Limbo's Child (47 page)

Whatever that
THING
was back upstairs it sure as heck wasn’t a lawyer and she wasn’t even sure she was human. She may have known a lot about Lucy, but she didn’t know everything. Lucy didn’t know if she believed her about the whole necromancer thing, either, but something was up with her mother, for sure. Some things may have been true but she knew she wasn’t right about everything. It wasn’t Schuyler who was the vampire at all! It was those other two creeps from the lobby!! Sky was suspicious of those two all along. But what were they doing there?! Who sent them? Still, Amanda was wrong about Sky. Sky was just a nice kid, a really nice,
gorgeous
kid in a gift shop, not that it mattered much. She doubted she would ever see him again, but it would be nice to have someone to protect her right now. No more thinking about that. She had to help herself. But if Amanda was wrong about Sky, she could be wrong about a lot of stuff. All the more reason to get away from here and start finding answers. Whatever happened now, she had to get to Yo-yo and get them both to safety before that witch showed up again.

Amanda groaned and struggled to get up from the floor but couldn’t. She felt very weak and tired. She reached up and felt the massive goose egg on her throbbing head. She couldn’t believe she was so stupid as to turn her back on the mortal. She got up on her hands and knees but fell back down again. A pain racked her midsection and she instantly curled up into the fetal position and held her middle. That wasn’t from the fall; that was something else…something familiar. Cancer! The cancer was back! Her whole body was frail and weak again. There was something else, something missing.

“Amarantha!” Amanda screamed and reached out as if she were reaching out to grab someone but no one was there. Amanda looked down at the broken glass she was laying on. She could see the reflection of her own eyes. They were completely brown with not a trace of grey. Amarantha was gone. The connection between them had been broken somehow. Amanda was trembling with fear. Her lower lip quivered, she was on the verge of tears. Amarantha had left her and now she was going to die alone after all. It was all over. She was dying, dying here alone among the rubble.

“No…no…No!” she thought to herself. This couldn’t be the end. Think Amanda. Stop and get control of yourself. Think! It was hard to think with this ringing in her ears. What were the words?

“A-Amaran…Amarantha, come.” she said barely above a whisper.

Nothing happened. Then she thought…something’s missing. Using all her strength she reached up and felt the back of her head. She looked at the fingers. There was a faint trace of blood. Not much at all. Would it do? Was it enough?!

She said the words again, “A-Amarantha, come.”

Still nothing. She almost broke into tears again. She choked them back and bit her lip and summoned every last ounce of will she had.

“AMARANTHA, COME!!” she yelled at last before sinking to the floor, utterly spent.

The body of Amanda Tipping lay there silently for a moment, completely still as if dead, then the eyes sprang open. They were solid, cold grey. The frame of Amanda Tipping instantly shot up and stood. She reached down and found the amber glasses and put them on as she walked to the stairwell with a determined pace. She brushed the dirt from her front, straightened her jacket and smoothed back her hair as she went. With each step, the stern and formidable Amanda reappeared, her face brimming with cold fury. As she walked she spoke to the voice inside her head, which had returned.

“You might have warned me that getting knocked out would separate us!” she muttered to herself bitterly. “I
KNOW
we have to get the girl!” she suddenly bellowed as she kicked the stair door open violently and went right on screaming to the voice in her head, “I don’t
care
if you spent the last 300 years in Hell!! STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!!”

“Where. On. Earth. Have. You.
Been
?!” Schuyler was chewing on his lollipop so hard he would probably be pulling plastic chips out of his fangs for weeks. Miles and Tim timidly limped up to the Impala Schuyler was leaning on.

Schuyler stood up from leaning on the Impala and took the lollipop out of his mouth to gape at the state the two of them were in. Tim had one hand pressed against his temple while the other pinched the bridge of his nose. He held his head back to prevent a runaway nosebleed that had developed on the short trip back. Miles wasn’t bleeding, but he looked like he had lost a fight with a pack of rather nasty alley cats.

“You two look like
hamburger
,” he said at last, genuinely perplexed, “
Puh-leez
don’t tell me that this little girl did this to you. Because if she did, I swear I will NEVER let you live it down.”

