Polterheist: An Esther Diamond Novel (23 page)

“Oh, my God,” I said, as realization dawned. “Rick . . . you’re a
Powell.
”

He looked stunned to see me—and appalled to realize he had been exposed.

“No one noticed when you applied for this job?” I asked in surprise. We had to use our legal names on our employment forms, and people were
very
sensitive about the name “Powell” around here.

“He’s a Powell on his mother’s side,” Elspeth said contemptuously. “And,
God,
if I have to listen to him whine even
one more time
about what my family did to the pathetic losers in his family.”

“So Elspeth had the mystical mojo,” I said to Rick, “and you knew how to apply it to human nature to get control of various employees’ minds and turn them into drones in your hijacking scheme.”

“And that’s all it was supposed to be!” he screamed at Elspeth, beside himself with anger now. “Not
this
shit! I just wanted the money! I’m sick of my family doing nothing about what was taken from us!”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rick,” I said in disgust. “It was a long time ago. Move on. Go out and get a job like the rest of us.”

“Oh, that’s great advice coming from you,
Dreidel.”

“You thought you could control her,” I said to him with malicious satisfaction. “But once you got her going on the idea of revenge, of humiliating her family, of exploring her mystical gifts . . . You had no
idea
what you had set loose, did you? You’ve just been finding out in the past couple of days how far she’s strayed from your plan and how little control of her you actually have.”

“What kind of demented lunatic wants to destroy all of Midtown?” he shouted. “I thought she was only talking about destroying Fenster’s—and I mean the
business,
not the damn building!”

We heard a horrible bellowing roar from Solstice Castle, so powerful that it blew a hot fetid wind through the Enchanted Forest. Max’s chanting rose in volume. I heard Twinkle scream aggressively as he barreled into someone else, trying to break the demon’s power circle. The kid was really showing his mettle tonight.

“I didn’t know about
this!”
Rick insisted. “All I wanted to do was rob the Fensters!”

“Somebody got
shot
the other night, Rick,” I pointed out. “That’s what tends to happen once you dabble in
armed robbery,
you jackass!”

“No, that tends to happen once you dabble in an idiot like Freddie Fenster!” Rick shouted as another hot, grotesquely foul wind blew through this area. The grad student turned his ire on Elspeth again and raged, “What were you thinking? On top of everything else, using your idiot cousin has led the cops
straight
to us!”

I was about to say that the police seemed a minor matter at the moment, compared to a solstice demon. But then there was a long, loud, enraged demonic
scream
from the next room, and a prolonged flash of white light so bright that we had to shield our eyes, even though we were screened from it by fake trees. This was followed by a stunned moment of silence . . . And then I heard the chatter of confused human voices as Elspeth’s victims regained their senses and started demanding to know what the hell was going on.

Nelli was barking again—but joyfully now, announcing their victory.

“Oh, thank God,” I said. “The demon has been sent back to hell.”

“Noooooo!” Elspeth wailed.
“No, no, no, noooooo. . . .”

Naked and weeping hysterically, she collapsed to the floor. I immediately heard a bunch of feet stampeding this way, coming from the direction of the solstice mural. I tensed as I looked that way, and was surprised to hear heavy, authoritative voices shouting, “NYPD!
Freeze!
Police! Get down on the ground! FREEZE!”

“Lopez!” I cried, seeing him among the officers running in this direction. He was wearing a bullet-proof vest, which struck me as an odd thing to wear to a demon’s summoning.

“Esther?”
he stopped in his tracks, looking stunned.

Then I felt the barrel of a gun against my temple as Rick grabbed me from behind, his hand around my throat, choking me so hard that my eyes watered and I felt dizzy. He started dragging me backward, using me as a shield, telling the approaching cops to back off or he would kill me.

Lopez looked horrified, but he didn’t drop his gun or stop pointing it at Rick. “Let her go!”

Other cops were screaming things at Rick like, “Freeze!” and “Drop it!
Drop it!
DROP IT!”

Given how agitated my captor seemed as he jammed his gun against my head, I really questioned whether all this screaming was a good idea.

I tried to scramble away from Rick, but my ball gown made my movements slow and clumsy.

He tightened his grip on me and said, “I like you, Esther, but I’ll shoot you if I have to.”

