The Book of Peril

by Melissa McShane

  “I’m sorry.” I looked around for Ruth, who was talking to the bartender. “I thought she was good at her job.”

  “She is. Was. The place folded. We knew it was coming, but Ruth hoped they could pull it around. She’s way more optimistic than I am.”

  “You’re one of nature’s pragmatists, aren’t you? Hi, Ruth. Sit down. I’m sorry to hear about your job.”

  Ruth shrugged. “I’ll find something else.” Her voice was almost too quiet to hear over the band.

  “What is it you do?”

  “I’m trying to become a hotel manager. I was a desk clerk at the Hyperion, working my way up.” She picked at a flaw in the table top, a restless motion at odds with her calm voice.

  “I didn’t know hotels could shut down like that.”

  Ruth shrugged again. “They said people weren’t coming in, but weird things have been happening for weeks. Laundry gets sent out and only half of it comes back, fresh produce turns out to be rotten, that sort of thing. Then the guests complain of ghosts.” Ruth took a long drink of her mojito, then laughed. “It’s like the hotel at the beginning of Ghostbusters, right? Things shake, lights flicker, shadows move by themselves. We had a lot of people demand their money back before going to the Marriott down the street.”

  “As if people needed an excuse to get their money back when there are no bedspreads on the beds,” Betsey said. She applauded absently as the band came to the end of its first number and started in on something slow, with a heavy bass line. “You’ll be better off at some other hotel, hon.”

  “I hope they give you a good reference,” I said.

  “They will. And now I’m done talking about it.” She slammed back the rest of her mojito, shuddered, and grabbed Betsey’s hand. “Dance with me.”

  Betsey grinned and let herself be pulled onto what little dance floor there was. I sipped my drink. I wasn’t drunk, I was only a little buzzed, but I was feeling down the way I usually only did after one too many beers. Betsey had Ruth. Viv had Heath. I had nobody. Okay, Jason was theoretically available, but I knew if I drunk-texted him now and had him come down here, we’d end up back at my apartment, and that would be a bad idea. I liked Jason, and I didn’t want to use him as a substitute for someone I couldn’t have.

  The next song was fast-paced, and I made myself get up and dance with everyone else, the sort of unfocused rhythmic gyration you do when you’re not dancing with any one person. Movement made me feel better, like less of a lonely loser, and by the time the song ended and the band took a break, I wasn’t feeling quite so low.

  “I am on fire tonight,” Viv shouted, punching the air. “Hel, buy me a drink.”

  “Do you need alcohol to make you looser?”

  “I need a drink because drinks make me happy. Playing the drums makes me happy. Telling you you look great makes me happy. Lots of things make me happy. How about that drink?”

  I got Viv a mojito and myself a Diet Coke, wishing the Coke didn’t have the faint aftertaste of cigarette butts. “What does not make me happy,” Viv said when I returned, “is how mopey you look. It’s throwing me off my game.”

  “It is not. You have the focus of a chess grand master when you’re behind the drums.”

  “Okay, but I hate to see you unhappy. Can’t you lay aside your troubles for one night?”

  The reprimand felt like a punch to the jaw. “Are you saying I want to be unhappy?”

  Viv recoiled. “Hey, that was not meant as a criticism. I’m worried about you.”

  “Don’t be. I’ll be fine once my—” I bit my lip, halting the flow of words that would have poured out of me and revealed all of Abernathy’s secrets. “I’ll be fine.”

  Viv stopped smiling. “I’m tired of how your job is taking over your life. You didn’t sign some kind of indentured servitude contract, did you? Then what makes you think you have to tie your happiness to that stupid store?”

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” I said, lowering my voice, “Judy is under arrest because I can’t figure out what’s wrong with the store. She’s not happy right now.”

  “You think your unhappiness is going to make that better? Since when did you become responsible for her freedom?”

  “I’m sure as hell the only one who cares about the ora—the store! Forgive me if I can’t relax to a few tunes and some watered-down liquor.”

  Viv’s eyes narrowed. “A few tunes? It’s nice to hear what you really think.”

  “It’s not like you’re curing cancer.”

