Game Of Cages (2010) (17 page)

"Then," I continued, "you won't be able to take anyone anywhere, and the sapphire dog will find someone else to be with. Get me?"

She glared at me, her breath coming in harsh gasps. Just the idea of losing her precious pet made her eyes brim with tears. "Bide your time," I told her, "or you'll lose any chance you might have had."

Penny let me lead her out of the house to Steve's car. He told her an ambulance was on the way to check her son over, but she didn't even look at him. She didn't care. She sat in the back and I closed the door.

Steve rubbed his face. "We have a jail cell in the basement of the town hall. Sheriff uses it sometimes. The mayor's on her way here with the key."

"Good." As long as she hadn't picked up the predator's knack for walking through solid objects, Penny would be out of the way for a while.

"Now. What in the Sam Hill was that thing?"

Before I could answer, the ambulance arrived. Steve waved Bushy Bill and Sue toward the crashed truck.

"That's the first I saw of it," I said.

"It ... it was beautiful. And it vanished into thin air, didn't it? I felt ..."

"You loved it," I said. "You loved it and you wanted it all to yourself."

He squinted up at me. He'd come into contact with the world behind the world, and he didn't even know what questions he should ask.

Information shared is information leaked. But he'd seen the predator, so he already had the most damning information. And I knew he would talk to Penny soon enough; I didn't want her version of the sapphire dog to be the only one he heard. I had enough enemies as it was.

I said: "This is how it started last year with my friend. Understand? There was a creature that could make certain things happen. In my friend's case, it healed his back and let him walk." There was no need to mention Hammer Bay, so I didn't. "This is something else, though."

"I loved that animal."

"It's not an animal," I told him. "It's smart. It may be smarter than us."

"By golly," Steve said. He rubbed his neatly shaved chin. "Today I don't think that would be too hard."

"Not any day for me," I said. "I've never been smart. But that doesn't matter. What matters is that we have to kill it."

"Can't we just capture it?" I could see the wanting in his expression.

"For Christ's sake," I said. Steve winced at my language, and I was glad I hadn't said what I'd originally meant to say. "Look at your cousin. Was she a bad mother before today? Did she hate her son?"

"No," he said. "She loves that boy."

"Yesterday she loved that boy. Today all she can think about is that damn sapphire dog." That seemed to stagger him, but I wasn't finished. "And you already know that Clara and Isabelle killed each other over it, don't you?"

Steve stepped away from me, his shoulders slumping forward as if he suddenly bore a heavy weight. "Oh my heavens."

"Maybe it's temporary," I said. He shot a look at me; he hadn't even considered how long it would last. Of course, I'd seen predators at work before, and when they destroyed people, they didn't do it on a temporary basis. "But our first job has to be to find that thing and kill it."

"You made it vanish," he said. "What did you throw at it?"

Now he was asking for too much information. "A credit card." I pulled my MasterCard out of my pocket and showed it to him. "I scared it off. I don't think it knows very much about this world."

"Who brought this devil into our world?"

We were getting close to another subject I wanted to avoid. If Steve started talking about Jesus, I wouldn't be able to turn him away from it, and judging by the way he talked to the paramedics, he had a lot of authority in this town.

Annalise had explained that predators and magic had nothing to do with God or hell, angels or demons. Magic was a way of controlling reality, and predators were just what the name suggested--hungry things from a place outside, sometimes called the Empty Spaces and sometimes called the Deeps.

If Steve started telling the people of Washaway that they were facing a devil, they might try to protect themselves with prayer and crosses, which was as effective as stopping a sniper's bullet with a hopeful thought.

"It's not a demon," I told him. "It's an alien."

"Oh."

"It didn't come here in a ship. It's just here. And it's been here a long time."

"It has? Where?"

"In Regina Wilbur's house."

"Regina? Why, she ..."

His voice trailed off. I could see him reconsidering everything he knew about her in light of what he'd seen today. "But she doesn't have a mark on her face."