Breathing hard with fear and adrenaline, I shifted a little to look into his eyes . . . and I realized that I believed him.

“And
he
wouldn’t like that, would he?” Rick added to me as he flicked a glance at Lopez.

I started shaking all over.
Oh, my God, this manipulative, demented, greedy bastard is going to shoot me in the head,
I thought. It was easy to see now how Rick had tried to manage the volatile situation in recent days, create an impression of himself as innocent in all matters, distract my attention, and convince me that nothing strange was going on at Fenster’s. And
now
the lying, thieving bastard was going to shoot me in the head.

“I want out of here!” Rick said. “Esther comes with me!”

Lopez just shook his head; I could see the fierceness of his expression from here, even in Solsticeland’s gloomy light.

“I’ll shoot her,” Rick warned. “
I’ll shoot her!”

“No, you won’t,” Lopez said coldly, his eyes hard. “You know what I’ll do to you if she dies.”

There was a short, very tense silence . . . and then we all collectively flinched as the sky started moving above us. I looked up and saw Twinkle’s lunar eclipse taking place overhead. He had uploaded the program after all, hoping there’d be a chance to use it. He must be running it now, trying to create a life-saving distraction.

Lopez tried to use that moment of surprise to get a better angle to take a shot at Rick; but Super Santa was ready for that and kept me safely in front of him, his gun still pressed against my temple.

I was shaking all over and seriously starting to fear I’d become a long-term hostage. Or a fatality. I couldn’t stop trembling.

“Hold still!” Rick screamed, terrifying me.

For a moment, I thought I saw Lopez’s eyes flash like blue fire. And then the next thing I knew, Twinkle’s lunar eclipse exploded directly overhead. It noisily showered shards of Solsticeland’s sky all over us, along with tiny electrical stars, bits of flaming debris, and torrents of floating sparks. Rick flinched and backed up a step, losing his hold on me. Determined not to let a cumbersome ball gown be the cause of my death, I threw myself bodily in the opposite direction.

By the time Lopez was scooping me off the floor to check me for injuries (none), Rick was on the ground, face down, being handcuffed.

Breathing hard in reaction, Lopez looked up at the sky. “Who turned on that display?”

“Twinkle,” I said with certainty. “It was his idea. His design.”

“It was good thinking,” Lopez said. “It almost worked.”

His hands were clutching me hard enough to hurt, but I didn’t protest. He hugged me for a long moment. Then he looked up at the ruined Solsticeland sky again, a wreck of shattered parts, sizzling wires, smoking sockets, and exploded little lights.

“Jesus,” he said, “this place really
is
falling apart.”

I thought I knew better, though. There had been other incidents. Other bizarrely fiery moments, such as the exploding sewer tunnel that killed a homicidal vampire while mysteriously leaving Lopez and his colleagues unharmed. And tonight, I was looking right at him when the sparkling lunar sky of Solsticeland had exploded in a lifesaving shower of fire and sparks, heat and smoke . . . and I thought I had seen something powerful pass through his eyes a split second before that happened.

There was also the time my bed burst into flames, while we were in it together.

I suddenly needed to sit down, feeling very shaky.

Lopez called another cop over to sit with me while he went around securing the scene. Elspeth was still screeching and weeping hysterically, which was getting on my nerves. The police had custody of her and were evidently calling for a stretcher.

Lopez went through the forest and over to Solstice Castle, where Max and Nelli had contained the demon and freed the actors from their psycho-mystical thrall to Elspeth and Rick. I could hear Satsy’s voice from all the way in here, and it made me smile.

At some point, feeling as if I was experiencing everything through a fog, I asked Lopez how he had found us.

The answer was absurdly simple. NYPD thought that a hit on the store on Christmas Eve, after closing and when security was light, seemed probable. By then, Lopez had also zeroed in on Rick during his investigation of the employees. And I’d been right in thinking that Elspeth and Rick had picked off too many Solsticeland actors. After I’d mentioned the high attrition rate to Lopez, he’d gotten curious and had looked into it. That had let him start connecting the dots, just as Freddie’s arrest and the smooth, inside nature of the planning had done, too.

“Plus,” Lopez said, watching his colleagues haul Rick away, “I always thought the perp had to be Santa Claus.
Always.”

Well, yes. There was that.

“Vindicated at long last,” I murmured dryly.

