Kill Her Again (A Thriller) (35 page)

“You must understand that it takes most Roma women many years to develop their supernatural skills. Some, like my Tatjana here, never develop them at all.

“But Chavi was different. Special. By the time she was seventeen, she was a full-fledged
chovihani
, a witch, respected and loved by all those around her.

“But Mikola was also special. It was unusual for a Roma male to develop any supernatural powers, but because he shared Chavi’s soul, he also shared many of her skills. But rather than use those skills for good, as Chavi did, Mikola was drawn to the dark side, and his days of tolerating insults were over.

“When several
gadje
children pelted him with eggs one day, he felled them all with a curse. When a carnival barker caught him trying to sneak into one of his sideshows, and threatened to flog him, Mikola rendered him mute, and the man was later found to have swallowed his own tongue.

“But the ultimate insult came from Chavi herself. When a young
gadje
photographer began traveling with the Zala family, Chavi found herself falling in love with the man and spoke of running away with him.

“This was not only against Roma law, it did not sit well with Mikola. Chavi belonged to no one but him. She was, after all, his twin sister, the second half of the wheel. How could she think to abandon him? To leave him behind?

“In an angry rage, Mikola put a curse on the photographer, who soon collapsed and died.

“Heartbroken and distraught, Chavi confronted Mikola, but his rage continued to burn, all the years of pain and frustration coming to the surface. Chavi had betrayed him. She was no longer his sister, but a thief. The girl who had threatened to take away forever what was rightfully his. The part of his soul she had already stolen at birth.

“And in a frenzy, Mikola grabbed a knife and stabbed Chavi, over and over again, then left her in the forest, under the very tree his own father had left him on the night of his birth.

“Mikola had expected her half of his soul to migrate to him, to bring him strength, to cure his deformities, but with her dying breath, Chavi pointed a bloodied finger to the center of his chest and said a single word:

“Mine.”

T
HE OLD WOMAN
lowered her head as if weakened by the telling of the story.

Anna stared at her, waiting for more, but nothing came. It looked as if she had fallen asleep.

Then she stirred. “This is, of course, a story that was told to me as a young child. There have been embellishments over the years, but the essence of what I’ve said is true.”

“But you haven’t told me all of it,” Anna said. “Where does it go from there?”

“I think you know.”

“Mikola went looking for Chavi and found her in the next life, taking what he felt was rightfully his.”

The old woman nodded. “He was convinced that the last word she spoke was a final curse. If he didn’t take his soul from
her
, she’d surely take it from
him
.”

“But how did he know where to find her?”

The old woman tapped her nose. “He relied on his instincts. With every new life, our souls naturally seek out those we have known in our previous lives. If he couldn’t find her directly, he would search for those who had been close to her. Like a lover. Or a friend.”

“The photographer,” Anna said. “O’Keefe.”

“Among others.”

Anna turned, looking at Pope. Then she thought of Susan and it all made a kind of twisted sense to her.

He’s always watching
, Susan had said.

Could Mikola have been watching
them
? And what about the Worthingtons? Did he watch them, too? Had their lives somehow intersected with the Fairweathers, causing him to zero in on Kimberly, thinking she might be the one?

It was like some cosmic game of hide-and-seek, and Mikola sometimes got it wrong. Perhaps the eyes of those chosen were close, so close that he had to take a chance, only to discover that he’d made a mistake.

I’ve made many mistakes
, he’d told her.

How many people, she wondered, had he killed? How many innocents? All of it on Chavi’s shoulders.
Her
shoulders.

“I don’t understand,” Anna said. “If he wants my soul so badly, why didn’t he just take it from me the first time and get it the hell over with?”

“Chavi’s curse,” the old woman told her. “Because of her refusal to let it go, he could take only a piece at a time. One new spoke for every successful kill. He started with eight, but he needed eight more to complete the wheel.”

Sixteen spokes, Anna thought. Hadn’t Jillian Carpenter been the fifteenth? And didn’t this mean that she, Anna, represented the only remaining piece?

“I’m the last,” she said.

The old woman nodded.

“But if he’s been hunting me from life to life, why doesn’t he get older? He should have been long dead by now.”

“Ahhh,” the woman said. “According to the story, this is exactly what Chavi believed would happen. In that final moment, she thought she had outwitted him. But he began to study the black arts and came to know them intimately.” She paused. “He grows older, just as any man would. But to you and me, he does not seem to age because he is not of our time.”

“What?”

“He spends much of his life moving in the spaces
between
time. As we might travel from continent to continent, he moves from year to year, decade to decade.”

“Wait a minute,” Anna said. “Are you telling me he’s some kind of . . .”

She couldn’t complete the sentence. It was too absurd.

“Is it so hard to believe?” the old woman asked.

“Frankly, yes.”

“He’s a powerful soul. And with each new spoke, he becomes more powerful.”

Anna felt light-headed. This was too much information, too fast. She was still trying to assimilate to this new world of blood rituals and gypsy witches and multiple lives. And this was one step she wasn’t sure she was willing to take.

“But how?” she asked. “How is it possible?”

“The mirrors,” the old woman told her. “It’s said that they are his pathway through time. That if he stands before them and looks beyond his reflection, when he ceases to see himself, he sees the world, all the way back to its very beginning, and forward, to eternity.”

“
Through the Looking-Glass
,” Anna said softly, remembering the book she’d seen in the Fairweather house. “But how can that be? If all it takes is a mirror, he’d be popping up all over the place.”

