“Work on your grammar.”
I let my head and arms drop to the floor. I started to laugh a quiet, wheezy laugh, and took a small comfort in the sound of Abby’s labored breathing above me. Then I stopped laughing. I needed to call Helena.
“Well, shit,” I wheezed.
Chapter 12
I crawled out from beneath Abby’s bed and stood next to her on rubbery legs that couldn’t decide if they would support me or not. Abby was afraid. It was written across her face and hunched posture. Paul wasn’t awake yet and probably wouldn’t remember anything out of the ordinary. Abby, on the other hand, had been wide-awake through the whole thing. I didn’t know if she remembered anything about alternate planes of reality, or if it had even really been her. That other Abby might have been nothing but a projection created by my own mind. I doubted that, but it was hard to know for sure.
What Abby did know was that something very wrong happened. If she was bright, and I thought she was, she knew that wrongness was aimed at her. She looked afraid. She didn’t look afraid enough. She hadn’t seen what I saw. She hadn’t felt the enormous, oppressive power of that liquid shadow. She hadn’t seen the Seal of Solomon, a symbol designed to compel the wills of demons, do nothing more than weaken it. The Seal should have sent that thing scurrying for cover. Instead, I’d been forced to hazard destruction and summon angelic powers.
I succeeded, but I doubted that had much to do with me. I think that whatever showed up and cast the demon back was looking for an opening, and I provided it. I couldn’t count on the same cooperation, or leniency for third-rate summoning, the next time. I fished around in my pocket and pulled out the necklace. Abby didn’t notice the necklace. She just looked at me, as if this were the first time she’d seen me. I guess, in the ways that matter, it was the first time she was seeing me. It wasn’t the random guy who pulled her out of a burning building. She hadn’t remembered any of that. She was seeing the man who got bloodied in the magical gladiator pits. That guy was a very different animal. He wasn’t pretty, and he wasn’t heroic.
“What’s happening?” Abby asked in a tiny voice.
I pressed my lips together and shook my head. “I don’t really know. Something that shouldn’t be happening. Here, put this on.”
I held out the necklace. She stared at it like it might bite her hand. I pushed it a little closer. She didn’t reach for the necklace.
“What is it?”
I looked over at Paul. He was still out.
“Magic,” I said. “It should help you avoid some of the bad things that keep happening to you.”
“Magic,” she said with some of the previous day’s pessimism bleeding into her voice. “Whatever.”
“You have a better explanation for what just happened?”
The color that had just started to come back to her cheeks drained away again. She grabbed the necklace and put it on. She held her breath, apparently waiting for something. She gave me a questioning look.
“Shouldn’t it, I don’t know, tingle or something?”
I smiled. “It’s not doing something to you. It’s doing something for you. It should reflect negative energy back to whatever sent it.”
“Don’t you mean whoever?”
I closed my eyes, unwilling to meet her gaze. “I wish I did, kid. I wish to God I did.”
By the time the car alarms were deactivated, the hysteria induced by hospital-wide flickering lights waned, and a nurse came in to check on Abby, I’d cleaned myself up. The nurse gave me a second glance, as though she didn’t quite like what she saw on my face. I was probably paler than I should have been, but I doubted I looked like I was in immediate danger. That would come later, when I made a call to Helena on orders from Marcy. After the nurse left, Abby looked to me.
“Why is this happening to me?”
There was still fear in her voice, but anger too. Something had picked her and made her life hell. Once she knew it, she had a target for all the anger that had never had a place to go. I thought, all things considered, she was remarkably calm.
“I honestly don’t know. At this point, I wouldn’t even want to guess.”
“I didn’t do anything to deserve this,” her hands were bunched into fists.
“No, you didn’t,” I agreed. “Most people don’t deserve the crap that drops on their heads.”
I didn’t believe that last one. Most of the time people actually did deserve exactly what they got. Maybe it was for the lies they told or the things they did, always rewritten in memory to make them look like the good guys, but most bad things happened because a person did something lousy first. The principle of action-and-reaction is as unforgiving as gravity, although rarely as immediate. Abby wasn’t in that category. To draw down the attention of something as perfectly evil as that liquid shadow demanded a level of obscene, violent, inhuman behavior normally reserved to ethnic cleansing and the blackest magic.
“You did something, didn’t you?” Abby asked.
“Yeah, I did something.”
“What?”
“Magic.”
I said it in the flattest, most serious voice at my disposal. I didn’t want to give her the impression that there was room for doubt. Her belief wasn’t a fixed necessity, but it might stave off questions later.
She fingered the little mirror pendant. “Like the necklace?”
“A little more complicated than that.”
Several infinities more complicated than the necklace, I didn’t add. She had enough on her mind.
“Is it over?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“You stopped it,” she said, confused and afraid again.
“No. I scared it off for now, but it’s not gone for good. Not yet anyway.”
I would have gone on, but Paul was stirring in his chair. No need to overcomplicate things by including him in the conversation. I gave Abby a significant look.
“You should keep the magic talk between us.”
Abby gave a semi-hysterical giggle. “Like anyone would believe me.”
