Velveteen (12 page)

She didn’t have to worry about any of that anyway. The guy was only along for the ride until they got him through to purgatory. After that, she didn’t care what happened to him. Didn’t have the time to care. Or the energy.

But he was pretty freaked out, and Velvet wasn’t completely heartless. She supposed there was a tiny ghost of the organ still beating inside her, shrunken and dark and cold, a last line of defense against the encroaching apathy.

Still.

She squatted beside him and rested her hand on his shoulder—Manny always stressed the importance of empathy, real or feigned, in guiding new souls out of dangerous situations. It made them placid, like sheep or something.

But the boy didn’t react. Zero eye contact. He rocked in place, and there was a low murmur that she could barely detect except when she saw that his lips were moving.

Velvet gave the boy a quick slap on the cheek.

Empathy only went so far … and they were, after all, on a timeline.

Startled, he fell back on his butt and glared at her, panting. Confusion clouded his eyes. “The girl said I’m a ghost, like her,” he whispered. “She’s crazy, right? Tell me I’m right.”

Velvet glanced back at Luisa. “The girl” had wrapped her
end of the chain around her wrist and was grinning, tugging at the bear trap ferociously. With each pull, the banshee’s wail changed pitch a little, until Velvet could make out just the hint of a song in its cry.

Was that?

Yes
.

“London Bridge.”

Velvet returned her attentions to the boy. She nodded. “Most definitely. Luisa’s clearly insane. Nothing to worry about.”

His shoulders sagged a bit at that, and she thought she heard a gentle sigh escape him. Her gaze lingered on his mouth, on the gentle bow of his lips, parted and perfect. She had the odd urge to kiss them, and recoiled immediately.

What the hell was wrong with her?

Her job was to protect. To deliver.

To extract.

And certainly not to terrorize this kid with the crinkled lips of her old lady suit.

“Listen,” she said, probably a bit too harshly. “Get up and follow me. Those crazy kids over there are going to be doing something you don’t want to see.”

His eyes grew large, and he shot a glance at the struggling banshee, the ghostly twins, and the corpse rotting in the corner. “But, what’s—”

“No questions.” Velvet noticed Quentin’s skin was already starting to pock and vibrate. Beneath the banshee’s scream, an almost undetectable hum filled the room. “We’ve got to move!”

The boy scuttled to his feet, and Velvet motioned for him to fall in behind her. When he lingered, she snapped her fingers in front of his face and screamed, “Now!”

She herded him past Luisa and into the entry hall, turning to catch the girl’s attention. “Get out as soon as Quentin makes the transformation. Don’t risk it. You know how that could end up.”

Luisa quivered.

Once outside, the boy seemed to calm down a little, though he was intently focused on her—apparently it was easier to connect with an old nurse than the ghost of a twelve-year-old girl in a Catholic-school uniform. Velvet could see how that would be a little weird. Souls don’t even know they’re dead when they come out of the cells, let alone know to identify a kinship with other spirits immediately. That’d be too easy.

She figured she’d better take advantage of his temporary serenity, before things got crazy. “What’s your name, new guy?”

“Na-Nick,” he stuttered meekly. “Nick Atherton Russell.”

Velvet narrowed her eyes. “What’s that, one of those hyphenated names? The kind rich people have?”

He shook his head, the hint of a smile at play on those amazing lips. “No. Far from it. My mom’s a cocktail waitress in SoHo.”

“Was,” Velvet mumbled, correcting him as she glanced toward the curtains in the front window of Madame Despot’s shop. The thick fabric had opened a crack during the struggle, and deep against the far wall, beyond the horrific
mutation of a spirit, Quentin’s corpse had nearly doubled in size. The surface of its flesh bubbled and throbbed with such intensity that, from where they stood, Quentin’s zombie began to look like a smear on the windowpane.

“What’d you say?” the boy asked, stepping between her and the window.

Velvet shrugged, absently peering over his shoulder. “Well, technically, I guess you’re right. I’m incorrect. Your mom could very well
still
be a cocktail waitress. The ‘was’ applies to you, mostly.”

“Okay. Now you’re talking like that nut-job kid in there.”

She ignored the boy. Luisa and Logan stretched the banshee sideways, both pulling like quarter horses. Luisa was almost to the window, the petite oval of her face twisted with effort, ready to drop the chain and slip through the wall as soon as the undertaking was complete.

