Psycho Within Us (The Psycho Series Book 2) (61 page)

Spencer’s mind was fraught with terrible things hiding in the dark. 
Kaley had a strange but natural image of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle floating in a black sea, with occasional flashes of lightning illuminating the tiny pieces.  Would they ever find their connection, their way back together?  If they did, would they ever form a coherent picture again? 
He’s putting something together
. 
He’s working on a puzzle in the dark, with brief flashes of insight
. 
He’s almost reached his conclusion
.

This was her own projection,
of course, her mind’s way of coping with what it was being fed from the monster, trying to make sense of it all.

There were other things, too.  Names
pushed along on a sourceless wind. 
Jensen Perdue
. 
Allan McQuarrie
. 
Devan Treadwell
.  Names from Spencer’s past.  Names that meant something to him.  Kaley search for a connection, but as soon as she felt slippery things coming out of that black sea, she pushed back from those names.

Presently, Spencer was squeezing the tape around the Coke bottle’s lip and the gun’s muzzle, making sure it stuck well.

“What are we doing here?” she whispered.

Spencer waved her back, and peeked around the corner again.
  Something nipped at her left heel.  She gasped, looked down, blinked and almost missed it.  She saw something slithering away and vanishing underneath another one of the red doors with the golden horse engraving.  Right around her, there was the pull of water, as though she were in a high tide.  The longer she looked at the floor, the more the flooding waters came into view, but they faded away about five feet out from her.  The waters started rising, first to knee height, then to waist.  “Spencer,” she said.

“Not now.”

“I think we’re in trouble.”

“No shit?  Really?  I’m glad ya finally decided to get with the fuckin’ program.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

The water was around her chest.

Shcherbakov instructed the cab driver to pull up to the gate.  He leaned out the back windo
w and dialed up his cousin on the dialer out front.  It took a few beeps, but finally Zverev’s voice came over the speaker.  “Yes?”

“Cousin, it’s me.  I’m outside.  Is everything all right up there?”

“Yes, it’s quite warm and comfortable.”  That was the right answer to the duress test.  Had Zverev been under duress, say, with a gun to his head, he would have said “The air-conditioning has been on the fritz, but otherwise I’m fine.”

Shcherbakov relaxed only a little.  “Could you let me in?”

“Of course.”

Two seconds later, there was a loud beep, and the wrought-iron gate parted slowly.

Another peek around the corner.  It was exactly how Spencer imagined it,
a single guard standing outside the door to room 1507.  He’d figured there might be two guards, since Zverev would be on edge tonight, but as it was, there was just the one.

The
guard had himself a chair pulled up and was watching some video or something on his iPhone.  He was tall and broad of shoulder, with a head like an anvil. 
I need to get him away from the door
.  The makeshift silencer Spencer had attached to the end of his gun would only muffle the sound, and if he walked right up to the guard and shot him, then Zverev and the others inside 1507 would certainly hear something—if not the muffled shot, then the thump of the body slamming against the wall or hitting the floor.
And they probably have my description, and they’re on alert tonight
.  That meant he wouldn’t be able to get very close to the guard without the guard reacting.

Spencer turned back to Kaley. 
She was still wearing the same faded jeans and plain black shirt she had been all night.  He reached out to touch her head.  She was solid, not an apparition.  He backed up down the hall, towards the elevators, and waved her to follow.  He knelt and whispered to Kaley, “I need you to do somethin’.”  She looked at him warily.  “I need you to step out into that hall and call for that man in the chair.  Tell him you’re father needs some help with some luggage in the elevator.”

Her eyes went wide.  She knew what he was trying to do at once.  “No!” she whispered.  “No, I’m not helping you kill anybody!”

“You already have,” he said.  “Are you forgettin’ Avery Street?  What about Zakhar’s house?  The Ruffa Docks?”

“Those were all—”

“The wrong people sometimes got caught in those little fiascos, but
this
time, little girl, this time you can get the
right
people.”

Her eyes were watering again. 
Damn tears, such as waste
.  She shook her head.  “You can’t ask me—”

“These are the people that stole those kids off the street, stuck in them i
n a room at some old dock house.  You saw the marks on their faces, they had been beaten, and often.  These guys probably even fucked them.  These are the ones who mailed Peter to Zakhar like he was some kinda package, just merchandise to be shuffled around.  If you don’t help me here, I can’t guarantee that I can get to Zverev, an’ without Zverev—”

“You can’t get to Dmitry’s family, his
children
, who are innocent in all this!” she hissed.

Spencer smiled and shrugged.  “Maybe.  But I also can’t
get to their partners in Bangladesh, the At-ta Biral.  Remember them?  This goes further than Zverev, little girl.  You gotta help me out here, not just for me, but for other little girls like yourself an’ Shannon.”  He let that sit in the air, watching her wrestle with it. 

All at once,
here came the whispers again, all of them permeating the air and slithering down the walls.  “
She is close to him
…
can you feel it, brothers?
” they said.
 
“
They are close together, and the gap is opening
. 
This may be our last chance!
”

“Spencer…”

“I hear them,” he said.  “Fuck ’em.  Just ignore them and look at me.  Focus on the here an’ now, little girl.”  His eyes penetrated her.  “Look at me.  Do you wanna help or not?  Do you want to stop these men, once and for all?  Or do you want more children to suffer as you suffered?”

“You’re…you’re
trying to manipulate me…playing on my emotions…”

“You’re goddam
right I am.”

“
You’re repulsive!  You’re not
human
.”

