by Hunt, S. A.
Robin enveloped the spirit as it stepped into her and suffused her with elation. She took the last fragment of her mother into her arms and held her until the dry well that had been her cell inside the tree was empty and cold.
“Oh,” breathed Kenway at her side.
She opened her eyes and took her hands away from the now-cold bark, dimly aware that she’d been crying, sobbing, tears spilling down her face.
Her hands were soft and human again.
Both of them. She studied her left arm with astonishment and found it whole and functional. New, even—the scars that had littered her arms were gone without a trace. Robin’s knees buckled and she sat on her ankles like a penitent in the dewy grass, holding herself, lost in a happiness so stunning and so savage it was almost grief.
Slipping his arms under Robin, Kenway lifted her, staggered up onto his titanium foot, and carried her out of the vineyard.
FRIDAY
45
WAYNE WAS A ZOMBIE.
He spent the entirety of Halloween (and the two days before) piled up on the couch, mindlessly staring at a succession of horror movies on television and ignoring trick-or-treaters that rang at the doorbell every few minutes.
Where u at Dad
His cellphone was glued to his hand. In the hours and days since the assault on Lazenbury House had failed to turn up his father, he’d sent dozens and dozens of text messages to Leon’s phone, waiting and listening for a response.
Where are u dad?
But none came. He refused to go to school, staying in bed until almost lunchtime, and he didn’t sleep well at all, pacing quietly around the house after midnight, staring out the front window at the lights of downtown Blackfield like a soldier’s wife.
They’d put in a missing-persons report at the police station, but Robin knew that if Cutty didn’t want him to be found, he wouldn’t be.
For her part, she drove Wayne around in her plumbing van all Wednesday night and all Thursday, looking for Leon in all the obvious places—the high school twice, the liquor store three times, the police-taped comic shop once, and 1168 no less than six times—but he was nowhere to be found.
Answer me dam it
Wayne was staying with Joel Ellis at his mother’s uptown bungalow house, since it had a spare bedroom.
Robin spent Wednesday and Thursday night there, keeping vigil over the hollow-eyed Wayne and editing her videos for the MalusDomestica channel while Joel went back to work at Miguel’s.
Since Kenway Griffin didn’t have anything better to do, he hung around with her. On top of that, Ashe Armstrong came by in the evenings to talk with Joel about what they were going to do with Fisher’s comic shop, and ostensibly to console his best friend’s brother, so except for Wayne, the house was alive with activity. Joel definitely appreciated the company, since the weekend’s excitement was winding down and he’d finally had time to fully process his brother’s death.
His decision to go back to work so soon wasn’t made lightly. Miguel refused him at first, practically forcing him to go home and rest, and grieve, but Joel had insisted, saying he needed something to take his mind off of things, said he needed to stay busy.
Nothing made this more obvious than the way he’d been Wednesday afternoon; Armstrong had found him a drunken, sloppy mess splayed out in the kitchen floor with a beer, and he would have agreed to just about anything if it meant he wouldn’t have to sit in his childhood home alone, listening to the wind lowing in the eaves, waiting for Cutty (or, he admitted, a resurrected Euchiss) to come finish him off.
Someone knocked at the front door. Robin tore her eyes away from the TV (Night of the Living Dead, of course) and answered it.
Instead of kids—she figured she’d probably handed out candy to at least thirty Spider-Men, Iron Men, and Batmen at this point—she found herself beholding the three magicians and their little dog, too. A feverish indigo sunset leapt across the sky behind them, making shadow-teeth of the city.
“Trick or treat.” Sara was wearing her Murdercorn wig again. She must have rescued it from their demolished Suburban.
Robin was dressed as a witch, of course, green-faced and hook-nosed. In a fit of pique, she’d also painted her cleavage green to fill out the deep V of her black Lycra gown. “Nice,” said Lucas Tiedeman. He was dressed in an Eastwood poncho and gambler hat, a cowboy revolver gleaming at his hip. “Super hot.”
“Thanks,” she said, dry but amused. “Come on in.”
