Midnight's Angels - 03 (34 page)

If it had been a regular building, then that would have been the end of all three of us, crushed like eggs beneath a ton of falling masonry. But the Farrow Chapel hadn’t been composed of that.

Half of it was dried-up mud, which the explosion turned to powder. And most of the thousands of small rocks in between it were driven outward by the blast. Not every single one of them. A couple glanced off me, leaving bruises. But they didn’t cause me any serious injury. To tell the truth, I was more affected by the massive cloud of dust.

I tried to shield my eyes as best I could. Put the other hand over my nose and mouth. It didn’t stop me coughing, and I had to breathe shallowly for a while. But, as the murk began to thin around me, I was struck by something new. It almost made me want to shout for joy.

Golden sunlight was now filtering down around us. The unnatural darkness had lifted. Some of the motes of dust were even gleaming.

* * *

I could make out the scene beyond the chapel in another minute. The Tyburners and their children were in tight clusters out there. You would have thought, given what they’d just been through, that they’d be breathless and exhausted. But that wasn’t the case. Almost everyone was moving busily around. Families and friends were being re-united. There were shouts of recognition and then lengthy hugs.

And I spotted another familiar shape out there. Lehman Willets had shown up. He was tending to Judge Levin’s damaged shoulder, using the special magic only he possessed.

More people began to emerge from the surrounding streets. They looked disheveled, but were all up on their hind legs. Everyone who’d been transformed had come back to us, and that included not only the Tyburners but folk from other parts of town. I spotted Kurt van Friesling among their number. And then, thank heavens, Nick McLeish.

But there was still one person missing. I stared into the deep pit of the amphitheatre, which was still choked up with clouds of floating debris. Cassie. She’d been further inside than any of us when the portal had exploded. Too close to it? Too deep in the building?

I yelled out her name. Then, when I got no answer, pressed a handkerchief across my face and went back in, picking my way through the rubble. I could barely see a thing.

The tip of my shoe came up against an object, soft and yielding. My heart thumping, I crouched down. And yes, it was a human body.

But it wasn’t Cass.

Quinn was lying on his back, his legs and chest half-hidden underneath a mass of broken clay. And I thought at first that he might simply be unconscious. Then I noticed that -- in spite of the fact that his face was covered with grime -- his eyes were slightly open.

The lashes were not moving. And I could make out a dull sheen in between the lids. A static gleam like chrome.

Oh my God.

I went down on my knees beside him, feeling for a pulse. And couldn’t find one.

Oh my God. My head was pounding, so fiercely that it was like trying to think inside a kettledrum. It didn’t look like the explosion had killed him, so it must have been the Hallows Knot. He’d defied it -- this had been the cost.

But I wasn’t letting it go at this. I crouched over him, folded my hands above his heart and began to pump. His chest felt strangely rigid.

I kept it up for almost a minute, and then tried to find a pulse again.

When I couldn’t, I was shaken to the core.

The man was gone. He’d lost a life he’d absolutely loved, and been so happy with, to save us. Save one person in particular.

And my immediate thought after that was,
Cassie mustn’t see this, no! I’ve got to get her out of here, explain it to her later!

Except that, when my line of sight came up, she was kneeling to the right of me, directly above Quinn’s head. Blood was dripping from a deep gash on her temple. But she didn’t even seem to notice that.

* * *

Disbelief filled her expression. She just couldn’t take this in. Then she began to reach a hand toward him.

“Cassie, no.”

I wanted to stop her physically, but felt too numb to move.

Her face, like Quinn’s, was covered with the reddish dust. Which only made her eyes all the more startling. They were filled to the brim with dampness, and the moisture seemed to burn. Her lips were trembling, and her whole body was shaking. And she didn’t seem to hear me, because her hand kept descending.

“Cass, don’t.”

Her fingertips brushed against his cheek. It couldn’t have been cool yet, but an instinct overtook her. Her forearm withdrew sharply, and she let out a noise like something being torn apart. Pressed her eyes shut. Tears made deep tracks in the powder under them. And the quivering turned to frantic spasms, like her body didn’t know which way to go.

I’d never seen her hurt like this. And so I didn’t even think about it. I just reached out, put one arm around her shoulders, the other hand cupping the back of her head. And drew her to my chest, until both of us were being shaken by her spasms.

“It’s not fair,” I heard her whisper.

Her voice had become very small and helpless. One of her fists beat feebly against my shoulder.

