The Madness Underneath: Book 2 (THE SHADES OF LONDON) (26 page)

But sure, she could have left it. It was possible.

What was the alternative?

The bathroom window was frosted for privacy. I unlocked it and tried to pull it up, but it made a very loud squeaking noise. I stopped, my nerves jangled. Then I turned on the faucet all the way and went back to the window, nudging it millimeter by millimeter until I had about three inches of room to peer out of. The bathroom faced the back and was a sheer drop down to the garden. There was certainly no way out through here. I could scream…

…. but there was no reason to scream, was there? Why did I want to scream?

Why had Jack smiled at me like that? It was just when Jane offered me the tray of cookies and brownies. That was normal. Jane always offered me that.

Then a thought came into my head that seemed both very, very paranoid and very, very logical. Every time I came to Jane’s she insisted that I eat something. And every time I ate something, I started to feel lightheaded. I would talk a lot. Time seemed weird.

I don’t take drugs myself, but I’ve heard stories from friends who’d had pot brownies, and it seemed like this was the kind of thing that happened. It didn’t hit all at once—it took about a half an hour or so—but then the talking, the strange things I’d
notice in the room. It wasn’t like I was rendered unconscious, but I definitely relaxed to a degree that therapy had never before relaxed me.

Charlotte had that look when she came from Jane’s as well. The glass-eyed stare…

If what I was thinking was correct, no wonder Jane seemed so amazingly good at her job. She had gotten us high as kites.

But
why
? This was insane. These thoughts were the thoughts of a crazy person.

But my life was not normal.
I
was not normal. And neither was Jane, or Devina, or Jack…

Jack had been the name of the witness in Dawn’s murder.

Okay, that was a stupid connection. Loads of people are named Jack.

I flushed the toilet just for the noise. I exited the bathroom and went to the top of the stairs. Jane was waiting for me at the bottom.

“Rory,” she said. “Ready to go? Why don’t you come down?”

Why don’t you come down?

Her words, her voice, they filled me with dread now—a dread I wanted so much to discount, but I just couldn’t. I had absolutely no idea what was happening, but
something
was wrong. But I had to go downstairs. I couldn’t leave from the second floor anyway unless I leapt from a window, like Dawn.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Sorry. I was drying myself off.”

I don’t think I sounded casual. Jack came around. He was next to the staircase, watching me descend as well.

My heartbeat was irregular, catching in my throat. I took each step at about half speed. This was wrong. Something was
wrong. Everything was wrong. Something had to happen now, on these steps, at this second. Every fiber of my being screamed it to me.

So I listened.

When I reached the bottom step, I opened my mouth as if I were about to speak to Jane, then I broke toward the door. It’s a strange thing to me, running. I only do it in my dreams, and I have often joked that I would only engage in the activity if being chased. This definitely had a dreamlike quality, running into the dark hall- way, feeling the arms grab me from behind. I landed face first on the floor, completely in someone’s grip. My nose smashed into the floorboards, sending a singing pain throughout my face. My eyes welled up from the impact and tears flowed freely.

“Careful!” Jane said. “By God, Jack, don’t hurt her. Get her up.”

Two pairs of hands picked me up. Devina had come out of nowhere, and she and Jack got me off the floor.

“Now, Rory,” Jane said, “don’t struggle like that. Jack will have to use more force, and neither of us want that. Move her to the kitchen.”

I was half-dragged, half-carried to the kitchen. And strangely, I relaxed a bit. There was a certain relief in just being right, the thing was now just happening. The tick tick had lead to the boom. I scanned the counter. There was nothing useful there. The knives were all the way on the other side of the kitchen. Unless I was going to beat Jack and Devina with a plate of baked goods or a magazine, I was stuck.

“Eat something,” Jane said, presenting the plate once again. “It will make it easier.”

“What’s in there?”

“It’s just a little hash, darling,” she said. “You’ve been enjoying them so far. Perfectly harmless.”

She held up the plate, and I shook my head. She shrugged and set it down.

“Up to you,” she said. “It was for your benefit.”