But once he recovered from thinking I might get my head blown off, Lopez started giving me some dark looks, and I realized he’d want some detailed explanations about what I was doing here in the middle of this
mess
, with Max, Nelli, and Lucky—none of whom he’d been pleased to find in Solsticeland tonight. Lopez also started muttering grimly about what the hell he was going to put in his report.

That was when Lucky decided that if the detective didn’t object, then he’d be moving along now. Since Lopez apparently didn’t want to have to explain to anyone what a Gambello hit man was doing at his crime scene, he agreed with this suggestion.

Then Lopez asked Max to see me safely home. Max agreed with alacrity. But I could tell from the parting look Lopez gave me that I would soon be facing a tense conversation about this night’s work.

19

M
ax saw me home in a taxi whose driver was avidly curious about why I was dressed as a disheveled princess. I ignored him and didn’t really hear what Max said.

After we arrived at my apartment building in the West Thirties, Max took the key from my cold hand, opened the front door, and came inside with me. He supported my elbow as I climbed the two flights of stairs in my homely old building. The ball gown I wore felt as heavy as a bag of bricks by now.

Inside my small, cheerfully shabby apartment, Max gently urged me to sit in the easy chair, purchased from a thrift shop, and then wrapped a blanket around me. He entered the kitchenette and puttered around, making me a hot cup of strong, sweet tea. When he handed it to me, I took a sip and, for a nasty moment of suspense, thought I might gag or throw up. Then I crossed some unseen threshold, started to calm down, and swallowed the tea.

Max sat watching me with concern while I drank the whole cup, bit by bit, feeling a little warmth start to creep through me.

Then I realized who was missing. “Nelli! Max, where’s Nelli? We have to go back and get—”

“No, no, my dear, she’s with Lucky. He’s taking her back to the bookshop. He and I realized that getting you home and wrapped up was an urgent task that shouldn’t be hampered by finding a cab driver willing to transport Nelli.”

“Oh.”

He offered to make me another cup of tea, but I declined. I was feeling better now, the shock and cold wearing off. I also noticed how gray with fatigue Max was looking, and I realized that tonight had been exhausting for him.

“You ought to go home and rest,” I said, standing up to show him that I felt okay. “I’ll call you a cab.”

“I am rather fatigued,” he admitted.

We chatted quietly, in soft, distracted voices for the next few minutes, while I looked out the window and watched for the taxi to pull up in front of my apartment building. I said I was so glad we had rescued the missing employees. He said he was relieved he and Nelli had succeeded in containing the demon.

We didn’t talk about the police, or about whether Lopez had unwittingly caused the spectacular shower of fiery light which had distracted Rick enough for me to escape, or about whether we might have to pay for damaged Solsticeland costumes. It all seemed like too much to think about right now, when we were both stupid with fatigue and I was just glad that there wasn’t a bullet in my brain.

The cab arrived, and Max rose to leave. He paused at the door to remind me about his Saturnalia feast tomorrow, which I assured him I would attend.

After I closed the door behind him, I stripped off the gown and stuffed it into a big garbage bag, planning to get rid of it the next time I went out. Then I threw my undergarments into the hamper and went into the bathroom, which was just off the living room, to have a shower. This was the coldest room in the apartment in winter, and I got goose bumps while running the water and waiting for it to heat up. Then I stepped under the hot spray, hoping to get warm all the way through.

After I got out of the shower, I patted myself dry with one of my threadbare towels. Then I slipped quickly into my heavy flannel bathrobe with a shiver—now the cold bathroom was
damp
and cold. I was so tired, but I hate going to bed with a wet head; so I picked up my blow-dryer and turned it on. My senses welcomed its soothing heat and prosaic noise, but I still felt a chill running all the way through me. After a few minutes, I realized I was clenching my jaw so tightly that it hurt. My jangled nerves were screaming for release. So, while I continued drying my hair, I half-heartedly did some exercises to relax my jaw and neck.

I almost became a homicide statistic tonight.

My face in the mirror was pale and tired, but otherwise normal. I didn’t
look
like someone who’d nearly had her head blown off a little while ago . . . I wondered why almost being shot by a panicky criminal was still freaking me out, whereas I was already starting to recover from confronting a solstice demon tonight.