And from the looks of things, it wouldn’t be long.

Quentin was about to pop.

“Now, you’re going to hear something a little weird, Nick,” she said. “That’s your name, right?”

He nodded.

“Like I said, it’s gonna get weird.”

“So just now? Like in a minute?” The sarcasm dripped from his words. “ ’Cause all that stuff from before? Perfectly normal.”

Velvet glanced back at the boy. She was certain he thought he was being cute, and that may have been true, but the truth was, he was her responsibility only until they crossed into purgatory. “Yep. Whatever you do, don’t turn around.”

“Why not?” he asked, and turned toward the crack in the drapes.

She reached out and grabbed his cheek, turning him to face her. “Because it might freak you out. And I’m not really in the mood to chase you down the streets of Philadelphia in the middle of the night. It’s been a really taxing day already.”

“Oh!
You’ve
had a bad day!” Nick shouted. He threw up his hands and started to pace back and forth in front of the window, gesturing wildly. “I’m sorry, lady. Did you just recently wake up in the middle of a horror movie and realize you were the ghost?”

Nick’s outburst couldn’t have come at a better time. The low hum from before had turned into an angry buzzing, so loud that it began to drown out the piercing scream from inside. Velvet watched as the body in the chair exploded into a swarm of flies.

“So you realize it, then?” she asked, keeping the distraction going. “That’ll make things a ton easier.”

“Is that supposed to be a joke?” Nick asked incredulously.

But Velvet didn’t need to answer. Luisa darted through to the sidewalk a second before the flies rained sideways against the window, tapping and fluttering and getting stuck between the curtain and the glass. Nick turned to see where the girl had come from and recoiled at the sight of the flies. He stumbled back into the street at the very second a car sped by, zipping quite unaffected through his ghost.

“Really?” he shouted after the speeding car, and then louder, “Really?”

Velvet peered back into the shop.

Flies swarmed about the raucously undulating spirit, carpeting its gray flesh in a teeming, chomping mass. The banshee let out a final scream, clogged quickly to silence as the black army of insects marched past its lips, stuffing phantom entrails. The occasional disfigured limb sprang from the throng, dense with spasms and pain, and was bitten free and dropped to the floor.

While the new guy continued to make an ass out of himself ranting and raving about reckless driving, Velvet walked quietly back to the shop door and opened it. She stood back and felt an infinitesimal pressure on her arm as Luisa slipped her hand through the crook of Velvet’s elbow, huddling up.

“Do you suppose we should warn him?” the girl asked.

Velvet glanced in the direction of Nick; the boy was pacing, shouting, making fists, and throwing pretend punches. From the look of Logan, who’d made a stealthy appearance, he was egging the ridiculous boy on. Free from the rotting corpse he was engineering, Quentin merely leaned against the wall, squinting with his chin trapped in the cage of his thumb and index finger.

Waiting.

“Nah,” Velvet grunted. “Why bother? He’s busy distracting himself from the inevitable.”

Luisa nodded.

With a whoosh, a solid entity of flies punched from Madame Despot’s vestibule like a fist, black and howling. Victorious. The doorframe creaked and splintered from the weight and bulk of their exodus, showering the sidewalk
with toothpick shards of wood and sheared-off nailheads. The swarm slammed into the window of the building across the street, a rubber stamp store called Inkies, before banking upward into the sky. The force of the impact left the glass as pocked as a road trip windshield.

Nick, staggered to a stunned silence, wandered back over to Velvet, scuffing the gravelly concrete like a child as his gaze followed the insects’ dramatic exit.

“That was …,” he began, mouth hanging open. Still staring.

“Awesome?” Logan offered.

“Skillful. And/or brilliant?” Quentin shined his fist against his chest.

Luisa clucked her tongue and began to wander off toward the stamp shop.

Nick shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Wait. What was that?” he shouted. “What the hell was all that?”

“Oh, Christ,” Velvet said. “You act like you’ve never seen flies dispatch a ghost before.”

She peeked back into the shop and, hearing the stirrings of Madame Despot’s recovery—mostly grunts and gurgles and moans—shut the door as quietly as she could into its buckled, broken frame.

