I awoke suddenly. I was sitting up, leaning against a pile of pillows. My hands were bound.
I’d been handcuffed to the post of a bed. I rolled off the mattress. I didn’t want to think about who had been on it before.
Each of my wrists had a handcuff of its own. One end was locked on me; the other end was locked tightly around the thinnest spot in the post, which was about the width of my two thumbs. It looked like a hack setup, but after ten minutes of trying I still hadn’t managed to free myself. So much for hack.
The room was slightly more homey than a hospital room but slightly less homey than a Best Western. The wallpaper, curtains, and bedcovers were decorated with a dense, multicolored pattern that reminded me of a counter at a diner, like they were designed to hide stains.
A big LED clock on the bedside stand told me the time was 8:45. There were no windows anywhere, so I couldn’t tell if it was morning or evening. I was hungry again. Damn.
No one had left any saws or key rings nearby. I wanted my ghost knife. I closed my eyes and reached for it, searching for the slightest tickle that would tell me it was close. Nothing. If I survived this, I’d have to practice sensing the ghost knife from farther and farther away.
I wrapped my arms around the post, stood on the box spring, and laid my shoulder into it, using my weight to try to break it off. No good. A better plan would have been to kick the top of the post, but that would have made noise. I didn’t want to let people know that I’d woken up.
I lay back on the bed, set my heels on the top of the post, and grabbed the chain of the cuffs. Then I pressed with my feet, holding myself in place with the cuffs. I had leverage, but the strain on my wrists prevented me from using my full strength.
I heard a key turn in the lock. I redoubled my efforts, gritting my teeth against the pain, but I didn’t hear the slightest sound of cracking wood.
The door opened. A voice said, “You were right. He’s up.”
“Hear hear,” a woman said. “Stop that right now.”
I let my feet drop to the ground and stood. A man and a woman approached me. They were in their late forties and looked as average as any supermarket shopper. He was balding and walked with a plump shuffle. She was heavily done up and carefully balanced on high heels.
She carried a tray with a platter of fish and chips on it. “Here you go, dear. You’ve been up here a couple hours, and I’m sure you’re hun—”
I kicked the platter out of her hands. Greasy fish and dark vinegar splashed onto the ceiling and wallpaper opposite us. “Go fuck yourself.”
The woman stepped back. “Well!”
The man became indignant. “You have some nerve,” he said, huffing out his cheeks.
“Try it!” I shouted at him, my voice rebounding off the walls of the room. They were taken aback by how quickly things had escalated. “Even with my hands cuffed I’ll stomp you.”
The woman laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. Her long, fake nails dug into his shoulder.
I shut my eyes, closing out as much of the rest of the world as I could. I felt for the ghost knife. Nothing. The supermarket shoppers weren’t carrying it. They turned and left.
I rolled back onto the bed and returned to working on the post. The encounter with the shoppers had fired my anger, and I strained even harder, but I couldn’t crack the damn wood. If they already knew I was awake, there was no reason to keep quiet. I lay on my back and started kicking the top of the post.
Kick kick kick. I wasn’t being secretive or clever about it. I wasn’t in the mood for either. Tools would have been great, but I didn’t have any. If I could have tipped the bed on its side, I would have laid my weight against the frame and broken the post that way, but I couldn’t move my hands far enough to get decent leverage on the whole bed. So I kicked and kicked, letting my anger block some of the pain as the cuffs dug into my wrists.
Finally, I heard wood crack. I began to kick frantically then, until the wood splintered enough that the post bent at an angle.
I rolled to my feet and put my shoulder against it, breaking it off. I was free.
I lifted the broken hunk of wood. The empty ends of the handcuffs swung free.
The lock on the door clicked and the door opened. Bobby entered. He held a .38 in his hand. “You’ve been making a lot of noise up here.”
“Quietly waiting to be killed is too hifalutin for me.”
He didn’t seem to remember the reference, and I didn’t care. He waved at me with the gun, encouraging me to follow him. I tossed the broken post aside and followed him into the hall. There were three more men waiting out there, along with Tiffany.
