Velveteen (38 page)

“Look at that.” She pointed to the plastic spoon floating in the bowl’s center. “It’s still hot. Whatever happened was recent.”

Velvet shot a glance over at the twins. “You two, do the rounds. Check the kitchen, the storeroom, see if there’s a parking lot out back. Check inside the cabinets, even!”

Logan and Luisa padded across the room, their ghostly forms passing through tables, chairs, the counter, the back wall, and into, presumably, the kitchen.

“What about me?” Nick asked. “I don’t smell a morgue around here. No graveyard. Do you? Don’t I need a corpse or something?”

“I don’t know,” Velvet said, shaking her head. “It could be that you’ll have to snatch up someone living. We don’t have the time to search out dead bodies.”

Nick flinched.

Velvet wanted to sock herself for being insensitive. The last time Nick had possessed a living person hadn’t ended so well, depending on how you looked at the situation.

“You guys!” Logan popped into the pass-through from the kitchen. His blue mask seemed pale, as though the costume itself sensed his disquiet. “You’re probably not going to need to go outside to find a body.”

They scrambled toward the boy and into the kitchen space.

On the floor, amid fallen pots of broth, piles of sticky noodles, and unknown brown sauces, lay the corpses of the diners, their arms and legs akimbo, their bodies twisted and contorted, their eyes staring into some unknown vista.

“What happened to them?” Luisa knelt beside a blond woman, her pregnant belly protruding into the air. The girl straightened the woman’s shirt around the mound. A trail of foam trickled down the woman’s cheek from her open mouth.

“Poisoned?” Nick asked.

Luisa shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Velvet crouched down over an obese man with salt-and-pepper hair and a nose like a pale dill pickle. She pressed her ear close to his chest and listened.

“This one’s heart is still beating.”

“Maybe I should jump in?” Nick surmised. “See what’s happening behind those eyelids.”

Velvet sat up into a squat. It was just three bodies, but that would mean purgatory was still in for a whole lot of shadowquaking. Nick’s had been a single death—one imprisoned soul was bad enough—and that quake had been nearly disastrous. Velvet glanced around her and didn’t sense the presence of new souls, so none of the victims’ ghosts were hanging around waiting for the light.

They must have been taken
, she thought.

And there were no possessed dead or living bodies lurching toward them to pin this disruption on, either. Velvet had certainly expected to run into another possession, possibly even another banshee.

Or worse. A group of them, given the severity of the shadowquake.

Were they too late?

“What about behind the store?” Velvet asked the twins. “Did you look back there? I’m not sensing any spirits here. And I’m certain that’s what we’re dealing with. This is no wayward medium or some retarded psychic overstepping his bounds. This is something far more nefarious.”

“For sure,” Luisa agreed, and darted off in the direction of the back door.

Logan hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Nick peered up at Velvet strangely.

She chewed at her lips, stressed and not at all certain, if truth be told. Her hands shook as she ran them through her hair, trying desperately to come up with some solution that made sense.

Then, from the corner of her eye she saw Nick dive into the man’s body and settle into his much larger frame. “What the hell?” Velvet heard herself mutter.

Nick popped back out. “This guy says he was poisoned. Something in his egg drop soup.”

“Did you just talk to that guy?” Logan asked, his hands on his hips and his mouth stretched into a surprised oval. “That’s so cool. Isn’t that cool, Velvet? How’d he do that, Velvet?”

She shrugged and waved Logan off, turning her attention back to Nick. “Ask him what he remembers.”

Nick dropped back into the body. It twitched a bit on the linoleum. The man’s legs kicked about, and then Nick sat up at an odd angle, his hips and legs still inside the body.

“He was eating soup, waiting for his spicy chicken teriyaki,” Nick said.

“Spicy chicken teriyaki is awesome,” Logan agreed.

“He said there wasn’t anything really weird going on, but get this …” He paused. “The waiter was wearing sunglasses. Possessed.”

“Look at this!” Logan yelled from where he’d wandered to the large walk-in pantry in the rear of the kitchen.

Velvet followed him through the stainless steel kitchen morgue, Nick padding up behind her. Logan pointed at
a shattered glass object. She squatted beside it. The edges were jagged, but large rounded chunks of the thing remained intact.

