In Shadows (34 page)

I won’t die here. I won’t let them die here.

In desperation he drew his pistol again and shoved it against her belly. He’d shot Cramer. But Cramer wasn’t Mandi. If surviving cost her life, could he live with that? The answer should have been no. But he knew that if the thing inside her forced her to kill him, Pierce would be next. Jake couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to try to explain to the boy that he had had to kill his mother. But there didn’t seem to be any other way. His finger slid onto the trigger.

But Mandi was faster.
Her
finger slipped behind the trigger and jerked forward. Jake felt a crushing pain as the trigger actually snapped off. Her strength was incredible.

He tried to strike her with the gun, but she slapped it away into the darkness. He reached out, searching for another weapon. Anything. But there was nothing but stone wall and dirt floor. As she wrapped both hands around his throat again, and he felt consciousness slipping away, Pierce’s hand slipped into his own, and the boy squeezed. Jake noticed that a febrile light was now shining in the chapel above them, and he wondered if it was the light at the end of the tunnel he’d heard about.

Suddenly a huge black hand reached out of the light and wrapped around Mandi’s hair. She clawed at Jake as she was dragged up out of the hole, kicking and screaming.

Cramer leaned down with a pain-wracked expression and actually smiled at Jake and Pierce.

“You’re alive,” gasped Jake. “Thank God.”

“You’re as lousy a shot as ever,” said Cramer, grimacing.

“Now whatever you two are doing, I suggest you get it done.”

Just then Mandi landed on his back, and the two of them disappeared in a rumbling commotion.

Jake turned back to Pierce, and when his hands fell on the boy’s shoulders Pierce acknowledged him with a one-armed hug, drawing him closer. The boy spelled into his hand so fast Jake had to struggle to understand.

You have to put your hands over mine on the jewel.

What are we doing?

Fixing it. I can’t do it alone.

But Jake sensed a terrible sadness in the boy, and guessed the cause immediately.

Will you still see?

There was a moment before Pierce answered.

No.

Jake didn’t have to ask about his hearing or his walk. That was all part of the deal.

If we don’t do this
, Pierce signed,
we’ll all die.

That was part of the deal, too. And Jake knew the boy was right. What kind of kid was this to make such a decision? What kind of world was it to force him to make it? Jake was proud and saddened beyond belief. He squeezed the boy even tighter, tears streaming down his cheeks. Over their heads Mandi shrieked like a banshee, and Cramer shouted back in Voudou patois. Grunts of pain followed from both.

We have to
, signed Pierce.
Before they kill each other. Put your hands over mine.

Jake did as he was told, instantly experiencing almost the same feeling he had when he had one of his hunches. Only now, instead of wandering through his own subconscious he was wandering through the stone’s depths, sensing the broken synapses that matched synapses he began to sense inside his own head. He realized then how Pierce fixed things, how
he knew what was wrong with them without seeing. He could sense Pierce’s mind inside the stone with him, working together. With a twist here and a tweak here, they began to
repair
the giant stone and the jewel that rested upon it. And with each tiny repair Jake knew a little of Pierce’s vision and hearing was slipping away, until it was done, until the giant stone and the jewel were as they were intended to be.

Until his son was deaf and blind and crippled once more.

And after a moment he felt Pierce’s hands slip out from under his and wrap around him, and he drew the boy into his embrace.

Jake peeked cautiously out of the hole into the glare of the dozer headlights through the front door. Mandi was straddling Cramer, who lay on his back. Their hands were locked, but they both appeared dazed. Jake clambered out, reaching to lift Pierce behind him. Jake helped Mandi up off of Cramer, but when he offered, the big man shook off his hand and struggled to his feet, one hand covering the wound in his bloody shoulder. The four of them stumbled wearily out of the ruins of the chapel just as Virgil staggered out of the woods. The old man shook his head and waved, and just then Jake noticed Oswald, tagging along at the sheriff’s feet.

“You okay?” Jake shouted.

“Mm-hm!” Virgil called, holding his jaw.

