Austin's sitting two rows behind me because she's still officially giving me the silent treatment. She's back there with Julie, and it hurts me to turn and look at her, in a sleek blue dress showing off her curves, plus high heels. There's a hat too, but I can't take my eyes off the shoes and her legs. I hope after everything is done, we can find somewhere to be alone together. She doesn't even need to talk to me if she doesn't want to, but I have to be near her.
Some more people come by to say hello to me, and I do my best to stay in character, playing my role of joyful grandson.
I've had my cheeks pinched by several great-aunts and other relatives, but my only wish is for this next hour to pass quickly. Gran, however, is posing for photo after photo with friends and family, hoping to make this moment last as long as possible.
Another great-uncle comes by, requesting I stand for a hug. I've had about a hundred hugs, half of them were from Rudy, who practically frisked me for contraband during the last one. He seemed to be testing me, testing my loyalty, and I think I passed.
“Nice to see you, Uncle Max,” I say.
“You're next,” he says, grinning.
I take my seat again, which is next to James. On the other side is his date, good old Facepuncher herself. Apparently they've been calling each other since they met up at the funeral. Facepuncher has dyed chunks of her black hair a bright blue, and she's wearing a sleeveless black leather dress, cut low in the front. I hope Gran doesn't catch sight of her in the front row and stop the ceremony to send someone out for a cardigan and a hat.
Uncle Max is now introducing himself to Facepuncher, asking her name several times and leaning in close to hear better. “Fionnula,” she says.
“Fiona? I didn't catch that,” he says again.
I don't trust the girl, so I haven't breathed a word of my plan to James or Julie, and especially not Austin, who wouldn't let me if I tried. The only good thing about today is Austin's wearing the necklace I gave her to celebrate our four-month anniversary, so she must not hate me. .
The wedding is a small affair, with less than a hundred people, and because Rudy's not religious—at least not Christian, that is—the service is being performed by a member of the hotel staff who has been ordained. The guy's young, with more pimples than me, and I wonder if his other official role is as bus boy.
The lights change and the sides of the large room disappear into dimness. Other lights, tiny halogens mounted along tracks under the atrium's glass ceiling, shine as bright as tiny suns down on the aisle and the decorated platform.
The din of conversation tapers off as people take their seats and await what's next. A song pipes out of the speakers, the volume gradually rising, and people completely stop talking. Somebody clears his throat and someone else coughs. The song ends and the next one, the real start of the ceremony, begins.
As much as I want everything to move along quickly, now that it is, I'm nervous, and the tops of my suit pants are damp from wiping my hands on them. I'm wearing my vintage suit again, with a copper-colored shirt Gran bought for today.
Rudy takes his place on the platform, wearing a copper shirt that matches mine. Chairs squeak as everybody turns to watch Gran walking down the aisle. Her best friend, Eva, is holding her elbow. Gran asked if I wanted to walk her down the aisle, but we agreed it would be a nice way to involve Eva, since they weren't planning to have any bridesmaids or groomsmen standing with them.
As she reaches the platform, I dig into my jacket pocket to check on my ring.
It's gone.
Where's my ring?
Didn't I grab it from my sock drawer this morning? Or, wait, from my ceiling lamp? I remember wobbling on my rolling chair, nearly falling off. I did get the ring, though, didn't I? My mind's a blur.
What am I doing again?
I check for the ring in my pocket.
It's gone? Same thought loop. I'm looping, how am I looping? Is this a nightmare?
The ceremony keeps going. To my right, James leans his head on Facepuncher's shoulder as she takes his hand.
The young-looking minister asks if anyone has any objections. Someone in the back row laughs—Eva. Gran turns back and jokingly waves her first at her friend.
The minister continues with the next part, which is the exchanging of the rings. I see my ring. Rudy is sliding it onto my grandmother's finger.
How can this be?
I'm in the front row, barely an arm's length from them, and my vision is good. I know that is my ring, and now Gran is wearing it. I'm so confused.
