“Tell me about it,” she interrupted, before he hushed her back into silence.
“There’s some kind of problem with the house. I think it wants me to fix it.”
“I got that much,” she replied. “I’m getting the same message here.”
“Well then, let’s see if we can do something about it.”
He saw the Reaper point over his shoulder and turned to look. There was a door in the wall of the tower, white, peeling paint, with a copper number six. John nodded. He was starting to see more clearly.
“Meet me in the crime scene apartment if you can. We’ll see what the two of us together can do.”
Janis didn’t reply, he wasn’t even sure she’d heard him. He heard a scuffle, a soft ‘oh, shit, not again,’ and the line went quiet. When he tried again, there was no signal.
He looked up and saw the Reaper smile at him.
“So, what, I can just walk through there and be back?”
“It’s not as simple as that I’m afraid. This is chess, remember. There are many possible routes to the endgame.”
“So, what are my options?”
The Reaper smiled.
“You come with me, and we see what’s in our dreams,” he said, then flickered again. The Rat King sat across the table, strumming on the National guitar. “Or you take my offer, King of all we survey, free to fly.”
“And the third, the door?”
The Reaper was back.
“You do your thing. You protect, you serve, you watch. If you can plug the leak, but it is by no means certain it is possible, that dream has yet to be dreamed.”
“But I’d be helping Janis?”
“You’d be helping, at a distance, a lot more than just her. I am bound now. I have said my piece, made my play. It’s your move.”
24
“Oh shit, not again.”
Janis had been keeping an eye on the stairwell while she talked, impossibly, with John Green, and a sudden movement, a shift in the shadows, startled her and caused her to twitch involuntarily. She dropped the phone, but ignored it and reached for her weapon. The hallway of the second floor at the top of the stairs was dark, but something darker still stood there. She was coming to know the outline only too well. It was another of the dolls, and it was blocking her passage upward.
She didn’t think it was a coincidence that it had happened as soon as the boss mentioned meeting her in number six. She had just recently stopped believing in coincidences.
The phone was lying at her feet. She chanced a look down, hoping to see the screen still lit, to hear John again but it had gone dark and quiet, as dark and quiet as the stairs ahead of her. He’d said he’d meet her in the crime scene apartment and she intended to keep that appointment.
She bent, not taking her eyes off the shadowy figure on the landing above, and replaced the phone in its hip case before raising her gun, aiming straight at the doll, and, without hesitation, stepping up onto the first stair.
The darkness above swirled, as if the skylight at the top of the stairwell had grown dark. The small lavatory at the top of the stairs had some soft light seeping through the frosted glass from inside, but that too dimmed, throwing the whole of the landing ahead into darkness. She couldn’t even see the deeper shadow of the doll, but she knew it hadn’t moved. It was there, waiting for her, and now the only light Janis had was coming from behind her, from the small window above the main door. If it too went dark, she’d be struggling to even see the next step ahead of her, never mind see any attack coming from above.
Something doesn’t want me going up there.
A whisper came from behind her, Apartment Two judging by the direction.
The house is broken. Help us.
And maybe, just maybe, something else actually needed her to go up, go up and help John. Fixing problems was their job, when all was said and done.
She took another step.
The darkness lifted, only slightly, but it seemed as if it was retreating ahead of her, and Janis no longer felt like the hunted;, she felt like the hunter.
I’m the one in control here.
The darkness lifted further, the light shifting and throwing dancing shadows across the upper hallway, where two dolls stood at the top of the stairs, dead blue eyes staring directly at her.
Janis stared right back at them and showed them the gun.
“I’m guessing you know what I did to your sister in the basement,” she said, “and if you’re still standing there when I reach the top of the stairs, you’ll get some of the same.”
The dolls danced a little jig, six pattering steps each of porcelain on wood, then turned and looked at each other. Janis didn’t hear any speech, but it was obvious there was some kind of communication between the two of them, for without a sound they joined hands, turned away, and ran off. She heard their footsteps on the stairs, heading up to the top floor.
Round one to me, then.
She walked up the stairs, they stayed as steps, with none of the elongating, receding away effect she’d experienced earlier. As she neared the top a shadow moved behind the frosted glass of the lavatory door.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay in there,” she said loudly.
A Scottish voice replied, softly.
“Aye, okay then, lass, just leave me in peace. I’ve done my bit, it’s your turn now.”
The shadow moved again, and she smelled his stink, but the light softened and the movement stopped, and once again the place fell quiet around her. She kept a close eye on it, but the door stayed shut as she stepped up onto the landing.
She was about to turn and start up to the top floor when the door to Apartment Four swung open.