“Says the girl who teleports. 
And all I’m doin’ is tellin’ it like it is.  Reality hasn’t changed.  Those are the stakes: stop them here, tonight, or let them go.  Now what’s it gonna be?  Life for this cocksucker at the door, or life for all those other innocents?”

She shook her head. 
“You’re horrible.”

“I’m real.”

“
Seize the moment, brothers
,” came the lead voice.  It was him, Spencer figured.  The Prisoner.  “
This is our moment!  Let us have it!  We’ve waited long enough!  How long have we suffered?  How long have we toiled?
”

The little girl looked at him with something between fear and
surrender.  “I…I-I don’t speak Russian.”

“No, but I do.  An’ you can see inside here.”  He tapped his head.  “Like when you lock-picked that door in the basement, you accessed my files.  You can do it again.  Or if you can’t, say it in English.  He’ll get the gist.”

Kaley shook her head, but it wasn’t as vehement as before.  She was going to to do it.  She was.  Spencer was never wrong about people.  The little girl only had to come to terms with her decision.  Then, finally, she walked past him and into the other hall, like a person off to get a lethal injection.  “Dry up those eyes before you go,” he told her.  She wiped her face.

Spencer
hid inside the elevator and held the door open with his foot.  He heard her call out, “
Izvinitya
. 
Mne nuzhna pomoshch
.”  Translation:
Excuse me, but I need help
.

Spencer smirked. 
Damn, sounds better than mine
.

He listened to Kaley
Dupré tell her story.  Her father had some trouble with some luggage in the elevator, and he had a bad back.  Spencer heard footsteps were approaching.  She told the guard that her father was just right here in the elevator.  Kaley stepped in front of the elevator, and waved.  Spencer remained hidden, but did not hear the guard approaching. 
He’s starting to second guess
.  There was the sound of clothing being ruffled, and Kaley’s eyes went wide. 
Going for a gun
. 
He suspects the trap
.

Spencer was never wrong about people.

He aimed his bottle-tipped gun around the corner of the elevator and peeked one eye around, took aim, and pulled the trigger.  Having detected a trap too late, the big man had his hand on his pistol, but hadn’t drawn it.  The gunshot sounded like a hammer that had been wrapped in a pillow and flung to the floor.  A dull
thunk!
and the man’s head snapped back.  The loudest sound was that made by the skull and brain matter smacking against the wall behind him.  Spencer ran at the falling body, caught it somewhat clumsily just before it hit the floor, and eased it down.

Spencer turned to look around the hall.  No one was stepping out of their rooms to investigate.  He looked at Kaley.  A tendril of smoke coming out of the Coke bottle coiled between them.
  He smiled, and winked.  “You’re a natural, kid.”

Shannon was still coloring.  Officer Regus was standing nearby, holding the glass of water Mrs. Taylor had fetched for her, and that Shannon wouldn’t accept.  The markers in her hand were coloring furiously.  She felt like she needed the distraction.  Every few minutes, she would ask, “Is my aunt here yet?”  The answer was always no.  “No, sweetie.  The principal called her and she said that your Aunt Tabby is coming as fast as she can.”

Now Shannon was coloring in the sides of an airplane she had drawn after completing a connect-the-dots puzzle.  She made the wings red, and the main body of the plane a dull gray.  The pilot was some kind of beaver wearing goggles, which she colored purple.  The sky around
it was blue, of course, but the clouds…
Clouds shouldn’t be white
.  Again, white just made her think of emptiness.  So, if she were God, what would be a better color for clouds?  She smiled.  Purple, obviously.  She reached for the purple marker, and saw something snap out from the wall, almost too quick to see, and raked the markers off the table.

Officer Regus and Mrs. Taylor both stopped their chitchat over by the desk, and looked at her.  Shannon stayed absolutely still, the way some animals will do when sensin
g a predator nearby.  She knew what Kaley had done whenever she was in one of her dreams, whenever the things inside were reaching out for her from the water.  She knew, because of their Connection, the same Connection that was now severed for the first time and perhaps forever.

“
Can we take this one now?
” whispered someone behind her.  She didn’t look.

Shannon almost felt naked without Kaley’s presence, but it was for the better.  Kaley had gone near the laughing man, or she was about to.  Shannon had sensed it.  It was inevitable.  Shannon wanted no part of it.  Despite what she’d shouted at the voices earlier, she had no intention of ever seeing the laughing man again.  She hadn’t known what else to say at the time, though.  It was obvious that those Others weren’t afraid of her, nor were they afraid of Kaley or anybody else.  Not only that, but nobody else had ever really believed Shannon’s or Kaley’s story about what happened on Avery Street, so nobody was even prepared to listen.
  Even those policemen hadn’t helped, nor the FBI guys.  Only one person had helped them, and he hadn’t even done it out of the kindness of his heart.  Part of her was repulsed by the laughing man, but another part was fascinated.  Perhaps she even admired him.

I’m weak
, she thought. 
So is Kaley
. 
Without him, we would be dead
.  Shannon felt an itch at her groin, and as she reached to scratch it, she remembered that night on their way to Dodson’s Store.  Shannon had just wanted to go home, but Kaley wanted to go back and get what little money they had been shortchanged.  And it wasn’t Kaley that got raped that night.  It wasn’t Kaley that girls like Nancy and Laquanda were making fun of for her infection.

Thinking of those two girls, Shannon felt a thrill, just as she had when she saw Freckle-face get her face smashed in.

“
Can we have this one now?
”