“We have another level? I love this place!”
I hurried down the stairs to a massive and very dark basement. I had to run my hand along the walls to try to find a light switch. Two hours later, give or take, I found one and flipped it. A long line of fluorescent lights flashed on and off before taking hold and illuminating the area properly.
The room was huge. It had a few dented cabinets and a little trash here and there, but for the most part it was clean.
“Rocket?” I said, easing into the room. There was no telling what Rocket would do when summoned, which was why I rarely did it. He became disoriented easily. “It’s me, sweetheart. Charley.”
I looked to the right and found several markings in the wall. That’s what Rocket did. Wrote the names of those who passed. Well, scratched the names of those who passed into any wall he happened to be near. I used to believe he wrote everyone’s names, but I later found out he only wrote the names of Beep’s army. They were all good, all deserving, save one.
Since I’d learned the truth about whose names he wrote down and how, I remembered one tiny detail that hadn’t sat well. I wanted to ask him about it, but first I had to know about Belinda and her daughter.
It wasn’t until I realized Meiko had followed me that I rethought my mission. He didn’t need to hear if his mother and sister had also died. Or been killed.
He walked up beside me and slipped his hand in mine.
“I thought you were taking a nap,” I said, teasing him.
He giggled and shook his head. Little darling. Maybe I could trick Rocket into giving me the information without actually revealing their state of existence.
“Miss Charlotte?”
I looked over and saw Rocket huddled in a shadowed corner. I hurried over to him. “Rocket!”
He sat curled into himself, his arms covering his head as though he were about to be attacked.
I knelt beside him. “Rocket, sweetheart, what happened?”
Meiko petted his shoulder, and Rocket looked from under his arms at him. His mouth formed a sad half smile. Meiko smiled and patted his face just like he had mine.
“Rocket, what’s wrong? What happened?”
“Blue doesn’t like it here, Miss Charlotte.”
I sank to the ground, sitting beside him. “I’m sorry, hon. I know it’s not home, but—”
I rarely saw his little sister, Blue, but their new BFF, Rebecca—or, as I called her, Strawberry because of the Strawberry Shortcake pajamas she’d died in when she was nine—I saw on a semi-regular basis. Yet she was nowhere to be seen, either.
“Where is Blue, sweetheart?”
He pointed to a wall with no room on the other side, so there was no telling where she was.
“What about Strawberry?”
Again, he pointed to the wall. I turned and looked. Maybe there was a room. A hidden room with a secret doorway. Now we’re talking.
“I missed you,” I said to him.
“You were gone one hundred seven years, two months, fourteen days, twelve hours, and thirty-three minutes.”
Holy shit. I blinked and said aloud, “Holy shit.”
Meiko giggled and put a hand over my mouth.
“Crap,” I said from behind it, my voice muffled. “Sorry, hon. Cussing is bad.”
But my sparks had caught his attention, and he was back to bouncing around, trying to catch them.
Rocket tried to catch a couple himself.
“Sweetheart,” I said, grabbing his hands to get his attention, “how do you know how long I was gone?”
“Because I counted the seconds.”
I leaned forward and hugged him. He hugged me back and, as usual, I had a near-death experience.
“Rocket,” I said, my voice strained, “I need to give you some names.”
He nodded, still holding me tight, so I whispered the first one in his ear.
“Belinda Makayla Banks.”
Loosening his hold, his lashes fluttered as he thought. Or was it Blue? I’d discovered a few days before I left planet Earth that it was really Blue who knew the names of those who had passed. Every name of every person who’d ever died on Earth. It turned my world upside down. Made me doubt everything I thought I knew to be true.
He bounced back to me and shook his head. “No, no, no. Not her time.”
Relief washed over me, and my shoulders sagged.
Rocket started to get up, but I kept a hand on his shoulder, leaned in, and gave him another name. “Molly Makayla Banks.”
