by C. E. Murphy
The cab ride to the station was frustrating. There were now creatures settling themselves in the middle of the road, deliberately springing toward moving vehicles as if they were prey. Sometimes vehicles ended up with visible impact marks from monsters smashing into them; other cars would just suddenly swerve and crash into something. Earthquake debris littering the streets made more than enough targets to bash against, even if other vehicles weren’t on the roads. I clenched my fingers around the cab’s armrest and threw banishment thoughts at the spirits with all my strength. It didn’t help.
I wished again Gary was the one driving my cab, partly because I suspected he’d be able to see the monsters. Even if he couldn’t, it didn’t matter, because he wouldn’t think I was crazy, which would be good enough. He also wouldn’t let the meter run up—probably—while I got out to try to deal with both wrecks and spirit animals. My teeth began to hurt from pressing them together so hard. I wished Coyote was there—my coyote, Little Coyote—to tell me what to do, but I couldn’t even concentrate enough to slip into the otherworld. I was going to have to help on my own.
I overpaid the cabby and went into the precinct with my shoulders hunched around my ears. There weren’t that many spirits infesting the precinct building, except near the windows. Too much concrete and too many straight lines, I thought. Cernunnos and his lot hadn’t been overwhelmingly delighted with rigid man-made structures either. Maybe it was something otherworldly creatures had in common. I didn’t care: it was a little relief from the bizarreness outside, and I took what I could get.
“You been on vacation, Joey?”
“What?” I nearly started out of my skin, then wished I didn’t feel like that was a genuine possibility. A friend of mine, Ray, leaned out of a doorway I’d passed. He wasn’t wearing his hat, but I could see the ring where sweat had matted his hair against his head.
“You’re tan. Been on vacation?” Ray was short and bulky and solid, like a human bunker. Explaining to him about my mystically induced tan would’ve been like explaining quantum physics to a hippo. I wasn’t up to either task.
“Got too much sun, anyway.”
“Looks good,” Ray offered, then tilted his head back at the main doors. “It’s balls-busting nuts out there.” He disappeared back into the office, having delivered his piece. I rubbed my breastbone, blinking, then shook my head and went looking for Morrison to see if he’d let me borrow a patrol car until I could rescue Petite or get a rental.
I found Billy instead. He came around a corner like a wrecking ball, nearly bowling me over. I stepped back, flattening myself against the wall, and he lumbered past me, then drew up and turned back with a glare. Sweat rolled down his face, too pink with exertion and the lack of air-conditioning. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I don’t have a car, Billy. I need to see if I can borrow one. And Christ, somebody needs to be here. It’s nuts out there.” I twitched my nose, annoyed at my mouth for stealing Ray’s words. At least I’d avoided the balls-busting part.
“Yeah. Look.” Billy curled his fingers around my upper arm and drew me aside, not that there was a great deal of traffic that required avoiding. His voice dropped low enough that I leaned in to hear him better. “I couldn’t talk about this on the phone, Joanie. Whatever’s going on here is upsetting Mel in a big way.”
My stomach tightened up as I looked at Billy’s expanded paunch. “How big?”
“Bad cramps and nerves. The doctor told her to stay on bed rest for a couple days. It’s almost impossible with the rest of the kids, especially with me not being there, but—”
“But she is, isn’t she, Billy?” My voice rose too high and Billy tightened his fingers around my arm. I knotted my right hand into a fist, my left too damaged to curl more than a few centimeters closed. “You want me to go take care of the kids? Is there anybody else with her?”
Relief paled Billy’s face so sharply I thought he must be in pain. “Her Mom’s flying in, but she’s in Arizona and can’t get here until tomorrow. If you could—”
“Yeah.” I cut him off with a sharp movement of my hand. “Of course, Billy. I’ll try to see if there’s anything I can do about—the rest of it, but at least I can take care of the kids and take a load off Mel’s mind. Is there anything I oughta pick up on the way over?”
“Tranquilizers,” he said, only half-kidding. I pulled up the best smile I could.
“For the kids, or for Melinda?”