The old woman shook her head. “Not just one. They say he needs the strength of a thousand mirrors to make his passage.”

Anna balked. Another ridiculous notion.

Then it hit her.

The
house
of mirrors. He had dragged her toward Dr. Demon’s House of a Thousand Mirrors.

And hadn’t Jillian first felt his presence when she and Suzie were near the Miner’s Magic Mirror Maze? And what about the previous victim? Mary Havershaw? Hadn’t she mentioned seeing him at Coney Island?

That was how he was doing it. What other explanation could there be?

“When he was a child,” Anna said, “the sideshow he was caught sneaking into. Was it the house of mirrors?”

The old woman nodded. “Such places have always fascinated him.”

Anna stood up. “I have to go to Big Mountain.”

“Yes,” the old woman said. “That is where you will find him. And you must find him and kill him and take back your soul. But it must be you who kills him. Only you.”

“Why?” Anna asked.

“Anyone else, and the soul will move on to the next life without you, forever fragmented. And as you must know by now, a fragmented soul is not a healthy soul.”

Probably better than anyone, Anna thought.

“But he’s wounded and weak,” the old woman continued. “Perhaps more vulnerable than he’s ever been.”

Her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she were listening to some inner voice.

Then she smiled again. “And he doesn’t know you’re coming.”

4
5

“
I’M NOT SO
sure this is a good idea,” Pope said.

They were back in the Pathfinder, Anna staring at the sinkhole in front of them, wondering if it was a preview of things to come. It was certainly a commentary on her life. On
all
of her lives.

“Did you hear what Madam Zala told me?”

“Every word of it.”

“Then what choice do I have? We got exactly what we came here for, and if I don’t go after this guy, he’ll come after me again. I think I like the idea of being first this time.”

Pope took his cell phone out. “At least let me get Jake in on this.”

“No. Leave him out of it.”

“Why? He has resources. He can—”

“No, Danny. This is my battle. Between me and Mikola. I have to be the one who does this.”

“That’s easy to say, but have you ever killed a man before?”

“Yes,” she told him, and this stopped him cold. She gestured to her scar. “The man who gave me this.”

Pope was silent. Put away his phone.

“So does this mean you want
me
to get lost, too?”

Anna rolled her eyes. “Just back this fucking thing up and drive, okay?”

T
HEY ASKED THE
gun shop owner how to get to Big Mountain.

Although you could see the place looming in the distance, they had quickly learned that the city was a jigsaw puzzle, and an access road wasn’t readily apparent.

“Once you get to Marigold,” he told them, “just take a left on Johnson, a right on Haywood, and go straight. You’ll find it. But the city don’t like trespassers, and they sure as hell don’t allow target practice.”

“I won’t be practicing,” Anna said.

Pope drove again, following the gun shop owner’s directions, and before they knew it they were traveling down a dusty, weed-infested road lined with bullet-riddled NO TRESSPASSING signs.

It was a little past 3:00 p.m. when they reached the entrance, but for Anna, it might as well have been midnight. Darkness had settled into her heart, and into that single scrap of Chavi’s soul she still carried.

She was on a mission now.

She wanted what was rightfully hers.

T
HE ENTRANCE TO
Big Mountain was blocked by a tall aluminum gate, topped with barbed wire. More bullet-riddled signs adorned it, warning people to KEEP OUT. DANGER. The gate was fastened by several heavy-duty padlocks, which would have been impossible to breach if Anna hadn’t thought to buy a bolt cutter in the gun shop’s “Handy Hardware” section.

She snipped through them, then swung the gate open, and the two of them traveled by foot across a tumbleweed-strewn parking lot, Pope now armed with the Mossberg 590 shotgun they’d bought.

They came to a set of dilapidated ticket booths and rusted turnstiles that fronted the place. A sun-bleached sign above the turnstiles read: HAVE A NICE BIG MOUNTAIN DAY!—and if this was an example of the amount of imagination that had gone into the place, it was no wonder it had been a dismal failure.

The pavement was weatherworn and full of cracks, desert weeds sprouting up between them, some of which had grown waist high. And just beyond the turnstiles was Traveler’s Trail, or at least what was left of it, a crumbling yellow sidewalk that led into a wide tunnel carved into the side of a fake rock wall.

Sitting atop the wall, on rusted railway tracks, were the remnants of a three-car passenger train, the Big Mountain Express, scarred by neglect and the heat of many summers.

As they worked their way into the darkness of the tunnel, Anna kept the heel of her hand resting on her Glock, which was now holstered on her right hip. She was waiting for her sixth sense to kick in, to warn her of any danger ahead, but it never did. And as they emerged on the other side, they were presented with the full ruined glory of Big Mountain Amusement Park.

Traveler’s Trail now split into two, wrapping around the enormous plaster mountain that stood at the center of the park. Near the top of the mountain, a large hole was cut into its side, to allow the passage of sky cars, one of which hung precariously from a broken cable.

There was a faux log cabin structure to the right, the words GENERAL STORE carved above it. A lone, empty postcard rack lay overturned in its doorway, a tumbleweed caught beneath it.

To the left, along the trail, was a sign that read LOGGER’S LODE, which, to Anna’s mind, was an unfortunate name for a ride. But the structure itself was so overgrown with weeds that it was hard to tell what kind of ride it had been.