Malus Domestica (29 page)

But why shouldn’t she have been surprised? After all, according to Heinrich, the Cutty coven was the most powerful in America.

And now it was one of the last. Under his tutelage, she had roamed the continent, hunting down every witch she could find in the Lower Forty-Eight, and a couple in Canada. Nineteen of them, from Neva Chandler, the self-proclaimed Witchlord of Alabama, to Gail Symes of Arizona, who called herself the Oracle of the Sands. There were still hundreds of minor witches out there—newbies, idiots, little girls who had no idea their hearts had been sacrificed to Ereshkigal, and like Neva, vapor-locked mummies too run-down to migrate out of their own ghetto—but most of them were too embedded, too well-hidden, or so weak that they might as well have been your normal every-day palm reader.

The witches had no real hierarchy. They had no structured government. Most of them had divvied up the country as the first Presidents were buying it piece by piece from the Mexicans and the Spanish, and ripping it from the hands of the Native Americans.

Ever since, they moved from town to town every couple of decades, eradicating the weak ones or dueling each other like Highlanders.

Robin had never witnessed a witch-duel, but it must have been a sight to see. She turned the camera inward at the truck’s cab and spoke to Joel. “I think you should stay a couple nights somewhere else. Maybe at Kenny’s place. Y’know, in case the killer knows where you live.”

Joel wore one of Kenway’s old gray exercise shirts, ARMY across the chest. “I’ll be aight, I got my mama’s old shotgun at the house. I don’t think he knows where I live anyway.” Pointing at the camera, he added, “How you gonna put me on YouTube, and I ain’t fixed up at all? I look like I been through a wood chipper.”

“You look fine.”

“At least give me a ride back there and let me take a shower and pack a little bag.” Joel tugged the chest of the huge T-shirt out. “This thing like a tent on me. And, no offense, hero, but your clothes are all beat to Hell.”

Kenway smirked. “None taken.”

Joel pointed at the symbol tattooed on her chest. “What’s with the plunging neckline all of a sudden? And what’s this? You all up in that magic too?”

“It’s called
algiz.”

“Owl jizz?”
asked Kenway.

“Nooo,”
said Robin, “‘All-geez’. It’s a protective rune from the Elder Futhark alphabet, one of a number of sigils witches use to channel and catalyze their Gift.”

“Gift?”

“…Their power. That’s what they call it. They don’t like calling it magic, and I don’t either.”

“Why not?”

Kenway stopped for a red-light. At four in the morning, the roads were nearly dead except for a few people going to work. Without the radio on, the atmosphere inside the truck was quiet and contemplative.

“Magic is…something wizards and magicians do in fantasy movies and on stages in Vegas, you know? Magic is David Copperfield and David Blaine. Card tricks, cutting women in half, pulling rabbits out of hats, kids’ birthday parties.” Robin retreated into jargon and esoterica, not telling him the reason she didn’t like calling it magic was because her mother Annie called it magic. And after seeing how evil and dark it was, she didn’t like associating it with her mother, even if it took pedantry to separate the darkness from her memory of Annie.

Everything she could do to distance that addle-tongued lady from the sinister craft of the witches, she did. Yes, Annie was a witch…but that didn’t mean she had to be lumped into the same gang. Annie was Glinda; she was Sabrina; she was Hermione. She was good and she did Magic, because Magic was what good witches did.

On the other side of the intersection was a Starbucks. Kenway crossed the road and pulled into the parking lot.

Robin continued. “What the acolytes of Ereshkigal—
true
witches—do is far less whimsical, and goes a lot deeper. They channel the essence of the spirit world itself, guiding it with language, and intensifying it with sheer will.” She pointed at the rune on her chest. “Using language to guide it works both ways, fortunately. We can’t draw it like they can, but we can manipulate their energy. Think of their power as a laser, and words and symbols as mirrors and lenses.”

Joel nodded in understanding as Kenway pulled up to the drive-thru menu.

Robin offered him her debit card, but his face conveyed reluctance. “Go ahead,” she said, urging him on with the card in her hand. “You know I’m good for it. I’m staying in your apartment, after all. I owe you anyway.”

While Kenway ordered them coffee, Robin took out her cellphone and dialed a number. It rang several times, but no one picked up. A recorded voice told her that the owner of the number hadn’t set up his voicemail yet, so she couldn’t even leave him a message.