"No," I said. "She's kept it prisoner. It's been hidden on her estate for all this time. But it can affect us at a distance. I think it did exactly that to her for decades. And I think it's getting stronger."

"What do we do?"

The paramedics were loading the boy into the ambulance. Sue had a bandage on her wrist; from the way the kid was lunging and snapping at them, I guessed he must have bitten her.

"How many roads lead out of town?"

"Just two," he said. "This one, which leads to I-5, and Littlemont Road, which goes past the Breakleys' to the pass."

"We need to block them off. The predator is trying to get to a heavily populated area. Can you block the roads without causing too much suspicion?"

"No," he said, "but the state police can. I'll tell the mayor to call. Heck, considering everything that's happened, it would be suspicious if we didn't block them. But we're going to do more than that, aren't we?" He looked stricken and miserable. I couldn't help feeling sorry for him.

"We'll try," I said. "And help is coming."

"I'll take your word for it. Just tell me one thing, son. You didn't cause this, did you? You didn't let this thing loose on my town?"

The question startled me, although it shouldn't have. "No."

He sighed in relief. He believed me, although I had no idea why. "I'll take Penny ..." He trailed off as a battered yellow pickup screeched to a halt at the edge of the road. "Looks like you're going to meet the mayor," Steve said.

The driver's door opened and a burly, gray-haired woman bowled out. She wore a Santa cap and a red-and-green coat covered with snowmen. She bustled up the hill toward us.

Steve turned to me. "What should I tell her?"

"You know her. I don't. Would she believe the truth?"

He sighed. "Not a chance on God's green earth."

"Like I said: you know her. Tell her what you have to."

"Good Lord, Steve, what's going on?" she said when she was a few paces away.

"People are going crazy, Pippa, and the crazy is spreading."

I kept my mouth shut, letting Steve take the lead. She stopped next to us, breathing hard. "Explain. No, wait. First, who are you?"

She stepped close to me. She may have been past sixty and barely five feet tall, but she looked at me with the same bullish challenge I'd gotten from cops and prison-yard toughs.

I didn't answer. "Ray Lilly," Steve said, "this is Pippa Wolfowitz, mayor of Washaway."

"Nice shiner you got there. You're the fellow who got himself carjacked last night."

"I am."

"Funny how all this happened just as you came to town."

I was about to tell her it wasn't funny at all, but I didn't. For all I knew, one of the bodies I'd found today was a member of her family. She was entitled to be a little testy.

"Pippa, Ray here saved my life. Penny tried to chop me down like a tree, but he stopped her."

"Big Penny?" Pippa looked at the back of Steve's car. "What's she got against you?"

"Not a thing as far as I know. It's like I said: everyone is going crazy. It started at the Breakley place, then somehow got to Isabelle's house. Isabelle brought it here, and it got to Penny and Little Mark."

"It? What it got to all those people?"

Steve looked at me, his mouth working. "We don't exactly know yet."

"Don't play games with me, Steve Cardinal. I'm too old for that stuff."

"Sheriff get here?"

"No, and don't change the subject."

"It's all the same subject. You need to call the state police and have them block the roads. We can't let this spread."

"Block the ...? The festival is tomorrow! People here need this festival. They have bills to pay!"

"Pippa--"

"Is this about November, Steve?"

"For goodness sakes, would you listen to me?" His voice got high and whiny when he was angry. "This has nothing to do with the election."

He was losing her, and the more I thought about it, the less it seemed to matter. What could she do, anyway? Organize a posse? Warn people to stay indoors? I wasn't even sure how useful a roadblock would be.

What I did know was this: I was wasting time listening to these people. I backed away from them and looked up at Penny's house. It was dark and quiet.

I went inside and took out my ghost knife.

I searched the house from basement to attic but didn't find anything out of the ordinary. The sapphire dog certainly wasn't hidden there, and Penny didn't have any spell books I could find. The only things I found were a pair of tabby cats cowering under the bed and an old police-band scanner in the kitchen.

When I went back outside, Pippa and Steve were standing at the back of Steve's car, talking to Penny.