She stepped aside, eyeballing Gendreau’s velvet top hat. With his navy waistcoat, he really did look like Willy Wonka.
Eduardo trotted between their feet and went into the living room. As soon as he saw Wayne sitting on the couch with his red eyes locked on the TV screen, the little dog clambered up onto the couch with him and pawed at his sleeve.
Noticing the dog, Wayne pulled Eduardo into his lap and wrapped his arms around him. Eddie licked his face consolingly.
Lucas smirked. “Eduardo Pendergast, the Boy Whisperer.”
They filed into the kitchen and sat at Mama Ellis’s table. The only light in the room came from the hood over the stove, casting a dim yellowish light at their feet. Somehow it gave the scene a desolate yet warm feel. Robin busied herself putting up the dishes in Joel’s dish drain, and said over her shoulder, “I have a pot of coffee on, if anybody wants any.”
“I’ll take some,” said Gendreau. His voice was the dusty, whispery croak of Death.
Robin eyed him. “How’s your throat?”
“Getting better.” The magician’s pizzle cane looked odd without the pearl on top. “I owe you my life.”
She smiled, searching the cabinet for a cup. She settled on a mug with a picture of a smiling macaw in front of a tropical vista. PANAMA CITY BEACH, it said across the bottom in slashy letters.
Sara opened the lid on the gravyboat in the middle of the table and peered inside. “Where’s your boyfriend?” Whatever was in there must have been distasteful, because she grimaced and put it back down.
“I don’t know,” said Robin, pouring coffee. “He’s been gone all day. He said he was trying to sell off his signage shop.”
Sara grinned crookedly. “I take it he’s made up his mind to go off with you, then.”
“Yeah. He wants to be my ‘cameraman’.”
“If the van’s a-rockin, don’t come a-knockin,” said Lucas, raising a fist for Sara to bump.
She scowled and opened the gravyboat, showing him the contents. “Pervert.”
Lucas sat back. “Ew.”
Handing off the coffee to Gendreau, Robin took off her floppy witch-hat and hung it on one of the posts of the fourth chair, then folded her arms and leaned against the stove.
“Thank you,” he croaked.
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh, that reminds me.” Gendreau reached into his jacket and took out a pocket watch, handing it to her. It was the busted pocket watch that had been hanging on Eduardo’s collar like some kind of canine Flava Flav. “Eddie wanted you to have this.”
“Is this his heart-road artifact?” Robin held it up to the hood-light and studied its cracked face-glass. It was genuine, but lacked the patina of an antique buffed by a thousand hands. She put it at less than twenty years old.
She could feel the power lying dormant inside, pulsing drowsily in time with the ticking clockwork.
Helping Annie into the afterlife had won her her humanity back, but she was still half-demon…and after the catalyzing effects of finally facing Andras, she supposed there were parts of her that were permanently stretched out of shape. She would never be fully normal again.
“I guess Eddie’s hanging up his wizard hat,” said Sara.
Lucas shrugged. “He really likes being a dog. Like, he really enjoys it. A forty-two-year-old dog. I think it’s kind of creepy, to be honest, but to each their own, I guess.”
“We should all be so lucky to find that kind of contentment,” said Gendreau. “Perhaps we should give being a d
og a try.”
Lucas shook his head. “If I could lick my own nuts, I’d have to resign too.”
Sara feigned a noisy dry-heave.
The back of Eduardo’s watch screwed open. Robin took it off and examined the gears inside, where she found a lock of dark hair.
This was where the power she felt originated, a wellspring that darkled weakly but constantly, sending off the eerie signal of a long-dead radio station.
Hair in the watch…a tooth in the pearl…what was all this?
When she looked up at Gendreau, the question must have been plain on her face, because his own held an expectant solemnity. He looked twenty years older than he had when they’d met in her hospital room Tuesday; his bone-blond hair now seemed more silver than platinum, and his eyes were rimmed in shadow.
He took the tooth that had been inside the head of his cane out of his jacket pocket and put it on the table, sipping his coffee and regarding it as if he could divine the meaning of life from it.
