Uncanny

by David Macinnis Gill

  My knee was bent, my hair falling across my shoulders, and my head bowed like a supplicant. They had overwhelmed me, overshadowed who I was. The world had too much in it, and they had filled me to bursting.

  I looked up, and the dead girl’s face was inches from my own.

  “Why did you do this to me?” I said, almost whimpering.

  “Because only you can kill the Shadowless,” the dead girl said, though her mouth didn’t move and her black-ink eyes reflected no light. “And if you fail, your sister will join us.”

  “How am I supposed to kill her? No one knows how, not even Harken.”

  The dead girl whispered in my ear, “To end the sleep of Shadowless, weave silver twixt her eyes, cut gossamer threads with sparks coalesced, then the Shadowless shall die.”

  She licked my thumb, and the world spun like a wobbling top. The spirits began to shimmer, and their bodies faded to black. When I opened my eyes, I was standing over Harken’s bed, and the ICU nurse was right behind me.

  “Get out,” she said.

  “But he . . . sacrificed himself for us . . . is my friend.”

  “Friends aren’t family,” she said and pointed toward the door. “I’m closing my eyes and counting to three. If you’re still here when I open them, I’m telling the cops down the hall. One.”

  I was gone before she got to two.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  AFTER I escaped the ICU, Siobhan and I took the stairs back up to Devon’s floor. Every step of the way Siobhan kept asking how the glimpse worked, how I’d saved Devon, why Harken wasn’t dead.

  “I’m not telling you,” I said, pushing the door open, then freezing because Ma and Devon were not alone.

  The attending physician, a tall woman dressed in a lab coat with navy blue scrubs underneath, glanced back at us. Her face puckered up. “As I was saying,” she said, “Devon’s still experiencing symptoms of shock, so we’d like to run more tests. Normally we don’t see symptoms like this without a physiological cause.”

  “What kind of tests?” I said, butting in and puckering my own face. “What does ‘symptoms like this’ mean? Have you had cases like this before?”

  “Don’t be rude, Willow Jane,” Ma said, shaking a disapproving finger. “Wait for the doctor to explain.”

  “Yeah. No.” I was all done with waiting for adults. “What kinds of tests? You just said Devie was okay.”

  The doctor took off her glasses to clean them. “Rather, there’s nothing wrong with her physically. It isn’t quite the same—”

  The lights blinked off and on.

  “—thing?”

  Then off.

  “What’s wrong with the lights?” Ma said.

  “Nothing serious,” the doctor said. “The hospital is undergoing a major renovation, and power outages are common. For us, it’s business as usual.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” I rushed to the window and looked between the blinds. “I’ve seen this befo—oh, shit!”

  Something heavy slammed into the window. Bits of safety glass tinkled to the sill, and I pulled up the blinds. The center of the glass was starred like a busted windshield. A dead crow lay on the outside sill. Blood trickled from empty sockets where its eyeballs had been. Its neck was bent at an impossible angle, and its beak was split in half, broken by the impact.

  “What in fu—frickdoodles was that?” Siobhan said.

  “A dead crow,” I said. “One of hers.”

  Then the dead crow lifted its eyeless head and began to viciously peck the fractured glass. The TV turned on, filling the room with flickering static. The monitors attached to Devon started ringing, and the headboard erupted with warning lights.

  Devon moaned. Her head jerked back and forth, and she flailed her arms. The IV whipped around and broke loose from her hand. She sat bolt upright, rigid as a board. Her mouth was wide open like Munch’s Scream, and her eyes darted around manically. “Will she? Will she?” she sang. “Will Willow be hanging from the willow hanging tree?”

  “Devon! No!” Ma threw her arms around her, and Devon sank her teeth into Ma’s shoulder. Ma screamed, and blood bloomed under her shirt, but Ma wouldn’t let go. “I won’t lose my baby, too!”

  Siobhan grabbed Devon and tried to pry open her jaws, but Ma’s screams got louder and louder. The doctor pushed a knuckle into Devon’s temporomandibular joint, and Devon jerked back, then let go.

  “Security!” The doctor hit the call number and yelled, “I need a restraint team!”

