The Mediator #4: Darkest Hour

by Jenny Carroll

  "Oh," I said. "Look at that. That is just so interfering and loathsome of me."

  Then I smashed her face against the roof a few more times, saying, "This one is for jumping me while I was asleep and holding a knife to my throat. And this one is for making Dopey eat bugs, and this one is for making me have to clean up bug guts, and this one is for killing Clive, and oh yeah, this one is for Jesse – "

  I won't say I was out of my mind with rage. I was mad. I was plenty mad. But I knew exactly what I was doing.

  And it wasn't pretty. Hey, I'll be the first to admit that. I mean, violence is never the answer, right? Unless of course the person you're beating on is already dead.

  But just because a hundred and fifty years ago this chick had had a good friend of mine offed, for no other reason than that he had very rightly wanted out of a marriage with her, she didn't deserve to have her face bashed in.

  No way. What she deserved was to have every bone in her body broken.

  Unfortunately, however, when I finally let go of Maria's hair and stood up to do just that, I noticed a sudden glow to my left.

  Jesse, I thought, my heart doing another one of those speeding-up, skidding things.

  But of course it wasn't Jesse. When I turned my head, what I saw materializing there was a very tall man in a dark mustache and goatee, dressed in clothes that were somewhat similar to Jesse's, only a lot fancier – like he was a costume party Zorro or something. His snug black trousers had this elaborate silver filigree pattern going down the side of each leg, and his white shirt had those puffy sleeves pirates always wear in movies. He had a lot of silver scrollwork on his holster, too, and all around the brim of his black cowboy hat.

  And he didn't look very happy to see me.

  "Okay," I said, putting my hands on my hips. "Wait, don't tell me. Diego, am I right?"

  Under the pencil-thin mustache, his upper lip curled.

  "I thought I told you," he said to Maria, who was sitting up and holding her sleeve to her bleeding nose, "to leave this one to me."

  Maria was making a lot of very unattractive snuffling noises. You could tell she'd never had her nose broken before, because she wasn't tipping her head back to stop the bleeding.

  Amateur.

  "I thought she might be more amusing," Maria said in a voice laced with pain – and regret – "to play with."

  Diego shook his head disgustedly. "No," he said. "With mediators we do not play. I thought that was made clear to you from the start. They are entirely too dangerous."

  "I'm sorry, Diego." Maria's voice took on a whiny quality I had not heard before. I realized she was one of those girls who has a "guy" voice, one she uses only when men are around. "I should have done as you said."

  It was my turn to be disgusted.

  "Hello," I said to Maria. "This is the twenty-first century. Women are allowed to think for themselves now, you know."

  Maria just glared at me over the sleeve she was holding to her bleeding nose.

  "Kill her for me," she said in that whiny little-girl voice.

  Diego took a step toward me, wearing an expression that told me he was only too happy to oblige his lady love.

  "Oh, what?" I said. I wasn't even scared. I didn't care anymore. The numbness in my heart had pretty much taken over my whole body. "You always do what she tells you? You know, we have a word for that now. It's called being whipped."

  Apparently he was either unacquainted with this expression, or he just didn't care, since he kept coming at me. Diego was wearing spurs, and they clanged ominously against the roof tiles as he approached.

  "You know," I said, holding my ground. "I gotta tell you. The goatee thing? Yeah, way over. And you know a little jewelry really does go a long way. Just something you might want to consider. I'm actually glad you stopped by, because I have a couple things I've been meaning to say to you. Number one, about your wife? Yeah, she's a skank. And number two, you know that whole thing where you killed Jesse and then buried his remains out back there? Yeah, way un-cool. Because you see, now I have to – "

  Only I never got a chance to tell Felix Diego what I was going to have to do him. That's because he interrupted me. He said, in this deep and surprisingly menacing voice, for a guy with a goatee, "It has long been my conviction that the only good mediator is a dead one."

  Then, before I could so much as twitch, he threw his arms around me. I thought he was trying to give me a hug or something, which would have been pretty weird.

  But that wasn't what he was doing at all. No, what he was doing, actually, was throwing me off the porch roof.

