Deadworld (34 page)

Nick’s mouth puckered in consternation. “Not sure she’s going to want to see me.”

“Nonsense,” she replied. “She loved you, didn’t she?”

“Yeah, I suppose she did.”

Jackie recalled what Nick had said about the events of his wife’s death. Would
she
ever get over something like that? Much like him, she would blame herself, no doubt about that. But Gwendolyn had wanted him to do it. The children, on the other hand . . . Jackie laid her hand on Nick’s thigh. “She’ll be glad to see you, Nick. They all will.”

He stared at her for a moment, the eyes locking on to hers and holding her perfectly still. There was a brief look of anger there, a “don’t be a presumptuous bitch” gaze that melted away as quickly as it had come. “Unlikely, but thanks.”

“She won’t blame you,” Jackie said. It was not a certainty, but she felt reasonably sure that this Gwendolyn would know exactly how Nick would be feeling and act accordingly. “I wouldn’t.”

He said nothing, but his mouth relaxed, one corner flickering with a smile, and he turned back to Laurel. “All right, I’ll try to take us to her and see what happens.”

“Great,” Laurel said, walking over to the couch. “Nick, hold on to Jackie and focus. I’ll help give you the strength to get us there.”

Nick stood up and offered Jackie his hand. “You ready to do this?”

“Could I ever be?” She reached up and let Nick pull her up to her feet. Her body swam in syrup, sluggish but, thankfully, not shaking any longer.

“He’ll get us there, hon,” Laurel said. “Just concentrate on Gwendolyn.”

Nick’s hand squeezed Jackie’s. “I’ll get us there. Trust me.”

The surety of his words brought little comfort. They were walking into a death trap with no plan for getting out. Then again, she was dying. A few hours, and the life in her would freeze into a solid block. There was nothing in this wretched place to make sticking around worthwhile. Worse, she could die and find herself in the same place.

“Okay. I guess.” She put her arms around Nick’s waist and held him tight. His body had the same musty, dry smell as the air around them. Laurel’s cold presence closed in behind.

“Let’s go, Nick,” Laurel said, her voice in Jackie’s ear.

A voice, lost somewhere in the haze that filled her brain, was screaming to her to wait, that she was not ready at all, but Jackie knew they had little choice or time.

Nick’s arms pressed against her, one at the small of her back, the other cupping her head against his chest. “Relax, Jackie. Let’s get this prick.”

Jackie closed her eyes and imagined the Hancock building in her mind, an iconic symbol in the Chicago skyline, sleek, black, and—in this shrouded ghost land—full of death. After a little extra help from Laurel, they were off.

Chapter 56

The trip to the Hancock building likely took seconds to complete, but it was more than enough time for a thousand panicked thoughts to bounce at random off each other inside Nick’s head. The worst being the dreaded notion that his family would be far from pleased to see him again, ghosts full of rage and hate for abandoning them in this place and failing to save them back when he had a legitimate chance to. A part of him was convinced they would attempt to kill him for what he had done and since become. What was there to understand? He had let them down in the worst way imaginable and been unable to bring them the justice and peace they deserved. If they wanted him dead, Nick was ready to accept that fate.

Except there was the dying woman in his arms. What would they say when he left to try to save her? Because if there proved to be a chance to do it, as Laurel stated, he would leave them again to save her. Jackie was still alive, and his family was not. After all these years, would they understand? A part of him was ready to just say, “Screw it,” and spend what remained of his time in the arms of his family. It had a certain appeal. He was tired of all this and ready for it to end, but the sheriff inside would not and could not stop. It would be selfish of him to relinquish the badge at the very end, not to mention cowardly. Yes, as much as it would break his heart, Nick knew that no matter what awaited him in the Hancock building, he would leave them all to save the one among them who still lived. There would be no living with himself to do otherwise. He only hoped his family would understand.

All the fears were moot, however, if Drake killed him before he had a chance to do anything. Failing again before all of those who had come before would be the last and worst slap in the face.

