Haunted

by Kelley Armstrong

  Slowly, I stepped from the cell. The boy was right there. I jumped, letting out an oath. He waggled a finger at me, then motioned with the same finger, and took off.

  I hesitated, getting my bearings, then went after him.

  15

  THE BOY LED ME THROUGH YET ANOTHER BOARDED-UP door, into another room that stank of rot and stale air. There, wedged between two towers of rotting wooden crates, he'd hidden his stash of treasures--a handful of marbles, some colored stones, feathers, a tin cup painted sky blue, and a hand-sewn animal that was either a dog or an elephant.

  "I think you're missing something," I said as I crouched beside the pile.

  I pulled the green marble from my pocket. The boy gave a wordless chirp, then threw his arms around me. I hesitated, surprised, then hugged him back.

  "What's your name?" I asked.

  He only looked at me, smiled, and nodded.

  I pointed at myself. "Eve. I'm Eve. And you are...?"

  The smile brightened another few watts but, again, he answered only with a nod.

  "I'm going to help you get out of here. Take you someplace nice. Would you like that?"

  He nodded, still smiling. I suspected that if I asked whether he wanted me to take him dogsledding in Siberia, he'd have given the same nod and smile, having no clue what I meant, but perfectly amenable to anything I suggested.

  "We'll leave soon, hon," I said. "I just have to do one thing first. Find someone. Someone here." I paused.

  "Maybe you could help."

  His head bobbed frantically, and I knew that this time he understood me. So I described Amanda Sullivan. But as I did, his eyes clouded with disappointment, and he gave a slow shake of his head. Finding someone was a concept he understood--applying a verbal description to that person was beyond him.

  I concentrated on the news article I'd read, the one with Sullivan's photo, and tried to make it materialize. Nothing happened. No problem. My skills on this side might be weak, but I could do it easily enough in my own dimension, so after promising to be right back, I popped into the ghost world, conjured up the photo, and returned to the other side.

  "This is a picture of the woman I'm looking for."

  He let out a tiny shriek and dove behind me, clutching my leg, face buried against my thigh. I dropped to my knees. He pressed his face into my shoulder. His thin body quaked against mine and I cursed myself. He knew--or sensed--what Sullivan had done. For a few minutes I held him, patting his back and murmuring words of comfort. When he stopped shaking, I shoved the photo into my pocket.

  "Forget about her," I said. "Let's get you--"

  He grabbed my hand and tugged, his tear-streaked face determined. When I didn't move, he sighed in exasperation, released my hand, and took off. I raced after him.

  I followed the boy back through the underground row of cells, up through the hatch door, through the cell block, through a few more rooms, through another guard station and even more heavily armored doors, into a second, smaller cell block. All of these cells were full. The maximum-security ward. He led me to the last one. Inside, reading Ladies' Home Journal, was Amanda Sullivan.

  I turned to the boy. He'd ducked back behind the cell wall, so Sullivan couldn't see him.

  "It's okay," I said. "She can't hurt you. I promise."

  A slow smile, and a nod. He darted out, arms going around me in a tight, fleeting embrace. Then he raced off back down the hall.

  "No," I shouted, lunging after him. "Come--"

  A hand grabbed my arm. I turned to see Trsiel.

  "The boy," I said. "He's a ghost."

  "George."

  "You know him?"

  "His mother was an inmate. He was born here, and died here five years later. Smallpox."

  "He lived here?"

  "When George was born, the prison doctor was at home. Apparently, he decided not to lose any sleep by coming in. George was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. His mother's cellmate revived him but the damage to his brain was done."

  "So no one wanted him," I murmured.

  Trsiel nodded. "He was allowed to stay here, with his mother."

  "Why's he still here? Shouldn't someone--"

  "Rescue him? In the beginning, we tried, but he always found his way back here, like a homing pigeon."

  "Because this is all he knows. And he's happy here." I thought of the boy pretending to open doors before walking through them. "He doesn't realize he's dead."

  "Is there any reason to enlighten him?"

  I gave a slow shake of my head. "I guess not."

  "This"--Trsiel gestured at the building around us--

  "won't last forever. When they tear it down, or abandon it, we'll take the child, probably reincarnate him. In such a case, that's the most humane thing."