“Someone might,” I warned. “Someone who might not be inclined to help you.”
That sobered her up. “Our secret.”
I nodded.
“Are you going to stay?”
I lifted a shoulder. I’d tried to leave twice and been derailed twice. I was starting to think that something was keeping me in town. Like a giant angel with glowing hands, I wondered.
“Yeah, looks like I am. I need to go do a few things, but I’ll be around.”
Panic flickered across her eyes. “What are you going to do?”
“I need to make a call.”
“Who are you calling?”
“Someone who can help,” I said.
“Help you?”
I laughed. “No. She wouldn’t help me, but she might help you.”
“Why?”
“She’d help you because she’s a good person.”
Abby frowned up at me. “I meant why wouldn’t she help you?”
“Oh. That,” I fumbled. “It’s a long story.”
Paul stirred again and opened his eyes. He raised a hand and rubbed at one eye. “Guess I dozed off there. Mr. Hartworth, how are you?”
“I’m fine, sir. Yourself?”
“I’m fine. Odd dreams, though. Must be all the hospital noise.”
“Must be,” I said, with a warning glance at Abby. “I have to be going. Abby, Paul, it was good seeing you both again.”
“Will we be seeing you again, Mr. Hartworth?” Paul asked.
“Oh, I’m like a bad penny. I always turn up, sooner or later.”
“I look forward to it,” said the old man with a guileless smile.
I nodded to them both and left the room. I spent a short hour driving around to find a place to buy some clothes and a laundromat. Then I stopped and bought a cheap, disposable cell phone. I sat in my car and stared at it for a few minutes before I went over to the diner. I hit one of those golden sp
ells in food service between rushes. The handful of locals in the diner all cast suspicious looks my way. I wondered if any of them had been in the bar the other night. Those events seemed very old and distant to me, but were probably still considered fresh fodder in the local rumor mill.
The waitress came over and handed me a menu. She didn’t seem enthused about it.
“Get you something to drink?”
“Coffee, please,” I said.
I ordered one of their specials, which consisted of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, a biscuit, home fries, and a small orange juice. The waitress gave me a nonplussed look.
“You sure about that, hon? It’s a lot of food.”
My stomach rumbled loud enough for her to hear and she laughed.
“I’m sure,” I said with a little smile.
After a short wait, the food arrived and I went to work. The locals eyed me and I ignored them. I got ninety-nine problems and the hicks ain’t one, I thought. I ate the whole meal, though the last few bites were more about pride than hunger. I looked around and saw dim, but genuine, approval on the faces of the other patrons. I guessed that I’d succeeded in some rite of passage, The Cholesterol Binge, perhaps. I paid my bill and left a generous tip before I went back to my car.
The new phone sat on the passenger seat and looked shiny in its plastic packaging. I knew I was trying to procrastinate and avoid making the dreaded call to Helena. I chastised myself. I wasn’t calling for me. Delaying only served to keep Abby in danger for longer than necessary. I drove back to my cabin and used the phone there to activate the new cell. I punched in a number. My thumb hovered over the send key as my will wavered. I expected unpleasantness. I depressed the key and put the phone up to my ear. The phone rang half a dozen times before a smoky voice rolled over the line.
“Yes. Hello?”
I took a breath. “Helena, don’t hang up.”
“I told you not to call me again,” the smoke in Helena’s voice was backed with fire.
“I was told to call you,” I said, trying to placate her.
“By whom?”
“Marcy.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, followed by nothing. The silence dragged out for the better part of a minute. A minute of silence gave me a lot of time to think of all the ways the conversation could go bad. Still, she stayed on the line, which gave me a little fragment of hope. I needed Helena’s help. There was too much going on that I didn’t understand and Abby needed someone who could stay close at hand. I couldn’t do that and deal with a demon that scared me on an epic scale.
Helena’s smoky voice drifted over the line again. “Marcy. You mean to say…”
“Yes, I mean that. Marcy told me to call you.”
“Jesus.”
There was more silence over the line. It wasn’t the dangerous silence it had been, just the silence of someone processing some things that they hadn’t expected.
“What’s happening?” Helena asked.
“Well,” I started.
“Never mind, it must be God awful or you wouldn’t be talking to me right now. Where are you?”
I told her where I was and where to find the motel. I did not tell her where to find my cabin. Telling her that piece of information seemed a bit like inviting disaster. She made noises at the right places and I heard the scritch-scritch of her writing. There was another long pause.
“Adrian,” she said.
“Helena.”
“You’re a miserable bastard and I hope you rot in hell.”
It was less venomous than I expected. “Thanks for helping.”
The line went dead.
I looked around the little cabin and spoke to the empty space. “How could this possibly go wrong?”
In the back of my head, I started counting ways. The number was high enough to be depressing.
Chapter 13
The next day passed without incident, as though everything had taken a breather to figure out what came next. Whatever was lobbing black magic at Abby was probably shocked by the divine intervention that I managed on her behalf. If it knew who I was, it wouldn’t have expected me to be able to make that happen. I imagined it was reassessing and deciding how best to remove me. Before, I’d been a troubling but largely inconsequential obstacle to its goals. After that little stunt at the hospital, it probably thought I was a genuine threat. I added that to the list of things likely to keep me awake at night.
