Deadly Violet - 04

by Tony Richards

“Well, of course the planet. Hot enough for you, old chum?”

  The manservant looked down, and realized he could still see his hands and arms, his blue-clad belly and the polished tips of both his shoes. And from the way that this whole process had been described, he’d not been expecting any of that.

  “Um, I still appear to have a body, sir.”

  He looked across at Woodard through the heat-haze shimmering around them.

  “Ah, not really,” Raine told him. “If that were the case, then we’d both have been fried to cinders the instant we arrived. But I’ve given us the semblance of bodies, the sensation and appearance of still having them. How could we properly enjoy the sunshine otherwise?”

  Hampton thought about it, saw the sense of that idea, and started calming down. He mopped his brow, yanked off his tie and started undoing the collar of his shirt.

  “Know what I could use right now?”

  “I think that I can guess,” his employer answered.

  Raine waggled his fingertips – there was no way he could click them. And a pair of large, comfortable looking sun recliners suddenly appeared in front of the two men. Between them was a low glass table with two frothing pitchers of beer set on it, condensation trickling down their sides.

  Both of them sat down and stretched out, Hampton kicking off his shoes and socks.

  “You know what, sir?” he ventured a touch nervously, glancing over. “You can be pretty off the wall, sometimes. But in a very good way.”

  “Yes,” Raine grinned, shutting his eyes. “I know.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I was back to being a cop. That puzzled me at first, but then I noticed that it was the height of summer, so I knew this was a dream. I’d recently come to the end of a shift, and pulled up outside my front yard in my blue-and-white cruiser.

  My little son Pete was out there waiting for me, beaming from ear to ear and bouncing around with excitement. And I wondered what he was so worked up about, but it can be anything with five year-old boys. So I killed the motor, then took off my shades and got out calmly.

  Off inside my house, I could hear the phone start ringing. It purred away insistently for a good long while, and I wondered why Alicia wasn’t picking up. But then it stopped.

  “Dad! Dad!”

  I reached down and ruffled Pete’s blond hair.

  “What’s up?”

  I noticed he was holding the same tennis ball that he’d been carrying around all summer.

  “I’ve taught myself to throw a sinker!”

  I had been a pitcher myself, when I’d been in high school. And had spent the past couple of months trying to pass those kinds of skills onto him, showing him how to hold the cheese for every kind of throw. He wasn’t ready for a proper baseball yet, and we had our windows and our neighbors’ ones to think of, so the tennis ball had had to do. But he’d turned out to have a reasonable enough talent, learning to pitch heaters and curves easily enough. But, up until this point, sinkers had eluded him.

  I stared down at him, grinning.

  “Okay. Show me.”

  His expression became very serious. He peered at the front lawn two doors down. Wound himself up slowly. Drew a breath, and held it. Made the pitch.

  It went in a dead straight line for about twenty yards, and then dropped away smartly, hitting the turf and rolling.

  “That’s terrific!” I crowed.

  And he beamed again.

  I sent him to police the ball up, then took him by the hand and walked with him to our front door.

  But before we reached it, the bell rang, echoingly loud. And how could that happen, when we were on the outside?

  I woke up.

  The doorbell rang a second, then a third time, forcing me up into awareness. And as soon as my eyes came open, I could see that this was far too early. Dawn was barely a reality as yet, merely a silver tinge of promise out beyond my drapes. And – when I pushed myself upright – I could feel the bedroom’s air was freezing. I’d forgotten to switch the heating’s timer on when I’d turned in last night.

  I struggled out and found a thick robe, wrapping it around me.

  The bell went off again, sounding like a claxon in the silence of my house.

  When I opened my door, a blast of icy air struck at me. Saul Hobart was standing on my porch, dressed as warmly as he could manage. But his face was very glum. I wondered what was going on this time.

  “Cassie tried to raise you on the phone, and couldn’t,” he informed me. “So she got in touch with me instead.”

