Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers (88 page)

All because of a single mouse.

A single mouse, however, was enough to kill Jimmy. And now it was enough to scare me sick. Such was the extent of my psychosis.

It wouldn’t be so bad if the damn lights were on, or if it were the middle of the day. In the dark, even with the faint amber glow from the laundry room, the mouse could be anywhere. And mice were shy, right? Didn’t they want to stay out of sight?

It was more afraid of me than I was of it, or so I kept telling myself.

I suddenly stopped walking, remembering the weird old lady who’d ruined my lunch hour. Such was the power of the mouse that I’d nearly forgotten both her and the cops, not to mention Amanda’s murder. And I was a daddy now, too. Afraid of a
mouse
. If I ever met my child, would I be able to read
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie
at bedtime?

A vice seemed to squeeze around my throat, cutting off my intake of air. I made a small helpless noise, the sound of a sick animal.

That weird old woman was babbling about “family.” She knew about the mouse. And maybe she knew about Amanda.

“Get a hold of yourself, Al,” I whispered inside my helmet. “This is only a coincidence.”

I was almost back to where I’d been hours ago, doubting my sanity, wondering if the alcohol had finally burned enough holes in my brain for the last of my sense to leak out.

Something
click-clicked
on the concrete behind me, going from the laundry room door to the boxes that lined the far wall to my left. It moved swiftly and without hesitation, as if it knew exactly where it wanted to go. And its little claws clicked a wicked staccato that made my heart pound enough to hurt my chest. I spun quickly, holding the lighter out before me. Shadows cast by the tiny flame crawled over the floor. I couldn’t see anything, at least not what I was looking for.

I turned around, my breathing loud in my helmet. I sounded like Darth Vader on helium.

And then came another sound. Another set of claws. Moving equally fast, following the first. There were two of them?
Christ!

I sucked air, felt dizzy, raising up on my toes again, afraid one would scamper up my leg and—

Not like Jimmy. Cut the crap.

“Hang in there, Al. Just get to your bike. Just get the keys. Just
do
something!”

Talking aloud made me feel a little braver, as if my words might scare off the rodents. I moved forward, quickening my pace.

“You’re doing fine,” I whispered. I held the flame out before me as if it were a crucifix, warding away vampires and other such evil spirits. It was amazing the courage a little light could give. Like maybe I was casting demons into the darkness, big, all-powerful Albert Shipway. What chance did a mouse have, even one that had crawled out of a hole in Lucifer’s Swiss cheese?

“Just get your keys and get the hell out of here. It doesn’t matter if there are ten of them”—although that was an unpleasant thought at best—“just get on your bike and get the hell out of here, and where you go doesn’t matter. Not now. Just go.”

Somewhere inside my head, a very tiny voice protested that this was only a couple of mice and that I was over-reacting. That voice was small indeed, hidden right behind the one that kept saying “You’re a poppa,” and shortly got drowned by my pounding heart and quickening breath.

Where the boxes stood, merely dark blocks now, came scratching noises. The mice were following behind me, keeping to the safety of the boxes. But nevertheless, keeping pace. Stalking me like prey.

That’s not a very pleasant thought, Al. They aren’t hunting you down. Mice don’t do that.

Sure, and they don’t kill you, either. Just ask Jimmy.

Her words came back and I could picture that wizened, witchy face:
“We all have fears, Albert Shipway. You are about to meet yours.”

And here they were.

I stopped moving, frozen to the spot in the garage, the motorcycle another stride away. A feeling of complete and utter hopelessness overcame me. Something seemed to grip me by the ribcage, an icy grip that seemed to slowly crush me. It was fear. A very cold sweat broke out over my entire body. I stood alone in my garage, one hand holding a barbecue lighter in the shape of a pistol and the other hugging myself.

I flashed to the image of that tricked-out voodoo doll found at the crime scene.

I’ve been cursed.

The old lady said I was responsible for Amanda’s death. But I had not gone near Amanda for over ten months. Still, she couldn’t have known that, and she wouldn’t have believed me if I’d told her. Nobody believed me much about anything.

The old lady thinks I killed Amanda.

That simple. A curse.

And a curse could be taken back, right?

All I had to do was convince her that I had not killed Amanda, that I would never do anything to harm a woman I had so dearly loved. And, if she was the mother of our child, I would love her even more for it, even if I never laid eyes on them.

“Just hold on a second, Albert.” My voice was shaky and ghostly, as if my throat was as dry as an ancient fire pit. “This is nuts. You’re so scared shitless that you’re talking about curses and crap. Since when did you start believing in curses?”

In the darkness of the garage, with just the light from the laundry room behind me and the flickering flame from the lighter, it was very easy to believe in black magic, especially given Gerda’s damaged past. I thought of the bourbon in the kitchen cabinet, the ice cubes in the freezer, the twelve-pack of Molson’s in the fridge. I fought the urge to run for the door, throw myself against it, and break in where I could drown all these thoughts in the sweet, reliable poison that had become my friend and savior.

The scrabbling
above
me killed that idea. Claws feeling their way over the ancient and dusty beams that ran above my garage, beams that were so perfect for holding ladders and fishing poles and old surfboards.

They’re above me. God help me.

Now the commotion seemed to pick up from the boxes near the wall to my left. It sounded like more than two. Noise seemed to fill the garage, coming from behind me near the boxes, little claws clicking on the cement floor of the garage, a rodent army gnashing its pointy little teeth.

Something scuttled over my boot. I gave it a vicious kick. The thing went flying into the far wall with a
thunk
.

That’s for Jimmy, you furry little bastard.

