This is was what I should have done the moment I got to Iphigene. It’s what the city wanted—blood and sacrifice—and it would have it. Not a pale ghost version, but the blood of a living person. That should make Hecate happy enough to leave Dad alone.
She fell into step with the other dazed spirits, jostling and being jostled as she pushed her way to the middle of the throng. She was nervous, but she knew that was all right; normal, even. Zoe let go of everything she’d been clinging to and let herself be swept along by the tide of dead souls.
In front of her was an older man who was nearly bald. A few bristly sugar-white hairs on the back of his head were pressed flat by a plastic bag pulled tight onto his scalp. Reading upside down, Zoe made out the words WHITE RABBIT and saw a picture of an overly cute bunny. She remembered White Rabbit candies. They sometimes came with the check when her family would go out for dinner in Chinatown. The old man in front of her was using the bag as a makeshift rain hat. Next to him was a girl just a few years older than Zoe. Her head was shaved and she had large Chinese-style dragons tattooed on her scalp above each ear. The dragon on the left was red and the one on the right was blue. Zoe wondered what that meant. She wished she’d met the girl somewhere else so she could ask. She looked like someone who would have been in the club the night her mother and father met.
The steady sound of the siren soon melted into the background and everything seemed to go very quiet. Zoe’s gaze flickered back and forth between the twin dragons and the cartoon rabbit as she splashed through the silent streets.
Time was moving in funny ways. A block could shoot by in a second, but passing a single building could take hours. It was the fear, she knew, playing with her head. Zoe closed her eyes and let the crowd guide her with the motion of their bodies. She felt like an overwound guitar string, vibrating at some unnaturally bright and delirious frequency, knowing she could snap at any moment. She hoped they reached the café soon.
A moment later, the siren stopped, for real this time, leaving the street in unsettling quiet. Zoe opened her eyes. There in front of her was the café. Scared though she was, she smiled to herself, suddenly remembering something her mother had once told her: “Be careful what you wish for.” Without a word, the crowd began filing through the open door. Zoe followed them in.
Inside, she went to an empty table near the front window. It felt important that she be able to see outside and not be suffocated by the Half Moon Café’s drab walls. The gray street through the window might be dead, but at least it looked a little bit like the world and home.
Zoe took off her coat slowly. She had to. Her hands felt thick and clumsy, like she was wearing mittens. She took a deep breath, her face filling with heat. She ignored the sensation, refusing to think about it. She didn’t allow any thoughts to form in her mind at all. What she needed to do was to keep her body moving and not think about anything.
She stood and folded her overcoat, but as she dropped it over the back of her chair, the straight razor clattered to the floor. She grabbed it up and stuffed it into the pocket of her hoodie, hoping that no one had seen it, but it gave her an idea. She checked her pants pockets, and when what she was looking for wasn’t there, she checked the pockets of her coat. Nothing. Valentine’s compass was gone. Somewhere, through all the running and hiding, she’d lost it. It was too bad. It was something of his and something from home. And so she wrapped her fingers around the razor. She needed something to hold on to when it, and it was the only word her mind would permit her at that point, was happening. She unzipped her hoodie and pushed it back, exposing her shoulders and neck. She pushed up her sleeves and rested her hands on the table, waiting.
Nothing moved outside the window. Everyone was inside. The café was about half full. Zoe turned around in her seat. No one was talking to anyone. Most people were staring off into space, either still under the hypnotic effects of the siren or just wanting not to make eye contact with anyone. Zoe looked around for the man with the White Rabbit bag on his head, but she couldn’t find him. She spotted the girl with the tattoos near the back of the place, under a dusty cuckoo clock. Zoe smiled at her, but the girl turned away.
Without her wanting it, an image of her mother popped into her head. She wondered where her mother was right now. In a funny way, as far as Zoe was from home, she felt close to her. She’d made her own sacrifice, given up so much, and now here was Zoe about to do the same and she wanted to talk to her mother about it, maybe thank her and maybe get some reassurance that she was doing the right thing. I don’t even know what’s going to happen next. Wish I’d had the chance to say something to her in case I’m not going home.
“Look at the brave little princess all alone. Where’s Daddy? Did he abandon you again? First in the world above and now here. He’s not a very good daddy, is he?” Zoe knew who was speaking without turning around, though his voice was different now. It was more of a whisper, and he had a slight lisp that turned each s into a hiss.
Zoe looked up into Emmett’s cold snake eyes. He was a horrible sight—a glistening cobra’s head perched atop a man’s body. His tongue shot out every few seconds to taste the air. Ugly as he was, seeing him now, she wasn’t frightened as she had been the first time she saw him. The awful thing she’d been dreading was happening and was no longer a crippling imaginary terror. As scared as she was, she could hide it. Don’t give him the satisfaction, she thought.
“I like you better like this,” she said brightly. “It really suits you. All slimy and crawling through sewers, eating shit and rats. Who taught you that? Your mother?” She cocked her head coyly at those final words.
“My mother is a goddess,” said Emmett.
“Your mother is a dumb dead bitch!” Zoe said, her voice getting louder with each word.
