Shades of Memory

by Diana Pharaoh Francis

  Let’s just say the deaths of Dimitriou, Castillo, and Kinsey weren’t all that unexpected.

  “What? No, Kinsey isn’t dead.”

  Yet.

  Doubt and self-loathing churned in Gregg’s gut. Had he called in hits on them? On Cass, too? She was practically family. They all were.

  And yet you are at war with your only brother. How much can family really mean to you?

  Gregg roared and struck the wall with his fist. His hand went through the drywall and met a plate of steel on the other side of the studs. He reveled in the pain. It was his. He’d caused it, no one else. No damned puppet master hiding inside his fucking brain. Gregg wrenched his fist out of the hole, and he pounded it again and again until it was a bloody pulp, his bones shattered into bits.

  The rage seemed to loosen the hold of the dream jockey riding him. Or maybe the bastard didn’t care if Gregg hurt himself. He might even enjoy the spectacle.

  Gregg stood thinking, his arms dangling, blood dripping to the floor as he panted. He was a bear caught in a trap. He’d be damned if he’d be a pawn in someone else’s game. As if he had any choice. His mouth tightened, and arctic determination settled over him. He’d find a choice and shove it up this motherfucker’s ass.

  Taunting laughter. Try.

  “You can count on it,” Gregg said and then without a clue what to do, he stepped into dreamspace.

  Chapter 28

  Riley

  THE WIND AND SNOW continued to whirl around us as we made our way down the hill, though it had lightened from a category-holy-shit blizzard to just a don’t-want-to-be-out-in-it storm. Price pushed a wedge through the drifts in front of us, cutting a path down to the earth.

  “What are the odds Arnow waited for us to go in?” I walked behind him so that he didn’t have to work so hard making a wide path.

  “What would the odds have been of you waiting if people you cared about were inside?”

  He had a point.

  “Maybe we should hurry.”

  I’d made sure that Arnow’s trace clung to me. Now I reached into the trace dimension and grabbed hold of it and twisted it around my wrist. Instantly I could read her emotions.

  “She’s not in trouble,” I said, feeling only steely determination, a deep-seated rage that probably would burn until the day she died, topped off by a whole lot of worry. The second something bad happened to her, I’d know.

  I was also monitoring the traces of the hostages. I hadn’t grabbed their traces. I didn’t want to get stuck in their suffering or their deaths if the killer started cleaning house. Either one could be debilitating to the point of turning me useless for days. This was a really bad time to turn into a paperweight.

  The split rail fencing around the compound had vanished. I had to take Price’s word for it that we’d crossed inside. I could see the shadows of the loafing sheds hulking up out of the white gloom. That meant he’d protected the animals. A wash of relief ran through me. Thank you, God.

  A jolt hit me from Arnow’s trace. Shock. Pain. A lot of it. I recoiled and gasped. Anger roared up inside her, and then her emotions settled. No, she flattened them. I could feel them beyond a layer of iron control.

  “Something’s happened to Arnow,” I told Price.

  Price’s answer was to break into a fast jog. I kept up easily, though my attention focused on the Ice Bitch. Oh hell. Had I started actually liking her enough to be worried about her? What was next? Dogs and cats living in sin?

  “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts,” I muttered. Serial killers on the other hand . . .

  “What?” Price glanced back at me.

  “Can’t we go any faster?”

  He quickened his pace. The wind-wedge running ahead of us sent up a white smoke of snow, coating my head and face. I blinked away the stuff crusting on my eyelashes, ducking my head to avoid the worst of it.

  Price slowed before I noticed, and I thumped into him. We stood just outside the front of the big blue farmhouse. It looked like it had been built to look turn of the century. The roof was slate, and there was a pair of French doors leading out onto the wrap-around porch.

  “I’m letting the storm go now,” Price said. Like it would be that easy.

