Like I said there’s screaming. Some of the mourners scatter, a couple of men rush forward to stuff him back into his coffin. So I make him stand, stiff on legs like wood, joints cracking. It’s grotesque and tragic. Without the ritual I used in Texas the corpse feels like a numb extension of myself. But the fact that I can move it at all is amazing.
One of the men who rushed to the body when it fell out of the casket runs up, beats it over the head with a tire iron. He’s not screaming. He’s crying. And suddenly I realize what I’m doing to these people. I give up control, let the body fall to the ground, sick at my own power. Why did I do that? I didn’t have to make such a display out of it.
I leave the mourners terrified, walk back to the car, start it with shaking hands. Jesus, what am I turning into?
—
I stop at Alex’s house and check on Vivian. She’s still out. I check the house wards for any cracks, add my own to the mix, strengthen the barriers. My spells lock in place with barely a thought. I could get used to this.
But even with all this power I’m still worried. I have a plan, sure. Sort of.
Okay, not really.
Here’s the idea. I get Boudreau and Griffin together, Boudreau takes Griffin and I take them both out at the same time. And maybe unicorns will fly out of my ass.
I sit on the floor next to Vivian, head in my hands. I can’t fuck this up. There’s too much riding on it. The minute I let my guard down Griffin’s going to take a swing at me. And he’ll probably do it while Boudreau’s doing the same. Griffin was right. There are too many variables. But I can’t think of a better idea.
“I’ll get Alex back,” I say and kiss Vivian’s cheek. I don’t much care if I make it at this point, but goddamn it I’ll keep that promise.
—
Griffin pulls up in a Lincoln Town Car across the street from Boudreau’s old house. He and two of his thugs step out of the car, a buzzcut Latino who looks like he just got out of the army and a hook-nosed guy with glasses.
Two was the absolute minimum I figured Griffin would show up with. I half-expected a platoon. I don’t need twenty guys to take out on top of everything else.
“I should have known,” Griffin says. “His old house.” All three of them are wearing black tactical gear. Seriously. Holsters, buckles, the whole nine yards. Considering what we’re up against I don’t think the guns are for Boudreau.
“You bring your gas masks, too?” I ask.
Buzzcut looks worried. “You think we’ll need them?”
Jesus. “We’re going into a haunted house, not taking Afghanistan.”
“Your fashion advice is noted,” Griffin says. “I want to make something very clear.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I know you’re lying to me. About which parts I’m not sure, but your story is so full of holes I can’t tell where the truth ends and the bullshit begins.”
“And yet you’re here.”
“And yet I’m here. I want Boudreau gone as much as you do, maybe more. But if this is a trick I’m going to skin you alive.”
“You’re almost scary when you get all domineering like that. You’re going to try to skin me alive, anyway. So I really don’t see how I have much to lose. Now that we’re all on the same page, are we going to stand out here like idiots waving our dicks at each other or are we going to go do this?”
He gives Buzzcut and Glasses an almost imperceptible nod. They double-time it across the street. Griffin and I follow. The house is a two-story Tudor with a couple heavy chimneys, half-timbering and cross gables. I can feel Boudreau’s presence inside.
It occurs to me that, though I know Boudreau’s there, I have no way of knowing if Alex is in there, too. I falter for a moment at that thought, but I don’t have time for that now.
Griffin nods at Buzzcut. “If you would?” Buzzcut checks the door, whispers a spell and the lock pops. A glow surrounds his fingers as he gets ready for Christ only knows what on the other side. He nudges the door open. A deep smell of rot rolls over us like a tide.
“Maybe we should have brought gas masks,” Glasses says.
Buzzcut leans into the doorway, looks around. “It’s clear,” he says. Except it’s not. I can feel Boudreau welling up like a geyser.
“Get away from the door,” I say, but it’s too late. Boudreau’s swarm of ghosts fill the doorway. He’s found a new use for them. Hazy tendrils shoot out, yank Buzzcut inside, slam the door in our faces. Griffin gets a spell off, a jagged tongue of lightning and shadow that blows the door off its hinges. I stagger, my vision going double, as a backwash of energy that I can feel down into my soul hits me.
