Deadtown d-3

by Nancy Holzner

  “Bullshit. You’ve got this perverse streak in you that makes you want to go against what’s right.”

  “Keeping my client alive is what’s right. Killing the Destroyer is right.” I took a deep breath to calm my suddenly pounding heart. “Avenging my father’s murder is right.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s right.” He opened his mouth, then closed it, shaking his head. “Why bother? You don’t know or care about what’s right, Vicky. You never have.” He stalked out of the room. And this time, he didn’t come back.

  SLEEP WOULDN’T COME. HOW CAN IT BE THAT ONE MINUTE you’re so exhausted you can hardly see your way to bed, and then the next minute, as soon as you hit the sheets, you’re wide awake? The more I thought “I need to sleep,” the wider awake I became. Kane’s angry stare. Kane slamming the door. I wished we hadn’t argued. But he expected too much. He had no right—none—to tell me who I could work for or what my politics should be.

  Sighing, I turned on my side. The room was cold, but I was sweating, comforters pushed aside, the sheet twisted around me in damp coils. I turned over my pillow to find a cool spot, punching it into shape. I punched it again, and then again, harder. Hitting felt good. My right forearm twitched; the demon mark was fiery red, feverish. Now I knew why I felt so hot, and why I wanted so badly to hit something. The urge was like a desperate itch that needed hard, vigorous scratching right now, and who cared if you scratched yourself bloody? Hitting wouldn’t be enough. If I let myself, I’d tear the whole bedroom apart.

  I flopped over onto my back again and stared at the ceiling, willing myself to lie still until the urge subsided. Gradually, it did. Gray light struggled through the blinds, making everything look flat and dull. A dusty, abandoned cobweb hung down where the ceiling met the wall, stirring with air currents I couldn’t feel.

  You don’t know or care about what’s right, Kane had said. He didn’t understand. How could he? As a lone wolf, un solitaire in the tradition of his French-Canadian pack, he’d left his family group to strike out on his own. It had been his choice to leave behind his father and mother, his brothers and sisters, to pursue his work. It was different for me. I hadn’t left my family; they’d left me. When Gwen married Nick, she was rejecting our Cerddorion heritage to become as human as she could. My father died—no leaving was more final than that. After his death, my mother took off for a retirement community in Florida. In her view, Florida was perfect because everyone there had left the past behind, along with the snow, the kids, the careers they’d retired from. Nobody cared about your past there, she said; everyone was living for the moment.

  What the hell was so great about living for the moment? What about honoring the past? What about holding on to those things you could touch only in memories? I shifted my gaze to my dresser, to the dim outline of a rectangular frame that sat there. I didn’t need light to see the photo it held. My father and I stood on a Welsh hillside, wind blowing our hair across our faces, our arms draped across each other’s shoulders. I was smiling; my father’s mouth was half open. “Hurry up, Mab!” he’d said. “Snap the picture before this wind blows us into the valley.” The photo was taken the day before he died. Now, my father, like that moment, belonged to the past. I’d never feel his arm on my shoulders, never hear his voice. Only in memories—my memories. They were all that kept him alive.

  Nothing would make me give him up. Nothing. Not even Kane, so devoted to his cause that he’d sacrifice anything for it. I wondered if that included me.

  I’d told Kane, but he didn’t get it. I was going to kill Difethwr to avenge my father’s death. That was my cause.

  17

  AFTER A COUPLE OF HOURS OF TOSSING AND TURNING, I gave up and got out of bed. The wood floor felt chilly on my bare feet as I walked down the hall to the living room. The oversize Harvard T-shirt I wore wasn’t exactly warm, so I stopped in the bathroom to grab my terry cloth robe. In the living room, I sat on the sofa, tucking my feet under me, and picked up the phone. I had to call the garage to come and tow the Jag, then fix whatever was wrong with it.

  A stutter tone sounded on the line, indicating voice mail. Maybe Kane had called to apologize, I thought. After I’d called the garage, I punched in the access code, knowing as I did so that any message from Kane would not hold an apology.

