Lost Souls

by Poppy Brite

  His first clear thought was What happened to Zillah? beautiful green-eyed Zillah? he must be safe. He blocked that thought, and his second one was They are here, they are really here; the time passed as if I were asleep and they have found me again.

  Then Christian did something he had never done before, not once during a long, long bartending career. He dropped the cup of beer he was holding. It foamed around his boots and made a huge puddle on the floor. Kinsey came out from the back and saw it and glared at him, and Christian could not have cared less.

  Nothing gazed around at the kids in the club. They were all so beautiful. He loved their choppy hairstyles, their costume jewelry, their ragged black or multicolored clothes. He loved the way they all somehow looked like him, and he wished he could make friends with every one of them. Most of them smiled at him, and a few said “hey”—they all seemed to say that instead of “hi” or “hello”—but he didn’t dare talk to any of them. He couldn’t make friends now. Not when they might end up like Laine, alone in a culvert with rainwater washing through their hair.

  Not yet.

  He was content just to be among them, watching them talk, smoke, dance. Zillah was beside him, and the others, so he wasn’t alone. And he had the show to remember. The songs. Ghost swaying at the microphone, bathed in golden light. Steve bounding across the stage, playing guitar like the devil was chasing him. Ghost’s hands like pale birds shaping the music. Nothing stood still, trying to absorb every detail of the club—the smells of clove-smoke and sweaty perfume; the mural sprawling across the walls, some of it faded or rubbed away, some bright as the fresh blood on the walls of the van.

  Then Molochai and Twig stumbled off to the bar in search of some drink called a Suffering Bastard. Zillah disappeared with them, but a few minutes later he was back. He gripped Nothing’s arm and nodded meaningfully toward the exit.

  Outside, Zillah turned without a word and stalked away from the club. Nothing stared after him for a moment, then ran along the sidewalk to catch up.

  All day it had been like this. Ever since slinking away from Steve and Ghost’s house—that was how Nothing thought of it. In broad daylight they had slunk away. Now Zillah’s face was completely healed, and Zillah had managed to be nice to him all night. But now Zillah was acting as if he had been disgusted with the show. Had the music bored him? Was the club too small, too unglamorous? Or did Zillah just harbor an unshakable hatred for Steve and Ghost?

  If that was the case, Nothing wanted to retrieve Molochai and Twig and get out of town. He’d seen Missing Mile; he’d seen his show. There was no place for him here, not with his new family. Nothing caught up with Zillah and walked alongside him. On their right was a block of abandoned stores. On their left was a line of parked cars, windshields reflecting the moonlight back at Nothing. Up ahead he could make out a figure hunched on the hood of one of the cars. As they walked closer, he saw that it was a girl. Her long hair spilled down over the back of her sweatshirt. Closer still, and he saw that she was crying.

  Zillah pulled him toward the girl. Surely he couldn’t be hungry again, not after last night—but Nothing put that out of his mind. He couldn’t do that again, not yet. And Molochai and Twig weren’t here. When Zillah touched the girl’s shoulder and asked, “Can we help you, my dear?” Nothing thought he understood. He had crossed Zillah, and his punishment wasn’t over.

  But Nothing didn’t care. Zillah could have this girl if he wanted her. Or any girl, anyone. Because now Nothing knew something he hadn’t known before: Zillah wasn’t just angry because Nothing had gone against him, or even because Nothing had hurt him. Zillah was jealous too, jealous of Steve and Ghost, of Nothing’s love for them and their music. The new knowledge coursed through him, making him feel weirdly powerful, like the time he had shot heroin with Spooky. He could make someone jealous, even someone as beautiful and charismatic as Zillah. It was a heady feeling.

  He could get used to feeling like that.

  Ann’s head jerked up when the man touched her shoulder. She hadn’t heard him approaching, probably wouldn’t have heard the march of Sherman coming up the street. At a better moment she might have welcomed a stranger’s attention, but right now she knew her bangs were plastered to her forehead, her eye makeup smeared across her cheeks, the pale complexion she cultivated flushed and blotchy from crying. Damn Steve Finn, she thought, damn him to death. But then she saw the man who had spoken to her, and she forgot about Steve; she even forgot that she probably looked like a bag lady on crack.

