Come Little Children (34 page)

In front of the church, the pallbearers approached the hearse as the rear doors clicked and hovered open automatically. The eight of them charged the caskets into the transport space before
Brutus closed the doors and climbed into the driver’s seat. Mr. Cory’s eyes were bloodshot, but something about the service had appeased a part of his sorrow and stopped the flow of tears temporarily.

Peter and Lucas got into a town car that was parked behind the hearse—Lucas in the driver’s seat, Peter in shotgun—and watched the funeral car take off in front of them. Lucas put the keys in the ignition, but didn’t turn them. He just sat there watching the landau disappear down Geary Road.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asked.

Lucas shook his head. “You ever wonder if sometimes it’s better not bringing them into the world at all?”

Peter looked at the Cory parents standing on the sidewalk. Mr. Cory was still holding together all right, but Mrs. Cory was a wreck. She had tears and snot and eyeliner running all down her face, and since the decision was to have the twins cremated after the service, she wasn’t even going to get the immediate closure of seeing their caskets lowered into the ground.

“I think,” Peter said carefully, “we have a pretty slanted view of the world, doing this. Maybe I wonder sometimes what it would be like to leave, or what if mom and dad had been…I don’t know…electricians. But no, I don’t think I’ve ever second-guessed if kids are worth it.”

“Think of how good we have it.” Lucas shook his head. “And how much luck is involved. It could have happened to anyone—two little girls decide to go for a boat trip and that’s it. Or they ride their bikes across the street at the wrong time, or get into trouble when you’re not around. Next thing you know, you’re crying on a sidewalk because it’s all over. You don’t worry about Abigail?”

“Abby’s as smart as her mom. If anything, the two of them worry about me.”

Lucas nodded, but didn’t laugh.

“You know what,” Peter continued, “if something happened, I know I’d do everything in my power to protect her. And if I ever lost her, at least I would have known her. That’s better than never knowing her, isn’t it? If loss is the price of love, I think most parents would pay it.”

Lucas tipped his head against the headrest, appearing to mull over that last point. Peter perked an eyebrow. “Luke? Something on your mind?”

Lucas sat there for another couple of seconds. Finally he said, “Yeah. Yeah, Pete. There’s something I want to—”

Suddenly there was a knock on Peter’s window. He looked over and saw Abigail standing outside.

“Hey, kiddo,” he said, rolling the window. “What’s up?”

“It’s boring in there. Can I come home with you?”

“Did you ask mom?”

“No, she’s busy.”

“Did you ask grandma?”

“No, she’s grouchy. I told Uncle Jasper.”

Peter snickered. “All right, but if you get me in trouble…” He opened the door and picked her up, setting her on his knee.

“OK, chauffeur. Take us home.”

Lucas tipped an invisible hat and cranked the keys in the ignition. The look of deep thought had disappeared from his face for now, and as the car took off from the church with no one—not even Jasper—knowing that Abigail had just left with the two brothers, a dark wave of clouds began rolling over Nolan.

The Vincents had witnessed plenty of storms before, but none that compared to the one that was about to hit.

After dropping Abigail off at the manor’s front door, Peter and Lucas drove around back to help Brutus bring the Cory sisters’ coffins through the garage. When the caskets were unloaded, the director told them to oversee the cremations while he made one more trip to St. Luther’s.

Inside the crematory, the oven fired up with a bellowing roar. While the brothers waited for the chamber to preheat, they wheeled the caskets to the retort door and prepared the collection pails for the ashes. The two of them worked in silence; the only sound was the wind booming against the walls of the brick tower.

Lucas put his hands on his hips and squinted up at the belfry. “Remember hide and seek?” he asked. “I always swore you hid in here, but I never caught you. How about it. How’d you get out?”

“An illusionist never reveals his secrets,” Peter said.

“Illusionist? Right, and mom’s a swimsuit model. You’re so scrawny you probably slid through the cracks in the walls.”

“Now, maybe, but not then. Dad kept this place
airtight
. No mouse holes, no ceiling chinks, not even a crack for an ant to crawl through.”

The wind slammed against the crematorium and whistled through a dozen holes in the wall. It sounded like ghostly screams coming from the tall, dark void above.

