Demon Lord 4: White Jade Reaper (32 page)

Her face set into a display of grim determine.  “The point of practicing is to get better.  Too bad you never will.”

He growled and surged at her.  One hand swept the bow to aside.  It fell with small clatter.  His other hand reached down. 

She lunged up, grabbing his coat to stay erect.  I saw a brief flash from something she held.  The monster seized up, a startled grunt escaping him.  He staggered back, falling to the floor.  His head broke the line of toys.  The handle of the knife jutted from his stomach.

The girl scrambled past him, barely managing to stay on her feet as she scooped up her twin, the blond-haired doll with the yellow dress and cornflower blue eyes.  She reached the door, fumbled it open, and ran out—her small feet clomping on the stairs. 

Hell, a happy ending?  I’m not used to that.

Then came the sound of splintering wood, of breaking boards, and a child’s scream—quickly cut off. 

Spoke too soon.

The monster was laughing weakly as he rolled onto his knees and struggled up.  The little shit lurched past me, saying, “I guess she was in too much of a hurry to notice the hall rug sagged in the middle over the spot where I took out the floorboards.  Oh, well, accidents happen.” 

His fingers pressed around the entry point of the blade.  I could smell blood in the air.  So could the ghosts.  Their eyes were back to blazing red as they swarmed the boy, following him out of the attic like a cluster of tethered birthday balloons.   He was their anchor to the world, the source of their undying hatred.  Soon, I expected one more to appear and swell their number, a ghost without her violin.

A wave of vertigo swept over me.  The attic flickered, dancing, blurring, multiple images overlapping, and then…

…Like a ghost with nothing better to do, I occupied the dusty darkness; at my feet, the loose sheets of an old newspaper, the Santa Fe New Mexican, March 20, 1996.  One story caught my eye,

British alarmed at outbreak of mad cow disease.  
I’m back in the 90’s?
 

The sound of creaking wood drew my attention.  I looked up at a nine-year-old girl framed by attic windows.

A reset.  I’m caught in a dream loop.  Got to … force myself … awake … or I’m beyond fucked!

THIRTY-TWO

“Facts have gotten in the way—I may

have to revise my opinion on fu dogs.”

                                    —Caine Deathwalker

I lost track of how many repetitions there were after seven or eight.  I looked for ways to distract myself, or introduce small changes in Ghost Girl’s memory loop.  I’d tried breaking the loop all at once.  Nothing.  But if I could change one small thing, corrupting a piece of the pattern, then maybe I could eventually wear a hole in the memory and cause the whole thing to unravel.  Or fail to reset.  I might not be any better off, but it was the only plan I had. 

The big drawback; I was a ghost here, unable to touch anything, an unseen observer.  In the dream of the music competition, I’d held a violin and played it.  I’d been solid with an interactive environment.  What made a difference was the controlling power of the white jade flute, a cursed object. 

Start small
.

I stood by the rump of the rocking horse.  A key moment was coming.  The girl’s hands had been cut free so she could hold her violin.   The folding knife had been stabbed into the wooden horse.  The girl played her little nine-year-old heart out.  No, it wasn’t
Tiny Dancer
.   Both did their thing, a reenactment of the public competition the boy had lost.  His failure had scarred him badly.  His failure again would bend him even more.

The moment came when the toy jurors delivered their verdict—according to Paul Hastings.  Hastings wasn’t his real name.  It was Shawcross.  After the notoriety of this event, and his father’s death, he’d probably been sent away under an alias to get some peace from the news hounds.  My guess was that his grandfather suspected something, but couldn’t make himself believe his grandson was a serial killer.  But Paul’s father had died, and Paul had come home.   At some point, he started teaching flute.  And the killings started up again.  Maybe they were just cases of missing girls, or older female musicians.  The M.O. could have changed.  Maybe one or two of the students here went missing.  I could see how Dr. Shawcross might eventually arrive at a compromise solution that protected his grandson and the school. 

Lock up the boy, control him.  The only thing to be done. 
I put my focus back on the loop. 
Here comes the moment I’ve been waiting for.

He smashed the bow aside and reached toward where she’d fallen.  She sprang into his arms, and I moved with her, my hand laying on hers but feeling nothing.  I visualized my golden magic shimmering along my fingers.  I willed the energy to change her strike.  The knife should have lodged in his stomach.  With my help, the blade sliced across the side of his neck.  He staggered back, gripping his throat.  Red blood gushed through his fingers, spraying freely.  He fell to the floor and died. 

The ghosts in the corner drifted over and drank from the wound.