Nick could feel them before they arrived, a swarming mass of spiritual energy, some of which had a pang of familiarity. There were dozens of them, but none so significant or intense as the one he zeroed in on, which Laurel pushed them toward, and that Nick found himself standing before in a dissipating swirl of bone-cold mist. His throat constricted, and for a moment he might as well have been dead, given the frozen state of his heart.

Gwendolyn stood before him, straightening her gray, homespun dress about her legs. She stared directly at Nick as he tried to orient himself. There was no sign of the former mutilation Drake had inflicted upon her. She looked much the same as the day she had gone, only pale and ashen. A smile turned up the corners of her bluish lips, not even the vaguest sign of animosity in the lines of her face.

“Hello, my love.” Her hands reached out for his, full of acceptance and forgiveness. “We’ve been expecting you.”

Shouts of “Sheriff!” and “It’s Mr. Anderson!” echoed through the cavernous room, with a few assorted variations of his name used at different times over the decades. The crowd shifted and drifted toward him, apparently eager to catch sight of the man who had brought them all to an early grave. A nervous twinge gripped Nick’s gut, but he refused to move. If his fate was to die at the hands of those he had failed, so be it. He deserved no less.

“Nick, it’s all right,” Gwen’s voice said, so painfully sweet in his ears. “We’re all glad you are here.”

“And about fucking time, too,” an all-too-familiar voice chided. Shelby stepped out from the crowd behind Gwen and moved up beside her. She didn’t look much better off than Jackie. Her arms were crossed tightly over her chest, the usual brilliant red of her mouth washed out to the color of old, dried blood. “I wasn’t sure you’d make it.”

He gulped, trying to get the vaguest hint of moisture back in his mouth. She honestly and truly stood right there before him. His Gwen, with none of the rage and anger he had feared for all these years. Shelby’s presence barely registered. The rest were little more than a gray wash of fog. Gwen’s hand reached out and touched his, cold fingers grasping his own. The lack of warmth mattered little. The touch jolted Nick’s heart back into action, and he blinked away the tears.

“Gwen.” His voice cracked. It was all he could manage to say. He pulled her into an embrace, burying his face in her hair. For the few seconds it lasted, she didn’t feel at all cold and lifeless but warm and comforting, smelling of fresh baked bread and a smoky fire, the scents that always greeted him upon his return home each evening. Her arms wrapped around him, and Nick felt the same measure of desperation and relief in her touch. “God, how I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

Her voice was hushed against his shoulder. “Too much, love, too much.”

Nick pulled back to look Gwen in the eye. She was serious. “Why would you say that?”

The faintest smile touched her lips. “Shelby told me about your room over the garage.”

He turned his gaze to Shelby, who only stared back with her usual unflappable stare and an arched brow, daring him to say something. What was there to say? “I couldn’t forget,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to have the memory of you fade, not while Drake was still alive.”

Gwen nodded and kissed Nick’s cheek. “I know. Let’s hope we can bring this to an end now. I’m ready to move on from this place. I’m also curious why you’ve brought a living soul here. She can’t stay, Nick. She’ll die.”

“I know. Drake left us no choice. We were dead on the other side.”

“I thought as much. So is this the detective Shelby told me about?”

“Jackie,” Jackie interjected, voice quivering with the chatter of teeth. “Agent Jackie Rutledge.”

Gwen turned and gave her a nod of acknowledgment. “I’d say welcome, Ms. Rutledge, but this is no place to welcome anyone.”

She gave Gwen a little wave, and Nick grimaced at the visible shaking of her arm. “You should sit down, Jackie, conserve your strength.”

“I’m . . . fine, thanks.”

Gwen stepped over to her, her hand brushing through the edge of Jackie’s arm. “Dear, you better sit before you fall over. Now is not the time to be stubborn. Save it for Nick. He likes that.”

Jackie collapsed, cross-legged on the floor, the fight to argue obviously gone. “He should love me, then.”

