Velveteen (30 page)

Velvet rapped on the door. “Are you busy?”

The woman glanced behind her, her expression mournful, as though she’d been crying.

“Are you all right?” Velvet strode across the room to get a closer look. “You look like you’ve been crying. Was it something Isadora said? Because I’d be happy to beat the—”

“Of course I’m fine. Foolish girl,” she spat, stepping down. “Why are you here? Don’t you have business to take care of? The last time I checked, that boy hadn’t been tested and you’re short one undertaker.”

Grumpy
, Velvet thought. “Yes. We’re almost ready to head out for the Salvage trials.”

“Well.” Miss Antonia sank into her desk chair and spun toward Velvet. “I suggest you get on with it. And do the
third test today, too. Time is not on your side with the revolution.”

“No,” Velvet agreed, but between her kiss with Nick and—well, just the kiss, if she were being honest—she’d nearly forgotten the nastier bits of last night. “I was just going to say—”

“I fear it’s only a matter of time before the shadows fall on us again and this whole world starts to crumble.” Miss Antonia’s jaw clenched, her face a jumble of emotions—fear, sadness.

Wow. Velvet hardly ever saw the Salvage mother look frantic or confused. Her expression brought to mind the look that had shot across the table between Miss Antonia and Manny when Velvet had brought up Aloysius Clay. There was something going on there, but the timing was definitely not right to discuss that.

God, no.

Velvet would be lucky to survive that discussion with her last few nerve endings still in her head. “I’m on it, Miss Antonia.” And as much as it pained her to add it, she said, “I’ll get Nick processed and ready for extractions and all other Salvage duties. If he doesn’t cut it as an undertaker, I can move Luisa into the position. She’s adept.”

“Fine. We’ll need to talk further after tonight’s salon. When Kipper returns with news from Vermillion.”

Miss Antonia sniffed, and Velvet backed out of the room. “Do you want me to shut the door?”

“Gah!” Miss Antonia shouted, waving her off.

Velvet backed away quickly.

In the courtyard, Nick was surrounded by a handful of Collector girls and one boy, all seemingly hanging on every one of his no-doubt brilliant words like he was the second coming of Jared Padalecki. If only she had a box cutter, Velvet could remedy this situation real quick.

“Fall in line, Mr. Russell,” she said as she swept past him, not stopping to endure a moment of his fans’ googly-eyed fascination. She darted out into the square with him trotting at her heels like a puppy.

“When we’re on team business, there’ll be no smart-ass comments, no cute quips or come-ons. You got me?”

“Yup!” he shouted.

“Do you?” She stopped and spun toward him, stepped in close, and pressed the palm of her hand against the flat of his belly. He tensed up immediately.

He shrugged. “No problem. I can be professional.”

Velvet wasn’t convinced. “Can you?”

“Absolutely. But then later …” His hand reached for hers, and she pulled away abruptly.

“No. I’m not joking around here.” She leaned in close. “You keep up with that crap, and I’ll have you transferred somewhere really gross, where all the girls look like Kipper. You got it?”

Frowning, he nodded, backed away a bit. “Yeah, I get it. Business. I’m fine with that. I’m all about the business.”

If the rejection hurt him at all, to his credit, Nick didn’t show it. Velvet couldn’t back down, though. Things were too hot in purgatory—she couldn’t risk the kind of distraction Nick posed. Purgatory could fall into civil war, for all she knew.

“That’s right. It was just something that happened. It’s over. We need to be mature about it and move on. We’ve got to work together. Dark times ahead, Nick. Pitch-black.”

His face screwed up quizzically. He was silent.

“Okay.” Velvet had suspected a snappy comeback. When it didn’t happen, she turned and stomped away. Nick chased after her, stumbling on the pavers with loud clops. About halfway to the dry fountain in the center of the square, she swiveled to look back at him.

He showed her open palms and said, “Sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick.”

“You’ve just got to let me lead,” she said. “You’ve got to.”

He nodded and followed her the rest of the way to the funicular platform in silence. Velvet forced her hands into her pockets and felt the little box from Mr. Fassbinder, just as sturdy and pristine as when he’d given it to her. Just having the paper bird, a gift from a man who’d never been anything but kind to her, somehow gave her comfort from the sadness.