  I regretted that one the second it left my mouth. Viv stood and shoved her half-finished drink to one side. “Excuse me, but I have to find my hat,” she said. “Seeing as how I’m not much more than a monkey banging out some tunes.” She went back to the drums and started playing, a fierce and complicated rhythm she’d copied from Neil Peart years ago in her classic rock phase. I left my chair and made for the exit, brushing past Ruth without a word.

  In the parking lot, I sat behind the wheel and cursed myself. Why couldn’t I let this go? Nothing was so important it justified being rude to my oldest and best friend. I considered going back in to apologize, but Viv in a temper couldn’t be spoken to. I’d have to wait until morning, when she’d cooled down, and then find a way to grovel appropriately.

  At just past ten, Abernathy’s neighborhood was dark and quiet, with only the hum of the electric street lamps filling the air. Several of the stores had second stories, but as far as I knew, I was the only one who lived in one. I didn’t know what the magi had done to get around the zoning ordinances, and at the moment I didn’t care. I would go straight to bed and put an end to this horrible day.

  I pulled around into the private parking lot at the rear of the store, hemmed in on three sides by stores. A few cars were still parked there, one of them an old junker belonging to one of the owners, though nobody knew who. Nobody cared enough to have it towed, either. Tall weeds grew around a pile of scrap metal near the entrance that gave the lot a rundown, seedy appearance. I parked near my door and collected my purse. Walking from my car to the door at night always made me a little nervous, but there was never anyone around this late.

  The clear, cool air normally invigorated me, but tonight, I shivered. I should have worn a heavier jacket. I locked my car and set the alarm, turned around—and shrieked. “Chet,” I exclaimed. “What the hell?”

  “I wanted to talk,” Chet said. He came toward me from where he’d been waiting in the shadow of the junker. “You wouldn’t let me apologize.”

  “I don’t care if you’re sorry. It won’t change anything.”

  “I know. But I feel terrible.”

  “You think somehow I’m responsible for making you feel less terrible?”

  Chet stopped a foot away from me. I came out of my stunned stupor and walked toward my door. He grabbed my arm and made me stop. “Let go of me,” I said, yanking my arm away—or trying to; he held onto me like a bench vise.

  “I just want you to listen, and then I’ll let you go.” Chet’s voice sounded dull, as if he’d given up hope. I felt a flash of compassion I buried under irritation and anger.

  “I don’t want to listen, and you’d better let me go or I’ll call the police.”

  “Just one—”

  I slapped his hand where it gripped my arm. “I’m telling you, let me go.”

  Chet raised his head to stare at me. His pupils were dilated so wide the irises barely showed, and his mouth hung slack. “You won’t hurt her,” he said, and punched me in the stomach.

  All the breath blew out of me in an explosive pah. I folded up around the pain, unable to speak, unable to breathe. Chet pulled me as much upright as I could manage and punched me again, this time in the chest.

  “Stop,” I cried, my voice faint, and threw up my free arm to defend myself. He let go of me, and I fell, my legs numb with shock and pain. Then he kicked me in the face. Bone cracked, and a searing pain shot through my jaw. Blood filled my mouth.

  I cu
rled up on myself as he kicked me again, and again. More pain as my forearm snapped. I cradled it close to my chest and sobbed Chet’s name, begging him to stop. Chet grabbed my shoulders and hauled me to my feet, but I couldn’t support myself. “No more,” he growled and punched me in the stomach again. Then he dropped me.

  I landed hard on my broken arm and screamed, then screamed some more, willing someone to hear me and come to my rescue. Chet walked away, and I opened one eye—the other hurt too badly—to see him bending over the scrap metal pile at the far side of the parking lot. I turned and crawled toward my door. My key, where was my key? I still clutched my car keys in my hand, but my door key was in my purse, which lay on the ground a few feet away.

  Chet stood and came back toward me. In his hand was a length of metal pipe, rusted at both ends and as thick as my wrist, and he held it like a weapon. I sobbed again and made for my purse—no, there was no time, he’d be on me before I could find the key, and then he’d kill me. I clenched my fist around my car keys. I had one weapon left, and it might kill me. But Chet definitely would.

