Vegas Knights (35 page)

  "I'm here," I said. "I'm fine. I miss you."

  "You miss me? Jackson, honey, I've only–" Confusion furrowed her brow. "Wait. What happened? What day is it? The last thing I remember is the hurricane and the floods and–"

  She froze.

  "Don't think about that, baby," Dad said. "That's all over now. The hurricane is over."

  "What happened to me?" Mom put her hands up to her cheeks and felt her dead skin, then to her empty eyes. Her face twisted into a mask of fear, and her voice rose in hysteria. "
What's going on?"

  "Harry! We need to take care of her now!" Dad clutched Mom to his chest, and her fingernails cut long scratches into his neck. He didn't seem to notice.

  "She can wait, Luke," Houdini said. "We will take care of my needs first."

  "Who is that?" Mom whipped her head around. "Who else is here?"

  "It's all right, Desiree," Dad said. He tried to sound calm and soothing, but the fear in his voice betrayed him.

  "You said – what did Jackson say? You said Houdini. Houdini is here?"

  "It's OK, honey." He glared at Houdini, furious. "He's here to help us."

  "Luke!" Mom said. "You told me about him. You told me what he did. We can't – get me out of here!"

  "Calm down, baby. We have to–"

  "No! Luke, no! What's he done to you?"

  Dad held her tighter than ever and shushed her softly in her ear. "If you can't trust him, then trust me, baby. Believe in me, Desiree, and we can get through this."

  Mom shuddered in Dad's arms, and tears rolled down

his face. He was doing everything he could to hold himself together, but he was seconds from falling apart.

  "I understand how you feel, Luke," Houdini said, growing more emphatic with each word, "but I refuse to wait any longer. Get over here and help heal me. I've defeated death, and I want my life back. Now!"

  Dad cringed at Houdini's words, but he could not bring himself to leave Mom's side. I knew that if this came to a fight Houdini would destroy him and probably Mom too.

  I moved between them, facing Houdini, meeting his angry eyes. "You," I said, "are going to have to wait."

  Shaking with rage, the still-dead Houdini reached out a hand toward me. He forced himself to speak to me in even, clipped tones. "I believe I've been patient enough."

  I brought up my fists and braced myself for whatever it was he planned to do to me. I only knew that it wouldn't be pretty.

  Powi stuck a hand between us. "Maybe I can help?"

  Houdini and I both glared at her. To her credit, she didn't flinch.

  She spoke to Houdini. "If this is the first time you've tried this – and as far as I can tell, it's the first time anyone has attempted anything like this – doesn't it make sense to test your theories on someone else first?"

  Houdini paused to contemplate this. I considered punching him in the guts. It hadn't worked all that well the last time I'd tried it, but I'd stopped. I'd let him recover. Maybe if I just kept pummeling him into dust, it would work.

  Or maybe not.

  "Let's heal Desiree first," Powi said. "Just to make sure you're not rushing into a mistake. Just in case."

  "Who's that?" Mom asked.

  "She's a friend, Mom," I said. "Her name is Powi."

  "She sounds wise."

  Houdini gave a reluctant nod at the undead woman's words. He walked around Powi, me, and the tomb and put a hand on Dad's shoulder. Dad bent his head and wept with gratitude and relief.

  "This will require all of our considerable talents," Houdini said. He looked to Powi and me, daring us to defy him. Instead we joined him and Dad at the side of Mom's crypt. The smell of the formaldehyde made me want to vomit, but I swallowed my bile and put my hands on Mom's arm. Powi put her hands next to mine, and Houdini put his hands on Mom's head. Dad continued to cradle her in his arms.

  Houdini did not say a word. His hands just started to glow. Powi closed her eyes, and soon her hands glowed the same golden color as Houdini's. Dad brought the same glow into his hands too.

  I had never healed anyone or anything before, but I was determined to give it my best shot.

  I closed my eyes, and I thought about my mother the way she'd been when I'd last seen her: happy, well, and as full of life as anyone I'd ever seen. Her soft brown skin had glowed with health, and her wide brown eyes had danced with life. I wanted her to have that back, and I put every bit of mojo I had into giving it to her.

