"No, but I can guess. But, uh, I thought humans were insignificant gnats to these things—how are the angry white guys going to have any power?"
"No idea. Maybe the book actually gives them some control over them. Or maybe they're willing to risk the end of the world because living in a world where white people aren't on top amounts to the same thing as far as they're concerned."
Laura paused and thought. "So what are we going to do? What can we do?"
"I don't know," Ted said. "How long do you think you'll have the van?"
"Killilea says two days max. And we're—shit, Ted, I have no idea! I don't know if there's anything to do besides arm ourselves and try to take as many of them out as we can when they start their ceremony in the mall."
"Shooting spree in the mall? Are you kidding?"
Laura looked slightly hurt. "Well, no. I mean, it's a last option, obviously, but if we're talking about saving the world . . . "
Ted's face was reddening. "Are you a good enough shot to avoid hitting that mom with the stroller on level three? Well, you probably are, but I'm sure as hell not. And I got away with a killing spree once—I don't think it would happen again."
"Goddammit, Ted, if they get away with this, it won't matter whether you're in jail or not! I . . . I mean, I don't have to tell you that doing the right thing is hard. We might have to spend the rest of our lives in jail to make sure the world is safe. That sucks for us, but maybe we're not the most important thing in the world!"
"No. Goddammit, no. I did that once. It can't keep coming down to me. It just can't. I was—fuck!" He was starting to cry. "I didn't know how horrible it was going to be last time, Laura, I just had to do it, and I'm not strong enough, I'm not brave enough, I can't . . . There's shit that happened that I've never told you, that I can't even bear to think about, the stuff that makes me wake up screaming, the stuff . . . I killed Steve, Laura. Did you know that? He cried and begged me to kill him right after they turned him and I cut his head off. It took two strokes, and I can still feel the axe kicking back in my hand when I hit his spine. It . . . it ruined me. You . . . I know you're impatient with me, that you don't get how I could still be so fucked up because you were there too, but you don't know what it's like! I was the one who had to swing the axe! I had . . . " Tears were streaming down his face. "I really liked Steve, and I . . . oh God! And I can't do it again, Laura I can't, I don't care if the world ends—if it all comes down to me again, if I'm all that stands between the world and Armageddon, it's just going to have to end. I've just done too much killing. I can't keep killing, I just can't."
Laura looked at him for a minute like she was going to yell at him, and then her face relaxed. "You know what? Let's just get some sleep. Maybe we'll think of something in the morning. They said they needed a couple of days to get the whole incantation right, so we can probably take a few hours off here and just get some sleep. We'll think more clearly when we've slept. And when we're not still half-buzzed on margaritas."
"She's really nice. She might be able to help."
"In the morning. Talk in the morning. Sleep now."
And so Ted found himself in bed with Laura, which was a circumstance he'd spent probably four years dreaming of before finally admitting to himself that it was impossible. He thought of Cayenne and was asleep in forty-seven seconds.
Twelve
Laura woke up early as the sun poured in the curtainless windows of Ted's apartment. She felt great—she'd slept like a log, the sun was shining, it was a nice spring day . . . and then she remembered everything. That the cultists knew how to open portholes to other dimensions, and were planning to do it in the mall, that they'd almost certainly succeed, and that, if they were right, it was going to be the end of the world as we know it.
Laura did not feel fine. She felt vaguely nauseous. And then she contemplated crawling back into the van for twelve hours. Well, fuck it. Killilea had made it pretty clear that Boston wasn't interested, DC wasn't interested, this was just a magic club to them. Well, she'd at least go poke around the temple and see if she could find something—anything that might convince Boston to devote some resources to this problem, enough men to take these guys out when they came in and started chanting.
