Damn these Playbills. They’re so dusty.
The bathroom door creaked open. Zef stood in silhouette.
“You need something?” said Joey, quickly. “Um, there’s conditioner under the sink. Bubble bath too, if you want to, you know, run a tub. My mom has a loofah—”
“I’m fine,” said Zef, stepping into the room. He wore Joey’s white terrycloth bathrobe. It was a little short on him. His legs and feet were bare. He had a spot of mud on one furry calf.
“Haven’t you had your shower?” said Joey, looking at the ceiling.
“Not yet. I thought maybe…” Zef fidgeted. “You wanna come in?”
“What?”
Zef took a deep breath. “You wanna… share the shower?”
“Oh. Uh…” Joey squeezed the koala, trying to still a sudden bout of shaking. “I’ll be fine. We’ve got plenty of hot water. It’s a big tank. And I can never, you know, shower in front of other guys. Like in the gym? No way. I’m totally—ikes! Too self-conscious.”
“All right.” Zef looked disappointed. He turned away, but whispered, “I wasn’t asking you to shower… in front of me, you know.”
“What? Huh?” Joey’s teeth were chattering.
“I was asking you to shower… with me. Like… with.”
“Oohhhhhhh,” said Joey.
“You wanna?”
The ripples on the ceiling danced. Joey couldn’t speak. He couldn’t make his vocal cords work, for once. He had no idea how to make a sound.
“Don’t leave me hanging here.” Zef faced him. “What do you say?”
Joey opened his mouth and what came out was—“Hic!”
“You okay, baby?”
“Hic!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry!” Joey gasped. “I’m—hic!—killing the romance!”
“Shh.” Zef crossed the room. The Boy of Joey’s Dreams knelt at his side. Zef was grinning and he was beautiful. That didn’t help the shaking one bit. But Zef kissed him, and the trembling subsided a little. “Count backward from ten.”
“Ten—nine—eight—HIC!”
“It’s okay. Nothing to be nervous about.”
“I’m not (hic!) nervous.”
“Keep going.”
“Seven—six—five—” Joey’s trembling slowed. So did his breathing. “Four (hic)—three—two—one.” The trembling stopped. He shrugged and threw the koala aside. “Okay.”
“Okay okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m just a little… scared is all.”
“Of me?”
“No. Just… what if… after all this… it’s no good between us? I don’t want to disappoint you.”
“Oh… Joey.” Zef was the one trembling now. He took Joey’s wrist, raised it, and with a slow and deliberate motion, undid the cuff of his sleeve. “That one button… is more than I ever thought we’d have.”
They kissed again. Joey stood. He took Zef’s hand and pulled him along.
On the way to the shower, Joey lost another button.
Then another…
Then all of them.
Pat Osorio walked into the house about an hour later. She turned on the kitchen light and set her purse on the table. Two of her potted plants had exploded. Why did they keep doing that? She’d sweep the mess up tomorrow. It didn’t spoil her good mood. Jim had received a clean bill of health and would be coming home in a few days. She looked forward to telling Joey the news. She popped a Dr. Pepper and tiptoed down the dark back hall, wondering if she should wake her son up.
She stopped at Joey’s bedroom door, listening. She heard whispering and a soft laugh. Two voices. Two male voices. One Joey’s, and the other… that boy Zef’s. The bedroom lights were off, too.
Joey had Zef in there. Under her roof. She frowned. Joey had never brought a boy home before. Nobody teaches you how to deal with this. It’s not in any parenting manual. She had to do something. But what?
I know, she thought, smiling. I’ll make them breakfast in bed.
Jason had always heard that virginity is something you lose. But neither he nor Kate nor Joey nor Zef lost a thing that night. They didn’t lose their innocence, or their self-respect, or their reason. They didn’t lose anything at all, unless you count a few curiosities satisfied, and a few calories burned.
