Fire & Frost (15 page)

“Did
you
see? Is she okay?”

“I don’t know her.” She fixed him with a gaze that was all cold, hard fire. “You need to see for yourself.”

He pulled away. “I’m a ghost. I don’t belong around a little girl.”

“You’re a man, not a ghost.” She took his hand. “Come on.” He felt a strange pull, like a magnetic river, urging him out of the space and back to the elevator.

He went willingly…yet not.

She hit the button and the door opened. Down they went, down, down, and then they walked across the lobby and out into the icy wind that whipped between the gray buildings and over ice-crusted sidewalks.

He recalled Veronica once telling him that she could compel people—she’d explained that she did it by repelling them from every other available option. In this way, she created pull. She was doing it now, he realized. There was only the school now. Teresa.

“Wait,” he said.

“We’re going.” She signaled for a cab. There was nowhere else to go.

A cab neared. He would give the address of the school, almost like it was pre-ordained.

“Wait,” he said. “Turn off the spell.”

“No.”

He pulled his hand from hers. “Turn it off.”

“I’m making you go.”

“I’ll live and die by my own sword, dammit.”

She looked unsure. He felt when she cut it.

A cab pulled up. Max motioned Veronica in and got in after. “Park Elm Elementary on Fourth and Zieman.” He sat back with an
oof
. He was really doing it.

“You’ll be glad.”

Max kept an eye on the side and rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t followed. After a few blocks he told the cabbie to make a loop, claiming he wanted to see a favorite steakhouse.

Veronica gave him a conspiratorial look. She knew what he was doing—she always keyed into the cop stuff.

Without thinking, he draped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He felt grateful that she allowed it, but then again, he looked like one of her music idols.

She snuggled into him. It felt good. Right.

It didn’t matter why she allowed it; he needed to hold her. It shook him to see how all the shops and restaurants and people had all kept going. He didn’t know how it could be that a man could lose so much so quickly and violently as he had the night he got gunned down, but the streets and restaurants he loved would look perfectly humdrum afterwards. He couldn’t decide whether it was a monstrous joke or a kindness.

He paid and they stepped out.

The school was a long, low brick building with a fenced-in yard at one end. Veronica did the magic that would alter their glamour. She was in a ComEd jumpsuit, jacket, and cap with a badge on her pocket. She had the face she’d had in the tower. The camera she carried looked like a clipboard now, and she’d turned her briefcase into a toolbox, which she handed to him.

He took it, realizing he was dressed the same way.

They walked in. She went over and spoke with the night guard at the desk off to the side, showed him something on the clipboard and he waved them through. The halls were empty aside from a janitor mopping the floor behind a yellow
Wet Floor
sign.

Voices echoed down the hall as they neared the gym. A loud female voice rose above all others—something about starting where the horns come in. Strains of music went up. A march of some kind.

He and Veronica walked into the massive gym, melting into the darkness around the edges.

Up at the end was a brightly lit stage full of children. He saw Teresa right away, sitting at the edge of a row.

“That’s her,” he whispered, frozen in his tracks. She wore her favorite pink sweater with a black T sewn onto it. A massive tube of her favorite bubblegum lip gloss hung from a cord around her neck. She held her oboe in her lap and sat still as the horns blared on, then she leaned over and whispered to the girl next to her. He recognized the girl as her best friend, Patty. Patty whispered back and Teresa pinched her own nose—something she did when she wanted to keep from laughing aloud. Her little body convulsed with silent giggles, though, and his heart burst with emotions he couldn’t name.

She was beautiful and perfect and lovely. And she was laughing. She’d always been a resourceful, happy girl, good at bouncing back from things. Could he trust this? Was she really okay? He couldn’t see her eyes. He needed to be closer.

A tug at his hand. Veronica pulling him. He allowed it, forcing his gaze away from the stage. Yes, they were inspectors of some sort. They needed to inspect.

She limped at his side. Before he knew it, they were on the far end of the gym. Veronica opened a gray panel. Then she took the toolbox from him and set it on the floor and took out some tools.