  “You have twenty-seven new messages,” a computerized female voice chirped. Oh, goody. I picked up a pen and a pad of paper and started going through them. Twenty-four were reporters requesting interviews; I deleted all of those. Nothing from Kane. Only three were worth returning: one from Daniel, one from Gwen, and one from a possible new client. I wouldn’t be able to take on any more clients while I was working for Lucado, but I’d call her back anyway. If her infestation wasn’t too bad, I might be able to put her off for a week.

  I called Gwen first, maybe because I’d been thinking about family instead of sleeping. Or maybe because I still wasn’t sure what to do about the stomach flutter I’d felt when I heard Daniel’s voice. Gwen answered on the second ring. I could hear one of the kids, probably little Justin, crying in the background.

  “Bad time?” I asked.

  “Give me a minute. Can you hang on or should I call you back?”

  “I’ll hang on.”

  She put down the phone, and I could hear her soothing the crying child. Gwen was a good mother. And being a mother was good for her. It wasn’t the choice I’d have made, but then, her life wasn’t about me. Maybe Mom had been right. Maybe my sister’s longing for children had been less about rejecting what we were and more about giving herself something she needed.

  I hadn’t gotten very far with that line of thought when Gwen came back on the phone. “Sorry,” she said. “I was making pumpkin cookies for the neighborhood Halloween party. The minute I turned my back to answer the phone, Justin managed to pull the mixing bowl off the counter and onto his head. What a mess.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine. Just covered with cookie dough. He wants to say hi to you.” A second later, Justin’s voice said, “Hello?”

  “Hi, kiddo. Do you know who this is?”

  Silence. I pictured him shaking his head.

  “This is your Aunt Vicky.”

  “Aunt Vicky?” More silence.

  Pretty good phone skills for a two-year-old. “Can you put Mommy back on?” I could hear him breathing, with those thick breaths that follow a child’s crying bout. “Give Mommy the phone now, Justin, okay?” No response. How did you make a toddler give up the phone? I had an idea. “Say bye-bye now, Justin.”

  “Bye-bye!” he shouted. I was right—he’d been waiting for his exit line. Hey, I wasn’t so bad with kids myself. At a distance, of course.

  Gwen got back on the line. “Ugh,” she said. “The handset is all sticky with cookie dough. Not to mention my entire kitchen.” She sighed. “I guess our homemade Halloween cookies will be the kind you get at the bakery.”

  “Speaking of Halloween, did you work things out with Maria? About her costume?”

  Gwen sighed. “How on earth did you manage to get on television, Vic? Now that you’re a celebrity, there’s no way Maria’s giving up that costume. She’s told everyone in the neighborhood you’re her aunt.” The line hissed as she caught her breath. “Not that that’s a bad thing. You know I don’t mean that. It’s just—”

  “Don’t worry, Gwen. I know what you mean.” And part of what she meant, even though she’d never admit it to my face, was that she’d rather the neighbors didn’t know her sister was a monster who jumped into interspecies bar fights. Oh, well. I loved her anyway. “Hopefully CNN will get sick of that story soon. Kane tried to sign me up for a truckload of interviews, but I’m not doing any. Once they get tired of playing that damn tape, I’ll be off the air for good.”

  “Good. Uh, good for you, I mean. It must be awful to have reporters hounding you.”

  “It’s a pain, yeah, but they’ll give up sooner or later. It’s a good thing most norms are too
scared to venture into Deadtown. Otherwise I’d have reporters camped out on my doorstep. But who wants a campsite crawling with zombies, right?”

  Gwen didn’t respond. She held the typical norm beliefs about Deadtown and had never liked that I lived there. She’d never been to my apartment or met Juliet. I’d tried to explain that the PA zone was the only place where I felt normal, but she didn’t get it. She preferred to think I lived here because state laws required it.

  “So anyway,” I said, “why’d you call earlier?”

  “Oh, right. The kids and I are coming into Boston on Saturday, and I was hoping you could meet us for lunch.”

  “You coming in for the parade?” Over the past couple of years, Boston’s Halloween parade had become one of the largest in the country. And why not, since we had the most monsters living openly here. The parade was a free-for-all with norms dressing up and reveling in the streets, like Mardi Gras with a spooky theme. And this year, the zombies wanted in on the fun, applying for a group permit to march. No way the mayor would allow that. But Kane—A twinge of guilt hit me as I realized I never asked him how his appeal had gone.