  His gaze dropped right down to his boots before his voice continued.

  “Lauren’s going. Cassie thought you’d want to know.”

  The same unhappiness that had gripped Hobart settled over me. I lifted a finger and thumb and rubbed some sleep out of my eyes, then tried to think what I ought to do next.

  Not leave a friend standing outdoors in weather like this, was one obvious answer. So I ushered him inside, pointed him toward the kitchen and the coffeemaker, and then headed back into my bedroom and started getting dressed.

  Damn. My mood got darker with every layer of clothing that I added. This was precisely how things had panned out last time Lauren had been here. She’d turned up out of nowhere, helped us with the danger we were facing. Then, as soon as it was over, she’d been on her way, impatient to be out of town.

  Part of it was down to Regan’s Curse, the voices that had to be ringing in the background of her thoughts. But she ought to be used to that. So it was something else as well.

  We couldn’t have gotten through this without her. I knew that, and so did Saul, and so did everybody else. Lauren had come here of her own free will, and put her life on the line for a bunch of people who she mostly didn’t know. And there were plenty of things I’d have liked to say to her. But she was leaving us with the option of just one word. A simple, plain ‘goodbye.’

  My heart was really heavy. And my body felt like lead. I went on through into the bathroom, swilled some mouthwash. Dammit. I had harbored the belief that she’d grown used to this place since the last time. But apparently, I’d gotten that wrong.

  Saul and I went out again. There was still barely enough light to see by. He’d left his Pontiac at home, opting for a departmental SUV instead. And he had good reason for doing that. Several more inches of snow had fallen, while I had been in the Land of Nod.

  Lauren was planning to drive back to Boston in this? She had to be really determined to get out of here, and that left me feeling even sadder.

  But she was still getting ready when we finally turned up. The trunk of her Ford was open, and she was fitting snow chains to her tires, working in the pale glow of a nearby streetlamp.

  It looked like she’d refused any help, and was doing it on her own. Cass was standing on her porch, both fists on her hips. And Martha and Willets had shown up too, and were staying at a slight remove and peering at her mournfully.

  We got out, and Saul approached her.

  “Busy holiday season coming up, huh, Lauren?” He was trying to sound cheerful. “Bunch of big parties and stuff?”

  She glanced around at him, then returned her attention to her work.

  “Not really.”

  “You’re on duty?” he asked her

  “No.” Her chin ducked. “I generally find this time of year an opportunity to catch up on my reading.”

  She finished up one tire, then moved on to the next.

  Catch up on her what? We stared at her bemusedly.

  “Uh … you must have family?” Saul asked. “You must have friends?”

  “My folks are both gone. There’s pretty much no one else. And I have colleagues, guys I work with, sure. But as for friends? You know how that goes, don’t you, lieutenant.”

  Then she paused uncertainly and corrected herself.

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. You don’t. You live in a community where people like you and respect you, and are grateful for the work you do. You’
ve not the first clue what it’s like to be in a world where none of that’s the case.”

  And I’d read enough to know what she was talking about. But Saul obviously hadn’t.

  He peered out at the far horizon, his eyes reflective and his big brow getting ruffled. And when he figured out what she was trying to tell him, you could see the disbelief on his face.

  “People out there don’t like cops?” He worked his jaw annoyedly. “Well, that’s downright nuts!”

  Lauren stopped what she was doing, her head sinking in between her shoulders. And I couldn’t see her face, but figured Saul’s words might have had a slight effect on her. Maybe she was closer to the truth than she had been a short while back. Because Raine’s Landing might have its bad side, its monsters and its demons. But it has a good side too.

  This was a far simpler part of the world than the one she had arrived from. Kinder, when not in crisis, and less fractious and confused. No one here would shy away from her because she wore a badge. That’s a brand of nonsense that we refuse to buy into.

  Cassie noticed what was going on. Saw her opportunity, and moved in closer.