He could see Teresa’s face more clearly from there. His girl had grown bored. The teacher had the horns repeat a section. Patty kicked Teresa’s foot, and Teresa gave her an arch look. Ah, that arch look. Something of significance had happened in the horns section. A missed note?

The teacher had seen them by now—a few of the kids had, too, and Max knew they had an audience. The teacher had the children take out the next piece. A flurry of activity and chatter rose up from the stage. Patty and Teresa shared a music stand; Patty turned the page and Teresa looked in their direction. It was then he saw her eyes.

They didn’t hold his death.

She’d be okay—she really would. He felt like shouting in gratitude.

“I suppose we’re watching the whole practice,” Veronica said wearily.

“The whole damn thing,” he said.

“I could take a picture,” she offered.

Horror shot through him. “No photos.”

“Not to conjure,” she said.

“Still. I want it like this.”

The songs were played roughly, but with heart. He tried to maintain the role of the inspector, fussing with things from the box now and then, but watching all the while. His girl was a symphony of nuances and memories; every movement and expression heartened him and devastated him all at once. She was going to be okay.

Suddenly it was over, and the stage was a bustle of backpacks and chatter and instructions from the teacher. Teresa and Patty were among the first off the stage and out the door. Running.

Just like that she was gone.

He watched in a daze.

Veronica motioned to the teacher. “We got the lights,” she said.

Five minutes later, the gym stood empty.

They stayed for a long time. Locker slams rose and dwindled. Voices faded. Doors squeaked. A hush fell.

The school was vacant now, except for the janitor.

“She always runs places when she’s excited,” he said when he realized how long they’d been standing there. “Happy.”

Veronica put a hand on his shoulder. “She’s happy. And you’re okay.”

Max wasn’t sure if it was a question or an observation, but he wasn’t okay. He loved that little girl. He’d lost so much. He slid to the floor.

“No.” She kicked him.

“Ow.”

“You get up. You help me. You’re going to help me put these things away, Max.” She motioned at the tools she’d pulled out of the box. Veronica. Always ready with a fix. He started gathering them up and putting them back.

“Don’t just throw them in. Put them back in order,” she said.

It was him she wanted orderly. He was unruly with emotion, and it frightened her. Veronica, with her temporary playmates and her carefully controlled world, the woman with the power to turn people on and off like water from a spigot. She’d never know what it was to be devastated by love, he thought with sudden sadness. The magic that protected her cut her off from all that.

He set a wrench into a slot with other wrenches. She didn’t even understand tools.

“What?”

He looked up to find her watching him. “You pulled out a wrench to pretend to fix an electrical box?” he asked.

“So?”

His laugh sounded overwrought even to his own ears.

“Max, are you okay?”

“I’m all torn up inside, Veronica.”

She regarded him helplessly. She hated him suffering, in part because it touched off her suffering, he suspected. Her pit bull, her Jophius, messy with emotion.

He forced a smile. “I’m okay, baby. We need to catch our train.”

A silence. Was she relieved? “Okay, Max.”

They caught a cab to the station, joining the late commuters traveling back to Milwaukee. They’d ride on through the night to St. Paul.

Inside the ornate and cavernous lobby, Veronica bought a detective novel from a used book stall, and she found a Louis L’Amour western for Max. She held it out. “You read this one yet?”

“No,” he lied, because he knew she wanted him to have something nice for the ride, something to console him.

“Excellent,” she said.

They settled into their seats for the journey home, restored to their regular appearances. The train lurched slowly through the Chicago yards, picking up speed as they neared Wisconsin. Max re-read the first few chapters of his book while she read hers.

The Milwaukee commuters disembarked some time later, leaving the car half empty. The lights were dimmed as the train set off once again, heading northwest. The horn blew whenever they approached populated areas—every few minutes at first, but less and less as they went on. Still Max would look up every time he heard the sound, desperate to get a glimpse into the lit-up windows of the homes and taverns they passed, as if he could find some life out there to latch onto.