Gwen’s mouth quirked at the corner, her glance flickering over to Nick, who could not hold her gaze and looked away. Having the three women he had had any kind of involvement with over the past century and a half gathered around him at the same time was just a little bit disconcerting. Gwen stood up from Jackie and faced him, her look bemused.

“That’s the least of your worries right now, Sheriff.”

Nick swallowed hard. “No, Gwen, it’s not that, really. I will always—”

“Nicholas,” she said, placing her hands upon his shoulders. “Don’t.” She brought a finger up to his lips to emphasize the point. “I know, but you will promise something right now before Cornelius makes his way back and this all comes to some kind of end.”

He nodded once. “You know I’d promise you anything.”

Gwen smiled. “When . . . when you get back, you will move on, and place me in that part of your mind filled only with good memories.”

“But you’re—”

“Shut up,” she said. “You will put me there and get me out of that place of guilt and obsession you have been wallowing in for all these years.”

“Gwen, that’s not how . . .” Nick stopped, cut off by her look and the grim knowledge that she was right. Was it even possible to not live in that place anymore? Could there be anything after this? A normal life was such a far and distant memory that Nick could not be sure he would even know how to live one. His gaze fell to Jackie, shivering on the floor, huddled around herself as tightly as she could manage.

Gwen shook him gently. “Promise me, damn you, so I can finally move on.”

The words were a slap to the head. The notion she had wanted to and could not move on because of him had never occurred to Nick. Was everyone here waiting as well? “All right, I promise.”

She kissed him. “Good, thank you.”

The rest of the crowd was gathering in close now, looking as though their long-lost brother had finally returned home. It hit him then, what Gwen had said, and who he now realized were missing. “The children? Are they here?”

“No,” she replied, her features turning at once from stern to sad. “They moved on a long time ago, Nicholas. I couldn’t let them stay here, not with Drake. I helped them let go.”

Tears welled up in his eyes, realizing that, ghosts or not, he had truly wanted to see them again. “That’s good. They don’t belong in this place. Nobody does.” There were murmurs of assent among the crowd, and Nick finally turned and looked at them all, acknowledging them for the first time. Most he recognized, and there was not an angry face among them. They were glad the sheriff was back in town, such that it was.

“What’s the plan, Sheriff?” someone asked.

“How do we get him?”

Yes, exactly. How did they get Drake? What possible tools did Nick have at his disposal here, other than a couple guns? They needed something positive, but as he stared out over the sea of hopeful, eager faces, hoping that something brilliant would spring to mind, that something would be different this time, Nick realized he had nothing. He had nothing to give them.

“Folks,” he began, but faltered. The usual sheriff’s bravado, the confidence he had so long ago to bring the bad guys to justice, had been beaten out of him by the continual years of failure.

“Nick.” Gwen’s cold hand touched his arm. “I have a notion about what might—”

“Ah, Nicholas!” Drake’s voice boomed like hollow thunder through the room.

Nick had felt him the moment he entered, a cold wash of stinking dread invading all his senses. He was there, standing in a doorway on the far side of the large room, the blood-red tie shining like a beacon against his black pinstripe suit. The crowd of ghosts instinctively parted, leaving an open path between them.

“Finally, you surprise me. Good show, I say. I am pleased.”

Nothing in Drake’s voice sounded pleased, and Nick did the only thing he could think to do. Pushing the flaps of his coat aside, Sheriff Nicholas Anderson drew his old six-shooters and prepared for the end.

Chapter 57

Jackie did what any self-respecting agent would do when confronted by the man who had killed her partner and friend. She emptied her Glock into the man’s body, though her aim was not nearly so lethal, given her trembling hands.

“Die, you son of a bitch,” she said through gritted teeth, pulling the trigger for several rounds even after the clip had emptied.

Drake had begun to walk forward but stopped, flinching for just a moment at the initial shots. He stood there, a faint smile on his withered face, as if the bullets were little more than annoying mosquitoes. Small, pasty white smears appeared where the bullets hit him, one on his stomach, a pair in the chest, another in the throat, and finally beneath the cheekbone. When she had finished, he glanced at Jackie, a “what do you know about that?” look on his face, and then adjusted the suit on his thin frame and continued stepping forward.