The girl ran out of the room, down the stairs, to the area with the damaged floor.  She screamed.  It ended abruptly.  She was hurt, but not necessarily killed.  It was possible that if events had gone this way so long ago, she might have lived and had the future she’d always wanted. 

Vertigo hit the attic like a wrecking ball.  I staggered.  The room listed and darkened.  Here was a moment when the flute’s control was not absolute—the time of reset.  I called on my magic, charging my whole body the way I had in Grace’s ghost realm to stay there.  I willed myself awake from this dream built on a dead girl’s memory.

The dream reset anyway.  I forced myself to patience, reining my raw magic back in.  I might have to keep the point-of-change I’d made repeating from loop to loop to wear it out.  I was

prepared for that. 

I kept at it a number of times, killing the boy over and over.  Each time, he died with a delightful look of surprise on his ten-year-old face.  Each time the reset came, I strained at the leash that kept me here.  One time, the darkness seemed to thin, leaving me a glimpse of Grace’s anxious face peering into mine.  “Get Tukka!” I told her, as the darkness crowded in. 

The reset brought the loop back into play from the start.  I’d almost slipped out, so I kept at it, round after round.  I was getting punch drunk like a fighter who’d gone the distance, and was seriously contemplating a nap when I heard thuds on the outer staircase.  I sat on a crate and watched he door.  The clomping stopped just outside.  I watched for the knob to turn.  It didn’t.  Instead, something heavy crashed against the wood.  The door splintered and collapsed.  A giant teal-blue head with a curly afro and lavender pearl eyes stuck itself into the room.  The rest of the immense beast remained in the outer hall.  He grinned at me.  “Herrrre’s Tukka!”

“About time.  What are you going to do to get me out of here?”

“Tukka eat dream energy, so Deadwalker fall awake.”

“That’s Deathwalker, Caine Deathwalker because I walk with … hell, never mind.  Just do it.”

He didn’t move.  The colors of the room went dingy.  The light in the windows turned sepia.  The dream children flattened and crumbled around the edges.  Soon, all the surfaces cracked and whirled away as black vortexes of wind swept clean.  As entropy conquered, the darkness deepened to an infinite, starless field.  Tukka and I drifted in nothingness.

“This is getting me back?”

“Give it a few more secondsssssss.”

Tukka collapsed into himself, and I was alone.  “I wonder how much per pound I can get for that fu dog on the mothman black market.  I hear they’re fond of marinated dog.”

Hands pushed into my guts.  Someone was leaning into me.  My eyes snapped open as my breath whooshed out.  Someone said, “Can’t stay in bed forever, you lazy, shiftless, bum.  There’s too many sluts out there depending on your poor taste in women.”

It took me a moment to realize I was stretched out on a bed, still fully clothed, and that the person abusing me was Grace.  She had tears in her eyes, and was shaking me hard enough to loosen my teeth.

“You can … stop … now!” I said.

She did, pulling back, standing straight beside the bed.  “You scared me.” 

She said it like I was totally to blame so I did what I always do in these circumstances.  I lied.  “Sorry, about that.  It’s all my fault, of course.  I’ll try not to let it happen again.”

“Well, okay.”  She gave me a critical, searching gaze.  “Are you going to be able to get up and give us a hand?”

“With what?”

“Aren’t you awake yet?  The concert’s going to start soon.  Mom tried to get it closed down, but the new President refused.”

“New president?”

“Damn!  Get the fuzz out of your brain and come up to speed, will you?”

“That’s hardly fair,” I said.  “I’ve been assaulted by the malevolent energy of an evil flute.  I’ve been out of it, probably an hour or two, and—”

“An hour or two?  Try most of the day.”

I stared at her.  “I lost that much time?”

“Yeah, everyone wanted to have you hauled off to the hospital.  I wouldn’t let them.  Mom backed me up.”

I sat up and swung my feet to the floor, looking around at a generic guest room with nothing personal anywhere.  “Cassie’s here?” 

“Yeah, with a task force of PRT personnel, federal marshals, and some shaman support from the local reservations.  Mom says that there’s enough spirit energy trapped in the music hall to launch it to

Mars.”

Something she’d said hit me in the gut.  I had a wild suspicion.  “Who’s taken over for Dr. Shawcross?”

“Paul Hastings, that guy you and Madison found in the subterranean cell.  Turns out he’s actually Shawcross’ grandson.  They found the Grandfather dead—and boy did that stir up the anthill—so until things change, Hasting is running the show.”