  Oh, yes. He threw me right into the hole where the hot tub was supposed to go. Right where they'd uncovered Jesse's remains, just that afternoon....

  Which I thought was kind of ironic, actually. At least, while I was still capable of thought.

  Which wasn't for long, since I lost consciousness shortly after slamming into the ground.

  C H A P T E R

  10

  Here's the thing about mediators:

  We're hard to kill.

  I'm serious. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've been knocked down, dragged, stomped on, punched, kicked, bitten, clawed, whacked on the head, held underwater, shot at, and, oh, yeah, thrown off roofs.

  But have I ever died? Have I ever sustained a life-threatening injury?

  No. I've broken bones – plenty of them. I've got scars galore.

  But the fact is, whoever – or whatever – created us mediators did give us one natural weapon, at least, in our fight against the undead. No, not superhuman strength, though that would have been handy. No, what we've got, Father Dom and I – and Jack, too, probably, although I doubt he's had an opportunity to test it out yet – is a hide tough enough to take all the abuse that gets heaped on us and then some.

  Which was why even though by rights a fall like the one I took should have killed me, it didn't. Not even close.

  Not, of course, that Maria de Silva and her paramour didn't think they'd been successful. They must have, or they'd have stuck around to finish the job. But when I woke up hours later, groggy and with a headache you would not believe, they were nowhere to be seen.

  Clearly, I had won the first round. Well, in a manner of speaking, anyway. I mean, I wasn't dead, and that, in my book, is always a plus.

  What I was, was concussed. I knew right away because I get them all the time. Concussions, I mean.

  Well, all right, twice.

  Anyway, it's not so pleasant, being concussed. Basically, you feel pukey and sore all over, but, not surprisingly, your head really hurts more than anything. In my case, it was even worse in that I'd been lying at the bottom of that hole for so long, the dew had had a chance to fall. It had collected on my clothes and soaked them through and made them feel very heavy. So dragging myself out of that pit Andy and Dopey had dug became a real chore.

  In fact, it was dawn before I finally managed to let myself back into the house – thank God Sleepy had left the front door unlocked when he'd come in from his big date. Still, I had to climb all those stairs. It was pretty slow going. At least when I got to my room and was finally able to peel off all of my sodden, muddy clothes, I didn't have to worry, for once, about Jesse seeing me in my altogether.

  Because of course Jesse was gone.

  I tried not to think about that as I crawled into bed and shut my eyes. This strategy – the not-thinking-about-Jesse-being-gone strategy – seemed to work pretty well. I was asleep, I think, before that thought had really had a chance to sink in again.

  I didn't wake up until well past eight. Apparently Sleepy had tried to get me up for work, but I was too far gone. They let me sleep in, I guess, because they all assumed I was still upset about what had happened the day before, about the skeleton they'd found in the backyard.

  I only wish that was all I had to be upset about.

  When the phone rang a little after nine and Andy called up the stairs that it was for me, I was already u
p, standing in my bathroom in my sweats, examining the enormous bruise that had developed beneath my bangs. I looked like an alien. I'm not kidding. It was a wonder, really, I hadn't broken my neck. I was convinced that Maria and her boyfriend thought that's exactly what I'd done. It was the only reason I was still alive. The two of them were so cocky, they hadn't stuck around to make sure I was well and truly dead.

  They'd obviously never met a mediator before. It takes a lot more than a fall off a roof to kill one of us.

  "Susannah." Father Dominic's voice, when I picked up the phone, was filled with concern. "Thank God you're all right. I was so worried . . . But you didn't, did you? Go to the cemetery last night?"

  "No," I said. There hadn't been any reason to go there, in the end. The cemetery had come to me.

  But I didn't say that to Father D. Instead, I asked, "Are you back in town?"

  "I'm back. You didn't tell them, did you? Your family, I mean."

  "Um," I said, uncertainly.

  "Susannah, you must. You really must. They have a right to know. We're dealing with a very serious haunting here. You could be killed, Susannah – "

  I refrained from mentioning that I'd actually already come pretty close.

  At that moment, the call waiting went off. I said, "Father D, can you hold on a second?" and hit the receiver.

