Blackwood (16 page)

  
Just
my
house now
, she corrected, closing her eyes against a sudden image of her father sitting at their sticky kitchen table. His pale, birthmark-free face grinned at her over a cup of stale coffee, his eyes and mouth gaping black as open graves.

  
No.
There wasn't time to be weak. If those federal agents caught up to her, they'd be more convinced than ever she and Phillips had murdered her father, more inclined than they had been before to lock her up. No one would save her, either.

  Her key slid into the flimsy back door lock, then the sturdier dead-bolt above it. She forced herself over the threshold.
Your father is dead
, not
sitting at the kitchen table.

  Still. Even if he wasn't a dead man walking, someone could have taken the body and brought it here to mess with her. Someone could…

  She inhaled deeply. No
eau de
dead body met her.

  "Right." She walked into the kitchen –
no zombie father, thank you
– and stuck a quarter-full sack of dog kibble in her messenger bag. "Sorry," she answered Sidekick's mournful silent plea. "No time for chow." Sara would have fed him a few hours ago.

  The smaller toolbox she kept at home was stashed in her room. She'd locked herself out of Pineapple a couple of times before. The same principles she used to break in then should work on the trunk lock of Sara's sedan.

  Miranda found her room lightly picked over by Phillips and Sara. Her
Vampire Diaries
boxed set sat on top of her pillow – Elena's reclining body upside-down and come hither.

  Phillips was a funny boy.

  Miranda retrieved the small toolbox and carried it outside. Up the street, Mrs Figgins was on her front porch with her nose in a paperback, her hair forming an astronaut-suit bubble around her head. Her long-range vision was shot, and she wouldn't see Miranda. She could barely see the book, held it cupped an inch from her face. Miranda liked to see what Mrs Figgins was up to when she drove by, whether it was a Sudoku or a cat-mystery kind of day.

  Popping her toolbox open at the back of Sara's car, Miranda rummaged and selected a specialty screwdriver. She slid a length of steel wire into an opening below the head. The tool was perfect for dislodging stray sequins or costume beading in cracks on set – and for this kind of job, which was why she kept one at home.

  She inserted the metal into the trunk's lock and worked it around, searching for the release. With no immediate luck, she shifted her leg to change the angle of approach.

  There was nothing for her to trip over but she did anyway, abandoning the tool to keep from falling. She stood and pulled on the tool. When it didn't come free, she wriggled it harder.

  The wire was lodged in the lock. And the release didn't give a millimeter.

  "Frak," she said.

  She kicked the ground, then a tire on her way around the side of the car. There'd been
nothing
to cause her to trip.

  She touched her face, just below her temple. Of course. The snake.

  "Frak." She thought of her father and how he always was… Not always, though. He hadn't
always
been that way. First, he'd stumbled into things more. She remembered his hand gripping the frame around the photo of her mother in the living room to keep it from falling because he'd touched the glass too hard. Then, the drinking became a problem, bringing more stumbling with it, making him fight his own limbs.

  She could see how his behavior changed over the years, and she understood the reason. The snake was mind-controlling her somehow. Not all the time, more like a radio frequency that tuned in and out.

  She eyed the sedan, and purposefully thought like herself. Not like Phillips, not like whatever had invaded her body randomly earlier and spewed all that garbage. Not like whatever had caused her to trip over nothing. Like
herself.

  There'd be another way into the trunk, an emergency method to open it. Or a way aimed at convenience.

  Mrs Figgins wasn't deaf, but Miranda took the chance anyway. Selecting a hammer from the toolbox, she went around to the other side of the car – checked the street one last time for anyone else, saw no one – and smashed in the smaller of the rear windows, reaching inside to pull up the lock. Mrs Figgins lifted her head, but she couldn't see anything this far away. She went back to her book.

  Miranda opened the door, feeling around the top of the back seat until she found the plastic release lever and yanked it down. The back seat fell into her hand, flattening to provide trunk access.