She was looking at me like a hungry dog eyeing a steak.
I knew right then, from the look on their faces, that they were taking me away to kill me.
“We found our boys,” Bobby said.
“The ones you sent for my boss?”
“They were friends of mine.”
I wanted to tell him that was the price of playing gangster, but there was no point. “Next time you want to talk to her, be sure to use the magic word.”
“I think we’ll send her a different sort of message.”
I looked at the other men. They had guns but didn’t look happy to be there. They weren’t gunmen; they were carpenters or Sheetrockers or what ever. They looked like guys with an unpleasant job to do and they looked like they wanted to get it over with.
Bobby twisted my arms behind my back and clamped the empty ends of the handcuffs onto my wrists. I’d never been double-cuffed before. I guessed they were a little nervous about me.
There were doors along both sides of the hall. The carpet was deep red with faint brown stains.
Bobby turned to the fattest of them. “Bring the van around to the back.”
“I hope that’s not your personal van,” I said to his retreating back. “Bloodstains don’t come out.”
Tiffany’s expression was still, but her eyes were wide with wonder. “I want to do it. Is that all right? I brought my knife. I want to do it.” She sounded a little breathless.
“Shut up,” Bobby said. He wasn’t taking any pleasure in this, but he was being professional about it.
“I’ll make it quick, if you want,” she said, and glanced back at me. “I can do it what ever way you want.”
“Fine,” Bobby said. “Just shut up about it.”
We started walking down the hall. Tiffany was ahead of me on the left, leading the way. Her stride was measured and careful, as though she was hyperaware of herself and her surroundings. Bobby was behind me again, this time on my left as well. A young, clear-eyed kid who seemed barely out of high school was behind me on the right. In front of me on the right was the same tubby, middle-aged guy who had searched me in the Chevy van. I wondered if he was still carrying my things. I also wondered why I was cooperating with my killers.
I stopped walking and turned around. The kid nearly bumped into me. Bobby lifted his gun and pointed it at my heart. “Keep going,” he said.
The kid followed Bobby’s lead. He pointed his gun at my chest, although he was still much closer to me than he should have been.
I closed my eyes. I could feel the ghost knife behind me.
“Why should I make this easy for you?” I asked.
If Bobby had been smart, he would have lied. He would have told me that he didn’t really want to kill me, that he was going to let me go if I promised to disappear so completely that his boss never found out. But he’d seen too many movies. “Because if you don’t,” he said, “you’re going to hurt. A lot.”
I reached for my spell. The ghost knife slid out of the chubby man’s pocket and landed in my hand. At the same moment, I heard Tubby sigh and stagger. It must have passed through part of him on the way to me.
I looked at the ceiling. They did, too. I cut the handcuff chain with my ghost knife. My hands were free.
The next part happened very fast.
I swept my left hand upward as quickly as possible and struck the kid’s gun arm, batting it aside. The gun went off, but the barrel was already pointing past me. I heard the boom of the shot and felt the rush of air as it passed my shoulder.
At the same time, I threw the ghost knife at Bobby’s gun. Again, I was too slow. Bobby squeezed the trigger.
I felt the pressure of the bullet striking my chest, but there was no pain. He killed me, I thought. Shouldn’t it hurt if he killed me?
Hot gas billowed over my neck, and a burning speck struck beside my Adam’s apple. The spot where he’d shot me didn’t hurt. I didn’t feel anything there. There would be no wound, either, if Annalise’s tattoos had held. I didn’t look down to check.
The ghost knife slid through Bobby’s gun, cutting it in two, then vanished into his chest. I heard him gasp.
My back was still exposed, and I’d left the kid too long. I lunged at him, punching him on the side of the head and ripping the weapon from his hand. I grabbed the back of his head, spinning him between me and Tubby and Tiffany.
I didn’t have to worry. Tiffany was frozen in place; what ever she’d imagined would happen, this wasn’t it. And Tubby was on his knees, a bloody gunshot wound in his chest. Then he fell onto his back. He wasn’t going to get up again.
