First Destroy All Giant Monsters (The World Wide Witches Research Association) (13 page)

“You saw him not too long ago?” Phyllis Clark asked, passing him a coffee cup and pushing the sugar and cream across the table.

“He drove through every month after I moved to Laurenville.” Karl blinked and stared at his cup wondering how many sugars he’d added and concentrated on the task of stirring the liquid. He felt so tired that his heart kept missing beats. His stomach cramped painfully around the fast food he’d eaten on the way up. He couldn’t remember taste or texture. It was just a lump that left him feeling emptier. “I saw him last week. He stayed over with me and we went bowling.” Aware that the parents were needy, he continued. “He was the only one from high school and college that kept up with me. Emailed me jokes. He kept me part of the world. We’d go out, get drunk, and check out the girls just like when we were teenagers. I’m so sorry,” he glanced up at Phyllis’s pale face. “I never expected …”

She gave him a weak smile.

“You saw him more recently than us, but when he called he always told me that he saw you. He worried about you.”

Karl stared at his cup again.

I’m sure from what he told you that you expected to be going to my funeral, not his,
he thought.
I expected it myself.

Mrs. Benn jumped into the silence.

“Does anyone have any idea what happened?”

“He was fine at work yesterday, they tell me.” Phyllis replied and tried vainly to find a coffee cup that needed refilling. “His boss called to say that he hadn’t come in and Gregory drove across to the apartment with my spare key. He was … in bed. Just lying there.”

She dropped the carafe roughly onto the table and started crying. Gregory Clark pulled his wife into a tight embrace and hugged her as they rocked back and forth.

“We’ll be sitting Shiva tonight,” said Gregory, stroking his wife’s hair, “and the internment is postponed … the investigation, you know, so we’ll have a memorial service noon tomorrow. They won’t say when they’ll be releasing … him …”

“I’m so sorry,” said Karl again. “I’ll stay tonight if that is okay with you.”

Gregory and Phyllis glanced briefly at Karl’s mother before nodding. Karl’s lip twisted and he looked away. He was well enough to go without sleep one night, for heaven’s sake.

He was alive, at least.

Phyllis reached into her pocket book and pulled out a long silver chain.

“He used to sit in that chair there,” she said, pointing at Karl, “talking about you and the mischief you’d get up to. He would sit and rub this pendant, for hours it seemed.”

Phyllis dropped the chain into Karl’s hand and closed his fingers around it, patting his fist absently.

“You can have it back now,” she said.

Karl opened his hand and poked at the pendant.

“I didn’t give him this,” he whispered, but Phyllis was crying again and didn’t respond.

Karl tucked the chain into his shirt pocket. If giving this to him was something his old friend’s mother wanted to do, then he would accept and always remember it. Or he’d hang onto it for a while then offer it back to her. Yeah. Give it a little while and she’d be wanting all the mementos she could get. Leaving his mother reminiscing with Phyllis, he wandered out past the living room. He didn’t really didn’t want to talk to anyone about Mike or anything else today. He was sure that Mike didn’t want to be spoken about in the past tense either, but life was a bitch.

He walked out onto the front lawn. Gregory joined him within a few minutes, standing silently staring at a tree with an old gash torn in its side. From a failed reverse parking attempt, Karl remembered, pressing his palm against the wounded tree. He and Mike had laughed themselves sick, right up until the moment they’d seen his father standing on the lawn.

“You might hear something, Karl,” said Gregory. “I don’t want you saying anything to Phyllis. She knows, but she’s blocking it out. Doesn’t want to think about it.”

Karl pushed his hands into his pockets and waited apprehensively. There was something about the set of Gregory’s shoulders, the tension in his arms and hands, that sent chills through Karl.

“His throat was cut,” Gregory gasped and closed his eyes, “The police won’t say with what.”

Karl blinked and turned, almost falling.

“He was murdered? Mike was murdered? Who?” Karl shuddered. A cut throat? He’d seen enough movies, enough video carnage to imagine the scene. “Gregory. I’m sorry. That’s a terrible thing to have to see.”