  The box that held what was apparently alchemist extraordinaire Dr John Dee's greatest invention sat inside, waiting like it had in her dad's closet all those years.

  "Frak," she said, pleased. And also terrified.

15

Black Sails

Miranda wasn't sure what to do after retrieving the box, but staying at home seemed like a spectacularly bad idea. She couldn't go back to Phillips' house – Sara being there didn't change the chief's obligation to cooperate with the FBI. So Morrison Grove it was.

  She'd set out on foot, the only choice available. A couple of federal tank-style SUVs spotted in the distance later, she and Sidekick left the roadside to hike through less visible terrain. The messenger bag was heavy with the gun box and dog food, and she was at war with her own legs. They protested every plodding, uneven step.

  
Adrenaline vs. Exhaustion: Which will be the ultimate victor?

  Poor Sidekick trudged alongside her, no longer bothering to gallop ahead like he had on their earlier trek. "This is the only time you will ever hear me say it's a good thing we live on an island this small, dog," Miranda muttered. If the island had been any bigger, not having a car would have sunk them.

  What Miranda knew and the larger shadows of what she didn't swirled around her as she focused on putting one sneakered foot in front of the other. None of it seemed random. John Dee's hieroglyph was too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence.

  Deep in thought, she didn't notice the enormous shadow that fell over her. Not until she stumbled over a rock cloaked in the sudden darkness it cast. Sidekick growled at whatever was behind them.

  She didn't want to turn. She turned anyway.

  The ship sailed across the land, cutting across the earth as if nothing inhabited it. The sails stretched a hundred feet in the air, the elaborate gray symbols pulling taut in gusts of phantom wind, the gleaming hull below polished black. People stood on the deck. She couldn't make them out in detail, not through the shadow. They were a line of still silhouettes, a wall of stone statues staring out over the island.

  She knew that shadows didn't fall forward at this time of day, with this position of the sun, and that they never fell this far in front of an object. That hardly mattered since the ship's appearance nearly broke the rational part of her mind.

  Morrison Grove wasn't far, the tree line and roofs of the first buildings visible ahead. Miranda picked up her pace, but Kicks barked his head off behind her. He wasn't following.

  "Sidekick!"

  She couldn't leave him, even if it meant the shadow ate her whole. She doubled back and pulled at his collar.

  The ship glided slowly, steadily forward. They had to get out of its path.

  Every dog within earshot struck up a chorus of barks to match Sidekick's. His body thrashed against the pressure of her hand.

  
Just like the night my dad died.

  Miranda had never leashed Sidekick before, but there was nothing else to do. She dropped her messenger bag and removed the strap, clicking one end into his collar as he growled. She caught up the other end and hefted the bag with her free arm. She put all her weight into heaving him forward.

  "Come on!"

  He fought, desperate to face the threat. But she refused to give in. She moved forward as quickly as possible with the bag clutched awkwardly against her. She didn't stop to look back until they reached Polly's door.

  The ship was a dozen feet away…

  It was going to sail right over them…

  Miranda gave one last jerk to get Sidekick inside with her, then slammed the door and slung the bag aside. The box inside it clunked against the floor, the kibble rattling.

  She waited for the impact of the black ship. She waited to feel all her bones breaking as the phantom ship crushed her whole, understanding suddenly that this was probably what had happened to her father.

  The impact never came.

  When she opened the door, the shadow had vanished. The ship, too.

  Oh, it was out there, sailing through the night. The line of dark forms on its deck watching and waiting for an arrival point.
Something
was coming.

  She needed to get to Phillips, get through to him that they didn't have much time left. That with the big black ship sailing toward her, maybe
she
didn't have much time.

  The thought of going back into the night defeated her.

  Adrenaline never had a chance. Exhaustion won.

The voices roared.

