Dead Things (15 page)

“And Boudreau wanted you to figure out a way to stop it? How would you even do that?”

“The environment is the key. At best it’s an irritant that wears away the ghost. When a piece of grit gets into an oyster it wraps it in layers of material that eventually makes a pearl,” he says.

I think I’m beginning to understand. “So, you’d wrap the ghost in something that the environment—” I search for the idea, “eats instead?”

Then it hits me. “Other ghosts.”

“Exactly.” Ellis throws up his hands and his eyes sparkle.

I feel like I’m in school again. The first real teacher I had was the ghost of a dead Brazilian guy I met in a jail cell in Vegas after I left L.A. Spent a month picking his brain, so to speak. Then he started breaking down. He was useless after that.

Ellis reminds me of him. Makes me wonder where he ended up.

“That’s exactly right,” Ellis says. “I created a series of spells that would, when he died, attract more ghosts to him. When they got close enough, they’d stick like flypaper.”

I’m not sure, but I think I see a hole in that. “You wrap the ghost to protect it, but what happens before it gets protected? It’d still have lost some of itself, right?”

“That’s the beautiful part,” he says. “The enwrapped ghost feeds off the others, using them to rebuild itself. Everything is already there, it just needs more substance to grow back the original personality.”

I’m remembering back to Washington, what he did with the Loa, how he had fed himself on ghosts. I had thought he merely ingested them somehow, used their energies to sustain him. Maybe it was more. Maybe it was this.

I get this cold, sinking feeling in my stomach. “How big a piece of the ghost would you need in order to rebuild it? What if you just had a scrap. Would it take a long time?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Tiny, I suppose. And depending on the size and how well it works I imagine it could take years.”

Years. Like maybe fifteen of them?

“But I don’t know if it took,” he says. “I performed the ritual months before he died. He said he didn’t feel different and he insisted he should even though I told him he probably wouldn’t.” His hands start to shake. “That bastard. That bastard.”

“What happened?” I say. “What did he do?”

“Forced me to do it again. Locked me up in his warehouse, fed me bread and water and nothing else. I was chained to the floor like an animal.” He throws the glass back, winces at the burn. I top him off again.

“And every night he’d make me do it again. He was convinced I wasn’t using enough energy. That I needed more. At the end he was so desperate he brought in people and killed them right in front of me. Insisted I use the power their deaths left behind. Prostitutes and the homeless first, then whoever he could get his hands on. One night he brought in a truck of children. Children.”

“Jesus.” An intense experience can bolster magic. Like the way Alex uses the energy in his club to fuel his Ebony Cage. Getting killed is about as intense an experience as you’re going to get. A person dies and they let out a flare of energy that a mage can pick up and use.

I realize now the real horror for Ellis. It’s not the children, or the murders. He’s a mage. Only one thing he could lose that would really matter to him.

“It was too much and you were doing it too often, weren’t you?” I say. “That’s what burned you out?”

He nods. “Months of that kind of torture. And for what? Nothing happened. I heard you’d killed him and nobody found the body.”

“I pulled him over to the other side and fed him to the ghosts.”

“Oh,” he says. A little gleam comes into his eye and his mouth curls up into something I can only call a smile because of its shape. It belongs on the face of a hacksaw-wielding circus clown. “That must have hurt a lot.”

“Looked like it. I stuck around to listen to him scream.”

Ellis’ brow furrows and his hands shake like Parkinson’s. “Did they eat all of the pieces? Did they get every one?”

I don’t know for certain, but in the words of the Magic 8-Ball, outlook not so good. I give Ellis the story about why I’m here. Lucy’s death. The message. It was obviously meant for me.

“I’m still not buying that it’s him,” I say. “I know what I saw. I know I killed him. Somebody’s impersonating him. It has to be.”

“But who would do that? Who could do that? Griffin?”

“Griffin, maybe. You.”

Now it’s his turn to laugh, but there’s no humor in it. His bloodshot eyes are just this side of madness. “You don’t get it, do you? Most days it takes everything I’ve got to make sure my piss doesn’t hit my shoes. Other days I’ve got enough to throw a car, but I don’t dare use it. What if I burn out more and then I can’t cast at all?”