They gained so much, though. That night was a reward, not a loss. They celebrated a victory that night, and not just over monsters. They’d defeated the distances dividing them from each other. They deserved some happiness and some pleasure. This was their reward. The night that Jason lost his virginity was the night he first realized why waiting is important. It’s important not because sex is bad, but because it’s good. It’s one of the great treasures of life. And like any great treasure, it brings true joy only when it’s earned.
Jason and Kate had earned it. They lay beneath a tangle of warm sheets, trading golden energy, palm to palm, past and future joined in one perfect moment of… now.
Joey and Zef had earned it. They spooned, drowsing, and Zef sang softly in Joey’s ear.
They fell asleep like that. Two in the bunk of a cosy RV, two in a bed beneath turtle-pond ripples. Eight shut eyes, eight tangled legs, four beating hearts, and four satisfied smiles. “I love you.” “I love you.” “I love you.” “I love you.”
Nope, none of them lost a thing.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
“The Rogues”
Jason opened his eyes and felt for Kate. She was gone. He sat up in the bunk, rubbing his eyes, looking for her. He climbed down and found a note on the table, spelled out in Scrabble tiles.
Y O U N E E D S L E E P
C A N T H I D E F R O M D A D D Y
W C A L L F R O M B O S T O N
X O
Jason nudged the little X flush with the little O and grinned. It was good that Kate had gone. If she hadn’t, he might have kept her in the bunk until they both starved to death. He felt like a kid at Pennywhistle Park—just off the bumper cars and excited to get back in line. He checked his face in the little bathroom mirror. Same shaggy kid—no, young man—but with brighter eyes and a big goofy grin. He flexed a little, feeling like Hercules, invincible and without a care in the world.
But then he got dressed, went up to the house, and saw the mess inside.
“Hadewych! You son of a bitch!”
His good mood returned when Ladybug pulled down the drive, when Joey and Zef climbed out and set Charley down in the grass. A lump rose in Jason’s throat. He knelt in the yard and put his arms out.
“Hey, little girl.”
The poodle turned a circle, looked up at Joey, and barked. Jason waited, hoping the dog hadn’t forgotten him. Hoping she didn’t blame him for their crash into the Hudson together, or think he’d abandoned her to the river. The poodle growled a little, shivered and stamped her red toenails, but finally let out a squeal of recognition and raced across the grass, a riot of black fur and rippling tongue. She barked and leapt at Jason, licking his face as he gathered her to his heart. He tried not to cry, but failed.
“You’ve seen?” said Zef, looking at the house.
“Wow,” said Jason, wiping his face.
“You don’t have to lift a finger.” Zef produced a box of cleaning supplies, rags, and trash bags. “On it.” He marched inside.
Joey tugged at Jason’s elbow. “They say a gentleman shouldn’t kiss and tell, but who are we kidding… someone lost his virginity last night.”
Jason scowled, touching his face. “Does it show?”
Joey’s eyes went wide. “You too? You and Kate?”
“That’s none of your… Wait. You and Zef?”
Joey held up a finger. “What time?”
“It’s not a competition.”
“Like hell it’s not! Haven’t you seen any teen movies?”
“Drop it.”
“Before midnight or after midnight? Not counting foreplay.”
“I’m not saying.”
�
�Twelve twenty-seven. I win, right?”
“Twelve twenty-six.”
“You’re such a fibber. Fine. I still win.”
“How do you figure?”
Joey turned up his nose and stomped inside. “Gays are on Greenwich time.”
Jason hesitated at the threshold with the dog in his arms. Charley had feared the house after Eliza died, probably sensing Agathe’s growing evil. Would the dog know if the place was… okay? He scrutinized her as he brought her in, like a coal miner carrying a canary into the shaft to test for bad air. She didn’t tremble. She didn’t bark or scratch. She was… happy to be home. She wriggled until he set her down, then started playing in the trash, like a giddy kid in a raked-up pile of autumn leaves.
Zef tackled the house with ferocity, a blur of yellow gloves and spray bottles, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice commanding his broom—the Son of the Magician embracing a precious chance to banish his father’s spells and spills.
