Deadly Violet - 04 (19 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

It had never struck her so forcefully before. She’d been twice in this town, and had seen some truly weird and frightening things. But the sun changing its hue was something she would never have imagined in her wildest nightmares. Staring at it, she felt like she had fallen off the world’s edge, and was dropping ever faster. And there was no bottom coming up.

Lauren was gripped by a bad feeling of vertigo. Had to hang onto a nearby wall for a few seconds, and close her eyes to steady herself. Maybe she
ought
to have left when it had been suggested. But that most likely wasn’t even possible, by this stage.

She opened her eyes again, taking in how insubstantial everything looked in this peculiar light. This couldn’t be real. But it was.

Panic attempted to take hold of her, except she fought it. Her gaze went around and found Cassie, who looked equally alarmed.

“What’s happened?” Lauren asked her.

“How would I know?” Cass came back.

But then shrieks started emerging from some of the dwellings near them. Other people were in trouble. Cassie’s frame went rigid.

A young girl, somewhere off in the distance, was letting out a hollow wail. A noise like something you might hear from an insane asylum. Lauren thought she might have gotten a partial take on what was going down.

If reality
was
breaking up, then maybe people’s minds were collapsing as well. That explained the incident with bat-winged Cassie, the barriers between ‘true’ and ‘false’ unraveling.

She had already retrieved her gun and boots, and she marched over to her friend.

“Looks like things are getting really bad.”

“You think?”

“You’ve lived here your whole life. What do you reckon we should do?”

Cassie blinked at her, her face like granite.

“You want the benefit of my expertise?” And her expression tightened even more. “Well, personally, I think we’re screwed.”

But it was only her way of talking. Lauren understood that. Cassie might be at a loss, but she still looked determined.

She was squinting off at the far eastern edge of town, the sky of which was no longer a steady purple. Jagged lightning bolts were streaking down through it. Violet ones, and dazzling to the eye.

Parts of the skyline wavered through a series of mauve shades, becoming progressively deeper. It looked like the districts off in that direction were breaking apart. And when she turned her gaze toward the south and west, the same was happening.

There was a quickly moving blur in the corner of Lauren’s vision. Martha Howard-Brett appeared in front of them, her features like a mask. Lauren knew her as a kind, sensitive woman. She was wounded by the suffering around her, but was doing her best not to let it affect her.

“Know where Ross is?” Cassie asked.

“I think he’s with Raine,” Martha replied.

“So Mr. Fruitcake’s finally getting his hands dirty?”

The adept just looked blank. “I couldn’t tell you.”

Then her head went around, trying to find the sources of the wild screams that were still emerging, her eyes watering gently.

“This is terrible. How can people help themselves when they are caught up in their own delusions?”

“We aren’t,” Lauren pointed out. “At least, not anymore. So maybe there are people we can help?”

“But help them how?”

Cass stared at the horizon again, then looked the other way.

“This is happening from the town line in. We need to get as many people as we can headed for the center. It seems to be the least affected part, so far.”

“But what good will that do?”

“Buy us some time,” Cass said.

“For what?”

There was no sensible answer to that question. But Lauren could see that extra time was the only thing they really had. Extended survival was the one thing that they could count on by this juncture. Maybe Raine could still come up with something.

Martha was beginning to see the sense of that approach as well.

“I’ll head south and start alerting people there,” she told them.

“Try and get hold of Nick McLeish. He’ll help,” Cassie advised her. “And Emaline Pendramere in Tyburn.”

Martha nodded, and then vanished.

It was a harder task than they’d originally thought. Some people responded to them as they went from street to street. In fact, some had already figured out which way this thing was going, and were already on the move.

But in a lot of cases, folks were still in the grip of mania and largely beyond helping. Some could see dead relatives. Others were confronted with bad people from their past. Phobias were coming to life. And a number of those were taking on a kind of substance.

Lauren was rounding a corner when a shark came at her, swimming through thin air like it was water. She had no idea why any person who was trapped in a landlocked town would be afraid of sharks – perhaps he’d seen them on TV. But it looked real enough. Its jaws were snapping.

She pulled out her gun and emptied half the clip into the thing, without slowing it down.

Ducked away to the right, but it turned sinuously, following her. And in another split-instant, it was on her, its teeth closing round her shoulder.

Lauren yelped, feeling a brief pain. But the creature disappeared from view as soon as it had done that. And she staggered back.

Cass came running up to her.

“You okay?”

“I think so. But was that real or not?”

“No telling.” Cassie looked decidedly uneasy. “But we need to watch our step. And we’re not going fast enough, so we’d better split up.”