“I’ve got a yawning pit inside me that I hollowed out pumping more and more power through and no way to fill it. It’s like being blind, deaf and starving all at the same time. So if you think I could pull off something like this. Consistently. Regularly. On fucking time. Then go ahead. I did it. It’s my fault. Either kill me now and end it or go fuck yourself.”

“No, I don’t think you did it,” I say. “But this changes things.” I thought Boudreau had left something behind. Some object, maybe. Now I’m not so sure.

“Where did Boudreau spend his time? Where was this place he kept you?”

“Why do you want to know that?” he asks, confused.

“Because the only way to be sure he’s gone is to try to summon him. Know for sure one way or another. And it’ll be a whole hell of a lot easier to rule out in a place he’s likely to be than the middle of my hotel room.”

“So you think it might actually be him?”

“No,” I say. I hope. “But this way I’ll be sure.”

“You killed him at the warehouse,” he says. “I saw you there.”

“Caught him as he was leaving.”

“That’s where he kept me locked up,” Ellis says. He mulls the thought over in his head. “There’s a secret room under the floor near the back. Ritual space, smuggler’s bolthole, prison. He spent a lot of time there. It was pretty important to him. The fact that he died there would just make it more so. If you’re going to find him that’s the best place to start.”

“So we hit the place tomorrow. Dig around.”

“What?” Ellis says. “You’re fucking crazy you think I’m going back there.”

“I need your help. I don’t know where this room is. If he used it as a ritual space then out of the whole building I can summon him there.”

“No. No, no and fuck no.” Ellis lurches to his feet, knocking the bottle over into the gutter. “Don’t drag me into this. This isn’t my problem. So he comes back, so what? So what if your sister died? How does that affect me? No. I’m barely hanging onto my own fucking sanity and going back there is just going to hammer my fingers until I let go and fall into full-on crazy.”

“Ellis, I—”

“No. And leave me alone. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. Go ahead. Get yourself killed when Boudreau comes back and turns you into fucking kibble. I won’t be there to see it. He’ll come for me next.” He lurches away, stumbles down the street. I think about going after him, but I don’t have the right to make him. He’s suffered enough. If I can’t get his help then I’ll do it myself.

—

Back at the motel I let the shower water get as hot as it can and stand there under the tap scalding the day away. I get out, towel myself dry. It’s late, but I still don’t know if I can sleep.

Suddenly I’m ravenous. I think to the last time I ate. A burger in Travel Town that morning. I check the refrigerator. It’s bare, except for a flyer full of coupons for local fast food restaurants. All this time and Alex still knows me.

I’m pulling on my jacket to leave and get a burger when the cell phone chirps at me. I pick it up. Try to figure it out. Finally press a button that looks promising.

“Hello?”

“Eric, it’s Vivian.”

My heart starts to beat a little faster, but I force it down. “Hey, Viv. What’s up?”

“Did I wake you up? I know it’s late.”

“No, I was just heading out the door to get some food.”

“Oh, okay. I’m back home. I’ve got the stuff I need to work on your nose. How’s it feeling?”

“Broken, but I can breathe through it. You want me to come over tomorrow some time?”

“Actually, was wondering if you’d like to come over now.” I look at the clock on the wall. It’s after one in the morning.

“Sure,” I say. “Not going to sleep, anyway. Give me half an hour?”

“Great.” She gives me her address, it’s a place in the Wilshire Corridor where the rich people live and I find that my phone has grabbed her number from the call and stored it. After a couple of minutes of fumbling I figure out how to do it myself and enter Alex’s number. After a moment of considering it I enter Tabitha’s.

I head over the hill down to the West Side. Her condo is in a high-rise on Wilshire near Westwood and UCLA. Doormen and taxicabs, the rich playing at wishing they were in New York, but L.A. will never compare.

I park on the street around the corner. Valets will cost an arm and a leg, and if today’s little escapades at Griffin’s have taught me anything, having to wait for my car is a bad idea.

The doorman looks at me funny. Can’t blame him. Busted nose, bruises on my face. I’m not sure he’s going to let me in. But he does, anyway. Must be the tie I’m wearing.

Vivian’s condo is easy to find. There are only four on her floor. She opens before I even get a knock in.

“Hey,” she says.

“Howdy.”