Preparation, I supposed. I had gone to Fenster’s
expecting
to confront a solstice demon and its demented acolyte, so I’d been ready for that. Yes, it was terrifying; but I had braced myself for mystical Evil. However, it had never occurred to me that someone was going to pull out a
gun
and point it at my
head
.

Bastard.

I remembered the murderous intent on Rick’s face as he threatened to kill me, remembered what it was like to be held hostage at gunpoint by someone I had liked and worked with . . .

My arm started shaking, making the dryer waver erratically. I tried to hold it steady, but the shaking just got worse. So I turned off the dryer, which suddenly felt very heavy, and set it down. My hair was still a little damp, but it would do for tonight.

I braced my hands against the bathroom sink and took slow, deep, rhythmic breaths, trying to calm down and steady my nerves.

The door buzzer rang. I jumped and gave a little shriek.

I pressed a shaking hand against my heart, which pounded in startled reaction to the jarring noise of the buzzer. I was panting a little.

Jesus, pull yourself together, Esther.

Then another chill swept through me as I realized it was after two o’clock in the morning. Who the hell would be at my door
now?

This couldn’t be good.

I stepped out of the bathroom and stood there uncertainly, staring at my front door, breathing hard with mounting anxiety as my heart continued pounding.

I reminded myself that everyone who had tried to kill me tonight was either in police custody or back in hell now—and solstice demons probably didn’t use doorbells, anyhow.

So who was it? Who would come to my apartment in the middle of the night?

I flinched when the buzzer rang again.

Then I regained enough self-command to realize that the easiest way to find out who was downstairs would be to ask. I crossed the floor to the front door and pressed the intercom button, wondering if Max had decided to come back for some reason.

“Who is it?” I asked anxiously.

There was a moment of crackling static. Then: “It’s me, Esther. Did I wake you?”

“Lopez?” I blurted in surprise. “Aren’t you supposed to be—I don’t know—locking people up?”

“I’ve done that. Now I have to figure out exactly what to say in my report.” He sounded tired and cranky. “Let me in. We need to talk.”

That sounded ominous.

“Now?” I considered insisting that I was too tired and we should do this some other time.

“Yes. And if you’re thinking of putting me off, forget it. That’s why I didn’t call first,” he said tersely. “Let me in.”

“Um . . .”

“
Now,
Esther.” Okay,
very
cranky.

I sighed and buzzed him into the building. After the jolt of adrenaline the buzzer had just delivered, I probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep for ages, anyhow. So if Lopez was determined to have it out, then I might as well get this over with now, rather than postpone the inevitable.

As I opened my front door and listened to him trudging up the stairs to this floor, I wearily ran lines in my head for the scene we were about to play. I would tell him that Lucky, Max, and I had gone to the store to prevent a solstice demon from entering this dimension. Lopez would urge me to seek psychiatric help and to submit to drug testing. He might also vow never to come anywhere near me again; this last bit would be subject to improvisation, depending on how combative he was feeling. Considering the late hour, though, I thought he might just wind up retreating quietly with a headache rather than trying to decide tonight what to do about our . . . let’s call it friendship.

In any case, regardless of what note his visit might end on, I was so sure of how the central portion of this conversation would go that, by the time Lopez got to my threshold, I felt as if we had
already
talked.

Maybe he felt that way, too; instead of bursting into a torrent of questions and criticism the moment he saw me, he came to an abrupt halt when he reached my doorway and just stood there, staring at me in silence.

I stared back, not at all eager be the one to start the argument.

I realized it must still be snowing outside, since there was a faint white dusting of snowflakes on his wool coat. A few melting droplets sparkled in his black hair and clung to his dark lashes. He was breathing a little fast from the climb up the stairs. And now that he stood on my threshold, looking at me without speaking . . . his breathing quickened instead of slowing down.

Our gazes locked, and I stopped thinking about what we were going to say.

He could have died tonight,
I thought, my heart thudding heavily inside my chest as I stared at him.

His dark expression faded, and he looked slightly dazed, almost surprised as he gazed at me—as if he were seeing me for the first time and hadn’t expected what he found.