“What are you going to do to me?”

“No harm will come to you if you cooperate. I can promise that. Anyone with the sight is my brother or sister, and I take that very, very seriously. If you struggle, Jack will hurt you. But if you remain calm, you will be released.”

That wasn’t much of a choice, so I stopped struggling. Jane nodded and Devina released me at once.

“Jack,” Jane said, “let her go.”

The grip remained.

“Jack. I said
let her go
.”

My arms were released. Jane reached over and rubbed them. “My apologies,” she said. “My apologies. Truly. The things that have happened in the last twenty-four hours, they were not part of the original plan. With the news that you would likely be departing soon, we had to work very quickly. I’ve always been honest with you, Rory, and I’ll continue to be honest with you. Everything about your old life ends
right now
. The sooner you accept that, the easier things will be for you. But what happens next…that’s really up to you. And I’ve come to explain the possibilities. The good news is, the possibilities are much, much better than your current state of affairs.”

“Where’s Charlotte?” I asked.

“Charlotte is in a safe place. She’s already gone off to the country. You’ll see her today. She’s absolutely fine. She knew
that you came here, and we couldn’t have that knowledge getting around. So we had to take her along as well. But I assure you she’ll remain safe as long as you remain with us. You’re a terminus, the first instance of a human terminus that I’ve ever come across. We’re all very excited about it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Oh, Rory,” she said. “We’ve been with you for weeks. We followed you to Bristol. We’ve seen how special you are. And now everything is coming together. You are the sign we’ve been waiting for. You’ll help us, and we’ll help you.”

“I don’t want to
help
you.”

“You care about Charlotte, and those friends of yours in the flat near Waterloo, and…what’s the address again, Jack?

“Seventy-seven Woodland Road,” he said.

That was, in fact, my parents’ address in Bristol. He then rattled off our home address in Louisiana, my Uncle Bick’s address, my Aunt Diane’s address, and my parents’ work addresses, both in England and in America. And that’s when everything got very cold.

“Which is why I say that everything is different now,” Jane said. “We don’t want to force you. Come of your own will. And once you come with us, you’ll see. You’ll see that what we’re doing is right. You’ll be glad. It’s just an awkward adjustment period, but it won’t last. Come now. It’s time to go. Time to go to the country.”

23

A
S IT HAPPENS, I KNOW A BIT ABOUT SURVIVAL. TO A POINT, I know this because I come from Bénouville, Louisiana, where hurricane preparedness is a topic of conversation every summer. Did you stock up on bottled water? Batteries? Canned food and granola bars? Do you have bleach for when the water goes down and the mold comes? Do you have a radio? Flashlights?

But the nitty-gritty stuff I know because my neighbor is a nutjob. A nutjob with a lot of practical skills. I mean Billy Mack, who lives down the street.

Billy was never quite the same after Hurricane Katrina. A lot of people weren’t the same after that. A lot of people went without food and water and help, and a lot of people developed an interest in survival skills. Billy Mack took this to an extreme. He has a boat on his porch roof, tethered to one of the second-story windows. Billy is also the founder of the People’s Church of Universal People, a religion he runs out of his garage. As part of his mission, he sometimes goes up and down the street,
handing out pamphlets. His religion is a kind of apocalypse-come-hither thing mixed with the Army Rangers field guide. He believes that the end times are coming, and people in his religion will not only be right with God, but they’ll have the proper supplies on hand.

I don’t spend a lot of time with Billy Mack, but we get the pamphlets. And right on the front they say things like, “A human being can survive for three to five days without food or water. Jesus needs you to be ready for His coming. Do YOU have the supplies you need?”

The pamphlets probably had all kinds of good tips for how to deal with situations like the one I was in now. But I’d never gotten past the front cover before I put them in the recycle bin. I was sorry for that now. Billy was the kind of person who always had a knife strapped to his shin. He would have had
ideas
about how to deal with this.

“This” was sitting in the back of the car with Devina on one side and Jack on the other. Jane was at the wheel, chatting merrily as if this was a perfectly normal trip, talking about “traffic problems on the A4.”

