Audrey shifted closer to Lili and Tess. “Hear her out, Nick.”
Across the table from Danton, Frank Lindbergh rose shakily to his feet. “Tess, do you have any idea what this fucker did to me? I’ve been pissing in a bucket for—”
“Sit down, Frank,” Tess said.
“I will not—”
“Sit down, Frank,” Lili barked. Then she softened and turned to him. “This is not about revenge. It’s about survival.”
“After what they did to you?” Nick asked, staring at his ex-wife. “After they came here and tried to take Maddie, to push you out of your own house? Your life?”
Tess reached for his hand. Nick flinched and tried to pull away but she grabbed his hand and held on tightly. “It’s Maddie I’m thinking of.”
Nick looked about to continue debating the point, but then he just clammed up and shook his head.
“Why don’t you go look in on her?” Tess suggested. “Make sure she’s not eavesdropping.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Nick glared at Danton, then turned and left the room.
Tess turned back to face the dead man strapped to the chair beside her. “Well?”
In the fading light, the death face grinned. “If you destroy Berrige, I’m sure my friends and I will have no problem letting you live.”
Audrey dragged out a chair, its feet squealing on the kitchen floor. She sat down and stared at Danton. Tess wondered if she could see the pits of his eyes, the dead skin tight against his skull.
“Berrige tried to summon a demon. Carved out his own eyes as part of the ritual,” she began.
“Clawed them out, not carved,” Danton corrected.
“Jesus,” Lili whispered.
The name only made the death grin widen.
“We thought Berrige had failed,” Danton went on. “When we built the psychomanteum and tried to replicate the ritual in a safer environment, to infuse the magic of the ritual into our reflections, trap that power in the mirrors of the box—”
“What do you mean you ‘thought’ he’d failed?” Frank asked. But unlike the others, he made no effort to move closer to the creature who had kept him captive and stolen his identity.
Danton shifted, straining against the duct tape. Tess thought he might ask her to free him, but he did not. They had a fragile peace at the moment, but he knew that did not make them allies.
“The ritual failed,” Danton went on. “But not completely. The demon rose but the summoning was flawed. It emerged only halfway into our world and became stuck there. When Berrige tried to end the ritual, it killed him and trapped his soul. It’s held him there ever since, gnawing on his soul like a dog with a strip of rawhide. When we used the psychomanteum, it tried to take us, too. We were trapped, but we fled into the mirrors. The damned box saved us.”
The cadaver looked at Audrey. “The rest you know. We spent years knitting these magicks together, stealing your reflections and building substance.”
“But how can you just make—” Lili began.
“They’re not natural flesh and blood,” he said. “They require ritual and focus to keep up the heft and weight of human bodies, to keep us tangible. But the illusion of life is better than none at all. We have to return to the psychomanteum for at least a short while each night, or we’ll begin to fade out of existence.”
“Just fade?” Tess asked.
“As if we’ve been erased,” Danton said.
“And if you’d succeeded in diminishing me so much that you’d completely become me?” Frank asked. “You said I would have faded.”
Danton hesitated, but only for a second. “That’s correct. Unless you made your way back to the psychomanteum. But that would be its own hell. You’d have been trapped there forever.”
Frank looked as if he might be sick. “You see what you’re dealing with here, Tess? Those are the options he had in mind for me. Either one of them would have been worse than dying.”
Tess flushed, hating every moment, every word that came from her own lips. But she ignored him, keeping her focus on Danton.
“You said the demon had Berrige trapped. So how can he be the raggedy man? How can he be wandering around looking for you?”
Danton lowered his head. The wan, dying light of the afternoon silhouetted him, showing the wisps of hair on a corpse’s head, though his living face was still visible as well, as if she might close one eye and see one visage or the other.
“I glimpsed him once,” Danton said, and she could hear the fear in his voice. Fear of the abyss of nothingness that awaited his soul if Berrige caught up to him. “Hunting me. I barely got away. It’s why I went to Frank’s house that night, how I knew that it was all beginning to unravel before the others did. I thought I could hide until Berrige had caught the others, thought I could feed Frank to him in my place.