  I felt a wonderful warmth surge out of my own blood and surround my hands. I cracked open my eyes to see the telltale golden glow surging around my fingers and flowing from me into my mother. I pushed it out of me – I willed it to move into her – as fast as I could.

  Beneath where my hands touched, I felt my mother's flesh come to life. It became warm and soft, and somewhere beneath it a pulse began. I heard her begin to breathe – not just so that she could speak but to bring oxygen back into her blood.

  I closed my eyes again and reached deeper inside me to find more and more of that healing power that Mom needed. I went back again and again until I had nothing left to give. Even after that, I kept at it, determined that no matter what happened here I would not fail my mother.

  "It is finished," Houdini said.

  I opened my eyes and saw my mother looking back at me.

  I reached into the crypt and hugged her tight, my father on one side of her and me on the other. Powi and Houdini stepped back to give us some room. I'm not ashamed to admit I wept like a little boy – like I hadn't since the day I'd been told she'd died.

  My heart felt like it might burst with joy and wonder, and for a moment I forgot all about the troubles with Houdini and the zombies and Mamaci and Siegel and the rest. I just reveled in the sensation of my family being together once again, and I found it impossible to give Dad any grief for what he'd done.

  "I love you," she said. "I love you both so much."

  Then it all went wrong.

 

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
 

Mom started coughing. The coughing turned to hacking, and the hacking brought up blood. Her body stiffened up, and she fell backward into the tomb, shaking as if having a seizure.

  "What's happening?" I said.

  "Desiree?" Dad grabbed her and tried to look into her eyes, but they had rolled back into her head. "Desiree!"

  I spun around and grabbed Houdini by the front of his shirt. "What's happening?" I said. "We healed her! She should be fine!"

  He frowned and said, "I'm sorry. I – I warned your father about this. Bringing the dead back to life is very difficult, even under the best of circumstances."

  "No." I pushed him away from me. "No!"

  I went back to Mom and held on to her. I closed my eyes and tried to heal her again. I shut out the thrashing and hacking and the scent of fresh blood to concentrate on this, and I felt the now-familiar golden glow grow in my hands. It stayed there, though, unable to move into her dying form. It felt like her body had decided to reject my efforts, and nothing I did could change that.

  "You're wasting your time." Houdini spoke quietly and confidently, with the determined detachment of a sympathetic doctor who had seen far too much of death. "Her body has been as healed as it can be. It will not accept any more such magic."

  "Can't you do anything?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "If it was in my power, I would."

  Dad clutched Mom to him as she continued to shiver and shake, his moans drowning out her death rattle. She was going fast, pulling away hard, but Dad kept trying to use his magic to haul her back.

  I looked at them both, my mother and father. At one point, I'd loved them more than anything. They'd given me a happy life, a safe home, and a wonderful childhood – right up until the storm had taken all that away. Watching them now, seeing them suffer, I knew what had to be done, much as I hated it.

  I reached across the crypt and put my hand on Dad's arm. "Let her go," I said.

  "No." He glared at me with wild, bloodshot eyes. "Don't you give up on her, Jackson. We can't give up on her. Help me!"

  Mom's back arched in unspeakable pain. She clutched at Dad's arms, her jagged nails drawing blood through his shirt. She threw back her head and gagged on the air trying to find its way into her lungs.

  "She's gone, Dad." I spoke so softly I could barely hear myself. "She's been gone since the storm."

  "No. No, she's not!" He held her tighter, but he could not settle her shuddering. "She's right here."

  Mom's body relaxed then, crumpling forward, the fight gone out of her spine. She shuddered as if her nerves were trying to worm their way out of her skin. The end was near – or it would be if Dad would let it.

  "You're hurting her," I said. "The longer you drag this out, the worse it gets."

  Dad buried his face in Mom's hair. His sobs wracked both their bodies. She was already too far gone to notice. "No," he whispered. "No, no, no, no, no."

