Salt and Iron

by Tam MacNeil

“This is a war, Rob. It’s killed one of my sons, and the other is missing.”

  “We’ll find who did this,” he says again, because that is what he means, and he wants the words spoken like a spell, to make it true.

  Maria’s bloodless mouth turns up just a little. She gestures to him, hand out, palm up. “You’ve been with us so long,” she says as he comes over to her and sinks down in the chair opposite her red couch. “You remember Abe when he was a boy, don’t you?”

  Rob’s throat tightens up again. “He was….” What do you say about kids like that? “He was precocious.”

  She laughs. “God, yes. Yes, he was.” She smiles sadly at him. “It is agony to lose a child,” she says then, softly. “I’m sorry for your loss too, Rob.”

  She can’t know about Howls. They’ve kept it quiet, him and Yuko. Yuko didn’t show much, and when she started to, she got a sidhe doctor friend to come up with a medical reason she should be on leave for a dozen weeks. Maria means about Abe, about what Abe was to him, and it strikes him like a blow. He has never known Maria van Helsing to be anything other than efficient and professional. He has never known her to show overt affection to her children, at least not in front of the staff, and didn’t realize she would give a damn for the colossal emptiness in Rob’s chest.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he answers in something like a whisper. “Abe was… he was like family. I’ll miss him too.”

  She squeezes his hand and then gets to her feet. “There’s some coffee left. Let me get you some.”

  He nods, a little numbed, aware that he should probably say thanks again, but he can’t find his voice to do it.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Just sugar, please.”

  She returns and places the cup in his hands.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he says. He sighs. “He was such a good kid,” he adds. “He always knew what was the right thing, in any situation. God. I thought he was going to be here forever. I thought for sure he’d outlive me.” He gulps the coffee. Strong and weirdly brackish and sickly sweet, but warm and calming. “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he says again. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a child.”

  She smiles at him. “No, I’m sure you can’t,” she says. Her voice is strange, a little hard-edged. “And you won’t have to.”

  He rubs salt from his eyes and shakes his head; he probably didn’t hear that right. “Sorry?”

  “You won’t have to. Imagine it, I mean.” She smiles faintly, but it’s not a smile, not really. More like a painting of a smile, everything pointing the right direction but none of it meaning anything. “Abraham Simon Michael van Helsing,” she murmurs, and it jolts him as if somebody’s shocked him with a Taser. He lurches and then freezes in place.

  “But—” he starts, because it’s not his name, but he can’t say the rest of the words.

  “Drink. Up,” she snarls.

  He puts the cup to his lips and drains the scalding, brackish coffee.

  “I’ve put up with you for far too long, you filthy sidhe-lover. We’ve put up with you for far too long. And even if I never learned your name, it doesn’t mean I can’t control you.”

  No. A part of him, small, stuck like a record, with only the power to think in fragments. No, please no.

  “Bring me my goddamned son. I know you know where he is. Then go and kill that bitch you fuck and that half-blooded brat you got on her. When you’re done, and only when you’re done, you may kill yourself.”

  No.

  No.

  No, please no.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he hears his own voice say.

  Fifteen

  ROB GETS into his truck and drives. A right at the crossroads and then out onto the highway. He’s sweating. Jeans sticking to his legs, his shirt drenched. His fingers are leaving dents in the soft steering wheel cover. He didn’t put on his seat belt, a little victory. If he crashes, he’s going through the windshield, and James and Yuko and Howls are going to live.

  But he doesn’t crash. The Summer Court motel looms up, red and white, the Vacancy sign flickering. He pulls into the parking lot. Stop, stop, please, stop. He pulls up in front of room thirteen and cuts the engine. He fights. He gets a second, maybe two. Something is better than nothing. He fights, and it delays him just a bit. Maybe James is watching him. Maybe James will see him struggling. Maybe he’ll see the sweat pouring off him. Maybe he’ll get it. Sometimes James is clever like that. Sometimes James just knows.

  He gets out of the truck and goes to the door and don’t knock, Rob, for fuck’s sake get ahold of yourself and knocks.

  “Hey, it’s me,” he calls, and he sounds like himself too. Not the imposter that’s in his body.

