by Zeller, Jill
Bruce managed to stay awake, but I could see that his thought processes were molasses. After a minute, he shook his head. “There’s no way. Mom doesn’t know where it is. She might suspect, but she can’t get at it.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, lowered my voice. I was glad he said it instead of Bijou. “You see how important this is. The people involved—” I forced myself not to glance at Agnes “—will do anything to get it. Anything, Bruce. They’ve already threatened Zoe. I must have something to bargain with that Ivy doesn’t have. You have to tell me where it is.”
Agnes’s voice got louder. “No, you don’t have to tell her. She’s making this sound worse than it really is.”
I knew I was on edge and I had to keep the next words that leaped into my mind buried deep. With great effort, I kept my gaze on my nephew. Behind me, I heard Sawyer step into the room. “Bruce, you know how bad this really is.”
Agnes got off her chair, folded her arms. “You can’t stop it, you know. We are going through with it. You don’t even know where it’s going to be.”
It dawned on me that Agnes thought we were talking about Mae’s Wake. It was tonight, at midnight. Bruce’s eyes were closed. Agnes might be acting stubborn, but she wasn’t acting out. Besides, Bruce knew that when news of who really killed Baby Justin came out, the party might not be as fun.
Behind us Sawyer said, “Bruce isn’t going anyway, Aggie. He’s staying right here.”
Bruce’s eyes were closed. I worried he had gone to sleep, when he looked at me with Ivy’s clear blue eyes. “You know, Aunt Annie, I left that thing, you know that thing we were talking about that I wanted to show you? It’s in my locker.”
I swallowed. Goddam kids still thought they could hide things in lockers? Hollis’s Bijou Xtra in a fucking school locker? But I tried to keep a kind look on my face as I wrote the combination on the outside of a gauze packet and stuck it in my pocket.
Agnes leaned closer. Her eyes widened. “What thing? Bruce, you can’t give her anything.”
“Agnes.” Sawyer’s voice was warning. Glancing at him, she sighed heavily, but obeyed.
“It’s OK, Libra. It’s just this story I wrote. She wanted to read it. That’s all.”
I could see Agnes would not be happy about Bruce giving me the lint off his jacket, but she said nothing. Bruce had inherited more from his mother than his gorgeous eyes. He could lie really, really well.
Motioning Sawyer out into the hall, I walked a few feet from the open door of Bruce’s room. “It’s almost time to meet.”
He put his hand on my arm. “Annie, whatever this is, I want to help. I can go back to your place, wait for Zoe and Ivy to come home.”
My relief was profound, and without thinking, I leaned in and kissed him. On the lips. For several seconds.
When I pulled back, his eyes were wide. I didn’t give myself, or him, a chance to wreck anything. I went back into the room, said good-by to Bruce, promised I would call with any news. Sawyer left Agnes with Bruce, after making a few calls to parents of friends and found one who would pick her up in an hour and bring her to him at Ivy’s.
In the car we said nothing. I didn’t know what to say anyway. Ease of talk had fled, and my mind was wrapped up at the thought of having to be in a room with Dominique Delphine for any length of time.
Chapter Twenty-Three
A Conversation with the Past
As I stood in front of Jack Easton’s real estate office, looking at photos of million-dollar homes arrayed on the hillsides of Pleasantville, I smelled smoke. Looking around for the source, I saw only Second Street, rows of shops, parked cars, and a handful of people walking the sidewalk. The smell of smoke in August in the Valley was never a good sign.
After Sawyer left me there, I bought a paper. The story of Mae and Baby Justin wasn’t printed in the paper, but could be in the online version by now. I hoped Agnes had Internet access on her phone and was reading it right now. But something else on the front page caught my eye.
Arson a Pattern, Authorities Say
Our burned tree was mentioned, as was a garbage can near the Post Office, an abandoned garage near the railroad tracks, and a car. All seemed to be related, but authorities would not reveal how.
A breath touched my neck, and the smoke-odor sharpened. A chill ran up my spine, and I looked around.
There were no pedestrians in sight. Jack and Dominique hadn’t even shown up yet. But I wasn’t alone.
