Salt and Iron (23 page)

“What did you hear, Mom?” he asks. He glances at the couch like he’s thinking about settling on it.

“Do you want a drink?”

“No. Thanks.”

“About Gabe and Benecio, sweetie. About the two of them.”

“Did you hear that Rob went after them?”

She does not freeze, and she does not stutter in her movements, but it’s only practice that allows. “Not Rob too?” For that she would be genuinely sorry.

“No,” he says softly, “no, thank God. Mom, listen. I’m worried about you and Dad.”

She laughs. They’re such sweet little creatures, her boys. “We’ll be fine, just fine. Leave the worrying to your parents.”

He shakes his head. “No, Mom, listen. Rob talked with Gabe.”

Now she does stutter. Her hands grip the neck of the decanter, and the wine spills over, missing the rim of the glass completely to splatter on the carpet. It’ll be all right. It’s appropriate to be startled.

“But I thought Gabe was lost too,” she whispers.

“He was. He was turned.” Abe shakes his head, like he can’t really believe it himself.

She looks at him, and he’s rubbing a hand over his face. Maybe he didn’t see her violent start. Maybe he didn’t hear the wine go splattering onto the carpet. Why should he have been looking for those things? Why should he be listening for them?

“Rob said Gabe told him he’d been given as a gift.”

“What do you mean a gift?” she echoes, because she isn’t sure if she ought to scoff or ought to be aghast. She’s not sure which would be natural to another.

“Mom, somebody betrayed us. Benecio’s dead because of it, and Gabe’s….” He shrugs and looks up at her. He’s pale, furrows near his mouth and on his brow and his eyes smudged under by circles dark as bruises. “I don’t think you turn back. I think Gabe’s probably as good as dead too.”

“Honey,” she whispers, taking her wine and coming to the couch, because comfort is in order now. “Honey, listen. I’m sorry. God knows I’m so sorry. But that’s not Gabe anymore. It’s a monster wearing Gabe’s face. You know that. Nothing he says can be trusted.”

He nods. “I know. I mean, normally, yeah, I know that.” Abe sighs. He raises his head like he’s looking at something beyond the night-darkened windows. “Rob told me Gabe saved his life. That he burned his hands to cinders to get free of a salt circle and handled iron to get Rob free.”

She is afraid. She does not like to be afraid.

“Mom,” Abe says, and she holds herself quite still. “Mom…. Look, Mom, I’m worried about you guys.”

She laughs just a little bit. It would be inappropriate to laugh as hard as she wants to. “Abe, you’re such a sweetheart. But your father and I can look after ourselves.”

He licks his lips and draws a breath and looks at her, red-eyed and sad. “That’s not what I mean,” he says very quietly. “I’ve been talking with Jamie, Mom. I think you know what I mean.”

Her heart stops like a clock in her chest. She looks back at him and sees on his face that he understands far better than she would have given him the credit for. But of course he does. She smiles a little. “Oh, sweetie,” she whispers, “you always were the smart one. My firstborn, my baby. Good and clever and brave.”

“Has it always been like this, Mom?”

“Of course it has. How do you think we’ve all survived? What do you think paid for this building? For your fancy suits and your good education? You think that money just came out of thin air?”

“I thought we were doing good, Mom.”

“We are, baby. Of course we are.”

“Why’s the woman trapped in the attic?”

“Oh, honey, think about it. If we didn’t use her, who would feed her? Keep her alive? Protect her from the sidhe? She’d have died long ago. If we let her loose, the sidhe will come get her, and then they’ll have the big weapon. We can’t let that happen. There’d be running battles in the street. It’d be like New York in the 1900s, but instead of broken bottles and brass knuckles, it’d be salt and iron. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not. Of course not.” He looks down at his hands, frowning, so upset. She smiles at him, even though he doesn’t see.

“You see, Abe? This way there is always a legacy to pass on to the children. This way nobody has to know about the monsters in our blood. This way we are what we have always been, the heroes. We keep the place safe, and we secure a future for our family.”

“Did….” Abe stops. He chews his upper lip for a moment. “Uncle Abraham too, Mom?”

