Books 1–4

by Nancy A. Collins

  When the last of the phantoms had received its due, Catherine turned and stared at Sonja with empty sockets, the eyes having been parceled out long ago, waiting for her to come and take her pound of flesh. She resembled a hideous scarecrow robbed of its stuffing, her skin hanging from her bones like an emptied sack.

  Sonja wondered how much of the faith healer was actually still left inside the shell that stood before her. There couldn’t be much, seeing how Zebulon had been doling out fistfuls of gray matter toward the end. She looked at the army of ghosts as they milled about the room, each fondling its own souvenir, and then shook her head, signaling she had no desire to avenge herself any further.

  Zebulon’s essence oozed from Catherine’s empty sockets like a cheapjack jinn attired in otherworldly polyester. He hovered near the ceiling, scowling down at what remained of his wife. The hollowed-out husk raised scarlet fingers to her blinded face, the lower jaw dropping in a parody of a scream, as there were no lungs or larynx to scream with. Although he had ransacked her flesh, the dead preacher had apparently made sure to leave enough behind to realize what had been done to her.

  A second later Catherine Wheele collapsed into herself like a dynamited building. The ghosts flickered, their faces dripping like candle wax as the ectoplasm that formed them began to dissolve, forcing them to abandon their hard-won trophies. Within moments the room was ankle-deep in iridescent muck, and would soon be indistinguishable from fungus.

  Sonja stared at the carcass sprawled on the floor, surrounded by its own viscera. The skin covering the body was unmarked. The Medical Examiner was going to have a hell of a time declaring this one a suicide.

  She found Wexler collapsed in the grass, one hand clutching the tiny polo player embroidered over his heart. His feet were bare, although a pair of shoes lay next to him, the expensive leather ruined by the dew. His face was pulled into a crude parody of the classical Greek comedy mask. For some reason Sonja was reminded of the nameless homeless man thrown into the racquetball court.

  She shifted the burden she carried slung over her shoulder as she bent to retrieve the keys to the BMW. Wexler’s corpse refused to let go, so she brought her boot heel down on his hand. The sound of his fingers breaking brought a smile to her face.

  She had to hurry. The cops would be there soon. She glanced back at the mansion. She could detect a lick of flame in the downstairs window.

  She unlocked the trunk and placed Claude inside. She’d made an improvised blanket from one of the drapes in the study to hide his nakedness. She’d used the other to start the fire.

  She paused once more before sliding behind the wheel of Wexler’s car to make sure the fire was burning strong. It was almost dawn and the morning air was already redolent with the smell of death. It would be better, in the long run, that no questions be asked as to the exact nature of Catherine Wheele’s demise. Mysterious deaths were one thing, but inexplicable ones were another.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sonja sat on the corner of the bed and stared for a long moment at what was left of Claude Hagerty.

  She had climbed the fire escape to Claude’s fifth floor apartment, the orderly slung over her shoulder like a bag of wet laundry. Once inside his studio apartment she placed him in his bed and cleaned him with a warm washcloth, doing her best to erase any last traces of whatever Wheele had subjected him to. Then she turned on the TV at the foot of his bed, to make it look as if he had drifted off while watching a movie.

  A television anchorman, his hair styled and face unmarred by frown lines or crow’s feet, smiled into camera number one.

  “... and congratulations to the zoo’s newest proud parents!” His smile dimmed, but did not fully disappear, as he lowered his voice to indicate the next item he was about to read was serious. “The city’s police and fire departments continue to be baffled by what is being called Mad Night. Early this morning, between the hours of midnight and four am, the city and its surrounding suburbs were plagued by an unprecedented number of violent disturbances, ranging from suicide attempts, to outbreaks of arson. At least fifteen people have been reported as dead and another forty-five injured during the early-morning chaos.

