Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  In the least present part of Joshua’s brain, something clicked. Loc. Lock and key. But, as though he were moving toward a target under fire, his attention was on full alert elsewhere. Joshua could still see the male figure looming over Simon, but it was reeling back, like a mole from bright sunlight. As though he were looking at the black lines through a telescope and seeing nothing else, Joshua stared hard at them and hoped fervently that he would choose the right moment.

  “Why were you at the start of the fire?” the detective prompted Simon in a smooth, practiced voice that was meant to be hardly noticed.

  “We went up there, me and Loc. He said he had something to tell me. We were drinking, and I told the fucker that I figured it out, that he’d popped that Armenian who nailed me for shoplifting, and he laughed at me.” Simon turned his head to one side and his face twisted into a mask of horrified betrayal. “He laughed at me, motherfucker!” He sucked at the air as though he couldn’t get any oxygen out of it. Sporadic coughing interrupted his attempts to purge the emotional poison.

  “And then what happened?”

  Simon hacked up a wad of yellow spew and spit it out into a kidney-shaped plastic bowl on his lap. He lay back and sucked in huge gasps of air, fighting for speech. “I was gonna walk on him, and I guess he hit me, ’cause next thing I knew, I was so fucking dead. I woke up in hell, but then I saw Joshua was there, and that’s all I know. Ah, shit.” He pressed his hands hard to his face, crying, and racking coughs sent his body into violent spasms as the yellow phlegm from the smoke was churned up in his violated lungs. “He was gonna burn me up, he was gonna burn me.” The statement was delivered on a long, quavering note, sounding Simon’s staggering realization of his false friend’s treachery.

  “All right, all right, calm down now.” Sheridan took a step toward the head of the bed, leaving Joshua standing behind him. In his life he had seen a great many performances given by con artists, guilty criminals desperate to save their sorry asses. He’d seen outright lies told with real tears, protestations of remorse and avowals of innocence sworn on everything from bibles to babies, but he’d be a monkey’s uncle if this were one of them. This kid wasn’t that good. He doubted if anyone was.

  Joshua saw the dark form above the bed twist away from Simon and aim its malevolent gaze at himself. With a burst of will and an expulsion of effort, Joshua released the light he had mentally gathered, willing his strength out of his body and slicing through the blackness of the cords that twisted their prying fingers into Simon’s very soul. He had a brief image of the cords breaking and floating free as they began to dissolve. Then a great weakness permeated his bones, sucking the energy from his body in one quick, gasping breath.

  Sheridan waited a few impatient seconds for Simon’s sobs to subside, understanding what the boy was feeling; the only family he had ever trusted had thrown him under a truck and watched, unblinking and unfeeling, while the wheels rolled over him. But Sheridan had to know, and he had to know now. So he said quietly, “I’ll help you, son. I can protect you, but I need a full name and an address.” Simon nodded without taking his hands from his face. The coughing was coming in barks now, jerking his body in repetitious waves.

  It was only after he’d written the information and turned around that the detective realized that Joshua Sands was lying in a heap on the cold linoleum floor.

  Chapter 55

  “I told you,” Greer whispered as she leaned over Joshua’s bloodless face. “I told you not to give your strength away. Now you save it; you sleep and let it build again. It will come back. Rest, let your body rest.” She stroked his streaked blond hair back from his forehead and kissed it gently. Then she resumed her encouragements and whispered promises of renewed strength.

  She had been with Joshua all afternoon. Detective Sheridan had reached her on her cell phone, and when she met him at the hospital, he had recounted the strange story. The attending physician had explained that her son’s vital signs were strong and that there was no discernable injury. It was as though he had collapsed from exhaustion and fallen into an unconscious sleep—not a coma, he had added. His pupils and reflexes were reacting normally. Sheridan had expected her to dissolve into tears, to fold inward as she heard the story of Joshua’s collapse and subsequent exhausted state, but once again, this woman had completely surprised him.

  As he and then the doctor had spoken, the concerned creases around her stunning green eyes had lessened, smoothed as her face relaxed, and then deepened again as a smile he could only define as proud had slowly spread from her full mouth to her entire face.