“Yes, dearest,” she says, pushing the hair, a little too long, back from his forehead, tucking it tidily behind his ear. “Him too. It was necessary. Things have been so quiet lately. And there are going to be more, Abe, sweetie. It’s a war, and we are soldiers. All of us will die with bloody hands.”

He swallows and shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says softly. “It’s not right. Mom, I’d never work against the family. You know that. You know I love you. You know I want the city to be safe. But this is not the way to do it. You gotta stop.”

She sighs and tucks another piece of hair back behind his ear. “Oh, my dear little Abraham Simon Michael van Helsing.”

He jerks where he’s seated, as if she’d stuck him with a pin.

“You always were the good son, weren’t you, sweetie? Always knew what was right, never was afraid to do it.” She shakes her head just a little. Such a waste. “I should have taught you better than that.”

He stares at her, and she doesn’t need him to speak the words to know he’s asking her why and begging her to stop.

“I’m going to need you to kill yourself, sweetie,” she whispers. “Be good and do it quick for me, okay?”

Abe has always been obedient. He gets to his feet and goes to the desk. The top drawer has a false bottom. Everyone in the family knows about it. She catches up her wineglass and starts toward the door. Abe is her firstborn, her dearest. She doesn’t want to see this happen. Then she reconsiders. This is going to be a tragedy. It has to be. But it needn’t be wasted.

“Stop,” she says, and Abe does, in the act of pulling the old-fashioned revolver from the drawer. His expression is calm, maybe a little empty, but his eyes move like the eyes of a trapped animal. He looks at her, at the gun, at the door, at her again. She crosses over to him. “Who did you tell?”

“No one,” he answers, throat contracting as if he wants to cough or scream.

“Who was on the team last night?” she asks, then, “No, never mind,” she says and shakes her head. It doesn’t matter. She can find that out from the duty roster. She puts her hand over the gun and slides it out from under his fingers. He breathes out, almost manages to make a noise, the soft wail of a wind blowing through a door that doesn’t shut quite fast enough.

She reaches into the desk and pulls out the little folding knife. She opens it and sets it on the desk in front of Abe. “I’m going to need your blood, sweetie,” she says. “I’m sorry. It’s for the good of the family. I know you understand.”

She pours the wine out onto the carpet, and when he opens his vein, she catches a little of it, as if it’s the blood of Christ.

Before it’s over she slips through the adjoining door and into the bedroom, through the bedroom and into the bathroom to wash. She washes the base of the glass, the sticky stem, her hands, the basin, the taps. Then she goes downstairs, to the service areas, to the whiteboard roster near the back door.
Rob, Gabe, Benecio
are all listed as the senior members on that mission. She goes back up to her room and chews her nail. Tastes iron. Looks and sees it ringed with blood.

She washes her hands again. Then she gathers up her courage and goes back through the bedroom. She goes back into the study, and her eldest son is lying on the soaked and stained carpet like a picture of himself.

He is still warm when she gathers him up in her arms, smearing hands and face with blood. Still warm, and with the sun falling in on him he looks like a child and golden again. When she starts screaming, it is easy. All she has to do is let free the thing that’s been in her all this time, that knows the horror of what she is and the horror of what is too late to be undone. She screams with her whole body, like screaming out a true name. She screams until the sound shakes her blood and rattles her bones, as if her screams could bring the whole house down.

“I’M HEADING
out,” Yuko tells him in a low, quiet voice. “She’s asking for you.”

Rob looks up, blinking, eyes burning with salt. “Maria?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

Yuko’s voice is harsh. She’s been crying too. Rob sighs and pushes himself to his feet. He nods at her and settles a hand on her shoulder as he passes.

“Is it okay?” he asks. He knows he shouldn’t, but he has to. “Everything all set up?”

“Yeah,” she says again. “Torren’s got her. They’ve got tickets for the first plane out tomorrow morning.”

He nods and goes down the hall, to Maria’s office.

There’s no point in knocking. The door stands open, and Maria van Helsing sits on the little love seat. She looks up at him when he comes to stand by the door.

“Mrs. van Helsing,” he whispers. He thinks of Howls; he can’t help it. It chokes him like a fist. “I’m so sorry.”

She nods. “The sidhe will pay for this, Rob. I need you to promise me the sidhe will pay for what they’ve done.”