“Makes sense,” Lauren agreed, although she didn’t like the idea much.

“We each take a section and head west, right? Meet up again at the top of Crealley Street?”

They agreed that was the best plan. And they both got going.

Jesus, in the last fifteen minutes she had had to deal with a whole mess of tarantulas, a berserk Great Dane with glowing, bright green eyes, the corpse of someone’s grandma and – to cap it all – a giant crow. People’s personal fears here seemed to run the entire gamut. Exactly like the normal world, Lauren guessed. But in the normal world, phobias had the good manners to stay where they belonged and not come striding out into the light of day, whichever color it was.

But she’d gotten a lot of people moving in the right direction. She had done some limited good. She was perspiring by the time that she reached Crealley Street.

She’d expected Cassie to already be there. But the road was empty. Lauren swiveled round.

“Cass?”

She started getting a cold, empty feeling in her gut. What if something really bad had happened?

“
Cassie?
”

Lauren thought of heading back to look for her … but in what direction? There was silence all around her, and she felt her mind start fogging up.

But then she heard a whimper, off from the next street along. And she couldn’t be certain, but she moved toward it.

The noise came again, more plaintive than before.

And then, she could hear Cassie shouting.

And she’d never heard the woman sound so horrified or anguished. Lauren started running.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“Woody,” I complained, wobbling slightly and then regaining my balance, “if you do that again without warning me, I’m going to punch you out, I swear it. I don’t care how powerful you are.”

He smirked.

“This is hardly the time for macho posturing, Devries.”

And why was he in such a good mood? Maybe the notion of the real world falling apart pleased him in some way.

I took note of where we were. It wasn’t in the ballroom, nor even the games room, the two places that we usually met. This had to be a room along one side of his mansion, since there was a window. It was filled with vaguely human shapes I quickly figured out were statues. No light was coming through the windowpanes, so that Woody was enfolded in his usual dense shadow. But I could still see through the glass, an oddity I’d noticed about this place in the past.

We were looking out into the overgrown and tangled grounds. And one of those glowing purple holes was hanging in the air, about a hundred yards away. So
that
was how Woody had gotten into the Oon’s world.

“We’ve very little time left,” Raine said, bringing my attention back around. “Reality throughout the town is on the brink of absolute collapse.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “I already noticed.”

“But fortunately, I’ve brought my full intellect to bear on the situation.”

His full what?

“And I’ve discovered something that might help us.”

I knew that it might merely be some strange delusion, but I let the man go on.

He explained what he’d been doing for the past half hour. Where he’d been, and who he had turned into. And I have to admit, I’d heard some crazy things from him before, but this one beat the rest of them by several miles. Could he possibly be serious?

“You went into Regis Raine?” I goggled at him. “Tell me that you’re kidding.”

“Not at all. I call it a Spell of Ancestral Linkage. A rather clumsy name, I’m afraid. But I haven’t had the opportunity to come up with anything better.”

“Are you sure that you weren’t dreaming this?” I inquired suspiciously.

“Do I seem fanciful to you?”

And I decided not to answer that. Then struggled to get my mind around what I’d been told. If Woody could send his consciousness into the past, then working through the medium of another person he could …

“You’re going to find this Violet and take the Amethyst away from her?”  I asked.

But the only thing that happened was that Woody’s bright gaze narrowed sharply.

“Why assume it’s going to be me, old chum?”

An old, familiar resentment stirred inside me.

“Why not?”

“Regis is still in this mansion,” Woody pointed out. “I’m not sure how far his power extends. And he might get to Union Square too late. And besides,” he added, “I don’t like to be outdoors, as you know perfectly well. I have to say, too, that I’m not overly fond of physical activity.”

My frustration boiled over

“For chrissake, we’re not talking about the Ultimate Fighting Championships here!” I bellowed. “We’re talking about taking a gemstone away from a little beggar girl!”

“Which is partially my point as well. Violet still has the Amethyst. And, considering the extent of my magic powers, if she manages to turn them against me …”

He let the sentence peter off. Then finished up with, “It’s going to have to be you, sport.”

There was no time left to argue with him. Damn! I absolutely hated magic being used on me. And the thought of my body and my spirit being split apart like two halves of a walnut chilled me to the bone.

But for once, Woody was right. His supernatural talents
did
count against him on this occasion. And if there were no other candidates, I guessed that it was down to me.

“I’d like to take Cass with,” I told him.

“Just to get a gemstone off a little beggar girl?”

“I
want
her in case anything goes wrong.” And when he looked nonplussed, I added, “When it comes to magic, things are rarely simple.”

