Silence (32 page)

She kicked Andrew’s door open; Andrew was waking, and Andrew never woke wel. Andrew woke, crying. Disoriented, the way he often was when wakefulness didn’t come naturaly.

She kept her voice even—god knew how—and she told Andrew to folow her quickly.

He stood up in bed, and he saw smoke and his mother’s harsh fear, and he froze there, in the night, the glowing face of a nightlight the only real ilumination in the room. Andrew, follow me—the house is on fire!

Andrew, understanding her panic, was terrified.

She’d done it wrong. He could hear the raw fear in her voice, and he could see—oh, he could see—that she carried Cathy and the baby in her arms. He was a child. He could see that she carried them, while the house was burning. He could understand what this meant about her love for him.

what this meant about her love for him.

And as a child, he started to cry, to whimper, to lift his arms and jump up and down on the spot, demanding to be carried. It wasn’t petulance; she saw that clearly. It was terror.

She’d done it wrong. If she had just stayed calm— But she hadn’t. She tried to lift him somehow, Cathy screaming in her ear, the baby stirring. But she couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t—she shouted at Andrew, told him to folow, begged him to folow, and she realized that he couldn’t do it either. Not newly awake. Not in the dark with the fire eating away at the promise of life.

She turned, ran down the stairs. Fire in the living room, fire in the hal. The front door clear, but covered by the smoke shed by burning things. God, she had to get them out. Just—get them out, come back in before it was too late, get Andrew, bring him out as wel. Running as she’d never run, through the smoke, past the fire, coughing, as Cathy was coughing in between her cries.

And then, night air, smoke rushing after her as she raced along the path in her bare feet, picking up smal stones and debris. Her neighbors, she could see, were standing in the darkness, except it wasn’t dark; it was a bonfire. Not her house, not her house— She handed Cathy to the lady next door, handed the baby to the lady’s husband, turned to the house again, ran back up the path.

And fire, in the hal, near the door, greeted her— Emma broke through the fire, the memory of fire, the scream that was swalowing al thought and al rational words. “Maria,”

she said, in a voice that was outside of memory, but strong she said, in a voice that was outside of memory, but strong enough to bear the pain and the despair, “Come. It’s time to rescue your son.”

She held out a hand—a hand she could actualy see—to Maria, and Maria stared at her, her face white and blistered from heat, and she paused there, on the crest of the wave, and realized that al hope was already lost.

She was not in the fire.

She was in the daydream of the fire, the one to which she returned, night after night, and in every waking minute: the one in which she had done things right, or the one in which fire hadn’t spread so damn fast, the one in which she could make it up the stairs to her son’s smal room, to her son’s terrified side, the one in which she could pick him up and carry him. Not back to the door; that was death.

But to the window that overlooked the gable above the porch.

To her bedroom, where he’d slept until he was almost a year old. To those windows, which she could break and through which she could throw one screaming child because even if he broke something, he’d stil be alive.

And standing beside her, Emma Hal was also in her daydream.

Maria looked at Emma’s hand and understood in a second how damn much Emma had seen.

Andrew was screaming.

Emma’s hand was steady.

Maria grabbed it, and together they walked through the fire and up the stairs, where smoke lay like a shroud. They walked and up the stairs, where smoke lay like a shroud. They walked into Andrew’s room and saw Andrew standing on the bed, screaming and coughing, and his eyes widened as he saw his mother.

Emma opened her real eyes to Maria’s real expression, to the wet and shining veil of tears across both cheeks. Maria opened her eyes on Emma, and then she looked past Emma’s shoulders, and her eyes widened.

“Andrew!” She could see him, although Emma wasn’t touching him.

“Mommy!”

Maria pushed herself off the floor and ran to him, arms wide; she picked him up, and he hit her face and shoulders before his arms colapsed around her neck, and he sobbed there while she held him, her lips pressed into his hair, her body the shield through which nothing—nothing at al—would pass.

“We have to go,” Emma told her softly.

Maria swalowed and nodded. “The fire—”

“I think—the fire won’t kil us now.”

“You’re not sure.”

“No. But we need to leave.”

Maria’s arms tightened around her son. “What happens when we leave?” she asked Emma.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

Maria nodded again, and Emma understood why she hadn’t moved. This was her son, her dead son, and these might be the only moments she would ever have with him again. They were a only moments she would ever have with him again. They were a gift—a terrible, painful, gift—and she wanted to extend them for as long as she possibly could, because when she opened her arms again, he would be gone.

Emma Hal, who didn’t cry in public, struggled with her tears, with the thickness in her throat, as she understood and watched.

“Emma,” Margaret said at her back.

But Emma lifted a hand, waving it in a demand for silence. For space.

“Just…give them a minute,” she finaly managed to say.

Maria, however, turned, her eyes widening. “Margaret?” Her voice was soft; it was the first time since she had lifted her son that she’d taken her lips entirely from his hair. “I can see you.”

Margaret nodded. “Yes.”

“But Emma’s not—”

“No. You wil be haunted al your life by glimpses of the dead.

I’m sorry, dear.”

Maria’s arms tightened around her son. “I’m not.” She kissed his hair, his forehead, his wet little cheeks, held him, whispered mother-love words into his ears until he told her she was tickling him.

“Emma,” Margaret said again.

“What?”

“Longland is here.”

Emma closed her eyes.

“And Emma?”

She didn’t want to hear more. But she listened, anyway.

“He has Alison and Maria’s baby.”

“He has Alison and Maria’s baby.”