  I scrambled, half-crawling, toward the door. I could hear Chet’s footsteps, a slow, measured tread that made me shake worse than if he’d been a screaming maniac. My arm hurt, my face was on fire, my left eye was swelling shut, and I could barely walk. I pushed myself harder. Just one thing, and then you can fall apart.

  The first blow caught me when I was inches from the door. The pipe slammed into my back, making me scream with pain. As he raised the pipe for another blow, I mashed the car keys against the face of the lock.

  A silent explosion knocked me backward, throwing me into my car and cracking my head against the windshield. Something shattered, and I prayed it wasn’t my head. I lay sprawled across the hood of my car, too stunned to think. Pain was a distant memory, hovering somewhere inches from my tortured body. I lay motionless and concentrated on not passing out. From somewhere nearby, Chet said, “Helena—what—” Then I heard the sound of running footsteps, and I was alone in the parking lot. I closed my eyes and let myself fall into unconsciousness.

  I woke some time later, seconds or minutes or hours, I wasn’t sure. The pain had returned, and it had brought friends. There was no part of me that didn’t hurt, though my arm and my jaw won the contest for who could hurt the most. I made a feeble movement with my good arm to sit up and succeeded only in sliding off the hood to the hard, oil-stained ground. I lay there, breathing so fast it hurt, until I was sure I wouldn’t pass out again. Then I looked around for my purse. I couldn’t see it. Nothing about the landscape made sense—right, I was lying on the ground, much lower than I usually saw the parking lot. I rolled forward onto my knees and put my good arm out so I could crawl. Even that hurt.

  Bright lights flashed across the rear of Abernathy’s. A car. Someone to help? Or Chet, come back to finish the job?

  “The door’s shut,” said a voice my addled brain ought to know. “Looks like the alarm scared them away.”

  “That’s Helena’s car. What the hell happened to it?” Another almost-familiar voice. I kept crawling away from the shelter of my car.

  “Watch out,” someone shouted, in a voice that drilled through my head.

  I shrieked at the sudden noise, or tried to—it came out as a shrill hiss that hurt my jaw. Then someone crouched beside me, someone who said my name as if it horrified him. I couldn’t see anything, but I smelled the woody aftershave only one person I knew used. Malcolm. He put his arms around my waist, jogging my ribs, and I screamed again. More carefully, he lifted me into his arms, holding me close, and I bit back another scream as he strode toward the building.

  He was gentle, but he couldn’t do anything about the stairs, and tears of pain I felt angry and embarrassed about leaked from my swollen eye. My apartment door opened, and his feet trod on the floorboards that creaked if you didn’t know the right way to cross them. This time, the creaks were shrill and loud enough to hurt my ears. He laid me on my own bed, his breath brushing across my forehead. I tried to thank him, but I couldn’t move my jaw.

  “Everyone out,” Derrick said. “Give me some room to work.” Derrick. He was a bone magus. He would fix me.

  “We’ll see if we can find some trace of the bastard,” a woman’s voice said, and the noise of several people leaving my room, louder than it should have been, filled my ears.

  “Helena,” Derrick said, “this is going to hurt. You’ve never had a major healing before, have you? I won’t bore you with details, but I’ll warn you in advance it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I’m sorry. I’ll talk you through it, okay? But first I have to assess the damage, which will make you feel numb for a bit.” He laughed, but it sounded strained. “It actually hurts more going from numbness to healing pain, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

  My whole body went numb, not just the parts that hurt—all right, that was everywhere, so the parts that hurt worse. It was like going to the dentist, except the numbness went beyond my mouth through my jaw and neck and chest and everywhere. It felt so good to be free of pain I started crying again. “I’m sorry, Helena,” Derrick said. “Why would anyone do this to you? Three broken ribs, a cracked jaw, shattered ulna, and your kidneys are trying to fail. Internal bleeding. Dozens of minor injuries. Someone worked you over good.”

  I tried to move my jaw now it didn’t hurt so much, tried to tell him about Chet, but I still couldn’t talk. “Later,” Derrick said. He closed his hand over mine. “This is where it gets bad. I can make it hurt less if I go slowly, but that will drag the pain out for a long time. It’s better if I do it as quickly as possible. Understand?”