  All of a sudden, the wind went wild, zinging and skipping in every direction. Snow spun and danced, then sputtered up in a cold geyser, then whipped into a tight whirlwind before exploding outward. I twisted and ducked, but it still knocked me face-first onto the ground. When it finished with me, I got to my feet and looked for Price. He stood a few feet away. His hands were clamped into fists, his jaw thrust out, all the muscles in his body knotting. A jolt ran through him. His mouth twisted. Short breaths blew out of his nose as his obvious effort increased.

  I had a feeling he was facing the same wild magic situation I had with the security wall. I wanted to offer advice, but didn’t dare distract him. Just noticing me could shatter his concentration. So I drew my gun and stepped in front of him as a shield in case Matthew appeared. Then I waited.

  The air vibrated, and ripples ran through it. Breathing was strange, to say the least. Arnow’s trace stopped giving me clues to her well-being or lack thereof. She’d shut herself down cold. I had to admire that kind of control. I was a walking stick of TNT just looking for a spark. She was titanium sitting in a bath of liquid nitrogen.

  Did that mean I deserved a prize for being able to pop her control? That probably shouldn’t have been something I took pride in, but I did. I’m petty like that sometimes. Not that she didn’t gloat like a hyena in a butcher shop when she got under my skin. So it worked out.

  I examined the front of the house, scouring the windows for signs of movement. I felt incredibly vulnerable. I didn’t do frontal assaults. I was the sneak in the shadows. I didn’t have an attack magic—at least none that I’d successfully managed. Everything I did was strictly defense. Even holding a gun and trained in hand-to-hand, I knew backdoor attacks always worked better than the ram-through-the-front-door kind. Most of the bad guys had guns too, and just as much training.

  I twitched when I saw a curtain move on the second story. I raised my gun, but the movement didn’t repeat. Maybe I hadn’t seen it at all. Maybe my brain was in overdrive, and I was seeing danger where there wasn’t any.

  The sound of three quick, muffled gunshots made me jump halfway out of my skin. Price didn’t seem to have heard. For a moment I wavered between leaving him unprotected and going in after Arnow and the hostages. Not that he was really unprotected. He had the power of an incredible talent.

  “I’m going inside.”

  He didn’t react to that, either. I hesitated, and then slogged through the snow up onto the porch. The last blast from Price had buried it under several feet of snow. I kicked aside enough to pull open the screen door, and then twisted the handle on the front door.

  Why had I been expecting it to open? I reached into my pocket for my ever-present set of picks and had the door open in under thirty seconds. It wasn’t that good a lock. But then, it wasn’t really what had been protecting the place. That had been the security net.

  I glanced back at Price. It occurred to me that I might not see him again. “I’m going inside” was a crappy way to say good-bye forever if I ended up with a hole in my skull. Not that I wanted to make any sort of grandiose exit. That would totally jinx me. I rolled my eyes at my idiocy. How old was I anyhow?

  Old enough to know I was waffling when I should be moving. If I made Matthew worry about me, he wouldn’t have time to worry about Price. That settled it.

  The door creaked when I nudged it open. I’d expected it. An extra alarm for those of a paranoid bent. The house was dark inside, lit only by the light coming in from the windows, which wasn’t much.

  Once inside, I went into cat burglar mode, gliding across the wood entryway
to an arch leading into the rest of the house. I peered out into the room beyond. It wasn’t so much a room as a giant kitchen/dining room/living room/game room setup. On the right wall was a massive stone fireplace with leather couches and chairs surrounding it. I could smell the leather and the fragrance of burning cedar. On the right stood a pool table. A dining table long enough to seat twenty marked the entry to the kitchen.

  It shone with wood-clad appliances, white counters, and warm pendant lights with blown glass shades. A set of French doors led off into another room. Between the broad windows hung elk, moose, and deer heads. The entire space screamed “elegant hunting lodge for the rich and famous.”

  I saw no signs of life. Not even crumbs on the counter or a wadded napkin on the table. Crouching, I slid from shadow to shadow, listening for anything out of place. The wind outside continued to sough. The fire crackled and settled, the flames burning low on the glowing coals.