I pinch myself on the arm. Don't get confused, Zan. Don't get distracted. Stick to the plan.
There's commotion behind me, and I turn to see Austin standing in front of her chair, then turning, and slowly shuffling past people in her row without so much as excusing herself. She walks up the aisle and out of the atrium. I don't know what's gotten into her, but if she's as nauseated as I am right now, I don't blame her for sneaking out for some air.
My breathing is shallow, my stomach contracting, and the smell of perfume and cologne in here is making my throat close up. I focus on feeling the seat of my chair under me, and the floor beneath my feet. I wiggle my toes inside my shoes.
Without the ring, my confidence has drowned. Doubt. Shame. Now Moira's vision casts over me, like a shadow on a grave, with other visions equally unwanted. A man falls from the sky and his family mourns. Fear, hope and pain blend together. Nobody believes me. Nobody's protecting me. Thoughts that are not my own are in my head. You have to hurt them before they hurt you.
The room darkens, and several people look up at the glass ceiling and mutter comments. Overhead, the darkening was not caused by a gold-fringed cloud passing in front of the setting sun, but by birds. Black birds dot the glass ceiling, blotting out the view.
In front of me, the young minister announces, “You may kiss the bride. And you, sir, you may kiss the groom.”
At this, people around me titter. They're all so damn happy.
Rudy pretends to lift an imaginary veil from Gran's face and the sound around me grows to laughter. She's not wearing the traditional white dress, but a simple pale blue suit and matching shoes. She is beautiful, and I have a double memory of this moment. I saw this very sight earlier this year in one of my visions: radiant in blue, Gran on her wedding day, looking so beautiful and happy.
I dig my fingernails into the palms of my hands to keep myself still.
This next part will take some nerves.
It's not going to work, I tell myself.
Shut up, it has to.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The November wind wails as it skims the roof of the Hotel Doccione. Twenty stories below, I can see people mingling under the glass atrium. There's no sound up here but the wind, but I imagine the music and conversation and warmth. I wrap my suit jacket around me tighter.
I'm on top of the highest building in the city, and I can see for miles, but all I should be watching is the door, waiting for Rudy.
I take a seat on a metal bench, cold beneath my legs. To my left is a small sign placed up here by the hotel management, apologizing for the lack of greenery on the rooftop garden due to delays in landscaping. Near my feet is a pumpkin-sized plant pot filled with dirty water and cigarette butts.
The rooftop space has hexagonal-shaped paving stones, lounge chairs, and folded-down umbrellas, still in their plastic packaging. In the summer, guests will be sunbathing out here, but today is cold, the early evening sky blue, pink, and purple. As I wait for Rudy to show up, shadows lengthen and the city around me is bathed in gold light. It's the golden hour, the magic hour—that special time for photographers. Blue light scatters, and all becomes red. Once the sun sinks, before darkness, we'll have blue hour—the name misleading because it does not last anywhere near an hour.
The sky around me becomes a rich violet, but still I keep my eyes on the door, which is flanked by planter pots that could hold enormous potted trees when the landscaping is comple
ted.
My pulse quickens when the door opens and Rudy steps out, alone.
The wind picks up, stinging my eyes. “You stole my ring,” I say.
Rudy's eyes are as cold as the metal bench I'm on. “Leave the grown-up things to the adults,” he says. “Come downstairs. Hang out with your friends, relax and enjoy being a kid.”
“I can't relax, knowing you're involved in criminal activity. I don't know how you did it, but you had that man, Newt Steadfast, shot. Murdered.”
“To make an omelet, you have to crack some eggs. Sacrifice a few pawns, whatever. Don't you want the finer things in life? Don't you want college tuition? A future?”
“I'll work for what I deserve.”
He laughs. “In this world, nobody gets what they deserve. They get what they take, and on their death bed, they pray for forgiveness.”
“Hurting living souls is wrong.”
“Tell that to the animals we're serving for dinner. Their sacrifice is our gain.”
“Shooting people is evil.”
