One-Eyed Jack (30 page)

“
Whatever. It’s
gone.”

“
She’ll be back,” I said.
“I didn’t hurt her.”

“
Yeah, but you drove it
off. That means you can do it again.”

“
No, it doesn’t,” I said.
“I got lucky – Lisette Babcock’s a tough kid who actually listened
to me. And we found them before Jenny had had time to really get
her hooks in. And Jenny’s getting stronger.” I reached up to touch
the bandages – one thing about getting hurt in a hospital, you get
thoroughly patched up. “Next time she might tear my head
off.”

I wished I didn’t mean that
literally.

Skees didn’t argue with that. “But you
talked Lisette out of cooperating. We couldn’t do that with
Jack.”

“
She’d had months to talk
Jack around,” I said. “Lisette, she’d only had hours. If
that.”

“
So if we find its victims
soon enough, we can talk them out of danger.”

“
Maybe,” I said. “For now.
But the ghoul’s a lot stronger than it used to be, and it may be
getting even tougher. It may not need its victims’ cooperation much
longer.”

“
Still, you can keep it at
bay for awhile, right?”

“
Maybe. If I can find
it.”

“
How’d you find it
tonight? You seemed to know which way to go – you stood there
talking to yourself for a bit, then you went straight to it. How
did you do that?”

“
I asked another ghost,” I
said.

Skees didn’t answer that right away;
he focused on his driving as we drove past the closed, dark shops
on North Limestone, heading out toward the motel.

Then he said, “There were other ghosts
there?”

“
Yes,” I said.

“
You hadn’t mentioned that
before.”

“
You hadn’t
asked.”

“
Seems
like you might have
volunteered
that little
tidbit.”

“
Why? I see these night
creatures all over the place, Detective; I told you that. There’s
nothing special about the hospital one way or the other on
that.”

“
Okay, fine. You talked to
this one, and it told you where to find Jenny?”

“
It pointed. I don’t think
it could talk.”

“
But it understood
you.”

“
Oh, sure! Lots of them
understand English, even if they don’t say anything.”

Skees was silent again, for about four
blocks.

“
Is
there any reason you can’t learn all
kinds
of useful things with these
talents of yours?” he asked at last.

“
I don’t know,” I
said.

“
Could you find Jenny
again the same way?”

“
I don’t know,” I said
again.

After that he was quiet for the rest
of the drive, but at the motel, as I was climbing out of the car,
he turned and said, “You should stick around. I’ll pay you out of
the informant fund to play ghost-hunter, and to find Jenny and shoo
her away regularly.”

“
Pay how much?” I asked; I
was always tempted by the prospect of money. Then I waved my hand.
“No, what am I thinking? I’m not staying around here, I’m going
back to Maryland.”

“
Why? You didn’t seem to
care much about your job there.”

“
It’s my home,” I said. “I
have friends and family there.”

“
You see them
often?”

“
Not often enough,” I said
warily. “Not as often as I see those night-things around the place.
That’s not the point. Maryland’s my home.”

“
This wouldn’t be
forever,” he said. “Just until Jenny gives up. Or until the money
runs out.”

“
She
may
never
give up,” I said. “She’s not human. She’s more or less a
walking obsession.”

“
Then make her walk away,
and be obsessed somewhere else.”

I shook my head. “I can’t
make her do anything. It was that little girl who chased her away.”
I hesitated, and then added, “And other kids might not
want
to chase her away,
even if they knew what she’s after. Jack took her to the hospital
because he thought there were kids there who were going to die
anyway, right? Well, some of them
are
. Some of them are in pain and
scared and might just want it to be
over
, and if they didn’t actually
see what she did to the McPhee kid, getting eaten might seem better
than dying slowly from cancer or whatever other horrible disease
they might have. In fact, I’m not sure it
isn’t
better.”

Skees was silent for a moment after
that, until we turned into the hotel parking lot.

“
It’s feeding a monster,”
he said.

“
Yeah,”
I said. “I know. But if it stays a monster that
only
eats
volunteers...”

“
It’s still a
monster.”

“
I know.”

He stopped the car, and I got out.
“Good night, Detective,” I said.

The night clerk looked up as I walked
through the lobby, and tried not to stare at the bandages on my
face. I ignored her.

When I got to my room I thought for a
moment about calling Mel again, since I knew she’d still be up,
then remembered I’d have to use the room phone – mine was still in
the rental car. “Screw it,” I said, and fell onto the
bed.

I was awakened by the phone
ringing.

I frowned, half-awake and still muzzy,
and picked up the receiver. I made a noise that didn’t resemble
“Hello” as much as I’d hoped it would.

“
Mr. Kraft?”

It was Skees. I glanced at the window
and saw daylight, plenty of daylight, so I knew he wasn’t calling
to take me ghost-hunting. “What?” I said.

“
You need to get your
phone back.”

“
What?” I said again, but
this time not sounding annoyed at being awakened so much as
baffled.

“
Your friend, Ms. de
Cheverley, tried to call you last night. Several times. When you
didn’t answer, she got worried and called me, instead.”

“
Oh,” I said. That
couldn’t have been much fun. Talking to Mel when she’s happy is bad
enough; if she’s angry or upset it’s a nightmare, almost literally.
“Sorry.”

“
I promised her you were
fine, and would call her as soon as possible. Please don’t make a
liar out of me.”

I turned over and looked at the clock
– 9:30. “I won’t,” I said. “But I can’t call her this early. She
won’t be up.”

