Possession (36 page)

“I know about the throwing things part,” I replied, touching my eyelid. It stung just a little and I thought of the eyedrops I’d been neglecting. The Grey connection may have been severed but the physical damage was still there. “Repeat that phrase for me? What Julianne is saying.”

She stuttered, started, stopped, and finally got it out. “‘Throuf eeluge lew eth drag.’ Or that’s what it sounds like. She’s been screaming it and then she . . . passes out. When she wakes up, she starts again.”

I wrote the phrase down and stared at it while Julianne continued to raise a ruckus in the background.

“Oh, please . . . Julie, sweetie . . .” Lily said, turning aside from the phone for a moment. “Please calm down. I’m trying to help. . . .”

I puzzled at the words. I knew they were backward but knowing and translating aren’t instantaneous. “‘Throuf . . . fourth . . . eeluge . . . july . . . lew . . . well’ . . . no, ‘Wheel . . . eth’ . . . that’s got to be ‘the’ . . . ‘drag . . . gard’ . . . ‘guard.’” I rewrote the phrase in proper order, just to be sure . . . Guard the Wheel July Fourth. “Oh shit . . . It’s tonight.”

Julianne fell silent.

“What?” Lily asked in the sudden quiet.

A surge of fear squeezed my heart and my ears sang with the pressure. “Please, Lily. Get Wrothen to sit with her—she’s a dragon, but she’s a good nurse. She’ll take good care of Julianne and if things work out, you’ll never need her help again after tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? You want to do this tomorrow?”

“No. Tonight. Please talk to Stymak. I’ll call him, too, but he’s going to say no to me at first. I need you to persuade him. We can do it at whatever time he wants, but it has to be tonight. Please, Lily.”

She hesitated. “I—I’ll call him. Tonight. All right, I’ll call right away. Oh, dear God, I hope this works. Julianne’s so weak when she isn’t . . . doing things. I’m so scared.”

“It will work. Call Stymak. Then go to church as soon as some relief comes. I want you to go and pray as sincerely as you know how. If God is going to say anything, now will be the time. Trust me.” It certainly couldn’t hurt to have a god on
our
side, if he was taking any. Lily believed, and I knew just what the power of a believer could do. Purlis’s belief—as twisted as it was—had brought Limos here in a box. Maybe it could fight her, too. I wasn’t a Christian, but I didn’t think Lily’s god would turn a cold shoulder to her for that. Even if there was no divine intervention, it would help Lily focus and that would help me. Yes, I’m that hard—I would use someone’s religion to my own ends if I had to. I would have prayed myself, if I’d thought anyone was going to listen to me.

“I . . . I will. All right, I will. I’ll talk to Richard. I’ll be there.”

“Thank you, Lily. Thank you. I’ll see you there.”

I didn’t even know where “there” was yet, but I’d be there.

My next call was to the Sterling house, but I couldn’t get through to Olivia. I would have to go there and see if I could catch her in person.

I tried the care center Jordan Delamar was in, but the staff told me Levi hadn’t arrived yet. I’d have to make that visit in person, too. Damn it! I needed to get a lot coordinated in a very short time and people weren’t taking my calls. At least I didn’t have to worry about Papa Purlis at the moment, since he was probably still in the hospital for that leg wound and if not, I guessed that Quinton’s continued absence was so he could keep an eye on his frustrating father and make sure he didn’t come after me before he cut out for Europe and whatever he’d have already put in motion there. For a second I found myself hoping Purlis’s wound wasn’t as bad as it had looked. Then I forced my mind away from it—I couldn’t spare sympathy for my almost-father-in-law right now. I suspected that he was much like the proverbial cat that always landed on its feet one way or another. I still didn’t like him and I wished he were long gone without dragging Quinton along for the crash, but that was another thing I’d have to worry about later.

I tucked Chaos into her cage with fresh food and water—I wasn’t sure when I’d be home and I didn’t want her to breed too much of her namesake while I was gone. I checked and reloaded my gun and headed out the door.

I drove to the Sterling house first, thinking it was going to be harder to catch up to a high school kid on summer break than it would be to find Levi Westman. The neighborhood was busier than it had been before. I saw quite a few families loading ice chests and folding chairs into SUVs and minivans, and there was a surfeit of small humans dashing around on lawns and sidewalks.

