Dark Siren (15 page)

Alice pulled a bottle of water out of her backpack that was sitting at her feet. She took the needle, sterilized it with her zippo—she didn’t smoke much anymore, but the zippo was as much a part of her “hunting toolkit” as Trapper was. Without skipping a beat, Alice got to work. Every time the needle went into Isaac’s skin it made a kind of crunch, like the first bite into a grape.

He spat the cork out at the third stitch and grabbed the bottle of disinfectant. “Why couldn’t this have been whiskey?”

“Because I don’t drink in my car,” Alice said, her face pinched with concentration.

“Fair point.”

“Having said that.” Alice reached into her backpack and pulled out a small, silver hip flask. She popped the top and handed it to him. The sweet smell of bourbon soon filled the car.

“I thought you said you didn’t drink in your car.”

“It’s not
in
my car. It’s in my backpack.”

“Another fair point.” Isaac took a swig.

“Try not to move.”

“You’ve done this before, I gather?”

“I have, and don’t worry, it’s closing nicely.” Every time a tiny spurt of blood came out of the gash, Alice had to pause to wipe it off. This made the process take longer, but she was at least making progress and the blood loss wasn’t nearly as bad as she had originally thought. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not going to pass out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried. I know you’re tough.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because this isn’t the first time I’ve had to fix you up.”

Isaac’s eyes moved from left to right as he dug through the archives of his memory to produce the same book Alice seemed to be reading from. He smiled when he found it. “I remember,” he said.

“I’m surprised you do. Almost knocked yourself out that time, and me with you.”

“I can’t believe I fell like that.”

Alice smiled now, too, remembering the way his body toppled and sent him head over heels down a flight of stairs, his legs somehow having forgotten how to work. He had tried to grab for the barrier on the landing when he sensed he was falling, but had missed. Alice had reached out to grab one of his pinwheeling arms, but he had gone over by the time she had moved within reach. He had somehow managed to catch his forehead on one of the steps and split it open in much the same way. In fact, she could see the faded scar above his other eyebrow, now that she was so close to his face.

“I can,” she said, “Your feet have always been an issue for you.”

“Ever since I was a child,” he said.

Alice went quiet as she concentrated on keeping the stitches tight and clean.

“Are you alright?” Isaac asked.

“I’m stitching your forehead up and you’re asking me if I’m alright?”

“I may have bled out somewhat, but I can still see.”

“I’m fine,” Alice said, “Just thinking about… never mind.”

“Never mind what?”

“Drop it, Isaac.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

Alice pinched his skin with the needle again and Isaac winced. “Sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

The words—both spoken and unspoken—hung in the air, and Alice found herself unable to pull them back. What had been said couldn’t be unsaid, and there had been a lot of things said between Alice and Isaac. Their history was written in the great storybook of life, but it wasn’t like a biography. It was more like a horror novel where the monster seems dead at first, but then gets back up for another round, bloody and full of rage.

Again she slipped the needle into a sensitive point and Isaac flinched from the pain, sucking in a short breath of air. His hand came up to hers this time and held it. His touch was electric, but the feeling didn’t last. Alice realized that it wasn’t that she was being careless with the needle, but that Isaac’s endorphins had run out. He was going to
really
feel the rest of these stitches, and she was only half way done. Keeping him talking was the only way to make things easier, and yet talking had only ever made things worse.

Alice caught him staring into her eyes, his brown pools boring holes into hers and saying all of the things they had never said to each other as their relationship crashed and burned. She had thought that this—asking Isaac for help—had been a bad idea and knew in her gut she was right, but he was here, and what was done was done. There was no more hiding from Isaac Moreau and the past which shone so brightly in his eyes.

“These are gonna hurt,” she said in a soft voice.

“Finish it,” Isaac said, and at this moment he caught himself still touching her hand and released her.

Alice wished she could do something for the pain, each wince and short gasp for air made her stomach jump, but there was nothing left to do. Nothing left but to grin and bear the hurt, and make sure those stitches went through as cleanly and as tightly as possible. If the wound opened up again, she didn’t think she would be able to close it. Isaac would need a doctor, a real one, not just some woman with a certificate for having completed a first aid course and a crazy notion that she could stitch a gash on someone’s head.

He was shaking by the time she pulled the last thread through his skin, and she hurried to clip the thread and get away from his face. Isaac took his fourth swig of the flask, and now Alice took a couple also. They spent the next ten minutes in silence and in close proximity until both of these things suddenly seemed to become an issue for Alice. She didn’t know why; all she knew was that this was too much. Too close. Too much.

She closed the first aid box on her lap. Isaac sat up, examined the stitches in the rearview mirror and, despite the weariness his pallor suggested, he seemed satisfied enough with the work she had done. He touched the wound lightly with the tips of his fingers and his face twisted with pain.

“Don’t touch it,” Alice said, “You’ll pull them out.”

“I don’t think I will. You did a good job.” He turned his face to her again. She didn’t look at him directly, but knew he was looking at her. “Alice…”

Hearing him say her name brought warm waves of emotion rising through her chest. “Yes?” she asked, pretending to wipe the first aid box clean with a cotton swab doused in smelly disinfectant. The whole car reeked of
hospital ward
.

“I wouldn’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I don’t think either of us should be alone tonight.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but it’s already this morning, not tonight.”