“
I think she might,” Skees
said. “She’s on her way here. Said she would drive all
night.”

“
Oh, crap,” I said. I sat
up.

Mel likes fast cars. She could
probably make that drive a lot more quickly than Skees realized.
“Does she know where I am?”

“
Yeah, I gave her the name
of the hotel.” Before I could ask the obvious next question, he
continued, “I said you could use some sleep.”

“
Thanks.” I ran a hand
through my hair, wondering how long I had before she showed up, and
just how much chaos would follow her arrival. I hoped she hadn’t
hurt anyone on the drive from Maryland; her presence tended to make
people in nearby vehicles swerve or slam on the brakes in panic.
That was why she mostly drove late at night, when there were fewer
cars on the road and she could keep her distance.

It struck me that Skees
had actually dared to tell Mel something she probably didn’t want
to hear. The man had nerve. I mean,
I
could do that, but I was Mel’s
friend, and I’d been dealing with the curse for eight years; I had
experience. Skees didn’t.

“
I can send a man to drive
you to the hospital garage,” Skees said.

“
No, don’t bother,” I
said. My guess was that by the time I could get my phone, Mel would
be at the motel looking for me, and I didn’t want to keep her
waiting. “Thanks anyway. I’ll get there on my own.”

“
I wouldn’t put it
off.”

“
I won’t.
Thanks.”

“
You wanted to talk to
Jack Wilson today, right?”

“
If I can,
yeah.”

“
I’ll arrange it. Get your
phone back, and I’ll be in touch.”

“
Thanks.”

He broke the connection, and I hung
up.

I sat staring at the phone for a
moment, then shuddered and headed for the shower.

I managed to get showered, more or
less shaved, and dressed, and was about to head down to the lobby
when the phone rang again. I answered it, bracing myself, expecting
to hear Mel’s voice.

I didn’t. “Mr. Kraft? This is the
front desk. There’s a lady here to see you.”

I could hear who it was in the clerk’s
tone – he was obviously struggling to sound professional, and not
quite managing it. “Tell her I’ll be right down,” I said, and hung
up. No point in delaying. I grabbed my room key and headed
out.

When I stepped out of the elevator the
scene in the lobby was not as bad as I’d anticipated. The front
desk was deserted, the couches empty; the only person in sight was
Mel.

Melisandra de Cheverley
was standing in the middle of the lobby, waiting for me – and if
you’ve never met her, you have no idea how ominous that really was,
knowing she was there for
me
. The waves of dread radiating
from her were almost tangible, like bands of shadow washing across
the room.

She was wearing an ankle-length black
dress, as usual; this one had a velvet bodice, laced up
corset-fashion, and the full skirt appeared to be silk. Her
curling, waist-length brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail to
reveal glittering diamond earrings. A black leather shoulder-purse
hung below her left arm. She had gone relatively light on the
make-up, just a little blue eyeliner, and was not wearing any
jewelry beyond the earrings, one ring, and her Rolex. Her skin was
even paler than I remembered; her nocturnal habits probably had a
lot to do with that.

This was her traveling clothes, not
her full Queen of Despair regalia, but even so, it should have
looked completely out of place in the sunny hotel lobby.

It didn’t. Instead she made the
sunlight look out of place. Although I knew nothing had actually
physically changed, the lobby seemed to reshape itself around her,
going from a bland business environment to an emotional wasteland,
a concrete and plastic death chamber, with her at its center, like
a spider in her web.

Where other people with
psychic talents seemed to be somehow detached from the world around
them, Mel’s essence was soaking out of her into her surroundings,
making them part of
her
.

“
Hi,” I said.

She had been smiling when I stepped
from the elevator, but the smile vanished. “Greg! My God, what
happened to your face?” She started toward me.

I jerked back involuntarily. “It looks
worse than it is,” I said. It came out as a hoarse whisper. I had
wanted to say something about over-enthusiastic hospital personnel,
and the ravages my morning shower had inflicted on the bandages,
but the words caught in my throat.

Her hand reached out, and I backed up
against the elevator doors as she touched the bandages. “This
ghost-woman did that?”

“
Yes,” I breathed, trying
not to tremble.

“
I didn’t think they could
hurt you.”

“
Neither did
I.”

“
Greg, don’t panic.
Please.”

That was all the warning she gave me
before she threw her arms around me and hugged me.

I don’t think I’ve ever
been so scared in my life. Part of me, the rational part, knew I
was perfectly safe, standing in the lobby of a cheap hotel while a
friend embraced me, but a deeper, more visceral part
knew
that I was dying,
that death incarnate had come for me and wrapped her arms around me
to suck the life out of me, to devour my soul.

My eyes widened, my mouth opened, and
my breath stopped, but I didn’t scream or faint; I tried to hug her
back, my arms shaking as they encircled her shoulders.

“
I don’t want to lose
you,” she said, as she pressed her head against my chest. Her hair
was warm and soft and reminded me of blood and burnt flesh; the
pressure of her arms seemed about to crush me. She smelled of death
and horror; the scent of her shampoo was like embalming fluid.
“You’re all I have left,” she said.

I couldn’t answer. Even if I had been
able to breathe, I couldn’t find words.

I knew what she meant; I was the only
one who still treated her as the person she used to be instead of
the thing she had become. She had a big house, a nice car, plenty
of money, political connections, all of them acquired through what
amounted to extortion, but except for me she had no friends, only
victims. Her family wouldn’t talk to her. Her parents had disowned
her, and her sister was terrified of her – she claimed to think
that Mel was involved in organized crime.