For my part, I dealt with practicalities. I did laundry. I visited Abby. I slept for a few hours. I worried like hell. I also tried to figure out what that thing had been. The ranks of evil are a lot more packed than most people realize. There are the big evil beings, like a lot of old, vicious gods, not to mention the Morning Star himself, but that is the tiny tip of a very big iceberg. Trying to put a name to a particular vessel of evil is easier than guessing the name of a human being randomly selected from somewhere on the face of the earth, but only just.
Even knowing the thing was potent only narrowed the field so much. It cut the list of potentials down into the thousands. The worst part is that human knowledge about literal figures of evil is limited. There is no way to be certain that anyone had ever encountered that presence, let alone put its name to paper along with a handy-dandy description of its weaknesses. Those who possess such knowledge guard it with great care, to keep the information out of the wrong hands—or just as often, out of the right hands. Long story short, I was flying mostly blind.
The combination of fretting and chronic pain from my back took its toll. By early evening, I wasn’t good for much beyond lying on the cabin’s little bed and semi-watching something on basic cable. The drone of the television acted like white noise and I drifted between sleeping and waking. Three sharp raps on the door snapped me out of the dreamlike haze I was enjoying. I picked up the knife I’d left on the nightstand and flipped it open with a flick of my wrist. The serrated blade would do a lot of hard-to-repair damage if I was forced to use it.
I stood at the door and wished the cabin had a peephole. At least then I’d know who was on the other side. I steeled myself for anything and opened the door. Apparently my mind’s version of steeling myself for anything left some very obvious things off the list.
“Helena,” I said.
She slapped me hard across the face and I took an involuntary step back. She slid by me into the cabin. I caught the scent of sandalwood as she passed me.
“Close the door, idiot,” she snapped at me.
I shook my head, trying to clear the pain haze. I closed the door. I rubbed at my jaw and turned to face her. She looked thinner than I remembered. I checked that thought. She didn’t look thinner. She looked leaner. She’d always had the willowy frame of a distance runner, but it looked like she might have taken up running as a serious pursuit. She’d cropped her hair short and dyed it blonde. Her eyes were sea-green and the contrast with her almond-colored skin shocked me, as it always did when I hadn’t seen her in a while. No one seeing us side-by-side would have guessed that she was older than me. I guess she got better genes.
“There,” I muttered. “The door is no longer ajar.”
“Always the funny man, aren’t you, Adrian?”
I chose not to rise to the jibe. “You could have called. How’d you find me anyway?”
She gave me the same expression you might give a malfunctioning toaster. I felt embarrassed.
She looked me up and down. “You’re looking impoverished.”
She shrugged out of a short, designer-label leather jacket and tossed it onto the bed. Then she looked around the cabin and sniffed.
“Very impoverished,” she amended.
“Thanks. Always nice to be reminded of my shortcomings.”
Her eyes flashed. “Would you like me to remind you of your shortcomings?”
I looked away fast. “No. No, I think that’s probably something we can skip. Thanks for coming.”
“Save your thanks. I di
dn’t come here to please you.”
I had expected her anger, but expecting something rarely made it any easier to experience. Knowing I had it coming didn’t help matters either. I pressed forward, as best as I could.
“Fair enough. You may want to sit down. This will take a bit of explanation.”
I thought she was going to snap at me again, but apparently she’d decided that I’d had enough abuse for the moment. She looked around the room again and sat on the bed. I dragged a small, uncomfortable wooden chair over from the corner and sat down facing her.
“Did you hear about Miami?”
Helena nodded and her expression softened a little. “Is Damelus really gone?”
“As good as. I didn’t pull the trigger on his body. His soul is, well, it’s somewhere else now. Not the kind of place souls come back from.”
Helena whispered something under her breath. Her family had history with Damelus’ family. From the little bit I knew, it was ugly history. Something occurred to her and concern replaced relief.
“I heard Daniel was traveling with you,” she said. “Was he there?”
I shook my head. “No. I left him back in Vegas taking tourists for everything they had. We didn’t leave off on good terms.”
“Do you ever leave off on good terms?”
There was bitterness in her voice, but the undercurrent was pain. I rubbed my face with the palms of my hands. I didn’t want to reopen old wounds.
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t seem like I ever do.”
“Maybe you should work on that,” said Helena, her voice a blade.
“Maybe I should,” I said.
Maybe it was something in the tone of my voice, or the timbre, or maybe it was something in my expression. Whatever it was, Helena seemed to realize that she was pushing me too hard, too far and doing it too fast. I was moving into dangerous emotional territory, a kind of empty space that all too often preceded violence. She looked away first.
“Miami,” she prompted.
“Yeah,” I said. “Anyways, in the aftermath, I figured law enforcement would be looking hard at me because, well, that’s pretty much how it always goes. I wasn’t really interested in that, so I got out of town.”
The Midnight Ground Page 8