  “He’s going to be all right,” Greer had said, patting the detective’s arm as though he were the one who needed comforting. “He gave Simon a gift of his own strength. I warned him not to because I thought—and obviously I was right—that he didn’t know yet how to gauge it. He couldn’t control it, and it took its toll. But he didn’t go too far. He’ll sleep for a day or so, and then, he’ll wake up, and I’ll give him hell.” She had chuckled and patted Sheridan’s arm again. “This is all very strange to you, and you have really taken it well. Thank you.”

  Sheridan often had the disorienting sensation that he’d missed a step when he was talking to Greer Sands, but at that moment he had had the distinct impression that he’d skipped an entire flight of stairs. Struggling for equilibrium, he had said, “Well, I don’t know about that, but if this kid, Loc, whose real name is Lamont Martinez, is the arsonist and murderer, and we can pick him up, we’ll all sleep a whole lot easier.”

  Then he had allowed himself a rare relaxing of his guard. “Your son really went out on a limb for a kid he didn’t even know very well.”

  “You have no idea,” Greer had said with a glow in those remarkably green eyes.

  Hours later, Joshua was still in a motionless sleep. Sterling had come and sat with her for a long time, until she had sent him away because of his questions and fretful efforts to be helpful. She needed quiet and privacy for Joshua.

  Without really caring what time it was, Greer glanced at her watch. Almost midnight. The curtains to the outside world were open, but the darkness revealed nothing more than a reflection of herself bending over her son’s sleeping form, softly lit by a solitary light near the bed. Greer studied the picture for a moment and was struck by the continuance of her life caring for Joshua. One day, she knew, he would lean over her bed, and she hoped that he would have learned to be accepting and at peace with that time. If there were a measure of her success as a mother, it would be to prepare him for a peaceful and happy life in a world without her in it.

  But her prayerful thoughts were interrupted when the image in the glass changed. Everything except her face faded into black, and she saw herself once again with the black wings hovering above her, a dark web wrapping itself around her startled face.

  She exhaled hard and broke her eyes away with an effort, bringing the rest of the room back into her field of vision. Breathing in strained gasps, she grasped Joshua’s hand as much to take strength as to give support. Then she sat down hard on the chair next to the bed and whispered with a ragged breath, “It isn’t over.”

  Feeling shaky and overcome with fatigue, she propped her feet up on the side of the bed, laid her head back, still holding Joshua’s hand, and gave herself up to thinking about the meaning of her visions.

  A short time later, she was flying over a forest, and the forest turned from darkest green to a glowing, undulating red. She swooped and tried to avoid the tendrils of flame that shot out, grasping at her. And then she was no longer flying but sitting in front of an old woman with the silent gray wings of an owl. She stood with her back to Greer, her wings wrapped around her like a cloak of hushed softness, watching the distant fire as it flickered untamed and seemed to dance rhythmically to its own final and terrible tattoo.

  Then, slowly, and with an awesome sensation of importance, the woman turned, and Greer could feel her connection to the crone. She could feel it without question or
explanation because she knew that the connection between her and the owl woman was the connection of the earth to all living things.

  Without words, the woman communicated her need to Greer. And then the crone’s eyes filled with tears, and as her tears fell, the fire’s rhythm sputtered and changed as rain began to fall onto the tormented earth.

  Greer groaned slightly and twisted in her chair, seeking a more solid position in which to sleep without falling to the floor. Next to her, Joshua opened his eyes. He took in the dark hospital room, his immense fatigue, and his mother passed out in an uncomfortable chair, still holding his hand.

  With an effort, he squeezed her fingers gently, smiled, and drifted gratefully back into the restoring comfort of slumber.

  Chapter 56

  This is what the weather in hell is like, Jenny was thinking as she drove through a dawn crusty with ash, breathing air that stung the nose with its acrid scent. She turned on the radio and listened for updates on the fire. She was almost to Foothill Boulevard when the local news got its turn. The fire was still burning out of control, though the courageous efforts of the firefighters had turned it away from the populated suburbs of Tujunga, Sunland, and Shadow Hills. They had one outbreak almost sixty percent contained, but the bulk of the fire had turned into the Angeles National Forest and was moving east, where there were several small pockets of homes and ranches.