Of course, this would be putting her career in jeopardy, since their warrant only covered electronic surveillance, and she'd be defying her supervisors, but what the hell. She had to do it—there was too much at stake. Was this how Ted felt when he was grabbing the fire axe the night he saved her soul? He'd never told her much about it—in fact, she'd had no idea he'd killed Steve, or how it felt to behead somebody (though she'd always had a morbid curiosity about that part). All he'd ever really told her was that he'd done two shots of tequila before he'd gone in there. But somehow he'd found the courage to focus on what was really important, and he was right—he'd done heavy lifting that she could only imagine, and it just wasn't fair to make sure it all came down to him again. She'd give him a gun to take them out if it came to that, but she needed to step up and take care of business. Ted had done it for her ten years ago, and Laura felt very strongly that it was her turn to do the same.
Her cell phone chirped, and Ted gave a groan of complaint from the bed. "Harker," she said. It was Killilea, who told her that he'd fought like hell, but the van had to go back tonight, so if they were going to find anything, they had to do it today.
Apparently the taxi whose number she'd recorded had dropped the guy at a Dunkin' Donuts, one of the cars they had a plate on had turned out to be stolen, and the third one was a rental, paid with a credit card issued to a Howard Phelps Lovecraft. The card issued to H. P. Lovecraft had a P. O. Box billing address, and the box had been rented by a guy named William Castle. Killilea gave Laura William Castle's home address and told her that they did not have a warrant, and that this investigation would be closed down by midnight anyway, so under no circumstances was she to go snooping around the house of this guy who'd left the temple after the magic trick last night.
Laura replied that she'd see Killilea in the van as soon as she was finished not doing any snooping.
"Be careful. You don't know what psychotic paranoids have in their houses, but it's probably nothing good, and we won't be able to use anything you'd find there anyway."
"Got it," Laura said, hanging up the phone.
A haggard-looking Ted was propped up on an elbow in bed. "Jesus, do you have to save the world before six in the freaking morning? Can you see that it's—"
"Hey," Laura said. "I . . . I want to tell you something."
"Is it 'turn over and go back to sleep'?"
"No, Ted, I'm being serious. I . . . I mean, you were right. I never knew how awful it was, I mean I figured it was awful, but I didn't know, and I just . . . well, thank you."
There was a pause. "You're welcome," Ted said.
"Okay. So it's not all going to come down to you this time, because at least you have me. But you need to get up. We've got a name and an address."
"Ugh. So? We know where to find these guys. What's the use of knowing where they live if your bosses don't believe they're up to anything?"
"I don't know. Maybe they'll have something essential to their task in the house, and we can steal it. Maybe there will be some kind of information that tells us more specifically what they're up to and how we can stop it. In any case, it feels better than doing nothing."
"I dunno—another couple of hours of sleep might feel even better. I had way too many margaritas last night."
"Boo hoo. You had to have dinner with some hottie while I sat in the back of a van and got constipated."
"Do you really think she's hot? I think she's pretty fantastic. I told her about the vampires, and about Queequeg's, and—boy, you do have a plumbing problem, don't you? Maybe you should see somebody about that . . . "
Laura took a deep breath, counted to ten, and tried to unclench her jaw. When she was confident she could say something in a calm tone of voice, she opened her mouth. "
You told her about Queequeg's?" Suddenly she was yelling. Apparently she wasn't ready to be calm after all. "You told her?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Ted, you are a moron! Aagh, that was so stupid, even for you! So you are a fugitive wanted for questioning in connection with a multiple murder, and you just told that to somebody you just met? That's great! The cops will be waiting at your cart this morning!"
"No they won't! I trust her! She believes me!"
"Honest to God, I don't know how you could be through everything you've been through and still manage to be so naïve. You can believe that people are trying to unleash supernatural forces, but the idea that a woman might be scared of the truth about you never even fucking occurs to you! Even though it's happened every single time! You tell somebody you're a fearless vampire killer and that you weren't really the guy who shot up that coffee shop, and she nods and smiles because she's terrified, and you think it's true love! You've just completely compromised your end of this! Jesus! I mean use your head for once!"
