Dead Set (19 page)

“I like you better like this,” she said brightly. “It really suits you. All slimy and crawling through sewers, eating shit and rats. Who taught you that? Your mother?” She cocked her head coyly at those final words.

“My mother is a goddess,” said Emmett.

“Your mother is a dumb dead bitch!” Zoe said, her voice getting louder with each word.

Emmett lunged at her. Zoe jumped back, almost knocking over her chair. Emmett grabbed her before she could fall and held her, his warm, wet snake breath in her face.

“I was going to take you out of here,” he whispered. “But now, princess, you get to bleed. Not die, but you get to bleed like Daddy.”

Zoe shook herself free and leaned her elbows on the table. She didn't care about anything at that moment except shouting loud enough for the whole café to hear. “That's your threat? I get to bleed? That's why I came here! You can't threaten people with what they're already doing, you fucking retarded lizard!”

Emmett took a step back. Zoe got the feeling that no one had ever yelled at him in such a way before. It felt pretty damned good. The feeling didn't last long, though. Emmett's eyes turned upward to the ceiling then back down to meet Zoe's. “It's starting.”

Zoe looked up. It was happening just the way she remembered. A dense black cloud swirled around the ceiling, and as the cloud descended, it broke apart into individual, chittering, batlike snake things.
This is it.
She closed her eyes. Maybe she could fool Emmett by not letting him see her fear, but she couldn't fool herself. She took deep breaths and squeezed the razor. Her stomach was full of ice. The chittering grew louder and the light grew dimmer. She braced herself for the first bite.

Something slammed into the window and someone was shouting, but it didn't sound like anyone in the café. Zoe opened her eyes and froze. Her father, pale and sweating, his hair plastered to his forehead, was pounding his fists against the window near where Zoe was sitting. He was yelling to her.

“Zoe! Get out of there!” he screamed.

Emmett turned and let out an airy little chuckle. “A day late and a dollar short, Dad,” he said.

“Zoe! Don't do this!”

Emmett laughed merrily.

Then the first snake landed on Zoe's shoulder and dug its fangs into her neck. The pain was electric. Hot and dizzying, it shot through her, making her whole body shake. A bat landed, and then another. Through the pain, she could hear her father calling her name. Emmett was right beside her. She could hear him laughing.

Something snapped. The taut string she'd felt like earlier finally frayed and came apart. Before she knew what she was doing, Zoe was on her feet and screaming. She had the razor in her hand and she was slashing at Emmett's arms. He whirled and backhanded her across the face. She fell back into the table, then ran at him again, screaming and hacking away at his arms and hands, driving the razor into his chest and slashing his face.

Emmett bellowed, a horrifying, deep-throated roar of pain and fury. But the snakes, which had ignored him until then, were on him. Driven into a feeding frenzy by the scent of his blood, they flew away from Zoe and the others to attack Emmett. An immense, writhing horde of flying snakes forced him to the ground. His hands burst from the ravenous black mass, scattering snakes and reaching for Zoe. She leaped back as Emmett rolled over, crushed under the weight of his starving brothers and sisters.

Zoe turned and burst out of the café door, running to her father. They held each other while, behind them, the other spirits dashed from the café, scattering down the wet, gray street. When the street was clear, Zoe's father took off his overcoat, wrapped it around her, and they ran back into the city.

 

Eleven

T
hey went back to his room. Zoe's father kept his arm around her the whole way, as if a strong wind might carry her off. It felt good. It felt conspiratorial.

Her father's coat was big enough that it was easy for her to keep her face hidden behind the collar. She wasn't sure where they were headed, at first. She was worried that it might be back to the carousel, and was relieved when her father steered them the other way, onto the twisting route to Ouroboros Street. Once they were inside, Zoe limped up two flights of stairs before she realized that her father wasn't with her. She went back down and found him at the top of the first-floor landing, on his knees and leaning heavily on the wall.

“Dad?” she asked uncertainly.

“I'm all right,” he said, blinking up at her. “I just needed to rest a minute.”

She came down to him. “Let me help you.” They started up the stairs slowly. This time he leaned on her.

“Look at us. A couple of wrecks.”

“If Mom could see us now.”

That made him laugh. They made it up to the fifth floor and Zoe opened the door to his room. Her father collapsed on the bed.

“You need to rest,” Zoe said.

“I think you're right,” he replied. Then he smiled at her weakly. “You saved me back there. Another feeding right then would have finished me.”

Zoe was looking through the drawers in her father's unused dresser. She found a couple of worn-looking towels in the bottom drawer and looked up at him as he spoke.

“You'd have done it for me.” She took the towels and went to the bed. She handed him the larger of the two, tossed his overcoat onto a chair, and used the smaller towel to dry her hair.