  "In the meantime, leaving him here is the most humane thing." I shook off thoughts of the boy and turned toward Amanda Sullivan. "That is candidate number one."

  As Trsiel looked over at her, his eyes blazed. His right hand clenched, as if gripping something...like the hilt of his sword.

  "Good choice," he said.

  "You can see already?"

  "Enough to know she's a good choice. More than that requires concentration." He glanced at me. "I could do this for you."

  "It's my job." I held out my hand. "Let's get it over with."

  A montage of images flipped past at hyperspeed, so fast I saw nothing but a blur of color. Then the reel slowed...on darkness. I waited, with growing impatience, like a theatergoer wondering when the curtain is going to rise.

  A voice floated past. "I want to hurt him. Hurt him like he hurt me."

  There are many ways to say this line, many shades of emotion to color and twist the words, most of them angry, the flash fire of passion, later repented, or the cold determination of hate. Yet in this recital, there was only the petulant whine of a spoiled child who'd grown into a spoiled adult, never learning that the world didn't owe her a perfect life.

  Another voice answered, a whisper that rose and fell with the cadence of a rowboat rocking on a gentle current. "How would you do that?"

  "I--I don't know." The pout came through loud and clear, then the demand. "Tell me."

  "No...you tell me."

  "I want to hurt him. Make him pay." A pause. "He doesn't love me anymore. He said so."

  "And what do you want to do about it?"

  "Take away what he does love." A trill of smug satisfaction, as if she'd surprised herself with her insight.

  "What would that be?"

  "The kids."

  "So why don't you do it?"

  I waited, tensed, expecting the obvious reason--the natural reason, mingled with a stab of horror for having thought of such a thing in the first place.

  "I'm afraid," she said.

  "Afraid of what?" the voice asked.

  "Of getting caught."

  I snarled and threw myself against the confines of the darkness that surrounded me.

  The voices vanished, and I found myself in a small room. I was humming, rubbing my hands together. I looked down at my hands. A bar of soap in one, a wash-cloth in the other. A splash and a shriek of delight. I looked up, still humming, to see three small children in the bathtub.

  I tried to wrench my consciousness free from Sullivan's, my mental self kicking and screaming. The scene went mercifully dark.

  Hate washed through me. Not my hate for her, but hers for another. I was back inside Amanda Sullivan, in another dark place. Dark and empty. The Nix was gone.

  Gone! The bitch! She abandoned me, left me here alone. She promised I wouldn't get caught. Promised, promised, promised!

  The world around me cleared, like a fog lifting. The endless litany of hate and blame and self-pity still looped through my brain. Before me sat a pleasant-looking man in a suit.

  "This voice..." the man said, his voice an even baritone. "Tell me more about the voice."

  "She told me to do it. She made me."

 
The man's eyes pierced Sullivan's, probing, not buying this line of bullshit for one second. "Are you sure?"

  "Of course I'm sure. She told me to do it."

  "But when you spoke to the police, you said she encouraged you. That's not the same as telling you."

  "My children were dead. Dead! And I used the wrong word, so fucking sue me, you son of a bitch. I was devastated." A practiced sob. "My world...ripped apart."

  "By your own hands."

  "No! She did it. She...she took me over. It was her idea--"

  "You said it was your idea. You thought of it--"

  "No!" Sullivan flew to her feet, spittle flying. "I didn't! I didn't think of it! It was her idea! Hers! All hers!"

  Again, the scene went dark. A few others passed by...the arraignment, the hearing where she'd been denied bail, the failed insanity bid, two attacks by fellow inmates who wanted her punished as much as I did. Then it ended.

  Trsiel released my hand.

  "Nothing," he said. "The Nix has crossed back."

  "Huh?"

  "She's returned to the ghost world, probably right after the crime. So long as she's there, the link between her and this partner is severed until she returns to this dimension."

  "What if we kill her?"

  Now it was Trsiel's turn to go "Huh," though he did it only with a frown.

  I continued, "We kill Sullivan, she goes to the ghost world, and hooks into the Nix there."

  He continued to frown.