  Please don’t answer the door.

  The door opens. James stands there. He’s got two days of beard on his chin, and his eyes are baggy with sleep.

  “Rob?” he asks.

  No. No fucking no!

  “Something’s happened,” he hears his voice say. “Abe’s been hurt.”

  James looks startled, worried. “Abe?” he says. He glances over his shoulder. Gabe must be there somewhere, out of sight. “I’ve gotta….”

  He turns back to Rob, and Rob realizes he’s making a weird noise. When he exhales. Like a scream, but real quiet.

  James blinks. “Rob?” he says softly. “You okay?”

  He’s got a foothold in himself now. “No,” he blurts. “Yes,” he says a second later. “You gotta come with me.”

  He sees movement in the dark. He sees Gabe come to the door. He only has instruction to take James. That’s it. Nobody said anything about Gabe.

  “I have to take him home,” Rob says, and it feels like speaking in code. His heart speeds up. “I don’t care about you.”

  Both Gabe and James lean back a little. James looks over at Gabe, and Gabe looks at Rob.

  “Don’t let me—”

  He can’t. He grabs James by the arm and hauls him hard toward the truck, and James jerks back.

  “What the hell?” he shouts.

  Gabe’s come out of the motel room too, blinking a little in the light. He shoves Rob back hard, and Rob goes stumbling a few steps.

  “What the hell, Rob?” James shouts.

  Gabe’s shaking his head. “No, Jamie, look at him. Somebody’s got him,” he whispers.

  Yes.

  Relief.

  “Abe’s—”

  He can’t say the rest.

  “Mar….”

  Can’t say her name, either. His voice gives out altogether.

  He clenches his fist and lunges forward, manages to punch James hard in the side of the head, sends him reeling down onto the tarmac, then drags him a few steps toward the truck. But Gabe’s after him now, shoving him away from James and giving one back, first in Rob’s jaw and then, when he turns back to grab for James again, in the solar plexus. And that’s what does it.

  He falls to his knees and pukes. It’s enough. He jams his own fingers down his throat, stomach heaving again and again.

  Out, out, he thinks, and the sensation of the contents of his stomach crawling up and out is relief.

  “What the…?” Rob hears James say over the sounds of his retching. “What the fuck?”

  He holds up one vomit-streaked hand. “Stay back,” he says between spasms. “Way back.”

  It’s easier now. Easier. Now he doesn’t need his fingers in his throat. He doesn’t need the mechanical action, the instinctual systems of the body. Now he’s vomiting with force because of disgust, because of horror, because the coffee had tasted weird and brackish because Abe’s blood had been poured into it.

  He heaves until all that’s coming up is acid and bile, until his head’s ringing and his throat and his guts ache. He grabs for his phone, slick fingers, muck on the screen.

  “Yuko, please pick up, Yuko, please pick up, Yuko, please.”

  “You know who you’ve called. Leave a message.”

  “Yuko, don’t open the d
oor to anyone, baby. It’s not safe. Take Howls and get out of there. She’s got me, she…. You need to run, hide. I love you, Yuko. You and Howls. Please, baby, please be safe. Please be safe.”

  He hangs up, stomach still lurching, sick with fear now, not with horror. He lets the phone clatter down onto the blacktop and kneels there, panting.

  “Rob.”

  James’s voice is soft, close. He looks up and feels the tug like a fishhook under his navel and knows he ought to knock James out and take him back to his mother and then go after Yuko and Howls. He should, he ought to, it’s what’s right. That makes his stomach heave again.

  “Rob, what’s going on?”

  “Stay away,” he whispers. “Don’t let me come near.”

  “What’s going on? What did you mean about Yuko and Howls not being safe? What’s going on?”

  “I’m supposed to take you back. I’m supposed to kill her and Howls and….” He stops, gagging again. James comes close, bends down. “I told you to stay away,” he snarls.

  “And I never listen to a goddamned thing you say,” James says right back. “Somebody had you. How did you get out?”

  Rob sighs, suddenly exhausted. He spits some of the foulness from his mouth. “It wasn’t my name.”

  “Then how is it…?”