Again, he went into a trance as name after name flashed in his mind. He refocused on me and shook his head again. “Not her time. I can play now?”
Giddy with relief, I let him get up and said, “Thank you.”
He offered me a cheeky grin, then looked at Meiko. “He doesn’t have much time. He has to leave.”
“Wait, what?” Did he mean Meiko needed to cross? To leave this plane?
When he started toward Meiko to join him in the Catch Charley’s Light game, I scrambled up and stepped in front of him.
“Rocket,” I began, but he picked me up by the shoulders, set me to the side, and started walking again.
My light must reach pretty far, because Meiko had chased a spark all the way down the long room, bouncing and giggling while his arms waved in the air.
I hurried after Rocket, who was chasing one himself with a singular focus.
When I stepped in front of him again, he frowned and went to grab my arms. I shifted onto the celestial plane. His arms went right through me, and he stumbled forward. This made Meiko laugh harder.
Rocket scowled at me. “No cheating, Miss Charlotte. Cheating is against the rules.”
“I’m sorry, hon, but I have one more question.”
Even though I knew my question was against the rules—the odds of Rocket answering were slim to nil—I had to try. I needed know when Meiko had passed. Were his mother and sister in a dire situation? Was Belinda’s abductor spiraling into a homicidal state with the death of her son? If he could just tell me when he’d died, or how, it would help. Any information would help.
He drew in a deep breath, not that he needed it, and let his shoulders deflate like a petulant child.
I took advantage immediately. Rocket didn’t have the longest attention span. Not that I could talk.
“Meiko Banks.” I rushed it out, realizing I didn’t know his middle name. Crossing my fingers there weren’t two Meiko Bankses in the world, I waited.
Instead of his usual trancelike state, he just stared at me, looked at Meiko, then stared at me again.
“He’s right there, Miss Charlotte.”
“I know, hon, and I know this is breaking the rules, but can you tell me when he passed?”
His bewildered expression made me wonder if he thought me a tad insane. It happened to the best of us.
“He’s right there.”
It had been too much to hope.
He walked up to me and knocked, literally knocked, on my head. That was definitely a learned behavior, and I had to wonder who’d done that to him when he was alive. Rocket doing it to me was humorous, but the thought of someone doing it to him, taking advantage of his mental state, was not.
“He’s right there, Miss Charlotte. Not his time.”
“Not his . . . ?”
I pursed my lips. Realization slowly—very slowly—started to dawn, the barest hint of light peeking over the horizon of my consciousness.
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it. I repeated this behavior two more times before asking, “Rocket, are you telling me Meiko hasn’t passed away?”
“No, no, no. Not his time yet. But soon.”
I whirled around and studied the boy jumping to catch invisible light.
“He’s alive? Wait, soon?”
Rocket’s mouth formed an upside-down U. Or, in this situation, a rainbow, because this was about the best news I’d had in a hundred years.
“How long does he have?”
“But you said soon. You said not yet but soon.”
He shrugged. “You should have hurried faster. You’ve been gone too long, Miss Charlotte. Too long. Now he’ll find him.”
Alarm closed around my throat. His mother’s abductor? Was he going to kill him? Perhaps finish something he’d started earlier?
I needed more. I did need to know where, and I apparently needed to know soon.
Walking up to Meiko, I decided to take a chance. I knelt beside him. “Meiko, sweetheart, do you remember where you are? Where you woke up before you came here?”
Meiko patted my cheeks again, fascinated with my light, and shook his head.
Damn it. I’d have to put Amber on it when I wasn’t around. I was too much of a distraction. Now I knew how everyone around me felt. Like Meiko, I was easily distracted by shiny things.
Meiko put his hands over my eyes, and when he took them off, his face was one of stunned surprise. He did it again and gasped.
I looked at his hands. “What?”
“It goes through me.” He did it again and giggled.