“Huh. Maybe that’s him,” Peter said, looking up in the rafters. “He’s pissed off we let the place get so bad.”

Lucas went over to the workbench and fished out the old, brittle cord from behind the cremulator. He ducked under the
table and plugged it into the wall, then came back up and tested the buttons. The blades inside swished around like a high-powered blender, ready for their bony meal.

“Yeah.” Lucas nodded. “Yeah. I guess things are pretty different, huh? You ever wonder what’ll happen down the road?”

“How far? Like when mom and the uncles are gone?”

Lucas shrugged.

“Well, we’ll still be here, won’t we? Our families, plus Maddock. Tell you the truth, I’ve always thought the two of us would fix it up someday. The men of the house, you know. Dad would be proud.”

“Yeah.” Lucas nodded again. “I think he would. Hey and, uh, speaking of family, there’s something I never finished telling you in the car.”

Peter looked up, noticing the struggle in his brother’s eyes again. He set down the tray he was holding and crossed his arms. “Shoot.”

Lucas scratched his head like an 800-pound gorilla, unsure of how to put something sensitively. Finally he looked up and just said it. “Laura’s pregnant.”

A smile broke across Peter’s face. “Luke, that’s amazing. Good for you two!”

Peter crossed the tiny room and threw his arms around his brother’s broad shoulders, smacking his back. A smile cracked on Lucas’s face.

“Thanks, Pete. She’s only two months. We weren’t going to say anything for awhile, but this just seemed like…like the right time, I guess.”

“That—that’s incredible. Who else knows?”

“No one. Laura still wants to wait.”

“My lips are sealed.” Peter hugged Lucas again, but this time his brother didn’t hug back. He pulled away. “What’s, uh, what’s going on? Is this what all that talk in the car was about?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucas said.

“No,
you
don’t worry about it. If this is the same ‘world’s not a safe place’ BS, you’ve got to put it out of your head. Every parent needs to at some point.”

“But does every parent have to deal with this?” Lucas pointed at the two coffins waiting in front of the oven. “I should be ecstatic, but all I can think about is losing a kid I don’t even know yet. You’ve seen what’s happening out there. The paper’s not spewing bullshit—something is wrong, and we messed up somewhere.”

The wind thrashed against the side of the tower again. A chill was blowing into the room, and all the warmth seemed to seep away through the cold, cracked walls.

“You think it’s one of them?”

“It has to be, it’s exactly what happened last time. The prisoners losing it, the sick getting sicker, the murders—”

“No one’s been murdered.”

Lucas opened his mouth, then closed it. Peter followed his brother’s eyes as they rolled over to the little caskets in front of the crematory.

“You think they were killed?”

“You don’t?”

“They washed up with their family’s canoe. They drowned.”

“But who’s to say someone else wasn’t involved? Maybe Camilla didn’t look close enough.”

Lucas reached out and put a hand on one of the coffins.

“Don’t,” Peter said. “Give them their peace.”

“But what if we’re about to incinerate evidence that could save lives?”

“We have other places we can go. Look, if it makes you feel better, I’ll set up interviews with all the families we’ve helped.”

“No,” Lucas said. “I went out yesterday, but the Mullards practically chased me off their yard, and the Pinktons said Camilla talked to them last week. Did she say anything to you?”

Peter furrowed his brow. “No. Nothing.”

“Then this is it,” Lucas said, moving his fingers over the casket’s latches.

“I said no,” Peter insisted, swatting Lucas’s hand away.

“You’re not in charge.”

“Neither are you. Our job is to cremate these sisters, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. If that’s not what you have in mind, then get out and I’ll finish it myself.”

“Our
job
is to keep people safe when we fuck with the dead.”

“Fine. So stop
fucking
with the dead and go play detective somewhere else.”

“Pete.” Lucas put a firm hand on Peter’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “If someone’s started killing, you know they won’t stop. That’s all they do—they spread their rot as much as they can—and they’ll rot away this whole town. Have you been to the hospital? The patients aren’t normal. That’s how it starts: the weak lose it first. Soon enough the strong catch it too, and unless we stop this thing, it’ll just get worse. A lot, lot worse.”

Behind the fear, there was something dangerous in Lucas’s eyes. A look that said he would do anything to stop the kind of evil he was talking about.