Eventually the terrain turned rural. He felt hemmed in by the endless darkness, trapped in a train car with all the passengers and their murmurings and everyday lives and places they belonged.

As if she somehow felt his distress, she reached over and took his hand in hers. Gently, softly. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he lied, trying not to crush her bones out of wanting to hang onto her. She was all he had left, and he was about to lose her, too. His usefulness would be over once the Salvo bit was settled.

“That was hard for you,” she said.

“Yet good.” He looked out the window. At least he could rest easy knowing his girl was okay. “All this emptiness, does it ever make you feel all alone?”

“Max,” she whispered. “You’re not.”

He looked over at her and saw the struggle in her eyes. Not saying all she thought, as usual. Regretting whipping him up, maybe. Dreading a slow goodbye. He pulled his hand from hers and made a show of flipping through his book, then he shoved it into the seat pocket.

“Be right back.”

He headed down the tiny staircase to the lower level of the train, wandering to the very end. She’d think he was using the bathroom, but really he just needed to collect himself.

The
tha-lunk tha-lunk
was louder on the lower level, the darkness outside more profound. He sat himself on the luggage shelf full of backpacks and suitcases, all the essentials of those lives up there.

He suddenly didn’t know what anything was, and it terrified him. He was dead, but not. He had a waterfall of grief inside him.

He felt her before he saw her limping down the slim hallway.

When she reached him, she rested her petite hands on his thighs. “I’m sorry, Max.”

The weight of her hands comforted him. She affected him like she’d never know.

“When I wanted you to see her, I didn’t want for you to feel like this,” she said.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she said.

“No, it is, Veronica. I
want
to feel this.” His words sounded growly, even to his own ears. “I
need
to feel it.”

She furrowed her brow.

He took hold of her shoulders and looked into her eyes, feeling such crazy love for her. She didn’t want things to touch her. That was their difference.

“I want to plunge down and feel everything if that’s what’s there,” he whispered. “Bring it on, that’s what I say. Even if it rips me apart.”

“No, Max.”

He tightened his grip, raw with love and grief. “It’s what I have, Veronica. It’s alls I have left that’s still real. It’s alls I have left that shows I’m alive.”

“You’re wrong, Max—that’s not all.” And she went up on her tiptoes and pressed her soft lips to his. She kissed him slowly and sweetly, but it was electric, too, as if she were shoving life right into him, and suddenly, miraculously, he wasn’t alone. At least in that moment, he wasn’t alone.

Before he knew what he was doing, he was down off his perch, pushing her against the wall, kissing her with everything he had. He felt her fingers wend under his shirt, around his back, pressing into his flesh, clutching at him.

“Veronica.” He kissed down her cheek, trailing kisses down her neck, nuzzling her soft skin, drinking her up like a drought-crazed madman.

“You’re more alive than everyone on the planet combined,” she whispered in the darkness. “What’s between us is real.”

He pulled away, unable to trust it all. “Are you doing a pity number?”

She widened her eyes, a look she reserved for only the biggest of outrages. “Pity?
Pity
?” She snorted. “FYI, Max—” Then she stopped short.

“FYI what?”

“It’s not exactly an FYI,” she said.

“What isn’t?”

“Well, it kind of is, but not on the level of, hey, this is teal, not green.”

“Uh huh,” he said.

“It’s a different level.” She placed her hands on his chest and squeezed his shirt front, gazing into his eyes with a mixture of fear and resolve. He’d seen that look once before—it was back in the bathroom, before she’d consented to let him bathe her, back when she’d let herself be so vulnerable to him.

A shiver came over him.

“FYI,” she began again, then she tilted her head, eyebrows raised. Her expression for when she felt she was delivering the killer point in an argument. “FYI, I love you, so…”

He couldn’t believe it. This crazy happiness washed over him. “So…so
there
? Is that what you were going to say?” he teased.

Her face went red. “No.”

“FYI, I love you, so there?” He tickled her belly. “FYI?
That’s
an FYI?”

She laughed. “FYI I love you, so it’s not pity.” She grabbed his hands. “Stop being a freak. Don’t make me take it back.”