“He just wanted a normal life. But then we went getting him involved.”

Despite the fact my head was reeling, I could see that wasn’t true. Quinn had opted to become involved. He’d known what the risks were.

I was about to tell her that when her voice stopped, giving way to racking sobs. So I just shut up and held her tighter.

I’d done some difficult things the past few years. Dueled with demons. Slugged it out with monsters. But the hardest thing I’d ever had to endure was kneeling there, listening to my closest friend in such appalling pain. Not just listening either. Seeing it and feeling it as well.

My own eyes grew damp and my face went hot. It felt like my brain was trying to flip over in my skull. And for a while, I wondered what more I could do to help her.

Then I finally recognized the truth of it. I was already doing the only thing a person could. Holding her. Supporting her. Being there for her, a loyal friend.

I would remain that thing while there was still breath in my body, and I hoped she understood that.

Out beyond the dust, there were more whoops of joy and triumph. But they may as well have been coming from another world entirely.

The funeral was two days later, out at Greenlea Cemetery, right on the edge of her neighborhood. All tears had been spent by then. She turned up in a plain black knee-length dress and a pair of equally plain high-heeled pumps. I’d known her this whole time, and hadn’t even realized she owned any clothes like that.

Every trace of healthy color had vanished from her face. And there were shadows underneath her eyes. She barely said a word to anyone. And held herself completely still throughout the ceremony, drawn into herself and quietly dignified.

Her friends showed up, and all of Quinn’s, of course. A lot of ordinary townsfolk did as well. Word had spread by then of who he’d been and what he’d done, and they were grateful. Willets arrived in the dark glasses and floppy denim hat I’d given him. Despite his partial rehabilitation, he’d decided to go back to his basement on the edge of town. So I guess he didn’t feel able to face the world on a regular basis yet.

The adepts put in an appearance too, Judge Levin in a smart charcoal gray suit but with his right arm in a sling. My bullet had grazed a nerve, and Willets couldn’t fix that.

“I’m not even going to ask who shot me,” was his only comment.

But he said it rather quietly. Just like the other denizens of Sycamore Hill, he looked embarrassed by this whole affair. They were so used to being in control of almost everything around them. And so the time that they’d spent as the pawn of a greater power had sobered them and humbled them to an extent.

Hampton -- Woodard Raine’s manservant -- showed up too in his dark blue chauffeur’s uniform. His master, he informed us, had been unaware he had a brother.

“His grief is immense,” we were told.

And Emaline Pendramere, along with half a dozen of her ‘sisters,’ came walking toward us just before the ceremony began, all in long black gowns and carrying wreaths of bright wild flowers.

Saul’s friend, Dr. Purlock, led the service. The Indian summer was still with us -- it was a beautiful warm day. The kind of day you should be strolling through a park, or sitting in your backyard, enjoying the sunlight on your skin and feeling glad to be alive. Instead of which, we were putting the man who’d saved us in the ground.

As soon as the prayers wound up, Cassie turned around. And began walking away from us. Not hurriedly, but at a steady pace. I believed that she was headed for the spot her folks were buried. And I thought of going after her. But Willets reached out gently and took hold of my elbow. His gaze told me ‘no.’ He had a point. She needed to be left alone.

Not that I didn’t see a lot more of her after that. I dropped in on her place at least a couple of times a day. And I was not the only one. Most of her girlfriends seemed to be camped out there. And it turned out that she’d even made some new ones, several of the women from the bar Quinn had frequented, one of them with multi-colored punkish hair.

And to my surprise, over the next week or so, she seemed to recover quickly, getting back to her old self.

“I catch this strange gleam in her eyes sometimes,” her best friend Bella told me. “I could almost swear she’s hiding something from us.”

But there was no telling what.

The rest of my time was spent working. I still had hold of that birthday card and envelope I’d found under the bed at 51 Bethany, and knew there was a name connected with the Little Girl at last. I went through every Town Hall record I could get my hands on. Visited every grade school in Marshall Drive, and then the rest. Tried the utility companies, and made the best attempt I could to gouge some information from the banks.

Finally, I went through the phonebook, getting in touch with every McAlister listed -- there were seventeen of them -- and asking if they had a niece, a granddaughter,
any
kind of relative called Katie, Katherine, Kate.

I started out with high hopes, in other words. But I drew a total blank.