“HOW—HOW DO YOU KNOW?”

Margaret said nothing for a long moment, and then she glanced at Emma’s father. He slid his hands into his pockets—it was odd that the dead would have pockets, since they couldn’t actualy carry anything—and said, “Someone else is also watching.”

Which made no sense.

“I know what happens to you,” Brendan Hal told his daughter. “I watch you. I’m not—yet—like Margaret, but I have some sense of what you’ve seen, what you’re worried about.”

Emma lifted a hand and looked at Maria. Maria looked mostly confused, but an edge of fear was sharpening her expression. Emma hadn’t bothered to mention little things like Necromancers to her, because it hadn’t occurred to Emma that they would actualy meet them.

The only child that was in danger here was supposed to be Andrew, who was already dead. But the baby that Alison carried was alive. And in the hands of a man who, if you believed Chase, and, sickeningly, Emma did, had no trouble at al kiling anyone.

She took a deep, steadying breath. Panic was not her friend, here.

“Margaret,” she said, as her father’s words finaly sunk in.

“Someone you knew in life is out there as wel?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Can he help them?”

She didn’t answer.

Emma ran to the door and puled it open; the doorknob was warm but not yet hot. She yanked the door wide, and smoke bilowed into the room; it was al she could do not to turn and shout at Andrew. We’ve brought your mother here, she’s carrying you, damn it— Damn it, he’s four years old, Em. Think. Just think. She headed down the hal to Maria’s bedroom, which was only a few short steps away; the door was ajar, as they’d left it. Fire was playing out against the height of the stairs, but how much of the stairs had been consumed, she couldn’t say.

It didn’t matter. She made her way to the front windows, the bedroom windows, and some instinct made her flatten herself bedroom windows, and some instinct made her flatten herself against the floor. The air here was cleaner, but at this point not by a whole lot. She rose slowly to one side of the window frame, and she looked out into Rowan Avenue.

She could see Longland in the street. His hand was on Alison’s arm, and Alison’s arms—both of them—were curled protectively around the baby.

No Michael, no Amy, no Skip. Emma felt sick, literaly sick, with sudden fear. Where were the others? Were they even alive?

Chase had warned her. Chase, who’d been so angry, so self-righteous, and so damn right.

Emma.

She looked up and saw her father standing in the center of the room. Beyond him, Maria stood, her son in her arms, her face so pale her lips were the same color as the rest of her skin. The others were nowhere in sight.

Emma swalowed. “Dad,” she said, her voice stil thick. “What do I do?”

“Just think, Em.”

She wanted to scream at her father, and screaming at her father was something she’d done, in one way or another, since she was the age of the baby in Alison’s arms. But it wouldn’t help anything, and it wouldn’t change anything.

“Maria,” she whispered. “Stand to one side of the window; don’t stand in front of it. Don’t let them see you.”

Maria hesitated and then nodded, crossing the room to where the windows, open to night, let in air that was breathable and relatively clean. “What’s happening? Who has my— Alison and relatively clean. “What’s happening? Who has my— Alison and my son?”

“His name is Merrick Longland, but his name doesn’t matter.

He’s a—” Emma grimaced. “They’re caled Necromancers. I don’t know a lot about them, but I do know a couple of things.”

“Share.”

“They feed on the dead.”

“But—”

“Not on their corpses. I think they’d be caled ghouls. Or zombies.” God, she could say the most idiotic things when she was frightened. “They feed on the spirits of the dead.”

Maria was not a stupid woman. Her arms tightened around her son. “What does it give them?”

“Power.”

“Power?”

Emma nodded. “And with that power they can do a bunch of things that we’d technicaly cal magic.”

“Please tel me he’s not here for my son.”

“I’d like to. But I don’t know why he’s here, and your son—”

she swalowed. “Your son could maintain a fire that could burn me even if I couldn’t see him and couldn’t touch him.”

“What does he want with Alison?”

“I don’t know. But if I had to guess, probably me.”

“But—but why?”

“I have something he thinks of as his. He probably wants it back.”

“Can’t you just give it to him?”

“No. No more than you could just give him Andrew.”

“No. No more than you could just give him Andrew.”

Maria realy wasn’t stupid. “You’re talking about the others,”

she said, her voice flat. “Georges, Catherine, Margaret—and the other two. I’m sorry, I don’t remember their names.”

Emma nodded. And then, because she was a Hal, added, “Suzanne and Emily.”

“He can use them because they’re dead.”

“Pretty much. It would be like handing a loaded gun to a man who’s already promised to kil you.” She grimaced, and added, “Sorry, Margaret,” aware that it was al sorts of wrong to talk about people as if they were simply strategic objects. That made her more like Merrick Longland than she ever wanted to be.

“Emma?”

From her position on the floor, Emma glanced up at Maria.

Maria could see street in the narrow angle between the wal and the window. Her gaze was now focused in that distance. “I think your two friends are out there as wel.”

“Who?”

“Eric,” she said. “And Chase.”

“What—what are they doing?”

Silence, and then, in a much quieter voice, “Burning.”

“Is the fire green?” Margaret asked.

They both started, but Maria nodded. “It’s green, yes. It looks like fire, but filtered badly.”

“It’s soul-fire. They’ve some experience with that fire,”

Margaret said at last. “It may not kil them yet; it is not, technicaly, fire at al.”

“Maria, is Alison—”

“I don’t know. Longland—that’s the name of the one who’s holding her, right?” When Emma nodded, Maria continued, “Longland is speaking. Or shouting; I think I can almost hear his words.”