“Of course I'd have done it for you. I'm your father. It's part of my job description,” he said, unfolding the towel and wiping his face. “But I don't know that every kid would have done what you did.”

“ 'Course they would. You would have.”

“Yeah, right,” he said quietly. He looked away from her, balling the towel in his hands. “I'm not so sure I would have done it for my old man.”

Zoe looked down at him. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Part of her was shocked, but another part felt sad for him. Why would he say something like that? She remembered seeing her father differently just a few days earlier, when she'd put on the Animagraph and seen the world through his eyes. It was the night he'd met her mother. She recalled flutters of drunken excitement when he first laid eyes on her, but the feeling was mixed with others Zoe hadn't paid attention to at the time. Confusion. Silent, sullen rage. And fear, buried way in the back of his mind under all the beer. Something that had happened between him and his father that night. His back and arms ached where the belt had hit him, where it always hit.

Zoe sat down next to him on the bed. He suddenly looked younger to her.

“Yeah, you would have,” she said. “In the end.”

“I'd like to think so.” He turned back to her, took her hand, and smiled. “In case I haven't told you, you're a pretty good kid. A pain in the ass, but a pretty good kid.”

“Thanks.”

“It always cracks me up how much you're like your mom.”

Zoe let go of his hand and went back to drying her hair. “Really? How?”

“No one could ever tell her anything either.” He followed Zoe's lead and started drying his hair. “Not her parents. Not me. No one. She just did what she thought she had to do. A lot of the time she was right, too.”

“What about when she wasn't?”

He shook his head and set the towel aside. “Craziness. Complete fucking madness. She got us into as much trouble as she got us out of.” He looked at Zoe. “Just like you.”

Zoe took their wet towels and draped them over the tiny sink in the kitchen area to dry. “I never thought we were much alike.”

“Believe me, kiddo. You are.”

“Sounds like a lot of trouble.”

“It sure as hell is,” he replied. “But you don't mind. We admire people for the smart things they do, but we love them for their craziness, all the ridiculous little things they do.” He laughed a little to himself. “She used to let the air out of the cops' tires outside the clubs. She'd pile up all the baby corns and hide them under her napkin whenever we had Chinese food. She'd scream like a banshee whenever she heard Barry Manilow.”

Zoe laughed, too. “Yeah, I've heard her do that.” She walked back over to where her father lay. “It's just really hard to picture her like that.”

“Try it sometime. You'll both be happier.” He looked at the window. “The rain's letting up a little. You should be getting down to the beach for low tide.”

“Yeah, I know.” Zoe looked around her father's dusty, dank little room. “I just need to know that you're going to be all right.”

“I am. Really.” He sat up in bed and leaned against the wall. “I said before that I was mad that you'd come here. Well, I was wrong. You didn't just save me tonight. I'd kind of given up hope down here, but blowing up Hecate's feeding tonight, leaving Emmett in a world of hurt . . . that was beautiful stuff.” He gave an exaggerated shrug. “And I'm not afraid of them anymore. And that's because of you. Thanks.”

Zoe looked down at the floor. “You're welcome.”

Her father swung his legs onto the floor and got up. “Come on. I'll walk you downstairs.”

Her head snapped up and she looked at him. “You're not coming with me?”

He shook his head slowly. “Look at me. I'm a mess, darlin'. I wouldn't be able to help you and I sure as hell can't run right now. I'm sorry.”

Zoe nodded and went to the window, looked down into the street. “I'm a little afraid of those dogs, Dad.”

He sat back down, his legs already shaking. “Yeah, I wondered about that. You don't smell like us. That's why the dogs notice you. It's probably how Hecate plans to catch you.”

She turned and looked at him across the dim room. He looked more like a ghost than ever before. “What am I going to do?”

He didn't say anything for a minute, and seemed to be thinking. Then, “Wait here.”

He went out into the hall and Zoe heard him walk down a few doors and knock. A door opened and there were voices. A minute later, her father came back and sat on the bed, leaving the door to his room open.

A few minutes after that, a young woman walked into the room holding a small cut-glass bottle full of an amber liquid. She handed the bottle to Zoe's father and turned to Zoe. The pale evening light through the window illuminated her fine features and high cheekbones. Zoe couldn't believe what she was looking at.

The woman crossed the room to Zoe with her hand extended. “Hello,” she said. “I'm—”

“Caroline Lee Somerville,” said Zoe, remembering her first experience with the Animagraph and the pregnant woman who Emmett had explained would die soon after that particular memory.

Caroline Lee Somerville's eyebrows drew together, puzzled. “Have we met?”

“No,” said Zoe. She didn't know if she should talk about having seen the woman's life so intimately.
Would I want to know that someone had been inside me like that?
No, Zoe decided. “Someone mentioned you to me.”

“Really? Was it a relation?”

Zoe shrugged. “Probably,” she said.