Emmett lunged at her. Zoe jumped back, almost knocking over her chair. Emmett grabbed her before she could fall and held her, his warm, wet snake breath in her face.
“I was going to take you out of here,” he whispered. “But now, princess, you get to bleed. Not die, but you get to bleed like Daddy.”
Zoe shook herself free and leaned her elbows on the table. She didn’t care about anything at that moment except shouting loud enough for the whole café to hear. “That’s your threat? I get to bleed? That’s why I came here! You can’t threaten people with what they’re already doing, you fucking retarded lizard!”
Emmett took a step back. Zoe got the feeling that no one had ever yelled at him in such a way before. It felt pretty damned good. The feeling didn’t last long, though. Emmett’s eyes turned upward to the ceiling then back down to meet Zoe’s. “It’s starting.”
Zoe looked up. It was happening just the way she remembered. A dense black cloud swirled around the ceiling, and as the cloud descended, it broke apart into individual, chittering, batlike snake things. This is it. She closed her eyes. Maybe she could fool Emmett by not letting him see her fear, but she couldn’t fool herself. She took deep breaths and squeezed the razor. Her stomach was full of ice. The chittering grew louder and the light grew dimmer. She braced herself for the first bite.
Something slammed into the window and someone was shouting, but it didn’t sound like anyone in the café. Zoe opened her eyes and froze. Her father, pale and sweating, his hair plastered to his forehead, was pounding his fists against the window near where Zoe was sitting. He was yelling to her.
“Zoe! Get out of there!” he screamed.
Emmett turned and let out an airy little chuckle. “A day late and a dollar short, Dad,” he said.
“Zoe! Don’t do this!”
Emmett laughed merrily.
Then the first snake landed on Zoe’s shoulder and dug its fangs into her neck. The pain was electric. Hot and dizzying, it shot through her, making her whole body shake. A bat landed, and then another. Through the pain, she could hear her father calling her name. Emmett was right beside her. She could hear him laughing.
Something snapped. The taut string she’d fe
lt like earlier finally frayed and came apart. Before she knew what she was doing, Zoe was on her feet and screaming. She had the razor in her hand and she was slashing at Emmett’s arms. He whirled and backhanded her across the face. She fell back into the table, then ran at him again, screaming and hacking away at his arms and hands, driving the razor into his chest and slashing his face.
Emmett bellowed, a horrifying, deep-throated roar of pain and fury. But the snakes, which had ignored him until then, were on him. Driven into a feeding frenzy by the scent of his blood, they flew away from Zoe and the others to attack Emmett. An immense, writhing horde of flying snakes forced him to the ground. His hands burst from the ravenous black mass, scattering snakes and reaching for Zoe. She leaped back as Emmett rolled over, crushed under the weight of his starving brothers and sisters.
Zoe turned and burst out of the café door, running to her father. They held each other while, behind them, the other spirits dashed from the café, scattering down the wet, gray street. When the street was clear, Zoe’s father took off his overcoat, wrapped it around her, and they ran back into the city.
Eleven
They went back to his room. Zoe’s father kept his arm around her the whole way, as if a strong wind might carry her off. It felt good. It felt conspiratorial.
Her father’s coat was big enough that it was easy for her to keep her face hidden behind the collar. She wasn’t sure where they were headed, at first. She was worried that it might be back to the carousel, and was relieved when her father steered them the other way, onto the twisting route to Ouroboros Street. Once they were inside, Zoe limped up two flights of stairs before she realized that her father wasn’t with her. She went back down and found him at the top of the first-floor landing, on his knees and leaning heavily on the wall.
“Dad?” she asked uncertainly.
“I’m all right,” he said, blinking up at her. “I just needed to rest a minute.”
She came down to him. “Let me help you.” They started up the stairs slowly. This time he leaned on her.
“Look at us. A couple of wrecks.”
“If Mom could see us now.”
That made him laugh. They made it up to the fifth floor and Zoe opened the door to his room. Her father collapsed on the bed.
“You need to rest,” Zoe said.
“I think you’re right,” he replied. Then he smiled at her weakly. “You saved me back there. Another feeding right then would have finished me.”
Zoe was looking through the drawers in her father’s unused dresser. She found a couple of worn-looking towels in the bottom drawer and looked up at him as he spoke.
“You’d have done it for me.” She took the towels and went to the bed. She handed him the larger of the two, tossed his overcoat onto a chair, and used the smaller towel to dry her hair.
“Of course I’d have done it for you. I’m your father. It’s part of my job description,” he said, unfolding the towel and wiping his face. “But I don’t know that every kid would have done what you did.”
“ ’Course they would. You would have.”
“Yeah, right,” he said quietly. He looked away from her, balling the towel in his hands. “I’m not so sure I would have done it for my old man.”
Zoe looked down at him. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Part of her was shocked, but another part felt sad for him. Why would he say something like that? She remembered seeing her father differently just a few days earlier, when she’d put on the Animagraph and seen the world through his eyes. It was the night he’d met her mother. She recalled flutters of drunken excitement when he first laid eyes on her, but the feeling was mixed with others Zoe hadn’t paid attention to at the time. Confusion. Silent, sullen rage. And fear, buried way in the back of his mind under all the beer. Something that had happened between him and his father that night. His back and arms ached where the belt had hit him, where it always hit.