  He lets a wave of nausea rush over him, lurches forward and vomits up a strand of stinking bile. He spits again. “Maria. Your mother. She fed me blood.”

  “Blood? Oh my God,” James whispers. “Whose?”

  So Rob tells him.

  JAMES’S LEGS give out under him, and he folds up and drops onto the ground. “Abe?” he asks, as if he has some other brother. The one he never ran across. The one that’s a bigger fuck-up than him. “Dead?” Then he shakes his head. “No,” he says softly. “It’s not right.”

  “Nothing’s right about this,” Gabe says. “Look at what’s happened in the last few days.”

  James shakes his head harder. “No, I mean, the only people who know Abe’s true name are my parents.”

  More awful than the understanding, however academic it is to him at this exact moment, is the look that passes between Gabe and Rob.

  “No,” James says. “No. No. You guys, they love Abe. They worship him. He’s my glorious brother. He’s. He was… I’m the fuck-up. I’m the drunk. I’m the one who can’t do anything right.”

  “You’re the fixer,” Gabe says softly, and Rob’s head jerks up. “They can get loyalty anywhere, but you’re the one they can’t replace.”

  “They always knew. Abe was the one who was useful, and I was the one they used.” He stares at Gabe. “He must have told them everything I told him. Oh my God, Abe. Oh my God, he would have too. Like a fucking idiot. He… and they….” His voice fades out because the words don’t matter. He shakes his head. “And they killed him.”

  Rob sits back on his heels and wipes his mouth. “She… your mother said he killed himself. Opened a vein in the office. I went to see her, and she gave me a coffee and….” He gags again, pauses, and spits. “She said his name, and I had to move.” He’s panting. James stares at him. “Word is it was suicide. I… got my own opinion about that now. But….” Rob’s eyes meet his. “It would have been quick. Not like Benecio.”

  Like that makes it any better. “Thanks,” James says, and it sounds about as empty as he feels.

  Rob shakes his head. “I gotta go find Yuko. I gotta know if they’re okay.”

  “Yeah,” James whispers, numbed. “Yeah, you should check on them.”

  Gabe settles down on his haunches and looks at the two of them. “If she’s alive, she’ll be hiding. She might be in Shadow.”

  Rob nods. “I can’t go there. It’s safe. It’s probably the safest place for her. Can you…?”

  Gabe nods. “Yeah. Let me go. She knows me. And….” He shrugs. “I can give Skinny Mary a heads-up.”

  “Gabe,” James whispers, “you can’t. There’s the last thing that you still have to do.”

  Gabe sinks down beside him. “Can you?”

  James feels frozen. Empty. He shrugs. “Don’t see why not,” he says softly. After all, he was the one who made the deal with Skinny Mary, what difference does it make if he’s the one who does the final favor? James closes his eyes. He’d really like to lie down in the dark for a week, ’til all of this is over, actually. He’d really like to not have to be here, doing this now. “Okay,” he says instead.

  Gabe nods. He looks at Rob. “You stay with James. I’ll call when I have anything to tell you.”

  James takes Rob’s phone from the ground and passes it over to him. Rob wipes the vomit on his pants and tucks it in his pocket and doesn’t speak. James shakes his head. He looks at Gabe, then Rob.

  “It’s not your fault,” Gabe says softly.

  James gets to his feet. “Damn right it’s not my fault,” he says. The numbness is starting to peel away, and he’s starting to get angry. “Damn right it’s not my fucking fault. But I sure as hell am going to fix it.”

  “How are you going to fix this? There’s no fixing this.”

  He knows. He knows it’s true. There’s no returning Abe to earth, there’s no making Gabe truly human again, there’s no taking the horror away from Rob, maybe there’s no saving Yuko and Howls.

  He knows exactly what to do. He looks at Rob. “She sent you here to get me?”

  He nods.

  “Well, I need to go back to the Firm anyway. Let’s go.”

  HE DOESN’T tell Rob what he’s going to do. He remembers what it was to have Yuko in his head, how he had been laid open so she could have picked over everything he was, all the things he knew, how there had been nowhere to hide, hardly any place for him to exist. If his mother is in Rob’s head, he doesn’t want her to have access to what he’s about to do.