“Brace yourself,” I said, “Hastings is the one who killed our ghost girl back when they were kids.  He was in the cage because his grandfather was trying to contain his evil.  I’d bet you anything that Hasting was the one who put that knife in his grandfather’s chest.  Whatever that weird presence is in the music hall, Hastings is going to set it off tonight to feed on the audience.  I think the psycho freak wants to turn himself into a God of Death.  A real reaper.”

“Holy crap!”

“Uh, say, what happened to the white flute?”

“Mom took it into custody.  She’s got a sorceress with her that has the thing insulated in multiple containment spells.  It will probably vanish into some secret, government warehouse and wind up crated next to the Ark of the Covenant, or Thanos’ cosmic cube.”

I found my boots on the floor and put them on.  “Take me to Cassie.”

“Sure.  And you better be nice to Tukka when you see him.  He saved your butt.”  She went to a door and led the way into a hall.  The wood trim and vintage details let me know I was still in the Victorian mansion.  We followed a runner on the wooden floor and quickly came to the front door.  The place seemed deserted.

I said, “Tukka is hanging around where people can see him?”

She opened the door and we went out onto the porch.  “He’s with Cassie and the rest of the PRT people.  They have an operations center behind the music hall, and guards to keep snoopers out of that area.  Plus, I mentioned the sorceress.  She does a good aversion spell.  People trying to get to the PRT command center—who aren’t wanted there—find themselves lost, wandering in strange directions.”

“As though they’d fallen victim to a Will-o’-the-Wisp. 

Cool.”

Evening was approaching.  Somehow, I hadn’t fully believed it until I saw it.  We went down the stairs and crossed to the path leading toward the music hall.  Grace turned her head a little as I came abreast of her.  She said, “What happened to you?”

“Bad trip.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?”

“First show wasn’t too bad, but the reruns were murder.”

“Whatever.” 

We continued on.  I noticed a lot of cars but not enough to fill the hall.  There were a lot of people around that I wasn’t seeing.  Cassie had brought in a lot of people.  I still had a bad feeling about what might get loose here.  “How long until the show is supposed to start?”

“An hour,” she said.  “A very short hour.”

We both quickened our steps, reaching the parking lot, following its edge to the corner of the building.  We circled to the back without going inside the hall.  As we came around the next corner, I felt an icy tingle, a pressure like a liquid wall trying to engulf me.  Grace took my hand.  That broke the resistance to my entering the back expanse behind the building. She said, “I’m keyed in so the spell recognizes me.  They haven’t done that to you yet, but as long as I’m touching you, I can get you through.

“I knew there was a reason I kept you on the payroll.”

“Speaking of that, if this escalates to an Armageddon type situation, I’m going to want hazard pay.”

“Sounds reasonable.” 

We were halfway to a square of four eighteen-wheelers, most of them black, one with red flames painted down the sides.  There was a lot of law enforcement types around.  I hoped no one recognized me.  I wasn’t actually wanted, but I’d been a
Person of Interest
in so many weird, violent crimes, that the mention of my name in certain quarters often results in quiet curses and prayers for Devine assistance.  Some city authorities sent cops to intercept me at airports, suggesting I turn around and catch another plane. 

It’s why I drive most places I go.

“You’re cool,” Grace said, “but also an ass.”

I lifted an eyebrow at her sudden pronouncement.  “Thanks.”

“You know what I like about you the best?”

“Someone likes me?  I’m not sure I can take the strain.”

“That’s what I like.  The world is falling apart and you make a joke.  You don’t ever seem to doubt that you will kick ass and bludgeon the world into submission.  You take everything in stride like you know you’ll live forever.”

“You don’t believe in living happily ever after?” I asked.

“I’m going to try, but I’ve seen a lot of darkness these last couple years.  I feel like I’m always changing, and not quite into what I thought I’d be.”

I reached out and stopped her, turning her to face me.  I stepped into her, cupping her pale face, keeping her dark red hair from blowing across her eyes in the dry dusty wind.   “Grace, we don’t love ourselves because we deserve it.  That’s entitlement bullshit.  All that we’re entitled to is what we can rip from the teeth of a savage universe.  You’re wondering if you’ll still like yourself when you’re all grown up.  Well, do what I do and decide never to grow up.  Give yourself permission to run as amok as necessary.  There are people out there that can clean up your messes, people who never have to stand on the front lines against hell, death, and terror.  You save them from that, so I guess you’re entitled after all.  And for the record, if I haven’t hit on you, it’s only because Cassie has made it clear that she will pull off my cock and beat me to death with it if I do.”

  A sharp voice cut between us.  “That’s certainly true.  Now get your demon paws off my daughter.”