Someplace to Be Flying (60 page)

“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she said. The crow girls nodded in agreement.

“We’re happy,” Maida said. “We’re ever so veryvery kind.” “It’s true,” Zia added. “We bring grace wherever we go.” “Or at least we try to.” “And that counts, doesn’t it?” “Of course it does,” Jack said.

“Which of us has the Grace chosen for her guide?” Raven asked. “That’s not actually up for grabs,” Katy told him, “because I’m doing it.” “You can’t!” Kerry cried.

Katy let go of Kerry’s hand. Putting her hands on her sister’s shoulders, she looked her in the eye.

“But I told you,” she said. “That’s why I came here.”

“And why are we here?” Raven asked. “Simply to wish you bon voyage?”

Maybe, Katy thought, the real reason no one disturbed him was that it was better when he was asleep. At least then you didn’t have to listen to him.

“No,” she said, turning away from her sister to face him. “The cuckoos were trying to use the Grace to kill you, but she’s a life-giver, not a life-taker- remember?”

“She brought death into the world,” Raven said.

Katy looked to the Grace, quieting her thoughts so that she could find an answer in the amber-gold light.

“No,” she said after a moment. “Cody was using the pot that time and death was attracted by the light. He woke from it.”

“There has to be some other way,” Kerry said.

Katy could only shake her head. “Maybe I’m not the only one who wants to go, but I’m the only one who should go. The world loses too much if one of you goes, but it’s not going to miss me. It’s not like I’ve been pulling my weight.”

“Don’t say that, Katy,” Kerry said. “It’s not true.”

“Listen to your sister,” Jack told Katy. “You can have a lot worse sins hanging on your soul, and unlike myself, you’re not guilty of any of them.”

Once they were inside the hotel, Hank and Lily walked across the wide marble floor of the lobby, Bocephus padding at their side. The light was brighter in here than it had been outside, but the hotel’s patrons, bellboys, desk clerks, and all were as immobile as were the rest of the people in the city who didn’t carry a trace of the blood.

“How are we going to find out what room she’s in?” Lily asked.

“Well, normally I’d bribe the desk clerk,” Hank said, “but considering she can’t stop me …”

He went around behind the counter, laid down the shotgun he’d taken from Margaret, and flipped through registration cards until he came across the name “Couteau.” There were two cards, one for Dominique, the other for her sons. They’d taken connecting suites.

“Here we go,” he said. “They’re all the way up on the top floor. Do you want to trust the elevator?”

“Well, my car worked, didn’t it?” Lily replied.

The bank of elevators was on the far side of the lobby. The only sound was the sound of their shoes and the dog’s toenails clicking on the marble as they wound their way in between the frozen people to reach it. Hank pressed the “Up” button and they waited a moment for an elevator to arrive. When it did, there were people in it.

“Oh, this is too creepy,” Lily said, looking at their blank faces.

Hank nodded. “I know. But it’s this or thirty flights of stairs.”

Bocephus made the decision for them. The dog padded into the elevator, then sat on its haunches, regarding them with a patient gaze.

“Okay, Bo,” Hank said.

They joined the dog inside. Hank pressed the button for the thirtieth floor and the elevator doors closed with a hiss. Lily couldn’t suppress a shiver.

They immediately noticed a change in the light when they arrived at Dominique’s floor. Where before it had been a rich amber-gold, now it held a red tint that grew darker the farther they progressed down the hall to the Cou-teaus’ suites. A low growl woke in Bocephus’s chest.

Lily wished she could be as brave as Hank and the dog, but it wasn’t the same for them. They’d never seen the cold light in Dominique’s eyes while they were told that they were only alive at her sufferance. Dominique had been very clear to Lily about what would happen if she tried to interfere. Any minute she expected one of the Couteaus or the other cuckoos to step out into the hall, gun in hand. This time there were no crow girls around to magically kiss them back to life.

This time they’d die for real.

But she couldn’t back out now. The need to at least make an effort to retrieve Raven’s pot had become an obsession akin to the solemn promises the knights had made in old medieval romances she and Donna used to read when they were supposed to be studying for their classes. It lay on her like a geas-a compulsion. Leading her on to her doom, no doubt, but there seemed to be only one path lying in front of her and she had to take it.

