Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (37 page)

Kaley sensed no other persons on this dock, but maybe Spencer would want to have a word with this forklift operator? 
But what will Spencer do to him?
  Kaley shrugged inwardly. 
Who cares?  I can tell what the forklift guy is thinking of doing later tonight
.  For a moment, it struck her that she didn’t feel great empathy for the forklift operator—that was a new feeling for her—and perhaps some of Nan’s wisdom was taking effect:
Ward yo heart, chil’
.  Or maybe…maybe it was Spencer’s words, spoken to her in that car ride seven months ago. 
You think I’m like Genghis Khan?  Khan once said, ‘I am the punishment of God
. 
If you had not created great sins, God would not have sent punishment like me upon you
.
’

It was a horrible thought,
that she was somehow intertwined with the psychopath, and Kaley was frightened that on some level she was coming to accept this role.  It had started when she decided to listen to him at the cabin, to fire her pistol out the window as a distraction.  Such a relatively small act, but it showed her willingness to listen to him when he had a plan.

If I tell him about this forklift operator and what he’s thinking, he won’t hesitate to come down here and torture this man
. 
And why should I care?
  An instant later, Kaley had her response. 
Because it’s wrong
. 
We should find out more and turn him over to the police, just like we should have taken Peter to the police
.  They’re
the experts
.
They’re
the good guys
.

Kaley was just about ready to turn around to go and tell Spencer this…and then there came another tickling at the back of her mind.  A tremor along another strand of her invisible web, vibrating
at an emotional frequency that to her was a note pitched just right to shatter glass.

Kaley stepped out of the crates, and felt the pai
n and fear.  She breathed.  If she had been paying attention in that moment, she would have noticed that when she exhaled, she blew out a cloud of warm air.  That cloud expanded, swirling into a faint orb surrounding her, and every snowflake that came within it melted and fell like cold rain.  The snow started falling sideways, as if pulled towards her.

There was a path in the falling snowfall, ever so faint, a space in the air where the snow wasn’t
allowed
to move through.  It was never logic that guided her along this channel, only intuiton.

“What the hell?” he whispered to himself.  Spencer turned on the windshield wipers just once, to wipe away the snow building on the glass so that he could get a view outside.  He didn’t dare turn on the headlights.  When he felt his eyes were deceiving him a little, he opened his door.  “You stay right here,” he told the kid sternly.  “Don’t move yer ass an inch.”

He closed the door behind him and took a few steps away from the car
.  The snow crunched beneath his feet.  He looked around at the millions of falling flakes.  At first, it all seemed just fine, but the longer he stared at it the more he began to see.

Occasional funnels were whipped up along the ground, as well as a few white swirls in t
he air, only visible in the light of the few lampposts by the dock houses.  But what was most curious was the fact that the snow…the snow was…no, no, his mind was probably just playing tricks on him.  Snow created all kinds of illusions, especially when it was this heavy.  Like clouds, they could form patterns that…
Stop fighting it
, he told himself. 
You know what you’re seeing
. 
It’s the same as it was on Avery Street, when the rain started coming in sideways, moving towards the house, towards
her.

Spencer had vivid memories of that night.  He knew what that strange weather had
portended.  “What are you doin’, little girl?” he mumbled to himself.  “What’s got ya so excited that you’re about to open that door again?”

Survival instincts, deeply ingrained in him and then reinforced by a lifetime of looking over his shoulder, told him that he really ought to run. 
Just leave the boy here, get in the Subaru, head for the airport and ply his trade somewhere else.  But there was a part of Spencer Pelletier that perhaps trumped all other personality traits: curiosity. 
She’s found something
. 
It’s affecting her emotionally, and she may not even know it yet
. 
This is what happens when she’s near great trauma
.

As if to support this, he heard the whispers on the wind.  “…
gap is wider now
…
we could get through if we try now
…
but the other one, the sister, she could still keep us out
…”

Another voice rose to prominence, slithering in on the wind, howling in his ears.  “
Let’s use this one here
.”  At once, Spencer knew they were talking about him.  “
He could do it
. 
He
wants
to do it
. 
If not, we have no choice but to swallow her whole, and hope her power joins with ours
…”

“
Yes!  Yes!  We should swallow her whole!  We must join ourselves with her!  She must!  She must!
”

“
We are so close!  It is our greatest hope
—”

Spencer started laughing, and a
ll the whispers stopped at once.  Perhaps they stopped because of him, or perhaps not.  It made sense, though.  If he could hear them, then his voice must also be slipping through that membrane into their Deep.  “Cut this, Jack,” he told them.  “Nobody kills Kaley Dupré but me.  She’s mine.  And when the time comes,
I’m
the one who collects, not some fucking pussy-ass warlord who can’t even find his dick in the dark, much less find a way out of a locked broom closet.”

Silence.

“They locked me up once.  Know how long it took me to get out?  A few months, maybe a little longer.  Certainly wasn’t no billion fuckin’ years.”

Silence.

“I got yer attention?”

Silence.