  I nodded. Derrick did something to my numb arm, and then his hand came toward my face. I couldn’t feel him touch me. It still felt so good to feel nothing. “I’m going to hold your jaw in place so it heals right. Try not to scream until I let go, because that will make it hurt worse. Ready? Now.”

  White-hot agony shot through my jaw. I flinched and found Derrick’s powerful hands holding my head in place. I dug my fingers into my quilt to keep from clawing at him. The rest of me was immobile, nailed to the bed with spikes driving into every part of me. I keened through my frozen jaw, my breath sobbing out of me. Pain poured like molten lead through my bones, and sweat rose up on my forehead and beneath my arms. I could hear Derrick talking in a quiet, steady voice, but I couldn’t understand his words. Someone other than me cried, sobbing in Spanish. Guille, maybe? I didn’t know anyone else who spoke Spanish with that accent. Why Guille, in my bedroom? Maybe he’d apologized for the rudeness of that woman, Irina. Only that was stupid because she hadn’t been rude, just not deferential, and who was I that I deserved that kind of treatment?

  Chet stood at the foot of my bed, staring down at me. “He did it,” I tried to shriek, but my jaw was still locked shut, and anyway Chet was gone. Maybe he’d never been there. Malcolm was going to kill him when he found him, I was sure of it, and that terrified me because… I couldn’t think why. Surely Chet deserved to be punished for what he’d done to me? But it was wrong for Malcolm to kill him.

  I closed my eyes, and the pain disappeared. So did Guille and Derrick. I floated alone and peaceful in a timeless place where there was no pain. Was it the oracle, or some other Neutrality? Whatever it was, I’d pay a fortune in sanguinis sapiens to visit it again.

  When I opened my eyes, I still hurt, but the pain was at a distance, manageable. I turned my head, feeling grateful I was capable of doing so, and looked at the clock on my nightstand. 1:17. I sat up, needing both arms to push myself up. My left arm hurt when I put my weight on it, but like an old bruise rather than a broken bone. Without using too much pressure, I touched my jaw; it, too, felt bruised but usable.

  There was a line of light under my bedroom door. I opened it and found the hall light and the lights in the living room were on. Moving like an old woman who’s forgotten her cane, I walked down the hall. Derrick lay on my sofa, his dark face gray as if h
e’d exerted himself past his limits. Olivia Quincy, the paper magus, stood near the window, looking out at the dark street. Her short brown hair fit her like a cap, putting her face in shadow. Hector Canales, not a magus but a master of magical weaponry, sat snoring in one of my chairs. He believed in the power of naps no matter the situation. Malcolm wasn’t there.

  When I entered the room, Olivia turned around. She looked so relieved to see me I momentarily felt afraid, as if I were supposed to be dead. “Helena,” she said. “How do you feel?”

  “I still hurt.”

  “The human body likes to hold onto pain, even when it’s no longer needed,” Derrick said, closing his eyes. “You’ll feel fine after a good night’s sleep.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No problem.” He sat up, looking as weary as I felt. I’d never asked him what it was like to heal someone and now didn’t seem the time.

  “What happened? Something set off the alarm, but the door wasn’t open,” Olivia said.

  “Helena set it off,” said Malcolm, coming in from the kitchen with a cup of tea. He handed it to me. “With her car keys.”

  “That’s right. How did you know?” The tea was soothing and hot and made exactly the way I like it, with a dollop of milk and two sugars.

  “You still had them in your hand when we arrived. I’m afraid you’ll need new keys.”

  “And a new windshield,” Hector said without opening his eyes.

  “The alarm threw me into the car,” I said. “It scared off—” I remembered I didn’t want Malcolm to know it was Chet.

  Malcolm fixed me with his dark gaze. “Scared off your attacker.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know who it was.”

  His eyes said he knew who it was. Malcolm was too damn clever. “I don’t want you to kill him.”

  Malcolm’s eyes narrowed. “What you want is no longer a priority. Anyone who can do that to another human being, let alone a woman smaller and weaker than he is, does not, in my opinion, deserve the right to keep breathing.”

  I thought of Chet’s strange words, of how odd his eyes had looked. “I don’t think it was his fault.”