  She was transfixed. Her stare flicked over the boy beside him, dismissed him as a high school trendy, and went back to Zillah. The eyes were amazing, the first thing anyone would notice. The rest of him wasn’t bad either. He was shorter than she usually liked her guys, and a little more muscular—Steve and Eliot rivalled each other for the Ichabod Crane Bodybuilding Award. But the bones of his face were like a mask carved out of moonstone, perfect and faintly cruel, the face of an aristocrat. His skin was smooth and flawless.

  As he reached out and took one of her hands, dwarfing it in both of his, Ann noticed the dark tracery of veins beneath his silken skin. After a moment she realized that these were noticeable because the man had almost no hair on the visible parts of his body—none on the knuckles or the back of his hand, none at the open collar of his shirt. She wondered if he was so smooth elsewhere, if she was about to find out. Those green eyes gave her a reckless feeling. How could you turn down a man who looked at you with those eyes?

  “We were going back to our car to smoke a touch of opium,” Zillah told the girl. “Would you care to join us?”

  For a moment Ann was almost afraid. If he had said “pot” or even “hash,” she would have thought nothing of it, but who had opium in Missing Mile? She thought of serial killers, of girls found rolled up in rugs with their arms and legs sawed off, of toolboxes and power drills.

  Then she straightened her back, thrust out her chest, and smiled. None of that could happen to her. And if it did—well, then Simon couldn’t practice his emotional torture on her any more, and Steve would feel so bad that it would almost be worth it. “Why not?” she said. “I haven’t gotten stoned in three weeks.”

  She slid off the hood of the car, and Zillah took her arm and led her toward the van. Ann kept her arm squeezed against her body so that his fingers would come into contact with the sideswell of her breast. He didn’t move his hand away. Soon she felt his fingers begin to move, subtly caressing her, a forefinger darting out to graze her nipple. The nipple shivered erect, and he toyed with it a second longer. Ann felt something happening in her lower pelvis, a warm throbbing tension. If this man really got her stoned on opium, he might get more than the quickie he seemed to be looking for.

  Neither Ann nor Zillah looked back to see whether Nothing was following, but after a moment Nothing did.

  Ghost tailed Zillah and Nothing, keeping to the shadows, staying a good ways behind. They were well into the rundown section now. All the windows here were boarded up or broken. Ghost saw a milky swath of stars reflected in a long splinter of glass. The stars were cold in the sky. This part of town was always cold. Even in the middle of summer, night-walkers might shiver and pull their light clothes more tightly around them. The glinting spears of glass, the crust of dirt in the gutter, the cloud of steam that boiled like some gray-white phantom from a sewer grate cast a chill over everything.

  Ghost walked with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down low. Once Zillah turned his head, and Ghost thought he could see hot green light spilling from those eyes. He ducked into a dark doorway, his heart beating faster.

  Zillah and Nothing melted into the cold shadows without a glance at the desolation around them. They moved silently and did not speak or touch, though their hands sometimes brushed together. Ghost stayed in the doorway and watched them. Down the sidewalk he saw a girl sitting on the hood of a car. She looked as if she might be crying. Her long hair could have been any color; the flat illuminatio
n of the few unbroken streetlights turned it black. But Zillah approached her and spoke to her, and when she looked up at him, Ghost saw her face. The girl was Ann Bransby-Smith.

  After talking to them for a minute, she slid down from the hood of the car. Frantically, Ghost reached out for Ann’s mind. If he could feel her, maybe he could warn her … of what? This kind, urbane man raising a baseball bat above his head, ready to split Ghost’s skull? Of Zillah’s smashed face that had magically repaired itself, of Zillah’s smooth voice murmuring cold lewd words in Ghost’s head?

  Ann would never believe it. And at any rate she wasn’t out there tonight, or if she was, he couldn’t find her. There was only the cold void of the dark. The ether, his grandmother had called that empty-feeling place. The ether was alone, and Ghost left it so. He watched as Ann walked away with Zillah, and when they had gone several paces, he started following again.