As I walked up the driveway to the Sterling house with its tarped-over construction, someone in the street let off one of those annoyingly loud whistling fireworks. I turned around to find the culprit and discovered a smiling young man coming up the driveway behind me, flipping a Zippo lighter open and closed in his hand.

He was as blond as Olivia Sterling, but his face was plumper and less prematurely aged with worry. Which is not to say he wasn’t slim; he had the slender, flexible look of an athlete and the confident stride to go with it.

“Hey there,” he said as he closed with me. “You here for Olivia?”

I was startled, but played along. “Yeah. Is she in?”

“Yep. She’s probably still trying to get out from under Mom’s clucking like a hen, but she’s ready to go. When are you going to bring her back?”

“Oh. Not too late.”

“After the fireworks, though, right? I know Mom was trying to get her home earlier, but I think Ollie needs some more time out of this place, y’know? She’s stuck here all the damned time taking care of Dad. So, you’re good to go?”

“As soon as I see Olivia.”

He gave me a thumbs-up much like Olivia had the first time I’d parted from her and headed for the door. “You wait here. I’ll get her and send her out. Mom will be all over you if I don’t and you guys will never get out of here.”

I stood at the edge of the walkway to the front door, a little stunned and wound up with nerves as the young man went inside the house. In a few minutes, Olivia came trotting out with a backpack in one hand and a tote bag slung over her shoulder. She stopped short when she saw it was me and I watched the conflicting emotions storm over her—surprise, disappointment, excitement, worry. . . .

“Hey,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I know you’re expecting someone else, but I need to talk to you.”

She closed the distance to me and bit her lip as she looked up into my face. “I’m sorry—I didn’t have a chance to bring you more of Dad’s notebooks. Mom hasn’t let me out of her sight.”

“How’s your dad doing?”

“He’s . . . well, not good. Really restless. It’s been harsh and it makes my mom kind of crazy. She’s been really wound up and I swear now she’s not even eating—she looks like a skeleton. I’m worried about her. And don’t say I need to watch my own weight—I know I’m too thin. I didn’t used to be. . . .”

That was a detail I’d let slip my mind again until she mentioned it: All the patients and their caregivers were dangerously skinny. They were all starving, like Hazzard’s victims. Even the ones who ate regularly were being drained by the proximity to Limos. That situation would only worsen and spread if Limos and Hazzard were successful. “It’s not your fault, Olivia, but I think it’s one of the side effects of what’s happening to your dad. And that’s one of the reasons we need to stop it as soon as we can.”

“I’m trying. I kind of feel guilty that I’m going out. . . . My brothers, Peter and Darryl, are here, though, so they’re going to hang with her and Dad for a while. Let me, y’know, get some sun.” She lit up suddenly. “Hey! I could get one of those notebooks for you now! Peter could help me. That’s my big brother, who you met just now—he’s totally cool.”

The sudden flip in her attitude was something I’d seen before when people try to deny the horror of a situation they can’t seem to get out of. I put out my hand to stop her from turning and running back into the house. “I didn’t come about the notebooks. I figured it out. What I need is for you to come to a séance tonight. I don’t know the time and place yet, but if you can come, I think we can fix this problem. For good.”

“Tonight?” She looked stricken. “But . . . it’s the Fourth of July! I practically had to sell my soul to get out of the house. Mom’s going to freak. . . .”

I felt a stab of panic as I thought of what an excellent opportunity Independence Day offered to Hazzard and Limos, with the hundreds or even thousands of people who would be all over the waterfront to hang out at the park, eat junk food, ride the carousel on Pier 57, and watch the fireworks display over Elliott Bay. No doubt there would be a long line to get on the Great Wheel and see at least a few minutes of the display from the unobstructed height, through the Wheel’s swinging glass gondolas. I swallowed my swelling fear before it could infect Olivia and said, “Don’t tell her. Do you have a cell phone?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah.” She gave the word two syllables, somehow.

“Give me the number and I’ll call you when I have the details. It’ll be later, maybe after the fireworks. But this is important and I’m sorry it’s messing up your plans—you need to come when I say. This is the key to everything.”

She sighed, her jaw muscles bunching as she fought her fear and disappointment. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed again, settling. “All right. For my dad. But this has to work. Please say it’s going to work. . . .” Tears lined the bottom of her eyelids, swelling on the pale fringe of her lashes.

