Blackwood (28 page)

  She eyed Sidekick, worried. "The dogs all went crazy, like they were, um, barking mad about something. Even Kicks. Do you think Dee hurt him?"

  Sidekick thumped his tail at his nickname, at Miranda's attention. He looked fine.

  "You said he told you he's been watching you. I don't think he'd hurt Sidekick, because he'd be afraid you'd find out. And I'm afraid he has control of this. Killing these insects, no one will care, notice. The birds, they'll make up explanations for. He needs everyone to hang around until he's really in power. He can't go scaring the locals
too
much before then."

  Miranda flexed and unflexed her fingers. She needed to tell him about the dance.

  "I don't waltz," she said. "Or foxtrot or whatever that was."

  Phillips' eyebrows drew together. "You didn't have much of a choice."

  "I didn't have any choice. Actually."

  "What do you mean?"

  The dead silence around them didn't make it any easier to talk about. She walked a little further around the side of the last house, through the patchy trees. The Sound flowed toward and away from the beach nearby, almost visible from where they were. The cadence was usually soothing. Not now.

  "I mean that he was controlling me. Like a frakking puppet. A marionette. I wasn't doing the moving."

  Phillips stood there, not doing anything. Finally, he said, "When I tried to cut in, you stumbled. Because I distracted Dee. You were fighting him?"

  "Trying, especially at first, but he was too strong. The mark–" her fingers fluttered near it "–burned on my face the whole time."

  He laid his hand lightly across the snake, and she sucked in a breath in surprise. Not bad surprise. They looked at each other.

  "He said he could take it away," she whispered.

  Phillips left his hand on her cheek, inclined his head closer. "But he didn't, did he?"

  "It wouldn't matter if he did, I don't think."

  His forehead rested against her own. She experienced a weird sensation – an easier time breathing, a harder time breathing. The Sound washed against the shore behind them in its own easy rhythm. She leaned her head slightly, resting her cheek against his hand.

  And she kissed him. A hungry kiss, filled with her need to get away from dead bugs and dead fathers.

  Then filled with something more, something that only belonged to them.

  His hand slid into her hair, gripping lightly at the roots. Hers gathered the cloth of his T-shirt in her fist, holding him to her.

  "Uh, sorry," Bone said, from somewhere nearby. "Seemed like the best time to talk. They're all busy."

  One thing she'd never say about Bone: That he had good timing.

  Heavy footsteps clomped toward them, and she drew back, releasing Phillips' shirt. But he didn't turn to Bone right away, watching her instead. His face was still near hers.

  Frak. She was blushing. She knew it.

  Phillips leaned in to touch his forehead to hers. "I asked him to come," Phillips said, making it clear he now regretted that. She nodded, "It's okay."

  He stepped away from her, motioning Bone closer. "What can you tell us? Anything?"

  "My dad is nuts," Bone said. "I never thought any of it was real. Dude, I thought he was
just
nuts."

  "I liked your dad," Phillips said.

  "I didn't," Miranda said.

  Bone became solemn. "I'm sorry about your dad," he said. "I never thought mine would do something like that."

  Interesting. "So it
was
him who killed Dad? Not Dee?"

  Bone shrugged. "I only know from the bragging, but I think he… called Dee here somehow. I don't know how they did it, but your father had to die and lay empty for so long. Then…"

  Miranda wrinkled her nose. "He went to the body and helped Dee take possession of it."

  Bone nodded. "I'm sorry. Until I saw the body bag when we came downstairs, I thought it wasn't real. But that's the kind of thing he'd keep. For his collection. I didn't know."

  She couldn't deal with the idea of her dad's body bag as part of someone's collection. "Do you know what they did with the gun?"

  "Dee looked it over last night while Dad told him what a genius he is. He put Dad in charge of it until tonight, his reward from 'the master,'" Bone said. "I should have known he was like this. I should have done… something."

  The shame was clear on Bone's face. She hated feeling sympathetic toward him, but there it was. She understood him too well at this point not to.

  "I just danced with the devil. None of us have choices here."