“Fuck,” she muttered and let the now useless weapon clatter to the floor beside her.

“It would seem, my dear agent, that real bullets have little effect in the world of the dead, but the thought is appreciated just the same.”

Above her, Nick did nothing but stand at the ready, the handheld cannons aimed in Drake’s direction. To Jackie, it appeared comically out of place. If bullets could do nothing, what the hell was Nick going to do to him? She watched the ghostly crowd cower back from Drake’s presence as though he had some dead-repelling force field around him. Their fear was palpable. A few more steps, and Drake stopped, still a good twenty meters away.

At Nick’s side, Gwen spoke quietly. “Nicholas, listen to me.”

Behind Jackie, Shelby spoke to Nick with grim determination. “I’ll handle the goons, babe. Focus on him.”

Drake, meanwhile, casually scanned the crowd, his hand tracing a slow arc from left to right. The act had the crowd of ghosts shrinking back in terror. When his arm stopped and the fingers curled up into a “come here” motion, he smiled and said, “Miranda Davenport, it is time to move on. Come, child. Come.”

The young, faded form of a woman stepped from the crowd and walked toward Drake as though his order could not be denied. There appeared to be no hesitation in her steps. Why, Jackie wondered, would anyone willingly approach that thing? Perhaps it was some kind of hypnosis. Perhaps he had control over all of them in some way in this place. If so, they all were more than screwed.

Miranda Davenport did not stop when she got close to Drake but instead walked right up to his outstretched hand. Her back was to Jackie, but her distance indicated Drake’s hand had pushed directly into her body. The pale, faded form shuddered, and Miranda’s head arched back, her mouth open to scream, but no sound issued forth. Her body kept bending, folding awkwardly back, quaking against Drake’s stiffened arm. For a moment, Jackie swore he was pulling the dress from her body, but as the woman’s body stretched and contorted, she realized with horror that the woman’s body was being drawn directly into Drake’s outstretched hand. The body lost shape, folding down until it appeared her back had snapped in two, and then shrank and evaporated until finally she was gone, drawn up into Drake’s body like the result of some soul-sucking vacuum cleaner.

Jackie looked over at Laurel, who still crouched beside her. “Jesus, Laur. What the fuck was that?”

She shook her head. “I think he just consumed her soul.”

Drake shrugged his shoulders and gave his neck a soft, twisting pop, the smile on his face a bloodless, sinister line. “You see, Nicholas? Even in death, my victims feed me. I have more power than your morally rigid soul could possibly fathom.” He began to walk forward again with slow, deliberate steps. “I knew from the beginning your righteous constraint would keep you from ever doing what needed to be done. You’ve never had a chance, dear boy. Smart blokes know you only play games you are guaranteed of winning.”

“This game isn’t over yet, Cornelius,” Nick grated, but Jackie could sense the lack of confidence in his voice. Who would blame him after seeing that?

Gwen’s hands clasped around Nick’s then, finally drawing his attention away from Drake. “My love, we can help. We’re ready to move on from this. You just have to be willing to let us go.”

He turned, the twisted sneer on his face melting away when he looked down at Gwen. “What are you talking about?”

Drake laughed. “Are you so dense as all that, Nicholas? They accepted their fate long ago, unlike you, who has proven stubborn to a fault.” He gave a mirthless chuckle, stretching out his arms to encompass the crowd. “In the end, my friend, you cannot accept what you are, and the fact that you are here, still living, makes it so much the sweeter. Now then, Ralph Morris, come to me and accept your fate.”

The man stepped from the crowd, approaching Drake with no resistance. Jackie turned her gaze away. Watching the process had slimy worms of dread crawling around in her gut. She would kill herself before going out like that. But, then, did it matter one way or the other? Being slowly consumed by the chill of death could not be much worse. The ache was getting excruciating, thin shards of ice being driven into the marrow of her bones. She would be lucky if she could get to her feet now.