I walked toward the Neon. Pippa heard me coming and held up her index finger, signaling me to wait. I ignored her and kept walking to my car.

Pippa frowned and followed me. "So, this is your dog?"

"Nope."

"But you know about it," she said. "What's wrong with it? Rabies? Why is it blue?"

"Steve and Penny both saw it. Why not ask them?"

She stepped too close to me again. I'd have suspected she was clueless about personal space if it hadn't been for the look on her face. "I have. Now I'm asking you."

Steve had felt the effects of the sapphire dog. I'd talked to him because he already knew enough to get killed. With Pippa, things were different.

And I didn't like or trust her.

The ambulance siren chirped as it pulled out.

"Come on, Pippa," Steve said. "He saved my life and he's trying to help."

She ignored him. "I don't trust you. When the sheriff gets here, I'm going to have you locked up until the real truth comes out."

"Well, you should call him, then."

"I think I will."

She walked away, putting her cellphone to her ear. Steve came close. His expression betrayed his embarrassment, but he didn't apologize.

"Once Penny's locked up," he said, "we'll talk again. Go back to the Sunset, okay? You look like you could use some sleep anyway."

"You'll block those roads, right?"

"Right," he said. "Pippa will order it. I'll make sure."

He started toward his car, but I wasn't finished. "Steve, what happened to the Breakleys?"

He glanced around to make sure Pippa was still on her cell. "They were home when the fire broke out," he said. "The fire chief said he saw them in the basement window while the crews were dousing the barn. They wouldn't come out, though. A couple of hours later, I went back to check on them.

"There was a hole in the stone foundation of the house, like someone had tunneled through. They were all dead. They'd killed each other, starting with the little ones."

"Any white marks?"

"The parents each had one, and the grandmother."

"But not the kids?"

Steve shook his head, got into his car, and did a U-turn to head back to town.

Parents killing their own children. I tried not to think about that. The sapphire dog hadn't touched the two little girls. Maybe it hadn't gotten the chance, or maybe they were too young. Steve had said the girls were seven and nine, and while Little Mark had a white stain, he was at least fourteen or fifteen. The baby Steve had given to the paramedics hadn't been marked, either. Maybe the predator needed its food to be ripe.

After a quick circuit of the rental car to make sure the predator hadn't materialized in the backseat, I drove farther out on the road. There were no more houses or buildings out this way. I passed several signs telling me the highway turnoff was coming up, and I saw a couple of scattered businesses, a campground, and a turnoff for the church and fairgrounds. Another banner told me the Christmas festival was taking place at the fairgrounds, and a little sign below told me the church was having a benefit lunch ... well, it was happening right then, as it turned out.

I drove by, passed the school grounds, and entered the town from the other side. I hadn't seen the turnoff for the highway. I did a U-turn and drove back. I missed it a second time. Maybe some joker had moved the signs.

This time I pulled into the fairgrounds. The church was off to the right on a low hill; it looked like exactly the sort of church I'd expect in a little town: small with a peaked roof and a steeple. I parked below the church in the fairgrounds parking lot, a wide asphalt patch that overlooked the fairgrounds below. The grounds were slightly larger than a football field, which I thought surprisingly small until I realized that level ground must be a pretty scarce commodity around here.

I shut the engine off and sat in the car. The sapphire dog had not come this way by accident. It was possible that Clara had chosen the route, but I didn't believe it. Little Mark had tried to chauffeur the predator, too, and I remembered the way it felt to be near that thing. Whatever it would have wanted, I would have wanted, too. The sapphire dog was the one in control.

But why this way? Maybe it wanted to go camping. Maybe it wanted to go to church. Maybe it wanted to get on the feeder road--which I couldn't find--to the highway and then hit the big city, where there were hundreds of thousands of people to make crazy. But it had failed.

Now I was looking across the fairgrounds at a cinder-block building. The door kept swinging open as people went in and out. Why go all the way to Seattle to feed when it could stop off right here?

I climbed from the car and walked along the parking lot. I passed an old fire engine; the firefighters had probably stopped off for lunch after the Breakley fire.