Limbo's Child (71 page)

She pointed back to the stairs where Hiero was still hiding. “What is that
thing
anyway? I can sense you and even the
bloodsuckers
over there,” by which she meant Miles and Sky, “But I get nothing from
it
. It’s like it’s not there at all. What is it? Some sort of Frankenstein’s monster stitched together from a duck and a pig and some left over plumbing supplies?” She wrinkled her nose at it in disgust.

As she said this, the little imp ducked even further under the stairs as if it was afraid of her. Nephys laughed a little. She really
was
Maggie’s daughter.

“Hiero?” Nephys said, a little surprised, “Oh, he’s not a dead thing. You have to be living at some point to die, and he was never really alive, not in the proper sense.”

“Then what is he?” Lucy asked.

“He’s an imp.”

She looked at him skeptically. “An
imp
?”

“Um…yes…An imp is a soulless gestalt, a psychic manifestation of the collective fears…” Nephys began, but from Lucy’s raised eyebrows he could tell he was offering too much detail. “Um…it’s a bagpipe.” He finished hastily.

“A bagpipe?” she said, incredulous.

“Um…yeah…whatever you fear or hate the most in this life, those fears come to life and become imps who torment your soul in the life to come.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“So if I’m terrified of Twinkies, a giant monster Twinkie is just going to pop out of nowhere and chase me around the afterlife for all eternity?” Lucy chuckled a little.

Nephys didn’t know what a Twinkie was, but he decided he didn’t need to. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Lucy snorted and shook her head. She regarded the bagpipe as if it were an affront to all nature and decency, which, Nephys had to remind himself, it probably was.

“So that thing was created by someone who really hated bagpipes?” Lucy continued.

“Either that or someone who really loved bagpipes.”

“Someone who
loved
bagpipes?! How is a bagpipe a torture to someone who loved bagpipes?” Lucy asked, disbelieving.

Just then Hiero let out a long series of the most discordant and abominable notes Nephys had ever heard him give, as if affronted that someone could doubt his ability to torment souls.       “HOOOONparNAFFFA-spppfttt-BLAAAAARNT!!!”

Each note whistled or sputtered like a demonic firework and split the eardrum like an ice pick on the end of a jackhammer. Everyone turned and clamped their hands over their ears, even the vampires.

“Oh. That’s how,” Lucy said simply, unscrewing her face and unclenching her hands from the sides of her head. “Well, that thing better stay out of my mother’s garden, or I swear....” She folded her arms across her chest again. Nephys had to hide a smile. She looked so much like her mother when she did that. Her hair was lighter, her face rounder, her eyes bright green instead of brown, but she had all the same mannerisms and stubbornness.

“Why was it after me and Yo-yo anyway?” she asked suddenly.

“Hmm?” Nephys realized he was looking at her rather than listening.

“Yo-yo. The boy that that
witch
ran off with. What did the thing want with him and me?”

“Oh.” Nephys thought for a moment of how to say this sensitively. “It’s kind of like a vampire, but instead of blood, it feeds off of human misery, pain, anger, frustration, that sort of thing.”

Lucy’s expression didn’t even change, she just sighed again. This answer didn’t seem to surprise her at all.

“That’s why it’s best not to encourage it by being angry or miserable,” Nephys added helpfully.

“I see,” she said quietly.

“The best thing to do is to not let it boss you around. Your mother is really good at that. She’s the only one I’ve ever known that the thing will take orders from, frankly.”

Nephys went rigid. He hadn’t meant to just blurt it out like that. It had just happened.

“What did you say?” Lucy’s voice was soft and hoarse like a whisper from a tomb.

He turned to look at her. Her face was deathly white and her eyes hung in her sockets as if they were about to fall out. He froze, not knowing what to say next.

“
What
did you say?” came her desperate voice again.

There was no avoiding it now, no gentle way to take it back. He just had to press forward.

“I…I know your mother. We…we met in the underworld,” Nephys stammered nervously.

Lucy eyes were locked tight in an expression of shock, but already they were beginning to fill with tears.

“She…she found out I was going back.”

Lucy pulled her hair back from her forehead and her eyes finally managed to break the locked expression and darted about frantically while her lower lip trembled.

“She wanted to let you know that she was alright.”