“Good.  Now listen up.  Way I see it, you got two options.  First, you could try whatever you did before when you took poor Mrs. Cartwright, but ya see how well
that
worked when ya tried to get the little girl.  Her name’s Kaley,” he put in.  “You could try that again, hope it works out better for ya. 
Or
,” he stressed, “you could go after the other one—her name’s Shannon.  Much weaker than her sister, not as much of a fighter, and she needs Kaley to survive.  I’ve already heard some o’ you tossin’ this option back and forth. 
Personally
, and this is just me, I’d go with Shannon.  Trust me, I’ve been around Kaley longer than you have.  If you’re lookin’ to open a hole in reality so big you could all just come clambering through, well, nothin’ gets Kaley tearin’ open gaps in the fabric of the universe faster than her sister in distress.”

Silence.

“Now, I’m not even sure who I’m talkin’ to, someone on another plane or some shadowy portion of Kaley Dupré’s mind hankering to get out.  Either way, you an’ me, we’re the kind o’ things people lock away and throw away the key.  You need me, because whenever you’re tryin’ to break free of somethin’, it helps to have an inside man.”  He shrugged.  “I’m your inside man.”

Silence.

“An’ I could use you, too, because it sounds like you’re the kind o’ man with powerful friends.  I’m all about makin’ friends,” he chuckled.  “So, whattaya say?  Leave the big sister alone for now, an’ I’ll get ya the little sister later?”

Silence.

“Ya know, where I come from we take silence to mean acquiescence.”

Silence.

“That’s a fancy word for
agreement
.”

Silence.

Then, “
You give the little one, we leave the big one alone
.”

Spencer held his arms out to his side, smiling and nodding.  “There ya go.  That’s called a good old-fashioned win-win situation right there.”

“
You give the little one, we leave the big one alone
,” it repeated.

“Yeah, that’s the gist.”

“
You give the little one, we leave the big one alone
.”

“What’re you, a fucking retard?  That’s what I just said.”

“
You give us the little one, pitbull, and we leave the big one alone
.”

“Yeah, I…wait.  Wait, what did you
just say?”  Spencer felt paranoia and suspicion gather around him like old friends.  “Pitbull?  Where did ya hear that?”

Silence.

Then, something shot past his leg.  Spencer spun and whipped out his Glock, pointing down at the ground.  Except for his footprints and the tire tracks left by the SUV, the snow was pure and unmolested.  He looked all around him.  The snow was still surging in a straight line towards the docks. 
Towards her
, he knew.

The boy was sitting up in his seat, hands pressed against the foggy windows, sometimes wiping them so that he could see out.  Spencer pointed at him, and Peter ducked back below.

He listened for any further communication from these “Others,” heard nothing, and then brooded for a moment.  Then, on a whim, he went to the back of the SUV and opened the hatch.  He opened the black case and retrieved the Benelli.  In the back, the boy peeked over the seat, watching him.  Spencer looked up at him and the boy vanished again.  “You stay right here.  I’m not going so far that I can’t see you,” he lied.

Pitbull
, he thought. 
Pitbull
.

Before leaving, Spencer took the car keys and pocketed them.
He loaded seven shells into the shotgun, put a few in his left jacket pocket, and a few in his right.  One of the Uzis that he’d taken from Zakhar’s pals was small enough to fit inside his jacket.  Now packing considerably more firepower, he shut the hatch and hurried towards the chain-link fence.  He moved along the fence for about thirty yards, looking for just the right spot. 
Pitbull, huh?
  Finally, he found a spot where the fence had been damaged and bent at the bottom, possibly where some vehicle had slammed into it, and knelt to get a hold of it with both hands.  With five good tugs, he made an opening big enough to crawl through.

Pitbull
.

The snow was frozen, and took some kicking and digging to make a path for him.  Once on the other side, he raised the Benelli and cocked it.  The snow was still rushing towards the docks, but it was kind of changing directions, drifting from east to south.

“All right,” he said, hustling down the embankment towards the first stacks of crates.  “Lead the way, little girl.”

The traffic was easing up, but only slightly. 
Probably everyone has finally decided it’s smartest to stay home
, thought Shcherbakov.  They would be right about that, and in more ways than just one.

Highway M-51, however, had its share of problems because of so many closed lanes.  Lit signs over each exit informed motorists of the constant changes the Highway Administration
was making to deal with the storm.  Several road closings were listed, along with suggestions for alternate routes.

The Wolf wondered if his target had opted for any of these detours.  There were several places
Pelletier might go, not the least of which was the airport—Shcherbakov had already texted one of Zverev’s people and told them they might want to send someone to check out the gates—but it wasn’t likely since almost all flights were being cancelled. 
And you would know that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Pelletier?

Coasting
by Kosulvo Ulitsa and Branonsky Prospekt, Shcherbakov passed a few large buildings with a plethora of graffiti strewn across: a continuing series of epic murals that all formed a picture of a beach and an ocean, with plenty of sunlight.  It was a stark contrast to the frigid conditions all around, obviously meant to be a little sarcastic.  In large, looping painted letters, someone had repeatedly proclaimed
Мы молодежь нации!
 
We are the youth of a nation!

Shcherbakov
turned on the defroster; a fog was slowly spreading across his windshield.

He
crossed another bridge, and craned his neck to get a view of the streets below, those leading towards the docks.  They were all packed with traffic, and most of them were recently closed.  In fact, two men with cones and dressed heavily in parkas and ushankas and reflective vests were stepping in front of the mouth of Ekaterininskaya Ulitsa.  That little stretch of road looked deserted.  Still, he pulled to a stop just beside the men, honked his horn and waved one over.  He rolled down his window, hollered, “How long has this road been closed?”