He gave that some thought, then nodded.

“Okay, then. I’ll fetch her here.”

I saw his narrow fingers crossing. He was going to conjure her into this room, the same way he had conjured me. An impulse told me ‘not that way.’ But then I saw it was the quickest method.

So I let him do it.

I’d expected a Cass Mallory to appear who was standing upright, fully alert, and prepared for action. Which was not what I got. I reeled with surprise.

She showed up in a sudden flash, exactly as I had been hoping. But was sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up in front of her, her elbows propped on those. And she had both hands pressed to her face, covering it up.

And she was not alone. Lauren Brennan had arrived with her. That had to have happened because they were touching.

The blond woman was kneeling down, her arm around Cassie’s shoulder. Cass was trembling, her whole frame being racked by violent shudders. What on earth was wrong?

Lauren took in where she was, her eyes widening, then stood up.

And told me, “The madness has gotten to her too. I can’t seem to get through to her.”

“I can hear them,” Cass was mumbling, when I stepped a little closer. “I can hear all
three
of them.”

Three what? I went quickly over, crouching down beside her. Took hold of her wrists as gently as I could, and eased her hands away from her cheeks.

Her face was awash with the gray staining of tears. Her gaze was red, so reflective and stony that it wasn’t even seeing me. Cassie stared out past me, her mouth coming open slackly. Then her body shook again, so fiercely that it almost broke my grip.

“They’re in Hell!” she shouted.

“Who are, Cassie?”

“My
kids
! That’s where they went after they disappeared. I can hear them screaming. I can smell them burning. My babies are in hellfire, and there’s nothing I can do about it!”

I recalled what had been going on before. The real world breaking down so badly some people were living out their deepest fears. And this was obviously hers. What else would it be?

I did my best to draw her away from her wild delusions, Lauren standing helplessly behind me.

“It’s not real, Cassie.”

“I can
hear
them!” she repeated, getting angry.

“Try to listen. Try to focus. Your kids are okay.”

But she wasn’t hearing me. She snatched her wrists out of my grasp, placed her palms over her swollen eyes again, then started letting out an anguished, keening noise.

There was the soft rustle of cloth beside me. Raine had moved up close as well. His golden eyes were studying her patiently. And under normal circumstances, Woodard Raine is as detached as an oil painting.

This time, though, I thought I could make out a hint of sympathy creeping into his expression.

“Dear oh dear,” he sighed. “A mother lioness, grieving for her cubs. It must be absolutely dreadful for her.”

Then he crouched down next to me. I was so amazed I didn’t protest. He reached out with one pale hand, extending the narrow index finger. Put it underneath her chin, and tilted her face up to look at him.

Cassie’s hands dropped away, her scarlet-marbled eyeballs coming into view once more.

And Woody’s gaze glowed even brighter. Cassie’s trembling stopped, and her features untensed.

Either he was managing to calm her down. Or he was drawing the madness out of her, absorbing it into himself.

Whichever it was, I was pretty astonished.

Mark this down as an important day in our town’s history. Woodard Raine was being genuinely useful, without being prodded.

She’d settled down fully in another minute, back to normal, the bad fantasies gone. Cass made a stab at wiping her face with her sleeve, then stood up shakily, looking embarrassed.

“Hell,” she muttered, “I was really out of it.”

“You’re not the only one. Half the town’s that way”

She nodded at that. Then I explained to her the plan that we’d devised. And the more she heard the details, then the more she stared at me like I had gone insane myself. And – quite frankly – I couldn’t blame her.

“We’re going back into our own dead relatives?” she blurted.

Put that way, it didn’t sound too good.

“Which ones?” she asked.

We both turned around to Woody, who looked mightily bemused.

“Ah, I never thought of that,” he stammered. “To be honest, there’s no way of telling.”

“So I could wind up in my grandma back when she was six months old?” Cass practically exploded. “That’ll be a fat load of use!”

She was right. But that didn’t change the fact we had no other way to go and we were on the clock.

“If you don’t want to do this, Cassie, then I’ll do it on my own,” I told her. “If it’s the only chance we’ve got, I’ll take it. But I’d rather that you came along.”

That got her simmered partway down. She still looked uncertain, but she nodded in a pensive manner.

So I swiveled back to Woody.

“Okay, genius, let’s do this thing.”

It was quite a long, protracted spell, with an awful load of repetitions. And Woody stumbled over parts of it, struggling to get the words in the right order.

But finally, I felt an odd sensation in my eyes. It was like my pupils had begun sparkling.

And then the room faded away, and we were gone.