“Dammit,” she told the mechanical voice. “Heinrich, when will you ever get with the times?”

This hadn’t been the first time that Robin had made plans to go after a formidable witch alone. She peeled back the lapel of her shirt, looking not only at the
algiz
on her chest but the stab-wound scar at the top of her right breast.

The Oracle of the Sands had been a hell of a fight—Symes had been hiding out in one of the smaller, dinkier, rundown casinos on the outskirts of Vegas. Robin had gone in masquerading as one of the customers, but as soon as the Oracle realized she was there (thanks to a particularly eagle-eyed pit boss and an armada of surveillance cameras), every customer in sight lost their minds. Suddenly the casino was full of crazed cat-people out for her blood, and Robin barely made it out with her life.

She found out after the fact that Symes had gassed a cage full of house-cats in a specialized panic room in her penthouse suite. A familiar-bomb, basically.

Joel borrowed Robin’s cellphone and tapped a number into it. “Hello? Blackfield Police Department?” he said, pressing it to his ear. “I need to be talkin to y’all about something, and you gonna want to hear this. I think I just got rescued from a serial killer.”

He paused. “Yeah, I’ll wait.”

Kenway handed out the coffee and pulled back into traffic. “Hello there, Mr. Officer,” Joel said, folding his arms. “I almost got killed by some maniac, and I thought y’all would like to know about it.

“Yeah, he drugged me and when I woke up I was chained to the ceiling next to a dead guy. Yeah. No, he said he was going to bleed me dry, because he needed ‘blood for the garden’. No, I have no idea what that means. No, the only enemies I got live in glass bottles. Yeah, glass bottles. As in alcohol. …It was a joke.”

He sipped coffee. “You want me to come up there and take a statement? Aight. I’ll be up there in a little bit. I got to go get my car and some clean clothes.”

“So what you gonna do now, Malus?” asked Kenway.

“After we take Joel to his apartment, I want to try to edit and upload today’s video,” said Robin, glaring daggers out the window. “And then head out to my old house and formally introduce myself to Mr. Parkin. If there’s really a monster in there, I’m sure my mother had something to do with it. And I’m sure there was a good reason.”

“Point of order,” said Joel, holding up a finger.

“Hmm?”

“I need to get my car. Black Velvet is not at my house.”

“Where is it?” asked Kenway.

“I drove Velvet to my date with the mysterious Mr. Big Red last night.” Joel massaged his face with both hands, talking through his fingers. “I left it parked in front of the serial killer’s apartment.”

15

T
HE
STETHOSCOPE
WAS
COLD
on Wayne’s back. A latex-gloved hand cupped the curve of his ribs as he breathed in, out, in, out. “Do me a favor and breathe
real
deep,” said the doctor, in his soft Australian accent. Morning sunlight streamed in through the window, throwing bars of gold over Leon. He stood at the end of the bed, his arms folded imperiously, his eyes red and squinty.

Wayne filled his lungs with the hospital’s minty-sweet air and expelled it slowly.

“Hrrm. This is weird.”

“What’s weird?” asked Leon.

“Well…” Dr. Kossmann took a Dum-Dum sucker out of his labcoat pocket. He was an athletic, fresh-faced young man that looked like he could be the Blackfield High football captain. As he spoke, he emphasized his words with the sucker. “…We gave your son a dose of antivenin last night when he got here, but I’ve got to say, this is the fastest I’ve ever seen anybody recover from a snake-bite.”

He gave the sucker to Wayne, then lifted the boy’s left leg with gentle hands and placed it on the bed. “The swelling’s gone down precipitously.”

The bandage had been removed so the bite could be examined. “There’s very little discoloration, there’s no necrosis or infection at all in or around the punctures. I don’t know what this lady Mrs… Mrs. Weaver put on you before they brought you here, but whatever it was, it must have been some kind of miracle salve.”

Wayne unwrapped the cream soda Dum-Dum and stuck it in his mouth, staring at his leg and marveling at his own luck.

“Obviously I’ve never been one for homeopathic hoo-doo,” said Dr. Kossmann, picking up a clipboard and clicking an inkpen. “But judging by the effect this had on your son, Mr. Parkin, maybe it’s time to start believing.”

“Maybe she’s one of those crazy religious snake-handlers you hear about in this neck of the woods.”