He ordered Jason not to clean and stopped him whenever he tried.
“Let him do it,” said Joey. “Really. He needs to.”
Joey took out the trash, accepting garbage bags from Zef like diamonds from a gentleman caller, then went to inspect the second floor. Jason made a happy discovery on a high shelf in the kitchen: a yellow wine glass, the last of a set that had been broken, one by one, over generations of Merricks. Eliza had called it her “survivor glass” and never used it. The thing didn’t have a scratch.
He walked into the living room to tell Zef what he’d found. Zef was sitting on the sofa, in tears, holding a picture of his dad.
“I know he doesn’t deserve it,” Zef said, with a sniff.
Jason rubbed his cousin’s back. “Of course you’re going to cry.”
“I have nothing to bury.”
“I know.”
Jason wondered if, somewhere in the park preserve, rangers might find a pile of charred Armani and a jumble of cremated remains. He felt no satisfaction, only sadness. Hadewych had loved his son, even while making every wrong choice a father (and human being) can make.
They went up to face the horrors of the attic. They snatched down the hanging witch-bundles and paraphernalia. Jason used a stick to knock the marble Hand of Glory into Zef’s raised trash bag.
They went down and cut the rope ladder at the bottom of Zef’s closet, too. Jason used his Gift to repair the boards, despite Joey’s insistence that they needed a Batcave.
Forbidden to scrub, he concentrated on undoing whatever damage he found. He pressed his hand to chipped and broken items, restoring them, one by one. The blue davenport was healed of stains, the bullet holes in the bay windows vanished, the mouse-nibblings along the floorboards disappeared in a flash. It was just as he’d said to Hadewych: “You’re never going to win. If you hurt anybody I love, I can heal them. If you break anything I own, I can fix it. Whatever you do, I can undo. Whatever you destroy, I can make right again.”
They worked until dark, then had to stop because the power was still out. Jason’s friends left. Zef took bags of his old clothes with him. He would be staying at Joey’s for now.
Jason went back to the RV. Charley wasn’t scared of the house, but he sure as hell was. He spent that first night in the bottom bunk, with a heating pad on his shoulder and ice on his ankle, staring at the message in Scrabble tiles.
Kate hadn’t called.
From the New York Post, Thursday, October 22:
‘HORSEMAN KILLER’ SHOT IN HEAD
by Kathy Wallace, Associated Press
A 20-year-old former star quarterback of the Sleepy Hollow High School football team was killed in an altercation with police outside a town event on Saturday night, authorities announced Monday. The deceased, identified as Edward Dwayne Martinez, is now believed to have been the “Horseman Killer,” responsible for multiple homicides in Westchester County over the past year. The Tarrytown police have not yet revealed the results of DNA testing, but sources say they expect to find a match with past crime scenes. Evidence has grown throughout this week and sources continue to express confidence that the killer has been found.
Martinez himself was previously thought to have been a victim of the serial murderer. He was last seen in the yard of his own home on May 20 of this year. His parents, David and Gianna Martinez, believed their son dead these past five months. His whereabouts during that time are still unknown.
In a tragic twist, David Martinez, a decorated detective of the Tarrytown police force, was the officer on the scene who fired the fatal shot. He is said to have resigned from the police force effective immediately.
Edward “Eddie” Martinez has been described by neighbors as “a punk” and a “violent kid.” Records show several juvenile arrests in his home state of Maryland, for violent behavior and drug possession, but all such incidents ceased once his father transferred the family to Sleepy Hollow. There, Edward became known as “The Monster,” not for his brawling, but for fierceness on the athletic field. Even so, a minor charge of steroid possession in his junior year suggests that his trophies were not won on natural talent alone. Sources strongly suggest that the phenomenon of “roid rage” may have figured into Martinez’s crimes. Such a psychosis, in tandem with his inflated sense of self-importance as head of the Horsemen football team, may have led him to adopt his Headless Horseman persona, and to work out the pathological aggression he’d suppressed since his Baltimore days.