“But…but…” Lucy put her hands to her mouth as if to force down the large, gulping sobs. Her whole body began convulsing. She was hyperventilating and bent over to keep herself from passing out. Nephys thought she was going to fall down.

He reached out, grabbed her arm and held her up. “It’s all right, she’s okay!” he tried to sound reassuring. “She was lost in the marsh of lost souls….” Lucy looked directly at him with those large, green eyes in a state of panic and he instantly knew he had said the wrong thing. “But it’s ok!” he immediately said, trying to correct his mistake. “She’s okay because we found her, Hiero and me.” Nephys nodded in Hiero’s direction and Lucy’s eyes followed to where the imp was cowering under the porch stairs. Even now he was peeking out, looking at her in an almost sympathetic glare, or as close to one as the vile little imp could muster. She was breathing heavily and shaking her head in disbelief as if boggled by the idea that the pig-duck thing could ever have anything to do with her mother.

“That…
thing
…saved…my…mother?” She was desperately trying to calm down while talking between sobs.

“Um…yes,” he said noncommittally. Nephys decided to leave off the part about the car coming to life and the twenty minutes of screaming, let alone Hiero’s motivations which had more to do with boredom than altruism. The important thing was that she knew her mother was okay. “She’s okay, and she wanted
you
to know she’s okay,” Nephys managed to get out. Lucy kept sobbing, but she placed her hand on her chest and forced herself to take in deep, slow breaths. Finally somehow, Lucy got control of herself, stood upright and calmed down to the point where she was not openly sobbing, though she was still tearing up pretty badly.

“She’s in the underworld?” she said, sounding disappointed. Everyone sounded like that.

Nephys nodded yes.

“But…she’s…she’s okay?” she said hesitantly, but somewhat hopefully.

Nephys let go of her arm, reached into his robes and pulled out the tiny scroll of papyrus. Lucy looked at in amazement, clutching her hands near her chest.

“It’s…It’s not really allowed, but…she sent you a note. She wanted you to have this.” Nephys held out his hand with the note held loosely between his fingers. She looked at it frantically and Nephys thought she was going to start sobbing again for a moment, but she remained composed. She reached out gingerly for the note before she withdrew her hand when it was less than halfway there. She clutched her hand back to her chest, looked around nervously and danced on her toes for a minute uncertainly. Then calming herself, she reached forward again, this time more slowly and carefully pulled the note from Nephys’ hand. Her warm fingers, wet from wiping her tears, grazed his as she pulled it free. Once it was out of his hand, she quickly pressed it to her bosom and held it there, as if afraid it would disappear if she didn’t hold it tight enough.

She turned to look away before quickly turning back.

“Thank you,” she said simply. Then she turned and walked a few steps further on, looking back over her shoulder once or twice as she went. He could see as she walked away that she unrolled the tiny scroll, holding the note close to her face to see it in the dark, her eyes darting back and forth at a furious pace to read her mother’s last words to her from beyond the grave.

Nephys thought it best to go. It was a very private moment after all. He turned and walked back to the truck. As he walked, he thought about all the dead souls that would desperately want to say something to their loved ones left behind and what they would say if they could send just one message back. He thought about all the unspoken “I love you’s,” all the harsh words they would take back, all the unspoken advice or counsel, and it made him happy to think that at least one person, one mother, got to say something to the living after all, and that one lonely and grief-stricken girl got to hear her mother’s last words. Nephys smiled and thought of the peace and resolution this one small act of his would bring, but before he could feel too satisfied with himself, or even walk a third step, Lucy’s hand clamped down tight on his shoulder like a vice and spun him back around.

“
What
does this mean?!” she said in a tense, hoarse whisper. She was shaking the note in his face. She didn’t look calm or happy or even sad. She looked angry and upset. Whatever impact Nephys thought Maggie’s note would have on her daughter it wasn’t this!

“
WHAT. Does. This. Mean?!”
she whispered even more forcefully, this time shoving the note unexpectedly into his hand. Nephys looked down at the crumpled note and then back at Lucy’s face. The tears were gone and she was breathing hard through her nostrils, her eyes blazing. She wanted him to read it! Stunned, Nephys didn’t know what else to do. He had wanted to respect the sanctity of a mother’s last words, but after looking at Lucy’s eyes he didn’t dare refuse.