She wasn’t kidding, either. By now, the sky was starting to turn a lighter shade of blue-gray, and the crows sitting on wires overhead were cawing as if in reverence of, or complaining about, the impending dawn.

“Isaac…” she said.

“I’m not trying anything here,” Isaac said, “But we both saw what happened in there, we saw how those things came out of… out of the film. We have no way of knowing if they will be confined to the theater or if they have some way of getting out.”

“We don’t.”

“Right. And if they come for us, either of us, I just think we’re stronger as a team.”

For a while Alice didn’t say anything. Instead she considered him, considered his eyes, his aura, his body language. She decided, after analyzing every possible cue she could get, that he was being genuine. His skin was pale from the blood loss, but his eyes shone intensely with the desire to protect her, and his aura was showing a mixture of weariness and concern.

If she went with him, there was no doubt in her mind that
she
would be able to keep
him
safe just as much as the reverse. But a voice in the back of her mind, arguably the voice of reason, warned her it would be a mistake to spend more time alone with Isaac. This
intimacy
had already gone on long enough, and any more would only be detrimental to their working relationship. Emily’s life depended on Alice and Isaac being able to work together despite their rocky past.

But it also depended on them being alive.

If either of them went home alone and they were attacked, Alice didn’t think they would survive. Isaac was hurt, and Alice was sure she wouldn’t be able to use her camera again, not without suffering severe consequences. And even if she didn’t use it, how long would it be before the hunger manifested itself fully? Adrenaline had killed the building headache and back pain she had started to feel back at the theatre, but adrenaline wears off—just like Isaac’s endorphins.

“I have to go home,” she said, “I know what you’re saying, but I need to go back to my apartment. There’s an angry spirit trapped on a Polaroid in my bag, and if I don’t get it contained soon there’s no telling what’ll happen.”

Isaac nodded. Her excuse was a weak one, but he accepted it. “I understand,” he said after a moment’s pause. He touched two fingers to the stitches again. “I should probably also get cleaned up… I’m a little out of sorts.”

“I can drive you to your place, or to the museum…”

“No, I can drive myself.”

“Are you sure? You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“We’ve just battled with spiritual entities. I think I will be fine to drive for a little while. I’m not far, in any case.” He made to turn around and open the car door, but Alice reached for his shoulder and stopped him. Isaac swung his head around to look at her, waiting for her to speak, but she said nothing and withdrew her hand.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” he said, and he stepped out of the car leaving her on her own.

Just as she had wanted.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Manifestation

Dawn had come, but the sky wasn’t orange and blue; it was grey and cloudy, like the inside of Alice’s mind. A clamor of disjointed voices was speaking in her head, a crowd standing in front a stage waiting for the band to kick off. The static made it difficult to think, to concentrate on what she was doing. Twice she had taken a wrong turn on the way home, and when she had finally gotten home it was as if the key didn’t want to find the lock and turn it.

Just because she had managed to flee the Cinema Royale didn’t mean she was free and clear. Whatever adrenaline had been in her system earlier was now gone, and pulses of pain were taking the opportunity to gladly hammer into her head and back, making Alice feel like some breakable object that had skidded to the edge of a shelf and was about to fall off. She needed to eat something and, more importantly, get some rest or otherwise she would be no good to anyone.

She staggered inside, dropped her backpack on the couch, and went straight for the fridge. Inside there were a half dozen eggs, a smelly old noodle box, a beer, and a carton of milk. She took the milk, sniffed it, and—deciding it was still good—drank deep, popping a couple of extra strength painkillers as a kind of
by the way
thing. When the milk was almost gone she took the eggs, cracked them into a bowl, and scrambled them using the remainder of the milk to fatten the plate up.

The headache disappeared at some point during the cooking process, and by the time Alice was scooping the last few bits of egg into her mouth, her back was starting to feel better too. But then a door clicked closed, and Alice’s hackles began to rise. She wheeled around and scanned the apartment, still chewing her food. The bedroom and bathroom doors were both open. The only closed doors were the front door, and her closet door—and that one was always closed.

Must have imagined it,
she thought, and she took the empty plate and the cutlery to the sink. After, she ran a bath for herself and slipped inside. The warm water was kind to her tight skin, and the soap and the bubbles made her almost feel like she could float away. She tried not to think about the movie theatre, about Emily, about Isaac, and tried instead to think of something normal, like how she needed to go out and buy groceries, or how her electric bill still needed paying.

That was when she saw someone cross in front of the open bathroom door.

She remained perfectly still, watching the open doorway for more signs of movement, her head gently resting on the bath-tub rim. The mountains of bubbles had gone and she could see her own naked body beneath the surface of the water, but now the water was starting to tremble with the pounding of her heart.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Who’s there?”

No response.

Not real
, she thought,
that didn’t just happen.
But then she heard plates clinking in the sink, and the sound made her leap out of the bath like a cat that had been thrown in as a goof. Her heart was hammering, and her back—the scars on her back—were starting to throb again. She grabbed a towel and wrapped it around herself before pattering out of the bathroom on wet feet.

No one could have broken into her house. There was only one way in besides the fire escape, and she could always hear the elevator going up and down whether she was in her bathroom, her bedroom, or her living room. It helped that the fire escape window, she knew, wouldn’t open, and having been stuck shut since she moved in. If ever she needed to use the fire escape, she would need to smash it open, which is why she kept a hammer on the window sill.