She’s gorgeous. Here, at home, she’s more relaxed. She’s on her turf. Her red bobbed hair, shapely legs. Not quite as tall as me, but almost in a pair of white yoga pants and a tank top. She’s wearing glasses that hide the fringe of freckles along the bridge of her nose. I really want to see them.

She says nothing, just looks at me with an expression I can’t quite place.

“Were you going to let me in or did you want to fix my nose out here in the hallway?”

“Oh. Yes, come in,” she says. “Sorry, I got a little distracted.”

“Well, when confronted by such manly magnificence such as myself it’s easy to get overcome.”

I step inside. The place is huge. Vivian has done ridiculously well for herself. But then I knew she would. She started with money and with magic you’re rarely without.

“Oh, yeah,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Fistfights get me so wet.”

I set myself down on the sofa. The room is clean and white and well designed. I’m suddenly reminded of Lucy’s house, flash to all that blood, her head being used as a ghastly brush.

“You okay?” Vivian asks.

“Yeah. Did Lucy decorate your place?”

“She did. Did a fantastic job, too. You should see her place, she—” Her hand goes up to her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse.”

“Really?”

“Not really, no.”

She crosses over to a bar on the other side of the living room. “Can I get you a drink? Water? Juice?”

“Got any Johnnie Walker?”

“God, do you still drink that stuff?” She digs a bit and finds a bottle, dusts it off. “Neat or ice?”

“Neat, thanks.”

She pours me my whisky and gets herself carrot juice. She sits on the other sofa opposite me. We have a glass-topped coffee table between us. And a decade and a half.

“I’m sorry about what happened earlier,” she says.

“For what? Not letting me bleed out?”

“For Alex. When he came into the room and—He forgot. I hadn’t wanted you to find out like that.”

I hadn’t wanted to find out like that either. I hadn’t wanted to find out at all. I drink my whisky, a bigger gulp than I’d planned. There’s a way to make an impression, Eric. Toss it back like you’re a cowboy on the range.

“You said something about my nose earlier,” I say, changing the subject.

She has a small case by the sofa. She pulls it to her lap, opens it up. Finds a syringe and sticks it into a bottle of something. “Xylocaine,” she says. “It’s a local.”

She pulls out a couple of faceted stones and a ball of silly putty.

“I’m pretty sure I can do this without having to break your nose again.”

“What if I deserve it?”

“Oh, stop. I am a professional over here, you know. The Xylocaine’s just to numb the area. Most of the work’s going to be on the putty. Then I transfer the shape to your nose. Without the anesthetic it hurts like a mother.”

“You do remember what my nose is supposed to look like?”

“Big, bulbous. Like Jimmy Durante, right?”

“Ha. You’re funny.”

“Relax, I remember how to set your nose. God knows I’ve done it enough times. This way’s better. Lie down on the floor.”

“The floor?” There must be something lewd in my tone because she gives me The Look.

“I don’t keep an examination table in my apartment. Do you want me to break your nose again?”

I put up my hands. “S’all good.”

I push the coffee table aside, lie down on the floor. She slides a pillow under my head. I’m suddenly very tired. She gets down on the floor, straddles my hips. I have an image of Tabitha earlier that night in a similar position, know that this isn’t going to go that way. Push it out of my mind.

Her weight is comfortable, familiar. I don’t mean to, don’t want to, but I can’t help comparing her to Tabitha. Tabitha’s all compact muscle, dense strength. Vivian’s lighter, with thin bones. She settles on me like a feather.

It feels right, like going home should feel. Her hands are cool on my face, touching softly. She’s whispering something soothing in my ear that I’m too far away to hear. I know that it’s a spell, something to help me relax, help dull the pain a little. I can feel my muscles relax. I start to drift off.

And scream when white fire bursts into my sinuses.

“I told you to hold still, goddamn it,” Vivian says. She stabs me in the face a second time with the Xylocaine and I can feel the drug swell under my skin, light an inferno in my nose. I’m clawing the floor, tears are streaming from my eyes. I’m gritting my teeth so hard I’m afraid they might break.

The pain subsides a minute later and all I feel is a pinching coldness. My nose feels three sizes too big and oddly, like it’s missing. She taps at the skin with the tip of the syringe.