Deadly Violet - 04 (3 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Another guy losing his family, in a similar fashion to the way I’d done? That was what we were looking at here. And it ground at me like sandpaper, lending an urgency to all my actions.

Me and Saul and Ritchie searched the house from top to bottom. We left out nothing, going into every nook and cranny. And we found precisely zip. There were no more purple lights. No walls moving. Nothing coming out of them. So whatever had been here was most likely gone.

My eyeballs felt raw and my head was throbbing. I’d had two hours sleep tonight, and it was worse than having none. Dawn’s light found me sitting on the Reece’s porch, watching the town come into sharp relief around me.

It looked so pristine under snow, you’d never guess that we’d had to rebuild whole sections of it twice in a single year. Once after the Shadow Man, and a second time after those goddamned ‘hominids’ had trashed the place. But the townsfolk of Raine’s Landing are nothing if not resilient. And – let’s face it – cut off from the rest of the world the way we are, there’s not much else to do.

The adepts had helped, to give them credit. You’d expect no less from the town’s most powerful magicians. Lehman Willets, Martha Howard-Brett, Kurt van Friesling, and even the McGinley sisters had visited each neighborhood and used their powers where they could. And as for the Central Library
– the contents of which had been completely shredded – Judge Levin and Gaspar Vernon had found the catalogues, which were locked up in a drawer and had miraculously been spared. And gone to the lengths of conjuring up a new copy of every single destroyed book. They’d had to do that one book at a time, and it had taken them until the end of November.

But that was then, and this was now. Saul Hobart came out and sat down next to me, his bulk making the porch boards creak.

“So, where do we go from here?” he asked.

“We need to get some people with real power involved.”

And I threw a glance along the street. We were not very far from the Little Girl’s house. She was the strangest apparition in this whole bizarre community. A creature who
looked
like a normal little, blond-haired five or six-year old. Except she floated in the air, and she was mostly made up out of energy, as I had found out painfully a while ago.

She saw a lot of things even the adepts couldn’t, so she might turn out to be of help. But my gut told me otherwise. This looked far more like a case of tracing magic to its roots. And that meant Lehman Willets.

There was the familiar growl of a twin-cam motor from the main street to our left. Cassie’s bright red Harley came around the corner. She was dressed in leathers head-to-toe against the cold. But I wasn’t sure what she was doing here. I hadn’t gotten in touch with her and, so far as I knew, neither had anybody else.

I stood up and walked over as she clambered off her bike.

“Hey,” I asked, “what brings you here? How did you even find out about this?”

She looked more relaxed and happy than she ought to have been, and I thought I could detect a warm gleam in her large, dark eyes.

“You know me,” she smiled. “I have my sources.”

“And I also know you’re pregnant. Do you really think it’s wise, getting involved in anything of this nature?”

Cassie’s broad smile melted, and she threw me a faintly scornful look.

“Jesus, Ross, I’m expecting a child. It’s not like both my legs are broken.”

Then she stared over at the house in question, and her manner became far more somber.

“Vanished family, huh?”

“That’s right. Only the father left behind.”

Her kids had gone in a similar way. It was an injury that we both shared. Her gaze went slightly damper, and she made a curious, low-pitched noise.

“It sounds like we need someone who can tell if magic happened here. You getting Willets in on this?” she asked me.

“I was already thinking of doing that.”

Lehman Willets had been very useful to us in the past, but the man had issues, and he lived a hermit’s life. Sometimes, you could summon him up merely by thinking hard about him or calling his name. But that felt to me like taking him for granted. So I figured a personal visit would be more respectful.

He’d set up home in the basement of an abandoned factory, out on the edge of the commercial district. And I’d visited him there several times before. So I started fishing out my Caddy’s keys.

Then stopped doing that.

Because entirely out of nowhere, Saul Hobart was letting out some genuinely unexpected sounds.

He was still sitting on the porch where I had left him, when I swiveled round. But the huge, bald detective lieutenant had now doubled over. Both his massive hands were folded round his brow, and he was rocking back and forth. His teeth were bared and tightly clenched. And peculiar, keening noises were being squeezed out from between them.