Rudy holds his arms out and steps toward me slowly. “I didn't shoot that man.”
“No, but you paid someone else to. Or you used witchcraft, a spell. I don't know how, but you hypnotized an innocent person. You're ruining her life!”
“Is your girlfriend, Austin, innocent?”
I stand, trying to keep my legs from shaking. “Leave Austin out of this! Don't you dare touch her!”
He steps closer still, and to keep my distance I step off the paving stones and onto the gravel, near the edge of the roof.
“I haven't touched your girlfriend,” Rudy says. “Of course, it was someone named Rosemary who was supposed to wear the necklace and do the next part of the job. It was you who screwed everything up, when you bought the necklace instead of that tall boy. But that's fine. Austin will do. She'll do just fine.”
Austin's in trouble. I reach for my phone, but my pocket is empty.
“Looking for this?” Rudy holds up my phone, then tosses it to the side, over the edge of the roof opposite the atrium side, facing the street. The phone disappears, down the side of the building to the sidewalk below.
What does he mean?
Austin got up during the ceremony, but she's not simply avoiding me—she's … she's not even here. The vision of her with the gun. It's not from the past, but from the future. From right now. Austin's somewhere with a gun, at this very moment.
Rudy stands near the railing with his hands on his hips, waiting for a response.
I'm not going to argue with him. I'm strong, and he's going to be sorry. I run at Rudy, tackling him in the middle.
He lets out his breath with an oof sound, surprised, but he doesn't go down. He stands, as steady as a stone statue.
I've made the first move, but he's much stronger than I expected. I try to punch him, but he keeps catching my hands, as though we were play-fighting. He grabs my arms and shakes me.
I spit in his face and he lets me go, stepping back stunned. My legs in position and stable beneath me, I feign movement with my right hand, then land a straight left on the side of his face. Something makes a crunching sound. He's distracted, and I bring down a hammer fist near his neck.
I don't see it coming, but he hooks me on my right cheek. His arms are up, blocking, and I go for an uppercut, but he's too fast. Everything's a blur and my nose cracks, fire shooting up behind my eyes.
“Don't make me mess up your face,” he says, his voice coming from everywhere at once, on the wind. My arms are being pulled off, twisted up behind my back. Hissing in my ear from behind me, he says, “Relax, kiddo. She'll do the job and be back here in ten minutes. Twenty minutes, tops. The money's already in my bank account. Don't make easy things difficult. Money is easy. And I told you I'd take good care of you.”
It's a struggle to breathe the way he's holding me, let alone talk. “No! I won't let you.”
“How are you going to stop me? Or her? Are you going to fly there? Would you like me to give you a head start?”
He throws me forward with incredible strength, and I land against the thin metal railing, facing the street below. Some people have stopped and are gathered together, looking down at something—my smashed cell phone. None of them are looking up here.
I steady myself against the railing and seek my breath, gulping for air.
“Ready to play nice and be a good boy?” Rudy asks.
I turn and face him, still holding the railing. “No!”
“Your Gran sure will miss you, though you have been behaving oddly lately. I wouldn't have guessed you were suicidal, but you have had bouts of depression in the past.”
Why isn't Detective Wrong doing anything yet? She said she'd intervene if things got violent. “Detective Wrong, help!” I call out. “A little help!”
Rudy's face twists with mirth and he lets out a horrible sound, finishing with something resembling a laugh. “Your little friend in the big plant pot? Somebody hit her on the head and she had to take a little nap.”
“You killed her!”
Rudy makes a tsk-tsk sound. “She's not dead yet. I've only injured her. I think. She shouldn't have been there. Spying on people is wrong, don't you know that?”
The sun has set, and the violet sky is now cool blue. Think, Zan, what next? I'm strong, but he's stronger.
Rudy takes off his dress jacket and lays it on the bench. The copper of his shirt glows like metal, and his front is all shadow now, except for the glint of his belt buckle. Another light, dim and eerie, seems to come from his eyes.