  "What?" I said. "You don't think it'll work?"

  "Well, yes, I'm not sure it'll work, but I'm still stuck on the first part of the solution."

  "Killing her? Oh, please. Don't give me some cock-and-bull about letting human justice run its course. Screw that. She killed her kids. She deserves to die. That's what that big sword is for, right? Administering justice. Doesn't get any more just than that."

  "Yes, well, uh--"

  "You don't want to do it? Here, let me. Be a pleasure."

  For a moment, he just stared at me. Then he gave a sharp shake of his head. "We can't do it. Even if she were dead, I might not be able to contact the Nix through her."

  "So? No harm in trying. Worst thing that happens, she dies, goes to her hell and, whoops, it didn't work after all. What a shame."

  "No, Eve. We can't."

  I strode over to the bars and glared through at Sullivan, then turned that glare on Trsiel. "So her life is worth more than those of the Nix's next victims? Oh, geez, no, we can't kill this murdering bitch because that would be wrong. Fuck this! Tell you what, you've warned me, right? You've done your job. So how about you just pop back over to cloud nine, or wherever it is you guys hang out, and let me do my job."

  "You can't."

  "Can't read her mind? I know that. I can't follow her into her ghost-world dimension, either. That's your job. I'll just deliver her."

  "How? You can't influence anything in the living world, so you cannot kill her. That's my point. I understand that you want to stop the Nix before she takes more victims, but she won't. Not right now. While she's in the ghost world, she can't harm anyone. We just need to wait for her to resurface--"

  "So we just sit around and do nothing?"

  His gaze met mine. "This has happened before and it will happen again. Both of the angels who pursued her faced the same problem. The Nix crosses back to your ghost-world dimension and they can't find her until she resurfaces in the living world. All we need to do is keep an eye on this one." He gestured at Sullivan. "When the Nix comes back, she'll feel it."

  "What's she doing?"

  He looked at Sullivan, frowning.

  "No, not her. The Nix. You said she crosses back all the time. And does what?"

  He shrugged. "We don't know."

  "Well, shouldn't you? 'Cause she sure as hell ain't sunning herself in the Bahamas, enjoying a well-earned vacation. She's doing something."

  "It doesn't matter. She can't kill anyone--"

  "Yeah, yeah. Heard that part. Listen, you want to twiddle your thumbs, waiting for her to reappear, you do that. You said she was in my ghost-world dimension, right?"

  He nodded. "Having died in a witch's form, she's considered a supernatural shade, so--"

  "Good. Then I'll go look for her. If I need you, I'll call."

  His mouth set in a hard line. Before he could pry those lips open to argue, I left to find a partner more to my liking.

  Cleveland / 1938

  AGNES MILLER WAS A ZEALOT. SHE WAS ALSO MAD. THE latter, the Nix reflected, often seemed a prerequisite for the former. Or perhaps it was simply an unavoidable result of the former.

  Waxing philosophical. Not something the Nix was accustomed to. She blamed it on good eating. When the belly is full, and there's no need to worry about where your next meal is coming from, the mind can turn to the indulgence of philosophizing.

  "I need you," Agnes said.

  The Nix roused herself from her thoughts and peered out through Agnes's eyes. They stood behind a crumbling wall, looking down at a man sleeping at its foot, a ragged blanket pulled up under his chin.

  "Good choice," the Nix said.

  Agnes didn't acknowledge her. In Agnes's eyes, the Nix was a tool, not a partner--the only flaw in an otherwise perfect relationship. As flaws went, though, it was a large one, and becoming more frustrating--

  "I'm ready," Agnes said.

  She stood over the sleeping vagrant, cleaver raised like a guillotine. Not a bad way to go, really. The Nix knew that firsthand, which is why she'd tried to cajole Agnes from the start to change her method, but--

  "I'm ready," Agnes repeated.

  "Yes, yes."

  The Nix concentrated on pouring her demonic strength into Agnes's arms. That was all the woman required from her. When it came to resolve, she was already overflowing with it.

  The blade swung down, and the vagrant's head rolled to the side, eyes still closed. Hadn't even woken up. What was the fun in that? But that was one reason Agnes insisted on beheading--it was quick and merciful.