  I quickly discovered that the large open living area was misleading. The big place was compartmentalized into a ton of rooms, hallways, and stairways going who knew where. I opened myself to the trace, feeling my power swirling up inside me, potent and ready.

  The energy of Arnow’s trace was dulled and vaguely clotted. The cold calm had lifted some, and I could feel pain, frustration, anger, and fear. I doubted the last was for herself. She didn’t scare easily. Even though I’d only known her a few months, the only thing I’d ever seen her scared of was letting her people down and getting them killed. It was the thing I liked most about her. Maybe the only thing, but it was a big one. She wasn’t the selfish bitch I’d thought she was. She was driven by demons I couldn’t begin to imagine, and she still would kill herself to protect her own.

  It was my own little acre of crazy that demanded I not only had to help her, but maybe die trying. Or maybe it was that I’d decided she was one of my little flock and that meant we’d all die for each other, though at this point, I wasn’t so sure she would agree to performing her part of that deal when push came to shove.

  Loyalty is something you earn. Fair enough. Time to put my money where my mouth was and start earning some loyalty.

  I moved my search deeper into the house. It wasn’t very old, so the floors didn’t creak, but it paid to be careful anyway. I passed a couple of stairways going up, and then went through a solarium with three walls made out of windows and a fireplace in the one that wasn’t. The grate was cold and the room chilly, the windows crusted with frozen condensation. Several dozen dead plants decorated the room.

  I went into one of the two doors leading off the opposite side. That’s when things started getting creepy. The walls and ceiling were painted stark white and covered with words and symbols drawn in rusty red. The smell told me the ink was blood. The wood floor was scarred with carvings and burns, the symbols almost seeming to writhe as I looked them.

  Stepping inside that hallway took all I had. My claustrophobia kicked into high gear. I felt like I was walking into Satan’s mouth. A fun house ride taking me straight to hell.

  To distract myself, I wondered what had driven the boy Arnow had described to such monstrosity. Duh. Savannah Morrell. She could have driven Gandhi to murder. The major question was what exactly did Matthew want and how were we going to stop him?

  A lot of trace ran along the corridor. I recognized the ribbons of the hostages, Arnow’s vigilantes, and Arnow. That still left several dozen. I crouched, reaching into the frigid cold of the spirit dimension and ran my fingers over them like guitar strings, not long enough to know a whole lot about any of the people, but I figured I’d know which belonged to Matthew the Twenty-First-Century Ripper the second I touched his trace.

  It still wasn’t what I expected. I expected that it would feel like the heart of evil—malevolent and oozing corruption. This killer felt desperate, angry, hurt, vengeful, and heartbroken, and running all over the top of that cocktail was a giant dose of despair. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought the guy on the other end of the trace was maybe fourteen or fifteen. Sixteen tops. Only he was at least seven years older than Arnow, and I figured she had a couple or so years on me.

  I took hold of his trace and twisted it around my other wrist before pulling my hand out of the deathly cold spirit realm. I couldn’t help thinking of my mother. I’d promised to go talk to her. She’d been trying to corner me for months, but every time I felt good enough to go into the spirit realm to go hear what she had to tell me, I was in the middle of a catastrophe. I sent a mental apology and promised myself that as soon as I survived this rescue and got the hostages back and got things nailed down with Savannah’s lieutenants, I’d go see my mother and finally find out what she needed to tell me.

  The fact that whatever she wanted was probably nothing I wanted to hear didn’t exactly encourage me to hurry. All the same, I’d been practicing adulting, and ignoring the existence of a potential problem wasn’t going to make it go away.

  Resolutely, I pushed aside thoughts of my mother and stepped out into the hallway. Even though I knew all the scribblings probably weren’t magic, I still half expected to erupt in a ball of fire. Nothing happened. I shuddered, and sweat broke out all over me as I moved deeper down the dark hallway. The stench of blood and carrion grew stronger with every step.