“What the hell did you do?” I say. My sight comes back into focus.
“Something I cooked up that should at least destroy some of the ghosts around him,” Griffin says. “It can be a little disorienting to be around if you’re not used to it. I guarantee if you felt it, Boudreau felt it more.” Yeah, no shit. I feel like a bell that’s been rung with a sledgehammer.
“Well, we know he’s home,” I say.
“And we’re down a man.”
“Try another entrance?” Glasses says.
Griffin turns to me. “But you can sense him, can’t you? You knew he was there before he hit.”
“Yeah, by like a second and a half. When he pops up I won’t get much warning. It’ll be like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole. This door, another door. I don’t see how it matters.”
I push my way past them and enter the house.
“Remember to wipe your feet,” I say.
“I don’t think the owners are going to mind,” Griffin says. He points through a pair of double doors across from a staircase. I can see the family piled like rotting cordwood on the dining table.
“Boudreau’s not one for sharing, is he?” I say.
“Some things never change.”
There’s a noise upstairs that grabs all our attention. Something heavy coming down the stairs. Buzzcut’s head rolls off the last step and lands with a wet thump on the floor. Glasses nudges it with a toe.
“Looks like an invitation to me,” I say and head up the stairs. “You guys coming?”
I follow the blood spatter Buzzcut’s head left as it bounced its way down. Dark red blotches on the carpeted steps, splashes on the banister. They stop at the second floor landing where Buzzcut’s body is slowly draining into the carpet. One less asshole I have to worry about. I step over him onto the landing, look over the hallway, wondering when Boudreau’s going to make another move.
Every time I try to get a bead on him he fuzzes out. He’s actively hiding himself. The harder I push the harder it gets. Maybe I can’t find him, but if he’s here I can find Alex. I go to the nearest door, wonder what’s waiting for me on the other side. Do I open it and crouch, lean to the side, hope nothing jumps out at me? Fuck it. I throw it open. A bedroom, drawn curtains, dusty surfaces, an unmade bed.
“Master suite,” Griffin says behind me. “I’ve been here before.”
He points at three other closed doors and a short hallway that corners away from us. “Two other bedrooms, bathroom, and down there are a den and a game room.”
A sound from down the hallways catches our attention. “Sounded like a cough,” Glasses says. “Ghosts don’t cough, do they?”
I rush down the hall, ignoring Griffin’s warnings, hit the den and stop in my tracks. Alex is lying in a heap on the floor at the far side of the room between a coffee table and a leather easy chair. Heavy bruises mottle his face, one eye so swollen and black he can’t open it.
“Is that who I think it is?” Griffin says. “You knew he was here?”
“Yeah. Guess I left that bit out.”
“It’s a trap,” he says.
“No shit it’s a trap.” I walk into it, anyway. Alex is pale, barely conscious. His skin dry as parchment.
“Eric?”
“Yeah, man, it’s me. Come to take you home.”
He starts to cry.
“Is he gone? Tell me he’s gone.”
“No,” I say. “He’s not gone, but I’m not going to let him hurt you, anymore. Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
I help him to his feet. He’s in bad shape. Beaten, tortured, dehydrated. A feeling of emptiness about him. Like he’s been hollowed out. He’s leaning on me for support, hobbling across the floor. It’s about as vulnerable a position as I can be in without having my pants around my ankles so I’m not surprised when Boudreau picks that moment to hit me.
But I am surprised when he tears the floor out from under me.
Chapter 26
The carpet rips as floorboards splinter and crack. We’re more than halfway across the floor. I hold Alex tight, and jump for the door. The floor bucks underneath me, a hole ripping through the area we were just standing on. Splinters and dust blow out in a cloud and I can see the smoky tendrils of Boudreau’s ghosts tearing more chunks away, making a larger hole.
I get Alex and I to the door, forgetting that I’ve got other things to worry about than just Boudreau. I see the glow of Griffin’s ghost blasting spell form around him. He doesn’t care if I’m in the way.
I duck, pulling Alex down with me, barrel into Griffin as he lets loose. The air around me fills with light and dark, a searing pain running through me. The blast fills the room, bursting from Griffin’s hands, raking the ceiling as I knock him over.