“What do you say, boy?” He takes two steps toward me, unbuttoning his cuffs and rolling up his sleeves. “Are you with me, or against me? Last chance.”
I need time to slow down so I can think, but everything's moving too fast. What can I do? Why is Rudy so much stronger than me? All I have are ... the bees.
“Join me,” he says, extending a hand.
The bees rumble in my lungs. I'm not wearing the ring, though, so I won't be able to control them. But what are my other choices? I could summon my bees, or join forces with evil witches, or become pavement pizza.
Rudy's waiting for my answer, his hand still extended.
“Join me,” he says again.
Before my breath is gone, I respond with, “OH HELL NO, OLD MAN!”
The first few bees hit the insides of my teeth as I'm yelling. I open my mouth and they shoot out, buzzing and angry. I'm totally doing this! I'm breathing, through my nose, and not suffocating.
DON'T STING ME, I order them with my thoughts. GO TO AUSTIN AND WAKE HER UP.
The bees hover in front of me in a cloud, preparing to swarm, but caught between me and Rudy. I glance quickly down behind me. People on the street twenty stories below are going about their business under the light of the street lamps. Cars streak by on the street, headlights and tail lights, but no blue and red flashers or sirens. The police aren't coming.
How can I summon help? The people below are too far away for me to hear any words, even if I could pause the torrent of bees coming out of my mouth long enough to call out to them.
“I'll be damned,” Rudy says, looking up at my cloud of bees. “That's pretty good for someone your age. But I don't want to get stung, so, over you go!”
From the shadows, he leaps at me, faster than I've ever seen anyone move. I struggle against Rudy, grabbing his shirt, his tie, his hair, his face, anything I can, but I can't control my body. I'm nothing but a vibration, a hive. My mass is disintegrating, into bees.
Now I'm looking at the pavement. I don't know how he did it, but he's got me by the ankles and I'm hanging over the side of the building, head down. I can see one of the stone grotesques now, from this angle. It has wings. The statues aren't dogs or dragons, but griffins—mythical beasts part lion and part bird.
My thoughts swirl, and I'm losing consciousness.
The bees continue to pour out of my mouth. I'm losing so much mass now, I can feel myself caving in.
It's too late for me.
I'm going down. Strong hands around my ankles start to loosen.
I close my eyes and think of Julie's music, the calming songs. I search inside myself for tranquility, control, acceptance.
The bees are listening. They're hesitating, but confused. There are so many, and their thoughts combine, a hive mind. If they sting Rudy, I'll fall. But if they don't sting him, I'll still fall.
I reach out for the stone statue, my fingers just grazing the edge of a wing. If I could grab hold of something, I could swing onto a ledge below. Can Rudy even see what I'm doing down here, through the cloud of bees?
I command the bees: GO STOP AUSTIN. I picture her as clearly as I can. Austin, radiant and back lit by sunshine, laughing. STOP HER.
The pressure on my ankles is releasing now.
The wing of the griffin moves further away from my hand.
I'm falling, down, down, down.
I close one eye and see from the eyes of the swarm, a boy falling down the side of a building into something dark, something black.
Before I lose myself, I think of her.
* * *
The blackness claws at me.
Confusion.
Pain.
Black wings, black feathers.
The ground, rushing up.
The faces of people, horrified and screaming.
Blackness.
* * *
I lift my head and touch it with my hand. Not wet, not bleeding.
My arm, not broken.
My legs, not broken.
The crowd of people around me, hushed.
I sit up.
Crows. A murder of them, interspersed with the legs of people standing on the sidewalk.
All at once, the bystanders turn and walk away without speaking, leaving me alone with the crows. There must be a hundred of the birds. A big one pecks at my leg. I lift the leg to reveal one of them, limp and lifeless.
Behind me, where my torso landed, are two more crows, also dead. I stand and brush myself off. I'm not concerned about dirt or dust, but it's a reflexive motion. My hands confirm I'm here, not broken.
Witches and Ghosts Supernatural Mysteries Page 145