“He’s still in the demon’s power, you see. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. If Berrige is wandering free, it can only be because we’ve freed ourselves. He is doing the demon’s bidding, like a dog hunting for his master, but he remains on a leash. Its influence will be bleeding from the house now, seeping out like an infection, but it can’t get out. Somehow, though, it has managed to let Berrige out.
“I can only imagine that when we emerged from the psychomanteum, it sensed us, and now it wants us back. Perhaps Berrige has struck a deal—the six of us for his own freedom—but I can’t be sure of that. Regardless, the other members of the Key know that Berrige is after them now, which is why they have been trying to … well, to diminish you, to use Frank’s word. They want Berrige to take you in their places the way they did your friend Aaron, and now they know that time is fleeting.”
Nick came back into the kitchen and they all paused to look at him.
“Maddie?” Tess asked.
“Napping,” he said.
She smiled, but Nick had no smile for her in return. She could see in the set of his mouth and the stony glint of his eyes that he disagreed entirely with the way she had handled Danton.
“Now then,” the death face said, “tell me, how do you plan to destroy the ghost of the most powerful magician of the nineteenth century?”
Somewhere not far off, a dog began to bark. They heard the squeal of brakes from some kind of truck, perhaps the very thing that had set off the dog. The sun had nearly set and only the last glow of the autumn afternoon remained in the kitchen, but nobody moved to turn on a light.
Frank shifted in his seat, puzzled by her hesitation. Audrey, Lili, and Nick all began to stare at her and frown. Lili opened her mouth to ask the question they were all on the verge of asking, virtually the same question that the dead man had just asked.
“How do I plan to destroy Berrige?” Tess echoed, sliding her chair back half a foot or so, moving away from Danton. “Thing is, I don’t. Berrige doesn’t want us, unless your fucking cult can confuse him into thinking we’re you people. As far as I’m concerned, Berrige is your problem.”
“You said—”
Tess sneered. “Your followers tried to take my place. Tried to take over my life and take my child from me. You really think I’m going to let you all just go about your business wearing our faces after that? You must have been dead a long time to have forgotten how mothers can get when you put their kids in danger.”
Audrey leaned back in her chair. “What are you planning, Tess?”
Tess glanced around at her friends, ending on Lili. “I vote we go back to the Nepenthe Hotel with some baseball bats and shatter every bit of mirror glass in the apparition box. Mr. Danton and his friends might get lucky and fade out forever before Berrige drags their black fucking souls back to the demon at the Harrison House.”
Frank slapped the table, a vicious smile on his face. “Seconded.”
Danton’s human face had vanished almost completely, and now only the sneering corpse face gaped at her, sickly yellow light burning in the hollow pits where its eyes ought to have been. It slammed against the duct tape binding it, rocked the
chair and nearly tipped over. It opened its mouth and roared so loud that the windows rattled in their frames.
The screaming was sure to wake Maddie, but that was all right.
They would all be leaving soon enough.
TEN
Kyrie sat on the sofa in the living room of Nick’s apartment, trying to decide whether she ought to be worried or pissed off. Upon her arrival nearly half an hour ago, she’d clicked on the television but had barely been aware of the sounds and images coming from the screen. Now she forced herself to focus and realized it was the Food Network—some cooking competition. In the front of her mind, she allowed herself to become caught up in the challenge faced by the chefs. In the back of her mind, though, a little voice she thought of as the Logical One was asking what the hell she thought she was doing.
The Logical One had been mostly quiet for the past couple of months as she allowed herself the fantasy of having this handsome, intelligent, quirky guy fall so in love with her that he was willing to uproot his whole life and move across the Atlantic Ocean just so he wouldn’t be parted from her. When she and Nick had first slept together and then begun a relationship, the little voice had been screaming loud and clear, telling her she was an idiot to get involved with an older man, a professor, and worse, a man who’d recently split from his wife. There had been so many red flags that Kyrie had managed to ignore, and in time she had become convinced that she’d made the right decision.