  The noise woke Phillips from the fitful, sweaty sleep the pills had thrown him into. He rocked against the hard wood bench until he achieved the momentum to sit up. He pressed his head back against cool cinderblock. All the physical sensations were muted, as if they were happening to someone else. Someone far, far away. On a movie screen, or in the past. Someone barely real.

  The voices overlapped in chaotic fragments, but then they began to sync, melding to a single word loud and clear as shattering glass. The chorus repeated again and again and again:

  
COMING COMING COMING COMING COMING COMING COMING COMING COMING

  He fell onto his knees on concrete, an image of Miranda in his mind…

  Miranda on the beach, thinking she'd pushed him down…

  Thinking that he didn't understand…

  Silence. There was a single moment of perfect silence.

  Phillips was alone inside his head.

The Return

In the first moment there was no one, but in the next there was her.

  
The painfully ordinary woman straightened from a crouch, frowning at the asphalt surrounding her. She stood next to gas pumps with bright yellow heads topped by small video screens, unlit at this time of night. Dawn would come soon enough, and with it customers, blaring advertisements, flashing numbers below, the snick of nozzles being used and replaced. The song of motors coming to life. The fluorescent lights inside the store would shine like unflattering spotlights on all who dared enter.

  
She found her hands looking for something – someone – and smoothed them against the skirt of her long, flowing sundress. Her eyes possessed a wildness that didn't match the garment's modest lines, the conservative gather of her plain brown ponytail, the muted understatement of neutral brown swiped across her eyelids. The ordinary woman thought of nothing at first, her hands again reaching, searching for someone in unconscious reflex, wild eyes sweeping the parking lot, confirming its desertion.

  
She inhaled the night, throwing her arms out wide. Her sedate maroon skirt danced in the wind and she permitted her plain lips to curve.

  
The night was silent, but, eventually, she knew where home was from this spot.

  
She knew she could walk it.

Across town, another woman walked toward the front door of a big yellow house, her easy strides broken when she made an abrupt turn. She stopped in the night grass, holding the gaze that she'd felt on her back.

  
The man was on the other side of the street, and unlike her – she traced her attention over her own body, took in the sleek cut of a business suit – he wore a bathrobe over pajama bottoms. But his stiff posture would have told, if the timing hadn't.

  
They raised no hands in greeting, exchanged no words. She inclined her head and he sent her a slow smile, not of joy, but of knowing. He sat down, posture stiff, to wait on the curb, and a bolt of envy shocked her. She had to get inside, and so she went with deliberate steps.

  
Her hand remembered how to open the door quietly enough that he wouldn't hear. Her feet knew how to be clever and silent when coming in late, to pad up the hall so as not to disturb him. She let them lead her to the kitchen first, unable to resist the lure of taste. The mess surprised her, distantly. The refrigerator door was cool in her palm as she opened it, light sneaking out. She examined the contents. Too many boxes, unfamiliar items, the letters a blur that finally resolved into words she could understand. Removing a carton of orange juice, she leaned against the counter and drank deep.

  
She left the carton out, knowing it would never be noticed. Not in the mess.

  
She noted the man asleep on the couch, but he didn't wake and she didn't wake him. Instead her clever feet went up the hall. The softness of the sheets – high thread count, the words skated through her mind – was an embrace, and she relaxed into it, closing her eyes and waiting to be discovered.

The girl sat up in a bed that had never been that comfortable, even when it was new. But the sheets and blanket were soft and pink. They didn't belong to the house, but to her. The bedclothes were the only thing that truly belonged to her of the objects around her. Bed, nightstand, and chair had come with the room. This was rental housing. Looking around, she confirmed she was right, and the knowledge edged her to her feet.

  
She sensed that she wasn't alone in the house.

  
The other two young women waited in the front room, a landscape dominated by a coffee table littered with junk. Tabloids and dirty margarita glasses. The taller of the others – her hair a silvery gray despite her young age – raised her finger to her lips, and inclined a head at the door to the bedroom behind her.