  “In what may be a related news item, authorities are investigating what is being described as a ‘Jonestown-like spectacle’ at the estate of controversial televangelist Catherine Wheele. The carnage was discovered early this morning when firefighters responding to a four-alarm fire at the exclusive Jonquil Lane address discovered numerous dead bodies. Details are as yet unclear, but Mrs. Wheele is believed to have perished in the blaze. Also listed among the dead is noted psychiatrist and self-help lecturer Dr. Adam Wexler, author of the best- selling Sharing, Caring and Swearing.” The anchorman’s smile reappeared as he turned to address the weatherman. “So how’s the weekend shaping up, Skip?”

  “Looks like a doozy, Fred,” the meteorologist replied cheerily, “with almost no chance of rain.”

  Sonja sighed sadly as she took the pillow out from under Claude’s head and pressed it over his face. Although his higher brain function had been destroyed, his stubborn, reptilian mind, which regulated his breathing and heart rate, still clawed at the pillow for a good thirty seconds. Once he went still, she replaced it under his head. She left the apartment the way she came, leaving the TV to chatter away at Claude’s corpse.

  Sonja Blue stood among the monuments and silently watched as they put Claude Hagerty in the ground.

  It was drizzling and the rain served to muffle the words spoken over the casket. It rested above the open grave on a machine that would lower the loved one with the press of a button. Besides the solemn minister reciting the burial prayer, the only other mourners were an elderly woman Sonja guessed was a relative of some kind and a couple of co-workers.

  Sonja turned the collar up on her jacket and squared her shoulders against the rain as she quietly studied the older woman, who clutched a damp bouquet of Kleenex which she kept shredding and re-shredding as she stared at the casket.

  She wondered if she had done Claude a greater disservice in death than she had in life. If she had left him to die in the smoking ruins of Wheele’s mansion, at least he would have had a decent crowd for his send-off. Atrocity victims are always popular post-mortem. But that would have led to questions about exactly what a lowly orderly was doing at the home of a famous religious leader, and she could not allow that.

  “Ms. Blue?”

  She turned a bit too swiftly, and glared at the little man in the dark suit. She’d been so involved in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him until he was at her elbow. A taller, younger man in chauffeur’s livery stood behind him, holding an umbrella.

  The little man in the dark suit faltered for a second, his eye contact sliding across the polished lenses of her sunglasses. He coughed into his fist. “Ahem, Ms. Blue, my name is Ottershaw. I represent the interests of Jacob Thorne. I have been instructed by Mr. Thorne to give this to you.” He produced a business envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to you. “I am also instructed to inform you that, while he greatly appreciates the efforts you have taken on his behalf, Mr. Thorne trusts you understand that he wishes to never see you again.”

  Having relayed his message, Ottershaw turned and walked toward a limo parked on the narrow road that wound through the cemetery, the chauffeur following at his heels.

  Sonja slit the seal on the envelope with her switchblade. It contained a cashier’s check drawn on the family bank. She stared at the zeroes for a while, then at the limousine. The windows were tinted black, but she could make out two figures huddled on the backseat. Ottershaw... and Thorne.

  He’s as guilty as Wheele. He told her to kill you. And you know he told her that you’d been to the penthouse. He probably even told her to kill Claude.

  “Yeah, I know that.”

  Are you just going to stand here and let him get away with it?

  The chauffeur started the car and the limousine pulled away, Thorne’s profile a darker blur
behind the glass.

  Claude’s funeral was over, but none of the mourners had bothered to stick around to see him lowered into eternity. A cemetery worker operating a small earth-mover scooped fresh dirt into the hole.

  Sonja stuffed the envelope into the pocket of her jacket and began walking toward the gates of the graveyard, threading her way through the field of the dead.

  “What do you expect me to do?” she asked The Other. “He’s our father.”

  In the Blood

  David Aaron Clark

  1960–2009

  Palmer

  I am not now

  That which I have been.

  —Byron, Childe Harold

  Chapter One

  Where was she?