“There was no blood,” Gregory’s voice shook. “They must have killed him somewhere else then taken his body back to his apartment. I have to be grateful for that; at least we know where he is. Oh, God, someone killed my son.” Gregory’s face was white and the grip on Karl’s arm was bruisingly tight. “He never hurt anyone and they killed him.”

“Who?”

“How the hell should I know?” Gregory hugged the still living boy, the warm link to his dead son, close to his chest and sobbed. “He wasn’t doing any harm. He was a kid, a baby, and someone tore out his throat.”

Karl clenched his teeth against a scream.

* * * * *

Amber groaned as she examined the sky. The blue and yellow color-scape was already boring and she’d only been here twice.

“I do not need this,” she complained to the uncaring universe, ashamed to hear the whine in her voice. “I’m too tired for games tonight. Why are you doing this to me?”

The same dreamscape two nights in a row, considering what else was happening in her life, was not a good sign. A sign, yes. Just not a good one.

She scanned the horizon. So far, no wolves.

No spirit guides of any kind. She sighed as the heat sucked the moisture from her mouth, her skin, her eyes. This was most unpleasant. If this was another aspect of Spirit come to tell her she’d made a mistake, okay, message received. It would now be a good time to give her useful information. Like how to solve the problem. How to find her aunt and give back the grown-up witch responsibilities to someone with skill, ability … patience.

The landscape remained empty.

She called out, but no sound came. Nothing above the volume of her heavy breathing. She held her breath for a moment, and the sound continued.

Her heart stuttered and she turned around seeking whoever was doing the breathing, but there was no one. Counting that as a good thing since the opposite made her nervous, Amber started walking, the dust her feet disturbed rising and falling in noiseless puffs.

Eventually the dreamscape faded away and she awoke, safe and confused in the library.

* * * * *

The day when he buried his best friend should be dank and miserable. Okay, it was only a memorial service and it was likely he was going to have to come back for the actual internment, but … Karl turned his attention away from the rabbi standing at the podium and was annoyed to see that outside the window the sun was shining. His mother and Mrs. Clark had decreed that he should be given the duty of reading a poem. With the police holding onto Mike’s body there was no casket to carry, no procession of cars to the last resting place. It seemed less real without a motionless body to pass by. Instead he was carrying a piece of paper, leaning unobtrusively against the wall behind a bank of flowers.

There was a stir at the back of the hall and a tall man in a dull black suit came into the room, looked around, then turned to beckon to a small woman who was waiting just outside. Karl caught a glimpse of a Bluetooth device in his ear and a suspicious bulge under his arm. A gun? A bodyguard?

The police? A detective at the funeral? How CSI.

The woman strode down the central aisle while everyone stretched and twisted around in their seats as if watching the approach of the bride. The rabbi stuttered to a halt and ruffled his papers. Karl peered through the foliage protecting him from the audience and snarled a curse when he recognized her. The last person he’d expected to come and pay her respects to the departed.

Selfish. When he’d known her, she wouldn’t cross the street to spit on a burning man unless there was something in it for her.

“Dammit, Gloria. Why are you here?” he whispered as the guard tapped a startled mourner who was sitting on the first seat in the second row and jerked his thumb. The mourner leapt to his feet and hustled to the back of the hall leaving the prime seat available for Gloria.

Mr. and Mrs. Clark, disturbed by the whispering behind them, had turned to watch. Gloria settled herself gracefully on the hard metal folding chair and nodded regally, first to Mike’s parents, then to the rabbi, and the service continued.

Karl watched, so tired he didn’t have the energy to get angry. Today all he could manage was a vague, numb acknowledgment of her continued existence. The years since college had been kind to his ex-girlfriend. The dark-haired, unnaturally thin girl who had messed around with Tarot cards, dream catchers and weird silver jewelry, now dressed in power suits, wore conservative makeup with style, and stopped traffic without moving a muscle. Sexy. God dammit, sexy enough to wake up every living man at a funeral.

What the freaking hell was Gloria doing at Mike’s funeral? She’d hated all of Karl’s friends. She wouldn’t give Mike the time of day alive. She liked to surround herself with acolytes and Mike preferred girls with more … physical natures.