  And Rob doesn’t ask, which is something that makes the tension in James’s shoulders ease a little. He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t talk at all. He grips the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles pale, and stares at the road and breathes through his nose and neither of them talk.

  Rob pulls the truck into the parking lot behind the Firm buildings and kills the engine. He looks at James.

  “Don’t come after me,” James says quietly.

  “I don’t leave the living behind,” Rob says.

  James laughs. He looks at his hands, the small scratches from the forest floor. He nods, gets out of the truck, and walks across the lot, to the back door. He doesn’t hear the driver’s-side door open or close. When he glances over his shoulder, Rob’s still sitting there, hands tight on the wheel.

  Inside, the halls are polished, freshly waxed. The janitors have come and gone, and there’s nobody but the family here now. The overhead lights shine back off the floor and strobe under him when he starts to run. The Firm is full of cameras. It’s full of doors that lock remotely. It’s full of security. He doesn’t risk the elevator. A metal box suspended in a shaft might as well be a rat trap.

  He takes the stairs, takes them two at a time until he’s too winded and then one at a time to the topmost level. He has to kick the shit out of the handle of the old-fashioned attic door. He has to kick it until the metal twists, until the hinges shed rust like dandruff onto the floor and the frame splinters where dry rot’s set in. It gives up with a tearing noise and goes banging against the wall.

  He’s never been up here. It was always off-limits, and besides, the evidence cages and the secret passages in the offices were far more interesting than a room that might have a madwoman in it.

  Now it’s plenty interesting. He looks inside.

  It’s like a low-end bachelor suite in a shitty apartment. Not very big. A single bed, the blankets screwed up into a kind of nest, pushed against one wall, a sink and a couple of dishes on a tiny counter. The place smells like summertime garbage. The air is thick, as if there’s a tornado coming. There’s salt at all the edges of the room, multiple lines of it. White table salt, bright yellow sand,
pink salt inside that, blue and green and red inside of that. The salt shrinks the habitable space of the room by tens of feet. It’s so thick he’d have to take two strides to cover the distance between bare patches of floor. Not three circles like in the house of the sidhe, not the kind of thing that tears off wings and pulls out eyes. The kind of thing that kills gods.

  Something moves where the floor is scuffed and scraped. Time breaks in the middle of the room, as if there was a panel of glass there and someone’s thrown a rock at it. Something dark is under it, something he can’t exactly see. He doesn’t have to see it to know what it is.

  “Open,” she says.

  She’s taller than he is, beautiful, gold draped, just like the Baron said. She has no face, like her features have been burned away, like Gabe’s fingers on his bleached hand. Her hands are mangled too. Broken, like she’s been clawing at things. Nails all bent back, fingers missing, fingertips worn down where the fingers still exist. Like she’s been digging at the floor, trying to get out.

  “You want out,” he says.

  “Won’t hurt the one who lets me out. Please.”

  She sounds like a child, like a chorus of children. The hairs on his arms and his neck stand up.

  “Don’t be scared, littlest van Helsing. Fuck-up, drunk, fool.” Her voice is not in his ears; it’s in his head. “Won’t hurt you if you break the circle. Keep you nice and safe.”

  “James,” someone says, and that voice is in his ears.

  He turns. His mother is coming up the stairs, moving slow, cat footed, not tired, cautious.

  “James, sweetie? I’ve been so worried about you.”

  He almost steps back. Almost breaks the salt barrier and gets into Wailing Mary’s room. He stops himself.

  “She’s dangerous, sweetie,” his mother says. “She’s dangerous. You mustn’t get too close to her. You mustn’t let her out. You know what she did to Benecio.”

  She holds out her hand. “Come on. I’m upset too.”

  She frowns. It’s a good likeness of grief and sorrow. Maybe she really feels it. Maybe she feels bad about how Abe got pulled in. Maybe he ought to pity her. He doesn’t. If there’s any pity in him, it’s for the woman who’s been trapped up here for generations, the one let out to kill and pulled back when the job is done. The one whose only sin was not wanting to be what she was. He knows a little something about that.