I wasn’t sure—I never am—but I lied for her. “It will. With your help.”

She bit her lip and then launched a hug-tackle at my midsection. “We’re going to save him. Thank you! You’re the best!” Then she backed off self-consciously. “Oh. I’m sorry. That was, like, really overboard, wasn’t it? Oh, God . . .”

I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “It’s just fine. You’re fine. It’ll all be good. Now—phone number?”

She was startled, then she gave a nervous laugh and dug a card out of her tote bag. It was a tiny slip of heavy, plasticized paper with her name and phone number on one side and a close-up black-and-white photo of a ragged toe shoe on the other.
I DANCE, THEREFORE I AM
was printed in white script over the shoe. She handed it to me. “There. That’s the number.”

I looked the card over with a curious frown.

“I had them made when I thought I was going to be doing a lot of auditions and stuff,” Olivia explained, blushing with a touch of embarrassment. “Kind of silly, huh?”

“No,” I said. “I’ve just never seen such a small card before—we didn’t do these in my day.”

She shrugged and looked uncomfortable. “Umm . . . well, anyway . . . It’s going to be really loud out on the pier, so you maybe better text me as early as you can, to be sure I get the message in time.”

“The pier? Are you going out to the waterfront?”

“Yeah, to the park with a couple of the girls and one of the instructors from the ballet studio. Mom wouldn’t let me go without ‘a responsible adult’ to watch us. But it’s really just Delphia’s mom and she’s cool.”

Now this was a quandary: I didn’t want to frighten her or her friends, but I also didn’t want to ignore the danger if things didn’t go as I thought they would—I didn’t know what time Hazzard and Limos would move their ghosts toward the Wheel. I bit my lip for a second and Olivia noticed my hesitation.

“Yeah? Something wrong?”

“No. But there could be a problem with the Great Wheel tonight. Were your friends planning on riding it?”

“I don’t know. Delphia’s scared of heights, but that doesn’t mean the rest wouldn’t want to go up. If the line’s not, like, horrendous. Do you know something . . . ? Is it bad?” She looked scared now.

I wanted to tell her the truth and I wanted to lie, too. I wanted her to be safe—which she might not be with or without me. “I don’t know,” I said.

She studied my face for a moment or two, then she nodded. “If they really, really want to go, I don’t think I can stop them, but I’ll get them to go early, not later, if that makes a difference.”

“It could,” I said, thinking an attack on the Wheel would be more likely later, when the crowds were thickest.

“Then that’s what we’ll do. And I’ll come whenever you tell me to—unless I need a ride. Then it might take a while.”

“I can pick you up if you’re OK with that.”

She shrugged. “Hey, I’m already going out ghostbusting, so I guess I’m pretty good with all kinds of crazy stuff. Don’t tell my mom, though. She will freak.”

I laughed a little. “Believe me, I won’t tell her.”

She glanced around me and grinned. “There’s Delphia! I’m gone! See you later!”

And she darted off before anything could change, embracing the momentary freedom, running from home as much as toward her friend. I had to swallow hard to keep on breathing normally as I watched her go. I hoped with every fiber of my being that I wasn’t lying, that it would all be OK.

I trudged back to my truck and headed for the care home where Delamar was. I hoped talking to Levi wouldn’t leave me in knots like this. I hadn’t thought that Lily would be the easy one. Even convincing Stymak to try again had to be less uncomfortable than telling half lies to Olivia Sterling.

I drove back into central Seattle and parked a few blocks from the hospital so I could walk for a while outdoors in the patchwork sunshine. The weather was typical for Seattle—neither hot nor cold, with clouds that rolled over the sun and then cleared away again after dropping a smattering of rain. It was such a common phenomenon here that the weathermen had a name for it: sun breaks. I was wearing a light jacket and didn’t mind the sun’s game of hide-and-seek; my confidence was suddenly staggering and even with time seeming to fly away from me, I felt the need to be in the normal world with all its mess and inconvenience for just a while longer before I plunged back into the darkness of the situation and faced the séance and everything that went with it. A misty drizzle came down for a minute or so, then dissipated in sudden steam as a hole broke in the cloud cover and the sun stuck a beam of light through to warm the sidewalk.