“Laur, if this doesn’t go well, take me back. I don’t want to die here like this.”

“If it comes to that,” she whispered, “but we aren’t done here yet.”

“He’s going to suck us up one by one until Nick is the only one left.”

“It’s Nick’s move right now, just hold on a bit longer, hon.”

Above Jackie, Gwen’s voice was quietly insistent. “Nicholas, let me go. Don’t let him take me like that.”

“I won’t let him, not again.”

“No, love. Now.” She reached up and touched Nick’s face. “Let me go, and I can help you. We all can.”

It took Jackie a moment to realize what she meant. Nick’s expression confirmed her suspicion. Gwen wanted him to suck them up just like Drake was doing, and the shock on Nick’s face said it all.

His voice was barely audible. “No! Gwen, there must be another way.”

Drake called upon another ghost to feed his twisted soul.

“Nicholas, you’re our only hope of leaving on our own terms. Don’t let me die at his hand a second time.”

Nick’s face went slack. The dread in his stare was painful to watch, and Jackie knew what he must be thinking.
How can I destroy my wife again to stop this killer?
Drake’s chuckle froze the air in her lungs.

“Just cannot stand to step into those shoes, can you, Nicholas? Cannot dare to be like your old friend Cornelius.”

Gwen took Nick’s face in her ashen hands. “You could never be like him, love. It’s one of the reasons I love you so much, but this is the right thing to do, and the time is now.”

“Touching, Gwendolyn,” Drake said. “Just the right amount of sentimentality to end our little affair, but I believe it is time. Come. Come to me.”

He motioned with his hand toward Gwen, and to Jackie’s surprise, she stepped away from Nick, her hands still held to cup his face. Nick’s jaw went slack, his eyes wide with terror. It was not a look Jackie would have ever expected to see on his face. Three steps toward Drake, and Nick holstered a gun and reached out to his dead wife.

“Gwen.”

She paused, looking back over her shoulder at him. “Sheriff.” Her tone had an imploring quality to it, but Jackie saw something else in her look, one of stern reminder that Nick was indeed the sheriff and still possessing those qualities that had made him so.

Nick closed his eyes, and Jackie watched a tear squeeze out beneath one lid. He mouthed “I love you” and then opened his eyes again. “Come back, Gwen. Be with me, now and forever.”

She smiled and turned fully back around. Jackie looked over at Drake and saw him take a stumbling step forward in surprise. “Gwendolyn! To me. Now.”

Gwen hesitated for a moment, a painful wince on her face, and then continued toward Nick. She reached for his hand, but instead of the welcoming grasp and twine of fingers, her fingers stretched out toward his, becoming long tendrils of gray smoke that crept up her arm, until her shoulder and head began to distort like warm putty being pulled down into a funnel. Seconds later, her feet left the floor, following the rest of her rushing wisp of a body, and disappeared into Nick’s trembling hand.

“No!” Drake lunged forward, his usual dead-calm countenance momentarily transformed by wide-eyed shock. The look vanished a second later, and Jackie could see that the man genuinely looked pissed. Nick had ruined the game plan.

Jackie thought to smile at the small victory, pleased that Nick had overcome the weight of his burdened soul and done what needed to be done. However, stretching her facial muscles felt like thorny, cold nettles rolling beneath her skin. Her chest was so frosted with death it was beginning to constrict on itself. Breathing, she suddenly realized, was becoming difficult.

“Laur,” she said, her tongue feeling thick in her mouth. “I think I’m in trouble here.”

Laurel had begun to stand with Drake’s abrupt approach but then squatted back down. The look on her face confirmed Jackie’s repetitive thought.
I’m dying.
“You need to hold on a bit longer.”

Jackie huddled her knees up against her chest. “I’m trying.”

“Boys, gather up the rest of them. I’ll handle the sheriff.” Drake waved his hands at the group of ghosts that huddled toward them, surrounding Nick.

Shouts from the group began to go up. “Take me next, Sheriff!”