As we went, everything seemed to slip away from me, like the buildings were fading from existence as I saw them for the last time. The roads were rolled up. The spare sky went into a box. Because, I felt sure, I would not come this way again. I looked at the names on the signs of places we were passing—Fulham, Hammersmith, Chiswick. I could try to fight, I could throw myself against the back window or grab Jane by the neck or do something…That something would only get me pushed down in the seat. It would get me hurt, and it would get people I love killed.

I was going to the country.

“We’re coming up on Barnes, now,” Jane said. “It’s where Marc Bolan died. You probably have never heard of Marc Bolan, but he was one of my favorites. Crashed into a tree. Terrible and shocking. When we do our work, Marc is one person I’d love to help.”

“What work?” I asked.

“We’re going to defeat death,” she said. It was very matter of fact, like she was saying, “We’re going to have a bake sale.”

“Oh,” is all I could manage.

“Have you ever heard of the Eleusinian Mysteries, Rory?” Jane smoothly negotiated a roundabout. “In ancient Greece, it was understood that Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, presided over the fecundity of the earth. Persephone was kidnapped by Hades and taken to the underworld. Demeter forced him to return her daughter, but you see, Persephone had done the one thing that you shouldn’t do in Hades—she had eaten the food of the dead—and was forced to return to the underworld part of each year. In their honor, the Greeks had the Eleusinian Mysteries, in which initiates were shown the real nature of life and death. Now, we think these things are just stories—except, of course, that the ancient Greeks were correct. Death, as you have noticed, is not the fixed state that most people believe it is. Do you agree?”

“Sure?” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say to this terrifying speech that seemed to be going into a deeply bad place.

“They may have spun a colorful tale around it, but they were aware of the reality of life and death. Their mysteries, their rituals—they were experiments. And those experiments
started to bring about changes. They made us, Rory. Those who achieved the highest of the mysteries, the hierophants and the initiates, they developed the sight. They began to perforate the wall between the living and the dead. Somewhere, far, far back in your family history, there was a great mystic, someone who achieved this wonderful state. We are all, in that sense, related.”

“Family,” Jack said.

“Family indeed,” Jane replied.

“But the great work was destroyed. The Temple of Demeter was sacked. The Christians took over, and the mysteries were thought to be destroyed, the knowledge gone. But knowledge lives on. The rituals continue. Which is why we did what we did this morning. The psychic, of course.”

“Why her? What did she do?”

“We needed a victim, someone in the right general area. Someone whose death would arouse suspicion. Someone we couldn’t be linked to. A relatively insecure building where it was easy to get in and out. She was perfect. The death of a psychic so close to the Wexford grounds—we’ve put enough in play to keep your friends busy for a while. And Jack had a blood debt to pay. In the original mysteries, it was thought you had to be free of ‘blood guilt,’ that you couldn’t have killed anyone. But we are performing the advanced mysteries now, and now a blood debt is required. You need to meet it in order to be initiated.”

Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside was a piece of cloth, soaked in blood.

“Jack has proven himself ready,” Jane said. “As has Devina.”

“Mum’s boyfriend,” Devina said lightly.

“And you?” I asked Jane.

“The man in Yorkshire,” she said. “The one I told you about, the one who attacked me. It may sound horrible, Rory, but we have all removed people from society who needed to be removed…”

“What did the psychic ever do?” I said. “She was innocent!”

“You think that’s innocent? Someone who pretends to see into the future? Someone who tricks people for money? It’s because of people like her that the good name of the true religion is sullied and lost.”

I know a true believer when I see one—that high fervor, that total conviction, the calm that explodes into emotion in a moment. I was in a car full of conviction, full of belief in ancient Greek rituals and destroying death. And murderers.

The detour was taking us through a series of very tight lanes, barely wide enough to hold a car. Outside, England was normal and quiet, just living a December day. People would be getting ready for Christmas. Doing their jobs. Thinking about what to have for dinner. Cyclists rode past us on occasion. All that separated me from that world was a car door. But I could not get out.