One last peal of thunder rolled, and for the first time Jake noticed that the rain seemed to be subsiding. A crack in the clouds allowed one slender moonbeam to snake across the sodden lawn and then creep into the trees behind Virgil, and Jake heard Mandi gasp. For just an instant, he was certain he saw something impossible just inside the cover of trees. A giant naked black man, waving a huge machete. Then, like a will-o’-the-wisp, the image was gone, and the clouds covered the moon again.

S THE MOON STRUGGLED
to break through the thinning clouds again Jake, Mandi, Virgil, and Cramer shielded themselves from the heat of the flaming house behind the bulldozer.

“Where the heck are we gonna go?” asked Cramer.

“The dozer will get us through water a lot deeper than any car,” said Jake. “And even if we have to hole up in what’s left of one of the houses, we’re not staying here.”

Cramer glared at the raging fire, his hand over the rude bandage Mandi had fashioned from his shirt. “I’ll second that,” he muttered.

“You sure you don’t want us to make you a pallet on top of the hood?”

Cramer chuckled. “I’ve been shot by better men than you.”

Jake shook his head, boosting Mandi up onto the dozer, and then turned to help Pierce. Mandi watched the boy as Pierce tested the muddy track with his fingers.

“There was nothing else we could do,” Jake whispered, ashamed and guilt-stricken.

After a moment she rested one hand on his shoulder and squeezed, nodding sadly. But Jake knew the hurt of having seen Pierce whole and then broken again would be with both of them for the rest of their lives. Their son had saved all of them and given up the most precious of gifts to do so. Jake was proud of the boy, despondent, and confused.

As Pierce settled into the seat Jake noticed that the rain had completely stopped, as though even nature itself would have nothing to do with saving the old mansion. Finally he helped Virgil up beside Cramer on the engine cowling, just ahead of the driver’s seat. The machine would carry all of them, but not comfortably. Oswald woofed at Jake’s feet and he lifted the little dog up into Cramer’s arms.

He clambered aboard, easing into the wide seat beside Pierce, Mandi sitting on the thick armrest. As he started to shove the machine into gear, Pierce took his hand, spelling.

Are we going home?

Jake spelled back.
Yes.

Are you going to stay now?

I’ll never leave you again.

Pierce smiled, and Jake sighed, but the boy seemed to sense his discomfort.

It’s all right
, Pierce spelled.
They’re fixed now. They won’t hurt anyone ever again.

Are you sure of that?

Yes.

But you can’t see or hear.

Pierce squeezed his hand before spelling.
It was a fair trade.

Then he wrapped his arms around Jake’s neck and squeezed even harder.

ULES ROSE WEARILY TO HIS FEET.
The first rays of dawn creeping through the windows had wakened him from a fitful half-sleep.

The phone had not rung all night, and he’d made up his mind. This was the day. Now was the time. He wrapped his fingers tightly around the walnut grips of his pistol to keep his hands from shaking. He planned to place the barrel of the gun directly against the old woman’s temple and pull the trigger before she could move. The closeness of her skin would deaden the noise of the shot. Nothing to it.

But he was afraid.

He glanced toward the doorway into the altar room, and he could have sworn he heard whispers coming from that direction. Muffled voices. Threatening sounds. But the old woman was in the bedroom. He could hear her snoring.

“There’s no voice,” he muttered to himself, continuing the chant until the whispers disappeared.

He grasped the pistol tighter, wanting nothing more than to be done with this job, to kill the old bitch and get the hell
out of this apartment, out of this crazy neighborhood. The long thin rays of the sun through the living room drapes caused the shadows inside the bedroom to be deeper and darker, and as he entered the room he was momentarily blinded.

As his eyes began to readjust, he was shocked to see that the old woman’s bed was empty. He spun, ready to blow the bitch to hell and gone, but she was nowhere to be seen. It was impossible for her to get out of the bed so fast. But she had. She was always doing things like that, driving him crazy.

She had to be in the bathroom. The door was half open, the night-light still on. He slipped over against the wall, listening, waiting for her to come out. He could hear water running, and when he glanced through the door he saw steam rising from beneath the shower curtain, and the mirror was fogged. He edged into the room, careful not to slip on the wet floor or to get between the light and the curtain and throw a shadow.