She could choose to ignore the compulsion, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to live with who she would be if she did.

Ahead of her, Hank had stopped in front of the door to the suite registered in Dominique’s name. Pooling around the carpet in front of the door, the amber-gold of the light was almost entirely swallowed by a flood of dark red.

Blood, Lily thought. This is the light of blood.

The air held a vague metallic taste.

Hank put his ear to the wooden panels and listened. Bocephus stood stiffly beside him, hair bristling at the nape of his neck. The dog was silent now, gaze fixed on the door. Lily’s legs were trembling so much she had to lean against the wall, afraid that they’d give out from under her.

“I can’t hear a thing,” Hank said quietly, straightening away from the door. “It’s like there’s no one there.”

Lily swallowed.

“But I’ve got a bad feeling about it,” Hank added.

She nodded. “Me, too.”

He tried the handle and looked surprised when it turned.

“Stand back,” he said.

She nodded again.

When he opened the door, the dog slipped in ahead of him. Dark red light poured out of the room, washing over Hank’s features. Lifting the shotgun, he took a step in after Bocephus, then stopped dead, leaned a hand against the doorjamb. A numbed look settled over his features.

“What … what is it?” Lily asked.

He waved her back. “Don’t come any closer.”

But she was already beside him, looking into the room. It was like a slaughterhouse inside. The ceiling and walls were splattered with blood and feathers. Along the bottom of the walls, the floor was littered with the bodies of? men and women, except they weren’t entirely human. They had died in various stages of metamorphosis. In among the human faces and bodies she could see bird heads, wings, clawed scaly legs, talons instead of feet.

Before she could stop herself?, she turned away and expelled the contents of her stomach. She flinched when Hank touched her, then realized who it was, let him hold her.

“Wait out here,” he said.

She shook her head. “I … I’m okay,” she lied.

She knew she might never be okay again. The contents of the room were going to haunt her forever. But she steeled herself and followed Hank back inside all the same. She waited by the door, staring resolutely away from the walls and the bodies, while he and the dog checked the rest of the suite to make sure there was no one hiding anywhere. Bedroom, closets, toilet. When Hank stepped back into the main room, Lily pointed to the table that stood by the window.

“Look,” she said.

A piece of the chalice lay there. Two other pieces lay on the floor. It seemed beyond reason that it could have caused so much damage and only be in three pieces. But however many pieces it was in was irrelevant. The simple fact was that they were too late.

Bocephus padded slowly over by the far side of the table, snuffling at a body that lay there. He gave a low bark and they crossed the room to where he was standing. This one was in human shape, a woman, but covered in blood and obviously dead.

The dog repeated its low bark.

Hank went down on one knee. Laying the shotgun aside, he put two fingers to the woman’s neck.

“She’s still alive,” he said.

It was hard to tell, because of the blood and the way the Couteaus all looked so much the same, but Lily thought she recognized the woman.

“I think … I think that might be Dominique.”

“Well, she got what she deserved,” Hank said, standing up again.

“What are you doing?”

Hank looked at Lily in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“We can’t just leave her there.”

“Lily, this woman’s the cause behind all of this damage. She broke the pot and Christ knows what she did with Katy. You think I’m going to spend any time nursing her back to fighting strength so that she can come after us again?”

When he put it like that, it did sound stupid, but it was still wrong.

“If we let her die,” she said, “that makes us no better than them.”

“If we let her die, we have a better chance to live to a ripe old age.”

Lily shook her head. She went into the bedroom off the main suite and returned with a pillow and sheets. Kneeling down beside the woman, she put the pillow under her head and began to tear up the sheets.

“Could you get me some warm water?” she said.

“This is not a good game plan,” Hank told her.

The dog made a grumbling noise in its chest as though agreeing with him.

“You’re being as bad as your friend Moth,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know. You said he’ll do anything for his family, but the rest of the world can just fend for itself.”

“This is the enemy we’re talking about here,” Hank said.