Which brought the muscle man back to his attention. The hulk retreated to the rear of the hall and stood endlessly scanning for danger.

What was she doing now that rated a security detail?

Karl crushed the paper in his hand into a ball and thrust it into his coat pocket with the necklace Phyllis had given him. Strange, Karl could not remember Mike ever wearing it. Couldn’t remember any jewelry at all, let alone a small silver wolf howling at the moon. Yet every time he looked at it Karl’s heart pounded and he wanted to run, to be anywhere but here.

When the rabbi called his name he stepped forward, ignoring Gloria, and read the words Mike’s mother selected with as much passion as he could summon. Afterwards he ducked out the side door to wait for his mother on the front steps.

Later, as the crowd around the funeral home was thinning – people turning away from the death of a young man to return to the safety of their ongoing lives – Gloria glided away from her cluster of admirers toward him.

Neat trick in those heels
, Karl thought and fought down the impulse to run.

Gloria smiled up into his dark eyes, put one hand on his shoulder for balance, and kissed his cheek gently.

“Dear Karl, I missed you last night,” she whispered in his ear before resting back on her heels. She linked one arm through his and tried to pull him along. “Walk me to my car.”

Karl refrained from pointing out that she had walked further away from her car by coming over to kiss him. Karl waited for the old flare of hunger. The desire that had led him to overlook, at first, her interest in the occult.

Now, despite the fact that she was glowing, her skin translucent, her body lush and perfect – resisting her was easy. Maybe her attractions were too practiced. Maybe he’d just grown up. Maybe he was too ill. Now, having her close to him, touching him, did not stir his body at all.

He glanced across the stone marked field and spotted his mother standing near her car looking about for him, and stopped resisting Gloria’s pull. Gloria’s bodyguard was standing next to a car two up from his mother.

“I was sitting Shiva,” he said putting more concentration into the job of staying upright now that Gloria was pulling him off balance. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Ah. That explains it.” Gloria smiled. “You must be so tired. Staying awake all night isn’t a good idea for someone in your delicate condition.”

“I’m fine,” mentally Karl cursed his mother and the gossip chain.

He hadn’t felt bad until now. Going without sleep hadn’t bothered him much at all. Maybe it was that he was used to being tired as hell. Anyway, was there anyone in town that didn’t know the state of his health?

“Have you been seeing a lot of Mike lately?” he asked.

“I saw him now and then,” said Gloria. “We were working together. Well, I’m working on Senator Thomas’s election committee; I’m his chief of staff, actually, and Mike … did some running around for us. You might consider changing your political affiliation, Karl. Not that we need your vote, but it would be nice to have your – more of your support.”

She smiled again, showing professionally straightened teeth.

Karl almost expected the light to “ting” off her smile just like in old movies.

“Mike …” he said. It was a safer topic than politics. He had no doubt that Gloria’s politics were as repugnant as her involvement in the occult.

“Oh, Mike was around,” she continued, still clutching Karl’s arm. He could feel the bite of her nails through the fabric of his suit, “but he was more of a puppy than a wolf. He lacked … the killer instinct. We knew he would never be a political raider, but he could always run with the pack.”

Karl’s breath caught in his throat and he stared at the woman on his arm, heart clenching in his chest. Gloria’s free hand pulled on a narrow silver chain from under her bright silk blouse. A small wolf dangled from the chain and caught the light. She shook out her hair and bared her teeth at him, a parody of a smile that chilled him to his bones.

“You really shouldn’t have kicked me out, Karl, dear. But hey, no hard feelings. After all this time I still feel we have a very special bond.”

She kissed him on the cheek again, leaving a lipstick stain, and waving to his mother, stalked off to a waiting limousine.

Karl stared after her, breathless, rubbing the mark off his face.

Mrs. Benn came to stand beside him and watched impassively as Gloria departed.

“Some people light up a room and you’re happy to see them,” said Mrs. Benn, “and some people just glow and make you feel warm just to be near. That one just has to be the center of attention and leaves me completely cold.”

Shaking off his sudden fear Karl kissed his mother gently on the cheek.

“You never did like her, did you?” he said.

“Not for two seconds. I was very glad when you kicked her out of your life.”