He couldn’t understand how the old woman had gotten to him. He’d killed dozens of men in his life and a couple of women. He’d been in situations where the slightest misstep or misspoken word could have cost him his life, and he’d never broken a sweat. But ever since Jimmy had left, he’d been living in fear of a woman so ancient her teeth had rotted out of her head. And now he was going to end it. He tightened his grip on the pistol and reached out to grab the slick shower curtain.

But suddenly an image of a corpse flashed before his eyes. An emaciated, rotten thing, with bones showing through the decaying flesh but living eyes and a gummy grin, tufts of gray hair still clinging to its skull. And the corpse was standing on the other side of the curtain, showering just like a living, breathing person. It was all he could do to not run screaming from the room.

It’s all in my head. She’s doing it to me, somehow. She’s trying to stop me from killing her by driving me crazy.

He forced himself to jerk the curtain aside, almost filling the empty shower with lead before he realized that there was no one there. No wrinkled old woman with her blue hair pasted to her head. No laughing corpse. The shower was running, but no one was home. He whirled, aiming the pistol back into the bedroom, his heart pounding against his ribs. He leaped back out into the room, expecting the old woman to be making a break for the door, but there was no one in the room. No one in the living room, or the kitchen, either, when he checked to see if she was hiding behind the counter. That left only the room full of idols. The room where he’d just heard the whispered voices.

He crossed the carpet slowly, glancing through the door to make sure the snake was still coiled up in the aquarium and the top was held down tight. He didn’t want the old bitch pulling some shit and throwing the snake on him or something. Once again he leaned against the wall, listening. And again he was sure he could hear voices whispering. But there was no way there was anyone in there but the old woman.

Shit.

He couldn’t even figure out how
she
had managed to slip by him and get into the room, much less anyone else. She had to have a recording or something. Trying to freak him out. Well, this was going to be over in a heartbeat. He strode into the room, ready for a quick couple of shots. Then he was out of here.

The room was darker than he’d expected. All the altar candles were out. Not even a trickle of light seemed able to make its way into the place, and the whispered voices were louder inside, closer. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but it sounded like the Voudou Cajun crap the old
woman was always jabbering. Only the voices weren’t hers. They didn’t even sound human. It was more like the noise a grinder might make chewing up broken glass. When something hard struck his gun hand his finger tickled the trigger, and a shot burst through the back wall.

Jules spun toward his attacker, but suddenly hands seemed to be all over him, grabbing, choking, punching, pinching, chopping. The wind was knocked from his lungs, the gun dropped to the floor, and he struggled to make it back through the door into the living room, but it looked as though it were a million miles away and he
ran
toward it, as though it were receding. When he was finally able to reach the jamb and jerk himself back into the living room he staggered on to the front door, fumbling open the locks with trembling fingers, whipping open the door, blinded by the direct morning sun. He stumbled out onto the landing but was caught by more powerful hands and forced hard against the side of the building.

“Whoa, partner!” said a heavy male voice in his ear.

He felt cuffs being clicked onto his wrists, but he didn’t care. He was outside. In the sunlight. Away from the crazy old bitch. Away from whatever the hell she’d unleashed inside.

“You okay, Memere?” said another male voice.

“Oui,”
said the old woman, as Jules’s eyes began to adjust again.

She was standing in the doorway, smiling a toothless grin at him and stroking her snake.

“I am so glad you caught dis man,” she said, nodding at Jules. “He has held me the—how you say—kidnapped.”

“Jesus, Memere,” said the first officer. “Are you okay? Cramer just called and asked us to check on you.”

“I am the plenty okay now,” she said, smiling and nodding at Jules again. “Dis one here and his boss, dey is not so
okay. But me and my snake, we be fine, t’ank you. It good to be out of de shadows and see de sunlight again, dough.”

“What’s a big, nasty fella like you doing picking on a nice old lady like this?” said one of the cops, jerking Jules away from the wall.

Memere laughed. “I tink dis one he gots what you calls
de baggage.
”