Haunted (16 page)

As my feet went through the boarded-up door, I cast a light-ball spell. My stronger magic might be hit-and-miss in this world, but I could still count on the simple stuff. Beneath the trapdoor was a ladder, a rickety half-rotted thing that promised to collapse under the slightest weight. Luckily, I was weight-free these days. So I set my foot onto the first rung, and climbed down.

I landed in a tiny, dark room. Concrete walls sweated rivulets of water that stank of sewage. I cast my light around. Nothing to see. Just bare walls and a bare dirt floor. I turned. On the wall behind me was a wooden door crisscrossed with boards. As I stepped toward it, something jabbed the bottom of my foot and I jumped in surprise.

I moved my light down to see a small green globe, half-buried in the dirt. Bending over, I picked it up. A marble. Jade green, its glassy surface clouded with scratches. I turned it over in my hand and smiled. A ghost marble, like the ghost wheelchair Kristof had conjured in the psych hospital. I tucked the marble into my pocket, then walked through the door.

I came out in a long hall. Doors lined one side, thick wooden doors reinforced with steel bands, solid except for a slit about two-thirds of the way up, covered with a metal plate.

When I reached the third door, I heard crying. I stopped and listened. It came from behind the door. I stepped through into a small room, less than five by five. On the wooden floor lay a moldering pallet, half-covered with a moth-eaten, coarse blanket. The room was empty, yet I could still hear crying. It came from all sides, as if the very walls were sobbing.

“Didn’t mean it, didn’t mean it,” whispered a voice.

“Who’s there?” I said, twisting, trying to pinpoint the source. “Is that you, hon? You didn’t do anything—”

“Sorry, so sorry, so sorry.”

The words came louder now, the voice distinctly female. Wrenching sobs punctuated the babble of apologies. I stepped into the empty rooms on either side. From both, I could still hear the voice, yet it obviously came from the middle cell.

“Hail Mary, full of grace, hail—” A sob. “I don’t—don’t remember. Hail Mary…”

“Hello?” I walked back into the middle cell. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The only answer was a soft clacking. I thought of the marble in my pocket.

“Hail Mary,” the voice whispered. “Hail Mary, full of grace.”

Rosary beads. The click of someone counting off rosary beads. A distant door banged. The voice gasped, choking back her prayer mid-word. Footsteps sounded in the hall—the thud of heavy, booted feet. I stepped through the door. No one was there. Yet I could still hear the footsteps, growing louder as they came down the hall toward me.

From inside the room came a muffled whimper. As I looked around, a new sound filled the air, a steady thumping, softer than the footsteps, growing faster as they drew nearer. The tripping of a frightened heart.

“Holy Mary, mother of God.”

The prayer came out no louder than a breath, whispering all around me, barely audible over the patter of her heart. The footsteps stopped outside the door. A jangle of keys followed. A whimper, sounding as if it came from right beneath me. A key screeched in the lock.

“No, no, no, no.”

The door hinges squealed, and I heard it open, yet the door stayed shut. The woman gave a sudden cry that nearly sent me to the rafters. I whirled around, but I was still alone. From beneath me came the frantic scuffle of someone scrambling across the wooden floor.

“Hail Mary, full of—”

A laugh drowned out her prayer. The door slammed shut. The woman screamed. Then a slap resounded through the room, so loud I reeled as if I’d felt it. Another scream, a bloodcurdling scream of fury and fear.

And all went silent.

I looked around, tensed, waiting for the next spectral sound. But I heard only the faintest scratch of tiny claws from a distant rat.

Slowly, I stepped from the cell. The boy was right there. I jumped, letting out an oath. He waggled a finger at me, then motioned with the same finger, and took off.

I hesitated, getting my bearings, then went after him.

15

THE BOY LED ME THROUGH YET ANOTHER BOARDED-UP
door, into another room that stank of rot and stale air. There, wedged between two towers of rotting wooden crates, he’d hidden his stash of treasures—a handful of marbles, some colored stones, feathers, a tin cup painted sky blue, and a hand-sewn animal that was either a dog or an elephant.

“I think you’re missing something,” I said as I crouched beside the pile.

I pulled the green marble from my pocket. The boy gave a wordless chirp, then threw his arms around me. I hesitated, surprised, then hugged him back.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

He only looked at me, smiled, and nodded.

I pointed at myself. “Eve. I’m Eve. And you are…?”

The smile brightened another few watts but, again, he answered only with a nod.

“I’m going to help you get out of here. Take you someplace nice. Would you like that?”

He nodded, still smiling. I suspected that if I asked whether he wanted me to take him dogsledding in Siberia, he’d have given the same nod and smile, having no clue what I meant, but perfectly amenable to anything I suggested.

“We’ll leave soon, hon,” I said. “I just have to do one thing first. Find someone. Someone here.” I paused.

“Maybe you could help.”

His head bobbed frantically, and I knew that this time he understood me. So I described Amanda Sullivan. But as I did, his eyes clouded with disappointment, and he gave a slow shake of his head. Finding someone was a concept he understood—applying a verbal description to that person was beyond him.

I concentrated on the news article I’d read, the one with Sullivan’s photo, and tried to make it materialize. Nothing happened. No problem. My skills on this side might be weak, but I could do it easily enough in my own dimension, so after promising to be right back, I popped into the ghost world, conjured up the photo, and returned to the other side.

“This is a picture of the woman I’m looking for.”

He let out a tiny shriek and dove behind me, clutching my leg, face buried against my thigh. I dropped to my knees. He pressed his face into my shoulder. His thin body quaked against mine and I cursed myself. He knew—or sensed—what Sullivan had done. For a few minutes I held him, patting his back and murmuring words of comfort. When he stopped shaking, I shoved the photo into my pocket.