Momentum carries me forward. The pain is blinding, but I push past it, keep moving. I have to get Alex out of the house. Boudreau is trying to tear it down around us. He’ll follow us outside if we get that far. But if I can get Alex into the car, maybe the wards I’ve placed on it will offer some protection.
Smoke flows past us to the end of the hallway. Glasses tries to track it, his own spell ready to fly. Griffin’s between him and the den. If he lets it off now he’ll fry all of us. The smoke gets behind him before he can turn to face it. I can see Boudreau’s form inside it, the ghosts orbiting in a mad dance around him.
He’s noticeably diminished, many of the ghosts stripped away. Griffin’s spell didn’t kill him, but it hurt him. By the time Glasses can face him, tentacles of smoke lash out, spear through him. There’s a loud crack, a sharp smell of ozone. Power lashes through Glasses’ body, cooking him from the inside. He falls to the floor, smoke drifting off of him.
“I’ll kill both you fuckers,” Griffin says behind me. I turn to see him covered in plaster dust, propping himself up against the wall, the glow of his spell building around his clenched fist. They’ve got me trapped in the hallway. Boxed in, nowhere to go. Scylla and Charybdis would be a cakewalk compared to these two assholes.
Before I can call up a shield or even duck, Boudreau pulls back the writhing ghosts like a whip and brings them down at me. I drop Alex, hoping that they’ll at least miss him. Maybe he can make it out on his own.
They tear through me, come out the other side and hit Griffin in the chest.
I can feel Boudreau’s energy coursing through me, electricity running along the spears punched through my body. I hear Griffin scream behind me as his flesh cooks from the inside out, fire ripping through his eye sockets, smoke pouring from his mouth, his ears. I hear a loud snap as his skull cracks open, boiling blood and steam escaping.
But nothing happens to me. I don’t burst into flame. I don’t die on the spot. Boudreau’s spell passed right through me and did nothing to me. I’m not sure which of us is more surprised.
I have a split second of clarity as the ghosts start to pull back from inside me. I see their lives in a starburst flash of knowledge. And somewhere in that I can see Boudreau. I can feel him. And I know how to hurt him.
I don’t know what it is I’m calling up. Distilled death, maybe. Pure hatred. Rage. Maybe it’s mine. Maybe it’s Santa Muerte’s. Whatever it is I channel it through the lines of retreating ghosts, shove it through them like a high-pressure hose. And let it all loose into Boudreau’s tattered soul.
He burns. Bright and livid. Pieces of him flaring like tissue paper in a bonfire. The ghosts around him vaporizing. I keep it up until there’s nothing left of him to burn.
—
Smoke drifts from the bodies, smelling like Hell’s own barbeque. I kneel by Alex. He’s unconscious, covered in plaster dust, face lacerated from shrapnel. But he’s breathing. Right now that’s all I care about. I’ll get him to Vivian. She’ll know what to do. I throw him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, arms wrapped around his legs. My muscles are screaming at me.
With Boudreau gone the spell keeping the neighbors away from the house isn’t going to last long. I have to get him out of here quickly. He comes to at the top of the stairs as I’m stepping over Buzzcut’s body.
“Hey,” he says, his voice choked with dust. He coughs, a racking sound like his lungs are tearing.
“We’re almost out of here, man. I got him. Boudreau’s gone.”
“No,” he says, voice stronger. “I’m not.”
He rams an elbow hard into my kidney. My knee buckles, my feet get tangled up in Buzzcut’s headless corpse and all three of us go tumbling down the stairs. I land hard on my back, the wind knocked out of me. Alex picks himself up off the floor and then I get it.
I don’t know when it happened. Maybe as I was frying him, probably before. Maybe the thing I killed upstairs was only a piece he left behind for me. At some point, Boudreau moved into Alex.
“Oh, I knew I was going to enjoy this,” he says. He kicks me in the chest. “Have to admit I figured you’d be dead by now. I don’t know why you didn’t go up like Griffin did. Not that I much care.” Another kick. Spots swim before my eyes. Can’t get a breath.