Velvet and Nick sat with their hands inches apart, resting against the wooden bench seats of the railcar as it rattled and lurched up the mountain to the station. The minute Velvet was certain she’d have to break the silence, Nick cleared his throat.

“I scared you when I said ‘love,’ didn’t I?” he asked. He chewed at his nails but didn’t wait for her to answer. “I don’t love you in a romantic way. I mean, I think you’re hot and all, and I love making out with you, but that’s different. I love you because you saved me, because you make me feel less alone.”

Velvet mulled over the words. She guessed they made a sort of bizarre boy-sense, but it didn’t change the fact that he was still talking to her like they could continue any sort of physical stuff.

She bit the inside of her cheek. Maybe Nick would never get it. How horrible would it be to have to fend off his attentions and work side by side with him for weeks, or months? Years?

Finally she decided to take a cue from his tack. Hers, she thought, clearly wasn’t working.

“Yeah. I totally get what you mean. The kissing and stuff is sexy, and it takes our minds off of all the bad shit. But in the end”—she shrugged pleasantly—“I don’t really know you and you don’t really know me. So we should probably work on being friends and coworkers.”

“Oh, I know you,” he said, smiling broadly.

She gave him a sideways glance. So much for reverse psychology.

He caught on to her edginess and huffed. “Jesus. I’m flirting again, aren’t I?”

“That’s kind of your fallback position. Why don’t we just change the subject? Okay?”

The railcar jogged forward as they crossed into the station proper, and they both bounced in their seats. Their fingers touched, and neither of them moved. They just sat there like that, pinkies creating arcs of heat.

Velvet held her breath and closed her eyes. They were much better like this, she thought. Still. Not talking. It was perfect.

Finally Nick pulled away.

She decided to pretend it hadn’t happened and continued. “So, the tests!”

Nick nodded and crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits. “Maybe we could call them something else,” he said. “ ‘Tests’ sounds like something involving needles.”

Velvet thought about the second part of the test and the nursing home where Nick would have to try to possess a body. “Well, there might actually be needles,” she said, trying to remember.

“Oh, good.”

The platform came up on the left, and they scooted out onto the smooth cobblestone along with the few other passengers. There weren’t nearly as many travelers in the station as the last time she’d been there, and so they breezed quickly up to the Shattered Hall.

“The tests are actually kind of fun,” she told him as the coiled lock on the gate spiraled open. “Plus, we’ll get a chance to know each other.”

He straightened, developing a swarthy look befitting a lusty pirate in those old Sunday afternoon movies.

Velvet almost giggled. “Not like that.”

He slumped over dramatically.

Velvet laughed. She couldn’t keep up the tough love. It was just getting exhausting, and she did, despite her better judgment, like the guy. It wasn’t in her nature to develop an easy rapport with anyone, let alone a boy. And this guy actually liked her back … or at least wanted to make out, which was something.

“Or maybe …”

“What?” Nick lit up.

Velvet started to remove her pants, unbuckling her leather belt with delicate movements. She knew Nick was watching and, God help her, she wanted him to. She glanced at him and found him quietly chewing at his lips.

Velvet looked up at him and shook her head. “This isn’t a seduction, you loser. Get your clothes off. We’re going through that crack there and doing a job.”

Nick scowled and tugged his shirt from his pants.

Velvet briefed the boy to the best of her ability, gave him the same three details for the pull-focus that they always used. Yellow plastic mop buckets full of moldy rags, a Girls of Glassware calendar perpetually on the June photo depicting a busty redhead leaning over two vases, and a barely used doorknob, covered in dust.

“You need to get a move on the second we arrive at the factory,” she directed.

And he nodded.

Velvet thought she’d been very specific. Succinct, even.

So why was it that when she followed Nick through the crack, Velvet wound up collapsed directly on top of the boy, right between his legs?

“Jesus, Nick. You’ve got to keep moving.” She disentangled herself and passed through the door of the small closet where the crack had led them, and into a vast warehouse. After a moment, she huffed in the direction of the door. No Nick. She crammed her hand back through it and pulled Nick out.