  “Holy shitburger on toast,” Siobhan said.

  “BLOOD!” Devon screamed. “BLOOD WILL HAVE BLOOD!”

  Ma staggered away, and I caught her as the doctor and Siobhan tried to pin Devon’s arms. She cussed and spit and tried to bite them, too.

  Ma looked at me, a hand covering her wound. “Your father’s letter,” she said, her mouth set hard. “He knew this would happen.”

  “No way,” I said. “The letter’s more like a supernatural Oh, the Places You’ll Go.”

  Whap! Whap! Whap!

  In quick succession, three more crows slammed into the window, and the glass cracked again, splintering like thin ice. One more attack, and the window would shatter.

  Whap!

  A raven hit the window like a cannon shot. Hunks of glass cascaded into the room, followed by rain and wind. The raven hopped past the shards and then fell to the floor. Its neck was hanging by a thread, and its eye sockets were bleeding, but it beat its wings and began to croak, “Blood! Blood! Blood!”

  “I think,” the doctor said, “we should get Devon to safety.”

  “Ya think?” I said, unplugging the monitors. Ma and Siobhan pushed the bed by the side rails, and I got behind the headboard. “Did the talking crow give you a clue?”

  The doctor stood watching the bird, shaking her head. “This can’t be happening.”

  “THE SHADOWLESS IS HERE!” Devon screamed. “THIS IS WHERE THE DEAD GIRLS GO!”

  “To hell with this!” the doctor yelled and ran from the room ahead of us, almost colliding with two nurses.

  They looked at us, then Devon, then the squawking dead bird, frozen as they processed the scene.

  “Help or move!” Ma barked, aiming the bed at them.

  The nurses pulled on the bed and steered it into the hallway. Behind us black birds—starlings, crows, ravens, grackles, and jackdaws—flocked into Devon’s room, clicking and cawing. Dozens, then hundreds, a swarm of iridescent feathers that clotted the window. They had come hunting, and their quarry was us. Then something, some sound, some signal, alerted them. For an instant they were silent, and their ocher eyes turned to me as one. I met their gaze, until a chill went up my spine, and I knew that Malleus was watching, and she was coming for us.

  Then the birds took flight and blasted through the half-open door.

  “Duck!” I yelled at Siobhan and Ma, and we hit the floor.

  A black mass of wings and talons, the swarm swept right past Devon and attacked the nurses. They screamed, their voices lost in the cacophony, and fled toward the exit, the birds ripping at every bit of exposed flesh.

  “What in God’s name is going on?” Ma shouted from under the bed. “Willow Jane!”

  “The kidnapper is back for Devon!” I yelled. “Siobhan, we’ve got to hide her!”

  “Employees’ lounge!” Siobhan pointed at a sign next to the nurses’ station. “They’ll have snacks!”

  And the lounge door might lock. “Go!”

  We jumped up and gave the bed a hard shove. It started rolling, gathering speed. We rammed through a crush of squalling jackdaws, then made a hard right toward the lounge.

  “Clear the way, Mrs. C!” Siobhan yelled as we slid sideways.

  Ma ran ahead and swung the door open. We pushed the bed inside, then Ma slammed the door and threw the lock, just before the birds started hitting it.

  “Finally,” Siobhan said over the rhythmic click of beaks pecking the wood, “it’s over.”

  “It�
��s a long way from over,” I said, taking a breath and making sure the lounge was empty. “The Shadowless is just getting started.”

  “Wait! Did you say the Shadowless?” Ma said, her determination occluded by sudden fear. “Your father used to say a poem about the Shadowless. Another one of his fairy tales, I always thought.”

  “Ma,” I said, shoving the sofa against the wall as Siobhan pushed Devon’s bed to the center of the room. “He didn’t make it up. The Shadowless is real.”

  “So effing real,” Siobhan said and steered Ma to a chair.

  “This Shadowless was the kidnapper?” Ma sat, not even cutting Siobhan a dirty look. “And she’s still after Devon?”

  “No, Ma. This time she’s after me.”