He carefully unfolded the note in his hand and looked at it. It was written in simple and hastily written block letters, rather atypical for a woman’s hand. And it was just four words long.

It read: “DON’T BRING ME BACK.”

Before Nephys could even think of what this could possibly mean, he heard Moríro’s boots crunch on the gravel driveway in front of him. Lucy snatched the note away and shoved it into her bathrobe pocket. Nephys looked up at Moríro’s tall and imposing frame.

“You two in the truck with me,” he said curtly, “The rest of you in the car. We are going to Rivenden.
All
of us.”

Chapter Thirty-Three
The Father of All Vampires

No one said a word the whole trip back to this mysterious Rivenden they were going to. All Lucy knew about it was that it was a den of vampires somewhere in Philadelphia and that it was currently under the rather recent management of a vampire named Hokharty that was apparently the Father of All Vampires, and Moríro was rather upset with him.

It was hard to concentrate on where they were going however, because there were no seatbelts in the old truck and Moríro drove like a maniac. All three of them, Moríro, herself, and the strange boy, Nephys, were crowded in the front bench seat with Lucy sliding around in the middle with nothing to hold on to. Lucy was alternately squished up against Moríro or Nephys on every hard turn, but she wasn’t getting the worst of it. The imp was crashing around the bed of the truck in back like a frog in a paint mixer, hooting and gnashing at every jolt. Nephys hardly opened his eyes whole time and clung white-knuckled to the seat and door as best he could. She felt sorry for him. He obviously hadn’t driven in a car much before. During the rare straightaways when she didn’t feel like she was inside a pinball machine, Lucy took a moment to try and think. She would reach into her pocket and close her hand around the crinkly note. It was still there and it was real.

She had recognized the handwriting instantly. It was the blocky writing her mom used for quick, urgent notes. She used it when she didn’t have time to write in her usual prim hand, or when she really wanted to make a point, like “DON’T EAT THE CHEESECAKE IN THE FRIDGE. It’s for Sunday.” Or “DON’T LEAVE YOUR SOCKS IN THE LIVING ROOM.” Or “DON’T FORGET TO DO YOUR MATH HOMEWORK.” Lucy had seen that “DON’T” a thousand times, but never attached to the words, “BRING ME BACK.” It was those last three words that occupied her thoughts now. She ran them over and over in her mind and tried to fit them up against the many other words she had heard that night. Like blank puzzle pieces with no pictures, she just had to try them and see where they fit.

“Right the wrongs,” Amanda had said. She had even said that they could “Save them” before Moríro had cut her off, but what wrongs could be righted and who could be saved? Lucy looked up at Moríro who was intently focused on the road. Moríro didn’t look back, but Lucy remembered vividly how he couldn’t, how he
wouldn’t
deny Amanda’s accusation. How even if her own mother were dying in front of him, he would do nothing,
nothing
to stop it. Lucy was beginning to get a sense of what wrongs Amanda was talking about.

“We have your mom’s body,” Tim had said. Her mother’s body was there, in Rivenden, where Lucy was currently racing towards at reckless speed in an old pickup. “We have powers,” Amanda had said. Powers over the dead…and the living? “BRING ME BACK.” The thought, the mere possibility of those three words! “Bring her back as what?” Lucy thought. “A rotting zombie like the ones that had attacked her? Or maybe as a vampire with a heart full of darkness? She didn’t much like either idea, but then she looked at Nephys. He was there, he looked
living
enough. Minus the shaved head and weird get-up, he looked almost
normal
. He even had a heartbeat. He wasn’t like those bloodsuckers following them in the other car. He had come back as something other than a monster, hadn’t he? Why not someone else? Why not her mother?

The very idea that she could somehow bring her mother back would have been enough to send Lucy’s soul into euphoric elation had it not been for the single word prefacing that thought.   “DON’T.”

Her mother didn’t use “DON’T” casually. “DON’T forget to take out the trash.” “DON’T mix the whites with the coloreds.” “DON’T drink from the carton.” “DON’T talk about your father that way.” Or “DON’T talk back to your mother, young lady. “DON’T” was the word she used when she was serious, and she was only serious when she was very mad, but right then Lucy didn’t care. She would give anything to have her mother living now. She would have happily endured a lifetime of her mother screaming and yelling at her if it meant she could just have her mother back. But no matter how much she wanted her mother back Lucy’s thoughts just kept coming back to that “DON’T.”