According to records, killer/kidnapper Martinez was expelled from Sleepy Hollow High School this past January for attacking a fellow student, whose name has been withheld by the school. A revenge scenario has not been ruled out. Little else is known of his motives and, considering the number of homicides, accomplices may still be at large. According to police chief Frank Martins, a task force of local, state, and federal law enforcement officials dedicated to investigating the linked homicides received 104 tips in its first three months of operation. Some suspects were interviewed and ruled out, he said. The most recent arrestee in the case was released following Martinez’s death.
Fireman Mike lay on his bed, and Valerie held him. He wept, shoulders heaving, face purple and screwed up, desperately glad to be home but bewildered by all he’d been through.
“Where were you, Val?”
“I told you,” she said, touching her throat where the valve used to be. “I had a chance to get this fixed. I took it.”
“That makes no sense. You were gone, what? A few days? You couldn’t have had surgery. You don’t have a mark. It’s crazy. I’d think you were Valerie’s identical twin playing a trick but… you don’t look the same. All your sweet little lines are gone. You’re… younger.”
“I can’t explain it, Mike.”
“Try.”
“I can’t. Call it a miracle. Call it…”
“What? Stem cells? Magic?”
She winced. Couldn’t she just reveal all and let the truth out for once—tell him witches existed, without naming Jason? That by itself wouldn’t curse him. Maybe Mike would never suspect her of being one herself. Maybe… No, she saw that terrible day when all the windows flew up and she cursed her own father. “Just drop it, Mike.”
“How can I?” He wiped tears away. “What about Silent Charlie, down at the station? He’s got a valve. Could you heal him too?”
Valerie shook her head. Maybe Jason could heal their friend, but how would Charlie explain it to the crew? It was such a can of worms! She realized that… she could never go back to the firehouse now. She’d lost her little family. If they saw her like this, it would raise too many questions.
“I wish I could explain,” she said. “I’ll go… if you want me to.”
“No. Don’t go. Keep your secrets, baby. I’m glad for you, however it happened.” He sniffed. “I have a secret too. It’s… a bad one.”
“I don’t need to know.”
He started rocking. “I need to get it out.”
“All right.”
“I thought maybe I
did kill her. Debbie. I’ve been… dreaming about doing it. All year. I had dreams where I… I cut her wrists and held her under water.”
“Just a nightmare. Shh. Just a nightmare.”
“It was so real. I thought… maybe it was true. Maybe I was guilty. They said they found her blood on my pin.”
“That was a trick. To see if you’d confess.”
“They lied to me!”
“It’ll be okay, Mike.”
“There wasn’t any blood. Not a drop!” He looked up at her with wide hurt eyes. “What happened? One minute the boys have got no idea where I was at homecoming… and now they all remember? I don’t get it. I don’t get any of it. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve it all or how to put it right…”
“Shh,” said Valerie, holding him tight and rocking him. “It’s not your fault. None of it was your fault.”
She had hated Mike for allowing himself to be possessed. She had thought him weak for not driving Agathe out. But Kate was right. Valerie had had no idea what it felt like. Not until the tomb. Not until she’d experienced it herself—the desperation of overwhelming helplessness. Mike had been forced to do something horrible. How could she hold that against him? How could she hold that against… anyone?
She rocked her lover as he cried, letting herself forgive, her eyes fixed to a ring of car keys glittering on the nightstand. “Let it out. There you go. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault, Mike.” She kissed his hair.
It wasn’t your fault… Mama.
Zef returned every morning at nine on the dot to continue cleaning. Eventually he relented and allowed Jason to do dishes. The cousins worked side by side, listening to music, which was the only thing they seemed to disagree on anymore. Hour by hour, the hoard was undone. The power came on, conjuring a Shop-Vac to life, and Charley lost her shit. Literally. Joey came by with a report that Jim Osorio had been released from the hospital. Joey and Zef celebrated on the back stairs when they thought Jason wasn’t looking.
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 82