"Nothing's compromised! You weren't there! She believed me!"
"Christ. Well, I was there, briefly, but it doesn't matter. This always happens, Ted, you throw your trust away on these women, and usually it's just your heart that gets broken, but this time it's going to be—we don't know if an extra person in the mall is going to make the difference. You might have put the whole fucking world at risk!"
"I'm going to be in the mall, first of all . . . "
"You'll be there five minutes before Providence police take you away in cuffs, Ted."
"Bullshit!"
"It's not bullshit. It's the way any rational woman would respond to—"
"No—it's the way you would respond. Just because you don't trust anybody doesn't mean she's like you. And it damn sure doesn't mean I should be like you. Maybe I want to at least try to get close to somebody. Maybe I don't want to drive away every woman who's interested in me."
Laura was so angry she thought her head might explode. "You—you know what, fuck you. I have carried you for ten years, wiped your nose every time you had a bad dream, and okay, I owe you that, I owe you at least that much, but that doesn't mean it's been easy. I don't have the nightmares, okay, but I don't get to have a normal life either, okay? So, yeah, I don't have anybody else, because how am I going to explain why I have to take care of you? How am I even going to have time to get close to anybody? So don't throw that shit in my face, because it's your fucking fault! Okay? Okay?"
Tears were forming in Ted's eyes. "Get the hell out of my apartment," he said.
"It's my apartment. But I'm leaving anyway. Don't go to the mall. I'm not bailing you out this time."
Ted didn't say anything. He just looked at her as she left, and Laura felt like she'd kicked a puppy.
As she drove to William Castle's house, Laura kept punching the seat next to her. Fuck Ted and his fucking stupidity. Ruining the whole thing. Being right about her not trusting anybody. Well, she was right too—he had no idea what a burden he'd been—but as she replayed her three failed relationships from the last ten years . . . (Three! Jesus Christ—all those hormones and all that alcohol at college, and she'd only managed one in her three years of post-fire college. What the hell?) Perhaps Ted had a point about her not trusting anybody. Shit.
He also had a point about how a visit to William Castle's house would be pointless, but she was going to do this right anyway. Well, to do it right would be to get a warrant and knock on the door, but failing that, she was going to do a systematic search. She called 411 and got William Castle's home phone number. She blocked her number with *67 and called. She could hear the phone ringing inside the house, and no one answered.
She waited five minutes, then went to the door and rang the bell, preparing to whip out her badge and question him if he answered the door. She had no idea if it would be a good thing or a bad thing to announce that the FBI was aware of what was going on at the mall, but if William Castle got the idea that the might of the United States Government was working against him, it might cause him to at least postpone the mall operation. He'd never have to know that Laura was pretty much the only US Government employee who gave a shit about what was happening at the mall.
But William Castle did not come to the door. Laura checked the house and found no evidence of a security system. Which of course made it that much less likely she'd find anything of interest here, but she had to check. It was ridiculously easy to break in once she'd ascertained that nobody was home. The guy had an unlocked window right behind the gas grill on the back porch. He was practically asking for it. Laura slid on latex gloves, opened the window and crawled into what was supposed to be a pantry that held nothing but a few lonely cans of franks and beans. Moving as quickly and efficiently as she could, she examined the rest of the house and found nothing at all interesting. Linoleum that needed replacing on the kitchen floor. A fridge covered in dirty handprints containing a Coors Light longneck and a package of Fenway Franks, an old, filthy sofa parked in front of a thirty-six-inch television. No art on the walls. A few Lovecraft books were the only books in evidence, but that hardly counted as a lead. Some racist pamphlets sat atop the toilet with the filthy, brownish-yellow bowl, but that was protected free speech, and if Laura hadn't been so constipated, she would have been tempted to wipe her ass with them. She booted up the computer and poked through the hard drive. There was, of course, some pornography, but nothing more unusual than you'd probably find on the hard drive of every man with internet access, so they wouldn't even be able to nail the guy on kiddie porn charges. She quickly glanced at his documents file and saw a file titled "necro.pdf." Probably pornographic fiction about the guy's corpse fetish, but it was enough to make her want the entire documents file. She inserted her flash drive into the USB port and felt a surge of adrenaline as she heard a car door. She dragged his documents file onto the flash drive icon and saw the dialogue box pop up. "Copying file 1 of 562," it said, "30 seconds remaining."