Billy laughed, startled. “I meant the kids, but it might be more effective to give them to Mel. Look, I’m sorry if I was short with you on the phone—”
I grabbed his hand. “You weren’t. It’s okay. I’ll go take care of them, Billy. Isn’t that what cops are supposed to do? Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine.”
CHAPTER 27
Billy called ahead to let Mel and the kids know I was coming. I stopped for loot on the way over and pulled up their driveway in the borrowed patrol car. I got out and pushed the gate—an actual white picket fence—open and wended my way through the overgrown herb garden that made up the Holliday front yard. It was almost cool under the shade of a couple of enormous birch trees that filtered sunlight down to the ground.
The two oldest kids, Robert and Clara, met me at the front door with serious expressions. I put my bag of loot down on the porch and ruffled Rob’s hair. At eleven, he was starting to have distinct opinions about his own dignity, so when he didn’t duck out from under my hand, I knew things were dire indeed. “Hey, guys. How’s your Mom?”
“Grumpy.” Clara hooked her arm around my hips and leaned on me. “She doesn’t like staying in bed.”
“Me either. Where’s Jacquie and Erik?”
“Taking a nap,” Robert reported. “I told ‘em they had to be extra good ’cause Mom’s sick. Is she gonna be okay, Joanne?”
“Yeah.” I pulled Robert over to my other hip to hug him. “And I’m here to sit on you guys and make sure everybody’s good and take care of your mom if she needs it, okay?”
“We’rebeing good,” Clara insisted. “It’s awful hot. Can we go get some ice cream?”
“Maybe later. How about a drink now? Lemonade?” The kids were so assured it made me feel better.
“Can’t,” Robert said. “There’s a thing in the kitchen.”
So much for feeling better. “A thing?”
“A Thing,” Clara repeated, imbuing the word with a capital letter. “We didn’t want to tell Mom.”
“The doctor said she had to stay in bed,” Robert explained. I smiled a bit.
“Yeah, and a Thing would probably make her get up. You guys are good kids.”
“Yeah,” Robert agreed. I grinned more broadly.
“Modest, too. Okay. Let me go say hi to your mom, and then I’ll come look at this Thing, okay?”
Robert and Clara exchanged glances, considering the proposal, then nodded. “Okay,” Robert said. “Can we set up the water slide on the lawn?”
I pursed my lips. “Let me see if your mom’s up to all that noise, okay? I’ll help you if she is. Otherwise it’ll be Parcheesi or something. Something quiet.” I inevitably lost at Parcheesi, Monopoly, and pretty much every other board game ever played. I blamed it on never learning the rules properly as a child. On the other hand, I could identify more vehicles at a glance than most people could in a lifetime, which was enough of a party trick for me.
The kids exchanged glances again. “You’ve never played Parcheesi with us, have you?” Clara asked. “It’s not quiet.”
I grinned. “We’ll have to make do. Tiptoe in and check on your little brother and sister while I check on your mom.”
“Okay!” They ran off, sounding less like a herd of elephants than I’d ever heard them before. I kicked my sandals off before going to visit Melinda.
The Hollidays’ house was the kind of place I’d always wanted to live in and never had the foggiest idea why I should. It was in a better part of the North Precinct, far enough north that wh
en Billy’d bought it, it’d been unfashionable and comparatively inexpensive. It’d started with four bedrooms and had expanded to six, with hardwood floors scarred from kids and dogs running rampant over them. The backyard was enormous and usually had a croquet set and a badminton net set up. It looked exactly like the kind of place a person would want to raise a herd of children. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do with it, but I coveted it anyway.
The stairs up to the bedrooms squeaked as I took them two at a time. Somehow the kids always ran them without making them squeak, although it didn’t do a thing for silencing their approaches or departures. Melinda heard me coming and called, “Joanne? Is that you?”
“Yeah.” I appeared in her doorway, smiling. “I squeak too much to be the kids, huh?” Clara was right: Mom was grumpy. Her color was off and for once she didn’t look perfect. Her hair was up in a tangled pony tail and she was wearing an orange shirt that I recognized as Billy’s, soft and comforting but a bad color for her. Her eyebrows were pulled down and her mouth was turned in a frown.
“Come on in. Thanks for coming over.” The frown fled into a grateful smile. I padded in and sat on the edge of the bed.
