Psycho Save Us (41 page)

So, what if this
was
God?  Or some agent of His?  What if it was Lucifer?  That
cocksucker couldn’t even keep his mouth shut long enough to stage a decent
coup
d'état
before his stupid ass was flung down to earth.  So, either an
impotent God or an inept Devil was speaking to him. 
Or not
, he
thought. 
Could be I’m insane
.

To him, this was
far more likely. Though he thoroughly enjoyed
being
Spencer Adam
Pelletier, and the human experience that had come with it, fundamentally he
knew that he was fucked in the head.  There was no escaping that, really.  He’d
never run from it before.  Why start now?

When he received
no answer from the Voice, he turned his attention back to Tidov, who was now
hyperventilating.  He had also gone still, probably so as not to provoke
Spencer anymore, and was staring up at him, no doubt wondering who he had
spoken to.  “You were just about to shift tactics on me,” Spencer said.  “So go
on.  Shift tactics.  What’s it gonna be?  Begging?  Bargaining?  I have to warn
ya, bargaining with me when I’ve got my mind set on something…well, it just
pisses me off.”

Tidov swallowed,
he opened his mouth to say something.

Ask him about
Dmitry
,
said the Voice.

“Tell me about
Dmitry,” Spencer said without questioning it.

Tidov stopped,
looked up at him, and then shut his mouth.

Spencer smiled. 
“You think I don’t know about Dmitry already, friend?  You think I just showed
up at yer house with a pistol an’ nothin’ else?”  He snorted and shook his head
in amusement.  “Yevgeny, you’ve got a great operation going with the other
vory
,
but you don’t know shit about how this game is played in its entirety.”

Tidov lowered
his gaze, and then remembered his shoulder.  Or perhaps it remembered him. 
Whatever the case, he spasmed in pain, and looked at it forlornly before
casting his desperate eyes up at the manhole cover again.

He still doesn’t
quite believe
,
said the Voice. 
He still has hope
. 

“He still
doesn’t quite believe,” said Kaley.  She stared unblinkingly at Bonetta’s face,
hovering over her.  “He still has hope.”

“What?” said the
Harper girl.

Outside, the
screams had risen to a crescendo and then fell away.  The pain was
excruciating, the fear more than she could bear.  And yet, bear it she did. 
The same way she had bore the burden of the dying men in the house where Oni
had killed so many.  The same way she had bore the death of Nan at her last
moment, feeling her slipping away into an abyss.  The same way she had bore her
mother’s own Ocean of Sorrow for so many years.

My whole life
, Kaley
thought. 
I’ve carried this burden my whole life
.

Her legs had
gone numb.  A tingling sensation was running up her spine.  Her skull felt like
it was split in half.  The numbness retreated from her legs, leaving behind a
million billion needles stabbing at her every pore, joint, muscle, bone,
tendon, and ligament.

“Ask him about
something else,” Kaley said.  “Ask him about Dmitry’s brother, Mikhael.  And
their sister, Olga.  Ask him why they should protect him after he’s
discovered?”

Ask him about
something else
,
said the Voice. 
Ask him about Dmitry’s brother, Mikhael
. 
And their
sister, Olga
. 
Ask him why they should protect him after he’s discovered
.

“What do you
think Dmitry’s brother will think about your exposure to the police at this
stage?” Spencer said.  Tidov looked back at him, and Spencer was pleased to see
his panic.  “Mikhael won’t be too happy.  Olga, either.”  He sighed.  “They’re
all pretty tight, huh?  Yeah, they’re tight.  But how tight are they with you? 
You’re here, an’ they’re someplace else.  My guess is, you handle one end o’
the business, they handle the other.  You cage up extras, dispose of the used
ones, and get paid later.  Pretty soon your face will be all over TV, an’ they
say to one another, ‘Comrades, let’s bounce.’  And bounce they will, right on out
of Atlanta.  You stay here, they go free.  Unless, that is, you’re willing to
bargain.”

Tidov looked him
up and down.  His shoulder spasmed, and he ground his teeth.  “Y-you want to
c-cut a deal?”

“I’m a
reasonable man,” he said, and could hear Dr. McCulloch laughing from the grave,
saying, “Is that so?”

“Th-their lives
for m-
mine
?”

“I’m just
talkin’ here,” Spencer said, relishing the position he was in.  He recalled
reading Euripides:
There is nothing like the sight of an old enemy down on
his luck
.  Spencer figured that went for any enemy, old or new.  “Words are
coming out of my mouth and you’re hearing them.  What do they mean?  What can
they mean?  Who’s speaking to you now, a man or a devil?  What does that even
mean?  What do I mean when I say mean?  What’s the meaning of mean?”

“What…what’re
you—”

“Your life for
theirs, yes.”

Tidov cast his
gaze one last time upwards, and then looked back at Spencer.  “Okay.”

“Okay, what?”

“Y-y-you can
have them.”

“Where are
they?”

The Russian’s
upper body went stiff.  “P-Pennington Street,” he said. 

He’s lying
, said the
Voice.

I know he’s
lying
,
Spencer responded. 
You don’t have to tell me that
.

“Pennington
Street?”

“Y-yes.  They’re
all on—”

Spencer made the
strident sound of a buzzer indicating a wrong answer on a game show.  “Nope. 
Sorry.  You’re lying.”

“I’m
not—”

“A person’s
upper body always goes stiff when they’re about to tell a lie.  You freeze
while trying to gather your story.  Now, tell me again.”  He pointed the Glock
at Tidov’s head again.  “You get one more try.”

