s promised me a good life. Hell, she’s already given me a better life than the one I had. What would make you think I need to buy myself some kind of insurance?”

  “Because humans are food to her. You’re food to her.”

  The garbage man fell silent. He breathed hard through his nose and every breath he took through his nostrils made a kind of wheezing sound. “Tell me how you did it,” he said. “The dark lady tells me you’re like a fly without wings, so how’d you get out of that nest of vipers?”

  “I’ll tell you,” she said, “But you have to tell me what Raegan is doing on my bed and where Nyx is.”

  “A question for a question, lil’ darlin’,” Doug said, “I’ll answer one question if you do.”

  He’s stalling, she thought, he’s waiting for something to happen. Maybe Nyx was on her way to Alice’s apartment, or maybe some of her Pain Children were. Whatever it was, Alice knew she had no way of stopping it, but while Doug was here, and he was talkative, she was going to try and get some answers from him.

  “Alright,” she said, “You first.”

  Doug’s lips spread into a grin. “As a show of good faith, seeing as I did just bust your lip up an’ all, I’ll tell you what Raegan’s doing in your bed. It’s simple, really; I put her there.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, originally the idea was you’d come back home an’ get a good scare. Then you’d have a body to deal with, an’ that’s a whole mess on its own isn’t it? But you didn’t come back home, so Raegan just sat there for a while. When you escaped from the apartment, the dark lady told me to come here and wait for you. Good thing you came when you did, too—I was starting to get bored, an’ your drawers aren’t as interesting as I had hoped.”

  Alice’s skin crawled at the thought of his grubby hands going through her things. She could almost picture him rifling through her underwear.

  “So… Nyx isn’t in that room?” Alice asked.

  “Oh heck no, not for days. She jumped ship quick. Wearing human bodies is like wearing shoes made out of paper.”

  “And where is she now?”

  Doug’s finger went up and he wiggled it in a no, no, no gesture. “You’ve asked a bunch of questions there, now it’s time for you to answer mine.”

  “You want to know how I escaped?”

  The garbage man leaned forward as if to listen intently, and when he did he gave Alice a clear view of the knife she had dropped. It was laying on the floor just a few steps behind where Doug was sitting. If she could surprise him and topple him over she could grab the knife before he even knew what had happened. On the other hand, if she failed, he may just get mad enough to hurt her again—or worse.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something moving. She chanced a look and saw crows had fluttered onto her windowsill. Some were pecking at their rain-slick feathers, others were looking at her, while others were shrugging water off their bodies. Crows, she thought, Cameron said he would send crows to tell her he was okay.

  “Well?” Doug asked.

  “How about I show you?” Alice said.

  “Show me?” he asked, his cheeks flushing red with warm blood. “Show me how?”

  “Salt,” she said, “These spirits don’t like salt. It hurts them, keeps them at bay if you make a circle of it around yourself.”

  “Salt… what kind of salt?”

  “Any kind of salt. Rock salt is probably better, since it’s purer. The kind I have is blessed by a priest.”

  “A priest? Really?”

  Alice nodded. “Father Zachary from Saint Jude’s. Blessed it himself.”

  “And you keep a stash of it in the house? You must, I guess, right? Resourceful little thang like you.”

  “I do. In the kitchen.”

  “There?” Doug asked, getting up. He tugged on his jumpsuit and took a step around Alice, heading toward the kitchen.

  The knife winked in the dim light and Alice made a move for it, but the garbage man wasn’t stupid. He grabbed her arm and swung her around and into the counter, which she struck hard enough to have the wind knocked out of her again. Alice doubled over and the garbage man grabbed her throat and lifted her square off the floor. He looked over his shoulder to where the knife was, and then looked back at her.

  That smug grin of his returned. “You must think I’m some kinda idiot,” he said, “I was born Christian and I’ve read the Bible back to front; but even if I hadn’t, I know it’s holy water, not holy salt.”

  Alice groped for his hands, trying to release his hold on her throat. For the second time tonight she found herself unable to breathe. Her heart was beating so hard she feared it would explode, and darkness was creeping in at the edge of her vision. He was going to kill her right there and then. She could see it in the way his eyes widened as his grip tightened around her neck. But an opportunity presented itself, and Alice took it.

  She slammed her knee into his groin and he released his grip on her throat. He groaned and cupped the space between his legs as his body filled with pain, falling to his knees and cursing her to high heaven. Alice then grabbed his head with both hands, screamed, and drove her knee into the bridge of his nose, cracking it with a satisfying crunch.

  He fell to his back, clutching his nose with one hand and his testicles with the other. His hands, nose, and face were turning crimson, and he was bawling like a schoolyard bully who had just gotten what was coming to him. Without thinking about it, Alice made a dash for the knife, bounding over Doug, swinging around the couch, and clutching the plastic handle of the blade.

  But when she turned around, knife at the ready, he was there, his face streaked with blood and his eyes fueled by rage. One of his hands pistoned out to jab her squarely across the jaw. Alice fell back, staggering toward her bedroom. She put her hands out to stop herself from falling into the room with Raegan’s corpse, pushed her body into the hall, but Doug booted her in the gut and sent her sprawling to the floor, clutching her abdomen and groaning.

  “You bitch,” he said, his voice wheezy and angry. “You broke my fucking nose!”

  Alice tried to move, but her body wasn’t responding. Get up, she thought, putting her own power into the thought as she may have done before using Trapper—flexing a muscle she hadn’t used in over a week. Get up, get up, get up, she said in her own mind, but she could barely breathe, let alone stand. It was like trying to start a car without any fuel in it—all choke and no ignition.

  He approached and Alice used her hands to try and drag her body down the hall, toward the bathroom door. Her body was tingling now, almost vibrating. When she looked at her hands she noticed her fingertips were starting to glow from the inside, and for
a moment all she could do was look at them, mesmerized by the sudden manifestation of her own power.

  She saw something else now, too.

  Elvira.

  The cat’s eyes glowed from within the bathroom. She hissed, then came barreling out of the room and went skidding around the garbage man. He tried to kick the cat but missed and spun wildly, grabbing the bedroom door frame for support and to steady himself.

  “Fucking cat!” he said, trying to figure out where the cat had gone.

  Alice looked at her hands again—still glowing—then turned her attention to him. Something was happening. She could feel it in her chest and in her heart. Her closet door began to thump, and this stole the garbage man’s focus. His fear came off his aura in pulses so strong Alice could feel them without even trying.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, his expression now a mix of fear and anger, “What the fuck are you doing?”

  Alice looked at him, and though she had no idea what she was doing—or how she was doing it—she said “You’d better open that door if you want to live.”

  Doug’s eyes widened and he approached, one careful foot after the other, toward the closet door. The door continued to thump and rattle, as if twelve people were banging at it from the other side. He was so taken by this, so utterly terrified, that he had lost all of his situational awareness—to the point where he didn’t see the corpse shuffling out of Alice’s bedroom.

  Her first thought was of Nyx—the garbage man had lied to her; Nyx had been inside Raegan all along. But Raegan wasn’t moving intelligently. Her movements had an almost, she dared think, zombie-like quality to them. Her arms drooped, her back was hunched, and her eyes were glazed over and white. When Nyx had taken control of Helena, she had been capable of playing the part of human quite convincingly.

  Then she remembered what Isaac had told her.

  When Isaac had used his magic to feed her a soul from out of the River Styx, Alice’s apartment had gone crazy. He had told her how her closet had started banging, how the cupboards and drawers in her kitchen had started to open and close, and how the floors had started to tremble. When she came out of her deep sleep, she had said “Quiet,” and it had all ceased.