“Forget about her,” I said. “Let’s get you—”

He grabbed my hand and tugged, his tear-streaked face determined. When I didn’t move, he sighed in exasperation, released my hand, and took off. I raced after him.

I followed the boy back through the underground row of cells, up through the hatch door, through the cell block, through a few more rooms, through another guard station and even more heavily armored doors, into a second, smaller cell block. All of these cells were full. The maximum-security ward. He led me to the last one. Inside, reading
Ladies’ Home Journal,
was Amanda Sullivan.

I turned to the boy. He’d ducked back behind the cell wall, so Sullivan couldn’t see him.

“It’s okay,” I said. “She can’t hurt you. I promise.”

A slow smile, and a nod. He darted out, arms going around me in a tight, fleeting embrace. Then he raced off back down the hall.

“No,” I shouted, lunging after him. “Come—”

A hand grabbed my arm. I turned to see Trsiel.

“The boy,” I said. “He’s a ghost.”

“George.”

“You know him?”

“His mother was an inmate. He was born here, and died here five years later. Smallpox.”

“He lived
here
?”

“When George was born, the prison doctor was at home. Apparently, he decided not to lose any sleep by coming in. George was born with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. His mother’s cellmate revived him but the damage to his brain was done.”

“So no one wanted him,” I murmured.

Trsiel nodded. “He was allowed to stay here, with his mother.”

“Why’s he still here? Shouldn’t someone—”

“Rescue him? In the beginning, we tried, but he always found his way back here, like a homing pigeon.”

“Because this is all he knows. And he’s happy here.” I thought of the boy pretending to open doors before walking through them. “He doesn’t realize he’s dead.”

“Is there any reason to enlighten him?”

I gave a slow shake of my head. “I guess not.”

“This”—Trsiel gestured at the building around us—

“won’t last forever. When they tear it down, or abandon it, we’ll take the child, probably reincarnate him. In such a case, that’s the most humane thing.”

“In the meantime, leaving him here is the most humane thing.” I shook off thoughts of the boy and turned toward Amanda Sullivan. “That is candidate number one.”

As Trsiel looked over at her, his eyes blazed. His right hand clenched, as if gripping something…like the hilt of his sword.

“Good choice,” he said.

“You can see already?”

“Enough to know she’s a good choice. More than that requires concentration.” He glanced at me. “I could do this for you.”

“It’s my job.” I held out my hand. “Let’s get it over with.”

A montage of images flipped past at hyperspeed, so fast I saw nothing but a blur of color. Then the reel slowed…on darkness. I waited, with growing impatience, like a theatergoer wondering when the curtain is going to rise.

A voice floated past. “I want to hurt him. Hurt him like he hurt me.”

There are many ways to say this line, many shades of emotion to color and twist the words, most of them angry, the flash fire of passion, later repented, or the cold determination of hate. Yet in this recital, there was only the petulant whine of a spoiled child who’d grown into a spoiled adult, never learning that the world didn’t owe her a perfect life.

Another voice answered, a whisper that rose and fell with the cadence of a rowboat rocking on a gentle current. “How would you do that?”

“I—I don’t know.” The pout came through loud and clear, then the demand. “Tell me.”

“No…you tell me.”

“I want to hurt him. Make him pay.” A pause. “He doesn’t love me anymore. He said so.”

“And what do you want to do about it?”

“Take away what he
does
love.” A trill of smug satisfaction, as if she’d surprised herself with her insight.

“What would that be?”

“The kids.”

“So why don’t you do it?”

I waited, tensed, expecting the obvious reason—the natural reason, mingled with a stab of horror for having thought of such a thing in the first place.

“I’m afraid,” she said.

“Afraid of what?” the voice asked.

“Of getting caught.”

I snarled and threw myself against the confines of the darkness that surrounded me.

The voices vanished, and I found myself in a small room. I was humming, rubbing my hands together. I looked down at my hands. A bar of soap in one, a wash-cloth in the other. A splash and a shriek of delight. I looked up, still humming, to see three small children in the bathtub.

I tried to wrench my consciousness free from Sullivan’s, my mental self kicking and screaming. The scene went mercifully dark.

Hate washed through me. Not my hate for her, but hers for another. I was back inside Amanda Sullivan, in another dark place. Dark and empty. The Nix was gone.

Gone! The bitch! She abandoned me, left me here alone. She promised I wouldn’t get caught. Promised, promised, promised!

The world around me cleared, like a fog lifting. The endless litany of hate and blame and self-pity still looped through my brain. Before me sat a pleasant-looking man in a suit.

“This voice…” the man said, his voice an even baritone. “Tell me more about the voice.”

“She told me to do it. She made me.”

The man’s eyes pierced Sullivan’s, probing, not buying this line of bullshit for one second. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. She told me to do it.”

“But when you spoke to the police, you said she
encouraged
you. That’s not the same as telling you.”

“My children were dead. Dead! And I used the wrong word, so fucking sue me, you son of a bitch. I was devastated.” A practiced sob. “My world…ripped apart.”

“By your own hands.”

“No! She did it. She…she took me over. It was her idea—”

“You said it was your idea. You thought of it—”

“No!” Sullivan flew to her feet, spittle flying. “I didn’t! I didn’t think of it! It was her idea! Hers! All hers!”

Again, the scene went dark. A few others passed by…the arraignment, the hearing where she’d been denied bail, the failed insanity bid, two attacks by fellow inmates who wanted her punished as much as I did. Then it ended.

Trsiel released my hand.

“Nothing,” he said. “The Nix has crossed back.”

“Huh?”

“She’s returned to the ghost world, probably right after the crime. So long as she’s there, the link between her and this partner is severed until she returns to this dimension.”