Kaley was lost
inside herself.  Part of her was in a dream.  Another part was dipping into the
cold fury of the creature she’d met earlier tonight at Dodson’s, and her
connection had granted her access to his thoughts.  And yet, there was a third
part of her that was utterly outside of herself, just walking about the room,
smelling, tasting, touching the residue left by those murdered here.  The walls
breathed.

Despair. 
Loneliness.  Rejection.  These all came to her, as did a feeling that she
somehow deserved this.  That belonged to the others, not to her. 
Tell the
truth now
, she told herself. 
You
do
blame yourself for this
. 
You didn’t listen
. 
You didn’t listen to Nan, or to the charm
. 
It was murky in here.  There was no guide.  No helpful ranger in this forest to
lead the way.  There were only phantoms.

Umway Street
.  The thought
was in search of a purpose.

The phantoms
needed someone to hold onto.  They grabbed at her.  Little beseeching hands
that feared to be left alone, just as Shan had been afraid when Kaley had
pulled away from her. 
Don’t go
, they said. 
Don’t leave us here
alone
.  She did not see their ghosts.  Kaley wasn’t even sure they were
ghosts. 
Fingerprints
, she thought. 
They’ve left their fingerprints
on this room, on this basement, on this world
. 
They left their pleading
hearts
. 
They left their aspirations and dreams
.

Kaley smelled
them.  In this hyperaware state, their scent filled her.  She knew which smells
were boys, which smells were girls, and though she knew they all were usually
very beautiful smells in here they…they…
cloyed
?

Umway Street
, she thought. 
Remember
Umway Street
. 
Don’t forget it
.

She eventually
came back to the staring, dumb eyes of Bonetta Harper.  “Umway Street,” she
said.  “The last street sign I saw was Umway Street, but we turned down more
roads that I didn’t see the names of…”

“I’m thinking
somewhere maybe around the vicinity of Umway Street?” Spencer said, his voice
echoing in the tunnel.

Tidov looked at
him with supreme dread.  He had seen this look before.  He had seen it on the
face of Martin Horowitz just seconds before he entered the showers expecting to
rendezvous with Spencer; oh, how the man had almost picked up on the ruse, but
far too late.  It was also the look that one AB assassin had a moment before
everything went wrong for him.  It was the look of a man who got it, who
understood, who fully comprehended the immense machinations that had been at
work outside of him.

You’re not in
control here
,
Spencer thought, relishing, and grinning ear to ear. 
I am
.

It was clear to
Spencer then that this deal was sealed.  Tidov’s lower lip sucked in, and it
was now obvious that the man, tough as he’d built himself up to be, had been
fighting against his own fears, fighting against turning into a blubbering
fool.  His ego still had control of him.  Spencer identified with this, and was
repulsed by it.

“Oh, I see,”
Spencer said.  “You’re one o’
those
.  You’re a monster, but not like
me.  I was born one, but you were
made
one.  You actually have feelings,
they just got all twisted around.  You feel guilt in the wee hours of the
night, but not enough once the sun comes up.  You’re the reverse of a vampire. 
In the sun, you can bask and forget what you really are.”  He tsked.  “And now
you feel guilt.  Guilt for turnin’ on your partners, your family, your
friends.”

“P-please…”

Shine a little
light on these fuckers, hold up a mirror, an’ they fold like a lawn chair
.  That was the
true essence of their weakness, and why they were not worthy of holding power. 
Like children who grabbed hold of their daddy’s gun while he was away, and then
fell to the ground screaming when the sound of the gunshot was more than they
could take.  “So, you were saying?  Somewhere around Umway Street, yeah?”

“Y-yes.”

Shine a little
light on these fuckers, hold up a mirror, an’ they fold like a lawn chair
.  Kaley had a
better sense of the white man’s thoughts.  They moved like glaciers—seemingly
slow, yet ponderous, and just beneath there was more going on than what a
sailor might view from the ship’s crow’s nest.  Kaley was adrift in the Ocean
of Sorrow, and could spot these glaciers standing tall amidst the rest of the
endless, cold, flat seas.  It was what was underneath that she feared most. 
There were things there that were unconscionable.

Above her,
Bonetta had stopped talking.  She was beginning to cry.  She did not understand
any of this and was beginning to understand what a coward she was, what a
coward she had always been.

Lightning behind
her eyes.  Shannon’s physical injuries coming through.  Tearing, bleeding, too
much pressure.

Kaley pushed
these burdensome thoughts away and tried to manage the white monster’s thoughts
the way one might manage computer files.  She separated them according to
category—anger, frustration, curiosity, humor—and pushed them into their
relegated zones.  They were not ordinary, these emotional files, and they did
not jibe well with Kaley’s own computer, but she was able to grant them
approximations.

Somewhere at the
back of her mind, Shan was trying to control her pain.  She was now aware of
the feedback, and had learned to empathize with Big Sister.  Dmitry and Olga
were finished with her, but they were not going to bring her back into the room
with Kaley and Bonetta just yet.

The conversation
between the two monsters was going on. 
So, you were saying?  Somewhere
around Umway Street, yeah?

She heard/felt
the other monster’s reply through the first monster. 
Y-yes
.

“If he starts
getting tricky,” Kaley said, still staring up at Bonetta who was beginning to
back away from her, “tell him you know how they stalk the children, how they
select—

—
the children
based on how neglected they are
, said the Voice.

Spencer tapped
the muzzle of the Glock against Tidov’s ankle.  “
Where
around Umway
Street?”

Sweat bullets
beaded down from his brow, dripping onto his naked chest.  Blood still poured
from his shoulder.  It might be that Spencer had happened upon an artery.  If
that was the case, he might not have long.  “A-Avery,” he whimpered.  “Avery
Street.”