Then, sadly, it was Rocket’s turn. Before I knew what he was going to do, Rocket slammed a hand over my face, knocking me back and almost bloodying my nose.
Because of this, he grabbed my whole head before I could recover in a second attempt, cutting off my oxygen supply. But it made him happy. Both of them. They laughed so hard they fell on the ground.
After a moment, I swatted Rocket’s hands away. “You guys have got to get a new hobby.”
Still giggling, Meiko took off after more sparks. It was my chance to ask Rocket one more question.
I filled my lungs and went for it, not sure I wanted the answer. “Rocket, do you remember the walls at the asylum?”
He nodded, really wanting to put his hands over my face again. I took his hand into mine instead, hoping that would work. It did. He looked down at them, fascinated.
I went for it. I asked about the exception to the rule. “Why did you have Earl Walker’s name on the wall? He can’t possibly be a part of Beep’s army. He’s . . . he was a monster.”
Earl Walker was the man who raised—if one could call it that—Reyes. He was the worst humanity had to offer. And yet Rocket had scratched his name on one of the walls in the asylum.
Rocket blinked, again looking at me like I was crazy. “His name was on the bad wall, Miss Charlotte. You know that.”
I didn’t, actually. “I wasn’t aware that you had a bad wall. What did those names mean?”
“They are bad.”
“Okay, I kind of figured that, but—”
“Bad people. They have to stand in the corner, but they’ll be back. They’ll come after her.”
Alarm jolted through me so fast, the edges of my vision darkened. “They come back?”
“From the fire. They are bad. Only bad people go into the fire.”
This was not happening. There were actually souls that Satan kept to . . . to what? Be in his own army when he faced my daughter?
Rocket was right. Only bad people went into the fire. Well, mostly. As with all things, there were exceptions to the rule. Garrett being one of them, but that was a long time ago. I was certain he was over the fact that Reyes had sent him to hell. Besides, it was only for a few seconds. Surely it didn’t cause permanent damage.
I felt a tug on the tips of my hair and turned to see Strawberry, a tiny blonde with more attitude than a runway model, trying to brush my hair.
I lurched back. The last time she’d brushed my hair, she’d done it with a filthy, broken toilet brush. This time she had an actual hairbrush. The travel kind that folded out. Still, there was no telling where that thing had been.
She pursed her lips and jammed her tiny hands on her hips. “Rocket has been very upset,” she said, chastising me thoroughly.
If I had a dollar for every time that girl chastised me, I’d have, like, thirty bucks. But still, thirty bucks was thirty bucks.
I grinned and pulled her into a hug. She fought me, but it had to be done. I got about three-quarters of a second before she wiggled out of my arms.
“He says the world doesn’t feel right anymore. He’s not writing names. He’s giving up.”
I pointed to the few names on one wall.
“He didn’t do that. I did. Someone has to do it.”
Well, crap on a Keebler. “I’m sorry, sweet pea. Reyes is going to build him a new place. It’ll be okay.”
“No, it won’t. His home is gone, and Blue won’t play anymore.”
Now, that did send up a red flag. “Where is she?”
Strawberry pointed to the same wall that Rocket had.
“Is there another room behind that wall?”
She walked over to it and bent to peek thought the concrete barrier. Straightening up, she said, “Nope.”
Okay, well, the structures of the earthly realm weren’t tangible in the supernatural one. Maybe Blue really was there.
Deciding to check it out, I shifted my molecules into supernatural mode and was immediately struck by the savage beauty of it all. Comparing the supernatural realm to the earthly one was like comparing a tempest of fire to a sunny spring day. Wind thrashed around me, whipping my hair about my head and scouring my skin. The abrasive texture of this realm only made it seem harsh. I’d learned to love it. The rustic colors. The fierce landscape.
I looked just past where the wall would have been and saw her sitting on a rock like she was looking out on the ocean. I walked toward her. She stiffened, so I stopped and spoke from where I stood.
I had to shout to be heard above the storm. “Blue?”
