Silence (18 page)

“What,” she said, making a stiletto of the word, “is going on here?”

Chase shoved his hands into his pockets and looked at Eric.

“Your show,” he said, shrugging.

Eric looked at Amy. He glanced at Emma and Alison and hesitated when he came to Michael. Oliver and Connel, on the other hand, were not in the kitchen, and Michael’s book was no longer in his hands. It was in the backpack that was across his shoulders. Emma understood why he hesitated; she would have done the same.

But in the end, she would have surrendered to the inevitable, because in a pinch, Amy was her friend. They might disagree on some things, but when it was an emergency, Amy was a person she could trust at her back. She couldn’t make that decision for Eric, and she knew it was a decision he was trying to make for himself.

“How long has he been out?”

He’s staling, Emma thought.

Amy’s lips thinned, but to Emma’s surprise, she answered the question. “Since just after the fire.”

“Did he say anything before he colapsed?”

“He asked me what I was doing here.”

Eric glanced at Chase, whose hands were stil in his pockets.

Chase nodded.

“Why?” Amy asked sharply.

“Why?” Amy asked sharply.

“Did he say where he thought he was?”

“No.” The pause between that word and the next few couldn’t quite be caled hesitation, but only because it was Amy.

“But I don’t think he thought he was home. He might have thought he was at school,” she added, her brows furrowing slightly.

“How far away is his school?”

“On the east coast.”

“How long would it take him to get here, assuming he had the plane tickets booked?”

“Hours. I’m not sure. It would depend on where he was, what the traffic was like, how long it took to get his baggage.”

“Hours is good enough.” Eric walked over to Skip and knelt.

He pushed one eyelid up and then lifted a limp arm. “He should come out of this in the morning. He won’t expect to be home, though. He’l probably be a bit disoriented, and he’l think he had a very unpleasant dream.”

“And his so-caled friend?”

“He isn’t likely to see Merrick Longland again.”

“But you’re sure he’l be okay?”

“I don’t know what level of compulsion was placed on him.

They don’t normaly do this,” he added. “It’s costly.”

“What would they normaly do?” The sharp edge was back in her voice.

“Normaly? They’d suggest that he wanted to go home to visit his friends or his family. They’d make it his idea, and they’d just happen to be prepared to go with him. He’d feel like an idiot, happen to be prepared to go with him. He’d feel like an idiot, after, but he’d remember almost everything.”

“Almost?”

“He wouldn’t remember the friend in question. He’d just remember the stupid idea—of going home on no notice—and wonder what the hel he’d been thinking.”

Amy looked at Emma, who had been watching the conversation in silence. “Is Eric sane?” she asked.

“More or less. I won’t vouch for Chase.”

“And you knew about this?”

“Me?” Emma lifted her hands, palms out, in front of her. “No.

Not this. Not the fire, either. But…I’d trust him.”

Amy nodded and turned back to Eric. “What you’ve left out is why.”

“Why?”

“Why would someone compel my useless brother to come home? Why didn’t Longland just come here on his own?”

“Good question,” Eric replied, frowning. “I’ve been wondering that as wel. Longland clearly wanted to be in on this party.” The frown deepened. “Chase?”

“Amplifiers,” Chase said. If Emma hadn’t been standing closer to him than to Amy, she might have missed it. She might also have missed the two words that folowed, but they were just swearing. “I’l check.”

“Check now,” Eric told him roughly.

“Excuse me?” Amy said, and Chase paused in the half-open door.

Eric cursed under his breath. “Amy, it’s important.”

Eric cursed under his breath. “Amy, it’s important.”

“How important?”

“He might have needed your brother here to have easier access to your house.”

“Which would help him how? We’re here alone,” she added.

“If he could force Skip to leave law school on zero notice—and forget al about it later—he could probably get anyone to do anything he wanted.”

“Some people are easier to compel than others,” Eric told her, giving her a very pointed look.

She chose to take it as a compliment, but that was Amy al over. “Emma, go with Chase and help him find whatever he’s looking for. Don’t,” she added, “let him find anything he shouldn’t be looking for.”

“Chase,” Eric said, before he could make it out the door, “remember what you said.”

Chase roled his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Where do you want to start?” Emma asked him, when they were finaly on the other side of the kitchen door.

Chase glanced at her for a moment and then shrugged. “Any place there aren’t four hundred people.”

“So you want to start next door.”

“Ha-ha.”

“We can start upstairs. No one’s supposed to be there, and if we happen to interrupt someone making out, Amy wil thank us.”

“Great. They won’t.”

“Probably not,” she agreed cheerfuly. “Besides, you need to “Probably not,” she agreed cheerfuly. “Besides, you need to get to a mirror and look at your hair.”

“My hair?”

“Wel, what’s left of it.” She waved at Nan and Phil, who were closest to the stairs, said helo to a couple of people she vaguely recognized but didn’t know by name, and made her way to the main stairs. “Amy didn’t even notice your boots.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed.”

They cleared the top of the stairs and headed down the hal. It wasn’t a short hal. The rooms that crowded around it weren’t smal rooms. “Bathroom’s over there,” Emma said, pointing to the farthest door in the wal to the right. She could feel the bass of the sound system pounding beneath the parts of her feet that were actualy against the ground; given that these were dress shoes, that wasn’t much. But she walked farther down the hal and then turned to face Chase.

“What, exactly, are we looking for?” It was a reasonable question.

Chase was not in a reasonable mood. “I’l let you know if I see it.”

“I’d rather have some warning.”

“You probably won’t—”

“See it?”

He frowned. “No,” he finaly said. “You probably will see it.

But it probably isn’t anything that you would recognize as dangerous.”