I suddenly thought of the first time he
had
seen me—the night we had met, months ago. He had come to investigate a strange incident (which soon turned out to be stranger than my wildest dreams) at the West Village theater where I was in the cast of
Sorcerer!
An overworked precinct detective, he had been professional, polite, and amused rather than annoyed by the colorful strangeness of our complaint—our leading lady seemed to have vanished during the show’s disappearing act. Despite my stunned confusion over the seemingly impossible disappearance, I had noticed Lopez that night. It wasn’t really because of his exotic good looks, though I certainly liked those; I was used to good-looking men, after all, since I worked in show business.
He
was what I noticed. This man. The same one I was noticing right now, standing there in my doorway, his chest rising and falling rapidly as our gazes remained locked.

I could have died tonight.

I’d been one of a dozen nymphs in the chorus of that ill-fated Off-Broadway musical, all of us half-naked and painted green from head to toe. Lopez spoke to me that night, but it was strictly professional. It never occurred to me that he’d noticed me, too, anonymously covered in body paint and glitter, as I was. But he had. Fate ensured that we met again, and I found out that he had noticed me through the costume and makeup . . . The way he was noticing me now, despite the pale and fatigued face I’d seen in my mirror moments ago and the frumpy bathrobe I wore.

We had always noticed each other. Despite everything. Ever since that first night.

We both could have died . . .

And, having just survived the worst Christmas Eve of my life, I suddenly felt the biggest crime of this whole hellacious holiday would be for us to waste this moment the way we had wasted too many others.

He’s alive. And so am I.

And he was here. Now. With me.

Suddenly all I could think about was how much I wanted to celebrate being alive and together right now. How much I wanted
him.
How much I had
always
wanted him, right from the start.

My lips parted and I drew breath to say something, but I couldn’t think of any words. I could only think about the way he was looking at me now, the way this man could make me feel—even when I was bruised, exhausted, and wearing a drab flannel robe.

Lopez shook his head, as if to stop me from speaking. Then, in a burst of motion, he crossed the threshold, kicked the door shut behind him, and hauled me roughly into his arms.

His mouth was hot, his breath warm and sweet, his skin cold. I melted into his fierce kisses, clinging to him, suddenly so certain of what I wanted—what I needed.

I sank heavily against him, my arms embracing him possessively, my legs quivering and wobbly. He staggered backward and leaned against the door through which he had just come, his lips moist and hungry against my forehead, my cheek, my neck. He tangled his hands in my hair to hold my head still for his plundering kisses while I fumbled at the buttons of his coat, my hands clumsy and impatient. He wouldn’t take his mouth from mine long enough to let me breathe. I felt dizzy from lack of air, and I didn’t care. I went on drowning in his kisses, feasting on him . . . Until my fumbling and tugging made him laugh a little, and he pulled away enough to help me get his coat off, inefficiently shrugging out of it in fits and starts between warm nuzzling and hot kisses.

I whimpered in frustration upon discovering how heavily clothed he was beneath his coat—a sweater, a shirt, an undershirt, trousers, belt, holster, gun . . . I didn’t think I could cope with all this in my fevered, trembling eagerness. Fortunately, though, he’d been undressing himself for years without my help, so we got most of it off pretty quickly. Shoes, belt, holstered gun, handcuffs, and other objects hit the floor around us, the thudding noises they made barely audible above our frantic breathing and the desperate little sounds we made.

He untied the belt of my heavy robe and slid it off my shoulders, letting it drop to the floor, too. When he ran his hands over me, I gasped and gave a startled laugh because they were still cold. I let him use me to warm them up as I pressed myself against him, flesh to flesh, sighing at how good his naked skin felt all along my body.

Lopez scooped me up into his arms and carried me into the bedroom, where we tumbled onto the bed together and lost ourselves in passion, in hunger finally unleashed. In each other.

The soft light from the bedside lamp caressed his golden-dark skin and gleamed against his midnight-black hair. The dusting of hair on his chest tickled my breasts as his weight pressed me into the mattress. I had a moment of tense anxiety as I remembered that the last time he had embraced me in this bed (albeit on a different mattress), it had suddenly burst into flames. He felt my tension and went still, lifting his head to meet my eyes. I thought I could drown in the blue depths of that gaze, which was now simultaneously passionate, quizzical, and tender.

I relaxed as I recalled that on that incendiary night in summer, he had been conflicted and angry. Whereas tonight, he seemed absolutely sure of what he wanted. And I was sure, too.