Deadhead (3 page)

“You are cold death,” my mouth interrupted him. “You are walking bones.”

There was a minor mental scuffle as I attempted to regain control enough to shake my head rapidly at him, cutting my hands in a crosswise motion as if I could cancel what came out, but I felt the words strike Harry through the Bond. He adjusted his hurt feelings, even as he tried to comprehend my wonky attitude.

“And you are confused,” he replied, pacing cautiously to circle behind me. His Oxfords padded the linoleum softly. “Your tongue tells me terrible things while I feel your heart ache to retract them. Why is this, my pet?”

“You are not human,” the spriggan diagnosed with disappointment.

“I am better than human,” he parried easily, “as I have repeatedly demonstrated. My, what a funny mood you are in this evening. Did that ham-handed brute knock your darling head on the headboard again?”

“You are not sufficient,” my visitor proclaimed.

Harry’s lips thinned. “And you, my philomel, shall experience the chill clamp of the branks if you continue this callous dissection of my UnNature.”

“The dead will not muzzle the living. You are the End, and only hellfire follows you,” the monster told him in my voice.

Harry’s irises went from grey to keenly platinum. “And now I know that’s not my MJ speaking,” he said, “because my MJ wouldn’t know what the branks are, and whereas she questions my every word choice,
you
did not. Perhaps if I had said ‘scold’s bridle,’ as I am sure I have threatened her with that before…”

I felt my eyes scan him up and down, and I struggled to keep a hold of his name, though it was beginning to slip away.
Harry.
Once more.
Harry.
And then it was gone. An elegant Englishman he was, an Englishman with no name, standing before me in grey flannel trousers and Italian shoes, his perfectly manicured fingers smoothing his eyebrow. The gesture still seemed so familiar, but I could no longer bring his name to mind. It was lost beneath heavy, mossy pressure.

The invader in me declared with perfect certainty, “You are not what I need.”

The elegant dead man’s surprised hurt showed on his face as though I’d slapped him, and frustration bubbled up low in his belly soon after; his hand shot out to grab the countertop before he could check himself, and I heard it crack. Pale eyelids fluttering closed, he stepped past me in an effort to collect himself, moving to the oven, to his red apron hanging on the wall, to familiar ground, perhaps to remind himself of the comfort of our routines.
Our routines, yes.
This, I knew. Baked goods, the dead man’s offerings of affection where he could give no love. How strange that I could know this but not his name. Tears came to my eyes, and they were surely my own. The creature inside me wasn’t concerned about this severing of a partnership as it pushed aside things that seemed insignificant to it.

“Forgive me,” he said. “I do not enjoy hearing such things from my advocate’s sweet mouth. But you are not she. Can you tell me your name?”

To this, my guest could not reply. It did have a name, but could not make my tongue pronounce it yet, and what came out instead was an aggravated gurgle.

Two men thundered into the room at the same time from different directions. A young, blond, dead man with long bangs swept in front of half his face appeared in the pantry at the same second that the bulky, dark-haired bully—“A bully,” I said, though they were not my words, “for sure, a real Jerkface, that one,” threw his body into the front hall. Both looked familiar to me, and in my guts, I knew them, but the thing invading my grey cells —“No!” my voice shouted.
“I’m me! This is mine
!” – didn’t know them, and furthermore, it didn’t want me to remember.

The elegant dead one held up a calming hand and both newcomers slowed their forward motion, though the Jerkface didn’t entirely stop; his motion was careful, stealthy, and the thing in my head didn’t like it one bit. This one, moreso than the dead guys, was the dangerous creature. He had already tried to use weapons, futile though they had been. It took one more motion for the elegant dead man to stop the jerk in his tracks. It occurred to the spriggan that the elegant one was in charge.

This was useful information; he was dead, and therefore could not give us what we needed, but perhaps he could be of some use. I felt my body set into motion without my permission, and it moved me like never before; my guest marveled at the flexibility of each limb; we felt long, and limber, and despite this odd constriction wrapped around us (
clothing, dummy
), we were loose at the shoulders and hips, falling into a sultry swagger.

The elegant one’s eyes flashed chrome, and he crooked one pierced brow as he watched me come. “My MJ does not move like that.”

The Jerkface said, “Something flew in her face. Something green.”