Zoe sat down next to him on the bed. He suddenly looked younger to her.
“Yeah, you would have,” she said. “In the end.”
“I’d like to think so.” He turned back to her, took her hand, and smiled. “In case I haven’t told you, you’re a pretty good kid. A pain in the ass, but a pretty good kid.”
“Thanks.”
“It always cracks me up how much you’re like your mom.”
Zoe let go of his hand and went back to drying her hair. “Really? How?”
“No one could ever tell her anything either.” He followed Zoe’s lead and started drying his hair. “Not her parents. Not me. No one. She just did what she thought she had to do. A lot of the time she was right, too.”
“What about when she wasn’t?”
He shook his head and set the towel aside. “Craziness. Complete fucking madness. She got us into as much trouble as she got us out of.” He looked at Zoe. “Just like you.”
Zoe took their wet towels and draped them over the tiny sink in the kitchen area to dry. “I never thought we were much alike.”
“Believe me, kiddo. You are.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble.”
“It sure as hell is,” he replied. “But you don’t mind. We admire people for the smart things they do, but we love them for their craziness, all the ridiculous little things they do.” He laughed a little to himself. “She used to let the air out of the cops’ tires outside the clubs. She’d pile up all the baby corns and hide them under her napkin whenever we had Chinese food. She’d scream like a banshee whenever she heard Barry Manilow.”
Zoe laughed, too. “Yeah, I’ve heard her do that.” She walked back over to where her father lay. “It’s just really hard to picture her like that.”
“Try it sometime. You’ll both be happier.” He looked at the window. “The rain’s letting up a little. You should be getting down to the beach for low tide.”
“Yeah, I know.” Zoe looked around her father’s dusty, dank little room. “I just need to know that you’re going to be all right.”
“I am. Really.” He sat up in bed and leaned against the wall. “I said before that I was mad that you’d come here. Well, I was wrong. You didn’t just save me tonight. I’d kind of given up hope down here, but blowing up Hecate’s feeding tonight, leaving Emmett in a world of hurt . . . that was beautiful stuff.” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “And I’m not afraid of them anymore. And that’s because of you. Thanks.”
Zoe looked down at the floor. “You’re welcome.”
Her father swung his legs onto the floor and got up. “Come on. I’ll walk you downstairs.”
Her head snapped up and she looked at him. “You’re not coming with me?”
He shook his head slowly. “Look at me. I’m a mess, darlin’. I wouldn’t be able to help you and I sure as hell can’t run right now. I’m sorry.”
Zoe nodded and went to the window, looked down into the street. “I’m a little afraid of those dogs, Dad.”
He sat back down, his legs already shaking. “Yeah, I wondered about that. You don’t smell like us. That’s why the dogs notice you. It’s probably how Hecate plans to catch you.”
She turned and looked at him across the dim room. He looked more like a ghost than ever before. “What am I going to do?”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and seemed to be thinking. Then, “Wait here.”
He went out into the hall and Zoe heard him walk down a few doors and knock. A door opened and there were voices. A minute later, her father came back and sat on the bed, leaving the door to his room open.
A few minutes after that, a young woman walked into the room holding a small cut-glass bottle full of an amber liquid. She handed the bottle to Zoe’s father and turned to Zoe. The pale evening light through the window illuminated her fine features and high cheekbones. Zoe couldn’t believe what she was looking at.
The woman crossed the room to Zoe with her hand extended. “Hello,” she said. “I’m—”
“Caroline Lee Somerville,” said Zoe,
remembering her first experience with the Animagraph and the pregnant woman who Emmett had explained would die soon after that particular memory.
Caroline Lee Somerville’s eyebrows drew together, puzzled. “Have we met?”
“No,” said Zoe. She didn’t know if she should talk about having seen the woman’s life so intimately. Would I want to know that someone had been inside me like that? No, Zoe decided. “Someone mentioned you to me.”
“Really? Was it a relation?”
Zoe shrugged. “Probably,” she said.
Caroline Lee Somerville nodded. “Of course,” she said, and turned to Zoe’s father. “You were right when you said that she was a lovely girl,” she said. Then added in a stage whisper, “But she’s not quite as good a liar as she supposes she is.”
Zoe’s father smiled. “Usually she’s much better at it, but she’s had a long day.” He turned to Zoe, still grinning. “Come here,” he told her.
Zoe went over to them a little reluctantly, not sure if she was in trouble or if this was “Adult Humor,” as Julie used to call it. The kind of jokes that no one under thirty ever found funny.
“Remember when you got here and I told you that some of the spirits liked and used things from their lives? They read newspapers and eat food at the restaurants?”
“I know about them,” she said.
“Caroline here is like me: she doesn’t eat or drink, but she does have a vice.”
“I still love perfume,” said Caroline. “I used to wait each season for the new scents to arrive by ship from Paris.”
“Caroline has agreed to let you use this perfume. It should help you get past the dogs. Or anyone else, really.” He handed Zoe the bottle.
Dead Set: A Novel Page 17