The doctor grunted.

They hadn’t told the hospital about Wayne’s strange absence in the middle of the night. As far as the ward’s nurses were concerned, Leon had fallen asleep and his son had inadvisedly wandered out to the parking lot for some fresh air. This explained why the soles of Wayne’s feet were dirty, and Kossman didn’t seem to even be aware that anything had happened, so they didn’t trouble him with it. Which was good, because he really didn’t want to have to tell the story again.

“So he’s gonna be fine?” asked Leon.

Dr. Kossmann nodded.
“Oh
yeah,” he said to the clipboard, writing. “He’s more than okay—all things considered, he’s fantastic. A week or two of taking it easy, maybe stay off that foot as much as possible, and he’ll be good as new. And that’s a liberal estimate. Honestly, I think he ought to stay here another night for observation, but in truth he’s not really gonna get any better day-to-day care here than he would at home.” He winked. “And there’s no Xbox here either.”

“Point taken.”

“Is there any pain?” asked Dr. Kossmann, gently feeling the flesh around the bite. “On a scale from one to ten, ten being the
worst pain you ever felt?”

“One?” said Wayne. “I mean, I guess it just feels like a bruise.”

That seemed to satisfy the doctor. “Like I said, he can stay here another night if you’re on pins and needles about his condition, but if you want to take him home…I’m not going to put my foot down. To the best of my knowledge, he’s through the worst of it.

“Usually a bite from a copperhead isn’t much to an adult man—most of the time it doesn’t even warrant antivenin—but to a child his size and frame, it can be serious. Your son actually had an allergic reaction, which is why he’d initially gone into anaphylactic shock and gone unconscious. But whatever Mrs. Weaver did eliminated that factor. She saved your son’s life.”

Leon picked up his jacket. “My insurance is probably turnin over in its grave. I guess we’ll head on home. Maybe give you guys a call or run him up here if anything happens.”

Dr. Kossmann peeled off his glove and dropped it into a wastebasket. “I’ll have someone bring you a wheelchair. …And then I guess I’m going to go turn in my resignation and take up faith-healing.”

❂

As the elevator door eased shut, Wayne reached out and tugged his father’s sleeve. Puzzlement came over Leon’s face.

“You know I’m not lyin, right?” Wayne looked up from the wheelchair. “About the door in the wall…and the monster. Jo-elle was there. He saw it all.”

He had changed into the fresh clothes from the bag he’d seen under the chair the night before. Wayne wondered if he’d see the pretty girl with the shaved head again, so he could give her her clothes back. It’d felt supremely strange wearing them…but admittedly he had liked it, because they smelled like her.

Leon leaned against the wall. The lights in the elevator were stark but dim, turning his skin from its usual healthy umber to a greenish beetle-black. “I don’t know what to believe, son. You ain’t got a very good track record.”

Wayne glumly sucked his upper lip.

“I thought we were gonna—I thought this was gonna be a fresh start, Wayne. For both of us. I thought we were done with Lawrence-level shit. I got you away from his little proto-gang, and…you got me away from Johnnie Walker.”

“I’m tellin the truth.”

Leon watched his face. “Yeah.”

Reaching into Wayne’s shirt-collar, he pulled out the ring. It lay on the pale of his fingers, twinkling dull in the elevator lights. “I didn’t even know you
had
this. How long you been walkin around with it? Did I even say you could have it?”

“I got it that night I tucked you in the bed after you sat and watched the ball game and finished off that bottle you had hid in that basket Mom put on top of the bookshelf.” Wayne made no move to take the ring away or even lean back, only stared up at his father.

Adrenaline thrummed in his veins.
Be stronger. Adapt and overcome.
“After you passed out, I got it off your nightstand and put it on my chain. I call it your stupid tax.”

“Stupid tax,” said Leon, slowly, gently, suspensefully tucking the ring back into his son’s shirt, shaking his head as if in disbelief.

It kinda says something that you didn’t even realize I had it.

The bizarre notion occurred to Wayne that he was about to get hit in the face, which had blessedly never happened before. Leon might have had a drinking problem, but even in his worst moments, he never struck his son. He may have put a couple holes in the walls, but that was the extent of his furor.

Leon winced, rubbing his chest as if he were having a heart attack. He leaned against the wall and pressed the Lobby button.

“…You okay?”