I finally get a gasp of air. I pull myself away, but not fast enough. His foot glances off my forehead and I see stars. I roll backward to avoid the next kick. Find my voice.
“You sonofabitch. Let him go.”
“Nope. I like it here. Thanks for taking your time getting here, by the way. Gave me enough to get this boy prepped and ready to go.”
So I was right. He couldn’t just go anywhere, take over anyone. He needed to prepare them first. Jesus. He’d had months with Ellis. What did he do to Alex in, what, less than two days? To get it so fast it must have been brutal.
“I said let him go.” I reach out, looking for that thread of Boudreau I had hold of earlier, try to find him. Grab him. Tear him apart. But it’s not there. He’s firmly embedded. Just like when he took over Ellis.
On impulse I pull the Browning out of the shoulder holster under my jacket. I don’t know what else to do. He kicks it out of my hand before I can bring it to bear. Just as well. I couldn’t pull the trigger, anyway.
It’s Alex. The man who raised my sister when I was running away. Who picked up the broken pieces I left behind and helped make them whole again. He’s the man I never was, never could be. I’m the one who should be in his place. I’m the one who should be suffering. I’m the one who should be paying this price.
If anyone’s going to come out of this alive it has to be him.
Boudreau waves Alex’s hand and I feel myself picked up off the floor and thrown against the banister like a ragdoll. “Oh, god this feels good.” He flexes the fingers, rolls the shoulders. “You have no idea. It was like being numb all the time. You can’t feel anything, can’t taste anything. You know what I’m going to do when I’m done killing you? I’m gonna get a burger. Then I’m gonna get laid.”
He tries to throw me again, but I’m ready and meet his magic with my own, blocking him. I still can’t get hold of him in there and I don’t dare do anything that will hurt Alex. Well, not permanently. I try to push him back, but he’s got his defenses up as much as I do. So instead of moving him, I yank the rug he’s standing on.
He topples onto his back and I’m on him. “Get out of there, goddammit.” I wrap my hands around his throat. If I choke Alex hard enough to knock him out and not kill him, maybe I can scare Boudreau into leaving. It’s not tight e
nough and he breaks out of my hold, kneeing my in the gut and throwing me off.
“You don’t get it,” he says, giving me another kick to the head. “He’s gone. I broke him. Broke him, moved in, kicked his ass out.”
“He’s not—”
“Oh, yes he is,” Boudreau says. “He’s not just dead. He’s gone.”
I lurch to my feet, wrapping my arms around him in a tackle, drive him to the floor. “Bullshit. I know he’s in there.” He’s grinning at me like a maniac. That’s Alex’s face but it’s not at the same time. The expression’s all wrong, the way he’s laughing and smiling. This isn’t like when Boudreau took Ellis. I can’t see him the way I saw him at the hospital, his ghost overlaid onto the body. He’s in there hard and he’s not coming out. But it doesn’t mean Alex isn’t in there, too. I look into his eyes, trying to find any shred of Alex that might be left. There has to be something there.
And then something weird happens. Maybe it’s some newfound gift from Santa Muerte, maybe it’s something I’d just never tapped into before. I see Boudreau in there, see his soul taking root like invading kudzu, tendrils seething inside. An infection that won’t stop. It flows through empty channels, takes up residence like a squatter in an evacuated house.
And that’s when I know. He’s not lying. Alex’s body has been hollowed out, left empty for this new host. There’s nothing of him left.
I feel the air pick me up, slam me against the wall. Compress around me, hold me in place. I can’t move. Can’t breathe. He’s going to crush me. I try to break his hold, but it’s like arm wrestling a bear. It won’t work. Brute force won’t work. I need to do something he doesn’t expect.
I had practiced these moves in my mind for days before I tried it in Texas. That feels like years ago, a lifetime ago. But I remember them. I reach out, find what I’m looking for. Boudreau’s laughing. Good. He’s not paying attention to what’s behind him.
At least until Buzzcut’s headless body shoves the Browning against the back of his head and pulls the trigger. Alex’s head explodes. His body falls to the floor, spasming as it dies.
Dead Things Page 22