  “But now the shitstorm’s over,” Siobhan said and flopped on the couch. “We’ll wait here till the cops come, right, guys? Right?”

  Ma said nothing for what felt like an eternity. She looked at Devon, then at me. “Being a good Catholic girl, I always kept to the faith, but your father believed in witches and fairies and magic.”

  “Did you believe in them, too?” I said.

  “I believed in him.” Ma took me by the shoulders. “Now I believe in you.”

  Ma believed in me? Even in the crappiest moment ever, it made my heart soar. I also made it ten times harder to do what I had to do. “I’m sorry,” I said and bit my thumb.

  “Willow Jane!” Siobhan screamed. “You jerky-jerk jerkface! Don’t go out there alone!”

  “Siobhan,” Ma said more quietly, “what just happened?”

  What had happened was a glimpse, one involving a roll of white medical tape that secured Ma and Siobhan to Devon’s bed, a bag of corn chips from the lounge cabinet, jackdaws covered with a borrowed sheet, and a door locked behind me.

  “It’s a long story, Mrs. Conning,” Siobhan said with a resigned sigh. There would be plenty of time to tell it. “Thanks for the snacks, Willie!”

  “You’re welcome,” I called.

  I bit my thumb again and, after skirting the sheet-shrouded birds, headed for the ICU. Even though I was running past nurses and orderlies like they were statues, my legs felt leaden and my boots were concrete bricks. Yesterday, I had no idea that glimpses existed, and now I was slipping into them like a pair of worn-out skates. It scared me that it was so easy, and I wondered what would happen when it got easier to glimpse than to deal with the consequences of my actions.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  I unplugged the machines and rolled Harken past the cop standing watch. When we reached the elevator, I ended the glimpse, then hit the call button again and again before giving Harken’s shoulder a hard shake.

  “Coast is clear!” I said. “Come on, come on. I know you’re not dead.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Harken said, opening his eyes. He tried to sit up but gasped and gave up. “I thought you would never come back.”

  The elevator opened, and I pushed his bed inside. “Which way?” I asked quickly. “Up or down?”

  He winced. How could he move at all? His body looked like it had been fed to a wood chipper, and the wound in his stomach was bleeding straight through the bandages. It killed me to harangue him, but every minute we wasted brought Malleus closer.

  “Up or down?” I repeated. “We’re sitting ducks here.”

  “Down. All the way down. Malleus is less powerful underground.” His eyes actually twinkled, but then he frowned. “How close is she?”

  “Those goddamn black birds found us. She can’t be far behind.”

  “Your sister?”

  “Hiding with Siobhan and Ma, but she’s still—”

  “Not herself. Nor will she be until we find a way to destroy Malleus.”

  Destroy her? How was he going that? He looked one step from death’s door himself. “What about your wounds? They look really bad.”

  “I’ll be cured soon enough,” he said. “Death, they say, is the poor man’s doctor.”

  “Yeah, not funny. It’ll take Malleus’s birds no time to find me, so stay alive.”

  “She won’t need birds to find you. Where are my clothes?”

  “Seriously?” I unhooked the plastic bag from the foot of the bed. “You want to get dressed now?”

  He dumped the bag full of cut-up clothes, then fished something out of his back pants pocket. “Not when we still have this.”

  The elevator door opened, and I allowed myself a smile.

  The elevator was at the end of a very long basement corridor. The walls were cinder block, covered with peeling green paint. It was more like a hidden path than a corridor. Above our heads was a network of wiring, plumbing, and air ducts. I half pulled Harken past two dark alcoves blocked with chain-link gates and covered with signs warning us of danger, high voltage, and death.

  “How did you get the egg back?” I said. “You gave it to Malleus.”

  “I made a switch,” Harken said. “A hunk of obsidian in my front pocket. The real egg in the back.”

  “Was that before or after she stabbed you?”

  “During. Malleus so enjoys a good stabbing.”

  He staggered, so I pulled his arm over my shoulder to support his weight. He felt lighter than before. Probably adrenaline making me stronger. Behind us the elevator motor kicked in, and the shaft trembled as the car began climbing. We had to hide. If Malleus showed up now, we didn’t stand a chance.