“Thanks.” Nick found his footing and inspected their surroundings.

A grooved metal ceiling towered above them. The glass transoms were cranked fully open, and birds fluttered between the steel rods, chirping like a bunch of girls gossiping at a coffee shop. Row upon row of racks stretched the length of the building, and perched on each rack were crystal vases, wineglasses, and ashtrays.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s the Caruthers Family Crystal warehouse.” Velvet began to walk between the rows. “Well, one of them. This one is full of factory seconds, and they rarely move any of these pieces anywhere but into the garbage.”

“What do you mean ‘seconds’?”

Velvet crossed in front of him and drew his attention to a candlestick that looked like a column on a really old building—only glass and small, obviously. Nick leaned over and examined it closely. The carved edges sparkled in the sunlight beaming in from above. Pretty, if you liked that kind of thing, but Velvet thought it would look much better smashed into little glittery bits on the floor.

“Do you see all those little bubbles?” She pointed at the candlestick’s base, where, like a pile of frog eggs in a pond, there were dozens of little bubbles settled inside the thick glass. “That means they’re no good. They can’t sell ’em for top dollar.”

Nick nodded, his normally expressive face gone dull with boredom.

“So where’s the test?” he whined.

Velvet grinned and swept her arms toward the city-bus-sized towers of factory second crystal as though she and
Nick had just arrived in some defective fantasy wonderland. “This is it.”

“What do you mean, ‘This is it’? You want me to blow glass or something?”

“When you’re done blowing yourself,” Velvet joked.

The boy chuckled. “Funny.”

She reached out with her amorphous hand and picked up a candlestick from the metal shelf. She handed it to Nick. “Take it.”

Nick lifted his hand to circle the piece of glass. His brow scrunched with concentration. When Velvet released it, the crystal toppled from the boy’s nonexistent grasp and shattered on the concrete floor between their feet, glass shards dancing like a hard rain.

“Oh, crap!” he shouted, and instinctively crouched, as though the workers or guards would come running. “We better get out of here.”

“Not until you’ve completed the test. All you’ve proven is your lack of natural ability in poltergeisting, but you still have to learn it to get by in the daylight. It’s unacceptable to simply be able to do one job and not others. Where would you be if you got separated out there on the streets? You’d be nothing. A lost soul. Useless.”

“What do you mean ‘daylight’?”

“ ‘The daylight’ just means ‘the world of the living.’ ”

“Then, why don’t we call purgatory ‘the nighttime’ or something?”

Velvet scowled and stabbed a thumb toward the shelf. “Just shut up and try again. This time focus your energy on
the candlestick or whatever. Don’t think of anything else but moving it. Really want it.”

Velvet would have been amazed if Nick had taken to moving objects right out of the gate. It took a natural poltergeist to achieve that kind of dexterity. The thought reminded her of her problem with the knotted ropes and fishing lines circling Bonesaw’s girls. If she’d only been a natural, things would be so much easier.

If only. If only.

She brushed the thoughts aside before they infected her mind with the darkness of the situation, before the image of herself in Bonesaw’s mind became her only focus.

Nick chose a crystal ashtray from a stack of the things and stretched his hand toward it. He touched the edge of the glass and pressed straight through.

“You don’t feel anything, right?” She stepped up close to him. “It’s a matter of perspective. To you, it’s like the glass doesn’t exist, rather than the other way around. You have to focus.”

And so did she.

“Focus!” Velvet demanded.

Nick glanced in her direction, his face filled with a steely determination in the gauzy light. On his second attempt, his finger caught hold for a moment before giving way to nothingness.

“Dammit!” he shouted.

“Just concentrate,” Velvet said. “It’ll come. Imagine your hand is solid.”

This time, when the boy reached out, the ashtray’s edge
nestled into his palm. He slipped his thumb underneath and lifted it off the shelf, drawing it toward them. It scraped and hopped against the open grid in the metal. He held it out for Velvet.

“Holy crap.” She grinned proudly and gave him a great big theater clap.

Then.

The ashtray fell, slapping against the floor, bouncing once and then breaking into a million pieces, scattering across the floor like a crowd dispersing.

“Shit!” Nick yelled.