She took three steps over and looked inside, ready to fire should there be a sudden attack. But it seemed this was another show and tell. The room inside was an homage to a certain period of British culture, somewhere around the mid Sixties. Most of the furniture was bright white, curved, plastic and shiny; an afghan rug lay sprawled like a heavily laundered dead sheep on the floor, and a variety of lava lamps bubbled on glass-topped tables. The only thing that looked remotely comfortable was a hideous bright red leatherette sofa that dominated the wall under the fog-filled windows of the small apartment. A woman sat on it, legs curled beneath her, her miniskirt hoisted up, showing lurid purple tights and an expanse of wrinkled thigh. In her right hand, she held a long cigarette holder, ebony by the looks of it, and the air stank of stale tobacco and menthol. She had been crying, the panda rings of blue eye shadow starting to run down her cheeks. Her platinum blonde wig had skewed off slightly, giving her a lopsided look, and her lipstick, purple to match the tights, had been smeared across much of the lower half of her face.
There was a man in the room too, and Janis recognized him. She’d last seen him downstairs, cradling a guitar and listening to a tape player. The seated woman pointed at a long, low coffee table on which sat a reel-to-reel tape recorder that seemed to be molded from lime green plastic.
“It’s Derek. Something’s wrong with Derek.” The old woman was close to tears.
“What seems to be the matter?” the man said.
“Something’s wrong with Derek,” she said again, speaking slowly and enunciating each word as if speaking to a child. “What bit of that don’t you understand?”
The man went over and switched on the tape player. Another man’s voice started up, something about a wizard, a dragon and a quest. Two stanzas in, the noise started in the background. It sounded at first like a flaw in the tape, a scratch or a tear. Then the noise came again, it sounded like an animal, a dog perhaps, sniffing and snuffling, like they do when they’re looking for something. As the tape played on, the noise rose and rose until it was almost drowning out the bad poetry.
“Switch it off,” the woman shouted from the sofa. “Just switch it off.”
The man did as he was told, but the sound of the snuffling seemed to continue to echo around the room long after th
e reels stopped spinning.
“Something’s wrong with Derek,” the woman whispered through fresh tears. “Fix it. That’s your job, isn’t it? Just get it fixed.”
She looked straight at Janis as the door swung closed.
Janis remembered John’s words from their interrupted phone call.
“There’s some kind of problem with the house, I think it wants me to fix it.”
Tell me about it.
It was obvious now to Janis that there was normally someone in charge of what went on in the house, a concierge, for want of a better word. And there didn’t seem to be one around now.
Maybe that’s the problem in a nutshell.
Whatever the case, it had sounded like John had at least some kind of handle on what was happening. And if he was in room six, she intended to meet him there.
And woe betide anything that gets in my way.
She turned onto the flight of stairs that would take her up to the top floor. Tiny footsteps, porcelain on wood, tap danced overhead in anticipation.
25
Todd checked to make sure he still had the plastic envelope and its contents tucked safely inside his jacket. He walked briskly, almost a jog, intent on putting as much distance between himself and the station as he could before his absence was discovered.
He’d known what he had to do almost as soon as he’d got over, for now at least, the shock of finding Sam dead in the cells. If he’d stayed there until anyone else came along he’d have to find some way of explaining the carnage that had been wreaked both on her, and on the duty sergeant in the corridor.
I don’t have any clue what I could say, I’d be under suspicion, locked down, unable to do anything. I’ll still be under suspicion if I bail now, but at least I’ll have a chance to do something about it.
He’d turned away and headed straight back to the Forensic Lab. Doug was still at the door, still looking in through the window. He turned as Todd approached.
“What did you do?” he asked.
“Me? I didn’t do a thing.”
“Well, somebody did,” he said, and waved toward the door. “Have a look.”
Todd looked inside. There was no sign of any infestation of eggs, no sign at all that anything untoward had happened inside the lab.
“They just popped, a blaze of color, then were gone,” Doug said. “I thought I heard some old guy singing but I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything tonight.”
“Welcome to the club,” Todd said, and opened the door, crossing himself as he went in. He hadn’t done that since leaving school ten years before, but old habits die hard, particularly in a situation like this one. He flinched, expecting an attack, or more singing, more eggs, but there was nothing. The room seemed to hum and shiver, as if something had just left, but he made it to the evidence desk without anything attacking him or anyone singing in his ear.
Ten seconds later he was back out, joining Doug in the corridor. He carried the plastic envelope with Peter Hines’ painting inside.
“I wasn’t here, I didn’t take this,” he said to Doug, who was still staring, wide-eyed into the room. “You hear me? I need you to do this for me.”
Doug finally turned around to look Todd in the eye.
“You know what’s happening here, don’t you?”
“Not yet,” Todd said, “but I’m getting there. Remember, I was never here.”
With that he’d left Doug in the corridor and taken the back exit out of the station. It was quiet out there; although he could see flashing lights and hear the hubbub out front, nobody got in his way as he headed off into the night.
Now here he was, heading for the house on Church Street, with only the vaguest idea of what he’d do when he got there. He only knew that the painting he carried was the focus of the whole matter, at least that’s what Sam had said before. Before… he put that thought away. He couldn’t think about the blonde right now. Maybe later, when events had a chance to sink in. For now, his first goal was getting to the house and getting the painting back inside, before it could spread any more mayhem out here in the town.