Alarm took hold of me. I’d known Saul my whole adult life, and never seen him act this way. He didn’t suffer from migraines, so far as I knew. And so, was this down to the injuries he’d taken when the Shadow Man had been around, or was it something else?

We went over to him quickly, but he shook us off.

“What’s going on, Saul?” I demanded

“See something,” he muttered back.

And that wasn’t a response that made an awful lot of sense. His eyes were shut, so what on earth did that mean?

“Trying to see it clearer,” was the next thing that he mumbled.

“
Saul?
”

He tucked his head down further, trying to evade me.

Ritchie Vallencourt came out. I knew how highly he regarded his commanding officer. And when he saw the man hunched over and apparently in pain, he hunkered down beside him, genuinely anxious.

Saul still wouldn’t open his eyes, but he managed to catch hold of the young sergeant’s wrist, gripping it so tightly that discomfort showed on Ritchie’s face.

“Are there any kids in your house?” Saul asked him abruptly.

Ritchie looked bewildered, which we all were at the moment.

“Are there any
children
in your house?” the lieutenant repeated.

And I knew that Ritchie and his wife had put off such things for a while, for the sake of his career. And so this wasn’t really making any sense.

Except it turned out I
was wrong about that
.
Ritchie’s forehead crumpled up.

“Yeah, Heidi’s little cousins,” he responded. “They’re like baby sisters to her, and they always do an overnight this close to Christmas.”

Saul’s eyes sprang wide open when he heard those words.

“We’ve got to get there, right away!”

And this was as bewildering as anything I’d ever come across. But no one gave a damn about that.

There would be plenty of time for questions later. Right now, we were on the move, all headed in the same direction.

“It happened once before,” Saul explained to me, huffing breathlessly and mopping moisture from his face as we headed off to Clayton, the next district down from Marshall Drive.

We were both in my car, since the man was in no state to drive. Vallencourt and Cass had taken their own vehicles. Cass was going to get there first, because she always did, riding that monster of a Harley. Vallencourt would not be far behind her – I was pretty sure of that. And we were bringing up the rear.

And as it turned out, Saul had no idea what specifically was wrong at Ritchie’s house. He’d simply gotten an extremely nasty premonition.

My old Caddy’s engine roared. The whitened streets sped by us. And the sun was high enough for me to not be overly bothered by the prospect of black ice. The main ways through were pretty free of traffic, so I put the pedal to the metal with impunity.

“Back when I was in Raine General,” the lieutenant continued, “not long after I had woken out of that damned coma, I felt a pain in my head. And then, I could see it when the hominids took over Tyburn.”

“You mean it showed up in your mind?”

He nodded. “No one could have been more surprised than I was.”

I turned that over, being careful to keep my attention on the thoroughfare ahead. What he was describing … it was the way that characters like Willets saw stuff. The kind of second sight that you associated with a truly mighty adept. And Saul wasn’t that.

“You’re no magician.” I said, trying to untense my jaw. “So what’s that about?”

“I’ve been wondering ever since it happened,” he replied. “Looked at it from every angle. And the best that I can come up with is – Lehman Willets saved me, right? Put me back together when the surgeons couldn’t. And how long did he spend poking around inside me with those healing powers of his?”

I tried to think back, which was hard under the circumstances.

“At least twenty minutes. Maybe more.”

“That’s a good long time to be subjected to a magic spell,” Saul told me. “And maybe a little of it stuck, or simply got left behind.”

I could feel my head swim gently.

“He left some of his magic in you? Like a surgeon leaves a swab?”

“Like I said, I’ve examined it maybe a couple thousand times. And that’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

We went around a corner, and I shot him a swift sideways glance.

“So you’re a psychic cop, these days?”

The man shrugged. “A little bit psychic, or so it would appear.”

“Still impressive,” I pointed out.

Hobart made a faint rumbling.

“Would you just shut up and watch the road?”

CHAPTER FIVE

Cassie drew up in front of the Vallencourt house a good couple of minutes before anybody else. She’d ridden across people’s lawns to get here, instead of bothering with stuff like intersections. And had headed down a couple of footpaths too.