The chaotic ride didn’t leave her much time to think. Soon they had left the more open spaces of the sprawling suburbs and once they crossed the Schuylkill River, they were barreling down the cramped streets of Philadelphia with its brick rowhomes. Lucy had been to Philly a time or two with her mom on day trips to the Reading Terminal Market, Chinatown, and Independence Square, but she didn’t recognize any of the streets here. She figured they were somewhere north of the city in the rundown neighborhoods where few tourists ever went. It was nearly two in the morning, and the streets were empty, just rows and rows of nearly identical and dilapidated rowhomes, half of which were abandoned or burned out. After careening around a tight corner, she looked back to see if the boys were still following. A few seconds later, the cream-colored, battered 1970’s sedan would squeal around the corner, desperately trying to keep up with Moríro’s reckless driving.

Eventually, the monotonous and rundown houses gave way to a massive wall – tall, thick and made of the stone common to the area, a grey schist that had sparkling bits of mica in it. The wall looked very old and behind it was another wall of thick and heavy vegetation – overgrown trees covered in vines. It was so thick it shut out all view of the interior. The wall went on for a quarter mile or more before it turned a corner and ran for another four blocks down another narrow street. It took up four whole city blocks. It was a whole forest right in the middle of the city, and it would have made Lucy smile in wonder if she didn’t instinctively dread the place. At once, she knew this must be Rivenden.

Finally, mercifully, Moríro began to slow down, but only because he was intently looking at the wall for a way in, but it seemed impenetrable. Eventually, after following the wall around three corners and several city blocks, he stopped opposite a massive dumpster bigger than a dump truck that had been parked on the side of the road, and pushed right up against the stone wall.

Moríro pulled the car up beside it and stopped.

“Que es Nuevo,” he muttered to himself.

Nephys leaned over and said, “He says this is new.” Lucy rolled her eyes. She had gathered that much, but it was nice to know Nephys could probably translate more if necessary.

“Stay here,” Moríro said curtly. He put the truck in park but left the engine running. He stepped out, walked a few steps towards the dumpster and stopped. He paused, then called out something in another language. Lucy thought it was German.

“He’s calling for someone named gravedigger!” Nephys whispered hoarsely. That alarmed Lucy even more.

There was silence for a moment, and then the giant dumpster, big enough to put several whole cars in began to slide away with a grating sound. Slowly it rolled away to reveal a large gap in the wall, wide enough for a car to drive through. The gap was rough and broken around the edges, as if this section of the stone wall had recently been demolished to make way for an entrance. There, on the other side of the wall pushing the dumpster out of the way, was a broad, thick figure in a black sweatshirt wearing a motorcycle helmet with a full-face mask. The single figure pushed the gigantic dumpster out of the way effortlessly, all by itself, then stepped aside as if waiting for them.

Moríro got back in the truck and slowly drove it through the gap into the dense green woods beyond. As they passed, the faceless figure stared back at Lucy from behind the black faceplate of the motorcycle helmet. Lucy didn’t know why, but that faceless figure seemed ominously familiar. She scrunched down as far as she could in the seat, but she kept her eyes locked on him, and he returned the gaze to watch her pass.

“Flubbit!” the imp in the back sputtered as it passed the large, looming figure.

The Impala drove in behind them, and as soon it was clear of the wall, the faceless, giant figure began pulling the makeshift gate that was the dumpster back into place concealing and blocking the only entrance inside. Moríro pulled forward a few dozen yards into the clearing. The boys pulled up beside him and everyone got out and turned to look at the large gatekeeper in the motorcycle helmet.

“Hey, Graber, nice work on the door,” Schuyler said to the large figure in a mocking tone. “Looks like the helmet is working out great too.”

The large man stepped a few paces forward, paused and then slowly removed the helmet. Lucy gasped at what she saw and hid behind Moríro. Nephys gasped too and hid behind her. But no one else seemed to be surprised at all.

The man only had the stub of his nose and a mouth, but everything just above the nostrils was gone. The whole top of his head was missing and Lucy could even see the wormy wrinkles of his severed brain.