Nick still had a look of shock on his face. He stared at his hand, flexing the fingers, and Jackie wondered if he could continue taking the souls. Her question was answered a moment later when an elderly woman stepped before him, inches from his extended arm, grim determination etched into her lined face.

“Kill him,” she said.

A moment of silence descended on the room, a collectively held breath, waiting to see if Nick’s self-loathing would win out in the end over the desire for justice. The creased line of the old woman’s mouth turned up at the corner, and Nick reached out to touch her. A second later, she was gone.

Before the last traces of her vanished up Nick’s arm, Drake let out an angry roar and charged. Nick drew his six-shooter with the other hand and got off three rounds before Drake crashed into him and sent them flying backward across the room.

Chaos erupted all around Jackie.

Laurel took Jackie’s face in her hands. “Listen to me. When the time comes, you’ll have to let me take you back. You’ll have to let me in there, understand?” Jackie was not sure that she did, but nodded anyway. “Shel, get her out of the way.” Laurel leaped to her feet and, without looking back, ran toward one of Drake’s goons.

“C’mon, Jack,” Shelby said, grunting as she hooked her hands under Jackie’s arms and began to pull her back toward the outer wall of windows opposite the main door, which opened into the center of the building. “Fuck, girl. We need to get you out of here.”

Jackie tried to help, but her muscles were so clenched with shivering cold that movement was impossible. It took all her effort just to force her chest to expand and let air into her lungs. Just when they needed her the most, she was failing like she had twenty years before when she sat, huddled and shivering, behind her bedroom door, listening to her mother’s pleas for help. Unlike then, having the courage to act would do little good. There was just too little life left in her.

Nick flew back across the room, slamming into the thick glass wall of windows so hard a spiderweb of cracks flared out around him. Jackie could feel the vibration clear through Shelby’s body. He dropped to one knee, managing still to keep one hand outstretched for the ghosts of his past to continue their relentless surge into his body.

“Too little, too late, my friend,” Drake barked as he marched toward Nick’s prone body. “You do not even know what to do with the power you have at your disposal.” He paused long enough to draw in another victim, but Nick was taking them in as fast as they could reach him.

To their left, Laurel rode around on the back of one of Drake’s brutes, hands clawing at his face. He spun in circles, hands pummeling backward in a vain attempt to knock her off. The other one stopped his attack on the crowd pushing toward Nick to help out. If anything, it was biding Nick a few extra seconds of time.

Jackie could only watch in mute, gasping silence, unable to do anything except force her lungs to keep breathing.

Another thud vibrated her body when Drake slammed Nick up against a cement support column along the wall. He had Nick by the lapels of his duster, pushing him up off the floor. Nick’s hands were clamped around Drake’s wrists, pulling at them to break the hold. For a moment, at least, they were locked together in an equal struggle.

“Boys!” Drake glanced over at the ongoing fight between the goons and Laurel. “You bloody fools.”

Nick let go abruptly, hands flashing out to box Drake’s ears. The move got him back to the floor but did nothing to break the hold. A smirk twitched at the corner of Drake’s mouth—appreciated, perhaps, of Nick’s effort—but an instant later his head snapped forward, butting into Nick’s nose with a crunching pop of bone and gristle. Blood erupted from the broken nose, draining over Nick’s face, leaving him sagging against the glass wall.

Still, the ghosts came, a great wall of writhing gray appendages. Jackie could not even discern solid bodies anymore. Her vision had begun to blur.

“Come to me, Laurel. Your time is now.”

Her name brought Jackie’s vision back into focus. Drake’s hand beckoned toward her best friend, whose love for her had been beyond what she had ever felt deserving of. Like the flick of a light switch, Laurel’s attack on the bodyguard ceased, and she dropped back to the floor. She did not look at Drake, her face contorted with the effort to resist his will. Her gaze was directed squarely at Jackie.

“Jackie . . .”

No! Jackie struggled to sit up, putting her hands on the floor to push herself up, but there was nothing. She could no longer feel anything, as if her arms had vanished from the elbow down. She could not let Drake take Laurel a second time. She could not fail again.