Now she sat on Nick’s sofa and waited for him—and his ex-wife—to bring their adorable daughter over for her to babysit. Kyrie had been at her apartment in Allston, preparing dinner with her roommates, when Nick had called. He’d provided no details, only told her that it was urgent—that he needed her—and that he’d explain it all eventually.
Define eventually, she should’ve said. But she hadn’t thought of it then.
The skinny little Latino chef won ten thousand dollars because he hadn’t screwed up the dessert course as badly as the woman he’d been up against. Kyrie clicked off the TV and got up from the sofa, glancing around the apartment. Sometimes Nick’s OCD and the cocktail of other little spectrum issues he had could drive her crazy, but she appreciated the fact that they made him compulsively neat. She walked across the room and looked out the window at the parking lot, wondering how much longer they would be.
The building had once been a factory, but it had been converted to upscale apartments within the past six or seven years, all exposed brick and wooden beams and high windows. Nick lived on the fifth floor in a two bedroom with a gourmet kitchen he never used to its potential. And now we’ll be leaving, she thought.
Down below, in the dim glow of the streetlights, she saw Nick’s car pull into the lot followed by a red Toyota she didn’t recognize. Nick drove up the front entrance of the building and parked at the curb, turning on his hazard lights. He popped open the driver’s door and climbed out from behind the wheel, but by then Kyrie was barely looking at him. The passenger door had opened as well, and she held her breath as she watched Tess get out.
Tess Devlin.
Kyrie loved Nick, and she thought he loved her in return, but if Tess decided that she wanted her ex-husband back and was willing to fight for him, the outcome was far from certain. Tess had been with him so much longer, knew him so much better, had shared so much with him. Beautiful and intelligent … Kyrie flattered herself that she could compete in those arenas, but Tess had given birth to Nick’s daughter. Unless and until Kyrie and Nick had a child of their own together, she couldn’t compete with that.
Unless he really loves you, the Logical One whispered in the back of her mind, for once saying something helpful instead of hurtful.
She watched Tess help Maddie out of the backseat, a happy flutter in her chest at the sight of the little girl. Maddie’s imagination sparkled so brightly that she always made Kyrie smile.
In the light from the lampposts in front of the building, it was hard to make out how many people might be in the red Toyota, but a woman got out of the passenger’s seat and joined Nick, Tess, and Maddie on the walk up to the lobby door. Kyrie glanced around the apartment for a second, then hurried to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of raspberry seltzer before returning to the living room sofa and clicking the TV back on. She wanted Tess to see her looking comfortable and at home here, not like she’d been anxiously awaiting their arrival.
When she heard the key in the door she nearly spilled her drink. She forced herself to wait until Nick had opened the door before she looked away from the TV. With a smile, she put her glass down on the coffee table, expecting some forced niceties with her boyfriend’s ex-wife.
Instead, Tess made a beeline to her as soon as she came through the door. Worry etched on her badly bruised face, she swept across the room and pulled Kyrie into a hug.
“Thank you for doing this,” she said. “You have no idea what it means to me.”
Tess stepped back, still holding her by the arms. Kyrie tried to hide the awkwardness she felt behind a half smile. Nick had told her about the intruder who’d broken into Tess’s place, but now that she saw the bruises and sensed the tremor of fear in the other woman, she realized she had badly underestimated how serious the attack had been.
“It’s nothing,” Kyrie said, hoping her smile looked more genuine than it felt.
Maddie walked over wearing her favorite backpack and waved a shy greeting. “Hi, Kyrie.”
“That’s all I get? Your mom gives me a hug but I just get a wave from you?” Kyrie said, dropping to her knees. Maddie smiled tiredly and walked over to embrace her. “I’m so glad to see you, munchkin. We’re gonna have a fun night. Have you eaten, or do you want me to make some mac and cheese?”