  “The parade?” Gwen was saying. “Lord, no. I don’t want to try to keep track of the kids in all that craziness. Plus Nick has a business dinner we have to attend, so I’ve got to be home by five to get dressed.”

  Good, I thought. I didn’t want my sister’s family in Boston after dark with a Hellion on the loose.

  “So how about it, Vicky? Can you do lunch?”

  “Sure. I’d love to.” We decided to meet at noon at a pizza place in Quincy Market. The area would be crammed with tourists, but it would also be fun for the kids. Suddenly, Gwen let out a shriek.

  “Oh, no! Zack let the dog in, and now she’s getting into the pumpkin mess. Lady, no!” Barking and high-pitched kids’ shouts resounded in the background. “Oh, God,” Gwen said into the phone, “she’s tracking it into the living room. Gotta go. Bye!” She hung up.

  I held the phone, feeling uneasy. It seemed like a bad idea for Gwen and the kids to come to Boston with the Destroyer threatening to demolish the city. But I was worrying too much. Demons are restricted to the demonic plane during daylight, and the Santini clan would be out of the danger zone long before dark. Plus, I had the feeling that lunch was a peace offering from Gwen. She’d think I was snubbing her if I suggested we make it another time—like the day after I’d sent the Hellion back to Hell.

  I hit the Talk button for a dial tone. Should I call Daniel next? The butterflies started dancing a ballet in my stomach, and I chickened out, calling the potential client instead. The phone rang several times. I was about to hang up when she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, is this Mrs. . . .” I squinted at my own lousy handwriting. “Mrs. Williams?”

  “Who is this?” Her voice sounded suspicious, or maybe a little nervous.

  “My name is Victory Vaughn. I’m returning your call.”

  “Oh! Oh, yes. Thank heavens you called. I can’t tell you, dear, how horrible it’s been.” My heart sank at the eagerness in her voice. She sounded like a sweet old lady, and I was going to have to put her off.

  “Mrs. Williams, I’m sorry, but I’m all booked up right now. If you can wait a week—”

  “Booked up?”

  “Every night, I’m afraid.”

  “But . . . but I can’t . . .” She started to cry. Damn. I can’t stand hearing sweet old ladies cry.

  “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your situation, Mrs. Williams? Maybe I can help over the phone.”

  She let out a wail, making me feel like the kind of person who snatches lollipops away from small children. “That’s impossible. It’s not even here now. Every night, this horrible creature torments me—and you think you can help me over the phone?”

  I tried to make my voice soothing. “What’s the creature like? Can you tell me that?”

  “It . . . it . . . it’s like it rises through the bed and possesses my body. Terrible pains shoot through my limbs, agonizing, like it’s eating me from the inside out. It’s dreadful, I tell you. Dreadful!” Her voice dissolved in a torrent of tears.

  It sounded like a classic Eidolon attack—a guilt demon. That was good news, for her and me both. Eidolons were conjured, unknowingly, by their victims. Although I could fight guilt demons in the normal way, they usually came back in a few weeks. Eidolons were like weeds; you had to go down deep to root them out, or they’d just keep springing up again. The only way to get rid of an Eidolon for good was to purge the guilt that summoned it. And I could do that in daylight, using hypnosis.

  I explained all this to Mrs. Williams. Her crying turned into little fluttering sounds of excitement. “You can come today? In an hour—at noon?”

  “Actually, I—”

  “Oh, you must help me. You simply must. If I have to endure another night of that torment, I’ll . . . I’ll kill myself!”

  Great. The suicide card. It was why I was always at a disadvantage when I tried to negotiate with my clients. I sighed.

  “All right. Where are you?” She gave me an address in South Boston. “Got it. I’ll see you in an hour. Between now and then, don’t take any kind of stimulant, not even coffee or tea. If you can, play some calming music, sit down, and close your eyes. Take deep breaths. The more relaxed you are when we start the session, the better.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, dear girl!”