“Hollis?”
“Here.” The voice came from behind me, muffled and broken, like a bad phone connection. Turning, I faced Jack’s display window, and saw only my reflection and all those fading bad color-printer photos.
Then one of them moved. That is, someone stood outside one of the homes for sale, waving his arms. Bending closer, I saw Hollis, unmistakeable, older, balding, a bit overweight, but just as tall and the smile was very much as broad and sweet.
“Hollis. Tell me. What happened to you?”
He grew bigger, like someone walking right up to the camera. His entire face filled the frame. “Annie, you have to help us.”
“Who? Who else?” But I thought I knew who else. All the people who had died for no reason, so that Dominique Delphine could live forever.
“All of us. There. Behind you.”
My back spasmed as if a spear of ice had just gone through me. I didn’t turn around, just looked up at my reflection, and my breath clogged in my throat.
Behind me stood a crowd of people, shouldering onto the sidewalk, spilling into the street. Must be hundreds, women, men, all races and sizes, children—my heart ached at the sight of all the children. Wraiths. Hundreds of wraiths.
“Hollis,” I whispered. “Are they really there?”
Nodding, Hollis rolled his eyes in a way I so remembered. “They are coming through one of the portals. It’s open and they are coming through, looking for their souls.”
“Which portal?” My stomach sank into my ankles. I thought I knew which portal.
“How should I know?” His eyebrows drew down. I had seen him look this angry only once before, and I didn’t like it then and I didn’t like it now. “Someone opened it. It’s still open.”
Bruce’s blood, spilled at the Sanatorium portal. Damn. I hadn’t even considered the possibility, too distracted by worrying about Zoe and my meeting with Dominique. I wondered how it would all work, how long it would stay open, how many more wraiths could get through.
“Hollis. I’m going to make it right.” I didn’t know if he heard me, or understood. He seemed to be, like Baby Justin, a vision of anger, fueled by ideas of revenge.
“They say when you start answering yourself, then you are really in trouble.” Jack Easton’s voice sounded behind me, along with the jingling of keys.
I turned, staying calm, focusing on what I came for, determined not to leave until I had what I wanted. “Hello, Jack. Seen any flying babies lately?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. But he looked more relaxed, and youthful. Lines erased, skin clear. Damn. He had used more Bijou in the time since I last saw him looking haggard. His nose, I noticed too, that I hoped Sawyer had broken, looked perfectly fine; not a hint of bruising or swelling.
He didn’t answer me, but he smiled as he unlocked the office door. As we entered, I felt a chill run up my back. Looking behind me, trying to be casual about it, I saw a vague ripple in my view of the street, like heat waves. Only these took on the shape of human bodies. Shit. The wraiths were still there.
A moment later a Tesla rolled up and slid silently into an empty parking space a few cars up the street. I saw the heat-shapes move close to the car, encircle it, as Dominique Delphine, dressed in black t-shirt and capris, her hair pulled up in a swinging ponytail, exited the driver’s side.
She pretended not to see the wraiths, but she had to know they were there. She walked toward me, shorter now because she was wearing black tennis shoes. Her figure was perfect and the clothes fit her closely
.
I wondered if she had done something to stop the wraiths coming inside, because they didn’t. But they hovered near, and I imagined several of them above us, on the roof, and at the back entrance.
Jack’s office was comfortable, dark wooden desks, tables, fancy binders probably filled with property details lying on the tables, well-tended plants, and a fish tank. It was cool, also, and Jack closed expensive slatted blinds and made sure the closed sign was facing out.
We stood in semi-darkness. The fish tank purred comfortably. Dom took a seat in a plushy chair, Jack went behind his desk, and I sat on the edge.
“Annie, you look good,” Dom began, and I raised my hand.
“What do you want to see me about, Dom?”
Sitting straight, her knees together, Dom laced her fingers together. “I hope to make a friendly arrangement. You have something I would like to have. Something that really, when you think about it, belongs to me.”