That was the trigger she’d needed. Maddie smiled brilliantly and pumped her fist. “Mac. And. Cheese!”
They high-fived and Kyrie sent her over to the TV to pick a movie, then turned to face Tess again.
“I know you must have questions—” Tess began.
“About a thousand,” Kyrie replied, studying the pain and fear in the other woman’s eyes. Nick had walked up behind Tess by then, and Kyrie turned her attention to him. “I don’t need the answers right this second. Especially not with the munchkin around. But I am going to want them. I hope that doesn’t come off as bitchy, but—”
Tess touched her arm. “No. You deserve the answers.”
She looked at Nick, and a little knife of jealousy thrust deep into Kyrie’s heart. With all of the other things the two of them shared, it hurt her that now here was this new thing, this secret they were going to keep from her, at least for a little while.
For the first time, Kyrie glanced past them and smiled at the other person who had arrived with them. The woman stood just inside the door looking profoundly uncomfortable.
“Hi,” Kyrie said. “You okay? Want a drink or something?”
The woman sighed deeply. “I’d kill for a shot of tequila, but even if you had it, we don’t have the time.”
Kyrie looked at Nick and Tess, hoping for some explanation, but she could see by their anxious expressions that she wasn’t going to get even a hint of one. Troubled, she turned to the woman at the door.
“What’s your name?”
“Audrey Pang,” she said, crossing to the same window from which Kyrie had watched them arrive. She looked down at the parking lot, practically vibrating with the same urgent energy that coursed through Nick and Tess.
“I’m Kyrie,” she said.
Audrey did not turn toward her. “Nice to meet you.”
A tight ball of fear formed in Kyrie’s gut as she studied the tension visible in the woman’s stance. She turned to Nick.
“I’m trying not to ask questions. I know you need to go. I can see you’re ready to bolt out of here,” Kyrie said. “But the way you’re all acting, and after what happened to Tess the other night…” She looked over her shoulder at Maddie, who had the remote control and was surfing through the on-demand o
fferings on the TV set. Kyrie turned back to look Nick in the eye. “Are you in danger? Are we in danger?”
Nick stepped up and kissed her as if his ex wasn’t standing three feet away. Kyrie knew he was trying to alleviate her fear and hated that it was so easy for him to do. She kissed him back fiercely and then let him go.
“That’s not an answer,” she said firmly, holding his hands so he could not avoid her question.
“It’s the only one we have right now,” Nick said carefully. “Ask me again when I come home.”
His tone held something uncertain, but she refused to pursue it further. Was it that he could not be sure he would be coming home? It couldn’t be. Something that serious … he’d tell her. He’d explain.
Wouldn’t he?
“You’ve just got to trust me,” Nick said.
Kyrie studied his face, on the verge of changing her mind and demanding they explain what the hell had them so spooked. Then Maddie cried out in victory.
“Look! Kyrie, look!” the little girl said. “Daddy’s got Finding Dory on demand! We can watch it, right?”
“Of course we can, honey,” Kyrie said. “Just give me a minute and I’ll get things cooking for your mac and cheese, and then we can start the movie. Give your mom and dad some love before they go.”
Maddie dutifully raced over and hugged her parents in turn, then grabbed Kyrie’s hand and tried to drag her to the sofa. Nick gave Kyrie another quick kiss and a look she could have interpreted as apologetic but chose to see as grateful. Then he called Audrey away from the window and they moved for the door.
Tess knelt by Maddie and took her hand so that she would let go of Kyrie.
“Settle down, punkin. Kyrie’s going to make your dinner and then you can watch your movie. Go on and find something on Disney Channel till she’s ready.”
Maddie smiled, but her gaze rested on her mother’s bruised face and she gave Tess another hug before returning to the sofa.
“Thank you again,” Tess whispered to Kyrie. “Truly.”
“Of course,” Kyrie said.
Tess moved in closer to her, one hand on her arm, and whispered again, so quietly that nobody else could hear.
Dead Ringers Page 25