My thoughts scrambled back to the little mossy bits that had exploded up my nose and I pushed my way to the sink, though my visitor still tried to swagger; we settled into a quick, butt-wiggling trot. When I got to the sink, I couldn’t imagine what had brought me there. The fog in my mind was getting worse, much worse. I stared at the faucet and couldn’t remember what the shiny thing was for. (
It’s got me, it’s got me…)

The blond said quietly, “I can hear you, Marnie.”

I looked at him excitedly. That was right somehow. This dead guy could hear me. The
how
was muddled to me, and the green entity (
spriggan, it’s a spriggan
) couldn’t fathom it.

“Talk to me,” the blond one said. “Say that last part again.”

Wes. His name is Wesley. I know him.

“You are death,” I heard myself say, followed by a troubled groan.

Wesley moved forward a step, his scarred mouth turned down at the corners. “Yes, I’m Wes. You said it’s got you. What’s got you? Marnie, what is it? I missed that part.”

My stomach gave a queasy shudder and I tried to force my thoughts in that direction, but fuzzy fingers of clogging sentient power were slowing things down considerably. It was like trying to think in a peat bog.
Bog... bog... Boggan? No, not boggan... something like that, though
.

The Jerkface moved suddenly, and, before I could dodge, had me by the back of my hair. The faucet fired water under the willpower of his fist and he pushed my face under the spray, angling my neck so the water shot up my nose. The spriggan and I both tried to fight him off, swinging at him ineffectually. A noise came out of my throat that I’d never heard before, an agonized, gurgling shriek that caused both dead guys to bristle, though neither stopped the experiment. Whatever the Jerkface thought was going to happen did not, apparently, since he released me as abruptly as he’d grabbed me.

I slapped the counter with wet, slippery hands and found no purchase; my shaky knees contributed to a flop onto the floor. Spread-eagle on the linoleum (
scorched by a fire bomb, remember? Those black streaks. Hold on, Marnie. I’m still here!
), I panted and dripped, hoping I had time to rest. My vision blurred and the room took on a yellowish tint.

When I looked up, all three men were standing over me, frowning. The elegant one held a rough cloth rectangle in one hand, offering it to me. It (
He! Harry! He’s Harry. Oh, Dark Lady, remember him.
) pursed his lips in a sad little moue and said, “Good heavens, but this a jolly mess. Take the towel and save on the mopping, poppet. What, pray tell, did you think that watery little gambit was going to accomplish, Mr. Batten?”

“Flush her sinuses. Hose out the spores. Like that neti pot shit.”

Rich, derisive laughter filled the room from the two dead ones, and I rubbed my face dry with the cloth.

“Watering a plant to wash it away; what a positively
inspired
strategy,” the elegant one said. “It's a wonder you haven't tried bending your neck to slay a revenant. It would be nearly as effective.”

The blond said, “He’s Harry, Marnie. I hear you. What do we do? What did you mean, ‘scorched by a bomb?’”

The Jerkface grunted, and shook his head, looking disgusted. “Kill it with fire? Like what Dunnachie tried?”

Fire?
FIRE?
Inside our head? Was he serious? Was he crazy? I,
we
, were almost positive that he was, and needed to escape immediately. The dead guys wanted to help; this one wanted to destroy us. I shot my butt off the floor, balancing on hands and feet, and side-shuffled like a crab to my office. (
Grimoire. It’s a book-like thing. It’s got words. Words are for reading. There’s magic words in there
.) “No fire,” I said under my breath, and it felt good to assert that. “No fire, no fire, no fire.”

Three heads poked into the office to watch me crab walk away from them, their faces still etched with matching frowns. The Jerkface’s mouth was working at fighting off a smirk; my temper flared.

“Fuck your face!” I shouted, and I think we both meant it, the spriggan and I.

“Flames and ether!” the elegant one exclaimed, cutting his gaze at the Jerkface, whose jaw did a familiar, irritated clench-unclench dance.

Wesley jumped on it. “The spriggan and I? Marnie, what’s a spriggan?”

I flipped onto hands and knees to crawl the rest of the way to my herbs cabinet. (
It’ll be locked. It’s never unlocked
.) I thumped at the doors angrily then shot the blond dead guy a knowing look.