V
elvet took in the street with a dull interest. It was even more abandoned than when they’d crossed over, deader than a skinhead at a 50 Cent show. No cabs in sight, no bums snoring off cheap wine, and thankfully no more banshees swiping souls.

It was a good night in that respect.

Nick trudged along behind her, nearly clipping her heels, yammering and looking unreasonably hot, which should have been much more annoying. But Velvet was tired and more than a little high from the beating they’d delivered to the villain du jour to worry about the hint of attraction creeping through her brain.

“Wow,” he said, his tone far less broody and angst-filled than a newly dead kid had any right to be. “That was mad crazy.”

“Right?” Luisa nodded, grinning.

“That, son,” Quentin bragged, slapping the new guy on the back, “is what separates the undertakers from the regular run-of-the-mill body thieves.” He winked at Velvet.

“Yeah, yeah,” Velvet turned and strode off ahead of the group.

“Mad crazy,” Nick mumbled again. “Where we headed?”

“Home, I guess,” Velvet said. “After a while.”

“Home?” Nick seemed to think about that. “Like the place you’re all haunting or something?”

Velvet stopped dead and spun on him. “Don’t you ever say that!” She pressed her hand to the very edge of the borrowed body’s skin. The nurse’s hand would pass right through Nick, but hers wouldn’t. She gave him a forceful shove, and he toppled over onto his ass, astonished.

“I wouldn’t do something like that ever,” she continued. The lie fell so easily off her tongue, it surprised her, but she had to make her point. “None of us would. That’s station rule. No haunting ever.”

“Well, what were you just doing in there?” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the shop. “That in there with Madame Despot?”

“That!”
She got up in his face. “
That
was our assignment.
That
was an operation.
That
 … was us saving your lousy butt.” She pivoted and stomped off.

She heard a defeated sigh, but before long the boy was scrambling up behind her again.

“Hey. How could I know?”

Velvet shot him a cruel glowering stare, before realizing
he was absolutely right. She hated to admit it, but she was being a bitch again … unintentionally. She must have been tired. Exhausted, even.

“I mean, I’m sorry,” he said finally, those sad eyes doing the puppy dog thing.

She slowed down, her face softening a bit. “Fine. You’re new. It’s okay. It can’t have been easy being trapped in that crystal ball for however long you’ve been in there. I’m the one who should be sorry for yelling at you.” She gave him a reassuring smile and patted him on the shoulder … or right about where his shoulder would have been had he not been see-through, you understand.

“So why …,” he began another question.

Maybe the guy just had a naturally curious personality—those could keep a person talking long after they’d found out something really horrible—or maybe he just liked to hear himself speak. There were certainly plenty of boys who wouldn’t shut up, despite being told directly to do so. The boy’s eyes were still saucers, wild and darting from one image to the next and then back to the nurse’s face as though she were the only real thing. Shock. Had to be.

Whatever. It was getting on her nerves.

“No more questions,” she snapped.

The clinic loomed ahead of them, two stories of stark white brick, with windows as glassy-eyed as her fifty-seventh soul extraction. An ambulance idled on the curb, its back doors open and its tailpipe blowing smoke rings that clung to the chilly air like fat sticky doughnuts. A young woman in scrubs hugged herself, outside the swinging doors, rubbing
heat into her arms and peering out into the silent night. As they approached, she squinted.

“Is that you, Antoinette?” the girl ventured.

“Sure is, hon!” Velvet waved at the girl and spun back toward Nick to hiss, “Stay put.”

She jogged the short distance, clogs clopping on the concrete, and snatched the nurse’s pack of cigarettes from her uniform’s front pocket. Velvet shook a cigarette up through the opening and fished it out with her lips. Then she lit it and inhaled deeply. Despite never having picked up a cigarette while she was alive—the very thought of it had grossed her out—when it was someone else’s lungs, and in particular someone who smoked, Velvet couldn’t resist taking a drag. She supposed it was like eating. Souls were deprived of that, too.

She tilted her head back and exhaled.

“You don’t have time for a smoke, Toni!” An accusation worked its way into the girl’s expression. “Delores …” The girl’s eyes skittered toward the crack between the doors as though an ogre were about to burst through and devour them at any moment. “Delores is pissed. Seriously. She’s about to crap crepe-soled shoes or something. I’d get back in there if I were you. And I’d have a good excuse when I did.”