“Do you see the dead as wel?”

“Do you see the dead as wel?”

His brows rose slightly, and then he grimaced. “Can I just say I don’t know what you’re talking about?”

“If you like lying to my face, sure.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” He headed toward the bathroom, and she folowed him in. The room was almost painfuly brightly lit, but the skylight was dim and dark, although one edge of slanted glass reflected the light. “Yes,” he said, as he pushed the door open. “I can see the dead. But not the same way Eric does. Eric’s naturaly talented; I have to work my ass off for even a glimpse. I’m lazy,” he added, just in case this wasn’t obvious. “God this room is huge.”

Since that had been her own first reaction, Emma didn’t laugh.

Barely.

“What you’re looking for,” she asked quietly, “could it be planted quickly?”

“If by quickly you mean in less than one day, yes. If by quickly you mean five minutes, no. Not unless the—never mind.

No.” He stopped to look in the mirror, and froze. The mirror was most of the wal. The parts of the wal that weren’t mirror were occupied by a sink with a lot of smoky marble countertop.

“I told you,” Emma said. And then she realized that he was not, in fact, looking at his reflection—or more precisely, his hair —at al. “Chase?”

“Get Eric.”

She looked, instead, at his reflection. It mirrored him; his eyes were slightly wider, and his expression was frozen in place. His hair was a frayed mass of singed ends, and his previously pale hair was a frayed mass of singed ends, and his previously pale skin was the red that usualy requires way too much exposure to sun.

“Chase?”

“Get Eric, Emma.”

She hesitated in the doorway and then said, “Not without you.”

“Emma, I am not joking. Get Eric.”

“I’m not laughing, you’l notice. I’m not going to get Eric without you.” She couldn’t say later why she wouldn’t budge.

Chase had clearly shown that he was not afraid of much, and that he could handle himself. She forced her face to relax into a smile, and added, “Amy wil kil me.”

His expression did change, then, to one of frustration and, surprisingly, resignation. On the other hand, he swore a lot as he turned away from the mirror.

Chase and Eric went up the stairs, and Emma folowed them as if she were an afterthought. They didn’t talk at al. Chase didn’t tel Eric what he’d seen, and since Emma had seen nothing, she couldn’t fil him in either. But what was most disturbing was that Eric didn’t ask. He just pushed himself up off the kitchen floor— where Skip was stil unconscious—and folowed.

But he stiffened as he touched the bathroom door.

“Eric?” Emma asked softly. Eric spun, and what she saw in his face made her take a step back. He reined it in, but she could see that he had to work at it, and it made her nervous.

He had spoken about having to kil her before, and they had He had spoken about having to kil her before, and they had been just words to Emma. For the first time since he’d said it, they weren’t. He saw that, in her face, as wel, and his mouth tightened as he gripped the doorknob and turned away.

Without looking at her, he said, “It’s too much to hope you’l go back downstairs and stay with your friends.”

It almost wasn’t, but she didn’t say this.

“But stay in the doorway, Em. Keep your feet on the carpet, and keep your hands on the wals if you have to grab anything.

Whatever you do—or see—stay out.”

She nodded. She would have asked him why, but in emergencies, why was the first thing to go, and everything about Eric at this point screamed emergency. “Wait—what about Chase?”

The tension left his shoulders, and he shook his head.

“Chase,” he told her softly, “can take care of himself. You’ve known him for what? Minutes?”

“People I’ve never met die al the time.”

“And you worry about them?”

“They’re not standing in front of me. There’s nothing at al I can do to help them.”

“Believe that there is nothing at al you can do to help Chase.

Or me.” Eric shook his head. “I give up,” he said, to no one in particular.

“You already said that.”

“I’m continualy optimistic by nature. Shut up, Chase.” Taking a deep breath, he entered the bathroom. Chase was standing to one side of the mirror, his arms folded across his chest. The lack one side of the mirror, his arms folded across his chest. The lack of leather jacket didn’t detract from the attitude of his posture, which said a lot about his attitude and only a little about the jacket.

Eric stepped up to the counter, looked into the mirror, and froze.

Emma, her feet pressed against the carpet, her hands pressed against the wal, froze as wel. She could see Eric’s reflection in the mirror; she could see the welt across his cheek, the dark slash of dried blood, but those had been pretty clear in the fluorescent kitchen lighting as wel.

What she hadn’t seen until this moment were the reflections that had no physical counterparts: the pale, almost translucent profiles of a middle-aged man and a young girl. They stood to either side of Eric, their arms raised above their heads, their eyes open in the glassy stare of people who no longer take in the world that’s passing around them.

“Chase?” Eric said, voice both soft and sharp.

“Two. If there’s a third, I can’t sense him.”

“Did you touch the mirror?”

“Do I look like a moron?”

“Usualy. Ready?”

Chase nodded, his arms folding slightly more firmly around his upper body.

Eric reached out with his palm and laid it flat against the mirror’s surface. The mirror—and Eric’s reflection—rippled.

Emma felt it; it was as if, in rippling, the mirror had disturbed not

Emma felt it; it was as if, in rippling, the mirror had disturbed not only its own surface but the surfaces of every other solid thing in the room as wel. Chase grimaced at the same time as she flinched; even Eric clenched his jaws.

Only the two silent people who extended their arms in the mirror seemed entirely unmoved, and Emma knew, then, that they were dead.

But if Eric saw them, he gave no sign; the whole of his attention was focused on the mirror. As the rippling stiled, he withdrew his hand; it fel to his side as if he no longer cared whether or not it was part of him. His reflection was gone. So, too, was the background to it: the tiled wals, the large, in-ground bath, the standing shower stal.