  Phillips raised his hand. "About that. Do you think Dee's been able to control you all these years?"

  Miranda had been trying to figure out the same thing. "No. Just since I got the mark. But my dad – definitely. It would have been easier with him after Mom died. I wonder if it's why he drank so much. You can feel it, when he's making you act. You can feel that it's not really you."

  "It's hard to believe your dad stayed sane," Phillips said.

  Miranda didn't trust herself to say anything. She'd stopped cutting her dad slack so long ago, given up on him. And she'd been wrong…

  
Maybe he's watching you through that glass. Maybe he knows you're sorry.

  Phillips came over to her and she let him tuck her into his side. He was the one good thing in all this mess.

  One more thing she was going to lose and never get back before this ended.

  His nose crinkled. "You smell that?"

  She sniffed and, even with the wind blowing in the other direction, caught something rotten.

  Bone said, "I do."

  They hurried toward the smell. After a few more feet, Sidekick lay down on his belly and whined, refusing to go along.

  The scent trail led them to a small bank that overlooked a slice of beach. When they reached the overhang, Miranda turned away almost immediately. She'd seen enough.

  Dead fish covered the shore in heaps. Silver, black, red scales shone in the sun. Their empty eyes stared, sightless.

  She couldn't name the types, but she knew the smell shouldn't be so strong, not so soon. Dee had killed these fish. He'd sucked out their lives. The bodies were decomposing faster than normal.

  Miranda staggered back toward the forest. She heard the boys behind her. Phillips caught up, touched her shoulder. It was a small comfort against the sight of that shoreline.

  "Dee went into a room alone 'to prepare,'" Bone said. Then, "Dad says he talks to angels."

  "Satan was an angel," Miranda pointed out.

  "No," Phillips said, "this isn't something any god would be involved in. Or any fallen angel. The devil is just the kind of word my gram would use."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The forces he's calling on… You've felt it when he looks at you, when he touches you. He was just a man once, a mad scientist who wanted to believe he was talking to angels. A man who believed in progress, in the dream of a New London on this island. But he has become something else. Worse. More."

  "Death," Bone said.

  They left it at that.

Miranda sat next to Phillips on the sidewalk in front of the house that formed the main hub of activity for the returned, and they watched in silence as the returned and the theater types bustled around. She'd asked Bone to fetch her messenger bag from his dad's car, and she got up when she saw him carrying it toward them.

  Phillips said, "Where are you going?"

  "Just to freshen up," she said. "A girl needs her secrets."

  He smiled at her, but he still looked worried. And that's why she couldn't tell him where she was going. He'd only worry more. He'd want to help. It was better for him to stay out here in relative safety, in case she got caught.

  She met Bone and took the bag. "Thanks," she said, then lower. "Follow me inside. I need one more thing."

  Bone did as she asked, without drawing attention to it. He really wasn't so bad.

  In the apartment, the bizarre prep continued with women sewing their fingers raw and a mix of men and women in the kitchen drying candles. The room smelled like burnt wax. A couple of the women glanced up at them, and went back to work. Unconcerned.

  And why should they be. What threat could Miranda pose to them?

  "What?" Bone asked.

  "Your dad, where is he?"

  "He's in the bedroom next to the one Dee's in, I think."

  
Good
. "Can you distract him?"

  Bone looked at her. "What are you going to do?"

  "Better if you don't know." When he didn't answer, she leaned in close to his ear, "You said you should have done something."

  He hesitated, but said, "Give me a minute."

  "I'll wait in the bathroom across the hall."

  Miranda kept her bag tucked against her side. She went into the small bathroom, softly shutting the door, while Bone broke off into the room across the hall. The mirror called out to her, and when she saw what a mess she was she swiped at her hair in an attempt to smooth it. She made sure her face was angled so she didn't have to see the snake. Then she got closer to the door so she could listen while she rummaged in her bag.

  Bone and his dad were arguing. Bone raised his voice, no doubt so she'd hear him. "Dad, I get that you have
things to do
, but I need you for a minute outside. Just a minute."