He’s loved Yuko long enough to know better than to make a promise like that. “We’ll find the ones who did this,” he says, “to Abraham, and Benecio, and Gabe.”

“This is a war, Rob. It’s killed one of my sons, and the other is missing.”

“We’ll find who did this,” he says again, because that
is
what he means, and he wants the words spoken like a spell, to make it true.

Maria’s bloodless mouth turns up just a little. She gestures to him, hand out, palm up. “You’ve been with us so long,” she says as he comes over to her and sinks down in the chair opposite her red couch. “You remember Abe when he was a boy, don’t you?”

Rob’s throat tightens up again. “He was….” What do you say about kids like that? “He was precocious.”

She laughs. “God, yes. Yes, he was.” She smiles sadly at him. “It is agony to lose a child,” she says then, softly. “I’m sorry for your loss too, Rob.”

She can’t know about Howls. They’ve kept it quiet, him and Yuko. Yuko didn’t show much, and when she started to, she got a sidhe doctor friend to come up with a medical reason she should be on leave for a dozen weeks. Maria means about Abe, about what Abe was to him, and it strikes him like a blow. He has never known Maria van Helsing to be anything other than efficient and professional. He has never known her to show overt affection to her children, at least not in front of the staff, and didn’t realize she would give a damn for the colossal emptiness in Rob’s chest.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he answers in something like a whisper. “Abe was… he was like family. I’ll miss him too.”

She squeezes his hand and then gets to her feet. “There’s some coffee left. Let me get you some.”

He nods, a little numbed, aware that he should probably say thanks again, but he can’t find his voice to do it.

“Cream and sugar?”

“Just sugar, please.”

She returns and places the cup in his hands.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he says. He sighs. “He was such a good kid,” he adds. “He always knew what was the right thing, in any situation. God. I thought he was going to be here forever. I thought for sure he’d outlive me.” He gulps the coffee. Strong and weirdly brackish and sickly sweet, but warm and calming. “I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he says again. “I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose a child.”

She smiles at him. “No, I’m sure you can’t,” she says. Her voice is strange, a little hard-edged. “And you won’t have to.”

He rubs salt from his eyes and shakes his head; he probably didn’t hear that right. “Sorry?”

“You won’t have to. Imagine it, I mean.” She smiles faintly, but it’s not a smile, not really. More like a painting of a smile, everything pointing the right direction but none of it meaning anything. “Abraham Simon Michael van Helsing,” she murmurs, and it jolts him as if somebody’s shocked him with a Taser. He lurches and then freezes in place.

“But—” he starts, because it’s not his name, but he can’t say the rest of the words.

“Drink. Up,” she snarls.

He puts the cup to his lips and drains the scalding, brackish coffee.

“I’ve put up with you for far too long, you filthy sidhe-lover.
We’ve
put up with you for far too long. And even if I never learned your name, it doesn’t mean I can’t control you.”

No.
A part of him, small, stuck like a record, with only the power to think in fragments.
No, please no.

“Bring me my goddamned son. I know you know where he is. Then go and kill that bitch you fuck and that half-blooded brat you got on her. When you’re done, and only when you’re done, you may kill yourself.”

No.

No.

No, please no.

“Yes, ma’am,” he hears his own voice say.

ROB GETS
into his truck and drives. A right at the crossroads and then out onto the highway. He’s sweating. Jeans sticking to his legs, his shirt drenched. His fingers are leaving dents in the soft steering wheel cover. He didn’t put on his seat belt, a little victory. If he crashes, he’s going through the windshield, and James and Yuko and Howls are going to live.

But he doesn’t crash. The Summer Court motel looms up, red and white, the Vacancy sign flickering. He pulls into the parking lot.
Stop, stop, please, stop.
He pulls up in front of room thirteen and cuts the engine. He fights. He gets a second, maybe two. Something is better than nothing. He fights, and it delays him just a bit. Maybe James is watching him. Maybe James will see him struggling. Maybe he’ll see the sweat pouring off him. Maybe he’ll get it. Sometimes James is clever like that. Sometimes James just knows.

He gets out of the truck and goes to the door and
don’t knock, Rob, for fuck’s sake get ahold of yourself
and knocks.

“Hey, it’s me,” he calls, and he sounds like himself too. Not the imposter that’s in his body.