  A high-pitched, vaguely familiar voice spoke in my ear, but for the life of me, I could not place it right away.

  "Suze? Is that you? Are you all right? Are you sick or something?"

  "Um," I said, extremely puzzled. "Yeah. I guess. Sort of. Who is this?"

  The voice said, very indignantly, "It's me! Jack!"

  Oh, God. Jack. Work. Right.

  "Jack," I said. "How did you get my home number?"

  "You gave it to Paul," Jack said. "Yesterday. Don't you remember?"

  I did not, of course. All I could really remember from yesterday was that Clive Clemmings was dead, Jesse's portrait was missing …

  And that Jesse, of course, was gone. Forever.

  Oh, and the whole part where the ghost of Felix Diego tried to split my head open.

  "Oh," I said. "Yeah. Okay. Look, Jack, I have someone on the other – "

  "Suze," Jack interrupted. "You were supposed to teach me to do underwater somersaults today."

  "I know," I said. "I'm really sorry. I just … I just really couldn't face coming in to work today, bud. I'm sorry. It's nothing against you or anything. I just really need a day off."

  "You sound so sad," Jack said, sounding pretty sad himself. "I thought you'd be really happy."

  "You did?" I wondered if Father D was still waiting on the other line or if he'd hung up in a huff. I was, I realized, treating him pretty badly. After all, he'd cut his little retreat short for me. "How come?"

  "On account of how I – "

  That's when I saw it. Just the faintest glow, over by the daybed. Jesse? Again my heart gave one of those lurches. It was really getting pathetic, how much I kept hoping, every time I saw the slightest shimmer, that it would be Jesse.

  It wasn't.

  It wasn't Maria or Diego either – thank God. Surely not even they would be bold enough to try to take a whack at me in broad daylight....

  "Jack," I said, into the phone. "I have to go."

  "Wait, Suze, I – "

  But I'd hung up. That's because sitting there on my daybed, looking deeply unhappy, was Dr. Clive Clemmings, Ph.D.

  Just my luck: Wish for a Jesse. Get a Clive.

  "Oh," he said, blinking behind the lenses of his Coke-bottle-bottom glasses. He seemed almost as surprised to see me as I was to see him materialize there in my bedroom. "It's you."

  I just shook my head. Sometimes my bedroom feels like Grand Central Station.

  "Well, I simply didn't – " Clive Clemmings fiddled with his bow tie. "I mean, when they said I should contact a mediator, I didn't … I mean, I never expected – "

  " – that the mediator would be me," I finished for him. "Yeah. I get that a lot."

  "It's only," Clive said, apologetically, "that you're so …"

  I just glared at him. I really wasn't in the mood. Can you blame me? What with the concussion, and all? "That I'm so what?" I demanded. "Female? Is that it? Or are you going to try to convince me you're shocked by my preternatural intelligence?"

  "Er," Clive Clemmings said. "Young. I meant that … it's just that you're so young."

  I sank down onto the window seat. Really, what had I ever done to deserve this? I mean, nobody wants to be visited by the specter of a guy like Clive. I'm almost positive nobody ever wanted him to visit when he was alive. So why me?

  Oh, yeah. The mediator thing.

  "To what do I owe the pleasure, Clive?" I probably should have called him Dr. Clemmings, but I had too much of a headache to be respectful of my elders.

  "Well, I hardly know," Clive said. "I mean, suddenly, Mrs. Lampbert – that's my receptionist, don't you know? – she isn't answering when I call her, and when people telephone for me, well, she tells them . . . the most horrible thing, actually. I simply don't know what's come over her." dive cleared his throat. "You see, she's saying that I'm – "

  "Dead," I finished for him.

  Clive eyes grew perceptibly bigger behind his glasses.

  "Why," he said, "that's extraordinary. How could you know that? Well, yes, of course, you are the mediator, after all. They said you'd understand. But really, Miss Ackerman, I've had the most trying few days. I don't feel at all like myself, and I – "

  "That," I interrupted him, "is because you're dead."

  Ordinarily, I might have been a little nicer about it, but I guess I still felt a little kernel of resentment toward old Clive for his cavalier dismissal of my suggestion that Jesse might have been murdered.