  Contributing to my unease was the fact that the only light came from the open door behind me. That faded to nothing when the hallway hooked to the right, leaving me in darkness with the smothering stink of death. I realized I was starting to hyperventilate, and made myself count as I breathed in and out until I got myself under control.

  I stood there, knowing what I had to do and unwilling to do it. I did not want to use my hands to guide myself. I shuddered at the idea of running my fingers along the bloodstained walls, and then remembered I’d tucked a flashlight in the side pocket of my cargo pants. Standard issue equipment for me, along with the Chinese baton I’d finally replaced. I pulled them both out, and flicked the baton to full length, and turned on the light. Relief at having light lifted my fear slightly.

  The hallway went another fifty or so feet. There were two doors on either side, but they were both padlocked and covered with the bloody writing. At the end was another door, this one painted red and lacking any of the scribbling. The trace went through it.

  I glided down and twisted the knob. The door swung silently open, revealing a set of stairs descending into inky darkness. Of course. The bad guys always retreated to the basement. So cliché. Why couldn’t they do their dirty work in bright shiny rooms with windows and fresh air? Somewhere a person could move and breathe?

  That’s when the smell hit me. Death. Feces and vomit. Piss, stale cigarettes, and the jarring scent of cinnamon and cloves. Before I could curl up in a terrified ball, I made myself walk down the stairs. At least the steps weren’t scrawled with any of the writing from the hallway. Stupid as it was, that shit unnerved me. Intellectually I knew that such writings weren’t magical at all. Still a part of me wondered if God and Satan knew that, too.

  I breathed through my mouth, but that only made me taste the air, and I had to swallow hard to keep myself from throwing up. Wasn’t any worse than being in the Bottoms, I told myself. It smells just like this. Well, except for all the rot of death, but close enough.

  I stopped at the foot of the stairs and ran my flashlight around the small space. It was maybe fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Metal shelves lined the walls. They held a range of disposable plates, silverware, and cups, plus a load of prepackaged and canned foods, including one entire shelf devoted to ramen noodles. It could have been my pantry, as little as I cooked.

  Several refrigerators and a couple of upright freezers hummed along the wall beneath the stairs and the wall adjacent to it. I scanned the rest of the space, finding yet another door. This one was made of steel, with the bottom half a solid plate, and vertical bars across the top.
There was no place to stick a key, which meant no way to pick the lock. I wrapped my fingers around one of the bars and pulled, hoping the magic sealing it tight had been disrupted along with the security net.

  It swung silently open, and I breathed out a slow breath. So far, luck had been in my favor. It couldn’t last. It never did.

  And yet—

  I stepped inside, leaving the iron door wide behind me. Beyond was an industrial-styled kitchen with stainless steel everything and a cement floor. I shined my light around. Pots and pans gleamed on shelving racks. The place smelled of bleach, which was almost a relief after all the carrion smell.

  The only color in the room was a picture that had been painted directly on the wall above the sink. Even though the strokes were crude, its lines were powerful and emotionally stirring. It showed a pair of Kokopellis playing flutes and dancing. The larger was black, the smaller purple. Behind was a background of red mountains with an orange sky above and a bright yellow sun. From it, I had a sense of wild joy and rage. The bottom corner held one of the odd vertical triple-X images in black. It looked like our killer considered himself an artist. At least this time he’d used paint and not blood.

  I crossed to the other side of the kitchen and paused between a set of steel cabinets and the double ovens. An opening led out into a darkened dining area containing four picnic tables. How big was this dungeon, anyhow? As big as the house? The dull murk within was slightly illuminated by light coming from one of the two doors leading out on the opposite side. I crept across the room on cat feet, pausing again in the shadows beside the lit doorway. Beyond I could hear noises. The rumble of a man’s voice, a jingling-scraping sound, and music. Country-western with twangy guitars and metal slides. Old-style stuff.