  It was difficult, sitting in her car with the air conditioner on full blast at five thirty a.m., to imagine the hellish conditions under which those firefighters were operating. The temperature was one hundred degrees nowhere near the fire, unpredictable gusting winds causing new flareups in impossible-to-plan-for directions. She was shaking her head with amazement when a word from the announcer broke through her thoughts. The word was cherry, and it was that word in conjunction with canyon that ripped her from her musings and caused her to give the volume switch a hard upward twist.

  “. . . to recap, then,” the announcer was saying, “the fire is now moving east toward the Cherry Canyon, Vogel Flats areas. All the roads through to Palmdale and Lancaster have been closed. No traffic is allowed through at this time, to permit free access to emergency personnel and to facilitate evacuations. . . .” He went on for a few more moments in a serious tone before switching to a more cheerful note. “Now let’s go to Bob Edmund to find out if the weather is going to let up. Bob, we sure could use some rain!”

  A new voice, nasal and tremulous, entered the car. “Not too much chance of that, I’m afraid. There are some thunderclouds gathering offshore out over the Pacific, but while these Santa Anas keep blowing from the opposite direction—” Jenny had heard enough; she switched off the radio and pulled over, tapping at the wheel with one hand while she fumbled for her cell phone with the other. She pressed a single digit and waited while it speed dialed.

  “Hey there! This is Mindy, Reading, David, and Amy. We’re not home right now, so leave a message.” The voice on the machine seemed to be mocking her.

  Jenny waited for the beep and then said, “Hi, it’s me, Jenny. Are you guys all right? I heard the fire is headed toward Cherry Canyon. Are you going to be able to get the horses out of there? Hello? Is anyone there?” She paused, but there was no response. “Call me if you need help.”

  Cursing, she disconnected and kept hearing the word evacuation over and over in her head. Was it possible that the police had forced them to leave without letting them get the horses out? Jenny’s head was swimming. She knew the plan. If there was a fire, the horses would be evacuated to ranches farther down in the flats. Friends and neighbors with horse trailers would get out as many of the animals as possible, and the rest would be walked down, if possible, and released if all else failed. She also knew that many of the people in the high school gym had been forced to evacuate; many of them were very worried about animals they had unwillingly left behind. Reassurances had been given that animal rescue teams had been deployed, but who knew? Besides, Mindy and Reading housed far more horses than they had trailers; it would take several trips to get them all out. Maybe she had called between trips or they were just too preoccupied to answer the phone.

  King. Jenny had a brief, horrible vision of him trapped in his stall as the fire closed in around the barn before she shut the image from her mind, made her decision, and pulled out, whipping a U-turn in the deserted residential street. She would go and offer what help she could. She pressed the accelerator and urged her SUV toward the ranch.

  Detective Sheridan knocked on the door to the Sunland apartment and listened hard. Not twenty feet behind him, the Five freeway was already noisy with constant traffic, much of it diverted by the fire to the east. There was no answer, no discernable movement on the other side of the hollow, thin door. Sheridan lifted his chin in a gesture to the two officers on the far side of the door and stood back. Both of them were dressed in vests and helmets with face masks, holding shotguns. One of them called out loudly, “Police! Open up!”

  They waited for ten seconds before Sheridan said, “Let’s go.” And the second officer moved in front of the first with a crowbar, handed off his shotgun to Sheridan, and with two sharp jerks fueled by rampaging adrenaline, popped open the door. The first officer dropped to one knee with his shotgun raised as the second took his back from Sheridan, then stepped in ahead of the kneeling officer. “Police!” he shouted. “If anyone is in here, you need to come out with your hands on your head!”