  “You could stay here,” she suggested brightly. “It wouldn’t be any problem. The opposite, in fact.”

  Lauren threw her another swift glance and forced a smile. But then shook her head and went back to what she had been doing.

  “Why not?” Cassie asked. “We’ve gotten on great, haven’t we?”

  “Yes, we have. But – no offence, Cass – I don’t really want to spend my Christmas in a place where something might pop out of the ground and try to eat me any second.”

  Which made sense. I had never looked at it from quite that point of view before.

  “Well, that could happen,” I explained, “but it probably won’t. We generally find that there’s a lull between these ‘little incidents.’ So we ought to be safe, at least the next few days.”

  “Even evil has to take a break sometime,” Saul added.

  But none of us were really getting through to her. Consciously or otherwise. Lauren was blocking our words out. She finished with the second tire and moved on to the third, refusing to look back.

  She’d not been brought up here. I reminded myself forcibly of that fact. She could cope with a town like the Landing when she had to – she was strong enough to manage that. But getting really used to it and treating it as normal … there was some kind of barrier in her mind, preventing her from going that whole distance.

  A familiar, determined look swept across Cassie’s features. She goes in hard when it comes to fighting. And when Quinn Maycott had been around, she’d gone in hard on love as well. And now – so it appeared – she was prepared to do the same for friendship.

  She went marching across and snatched the snow chain out of Lauren’s grasp, so fiercely that the blond lieutenant was forced to stand up.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Cass almost shouted. “I thought that you were a smart person, but you’re not even seeing straight.”

  Lauren stared at her bewilderedly, her face an astonished blank.

  “You think you’ve got no friends?” Cassie held out both her arms and waved them about stiffly. “Look around! Everybody came here, way too early on a freezing cold morning, because they’re sorry that you’re going. They wanted to at least say goodbye, and see you one last time.”

  She threw the chain aside.

  “We’re not just grateful that you helped! We really like you, dumbass! And how can we even enjoy ourselves the next few days, knowing that you’re sitting on your own somewhere in Boston?”

  From anybody else, that would have sounded like arm-twisting. But Cass was speaking from the heart.

  Lauren’s gaze swept over her surroundings, and then settled on the rest of us. And we wanted her to make her own mind up about this, so we simply waited.

  She thrust her lower lip out, then stared back at Cassie.

  “Ah, Jesus!” Her head tipped back a few inches and she breathed deeply through her nose. “I can’t believe I’m considering this. But …”

  A little of the pink around her cheeks had transferred to her eyelids.

  “Okay, then. Maybe for a day or two.”

  But then she rounded on the rest of us.

  “I swear to God, though! If I wind up being chased down Main Street by Saint Nick, and he’s got fangs and claws and fire coming from his nostrils, I am holding you guys personally responsible!”

  And she sounded wholly serious about that.

  So I promised her we’d do our best to make sure nothing like that happened.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Around midday – the sun about as high in the sky as it was going to get – the whole bunch of us went to help Lehman Willets move house. He could have done it magically, of course. Simply clicked his fingers a few times, and spirited his possessions from his basement over to the guest cottage at Martha’s place. But, rehabilitated or not, he still has a few annoying bees in his bonnet. And this, apparently, was one of them. He wanted to do this the traditional way.

  So we headed into the commercial district, Martha showing up in a big four-wheel drive pickup that she’d either hired or conjured into being. And we started gathering the man’s stuff.

  There wasn’t too much of it, when you first looked. His camp bed, which he no longer genuinely needed. The big iron kettle, set over the fire that keeps him warm. His precious turntable on its tall black plinth – he had no actual jazz albums in storage, making them pop out of the thin air whenever he wanted a new one.

  But then, of course, there were his books. All of them hardbacks, all of them on the subject of magic, and many of them huge. Several hundred of them. Quite a heavy load.

  And it turned out Willets saw his role in this whole business as a matter of simply standing there, waving his hands about and directing operations.