“Do you think this could be a crystal ball?” Nick asked.

Grover tilted his head sideways.

“Just because that’s what you were trapped in, doesn’t mean …,” Velvet began.

“But what about the ones at the crystal warehouse?”

Velvet shifted impatiently. “What are you talking about?”

“Well.” Nick’s brow furrowed. “After you went through the crack at the warehouse, I thought I heard something. So I investigated. I didn’t find anything except row upon row of crystal balls. Lots of them. Hundreds!”

“When did Caruthers start making crystal balls, Velvet?” Logan asked.

She stared at the boy, a thought dancing just beyond her comprehension. The clue was far too convenient to be a coincidence. The crystal company where Salvage tested their staff just so happened to begin crystal ball manufacturing?

It was beyond fishy; it was a freaking Swedish smorgasbord of fishiness.

Velvet stared at Nick incredulously. “You’re just remembering this?”

Nick shrugged. “Yeah. I didn’t think much of it. Crystal balls at a crystal factory. No big deal, right?”

There was a commotion at the back door as Luisa tore open the screen, entered, and dropped an empty cardboard box onto the mottled linoleum next to the still foot of the pregnant woman.

“There are more bodies in the back,” Luisa said. “Six in the bed of a moving truck and one in the walk-in refrigerator by the Dumpster.”

“That’s nine total,” Nick said, stepping up behind the twins and clamping his hands onto their shoulders. “Plus the survivor.” He glanced at the obese guy. Even from their position, they could all hear the man’s lungs rattling.

“What’s the box for, then?” Velvet nodded toward the thing.

Luisa kicked it and it spun around, revealing a familiar company name.

Caruthers Family Crystal.

“Holy crap,” Velvet spat.

“See!” Nick shouted, and then slapped his forehead.

“Yeah, yeah. This is starting to make sense.” Velvet paced between the bodies, not really paying them any attention, shuffling through them as though they were snowdrifts.

She explained the visions she’d torn from the banshee’s brain, the printing press, Aloysius Clay, and the rows of effigies and crystal balls. “Only someone familiar with our testing would have access to the crystal warehouse crack.”

“Someone who’d already been to the seconds warehouse?” Nick added.

“Since when did they start making crystal balls?” Luisa chimed in late, her hand on her jutting hip and her face screwed up in disgust.

“The whole thing stinks,” Logan added.

“Yeah, it does,” Velvet said, her eyes narrowing. “It stinks of Clay. Aloysius Clay. He would have been trained there
himself. Might have trained others there, too! We’ve got to find that guy!”

She moved toward the door to the dining room, but before she could take a step, a bright light exploded from underneath the chrome stove vent, brighter than any lightbulb. Luisa and Logan backed away and turned to face the wall. Velvet fell into a crouch and shaded her eyes but soon became aware of Nick staring at the portal.

She should have prepared him better. Especially knowing that the obese man would likely die. Nick’s face took on a placid calm, and he slumped over against the wall, smiling wanly.

The room grew so bright that she almost didn’t see the spirit standing next to the poisoned man, identical to the now still corpse in every way, except translucent. Not merely see-through as ghosts were, but glowing as brightly as an un-ashed purgatory-bound soul. The light coiled around him in gossamer threads, guiding him.

Extracting him.

“Nick!” Velvet waved to the boy, her eyes shielded by the visor of her palm. “Look away. That’s not meant for you!”

In the last glimpse before Velvet turned and buried her eyes into the sleeve of her shirt, the man’s form was hovering in midair, the light bisecting him at his waist. Tentacles of light danced over his limbs in such a beautiful diaphanous manner. Velvet felt a dangerous calm wash over her. A calm not meant for her, either.

But in a second, it was over and the room was still and lit only by the fluorescent bulbs above them.

“What was that?” Nick screamed, thrilled by the experience.

Velvet grinned. “That was someone dying and
not
going to purgatory.”

“Wow. I just wanted to dive in there.”

“Exactly,” Luisa said. “That’s why you don’t look. It’s not right. The light was meant for him, not you. We look away so we don’t get tempted to move on before our time. It’s another rule.”

Nick whistled. “There seems to be more of those every day.”

Logan grinned mischievously and rubbed his palms together.