  But except for the artificial ocean sounds of the early morning traffic, there was no response. They checked the apartment quickly, Sheridan noting empty tequila bottles, drug paraphernalia, and filthy, unmade beds. Once certain that no one was hiding there, they went to work, and it was less than three minutes before one of the officers was calling for Sheridan. He had flipped up a stained mattress, and inside a tear in the box springs beneath was a large stash of cash. Sheridan flipped through a pile of hundred-dollar bills held together with a rubber band and estimated quickly.

  “About ten grand here,” he said. “Keep looking.” Sheridan had been around too long to think that that money had been honestly earned. For Lamont Martinez to have that kind of cash lying around meant one of two things: Either he was dealing drugs, which was highly likely, or—and it was this thought that twisted his gut until it felt like a tangled mass of squirming worms—someone had paid him to set those fires.

  Jenny ran into the roadblock about a mile from the cutoff that would take her to Mindy’s ranch and King. The highway patrol officer was adamant. Nobody got through. She argued, she pleaded, she lied, but it was to no avail. The officer on duty kept a calm voice and a level tone, but he glanced meaningfully at her swelled stomach and raised his eyebrows at her as if to say, Are you fucking nuts? You want to endanger that baby for a horse?

  What he didn’t understand was that Jenny’s maternal instincts were raging more out of control than the fire, and that meant saving a living thing that she cared about was paramount. She felt the instinct to protect burgeon up in her and take control of her emotions, overwhelming her with determination. Unable to sway the officer, she turned around and backtracked. When she came level to the dirt fire road down which she had ridden King many times from the barn on the way to a trail along the dry creek bed, she pulled over and sat with her heart beating in her throat so hard that she thought it might gag her. She turned on the radio and listened. The fire seemed to have turned north. She looked up, and though she could see the deepest mushroom of smoke spreading out in every direction, it did not appear to be imminently near. Surely it could not cover that much space in less than an hour. She estimated how much time she would take in the worst-case scenario. Ten minutes’ rough ride up the fire road if she kicked it. The same amount back down if they were already gone. Otherwise, add ten minutes to do whatever she had to do to help, even if it was just releasing the horses. She thought of those faithful, affectionate creatures, possibly stamping in their stalls, smelling smoke, desperately trying to obey their instincts to
run, to flee, but trapped. She reached for her cell phone with scant hope of reception. There was none.

  Her hands went protectively to her stomach, but she remembered something her doctor had told her. “Your baby is very well cushioned and protected,” he had said. “As long as you don’t do anything that would hurt yourself, your baby will be fine.” Jenny was nodding to herself, talking herself into this brash course of action. Her nerves were running around her body like a couple hundred kindergarten kids hopped up on Oreos and Jolt cola all simultaneously having meltdowns in the same room. She also remembered her doctor saying, “So be careful, and don’t take any chances at this stage that might injure you!” but she selectively edited that part out. Nothing she was planning on doing would endanger her child.

  Grasping the wheel tightly with her left hand, she patted her stomach once, said, “Okay, baby, let’s go for a little ride,” and shifted into low gear.

  Greer had presided over making two hundred gallons of coffee at the high school cafeteria and was preparing to leave for the salon when she saw Susan Hughs, immaculately dressed for helping out in pressed khaki slacks and a white, sleeveless button-down shirt, supervising a group of people setting up a huge barbecue grill that had been towed in behind a pickup truck. It was a professional unit, the kind designed for large-scale outdoor events, and it was brand spanking new.

  Greer paused to watch Susan. Her sleek, well-groomed black hair was pulled into a tidy bun at the nape of her neck, but a few tendrils had worked their way out, and they blew into Susan’s face. She had to keep brushing them away with her long, manicured fingers as she walked to the back of the pickup truck, which was filled with boxes, and began to give instructions to the three workers who were with her.

  In spite of all the confusion and tension around her, Greer felt the same fear and concern for Susan that she had the first time she’d met her. The woman was in danger, and suddenly Greer was overcome with the need to warn her. How could she leave this woman to face some unknown threat without at least attempting to give her some chance at averting it? Yet it would be difficult. It was very important that she not place the seed of possible illness or risk where it might not have been. This was why Greer had always downplayed her gift, sharing it only with people she knew, why she had never promoted it as a career or a life choice: It was too much responsibility.