She killed her engine and scanned her surroundings. The house looked normal, at a first glance. The drapes were mostly drawn, but there was nothing unusual about that, at this time of the morning. And in the windows that weren’t covered up, there were no lights.

There was an eight year-old Cherokee parked out front that had to be Heidi’s. The woman was already practicing to be a soccer mom, no doubt. But there was no commotion that she could detect. Not the slightest noise, in fact.

The homes to either side were silent too. One of them had recent tracks in the driveway where its owner had gone off early to work. But the other household was still dormant. Everything was as it ought to be.

Maybe Saul had brought them here on a wild goose chase. What had all that head-clutching business been, anyway? But she thought it best to check things out to her full satisfaction.

Cass dismounted, going carefully across the snow, her gaze still darting to the few uncovered windows. She was wearing both her Glocks, and normally would have drawn one. But she kept reminding herself there were small kids present. Shoot at a movement, and it might turn out to be a child. She had other weapons on her too – knives, and a straight razor. But she’d only pull them if she had to.

She snuck around the side extension, where the kitchen had to be. There was a big sash window with a blind pulled down behind it it, the pane slightly open. Still no noises from inside. So Cassie paused, then pushed it up and wriggled in.

As soon as she was through, she could see that a light
had
been switched on, further back.

It was purple.

Sonofabitch, what was making it that color? She couldn’t figure this thing out, but felt pretty sure she didn’t like it.

She was in a kitchen-diner. Cass had never been in Vallencourt’s place before, and didn’t know the layout. Her right hand went to one of her pistols, but she still refused to draw it. She just listened very carefully.

There was only silence, at first. But then she thought she heard a very distant voice.

But it did not sound in the tiniest bit human. Was dead flat, and had the weirdest kind of echo to it. Certainly not Heidi or the kids. It was coming from deeper within the house, and sounded as if it was murmuring something along the lines of “Mollendop.”

There was no such word, in any language she had ever heard of. What with that and the purple lighting, this was one hell of a way to start things off. Cassie hated being faced with stuff she didn’t understand. She finally drew a Glock, holding it up by her shoulder. And moved as quietly as she could toward the kitchen door.

But the floor was some kind of vinyl tile. And, in spite of her best efforts, her boots made little clicking noises as they went across it.

Something seemed to notice that.

“Toogootoh!” the same voice muttered urgently, a little louder than before.

She was still wondering what kind of gibberish that was, when the wall ahead of her … shifted.

Directly above the door, a snake-shaped bulge appeared under the wallpaper. It writhed for an instant, going nowhere. But then vanished before she could bring her gun to bear.

Her pulse was banging wildly and her breath was hissing. What had that been?

But to hell with this. Where was the point in staying quiet when she’d already been discovered?

“
Heidi?
” she yelled. “
Kids?
”

And when she got no answer, Cassie grit her teeth and burst into the hallway. There was no one there. She checked the living room, then went round to the back. This was a single-story residence.

She turned a sharp, right-angled corner in the hallway, swinging her Glock out in front of her, but keeping her aim above a kid’s head height. She was still surrounded by mauve light. And it had gotten deeper back here, the bulbs glowing a rich, dense purple. It made everything look one dimensional, and she could barely see straight.

Cassie stopped and wobbled slightly. Then she took a deep lungful of air and got her balance back.

The room up ahead of her looked like it might be the main bedchamber. Its door was partway open. There was a large, rectangular mirror on the wall back there. And at first, she thought that she was only looking at her own reflection, curiously distorted.

Then she saw the shapes in it were moving in a way that she was not.

Cass peered harder, trying to figure out what she was staring at.

Someone with their back to her. No, three people, one of them tall and fair-haired and the other two considerably smaller. A statuesque blond woman with two little girls, still in their nightclothes. The woman had a child by each hand, and was stepping languidly away from Cass.

This had to be Heidi and her two visiting cousins. But it was no reflection of them Cass was looking at.

They were
inside
the mirror.

Cass stepped in a little closer, not sure how she ought to react. They were definitely
behind
the glass. Were walking deeper into it, getting further away from the mirror’s surface. Her mouth sagged open.

There was the same violet light in there as in the rest of the place, but it wasn’t being cast by any bulb this time. It looked like it was emanating from the glass itself. And she thought she could make out the shadowy walls of what appeared to be a tunnel. Heidi and the two girls were progressing down it.