* * *

A week later, about nine in the evening, there was a soft knock at my door. The nights had grown much colder, winter starting to tighten its grip. I was in the kitchen, pouring myself another beer. And I hadn’t been expecting anyone, and set my glass down puzzledly.

There’s no need for security chains in a place like the Landing. When trouble comes, it usually announces itself. So I opened up my door. The High Witch, Emaline Pendramere, was standing there in the dimness of my porch. There was no vehicle in view except my own, so how’d she even gotten here?

She was wearing the same dark red dress she’d had on when I’d first encountered her. It was fluttering slightly in the cold breeze, but she didn’t seem to notice that.

“You’re a long way from home,” I pointed out. “I thought you people kept to yourselves?”

“We mostly do,” came her reply, “but we also keep our promises. I offered to help you, and that has not expired.”

I began to bristle slightly.

“I don’t need --“

But her strange golden eyes moved closer to mine.

“I feel loneliness coming off you like a vapor. And I believe it’s been there for a good long while.”

Her nostrils widened slightly at that point, so maybe she had noticed my breath.

“You’ll start drinking more heavily before much longer, Ross. I’m surprised you’ve kept it off for as long as you have. And when that begins, you won’t be able to stop it. And then, who’ll defend this town?”

It felt like all the energy had gotten sucked out of my body. How much exactly did this woman know about me? Part of me got angry. But the other part acknowledged she was right. And I could see no harm in talking, so I let her in.

“No funny stuff,” was my one condition.

Her eyes laughed, but I decided to ignore that.

I cleared a space for her on my couch -- it was covered with old copies of the
Landing Ledger
, as usual. And slowly, over the next hour, told her about my wife, Alicia, and my kids, Pete and Tammy. How happy we had been together, how complete. Then crazy Jason Goad had come along, and my family had been dragged out of my grasp in a few minutes, leaving me with just a gaping hole inside.

“They’re still out there somewhere, I’m sure of it,” I finished up.

The tips of her fingers brushed against my hair. “That might be true, but you are here.”

I looked across at her.

“What does that mean?”

“They
might
be somewhere else, Ross. In some other dimension. But you’re still in
this
world, whether you like it or not. And in this world, a man cannot spend two years clenched up like a fist. He has to open up sometimes.”

At which point, she tried to kiss me. And perhaps she’d been expecting it to happen when I leant away. She did not look rejected or upset, and her expression remained calm and patient.

“Guilt,” she said, “is like a chain that weighs a swimmer down.”

“It’s not just that.”

I was feeling really awkward, the truth welling to the surface, and I ducked my head.

“It’s … if I ever did that …”

“Yes?”

“It would be like I wasn’t married any longer. Like I’d accepted that my wife was gone. And I don’t want to do that.”

Her expression became grave, although her bright eyes gleamed with understanding.

“You take the weight of the world on your shoulders, don’t you? Feel responsible for this whole town? You try to be like Atlas. But he was a god, and you are only human.”

Her fingertips brushed against my cheek this time.

“Whether your wife still exists is not within your remit. You’re still here, a real living man in the real world around you. So let yourself be simply that -- simply a man -- tonight.”

* * *

I could tell you that she used her magic to seduce me, but I won’t lower myself to excuses of that kind. I might be lonely, but I’m not that lame.

And I still remember every moment of it, the soft caresses and the stifled breaths. The way she turned out to have swirling, unworldly tattoos over every part of her body the maroon dress covered. I even recall trying to trace some of them with my fingertips.

But -- here was where her magic came in -- I don’t remember any of it in the slightest as a real event. I can only look back on it the same way that you would a dream. And what sane person can feel guilty about something that he’s dreamt? So there was no pain or recrimination afterwards.

Once we were done, she didn’t say another word. She simply slipped her dress back on, kissed me one final time, and then disappeared into the night like some graceful, sensual phantom. And I didn’t see her again, not in a good long while.

But when finally I got to sleep that night, I had no bad dreams for the first time in two years. And when I woke the next morning, there was a lightness to my movements that had not been there before. Atlas, with the weight finally lifted from his shoulders.

So I never found out who the Little Girl was. But I learned a load of other things during that period.

I learned that kindness comes in a variety of forms, not all of them expected. I learned that a love like Quinn and Cassie’s … it can blossom on the darkest night. And sometimes, there’s a very heavy price to pay for that, an almost unbearable one.

And a couple of months later, I learned something else as well.

Cassie was expecting her fourth child. It would have been Quinn Maycott’s first, if he’d still been around.