He thought he’d got away from the station without being noticed, but now he wasn’t so sure. It had started to snow again just as he left the rear parking area, thin stuff and unlikely to lie much beyond sunrise. His were the only footprints in the fresh fall, it being so late into the night. But his instincts told him he wasn’t alone here in the dark. At first, he thought it was more high weirdness seeping from the thing inside his jacket but, twice now, he thought he’d heard the sound of huge wings beating overhead, and the second time the snow seemed to swirl and flurry, as if something had swooped just overhead.
He kept to the sidewalk, hugging as close to the buildings as he could and scurrying across junctions when he had to step out into the open. Every second of it he walked in fear of the eggs coming again, inside his jacket, swelling and bulging and popping and releasing winged demons in a multitude to terrorize and maim.
He was thinking about Sam again, about her poor, gutted body spread-eagled on the cell floor.
I failed her. I should have believed her much earlier.
He pushed that away too, it wasn’t helping.
By the time he reached the house he was running full pelt, feet threatening to slide and slip under him at every step, slightly off balance due to having a hand inside his jacket, holding the plastic envelope in place. It felt warm, slightly damp, like a lump of steak fresh from the shop.
Huge wings beat, directly overhead, as he reached the door, turned the handle, and leapt into the hallway. The door slammed shut behind him just as something impossibly heavy hit it on the other side, shaking the whole house with a thud that echoed up the stairwell before leaving Todd lying on the floor in the silent dark.
26
The Reaper looked across the board.
“Well, your knight move has opened up the play, and I’d say our chances are now just about even. Have you decided? What’s your endgame strategy?”
John lit a smoke. If it was going to be his last one he intended to enjoy it, and pushed himself away from the table and board. He looked out over the vast vista of bubbling black eggs.
“So many possibilities,” he whispered.
“And so few actual choices,” the Reaper replied. “It was ever thus. You’re going back through then?”
John nodded.
“I always protect my queen, all my pieces really, it’s who I am. That won’t change, no matter where I go.”
The Reaper stood from the table. He put his hand on the scythe, rippled again, and it was the Rat King who stepped round to John’s side. It wasn’t a scythe, but an old battered National guitar that he handed over in his right hand. In his left he had the pack of Camels and the Zippo lighter.
“You’ll need this, and the smokes too. It’s kind of traditional. And singing helps, don’t forget that. I may see you again someday, when you feel you’ve done enough protecting, or maybe sooner, if you fail to plug the leak. Who knows? Who ever knows anything?”
The Rat King turned away and launched his body off the balcony, catching a draft and soaring, just above the eggs, as agile as any gull, until he gained height and disappeared up into the fog. The last John saw was a pink tail, twitching, and he heard a high voice, singing.
Where he lies, where he lies, where he lies, where he lies.
The Dreaming God is singing where he lies.
When John looked back, the balcony was empty; even the table, chairs, and chess set were gone. There was just the balcony, the sea of eggs ahead and the doorway at his back. He dragged his gaze away from the view and faced the white, peeling paint of the door.
He checked his phone again, but it had gone dark and silent. If he wanted to help Janis, he had to go through, but now that he was standing here, he found himself strangely reluctant to do so. The view from the balcony was enticing, bewitching even, and he felt strangely at peace, here on the edge of all things. Even the wounds in his be
lly had dulled to an ache that was hardly noticeable. Thinking of them made him think of Janis again, and the house back there. The Reaper had said he’d made it through because of his wounds, his sigil, and his pain.
Janis had neither. And he hadn’t told her that bit.
He put the smokes and lighter in his pocket, took the guitar in his left hand and walked up to the door. Without hesitating he pushed it open and walked though.
He wasn’t at all surprised to be back in number six, the dingy, dilapidated number six, with the old comfy chair and the static dancing on the television set. Even the fog swirling outside the window felt comforting somehow. He thought he’d been content back there on the balcony but this felt different again. This almost felt like home. He took one last look back at the balcony and the mass of black eggs; one last look at what was possible. An egg rose up, right next to the balcony edge, and popped. John saw a sandy beach, warm sun, and turquoise seas with long days of languid lounging.
He wasn’t even tempted. He closed the door, gently, and walked over to the chair, stroking its back as if it was an old friend or a favorite pet. He eyed the bottle of Scotch, it was full again; he suspected it would always be full here, but turned his back on it and took out his phone.
He had hoped that, now he was back, at least partially, he’d be able to talk to Janis again, but the phone stayed dark and silent. The fog continued to swirl outside the window, and the static kept dancing on the television.
Now what am I supposed to do?
He headed back for the door, but before he got there he heard scratching on the other side, scratching and the beat of leathery wings, all that waited for him there were his Burdens, blocking any backward step, the way they had been since this all started.
He almost leapt when the television stuttered with a hiss of static then the sound of rapid, small footsteps. A picture started to form: Janis climbing the stairs, reaching the top landing. John turned and went to the door again.
She must be just outside.
Songs of Dreaming Gods Page 16