“Not a problem. Are you about to die of boredom?”
“Yes. And I’ve only been here three hours.”
I laughed. “I’m surprised you’ve stayed still that long. I brought you some stuff.”
“If it’s knitting, I’m going to poke your eyes out with the needles,” Melinda warned, then shook her head. “I couldn’t get up if I wanted to. All I have to do is remember how scared Bill looked and I don’t even want to move.” She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and frowned out the window. I touched her arm.
“Hey. It’s okay, huh? You don’t have to be tough if you don’t want to. I won’t tell anybody.” My heart hurt for her. “It’s gonna be fine, Mel. You just take it easy. Anyway, I brought trashy romance novels, not knitting, and a pint of chocolate fudge brownie delight ice cream.”
“That’s my favorite!”
I grinned. “Yeah, Billy told me. He thought maybe if you were stuck in bed for a while he could get you to gain some weight instead of him.”
To my relief, she laughed. “Isn’t that just like a man. Always thinking of himself.” Her eyes brightened and she looked away again. I busied myself hauling stuff out of plastic bags until she cleared her throat and said, “Thanks.”
“No problem.” I looked up again with a smile. “Rob wanted to know if they could put the water slide out on the back lawn. It’s that or Parcheesi. What’s your vote?”
“The water slide is okay. I didn’t want them to get the lawn all soaked because of the party tonight, but—”
“Oh, crap, right.”
Melinda gave me a dirty look. “You’d forgotten, hadn’t you.” Then she frowned. “Joanne, have you been tanning?”
I groaned, half-laughing. “Sort of. It’s a long story.”
“I may be stuck here a while,” she said dryly. I lifted up my hands and she gawked, grabbing my left wrist so she could turn my injured palm up. “What happened?”
“…part of the same long story. I’ll tell you about it,” I said hastily. “I promise. Let me get the kids going with the water slide first, okay? We’ll come play Parcheesi in here this afternoon so you’re not trapped in the twilight zone alone all day, and I’ll call to let people know the party’s canceled.”
She let go of my wrist reluctantly. “I guess so. Unless you’ve got a ‘get out of bed free’ pass handy?”
For an instant I hoped the power inside me would rise to the challenge, but it didn’t so much as stir. I shook my head and pasted on a rueful grin. “‘Fraid not. Just tell me where to find the guest list.”
“How organized she thinks I am,” Mel said to the ceiling. “Guest list, dias mia. Bill’s telling the guys at the precinct, and I think I can give you the rest of the names.”
“Okay.” I produced a plastic spoon and the pint of ice cream from the plastic bag. “Eat, gain, and be merry. I shall return anon, once the kids are settled outside.” And once I was done dealing with the Thing in the kitchen. I stood, saluted smartly, and left Melinda smiling behind me.
I helped the two older kids set up the slide, which is to say I set it up while they got their younger siblings and everyone, including the two-year-old, stood around telling me what I was doing wrong. Despite my incompetence, they seemed pleased with the results, and I left them alone, shrieking and sliding across the plastic mat in freezing cold hose water. Then I went to investigate the Thing in the kitchen.
I felt it when I got to the dining room. I could even see it, a malevolent silver glow that bled through the walls. My steps slowed until I felt like Cinderella stuck in the pitch. I had to look at my feet to realize that I was not, in fact, moving forward anymore. No wonder the kids hadn’t wanted to go into the kitchen. I lifted my chin and kept going, feeling like I was trying to walk through a marshmallow. The air pressed back at me, soft and sticky and thick. I breathed through my nose, deliberate deep breaths, and pushed through it. When I reached the kitchen door, the thickness shattered like a soap bubble and I was able to draw in one normal breath.
It seemed like a long time before I took the next one. There was more than a Thing in the kitchen; the Thing had filled the kitchen almost entirely. Enormous silver coils piled on the counters and stuffed the corners of the room. A shadow of my own reflection bounced across glittering white scales that weren’t quite solid enough yet to make a true reflection. A heavy head lifted out of the coils and flat white eyes stared down at me.