Presently he asked, “Robin, have you ever heard of a ‘teratoma’?”
“No.”
“It’s a type of tumor that contains a piece of foreign organic matter. Some teratomas have teeth in them…some contain hair, some skin cells, some bones, some even have entire body parts in them like hands and eyes.”
“Well that’s freaking gross.”
“Indeed.” He picked up the tooth and held it at eye level. “Teratomas are rare, but not super-rare. One out of every forty thousand births. That doesn’t sound like many, but it comes out to about five a day.”
Robin couldn’t help but be surprised. It sounded like the kind of nightmarish thing you’d only see maybe five times a year, if that. She remembered seeing something when she was studying in Heinrich’s Texas stronghold…an article about children with oversized tumors that turned out to contain their unborn twin. Pale, gnarled, brain-dead hobgoblins wadded up in a pouch of skin, quietly and insidiously stealing their sibling’s blood supply. Parasitic twin? She couldn’t remember, and frankly she didn’t want to. The concept was terrifying to think about, even in her current state. It was like something out of a Japanese horror movie.
“Anyway,” Doc Gendreau continued, “the witches’ libbu-harrani are teratoma, usually located around the heart.”
“A cancer that channels ectoplasmic energy.”
“Pretty much.”
“Wait,” said Robin, “you mean that when they do their ritual, the heart isn’t actually replaced? It’s still there?”
“You’ve never looked for yourself?”
She thought about it. “It’s kind of hard to do an autopsy on a pile of ashes.”
“Ah…yeah. I suppose it would be.” He nodded. “But yes, the heart is still there. It just beats really slowly. The witch is—” he made air-quotes with his fingers, “—‘undead’. This side of flatlining. A body on the brink of death, animated by the heart-road and kept from rotting by the dryad fruit.”
Robin pushed away from the stove and paced slowly. “So it is possible to completely revert a witch to human form.”
“Yes,” wheezed Gendreau. She already knew this, but it was nice to get a second opinion, a rational confirmation…or at least, as rational as ‘magic’ could get.
“Cancers are not natural occurrences,” he added. “They are… how shall I put this? …Attempts. Trespasses.”
“Attempts at what?”
“Entry. Something’s trying to use our bodies as doorways.”
Robin’s neck bristled. She stared at the curl of hair nestled inside the watch. “What is it?”
“We don’t know. Ereshkigal? Whatever it is, it’s trying to force its way into the material world…and the teratomas are the closest it can get. Teeth. Hair. Eyes.” His eyes were dark and steely. “It’s trying to use humanity to give birth to itself.”
She closed the watch and slipped it into her pocket. “This wasn’t completely Eduardo’s idea, was it?”
Gendreau shook his head. “No. He only volunteered.”
He took a deep sip of his coffee and placed it kindly back on the table with both hands, in a meditative fashion. “Consider the watch your enlistment bonus. If you’ll join us. You’ve got the experience. You’ve got the power—”
“The po-werrrrrr!” sang Lucas, strumming an air guitar.
“—And if you’ll accept my proposal, I can guarantee you that the warrants you’ve racked up in your adventures the past couple of years will …shall we say, get lost in red tape.”
“Red taa-aape!” Lucas power-chorded.
The curandero gave him a disapproving scowl and continued.
“There are arson and murder cold cases out there, Robin. Breaking and entering charges floating in the legalsphere. Detectives still looking for a Caucasian woman in her late teens, early twenties. You’re rocketing toward five million YouTube subscribers. You used to never use real names in your videos—your operation is going to shake to pieces because you’re getting cocky. How long do you think it’s going to be before the wrong person finds out about your videos and puts two and two together? We can protect you.”
Robin sighed, feeling stupid and reckless. He had a point. Did she think she was going to be invisible forever? Did she think the goodwill of that handful of beat cops that lavished secret praise on her videos and offered allegiance in her page comments would continue into perpetuity?
Could she even be certain that they would still be on her side if they found out that the incidents in her videos were real?
“I don’t do well with leashes.”