  “Moving house – it’s a landmark in your life,” he kept on saying. “One that ought to be forever treasured in your memory.”

  “He’ll remember it when he gets my chiropractor’s bill,” Cassie grumbled, staggering past me with a massive crate.

  But we got everything loaded up, and pushed out through the winter sunshine to the lower slopes of Sycamore Hill. And within another hour, the books had all been placed on shelves, the record player was exactly where the doctor wanted it, and the kettle was whistling on his brand-new stove.

  The doorbell chimed. Judge Levin and Fleur, his wife, were standing on the porch. I knew how much the judge had been looking forward to this day.

  They’d brought a housewarming gift, one that I recognized instantly. It was the finest piece from the collection of scrimshaw in his study. The depiction on it was of John Paul Jones’s ship, the Ranger, capturing the HMS Drake in 1778. You could almost see the ocean swirl, and hear the canons roar.

  Willets shook his head and held his palms out, waggling them.

  “No. I couldn’t possibly –“

  “Refuse this,” the judge finished for him loudly, “without causing myself and my good wife the gravest possible offence.”

  And he shoved it into Willets’s hands.

  It wound up at the center of his mantelpiece. And we took turns admiring it, then went out for a stroll.

  There was a lot of open ground off behind Martha’s house, the whiteness covering it thickly. The eight of us headed out across it, leaving it plowed up behind us.

  There were branches on the trees ahead of us that were almost bent double from their burden. And the rows of houses down below looked like tiny models, their roofs painted white.

  Birds were out, and wheeling around. A jackrabbit went skittering past. The sun was shining brilliantly, reflecting off the snow and making you feel warmer than you ought.

  The kind of day, in other words, when you get reminded what it feels like to be a couple of decades younger at this time of year. And that infected Cass and Lauren more than the rest of us, as it turned out. Because somehow �
�� don’t ask me how – a snowfight started up between them.

  Judge Levin laughed uproariously at the spectacle. That is, until one of the snowballs flew wide of its mark and hit him squarely on the neck.

  His face reddened and his eyeballs bugged. He stretched both arms out, muttering a spell. And a huge globe of the white stuff, some four feet across, started rising from a drift in front of him.

  Fleur hurried across and dragged his arms down, and the giant ball disintegrated.

  “Enough of this, okay?” she suggested. “Let’s go watch the skaters in Crealley Street Park instead.”

  So that was what we did.

  There were about fifty of them out there on the frozen surface of the lake, whirling around and pirouetting, brightly colored hats and mufflers everywhere you looked.

  Beyond them was a big wide slope which dozens of kids with sleds were leaving tracks across.

  Excited toddlers, bundled up like parcels, were chasing yapping little dogs in circles through the whiteness – or perhaps it was the other way around. And there were big old conifers around these parts, snow mantling them like ermine on the shoulders of an ancient race of giants.

  Lauren looked surprised at how fast this place had recovered. That was something else she hadn’t known about our town. She drank in her surroundings, and I noted how much more relaxed her face was starting to become. So I caught her attention, and then held her gaze inquiringly.

  “It’s … nice,” she conceded, with an awkward smile. “It’s … pretty.”

  Her shoulders lifted as the cold bit into her, but her smile stayed in place.

  “God, I never thought I’d use that word about this place.”

  Then she turned around in a slow circle, a fresh layer of comprehension seeming to descend on her.

  “It’s what you fight for, right?” she asked me, recalling the lecture that I’d given her at Martha’s.

  And I hadn’t meant to shrug, but did so anyway.

  And then told her, “It’s all we’ve got.”

  It began to snow again come evening, thousands of flakes passing by the streetlamps like enormous swarms of amber moths. But we were comfortable and warm by then, having recently finished a meal at the best restaurant in town, courtesy of the Levins. And now we were headed to our next location. Willets kept on asking where, but we refused to tell him.