“I understand,” Peter said. He put his own hand on Lucas’s arm. “But you won’t find anything in here. Camilla wouldn’t
miss a paper cut. I trust her. It’s not necessary, it’s not respectful, and it’s not what dad would have done either. You know that.”

“That’s the reason he’s gone, Pete! He didn’t do what he needed to! He had him—he had fucking Jesse Whittaker in his hands—and he couldn’t…”

Lucas let go of Peter and ran his fingers through his hair like ten miniature steamrollers.

“He couldn’t blow a little boy’s head off? What, you think it’d be easy?”

“No. But at this point there is no easy way out. If we’ve messed up, we have to fix it. The rules have been too hard learned to just ignore them.”

“And we need each other’s support too much to start fighting.”

The wind screamed louder than before. Lucas looked long and hard at Peter. In the background, the pilot light on the cre-mator went out, signaling that the appropriate temperature in the primary chamber had been reached.

Lucas touched the white casket again, tapping it, and then took his hand away. “If you trust Camilla, so do I. But Peter, please. Something is going on and we need to remember what we’re up against.”

Peter nodded. He took an iron rod that was leaning against the oven and lifted the retort door on the crematory. Inside, the bricks radiated bright red heat, and the waves of natural gas shimmered into the cold air like blazing spirits escaping their hellish prison. With a quick heave, Peter used the rod to charge the first coffin into the chamber, then he slammed the door shut just as a jet of flame could be seen shooting down and engulfing the white casket.

Back at the church, Camilla’s and Laura’s arms were stacked with flower arrangements as they carted them out to the parking lot where Brutus had returned with the Vincents’ town car.

The last of the congregation were donning their coats and eying the dark skies through the chapel windows. Moira waited patiently at the back of the lobby while the priest embraced a sobbing woman, then approached him after the woman had left. The preacher tried to smile and seem pleasant for the members of the public who were still floating around the vestibule, but it was obvious that he was uncomfortable around Moira. She handed him an envelope with the church fees inside; he nodded curtly and walked off.

Just as Moira turned for the sanctuary again, a hand came up and touched her shoulder. She looked around to see an elderly man standing there in his best-pressed blacks and polished shoes.

“Moira. Good afternoon.”

“Dr. Lannigan. How are you?”

“Oh fine,” he said. “Better if I can make it home before this blizzard starts down. Looks like it’s going to be a brutal hit.”

“Yes, we’re trying to rush too,” Moira said, attempting to communicate as nicely as possible to please piss off.

“Well, don’t let me stop you. I just wanted to give my long-overdue congratulations—I didn’t realize you had a granddaughter. I saw her standing with her mother and aunt during the service, and she’s quite the cutie. So big already.”

“Oh yes, our little Abby. Seven years old, how time flies. Thank you.”

The doctor zipped up his coat and moved for the door. “Be sure to pass my congratulations to Laura. I’m sure she’s a wonderful mother.”

“Well,” Moira said, “I’m sure she’ll be wonderful someday, but her and Lucas haven’t had children yet. Abby is Peter and Camilla’s.”

“Oh really?” The old man lit up. “That’s wonderful! So glad to hear when adoption works out.”

“Adoption?” Moira said. “No, Abby
is
Camilla’s. It was a rough pregnancy too, thank God that’s behind us.”

The doctor paused at the doorway, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” Moira asked.

“Well… It’s just, I don’t understand. Did she have another surgery, or—or didn’t she mention anything?”

A shadow swept over Moira’s face. She stepped closer to the doctor and lowered her voice so that only the two of them could hear. “Mention what?”

The snow was coming down harder and harder outside. Snowflakes pecked at Camilla’s cheeks as she ran across the parking lot and up the steps to the back door of the church to collect the last of the funeral bouquets.

She yanked the door open and ducked inside. As she combed her bangs with her fingers, she saw Moira rushing toward her from down the hallway; the door had barely shut when she looked up again and saw a hand come down and slap her across the cheek.

“What in Christ’s name have you done?” Moira fumed, her crow’s feet twitching.

Camilla recoiled from the slap, holding a hand to the blossoming red splotch. Before she could even register what had happened, Moira cut in again. “Tell me you didn’t.”