  When they got into the black van, Zillah helping Ann up and motioning Nothing in after her, Ghost thought it was all over. Up Shit Creek, Steve would have said, without a paddle. Now they would drive away, and Ghost would have to go back to the club and try to decide whether to tell Steve that his ex-girlfriend had just taken off with two of their mysterious visitors.

  But the headlights never came on; the motor didn’t start. The van didn’t move. A few times the back window lit up with the red flare of matches. Then the van stayed dark and still. Ghost walked closer, scared and confused. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to go hammer on the windows, break the glass, rescue Nothing and Ann from that beautiful, awful creature with the bright green eyes.

  But Nothing had cast his lot already, and Ann was old enough to take care of herself. If Ghost tried to rescue her, she would probably punch him in the nose. So he prowled, and shivered, and wished for X-ray vision to see through the sides of the van. He closed his eyes and stood very still with his hands at his sides, swaying, but the van might have been a million miles away, might have been empty. He couldn’t feel anything.

  Ghost turned away, thinking he would go back to the club. He would keep his mouth shut if Steve was still conscious. He would take Steve home and give him a lot of coffee and maybe one of Miz Catlin’s potions. Maybe everything wouldn’t be so weird tomorrow. He turned away, and then he heard the door of the van slam.

  Nothing was standing on the sidewalk, half in the streetlights’ glare, half in the shadow of the storefronts. He stood as if he might be very tired or very drunk, but he held his head up, and there was strength in his face, strength and stubbornness and a resignation that should never have marked a face so young.

  “Hey,” said Ghost softly.

  Nothing’s eyes sharpened, and his lips parted a little. For a moment he stared into the darkness, but he didn’t look as if he cared much what came out of it. Then he saw Ghost and stepped forward, and they stood facing each other on the cold sidewalk.

  “That’s Steve’s girlfriend in the van there,” said Ghost.

  “That’s my lover in there with her,” Nothing said. “She’s on top now. He was on top before, when they started, and the sweat on his back was shining, and she screamed when he spread her legs and rammed it in …” His voice trailed away, and he stared at Ghost. His eyes were dark and huge, all pupil. His face was naked, exquisitely shadowed, desperate. “Be my brother,” he said. “Zillah loves me. He’ll let me stay now. I can stand it if you’ll be my brother just for one minute.”

  So Ghost put his arms around Nothing and hugged him tight, as he had wanted to do ever since he first saw the pain in those dark child-eyes. Nothing sagged against him as if never wanting to let go again, and Ghost felt all the exhaustion in that thin little body. There was strength in this boy, a lot of strength, but he was just a kid and God only knew what had been happening to him. He must have had about all he could stand for today.

  “Hold me,” said Nothing into the folds of Ghost’s jacket. “Please don’t let me go. Not yet.”

  “No,” Ghost told him. “Not yet. It’s all right.”

  He felt so damn helpless. It wasn’t all right. It would never be all right. If Nothing stayed with those three, with that one, he was lost. “Listen,” he said into the boy’s lank damp-smelling hair. “Do you want to come stay with me and Steve? I mean, he’ll cuss about it, but he won’t kick you out. Not if you need us.”

  Nothing looked up at Ghost for a second. Then he let his head fall back onto Ghost’s shoulder. The touch of his lips against Ghost’s throat was light, shivery. “I can’t,” he said. “If I went home with you, they’d come for me. Zillah would. And I have to go with them.”

  “Why? What are they to you?” Ghost knew his voice was getting louder, but he couldn’t stop it. “What the hell are they, Nothing? Steve’s pretty strong, but when that guy held him down, he couldn’t move. And I dreamed about you—or someone—and there was so much blood. What are they?”

  “Never mind,” said Nothing. “Never mind what they are. This is all you need to know: whatever they are, so am I.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I wish you could tell me,” Nothing said. “I wish you remembered your dreams.” He let go of Ghost and turned toward the club.

  But in Nothing’s path was a shape that stood tall and awry, blocking the sidewalk. A scarecrow with hair wild and tangled, shirttails flapping, feet planted wide apart in a half-crouch, knees bent at crazy angles, arms outstretched, fingers clawing at the night. A shape that moved in a cloud of beer and murder-lust, Steve.