  At some point, she stopped shaking on her own and fell still, her body as limp as a rag doll in his arms. I squeezed Dad's shoulder with one hand and stroked Mom's hair with the other.

  "Good-bye, Mom," I said. "I'll always love you."

  I leaned over and kissed her on her forehead and then did the same for Dad.

  "At least this time we were with her," I said.

  He gazed up at me with tear-flooded eyes. "I know, Jackson," he said, holding on to that slim thread of comfort. "I know."

  Then I left him to grieve his love's death all over again. Powi reached out and embraced me, and I held on to her for all I was worth.

  "Once you have recovered," Houdini said, "there's the matter of my own life to attend to."

  I let Powi go and gaped at the man. "After what happened with my mother, you still want to go through with it? You want to risk that?"

  "The circumstances are different," he said. "My soul never departed from my body. I never allowed my flesh to rot. For me, it will be different."

  "Or so you think," said Mamaci.

  Powi squealed in surprise at hearing her grandmother's voice.

  The old medicine woman pushed herself to her feet. The color had already drained from her skin, and she looked worn and weak. "After all, you have been wrong about so many things," she said to Houdini.

  Powi rushed to her side and held her steady. "Grandma!" she said. "I thought I'd lost you."

  "You might as well have." Mamaci scowled at Houdini. "My powers are gone – stolen along with my life."

  "But look what we have done with them, madam," Houdini said. "With your powers, we have wrought a world of good."

  "Don't pretend you did this for the world. You thought only of your own selfish needs," she said. "You have created a world filled with abominations in which you are the worst of them all."

  "Shh, Grandma," Powi said. "Let me help you. You've not been gone so long. There's still hope."

  "Don't worry about an old woman like me," Mamaci said. "I've lived a good life. My time was near. Look to Walter instead."

  "Walter?" Powi gasped. "Oh, no." She dashed over to where he'd fallen among the couches and chairs.

  The man had started to sit up on his own by the time Powi reached him. "Wow," he said. "That really hurt."

  "Are you OK?" Powi said. She put a hand over her mouth to cover her gasp as she got a good look as him.

  Walter followed her gaze and looked down at the gaping hole the shotgun had blasted into his chest. He put a tentative finger into it and tested the flesh. "Yeah," he said, "although I don't understand why. This doesn't hurt a bit."

  Without another word, Powi put her hands over Walter's mortal wound. The golden glow grew in them and soon passed over into Walter's chest and then suffused his entire body. When the glow finally faded, Powi brought her blooded fingers away. The injury had healed over entirely, leaving a large and livid scar on the man's chest.

  "You see," Houdini said to no one in particular. "It can work."

  Walter gaped at his healed flesh, visible through the massive hole that had been blasted in his shirt. The color had returned to his skin, and he was breathing again. "Thank you, Powi," he said in awe. "I – thanks."

  "Anything for my big brother," she said with a wistful smile.

  I caught my breath at that. I had known that Powi had been close with the men who'd tried to murder Bill in that steel wigwam atop the Thunderbird, but I hadn't even thought that any of them might be her brother.

  "Wait," Walter said. His face fell from gratitude to despair. "What about Andy, Robbie, and Danny?"

  I walked out toward the wreck of the helicopter, which still burned out on the balcony. "Oh, no." I spied some movement in the cockpit. Something thin and blackened was stuck in there, trying to get out.

  Powi joined me. She covered her mouth in wordless horror as she scanned the wreckage. Another form flailed about in the passenger compartment, some part of its crisped form apparently trapped under something too heavy to move.

  "Where's the third one?" Walter said as he came up behind us, his voice fearful and quiet.

  "The rocket might have blown him out of the helicopter," I said. I wondered if his shattered body might be down there in the driveway of Bootleggers, trying now to rise on dozens of broken bones. I had nearly shared that fate.

  "Can – can you help them?" Walter said.

  Powi grimaced. "I don't know. They – they're so badly hurt." She turned away, unable to bring herself to keep looking at the wreckage.

  Inside the penthouse, Dad wailed in grief. I closed my eyes. This was all too much to take.