“Keys,” he said helpfully, but shrugged. He had no idea where these keys were. I did. I knew.
We knew
. The spriggan was curious, now. I felt a rush of energy and stability as it relinquished some control in the area of my brain responsible for memory and motor control. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I launched to my feet and threw myself bodily into the chair behind my desk, gripping the desk’s surface with both palms. The rolling chair gave a clatter as it shook beneath my impact. I turned on the desk lamp and dragged open the top drawer to shuffle for the little silver bag I kept my cabinet key in.

“Wes,” I managed to croak, and he was at my shoulder, helping me search, pulling out papers and throwing them to the side. They fluttered to the floor, revealing the bag in the pile. He swiped it up before I could get to it, reading the victory in my mind.

“Come on!” he called excitedly, like he did when he was a kid, and with crystal clarity I saw myself walking him from house to house on Halloween, his white sheet flying out behind him, his little Converse Hi-tops showing beneath. That memory slammed me in the heart-strings and gave them a hard yank, and tears came to my eyes while the spriggan struggled to understand what was happening to me. I showed it more, remembered my baby brother building dragons out of Lego blocks at the kitchen table while I studied for my biology exams, Wes asking me what color I thought real dragons were, and crying when he heard they were extinct. (
Hold onto that, Marnie. Hold onto him.
)

Wesley turned the key in the herb cabinet door and then turned to me slowly, his one good eye filled with tears.
Revenant tears
, I thought, and was encouraged by the fact that I could peg that. The spriggan, comfortable in its place now, was relinquishing a bit more of me to my own control, maybe out of curiosity. Why else would it be pulling back? Had it not planned to invade me? Was it getting lost inside me? Air Supply's plaintive ballad about being so lost without someone arose in my traitorous brain, and I winced.

So did Wes, and he shot me an accusing look as he flipped through the key ring.

The elegant one said softly, “What’s wrong, lad? Do keep us in the loop? Why are you both upset?”

Wes waved a hand dismissively at it.
Him. Harry.
My mouth said, “Hush, corpse. We do not speak to death.” The spriggan did not like him. I felt my head turn to face him and the Jerkface, and a quiver of distrust rocked through me. The spriggan didn't trust either one of them. It was willing to explore the blond and our interesting connection, though.

The Jerkface said, “It’s ‘we’ now?” with a quirk of one dark eyebrow. “Is that thing in her brain doing damage? Is it killing brain cells? We need it out. Now.”

I tried to stop what came out next, but the being squirming in my brain was quite insistent, and delighted in declaring, “You can do nothing to stop us. Neither of you can do a thing. You waste your time. We are not yours. We are mine.” It huffed through my nostrils aggressively, like some sort of bull shaking furiously and snot-attacking. Both men made
ew-gross
faces and pulled back. “You will give us what we want or step aside.”

“And what is it that you want, Nameless One?” the elegant one asked with seeming politeness that I saw through, and so did the spriggan; the little creature was bonding with my emotional center and picking up little things I knew about the elegant man, searching for tricks.

“Do not play with me,” my visitor shouted, hard enough to hurt my throat. It hissed hot breath through my teeth for a moment then snarled, “You will give us nothing we need!”

“I think you should find that is demonstrably fallacious,” the elegant dead one declared, drawing himself up to full height. “I have always supplied my pet with anything her heart should desire, and I see no reason to stop that now. Search through our Bond, if you can, Nameless One, and witness: how perfect is my devotion?”

At mention of the Bond, the spriggan was taken aback, and my molars clacked shut.

A hand slapped my shoulder forcefully and spun me around. Wes. He took my hands, took my gloves by the fingertips, and yanked. I couldn’t comprehend what he was doing, and the spriggan certainly had no idea; when he placed my bare palms on his face, right on his cheeks, the rush of dizziness in my head made no sense at first, until the familiarity of the Blue Sense sent a jolt through my skull. Rattled by the spriggan, the visions were blurry and disjointed, but the spriggan leaped at the opportunity to learn what was happening, and its finger-like tendrils crawled through my mind until it found exactly the right buttons to press; it stumbled through Talents and revenants and DaySitters and witchcraft and the full range of knowledge I had about the subjects, filtered through the mess until it stumbled across my own unique skill set. (
Powers.
)