“I thought you were different. I wouldn’t even be here if you hadn’t stopped to help me. You didn’t know me at all, but you still stopped.”

“You hadn’t been trying to kill me either.”

“Could you just get the water?” Lily said. “Then you don’t have to stay. I know you want to look for Katy.”

He hesitated a moment longer before taking the ice bucket and going into the washroom. Lily listened to him run the water while she continued to tear strips from the sheet. When he returned with the warm water, she dipped a piece of the sheet into it and began to bathe the woman’s face, trying to be gentle. At the touch of the cloth, Dominique’s eyes flickered open and she stared uncomprehendingly up at Lily. Slowly recognition came to her.

“Wh-What are … you … ?”

“Hush,” Lily said. “Don’t try to move.”

But Dominique wouldn’t let it go. “Are … are you … mad?”

“Don’t try to talk either. Save your strength because you’re going to need it.”

“Ask her where Katy is,” Hank said.

But Dominique had heard him. “Don’t … know … any … Kuh … Katy… .” Her gaze returned to Lily. “Dying …”

“Maybe we can get one of the corbæ to help her,” Lily said to Hank. “Like the crow girls did us.”

“I don’t think so,” Hank replied.

He was probably right. But Lily still thought they should try to-

She cried out as Dominique suddenly grabbed her hand. The woman’s strength surprised her, her pale fingers digging into Lily’s wrist. Before she could pull free, Dominique’s whole body went stiff, spasmed, then her head lolled to one side, her body limp.

“She … I think she just …” Lily swallowed thickly.

Hank knelt down beside her. He checked Dominique’s pulse again, but this time he moved his hand to her face and closed her eyes.

“She’s dead,” he said.

Lily turned away. She knew Dominique had been the enemy-of the
corbæ
and herself. But she still mourned the woman’s death. Mourned all the deaths. What was the point of it all? It was so stupid. So senseless.

Hank stood up once more. Lily hesitated a moment. Then she rose to her feet as well.

“You were right,” he said.

“About what?”

“It would have been wrong to not have tried to help.”

She nodded. But being right didn’t change what had happened.

She was dealing with being in this room of slaughtered cuckoos only by keeping her vision narrowed and focused, trying to see no more than she had to. But it was hard. The longer she stayed in here, with the red light washing over her, the strange inhuman bodies scattered all around, the more dislocated she felt. But she couldn’t leave yet. Not without what she had come for.

As she bent down to pick up the two pieces of the chalice that lay on the floor, she also saw the little statue that had been lying at the bottom of it when Dominique had taken the chalice from her. Putting the pieces of the chalice on the table, she bent down again to pick up the statue and found not one, but two of them.

“Look at these,” she said.

Hank stepped closer and took one from her hand. “It looks just like Katy.” He turned it over in his hand. “What are they? Some kind of voodoo dolls?”

“I don’t know. But the detailing’s incredible-right down to the cloth used for the clothing.”

She gave him the other one so that he could stow them both away in his pocket.

“Here,” she said. “Help me fit the pieces of the chalice together. I want to see if there are any other pieces still missing.”

“Do you think it can still be fixed?”

Lily shrugged. “I’m so far out of my depth here I have no idea what is or isn’t possible anymore. Maybe the corbæ have some kind of magic glue they can use.”

“Crow girl spit.”

Lily nodded, remembering how effective it had been in helping them.

“Or something,” she said.

She fit the first two pieces together and Bocephus barked. She almost dropped them as she looked up, expecting some new danger to be coming in the door, but there was no one there. There were only the bodies. Her stomach churned and she looked away, quickly, before she started to gag.

“What’s wrong, Bo?” Hank asked.

“Probably just … nerves,” Lily said. “Here, see if that other piece’ll fit.”

As Hank brought it toward the pieces Lily was holding in place, the dog barked again, more urgently.

“I think he’s telling us not to do this,” Hank said. He looked around the room. “Maybe he’s got a point. We don’t know what we’re messing with here. We might be making things worse.”

“The pot won’t hurt us,” Lily said. “Because we don’t want anything from it.”

“You know that for a fact?”