She heard the rattle of keys outside the front door. "Copying file 124 of 562," the computer said. Should she pull the flash drive and run? The front door opened, making her choice for her. Finally the copying finished. She put one hand on her gun and, with the other, she yanked the flash drive from the side of the computer and stuck it into her pocket.
"What the fuck?" William Castle shouted. Great. He was at least a foot taller than Laura and probably twice her weight, and clearly shot steroids and pumped iron for a hobby. Fantastic.
Before William Castle could figure out exactly what the fuck, Laura drew her weapon and aimed it at his head.
"Sorry, Mr. Jimenez, but your ex-wife really needed a look at your financials, so I—"
Castle's face reddened. "Jimenez? I'm a member of the pure white race! Do I look like some kind of greasy—"
"You're going to look like a stain on the wall if you don't shut up."
"You're in the wrong house, you dumb bitch! I'm calling the cops!"
Laura leveled her gun at his head. "No you're not."
He looked her up and down. "Honestly, I don't think you've got the balls to shoot me dead in my own house. You look soft. I'm gonna take my chances." Smiling, he moved to the phone.
Laura knew he was right. Insane white supremacist Cthulhu cultist or not, she wasn't going to murder the guy. Fortunately, she wouldn't have to.
A swift kick to the groin sent William Castle to the floor before he could dial the second 1. Laura didn't want to get shot in the back, so she gave him quick disarming blows to the neck, stomach, knees, and, for good measure, the groin again.
"Krav Maga," she told the gasping William Castle. "Learned it from a Jew." She ran from the house and down the block to her car. She fired it up and drove away, feeling exhilarated. A part of her was alarmed at how good she felt. Just two days ago, when she was driving a desk, the idea that she'd ever use her Krav Maga training had seemed absurd. And now she'd just stolen some evidence and neutralized a man twice her weight.
"Yeah!" she shouted to the empty car. "That's some fucking law enforcement!" It was actually some law breaking, but she didn't care. She'd said she was willing to go to jail to save the world, and she'd much rather be in jail for crushing William Castle's steroid-shriveled nuts than for accidentally shooting a shopper in the Providence Towne Centre.
For all that, she had no idea whether the file she'd retrieved would be of any use at all, but her elation over cleaning William Castle's clock lasted until she got to the van. She tossed the flash drive to Killilea, who copied it onto the hard drive of his computer.
"Do I want to know where you got this?" Killilea asked.
"Pretty sure you don't," Laura said.
Killilea just smiled. "Okay then. We'll see if anybody can make anything of this and just make sure we wipe everything clean before the subpoenas start flying."
"Anything happening next door?" Laura asked.
"Zip," Killilea replied. "Haven't seen a single human enter or leave since they all ran out of there last night."
"So, I'm just wondering, if somebody were to go in there, might there be a chance that the equipment might malfunction and erase the portions of the tape that revealed their presence?"
"You are full of piss and vinegar, aren't you? But the answer is no—I mean, don't get me wrong. I like you and I think some extra-legal means might be called for in this case, but I've got three kids and a mortgage. I can't go destroying evidence and put my income and my pension and, for that matter, my freedom at risk. So if you're going to go in there, I have to tell you now that I will deny you were in here before or that I had any knowledge of what you were doing. But I can also tell you that given the official indifference to this location, at this point it's extraordinarily unlikely that anyone but me will ever look at this . . . "
The Mall of Cthulhu Page 12