  His eyes found Ghost, wavered, shone. “Where the fuck is she? She’s with a guy. I know she’s with a guy. I’ll kill ’em both. Where the fuck—”

  The door of the van slammed again. Ann was there, steadying herself with one hand against the side of the van. Her hair was rumpled, her face flushed. Behind her, Zillah stepped out, placing his feet carefully on the sidewalk.

  Zillah was wearing pink sneakers, Ghost saw. The laces were printed with some kind of bright pattern—it looked like letters, but Ghost couldn’t make them out. Zillah looked at Nothing and smiled darkly. Nothing gave him a shaky smile in return, a smile that made Ghost want to cry, a smile that proved better than anything else that Nothing was lost.

  Steve looked from Zillah to Ann. His eyes gleamed; his mouth worked soundlessly. “Ann?” he managed at last. “You didn’ … you cou’n’ …”

  Ann walked right up to Steve. She held her head high and her back very straight, smiled sweetly into his stricken face. “I could and I did,” she said, “and you don’t have a goddamn thing to say about it.”

  “But he … but he …” Wordlessly, Steve gestured at Zillah, who turned away smiling. Ghost couldn’t tell whether Steve had noticed Zillah’s unmarked face.

  “He was the best lover I’ve ever had. He made you look pretty sorry. But you don’t need anyone to make you look sorry, do you? You do just fine on your own—or maybe with a little help from your bottle. Why don’t you just get out of my life, Steve? Why don’t you just drink yourself into an early grave?”

  “Shut up, Ann.” Ghost spoke mildly, but his face was pale, and his hands were clenched into tight fists. He wondered how events had managed to fall into place this way, the worst way anyone could imagine.

  Bad times coming, said a voice in his head. But they were already here.

  Ann’s eyes flickered to Ghost. “I’m sorry you have to see this,” she told him. “You’re good, Ghost, you really are. You better get away from this loser before he fucks up your life the way he fucked up mine.” She turned and walked away, back to Zillah, who was leaning against the van. Steve watched her go, terrible emotions warring in his face.

  Ann reached Zillah and tried to link her arm with his. For a moment it seemed that he would embrace her. But then Zillah’s hands closed on her shoulders, and he gave her a hard shove away from him. Ann staggered, almost lost her balance on the curb. Her head snapped back and hit the side of the van, and she barely managed to keep her balance.

&nb
sp; Zillah gazed at Steve. His eyes were triumphant. “So sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know the slut belonged to you.”

  With a low, desperate cry, Steve threw himself at Zillah. Ghost grabbed for him, trying to catch Steve’s arm or the back of his shirt, anything. He was afraid of what Zillah might do to Steve, who was hurting worse than ever before, who was too drunk to know what he was doing. But Ghost’s hands closed on air.

  Steve lurched forward. Zillah’s arm shot out, something pearly and silver glittering in his hand, and Ghost caught a glimpse of Zillah’s expression—amused boredom.

  Then Steve staggered back, blood dripping down his face, making dark flowers on his shirt. The razor had opened his forehead just above the eyebrows, and blood was pouring into his eyes, blinding him. He stumbled toward where he had last seen Zillah, taking wild swings at the air.

  Horrified, Ghost tried again to grab him. Surely now the razor would take out one of Steve’s eyes or slice straight across his throat.

  But Zillah had other things in mind. He sidestepped neatly, then stuck a pink-sneakered foot into Steve’s path. Before Ghost could get to him, Steve tripped over it and went down on the sidewalk.

  Ghost knelt beside Steve and shoved the messy hair back from his face. The cut across his forehead looked shallow, but it had to hurt like hell. Through some reflex not quite drowned in beer he had managed to get his hands in front of him as he hit the pavement, and his palms were scraped raw.

  Ghost searched for Steve’s mind with his own, wanting to soothe it. No good. Steve’s mind was inflamed, walled off, and Ghost could only feel around the edges of it. Its heat hurt him. He drew his own mind back, but held Steve tighter.

  “What the hell do you mean?” Ann asked. But there was little anger in her voice. She was edging toward Zillah. Her eyes never left his face; she didn’t seem to notice Steve bleeding on the sidewalk. “How can you call me a slut? That was magic. No one ever made me feel so good. Your cock—your tongue—” She shuddered.