  Palmer checked his cell phone for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. She was late. Again. He wanted to believe that it wasn’t deliberate on her part, but the truth was Lola enjoyed keeping him waiting. No, scratch that. She liked to keep him twisting on the end of a meat hook. The woman knew she had him: heart, soul and gonads.

  Palmer knew Lola was bad news the moment she sashayed into his office, but that hadn’t kept him from falling hard and messy, like a jumper off the Empire State Building. She’d hired him to follow her husband, a well-to-do contractor named Samuel Quine, trying to get some dirt on him for a nice, juicy divorce settlement. It didn’t take long. Quine was seeing someone on the sly, all right. They met at a motel on the outskirts of town twice a week. It was all very discreet and proper, in a suburban middle-class kind of way. Palmer was all too familiar with the pattern. After all, he’d spent a good chunk of his professional life taking incriminating photos of unfaithful husbands and wives sneaking in and out of hot-sheet joints. What he couldn’t understand was why Quine needed to get it on the side when he was married to a woman as sexy as Lola.

  Before Palmer could finish that train of thought, he was dazzled by the high beams from Lola’s candy-apple red Trans Am as it pulled into the deserted parking lot, Bon Jovi pumping out of the speaker system. Palmer grimaced. Lola had dreadful taste. Except for him, of course. She shut off the engine, returning the lot to shadows and silence, but there was still enough illumination from the distant streetlights for him to see her slide out from behind the wheel of her car. She was dressed all in red, from the ribbon wrapped around her ash-blond ponytail to the stiletto-heeled designer shoes that matched her miniskirt. Her fingernails and lips glistened as if she’d painted them with fresh blood.

  Palmer’s anxiety and aggravation transformed itself into pure lust. It was like being high on a wondrous drug that made rational thought and common sense not only irrelevant, but completely impossible. He wondered if this was how male praying mantises felt during the mating dance.

  “You got it?” Her voice was honey and whisky poured over crystal-clear ice. She raised her cornflower-blue eyes to his dark brown ones.

  He nodded dumbly, his tongue turned into a useless wad of dry cotton. Palmer handed her a manila envelope full of pictures of Sam Quine and his mistress leaving their trysting place, as well as information detailing the days and times they kept their rendezvous.

  Lola quickly scanned his notes, her mouth set into a predatory smirk. Palmer was startled by the cruelty he saw in her eyes, and then shamed by his instinctive revulsion. But he still couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just caught a true glimpse of the woman Sam Quine was married to.

  “Lola, we need to talk.”

  “I’d like to stay and chat, Bill. I really would. But there’s something I have to attend to.” She opened the carmine designer purse that hung from her shapely white shoulder as she spoke.

  “Lola, it’s about us—”

  “Now, where did I put that thing? Oh, here it is!”

  “When will I get to see you again?”

  Lola turned to face him, pulling a handgun from the tangled mess of cosmetics in her purse. “In hell,” she replied, leveling the weapon at his chest.

  Palmer stared in mute horror at the piece of blue steel pointed at his heart. He recognized the weapon as his own, supposedly locked in the desk at the office. He disliked guns, but his clients expected it of him. Damn you, Bogart.

  “But, Lola... I love you!”

  Her painted lips pulled back into a grin that seemed to spread until it bisected her face. “That’s sweet of you to say. I love you, too, Bill.”

  And then she shot him.

  William Palmer woke in a puddle of sweat. Had he screamed? He listened to the other inmates in the city jail’s infirmary, but all he heard were the usual snores and farts. He uncoiled his rigid shoulder and leg muscles. He’d recently taken to sleeping with his arms crossed, corpse-style, across his chest. He sat up, dabbing at the sweat rolling off his brow with the edge of the bed sheet. His hands trembled and he wanted a smoke really bad. Hell, he’d even settle for one of those shitty big-house cigarettes, made from Bugler tobacco and a page from the New Testament. Regular cancer sticks like Camels and Winstons were hard to get, much less his preferred brand: Sherman’s.

  That dream. That goddamned dream.