Blinking in an exaggerated way, I shook my head. “And how do you calculate that? Delphines own the market on the soul-trade? So, like God, you own every soul?”
Dom’s eyebrows went up and down. “You can put it anyway you want.” She stared at me, and I remembered this look on her face before, on my time-detour to her bedroom and her father/husband. “You are pretty ignorant of our history. But then, your father wouldn’t have wanted you to know what was going on. Maybe he thought you would be incompetent, or try to do something.”
“So give me a history lesson. Let’s see if I’m smart enough to get it.”
She gave me an incredulous smile. “You don’t know about the Accord? Ivy knows, even though she decided to break it.”
I shook my head, impatience rising in me. But I couldn’t ask about Zoe yet. I clutched my cell phone in my hand. No message from Sawyer.
Behind me, Jack was quiet as she spoke, but I could feel his interest. I wondered how privy he was to the world of ghost-hunting and soul-trading. What Dominique had to say did not surprise me that much. A pact, the Accord, had been reached between Delphines and Novaks more than a century ago. Too many, Dom claimed, had been dying. I instantly considered the ampules in Dad’s Lab, and wondered if Novaks had gathered the souls of their dead. I wondered if Dom knew about this stash of Bijou hidden in Hell, worth millions of dollars in her exclusive market.
Grandmother Charlotte’s grandmother had brokered the deal on the Continent, at a private villa in the Carpathian Mountains. Delphines agreed to leave Novaks alone from then on, as long as Novaks left the Bijou trade alone in return.
“So you see, Annie. Your sister has violated the Accord. In that sense, Hollis’s Bijou is mine, and mine alone.” Dome traced her fingernail along the wooden arm of her chair.
She knows it was Hollis’s. I had to risk showing my ignorance, but if Dom underestimated me, she might make a mistake. “Is it Xtra? Did Ivy take it before his death was irreversible?”
Blinking, Dom gave me a careful smile. “Yes, actually. Dumb luck. The technique you Novaks use is out-dated, and never has, until now, worked for collecting a soul before the individual is really dying.”
I wondered if Ivy knew. She had denied that the Bijou she had was Xtra. I wondered what Bruce thought it was. Anxiety squeezed my chest as I thought of such a precious thing, truly priceless, sitting in a high school boy’s locker. I was glad Dominique was not a mind-reader. Telepathy didn’t exist, anyway; all the ghosts I asked about it told me.
I folded my arms to keep my hands from shaking. I was dizzy, too, from the shifting ripples of the wraiths outside in the biting sunlight. They made a a weirdly sea-sick affect on the slats of the closed blinds. “If I were able to get it for you—and I don’t know where it is, but I can probably find out—then, what will you give me for it?” My voice was steady, even though my heart thundered in my throat, threatened to leap out.
I was certain Dom could hear it. Her face grew grave, as if she were about to give a patient bad news. “I think you already know, Annie, what I can give you.”
My hands were on her throat before my mind decided that I needed to kill her. She gazed at me, her face reddening, but not resisting; challenging me to keep going. Go on. Kill me.
Jack Easton didn’t seem to doubt I could. Seizing my wrists, he pressed on them with his thumbs. The pain caused me to release Dom, and the room began to swirl. I reached for the desk, a chair, anything, to keep from falling down. I couldn’t fall down. I had to keep standing, show them I was strong. Wiping my forehead, I leaned against Jack’s desk. My knees clattered with adrenalin.
Dom touched her neck. I could see reddening marks, and that made me feel better. Later, after Zoe was safe, Ivy too, I would kill Dominique Delphine.
The air pulsed, like somewhere big speakers thundered out a beat. I kept my eyes on Dominique who stared back at me. We both knew what it was, but Jack gazed from one to the other, went to the blinds, pushed open the slats. “Must be a boom box.”
But it wasn’t. It was the wraiths. They were vibrating, waiting for something, a command, a reason, an excuse to destroy either one of us. They didn’t care which, I thought.
“Where is my daughter?” I leaned close to her. To her credit, she didn’t move back. I could see the pores of her skin, mosaics of color in her irises.