When Cass stared closer, she could see that there were figures at the other end as well. They were beckoning to the woman and her young companions, ushering them in their direction.

Her Glock came up again, but there was no clear aim to take. Besides which, she had no idea what these things were. Were they harmless or malevolent?

She couldn’t see their faces. But their arms kept coming into view. Some looked normal, although terribly skinny. Others were not human arms at all. She kept on catching glimpses of appendages that looked like tentacles.

But she wasn’t
doing
anything. That struck Cassie forcibly, a second later. Normally, she was the first one to go charging in when there was danger. But she’d frozen up, uncertain how to deal with this. She’d seen a lot of peculiar stuff in her day, but this beat her to a dead halt.

She fought against that, taking a couple more teetering steps in, yelling Heidi’s name. The tall, blond woman did not so much as glance back. She was moving at a steady, even pace. And the same was true of her companions. Maybe they’d been hypnotized.

“Get out of there!” Cassie shrieked. “What do you think you’re doing?”

That got nothing in response.

The only course of action left now was to follow them right in there. Cass absorbed that, hurried across to the mirror and put a hand against it. And felt solid resistance. It was a normal sheet of silvered glass.

So how’d the others gotten through?

She was still trying to figure that one out, gazing helplessly at the receding human shapes … when the surface of the mirror wavered, then went blank. And then returned to normal.

Cassie was left gawping at her own reflected face. Heidi and the kids were gone. She had been unable to stop it.

Numbness spread out through her. And was shattered – seconds later – by the bellow of a sports car engine, splitting the air outside the house.

Ritchie Vallencourt had finally arrived.

And what precisely was she going to tell him?

She’d gotten back to the front door by the time that he burst through it, knowing what was coming next and hoping she could calm things down.

The young detective sergeant was already in a hellish state. His almond eyes were as wide as a startled horse’s. And he usually had color in his handsome face, but that was in the past.

His Browning was already drawn. He stared through Cass as though she wasn’t there.

“
Heidi?
” he began bellowing.

Cassie holstered her own weapon.

“
Kate? Joanna? Talk to me!
” he yelled.

She tried to get a hold of his shoulders, knowing how appallingly painful this had to be for him.

“Ritchie, you need to slow down,” she begged him

But he didn’t even look like he could hear her.

“Where
are
they?” he howled.

“We’ll get them back, I promise.”

“Where’ve they
gone
?”

He started moving forward. Cassie tried to stop him. And an instant later, she found herself being shoved aside and slammed against the nearest wall.

Her hands went instinctively to her belly, frightened for the life inside her. But her back had taken the force of the impact. There had been no genuine damage. And besides, Ritchie hadn’t meant to do that – he just wasn’t thinking straight.

She watched him helplessly as he went running down the hall. He disappeared from sight, but Cassie could still hear him. His yells were becoming increasingly frantic. And it sounded like he was overturning stuff, driven by his panic to a mindless frenzy.

The worst thing was that she had been the same. When Kevin, Angel, and Little Cassie had been taken from her, she’d been like a wounded animal, screeching and clawing at anything that moved. She still remembered every dreadful second of it. Now, the same was happening to someone that she knew and liked.

There was nothing in the slightest she could do but listen. Cassie let her head drop back against the wall and felt her shoulders tremble.

When the hell was Ross going to get here? He was the kind of person who could deal with stuff like this a hell of a lot better than she was able. Mr. Calm and Sensible. Mr. Reliable. It was part of what she liked about the guy.

And she was still waiting for him, when she heard the gunshot.

It came from the same direction Vallencourt had vanished. And was followed by a cry, a thump, and then more yelling. Except that Ritchie wasn’t calling for his wife, this time. This was wordless yelling, caused by pain or fear.

Something else was going down. And, again, she had no idea quite what. But both her Glocks came out, and then Cassie was powering herself in the direction of the screams.

They were coming from the bathroom. Something bad was happening to the man in there. And the door was most of the way closed, so that she couldn’t make out what it was.

Cassie kicked her way in. And her dark gaze tightened sharply in the violet light.