It was smaller than it had been in the Dead Zone. Its head was only the length of my body. When it opened its mouth, hissing silently with the gray-white tongue flicking out to taste the air, its fangs were only half my size. As I watched, though, it…popped. Cartilage and muscle bulged with audible cracking sounds, expanding a few inches in every direction. The spires along its back snapped and pulsed to a larger size, and its skull jerked out, stretching skin that suddenly didn’t fit it anymore. The scales shattered and reformed, larger now to accommodate the new size. The fangs were a hand’s-length longer when it hissed again.
It was very nearly solid already. Whatever was keeping most of the spirits from realizing their bodies wasn’t affecting the serpent. Maybe it had more strength of will or more conscious awareness. It sure as hell knew I was there, gaping up at it. It all but smiled, lowering its flat nose to within centimeters of my face. Then it opened its mouth and snapped its jaws shut over me.
Agony cramped my hamstrings, dropping me to my knees with a gurgle that wanted to be a howl. I fell through the not-quite-solid serpent’s mouth, feelings its jaws scrape up my bones, and lay curled with my forehead on the floor, shuddering. The serpent seemed to chuckle above me, and I thought I felt its tongue lash along my backbone. I curled my hands into fists and whispered, “Houston, we have a problem.”
I’d thought I could vanquish the Thing in the kitchen. I hadn’t been real clear on how the vanquishing would work; I’d had vague ideas of playing maiden-and-unicorn and leading the Thing outside. The minor detail that I wasn’t a maiden hadn’t seemed relevant, since it’d seemed unlikely that the Thing would be a unicorn. I didn’t think kids would call a unicorn a Thing. Then again, I’d never met a unicorn. They could be very Thing-like, for all I knew.
I admired how my brain was trying to derail me. It didn’t want to think about the Thing being semisolid. It didn’t want to think about the Thing growing larger even as I watched. It certainly didn’t want to think about the Thing being the Dead Zone serpent with a particular vendetta against me. Well. Vendetta might be a little strong. It wanted to eat me. I had, in fact, agreed to let it, too. It just wanted what I’d promised.
I decided that from the point of view of the one who was going to be eaten, that was enough like a vendetta. Then I bonked my forehead on the floor and set my teeth together. Focus, Joanne.
I wasn’t going to be able
to get the serpent out of here by playing maiden-and-unicorn. I wasn’t at all sure the damned thing would fit through the door. I heard it pop through another growth spurt above me, and revised that upward: it wouldn’t fit through the door. Then again, in its semisolid state, that might not matter; doors might be irrelevant. I began to crawl backward, whispering, “Heeeere, snakey snakey snake. C’mere, snake.” I heard it rustle upward, the sound more in the backs of my ear bones than in my ears, and dared to peek up.
Only then did I realize my vision was completely inverted, the sunlight through the window spilling in black and making patches of shadow against the serpent. I’d adapted. Funny what a body can get used to. I wondered if Melinda’s shirt was really orange, or if I’d lost my color vision before that.
The serpent, staring down at me, didn’t look inclined to move. I whispered, “Here, snakey snake,” again and backed up a few more inches. It followed me with its gaze, stopping when its head came up against the doorjamb. It would fit, if only just. The damned thing’s head was three feet wide. The spires on its back might not fit at all. I bit my lip and backed up some more. “C’mon, master serpent. I owe you one, don’t I? Why don’t we go outside where you can eat me.”
It flicked its tongue out, looking amused, and settled back down in its coils. I swore and hit the floor with my fist. “Look, goddamn it, you’re going to be stuck in here anyway, if you don’t come with me. This room’s not big enough for you. Just come on already.” I sat back on my heels and glared at it. It flicked its tongue complacently and shivered a few of its spires before the whole creature cracked and popped and enlarged again. I watched it fill another six square inches of the kitchen, and understood.
It didn’t need to fit into the room. The room would fit it, eventually. The bigger and more solid it got, the less the building structure would be able to accommodate it. The serpent would destroy Billy and Mel’s house unless I could get it out of there. I got to my feet. “It’s not going to be this easy,” I warned it. It blinked lidless eyes at me and hissed, as close to a laugh as I ever wanted to hear from a snake. I shook my head and nerved myself up to turning my back on it.