  Miranda waited, taking a handful of change from the bottom of her bag and transferring it to her pocket. She resisted a fist pump when she heard them enter the hallway, Roswell complaining as he went.

  She opened the door by degrees, and rushed across into the bedroom once she was sure it was clear. She hoped against hope that Roswell hadn't taken the gun with him.

  He hadn't.

  It rested on the center of a pillow on the bed, like a crown in some king's chamber. She walked over, put her bag down next to it. She knew she didn't have much time, and this was a long shot at best. The gems on the grip flashed as she picked it up.

  She stuffed the coins from her pocket into the long barrel one by one, using a pen from her bag to press them deep inside. For the capper, she crumpled the page with the picture of Dee she'd ripped from Roswell's book earlier and added it. When everything was in and she was satisfied a casual examination would reveal nothing, she hurried back to her hiding place. Roswell harrumphed his way back up the hall seconds after she closed the door.

  She had no idea if the coins were enough to jam Dee's weapon. Probably not. But she'd tried.

Phillips observed the rest of the day from the edges. Next to him on the sidewalk, Miranda stroked Sidekick's head. The desiccated insects in the forest and the rotting fish washed onto the beach were never far from Phillips' thoughts. The voices of the spirits snuck and insinuated, and he did his best to block them.

  "I should be helping the techs," Miranda said. "They'll be down several staff. Polly… It's still the show."

  Phillips shook his head. "No. Way."

  He'd attempted another conversation with his mother, but she waved him off. She whispered, "He'll find out. We can't talk. I'm doing this for you." He'd considered calling his father, couldn't figure out how that would help. So he sat and watched and tried to locate an exit strategy.

  Whatever the wrong thing inside Dee was, Phillips knew they would regret forever the moment when it got what it wanted, what it had waited for all this time.

  Immortality. With forever, with powerful followers in forever, Dee could do anything.

  
He must not succeed. You must stop this. Must stop. Must.

  He shoved harder, shoved the voices away – either he was getting better at blocking them, or being near Dee made it easier. He wasn't sure how he felt about either possibility. But he didn't see how the chatter was supposed to help him; his gram's gift must have acted differently. How was he supposed to think with so many voices talking at him? What strength did spirits have to give?

  The early evening stole in like a cat burglar, and brought Polly – who had been Miranda's friend before. She emerged from the house where they'd spent the night in a long cloak that matched her hair. Her fingers were red, bloody raw, and she sucked on one absently, as if she felt the hurt from far away.

  "Dinner inside," she said. "Miranda, I need you to come with me."

  "You're Eleanor, right?" Phillips asked. "My ancestor?"

  The gray-haired young woman nodded. "You're one of Ginny's descendants. Such a surprise that she survived."

  "She hated everything you stand for," Phillips said. "She passed that on down the line."

  Eleanor smiled. "We have been misunderstood all along. I'm not surprised to hear it from my daughter's spawn. Come inside. Soup for you. And Miranda gets a bath."

  Miranda climbed to her feet, and told him, "Have your soup. I'll do the bath because I smell." Polly smiled again, and Miranda clarified, "But if you try to stick me in some wedding gown or something, it will not happen. Got it?"

  Phillips' smile was real, but gone as soon as Miranda left.
What if they do try to put her in a wedding gown?

  Sidekick stayed with him, looking hopeful.

  "All right, boy. Last meal, it is."

  In the kitchen, a few fat candles sat on wax paper, burned down to their wicks. They were black. "Subtle," he muttered.

  The people who'd been working in the kitchen had slowly made their way out to the common area over the past hour. He discovered an enormous kettle of normal-smelling beef and vegetable soup on the stove, a stack of bowls beside it that must have been collected from several kitchens. Phillips scooped soup into one, noticing how loud every noise became in the lack of bustle.

  He ate a bite, realised he was starving, but waited to see if he keeled over. He didn't, so he put the bowl on the floor for Sidekick to slurp in gulps. His own bowl went almost as fast.

  Phillips expected Polly and Miranda would be the first to emerge. Instead, Dee joined him.