  Agnes set about working on the body.

  "This time they will pay attention," Agnes whispered aloud.

  "As I've said before, if you want them to pay attention, you have to kill more than petty criminals and vagrants, Agnes. Now, if you took a nice girl from a wealthy family...maybe the daughter of the mayor or the head of--"

  "That is not the point," Agnes snarled. "The point is this..."

  Her hand swept across the festering wound that was the landscape surrounding the Cuyahoga River. Blast furnaces and mills squatted like ogres, belching black smoke. The stink of sulfur was so strong the Nix knew she'd be smelling it on Agnes for days, long after she'd returned to her little house and scrubbed the filth of Kingsbury Run from her skin.

  "It's a disgrace," Agnes said, as she gestured toward the rusted shacks of Hobotown. "A national disgrace. They come here from everywhere, lured by the promise of work. They leave their homes, their families, because they want a job, to work hard, make a living, and contribute to society. And how does society treat them? Tells them there are no jobs. Grinds their self-worth into the dust. And then, when they're too humiliated by failure to return home, it gives them this--this hell to live in."

  The Nix started to respond, but Agnes was on a roll, her audience forgotten.

  "They leave them here, in conditions not fit for dogs, in the very shadow of that." She pointed to a skyscraper that rose above the squalor, sparkling in the moonlight. "The Terminal Tower. One of the tallest buildings in the world. Such an accomplishment." Her lip curled. "A monument indeed--to the greed of America, lording it over these poor souls, forever taunting them with what they will never have."

  The Nix waited another moment to make sure Agnes was done. "But still, killing them doesn't seem to be helping."

  "It will. Mark my words. Soon the blind shall see. Even that arrogant boy shall see."

  The Nix didn't need to ask who the "arrogant boy" was...she didn't want to sit through
another diatribe on the ineptitude and inexperience of Eliot Ness. The year before, Mayor Burton had appointed the young man as Cleveland's safety director, head of the police and fire departments. As good as Ness was at cleaning up mobsters and gambling dens, he--and the rest of his force--were clueless when it came to the serial killer in their midst.

  "Six victims, all decapitated," Agnes stormed. "Do you know how rare that is?"

  "Um-hmm," the Nix said, stifling a yawn.

  "But do they see the connection? Oh, dear me, we seem to have an unrelated rash of beheadings in the city. Fancy that."

  "They're starting to pay attention," the Nix said. "Articles in every major paper after that last one. The fear is spreading."

  "And spread it shall. Like wildfire, purifying the city."

  The Nix smiled. This was more like it. "A veritable feast of fear."

  "And well they should fear. The wrath of God is upon them--"

  "Um, Agnes? It's getting late. It'll be dawn soon."

  "Oh?" Agnes looked into the sky. "So it will. Thank you."

  The Nix gave Agnes the strength to cut the vagrant's torso in two.

  "Are you taking this one back to Kingsbury Run?"

  Agnes nodded and kept cutting.

  "May I make a suggestion?"

  Another abrupt nod as Agnes began to saw off the legs.

  "Throw the pieces in the creek. Someone's bound to see one of them floating along. But hide the head." She paused. "And maybe the hands. Yes, hide the head and the hands. They'll need to call in help to dredge the creek, and that's bound to draw attention."

  Agnes rocked back on her heels and stared out into the night, then nodded. "Yes, I think I shall. Thank you."

  "I'm here to help."

  The Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Agnes hated the name the press had given her. The Nix agreed it was rather harsh. Mad? Yes. But "butcher" was uncalled for. Agnes was a qualified surgeon, and the expert dissection should have made that clear.

  Several people had speculated that the killer was indeed a surgeon, maybe even a crusader, but the public preferred the image of a raging maniac with a meat cleaver and bloodstained apron. If that scared them more, well, the Nix wasn't about to argue.

  Some had even whispered that the killer could be a woman, because the first two victims had been emasculated, but this idea was quickly shot down. No woman would ever do such a thing--to suggest it was to taint the very notion of womanhood. That had made the Nix laugh so hard she'd nearly popped right out of Agnes's body. Clearly these people didn't run in the same circles she did.