Though she didn’t turn around, she lowered her head. She’d heard me.
“I’m so sorry about your place, Blue. We’re going to build you another one.”
“It ain’t that,” she said softly, and somehow I heard her over the howling winds. “I miss my mama.”
My heart shattered. Blue had died in the thirties of dust pneumonia. I was surprised she still remembered her.
“Oh, sweetheart.” I walked closer, and she scooted over so I could sit by her.
Her short brown bob didn’t move in the wind like my hair did. Maybe that was the difference between being corporeal and incorporeal. She wore denim overalls and a dirty white shirt.
I climbed onto the rock and sat beside her.
“I miss mine, too.”
“Ain’t no girl don’t need her mama,” she said, her voice raspy.
“You are so very, very right.” I thought of my mother, and then I thought of Beep. “Hon, do you know what’s going on with the hell dimension?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You don’t got too long, now.”
Stress cramped my stomach. “Any thoughts on how we might close it?”
Shaking her head, she said, “But you do. You got thoughts. You just gotta listen to ’em.”
“I have to listen? Could you add a side of vague to that?”
She smiled up at me for the first time, and I wanted to hug her and pet her and squeeze her and possibly change her name to George.
Just when I thought we were bonding, she put a finger over her lips and said, “Shhhh, you just have to listen,” seconds before her molecules separated and she flew away on the wind.
And I thought my light was cool.
* * *
I ran back up the stairs and yelled to Cookie before remembering there were sleeping children on the premises. Not that my outburst would bother Quentin, but Amber might not appreciate it.
“They’re alive!” I said before catching myself. I burst into the commons and said in a loud drunk whisper, “They’re alive!”
“Who?” she asked as Ubie and Reyes turned interested expressions on me.
“All of them. Everyone. Even Meiko, but not for long. We have to find them, Cook.”
“M
eiko is alive?”
“Yes, and so is his mother and sister. First thing tomorrow, I need Amber and Quentin grilling that boy while I’m not around. We need anything. Any tidbit of information, even if it doesn’t seem important.”
“Got it, hon. Who are you calling?”
I’d picked up her phone, having no idea where mine was, and searched her contacts. “Do you have Kit’s number?”
She nodded, took her phone, and handed it back.
“You have her name under Special Agent Carson, FBI?”
“Yes. What do you have her name under?”
“SAC. But don’t call her that. She doesn’t appreciate the efficiency of it.”
I pressed her number and waited. And waited. And waited.
After what would have been seventeen years back in Marmalade, Kit picked up.
“Mrs. Davidson?” she asked, her voice all scraggly and unappealing.
“SAC, you’ve never called me that.”
“Charley?” I could see her bolting upright. Not literally, but in my mind’s eye. It seemed like something she’d do. “I thought . . . Cookie said you were gone.”
“I was. I’m back. Are you still in Albuquerque?”
“Where else would I be? Do you know what time it is?”
“No idea and not really. I need everything you have on Belinda Banks. And then I need you to leave town.”
After a loud crash and a few scraping sounds, she groaned and asked, “Why and why?”
“As of this moment, Belinda is still alive, and she may have had children with her abductor.”
Her voice went from groggy to alert in 1.2 seconds. “I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Perfect. Wait, how do you know where I am?”
“I’m assuming you’re with your brood?”
“Yes. But how do you know where they are?”
“Davidson, I’ve dedicated part of my life to keeping an eye on you and yours.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet.”
“That way, I’ll know where you are when I have to arrest you.”
I’d buy that.
9
I want to be the reason you
tilt your phone away from others when you read it.
—MEME
True to her word, Kit showed up twenty minutes later with the file on Belinda Banks. How she managed a trip from her apartment to her office and then all the way out here in twenty minutes was beyond me, but I wasn’t about to question her enthusiasm.
Summoned to Thirteenth Grave (Charley Davidson #13) Page 9