  How long was it going to keep on? He’d been having the same dream ever since he woke up from his coma six weeks ago. The dreams varied widely, but they were essentially all the same: they involved him, Lola and his gun. Each dream ended with Lola opening fire. Sometimes the dreams were nonsensical, the way dreams normally are: he and Lola riding a merry-go-round in the middle of a forest, only to have her pull out the gun and shoot him. Others were so realistic he didn’t know it was a dream until he was jerked back into consciousness: he and Lola naked in bed, screwing away, but then she pulls the gun out from under the pillow, blowing his brains out just as he reaches orgasm…

  Palmer squeezed his eyes shut, deliberately blocking the image. That one had been particularly bad. None of the dream-shootings were the real one, though. He guessed he should be grateful for small favors. It was bad enough remembering what had happened in the motel room without being condemned to relive it every night. His right hand absently massaged the scar on his chest that marked Lola’s parting gift.

  She’d called late, babbling that she needed his help. She said she had finally decided to confront her husband. She went to the motel to surprise him with his mistress, but things had gone wrong. They got into a fight and Quine had gone crazy, threatening to kill her. She was locked in the bathroom, fearing for her life. Within minutes of getting her call, Palmer was in his car and on his way to the motel.

  The door was unlocked when he got there. He wasn’t that worried about Lola’s husband. Quine was heavier than Palmer, but he was fifteen years older and not in the best of shape. He knew how to handle himself in a fight. But he was unprepared for the sight of Sam Quine sprawled naked across the motel room’s double bed, his brains splashed across the headboard and nightstand.

  Palmer heard the bathroom door click open behind him. He turned in time to see Lola at the threshold, stark naked and holding a recently fired gun. His gun.

  And then she fired.

  Three weeks passed before he was able to stay conscious long enough to understand what was being said to and about him. Sometimes he wished he could return to the painless gray of twilight sleep and never come out. Anything would be better than the truth.

  The whole thing was like a bad Mickey Spillane novel. It was typical of Lola, though.

  The cops kept commencing on the half-baked nature of the scheme. Did she really think no one would question her version of what happened? Didn’t she know that forensics could read the splatter pattern left by her husband’s exploding head and triangulate the trajectory of the fatal bullet? Did she really think the police were that stupid? There was no way she could have pulled it off.

  It didn’t make any sense unless you knew her. Or thought you did. Lola had never been one to concern herself with consensual reality. If she told him that her husband was a brute, a cheat and a liar, then that’s exactly what he was. That she refused to have sex wi
th him for two years was unrelated to his infidelity. He was the one in the wrong, the one to be punished. If she told the police that she and her husband had gone to a certain motel to celebrate their anniversary, only to be the victims of an attempted robbery, then that’s what happened. Who could possibly imagine otherwise? It never once crossed her pretty, sociopathic mind that she would ever be a suspect.

  That Palmer had survived the bullet she’d pumped into him was another contingency she was unprepared for. She kept insisting that she’d wrested the gun from her husband’s attacker and shot him in self-defense, but the police suspected Palmer’s wounding had more to do with a falling out between illicit lovers. When they produced evidence of a previous relationship between her and the private detective, it proved too much for her. Finding herself, for the first time in her life, in a situation where her sex appeal could not free her from the consequences of her actions, Lola took the easy way out with a fifth of Everclear and a bottle of sleeping pills, but not before she penned a venomous farewell note, implicating Palmer in Quine’s death.

  ‘It was all his idea. I didn’t want to go along with it,’ she lied from beyond the grave.

  What she really meant was that it was all his fault for not dying. If he’d died like she had planned, everything would have gone off the way it was supposed to. Funny how he was finally becoming adept at understanding Lola, now that it was too late to do him any good.

  As soon as the doctors proclaimed him fit, he would go before the judge. As far as the District Attorney’s office was concerned, it was a clear cut case of conspiracy to commit murder— it didn’t matter who, in the end, actually pulled the trigger. His public defense attorney told him there wasn’t much hope of avoiding prison.