  I hung up the phone, suddenly feeling like I could go back to bed and sleep until dusk. Oh, well. I’d just kissed any chance of sleep good-bye. Whether or not the Destroyer showed up at Lucado’s, it was going to be a long night.

  I WAS ALMOST READY TO LEAVE TO MEET MRS. WILLIAMS when I decided to call Daniel back. I fought down those dancing butterflies, telling myself I was being silly. Juliet’s assessment of Daniel didn’t mean a thing. This was business.

  So how come my heart was pounding so hard as I listened to the phone ring?

  “Costello.”

  Business, I reminded myself, and put on my professional voice. “This is Vicky Vaughn. I got a message saying that you wanted me to call.”

  “Vicky.” There was a smile in his voice. “Thanks for calling back.”

  The warmth in his voice flowed through the phone and spread down to my toes. Could Juliet be right? And if she was, how did I feel about that? Thank goodness blushing doesn’t show up over the phone. “My roommate said you called about the witches. Did you meet with them?”

  “No, your timing is perfect. I’ve set up a meeting at three. I want you to be there with me.”

  Not just be there. Be there with him. Business, I reminded myself again. “A civilian at a police interview? Is that a good idea?”

  He gave a soft laugh. “Officially, no. But you know more about demons than anyone in Boston. I’m worried that I won’t ask the right questions if I go on my own.” He paused, and I remembered how he’d paused last night and looked at me with those blue eyes. “Please say yes.”

  “Yes.” The word flew out of my mouth. “I mean—”

  “Great. Meet me at the station at quarter to three. I really appreciate this, Vicky. Really.”

  When I hung up the phone, butterflies were dancing all over the room.

  FIFTY MINUTES AND TWO BUS TRANSFERS LATER, I STOOD on a deserted street scratching my head. Somehow, I’d gotten Mrs. Williams’s address wrong. According to the address in my hand, the derelict warehouse in front of me should be Mrs. Williams’s apartment. The building was clearly abandoned. Shattered windows gaped like eyeless sockets, and at one point the roof had caved in. At street level, signs proclaiming DANGER! and KEEP OUT! were plastered across the walls and doors as high as the workers had been able to reach. Across the street was a closed autobody shop, and next to that stood a triple-decker apartment building with boarded-up windows and graffiti scrawled all over.

  Not a single little old lady in sight.

  Now what? I didn’t carry a ce
ll phone—I’d lost too many—so I looked around for a pay phone. No luck, of course. Who used pay phones anymore, besides me? Over toward the waterfront, I could see a crane swinging slowly, a huge container dangling from its cable. There’d be people over there. Maybe somebody would let me borrow a cell phone or at least point me toward a pay phone. Poor Mrs. Williams. I pictured her sitting in a rocking chair, trying to relax but wringing her lace-trimmed handkerchief and looking anxiously out the window, waiting for a demon slayer who wasn’t appearing.

  So I’d head toward the pier, using the crane as my guide. I’d taken about three steps when I heard an engine rev, hard. Tires screamed. A black van shot around the corner and bumped up onto the sidewalk, screeching to a stop in front of me. The side panel jerked open, and two big men in ski masks jumped out. They charged right at me, but somehow I didn’t think they’d stopped to ask directions. I braced for a fight.

  The first one ran at me, opening his arms like he wanted to give me a bear hug. I slammed both hands into his wide-open chest and shoved. He flew backward and crashed into the side of the van, denting it. I heard a crack as his head hit. Then he slithered down the van and sat lopsided on the ground.

  I spun to locate the second one. He jumped back as I turned. Behind the mask, his eyes were wide, like he couldn’t believe I’d hit his buddy that hard. He jogged from side to side like a prizefighter, watching me, and when I swung at him he grabbed my arm and spun me around, twisting my arm behind my back. Pain shot down from my shoulder and lit up the demon mark like a bonfire. I screamed with anger—this one was going to be sorry he’d messed with me. But the way my arm was twisted, I couldn’t wrench it free. He got his other arm around my neck and tried to drag me toward the van. No way was I getting in there. Using my free hand, I gripped the arm that held my neck, finding and squeezing the wrist. At the same time, I kicked backward. My heel met only air.