“The Herald!” Nephys muttered to himself, but he quickly slapped his hand over his mouth to silence himself, as if this sudden revelation were too private to share. The large man walked towards Moríro and bowed deeply before him, but his truncated face never turned away from Lucy even once, as if he was looking at her with invisible nonexistent eyes. Lucy pulled the tail of Moríro’s coat over her face. Moríro rolled his eyes at her, pulled the coat away, looked up and just “hmmphed” at the massive figure they were calling Graber.

“Can’t you keep out of trouble for even a day?” he asked of the lumbering brute with the air of a disgruntled parent. Graber only chortled a dark laugh, slowly stood up and brushed by the others roughly, showing them none of the deference he had shown to Moríro, leading them deeper into the woods through a narrow path largely overgrown with bushes.

Moríro followed with Lucy behind him. Nephys, who came next, was clinging tightly to her, and the imp came tumbling out of the pickup truck after him, hooting disconsolately. The boys came next, but Tim caught up behind Lucy and whispered to her, “Trust me, he wasn’t any less scary even before he had his head chopped off.” Lucy looked back at him and pulled a face. Was that supposed to be comforting?!

They walked on, mostly in single file. The floor of the woods was covered with a dense layer of leaves that swallowed the sound of every footstep. Looking up, the thick canopy shut out most of the thin moonlight and all of the city surrounding them. It was very dark and nearly silent. It was hard to believe they were in the middle of Philly and not in the woods somewhere, miles away, but then Lucy listened very carefully. The woods near home were full of sounds, warm comforting sounds – cicadas and crickets and frogs. Every once in a while, the darkness would be punctuated by the occasional firefly – wonderful,
magical
fireflies. Here in these four, square blocks of trees though, there was nothing – no light or sound to alleviate the presence of dread. It wasn’t just the thick vegetation that made this place feel miles apart from the city or everything else. This place was old and dead and somehow just plain wrong in every way.

A few steps on, and the dreadful silence was broken by something ahead of them on the path, coming their way very fast. It sounded like something rustling through the brush and under the leaves. Eventually, Lucy saw it – a small lump, burrowing under the leaves like an animal coming towards them, fast. Everyone stopped and took a step back, except Graber and Moríro. The bump was hurtling towards them, zigging back and forth across the path as if agitated. Finally, the thing burrowed right up to Moríro’s feet and burst out of the leaves with a chirping “Kwawk!” and an overpowering chemical odor.

“Whoa!” Schuyler jumped back and Tim recoiled.

“Sweet Brigid!” Miles intoned genuinely repulsed.

“That is one
freaky
thing,” Sky said.

“DIDN’T I TELL YOU?!” came Tim’s exasperated reply.

Lucy pulled her bathrobe sleeve up to cover her nose and mouth and desperately tried to avoid retching at what she was looking at. It was vaguely shaped like an infant, but it seemed to have two bodies emerging from one neck, on top of which was a horribly deformed head. It had one overly-broad face with a cleft palette and several nub-like teeth set in soft pink gums, the ears were also large and set back too far. It looked like a mutant infant was in the middle of dividing into two infants and never quite finished. Lucy wasn’t sure how it managed to coordinate all those limbs on two bodies, but somehow it did and pranced around like an excited puppy. It was grotesque and only spoke in guttural grunts, chirps and squeaks. The smell was appalling, like something between a subway public restroom and an over-chlorinated pool.

“Mütter,” Moríro spoke under his breath, shaking his head in disapproval. Before another word could be spoken, Hiero plodded right over to the thing and honked.

“FAAARNT!”

“Qwarpf!” it replied merrily.

They exchanged pleasantries of a sort – clicks, honks and chirps – and then circled each other like two dogs meeting for the first time in a park. It was as if each had a special affinity for a fellow abomination.

“Basta!” Moríro finally interrupted them, pushing Hiero away with his foot. Hiero tooted indignantly before schlepping off behind Nephys.

“Kvak?!” the mutant infant cocked its head querulously.

“Hokharty,” Moríro demanded.

“Bvik-kak!” it said as if affronted.

“Now,” Moríro replied coolly.

“Vek-vek,” the thing dived back under the leaves and began burrowing its way down the path.

“It will announce our presence,” Moríro said, taking the lead once more.