“She’s safe. And your sister, if you care.” She rose, brushing my cheek with her breast. “I’ll send instructions. I suggest you go look for that Bijou, Annie.”
She believes that I don’t know where it is. I was ready to hand it back to her at once, but I sensed that for now, Zoe would be safe enough, although the thought of her, and Ivy too, frightened and frustrated, tore at my heart. I kept my hands from gouging out one of Dominique’s fine eyes.
“Watch your step outside,” I said as she glided toward the door. “It’s kind of crowded out there.”
Stopping at the door, Dom turned to face me, gave me a satisfied smile. “Good work, Annie. You got one of the portals open for me. Out there, those are my people. My ghost-people. They’ve been waiting for a chance like this.”
“It won’t stay open.” I didn’t know if that were true or not, and when I saw a tremor of surprise move one of Dom’s eyebrows, I realized she didn’t either.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A Trick of Time
“They’re on the move. They’ve been doing that all night.” Jonah spoke to me from the bathroom mirror. “They are headed toward the Bridge of Sighs. It crosses the Lethe into the City.”
My heart ached, and the pain spread through my body, limb from limb. I hadn’t told him about Zoe, and I was worried what he might do when he found out.
Jonah watched me, inhaled his hand-rolled cigarette. “Someone is organizing them. There are too many of them lately. Too much Bijou being taken. As if someone is stockpiling it for something.”
Silence flowed around us. A thought nibbled the back of my mind.
“The Eidolon Army.” I realized I said it out loud when Jonah stared at me.
He said, “I’ve heard that. It was disbanded long ago. About the time of the fall of Satan, or something like that. I think that English guy wrote about a big war.”
“Milton. Paradise Lost.” I considered. The army had appeared more recently than that. A chill went through me. I didn’t have enough information.
Jonah searched his pockets for his Drum tobacco. “The older ghosts say if they find an open portal, or someone opens it for them, they can get to earth. They already go through the tunnels here.
Jonah seemed animated now, excited. He had forgotten to be moody. “If they get to earth, they can destroy matter, that’s what I’ve heard. They are pure energy. They may take on a human form here, but they are pure uncontrollable energy forces that can take apart atomic bonds.”
Squinting, I watched him roll another cigarette when he already had an unlit one in his mouth. “How do you know all this?”
“You can find out anything you want, after you are dead.” Realizing w
hat he was doing, Jonah stuffed the tobacco back into his leather jacket. “You want to know what happened to Amelia Earhart?”
There was only one way to stop them. It was beyond my power to restore all those Bijous. There were thousands of them, and many had been taken years ago. There had to be another way.
I needed to talk to Dad. How would I find him in the vast ranges of Hell? How could I even get back there without Pepper or Bruce? I didn’t want Jonah to know I might never be back to Phantom City.
Jonah shrugged again. “I don’t know why they’re on the move. Maybe they just want to see the world.” He still patted his pockets, and found a book of matches from the Crocodile Cafe in Seattle. “Usually they just stay in the Ditch and howl like wolves.”
My hands, clinging to the edge of the sink, seemed to be the only thing holding me up. Sawyer would wonder why I was in the bathroom so long. Bless him, he agreed to stay with me, after I got back and told him an edited version of what Dominique had to say, leaving out the fact that she had kidnapped Zoe and demanded I give Hollis’s soul to her. He even believed me. But he wanted to call the police and couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t. He blamed Ivy for doing something irresponsible and crazy with Zoe and being selfish not to call me.
Jonah’s exhale filled the mirror with blue smoke. When it cleared, he squinted at me. “What’s the matter, Annie. You look terrible?”
I wanted to tell him. But if he tried to do something to rescue Zoe, he might be destroyed. Ghosts were hard to get rid of, but they could find fates more horrible to imagine. Some ghost hunters make slaves of ghosts, force them to do despicable things, for all eternity. Dom would do that to Jonah without blinking an eye.
I shrugged. “I think I’m coming down with something.” Grief, depression, self-loathing.
He shook his head. “Don’t let Zoe catch it. Where is she? Can I say hi at least?”