“Trust me, it will be a long one.” Gendreau gave her an earnest smile. “You will get to keep your videos, your van, your life … for the most part. You saved mine. I will do everything in my power to make sure yours stays intact and that the worst analysis you’ll have to endure is a cheek swab.”
She swallowed, biting the inside of her cheek, looking at a tin sign nailed to the kitchen wall. DRINK COFFEE! DO STUPID THINGS FASTER!
“Can I have a couple days to think about it?”
Sara smiled. “And talk to Lover-Boy?”
Robin pulled a hand-towel out of the oven handle and chucked it at her face. Sara juked, but it landed on the table.
“I’m a little star-struck, if you want to know the truth,” said Lucas. “I’m a big fan of your videos. Well, what I’ve seen of them this week, anyway.”
“I uploaded the latest one today as a Halloween special. Almost an hour long. People are going apeshit for it. It’s already got about ten thousand views.”
The front door opened and closed. Kenway came into the kitchen, his keys jingling in his hand. “Looks like I’m missing a sweet party.” He sidled around the crowded table and framed Robin’s face with his big hands, kissing her on the forehead. “Hi you.”
Her heart leapt. “…Hi.”
Gendreau shotgunned the last of his coffee and pushed back his chair, rising.
Kenway started. “Don’t let me run you guys off.”
“Oh, we were just leaving,” said the curandero, with a chastened smile. “I’d like to relax and find a good meal before we head home tomorrow. There’s a Mongolian barbeque restaurant here in town and I’ve heard lovely things about those.” He leaned on his headless cane.
“Happy Halloween, by the way,” said Kenway.
“Happy Halloween,” agreed Robin.
“Happy Halloween,” the three Dog Stars echoed in unison.
“Thank you for the coffee,” Gendreau told Robin, handing her the empty mug. As she reached for it, he locked eyes with her. “…And again, for saving my life.”
She nodded meekly and turned to put the cup in the sink, staring out the window for a brief moment. Collecting herself.
Out front, a white Toyota Sienna waited by the curb, looking like an egg on wheels. Kenway and Robin stood on the front porch and watched the magicians march down the front walk. Sara wedged herself behind the wheel, grunted something about a ‘fucking Oomp
a-Loompa’, and readjusted the seat.
“You don’t strike me as the minivan type,” Robin told Gendreau.
The curandero paused to emulate sucking on a lemon. “I’m not,” he rasped, tossing his cane in the back with Lucas. “But the rental selection here in Podunk leaves much to be desired. And thank the stars for good insurance, or we’d be walking back to Atlanta. Hertz isn’t going to be pleased that the Suburban’s little better than a box of parts now.”
Eduardo scrabbled up into the van and Gendreau slid the side door shut with a crump.
He turned back to them, one hand tucked into a jacket pocket like a Napoleonic dandy. He tipped the blue velvet top hat, folding himself into the passenger seat. “I await your answer, Miss Martine.”
Robin waved with a half-hearted smile.
The Sienna pulled away and rolled down the street, where it flashed its taillights at the stop sign, turned right, and disappeared.
“What was he talking about, an answer?” asked Kenway.
“Joining their Order thing. They probably want me to be their pet demon-girl or something.” She sat on the front stoop, where the wind tugged and swept at her silky black wig. “Where have you been all day?”
“I got you a surprise.”
“A what?” Robin’s face burned. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know. But I wanted to.”
“What is it?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?”
She screwed up her face. “How much was it?”
“Some dollars.”
She got up and slap-pushed him in the chest. “That’s not a real answer, Hammer Boy.”
He laughed and snagged her witch-gown, pulling her in and crushing her against him, and suddenly she was intoxicated by him, his cologne (was he even wearing it? she wasn’t sure) making her dizzy. The wig tumbled down her back as he lifted her face and gave her a deep kiss.
Her hands balled into fists of their own accord, scrunching his shirt.
He broke away, then kissed her several more times all over her cheeks and forehead, slow and methodical. His beard was like being blessed with a loofah. “Come on,” he told her, heading into the house to fetch Wayne. “We’ll go check out your surprise.”