  "But that's not possible," Clive said. He tugged on his bow tie. "I mean, look at me. I am clearly here. You are speaking to me – "

  "Yeah," I said. "Because I'm a mediator, Clive. That's my job. To help people like you move on after they've . . . you know." Since he clearly did not know, I elaborated: "Croaked."

  Clive blinked rapidly several times in succession. "I … I … Oh, dear."

  "Yeah," I said. "See? Now let's see if we can figure out why you're here and not in happy historian heaven. What's the last thing you remember?"

  Clive dropped his hand from his chin. "Pardon?"

  "What's the last thing you remember," I repeated, "from before you found yourself . . . well, invisible to Mrs. Lampbert?"

  "Oh." Clive reached up to scratch his bald head. "Well, I was sitting at my desk, and I was looking at those letters you brought me. Quite kind of your stepfather to think of us. People so often overlook their community's historical society, when you know, really, without us, the fabric of the local lore would be permanently – "

  "Clive," I said. I knew I sounded cranky, but I couldn't help it. "Look, I haven't even had breakfast yet. Can you get a move on, please?"

  "Oh." He blinked some more. "Yes. Of course. Well, as I was saying, I was examining the letters you brought me. Ever since you left my office the other day, I've been thinking about what you said … about Hector de Silva, I mean. It does seem a bit unlikely that a fellow who wrote so lovingly of his family would simply walk out on them without a word. And the fact that you found Maria's letters buried in the yard of what was once a well-known boarding-house . . . Well, I must say, upon further consideration, the whole thing struck me as extremely odd. I'd picked up my dictaphone and was just making a few notes for Mrs. Lampbert to type up later when I suddenly felt . . . well, a chill. As if someone had turned the air-conditioning up very high. Although I can assure you Mrs. Lampbert knows better than that. Some of our artifacts must be kept in highly controlled atmospheric climates, and she would never – "

  "It wasn't the air-conditioning," I said flatly.

  He stared at me, clearly startled. "No. No, it wasn't. Because a moment later, I caught the faintest whiff of orange
blossoms. And you know Maria Diego was quite well-known for wearing orange blossom-scented toilet water. It was so odd. Because a second later, I could swear that for a moment …" The look in his eyes, behind the thick lenses of those glasses, grew faraway. "Well, for a moment, I could have sworn I saw her. Just out of the corner of my eye. Maria de Silva Diego …"

  The faraway look left his eyes. When his gaze next fastened onto mine, it was laser sharp.

  "And then I felt," he told me, in a tightly controlled voice, "a shooting pain, all up and down my arm. I knew what it was, of course. Congenital heart disease runs in my family. It killed my grandfather, you know, shortly after his book was first published. But I, unlike him, have been extremely diligent with my diet and exercise regimen. It could only have been the shock, you know, of seeing – thinking I was seeing anyway – something that wasn't – that couldn't possibly – "

  He broke off, then continued, "Well, I reached for the telephone to call 911 at once, but it … well, the telephone sort of … leaped off my desk."

  I just looked at him. I had to admit, by this time I was feeling sorry for him. I mean, he had been murdered, just like Jesse. And by the same hand, too. Well, more or less.

  "I couldn't reach it," Clive said sadly. "The telephone, I mean. And that . . . that's the last thing I remember."

  I licked my lips. "Clive," I said. "What were you saying? Into the dictaphone. Right before you saw her. Maria de Silva, I mean."

  "What was I saying? Oh, of course. I was saying that though it would bear further investigation, it did seem to me as if what you suggested, and what my grandfather always believed, might possibly have merit...."

  I shook my head. I couldn't believe it.

  "She killed you," I murmured.

  "Oh." Clive was no longer blinking or tugging on his bow tie. He just sat there, looking like a scarecrow somebody had pulled the pole out from under. "Yes. I suppose you could say that. But only in a manner of speaking. I mean, it was the shock, after all. But it's not as if she – "

  "To keep you from telling anyone what I said." In spite of my headache, I was getting mad all over again. "And she probably killed your grandfather, too, the same way."