Caroline Lee Somerville nodded. “Of course,” she said, and turned to Zoe's father. “You were right when you said that she was a lovely girl,” she said. Then added in a stage whisper, “But she's not quite as good a liar as she supposes she is.”

Zoe's father smiled. “Usually she's much better at it, but she's had a long day.” He turned to Zoe, still grinning. “Come here,” he told her.

Zoe went over to them a little reluctantly, not sure if she was in trouble or if this was “Adult Humor,” as Julie used to call it. The kind of jokes that no one under thirty ever found funny.

“Remember when you got here and I told you that some of the spirits liked and used things from their lives? They read newspapers and eat food at the restaurants?”

“I know about them,” she said.

“Caroline here is like me: she doesn't eat or drink, but she does have a vice.”

“I still love perfume,” said Caroline. “I used to wait each season for the new scents to arrive by ship from Paris.”

“Caroline has agreed to let you use this perfume. It should help you get past the dogs. Or anyone else, really.” He handed Zoe the bottle.

She pulled out the glass stopper and sniffed. “I can't smell anything.”

Caroline gave a silent chuckle. “And why should you? This is a folly for the dead. Something to make a ghost feel a bit less like a ghost.”

Zoe held the bottle to her chest. “Thank you.”

“It's my pleasure,” said Mrs. Somerville graciously. “Go back to the world. Be happy. Be sad. Be whatever you want to be. Just be.”

Zoe's father took the bottle from her hands and said, “Put on my coat.” Zoe did as he said. Her father came over and splashed perfume on the coat and her head. A little trickled down into her eye. She expected it to burn, but it felt like water. She wiped her eye with her finger.

“Is that it?” she asked.

“That's it,” her father said. He handed Zoe the rest of the bottle. “Keep it with you. If anyone notices you, just put on more.”

“Thanks.”

Caroline took a roll of gauze from the pocket of her floor-length skirt.

“Now, your father told me that you have a bad ankle, so take off that filthy shoe and let me see it. My brothers were athletes one and all. I know all about injured joints.”

Her father brought the chair from the window and held it out for her. She sat and pushed her sneaker off with the toe of the other one. Caroline took her foot in her hands and moved it up and down and around. Zoe winced. Caroline nodded.

“Lucky you, I don't think anything's broken. It's just a sprain, is all. This should help.”

Caroline took off Valentine's rag and dropped it on the floor. When her father picked it up and threw it in the trash, Zoe almost stopped him, but how would she explain wanting a filthy rag without explaining that it was from her brother? She couldn't, so she sat and said nothing as Caroline wrapped a bandage tightly around her foot and her father threw away her last physical connection to Valentine.

“There. That should do it. Try standing on it,” said Caroline.

Zoe got it. The foot felt good. She put her weight on it. The bandage was tight and there was almost no pain.

“It's great. I've been hobbling around here for days.”

“Well, if we couldn't make your time here comfortable, the least we can do is make your exit a bit more bearable.”

Bearable, Zoe thought. What a funny word when she was never going to see her father or brother again. There was nothing very bearable about it. “Thanks,” she said.

Zoe's father gently put the sneaker back on her foot, stood, and turned to Caroline. He took her hand in both of his. “Thank you again,” he said.

“I'm glad to help.” Caroline nodded and briefly laid a hand on his shoulder. She looked at Zoe. “And you, young lady, have a fast and unexciting trip home,” she said, and walked out of the room, leaving Zoe and her father alone.

“You'll be safe now,” said Zoe's father. He let out a low sigh. “So, now it's really time for you to go.”

“Dad—” Zoe started.

Her father cut her off. “Listen, we've had way too damned many good-byes at this point. Agreed?”

Zoe smiled a little and nodded. “Agreed.”

“Then all I'll say is this: have a safe trip home, and I don't want to see you again until you're white-haired and wrinkled.”

“Okay,” she said, wanting to say more, but nothing would come.

“Now get out of here before I get disgusting and start tearfully good-byeing all over.” They held each other for a moment, and then he pushed her gently away. “Go on,” he said.

Zoe gave him a quick peck on the cheek and ran from his room, not looking back. It was the hardest thing she had ever done.

Z
oe made it to the beach without anyone paying the slightest attention to her. A pack of Hecate's black dogs passed her on the boardwalk. One stopped to sniff the air as it passed, but didn't turn around before moving off to catch up with the others.

She went down to the beach, all the way to the waterline, turned right, and kept walking. The sea left white foam trails on the sand ahead of her, like the snowy peaks of distant mountains.

A chilly wind that blew in off the sea had replaced the rain from earlier in the night. There was no one else on the beach. Even the broken-down amusement park looked deserted.
They're probably all out looking for me.
So, this is what it's like to be one of the popular kids, she thought.