Velvet nodded and turned, barking orders as she wound her way through the tables and out the main door. “Run a quick search of this strip mall before you return through the crack. I need to speak with Manny about this.”

Luisa and Logan were on task in an instant, darting into the dry cleaner next door.

Nick followed behind and grabbed her by the arm. “We can all go with you. Clay is not likely to be around, you know?”

“I have another motive.” She glanced around to make sure Luisa and Logan couldn’t overhear. “I need to talk to the banshee one more time. Something doesn’t add up. Remember what I told you? He doesn’t just know about Clay and the departure. He said he knew about
my
secret.”

Nick shuddered. “Well, you be careful. I’ve lost a lot this week, you know? I don’t want to lose you, too.”

She clutched the collar of his jacket and pulled him toward her forcefully. “I don’t want to go,” she whispered into his ear. “I don’t want to ever be anywhere but right here.”

Nick grinned. “In a strip mall parking lot?”

“No, doofus,” she said, smiling. “But thanks for lightening things up. It was getting pretty intense.”

Then she pushed him away completely and ran toward the crack, waved, and dove into the fissure in the concrete, leaving Nick standing alone.

The first thing Velvet saw as she burst into the Shattered Hall was an antique settee positioned at an odd angle atop some rubble and Manny pacing wildly in front of it. Velvet coughed and drew the station agent’s stern attention.

“What’s going on?” Manny asked, leaning over and tossing clothes at Velvet from a nearby crate.

“I don’t know,” Velvet said, jerking a shirt down over her head. “But I’m going to figure it out.”

She started to move toward the gate, but felt a hand curled over her shoulder, stopping her still.

“Hold on just one minute, Little Miss Savior of Purgatory. You’re not going to go stomping off into danger without running your theory by me. Not a chance.”

Velvet flinched apologetically. “Could you walk with me, then? I need to interrogate the banshee one more time.”

“You better know what you’re doing, Velvet. This is no time for hunches.”

“No one knows what they’re doing in this, Manny. But if I can’t trust my instincts, then I can’t trust anything.”

The station agent fell in alongside her, nodding as Velvet described the scene at the teriyaki place and the bodies, and Nick’s revelation about the crystal balls. Before she could even mention it, Manny jumped to the appropriate conclusion.

“So the Departurists have the souls they need to shake the Latin Quarter apart, create all the cracks, and free the rest of the local revolutionaries.” She staggered a bit, reaching for the wall of the cavern to right herself. “You have to find Clay. Now.”

Velvet gaped at the woman. Didn’t Manny think she knew that?

“I know. And the only person who seems to know anything about all this is the banshee.” They passed the gate and rushed through the emptying atrium toward the secret entry to the Cellar.

“And the crystal balls at our testing facility.” Manny shook her head and whispered, “Clay.”

“Clay,” Velvet said, and nodded. “It has to be. What other body thief has such connections? Plus, we’ve already linked him to the effigies. I have to ask, because I think it could help, did you know him, Manny?”

“I knew
of
him, like you. The council was aware of the trauma he’d suffered as a result of losing Jerry like that. But we’ve been unable to locate him to offer support. All these years his bitterness must have grown.” Her expression fell.

“He must blame purgatory,” Velvet mumbled, watching the woman closely. Velvet didn’t have the nerve to bring up the uncomfortable glances between Manny and Miss Antonia. But her instincts told her there was something
connecting them all and that Manny wasn’t telling her everything.

Manny nodded slowly. “Perhaps. But whether he blames purgatory, God, Santa, or his very own mother makes little difference. We have to find him. He has the trapped souls, wherever he is.” She held up her finger between them like a warning. “And until we find them, this shadowquake is going to continue to damage purgatory.”

Velvet nodded. The timing wasn’t right to confront the woman about her relationship with Clay and Miss Antonia. They had to move.

Halfway across the nearly empty station, they came upon a small crowd gathered around the smoldering embers of another effigy, this one only partially burned. Manny stomped toward it and shooed away the gawkers.

“Go about your business!” she cried.

Velvet crouched down beside the pile of ash and folded paper and pulled apart a piece of the figure’s foot, unfolding the intricate creases until she could see the paper clearly. Bold strokes of Chinese characters littered the page—pictures, too, city scenes and businessmen holding plaques. A newspaper. A red panda with another character set in its center seemed to be the logo.