So what do you do when you’re cursed? I wondered. I wasn’t sure, but “get the hell out of there” sounded like a damn good idea. Get out, and find that old lady.

At the motorcycle, I grabbed my keys and turned the ignition. I leapt on my Harley Sportster, not surprised at the crunch under my rump. Probably a mouse. I scraped the thing away, sickened at the thought that I had touched a damned mouse but so very glad for my gloved hand, and I gunned the bike to life.

I turned the heavy Harley, stumbling once from sheer haste, facing the bike toward the closed garage door. The thundering sound of the powerful engine consumed all of the horrible scraping noises the mice made.

Yessss. I’m a MAN, not a mouse.

I walked the bike forward.

Something dropped onto my helmet, making a knocking sound, and I squealed like a Girl Scout at a weenie roast. I swept the creature away and hit the switch that would open the garage door.

Quicker than I could believe, a mouse ran right up my leg. It was nearly to my precious parts—the parts that had damned me and cursed and pleased me and squirted a kid into the world—when I knocked it off with a swipe of my arm.

“This isn’t happening,” I said with sudden, unconvincing clarity. “I’m drunk. Crazy. Nervous breakdown. I’ll take all three.”

And as the garage door lifted slowly before me, revealing the pale glow of moonlight beyond, plain old insanity ratcheted up to a whole new level of schizoid surprise.

The driveway was
moving
.

It’s just the jacaranda tree in front of the house. It must be windy outside, and I’m seeing the moonlit shadows of trees playing across the driveway. Yeah. I like that explanation.

The door continued its slow journey up, pulled by the chains of the Genie automatic-garage-door opener above.

In a blink, a shadow in the driveway broke off and darted toward me. The shadow was black with a white stripe down the middle.
All
the shadows were black with white stripes.

A sea of them, all clones of the creature that had killed Jimmy. Maybe zombie mice, back from the dead, eager for another taste of human flesh.

I revved the motorcycle. The machine roared deafeningly and vibrated between my knees. It had all the power I lacked.

They leaped and twitched, erupting into a seething, zebra-striped mass. I swatted at a mouse crawling up my back and missed. It clambered across my leather jacket, the claws sticking to the leather. When it reached my neckline, I reached back and grabbed the little son-of-bitch and threw it as hard as I could.

Another mouse caught hold of my ankle and was making its merry way up my shin.
Oh, my hell.
I gunned the motorcycle.

Three or four mice had found my back and were crawling upward. Half a dozen mice scurried up each leg, their tails hanging like wires. One was crawling into the warm nook of my crotch and that jolted me into action.

The rear wheel squealed loudly and I shot forward. Fluid squirted out from under my tires, though fortunately the squishing sound was buried by engine noise.

I maneuvered over the driveway, the rear wheel skidding on mice gunk.

I rocketed out of my driveway and into the street. I drove off into the night, one hand throttling while holding the bike on a steady course and the other swatting away at the hitchhiking mice.

One thing about that crazy old bitch of a witch: When she put a curse on a guy, she didn’t go halfway.

I accelerated down Orangethorpe Avenue, determined to find that witchwoman. If she knew so much about my fears, maybe she knew who really killed Amanda and who had taken my child. If Gerda had done it as a warped act of revenge, I’d have to find her, too, but if the cops couldn’t with all their computers, informants, and thousands of foot soldiers, what chance did I have? Besides, when it came to my fears, Gerda maybe sat right on the top in a throne all her own.

But something the old woman said, about remembering her, had triggered something in my head, now that I was out in the crisp, rushing air and away from that swarm of mice. In there in the dusty liquor cabinets of memory, my personal computer was flipping through mug shots of all the people I’d known. Something about those glittering, gray-blue eyes was wired deep in my bank of usual suspects. And they settled on one face.

Actually, two, both so obvious I should have made the connection right away, and I would have, if the witch hadn’t intruded so rudely on my everlasting drunken bliss.

And the mice. Jeez. They were enough to make a guy want a cat, and I hated cats almost as much, with their slinky, sneaky ways and their arrogant sense of entitlement.

I still felt as if those little rodent feet were crawling over my leather jacket even as I pulled up to Amanda’s old house twenty minutes later. She’d moved to a place across town, according to the cops, but I knew it would be marked off with yellow tape and might still have some techs gathering evidence.

The answers I needed weren’t there. I’d do better here at the Mead house, where she’d been raised and where we’d spent more than a few pleasant hours. The creepiest, most unsettling feeling had come over me, like the French fry grease that still seemed to coat my stomach hours after my belated lunch. Even the two shots of Jim Beam after the detectives left hadn’t dissolved that oily sheen. But maybe the uneasiness wasn’t just because of the mice, or the curse, or the way the world had crumbled and shifted under my feet in the last eight hours.

Because here I was on the doorstep that used to be the stairway to heaven and all the pleasures of Earth, and now it looked like a depressing crypt.

After I parked my bike on the street before the darkened house, I had to will myself forward along the concrete pathway that curved and meandered to the front door. On both sides of the path were flowers of all shapes and sizes. Most notable to me in the darkness were the roses and carnations, the kinds of flowers that got stacked around caskets at funerals to cheer the dead. I could not tell their colors, nor did I care.

Could the mice have followed me here? Impossible. I had averaged forty-five miles an hour, and had been hindered by few red lights.

Yet the mice had found my home. Though immensely odd, that could only be attributable to the old lady. She was able to find me on my lunch hour and seemed to know all about me, though I’d never even met her. She’d somehow sent the mice my way, and if not for the family resemblance of her eyes, I never would have made the connection.