  I checked behind us.

  No Malleus.

  So far.

  We passed four doors secured with shiny padlocks, the nameplates painted over with fresh gray paint. All of them were plastered with the same sign: FACILITIES CLOSED FOR RENOVATION. CONTACT ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES FOR ACCESS.

  “What should we do with the egg?” I asked, trying to pull him along faster. “Hide it?”

  “No, she would only find it,” he said, struggling to keep pace. “The egg has to be destroyed. You have to destroy it.”

  I fired it against the cement block wall. It bounced off, taking a chunk of paint and cement with it.

  “The egg was formed by magic,” he said.

  “Not a scratch,” I said, scooping it up and checking behind us again. We needed to move faster.

  “So only magic can break it.” He pointed at the iron needle in my lapel. “This needs to go through it.”

  I tried to jam the needle through the hole in the egg. The tip bounced off, and I nearly lanced my hand.

  “Without magic, you’re wasting your time.”

  “And my skin. Ow.” I put the bodkin back in my lapel. “How do I access this magic?”

  “I’m puzzling it out.” He leaned on me again, struggling to catch his breath. “If this walk is a very long walk, I might need a rest.”

  “Hang on,” I said, trying to sound calm but thinking, Hurry, hurry! “Got to find a safe place.”

  Up ahead, beyond the laundry room, I saw two metal doors with old-fashioned brass panic bars, covered in the same peeling green paint. If we could make it that far, maybe I could give Harken time to puzzle out how to beat Malleus. But what about Devon? What if the Shadowless went for her instead?

  “We have to kill Malleus?” I said, looking over my shoulder. “It’s not enough to just bury her again.”

  He grunted, which I thought was an answer, but then his feet tangled with mine, and we both stumbled into the wall. Somehow I twisted enough to take the impact with my hip. I caught my balance, but only my use of leverage kept him upright. In the distance the elevator call button dinged, and the overhead lights blinked on and off.

  On and off.

  Oh, hell.

  “Change of plans,” I said. “Let’s check out the laundry room.”

  “Lay on, Macduff,” he whispered.

  “That line was Macbeth inviting Macduff to attack,” I said. “Macbeth gets beheaded in that attack.”

  “Point taken,” he said. “Get it? Point taken?”

  The door to the laundry was metal and thick. The posted hour
s said it was open 6:00 A.M.–6:00 P.M. MONDAY–SATURDAY. The door was just locked, not padlocked, and the glass pane in the center looked almost bulletproof. Was almost enough to stop the Shadowless?

  “Wicked hilarious,” I said and pulled Harken’s penknife out of the bag. “Shut up and pick the lock.”

  As we entered, an automatic switch turned on the overhead fluorescents. I flinched, and Harken drew back like the vampyre facing the dawn. He hissed and covered his face. The ceiling was a swamp of huge in and out ducts, and chutes, handles, and overhead tracks to control the flow of laundry. Heavy hooks hung from the tracks, white duffels chained to the hooks, an assembly line for soiled linens. Four clotheslines held oversize sheets, bolts of cloth as long as a wall that flapped as I pushed them aside.

  To our left were a steam boiler and eight industrial washing machines, each of them big enough to stick a body inside. Beside the washers were twice as many dryers, even bulkier than the washers. I steered us through the middle of the room, which was lined with yellow barrels and red baskets full of soiled linens. A half dozen massive blue bins filled with clean sheets were parked next to a loom-shaped pressing machine that filled the far wall. The scariest machine in the room was some kind of automatic sheet folder on the right-hand wall, an array of tables and presses that looked like they could take an arm off at the nub.

  I lowered Harken to the floor next to the sheet folder, then hit the light switches to make it dark again. My shirt was covered in blood, none of it mine.

  “This body,” he said, “yearns for the grave.”

  “Tell it to yearn for a cookie.”

  He laughed, and the laugh turned into a cough. Blood and spittle seeped between his lips. I was losing him. He was letting go, and I was losing him, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

  “Willow Jane—” His hard face softened. “—there’s something I have to confess.”

  “I’m not a priest,” I said, keeping watch on the door.