Tim and Miles looked at each other sheepishly.

“We got ambushed,” Miles finally said a bit defensively.

“By what? A hockey team on a fleet of riding mowers?!”

Miles sighed, “NO! It was the bloody lawyer!”

“Y’know that chick in glasses from the gift shop?” Tim tried to explain.

Schuyler just stared at them. “Are you freaking kidding me?!” He was so angry his voice got squeaky.

“Dude, she was seriously psycho,” Tim offered helpfully.

Schuyler looked unimpressed. “Psycho?!” Schuyler retorted. “She’s a buck -“O”-five if she’s an ounce! What did she do? Threaten to sue you?!”

“Dude,” Tim tried to explain, “She turned into this scary vulture-phantom thing.”

Schuyler blinked in disbelief.

Tim decided to keep talking, but Miles wished he hadn’t. “Oh…and Miles turned into a dog.”

Schuyler started gritting his teeth so loud it sounded like a car engine that couldn’t get started.

“Well he
did
!” Tim interjected.

Miles rolled his eyes. Tim’s candor wasn’t helping right now.

Schuyler finally lost the remaining shreds of his composure. “WHERE’S THE GIRL NOW?!”

Miles bit the bullet first. “I dunno. She got away.”

“Got away?! Are you two kidding me? What happened to the plan? What happened to scaring her?!” Schuyler said indignantly.

“Oh, we bloody well scared ‘er, alright,” Miles said guiltily as he thought of the poor girl’s face the first time she saw him.

“Then how’d she get away? What’s the problem?” Schuyler demanded.

“The problem was the bloody lawyer.” Miles stretched his neck and rubbed his scalp where the woman had grabbed him by the hair. It still felt a bit loose.

“Are you kidding me?! I set this whole thing up perfectly for you two! I told you she was heading upstairs with the chick in the glasses didn’t I?” Sky pointed his lollipop at them both in an accusatory fashion. “How in the heck could even you two losers screw this up?!”

Miles flexed his neck and popped his jaw back into joint. He was tired of Schuyler dressing them down. “LOOK, Sky! She wasn’t some bloody ordinary lawyer, OK?! She ‘ad powers! She could transform into…heck I bloody dunno
what
it was, but she could walk through walls!!…and she had this bloody wicked power to…” Miles was at a loss to explain it. He finally settled simply on “Hurt ya jus’ by touchin’ ya.” It sounded even crazier when he said it.

“Hurt you? Are you jerking my chain?” Schuyler said mockingly.

“NO, SKY, I am not bloody ‘jerkin’ ya chain’ and if ya don’ believe me just check out the scars ON ME FACE!” Miles screamed right in Sky’s ear. Sky leaned back, wide-eyed. Miles had never spoken to Sky like this before. He even surprised himself a little.

Sky seemed taken aback by Miles’ new assertiveness and decided to just get back to the matter at hand. “Powers? Powers how? Powers like vampire powers?”

“No, worse! Much
much
freaking
worse
.” Miles just sighed in frustration as he rubbed the soreness out of his neck and held on to his ribs with the other. It was hard to explain. “Every time she touched me it jus’ burned like ice, like she coulda reach her hands right inside a me.” Schuyler looked a little nervous. Miles just thought he didn’t believe him.

“I know…it sounds crazy, but trust me it’s bloody true.” Miles put his hands in his pockets like he did when he was anxious. “The crazy witch knew about Hokharty. No, she bloody acted like she
knew
Hokharty woulda go an’ send us.”

“Hokharty said there might be others,” Schuyler said, musing, but you could tell by his look he hadn’t expected this.

“Yeah, bloody heck, but ‘e never told us it would be some crazy witch who could kill us jus’ by touchin’ us did ‘e?!” Miles looked sternly at Sky who, for once, didn’t seem so cocky. “And what’s more, Hokharty never didna tell us why we need the girl did ‘ee? If it’s the bloody en’ of the bloomin’ world, why wouldn’t ‘e tell us? Sumtin’s not right, Sky.”

Sky just rubbed a small spot just below his sternum and looked as if he was remembering something. “Yeah…well maybe.”

The three of them stood there looking at each other like beat dogs, afraid to move or bark for fear of risking another beating.

Miles finally broke the awkward silence, “So what now?”

Tim just shook his head and shrugged. “Hokharty’s gonna kill us if we don’t bring him the girl.”

“Yeah? Well what in the heck are we supposed to do about that now,
TIM
?” Schuyler spat at the orderly.

“I just think we need a new plan, that’s all,” Tim said.

“A plan?!” Schuyler said in disgust. “Well how am I supposed to come up with a new plan if I don’t know where in the heck she even is?!!”

“Well your last plan went straight to heck, Sky, so maybe we should start listening to Miles.”

“That stupid mick wanted to tell her the truth! She would have run off as soon as he started talking!” Schuyler went back to talking about Miles as if he wasn’t there. It was his usual mode. In a way, for Miles, it was oddly comforting and familiar to be treated like a non-entity.

“Look, I never asked to be part of this little party in the first place!!” Tim was beginning to lose his temper, but it was hard to look imposing when holding a bloody nose.

“Well neither did I, you 1970’s retro-loser!”

“Loser? Well at least I’m not some bleach-job, bloodsucking
scumbag
.”

“bleach-job?!!” It figured that Sky would care more about the integrity of his hair color than the integrity of his profession.

“I spent an hour in a metal morgue drawer!!”

“Oh, boo hoo, poor Tim, why don’t you go cry to your two-ton girlfriend.”

“HEY! You leave the Impala out of this!”

“Why couldn’t the stupid culchies just shut their cake-holes!” thought Miles. The two of them continued to bicker endlessly. Miles just took a few steps away and banged his fists on the side of his head. The whole past two days had been one bloody disaster. The whole thing had just gone to pot and they had made a right hash of it. He closed his eyes, turned his back on them and put his hands over his ears, but he could still hear them arguing.

“Without that Impala your butt would still be back in Rivenden.”

“Exactly!! Without that Impala I could have taken the turnpike!!”

Why couldn’t they just SHUT the BLOODY HECK UP!! Miles just needed somewhere quiet to think! He tried to retreat even deeper inside himself to get away from the noise.

“I’m sick of your lollipops and stupid plans!!”

“Why don’t you go paint yourself asphalt color and pretend to be something useful, like a speed bump.”

Miles took a few more steps. Slowly Miles managed to block it out. The insults faded away and he had a moment of peace, of utter blackness, when he unexpectedly saw Lucy. He opened his eyes and looked around. She was nowhere. He closed his eyes again. There she was. She was running through a park near the riverfront, checking behind bushes and hedges. He hadn’t seen her with his eyes, he’d seen her in his head! She was barefoot in her white robe and garish pink pajamas. She was searching for something, frantic, desperate. She knew she was in the right area, but uncertain of the exact spot. Suddenly, she found it, near the waterline by the bridge. She was alone, but she was calling out. No one was answering. She fell to her knees and looked at her hands. They were bloody. She was hurt! As she stared at her two hands it looked like she was about to cry.

“I can’t believe I let you convince me to wear those rancid teeth!! I’m so glad I lost them.”

“YOU LOST MY TEETH?!!”

Miles groaned and opened his eyes. He had lost the vision. What had he seen? Was it his imagination? Or was it something else? Was it real? He had never seen the girl close up before just now, upstairs in the hallway, and he hadn’t gotten that close a look at her before that
thing
had showed up. He only remembered one thing really – how scared she looked – and he suddenly felt very ashamed that he had gone along with Sky’s crazy plan. That’s all this was. His imagination. He was just working out the shame he felt for scaring the poor girl…and yet…those pajamas. He hadn’t remembered those crazy, pink pajamas with the ruddy cats all over them. He wondered.

Miles took a few more steps away. He thought hard and tried to shut out the sound of Tim and Sky fighting. He concentrated on those pajamas. He closed his eyes again. Nothing…then…slowly something came into view. He saw her again, still crying by the water – still in those crazy pajamas. She was pulling her hair back and forth behind her ears nervously. There was a swirl of darkness and then…a boy…a boy with a yo-yo? Now Miles knew he had
never
imagined
that
before.