I don’t remember a lot about the next few seconds. There was a feeling of tremendous pressure inside my skull. I know I didn’t shoot the kid’s gun. I know Tiffany was much quicker with her knife than I’d expected, and I hit her too hard on the side of her face.
What I do remember is standing over Bobby, Tiffany, and the other two and slicing the kid’s bloody gun in two. One of Bobby’s teeth was still wedged in the barrel.
I’d broken their bones, but at least they’d live. They were better off than Tubby. It took every ounce of willpower I had to keep from vomiting all over them.
Doors all along the hallway swung open and heads poked out. Geniuses. They hear gunshots and rush toward them. The peeping face nearest to me was Rev. Wilson.
I stepped around the bodies on the floor to the dead man. He had forgotten to shave that morning. I took Cabot’s gun from him and pocketed it. I also took back my wallet and keys.
After a moment of indecision, Wilson rushed toward me. He was wearing long black pants but no shirt. “What is happening here?” He looked me in the eye for the first time.
“These guys need an ambulance,” I said. “But I’m afraid this guy is gone.” I was talking too fast. I wanted to be cool and collected, but I felt anything but.
“Why did you—” Wilson began.
I heard a commotion behind me. Three more men had appeared at the far end of the hall. They rushed toward me, guns in hand. One held a walkie-talkie to his mouth.
“Help them,” I said, and rushed past him. Another man rounded the corner of the hall ahead of me.
The door nearest to me was the one Rev. Wilson had come out of. I ducked inside and locked the door. I had a gun, but I didn’t want to use it. There were too many people around, and I wasn’t some badass hitman. Also, I had already gotten more lucky than I deserved. If Bobby had aimed at my head instead of my heart …
A woman was standing next to me. She was stark naked and unashamed. I guessed she was about forty-five, with long, auburn hair and a simple, honest face. Wilson had good taste.
“What’s going on out there?” she asked.
“General naughtiness.”
She reached toward my chest and tugged at the bullet hole in my shirt. It was scorched with powder burns. “I see that,” she said.
For a moment I thought she would panic just as I was about to. “I don’t want trouble—”
“Of course not. Come this way.” She led me through the room into a second, smaller room. She was very calm. “Bobby and the boys have been getting worse and worse over the last few years. They used to be working guys protecting their own. Lately they’ve been acting like thugs.”
There was a second door, next to a window that showed the forest slope behind. It was the way out. She took a key ring from a hook. “Not everyone wants to come in through the casino. We have a couple of rooms with a back door.”
She unlocked the door and swung it open. The sun had gone down, but there was still a little light in the sky. I stepped out onto a metal staircase. There was a little carport four stories down.
I turned toward the naked woman. “Thank you.”
A shot ricocheted off the metal stairs. I didn’t see where it came from, and I didn’t hang around to find out. I pushed my way back inside and shut the door. I heard the faint sound of construction boots running up the metal steps.
Damn. So much for sneaking out the back.
I ran back into the bedroom. The knob rattled but didn’t turn. Someone’s meaty fist pounded on the door.
“Keep out!” the woman yelled. “He’s got a gun!”
For a moment, I thought that she could see it in my jacket pocket, but then I realized that she was just buying time. She came close to me and said in a low voice, “The cops—”
“They won’t be on my side,” I said. “Get over in that corner. Get as low as you can.”
She did. Someone was still pounding on the door. They’d be inside in just a minute or two, as soon as someone with a key turned up.
I leapt to the other side of the bed and knelt on the floor. I jabbed the ghost knife into the floor, holding it by the barest corner so it would reach as far as possible, then I slid it along the floor, cutting a rough circle.
The circle didn’t drop through to the floor below. I heard jangling keys on the other side of the hall door. “What are you doing over there?” the woman whispered. I wished I knew her name.
They’d be inside in a moment. I could have taken Cabot’s gun from my pocket, but I didn’t. Instead, I jumped onto the circle I’d just cut. I heard the lock disengage.
Wood splintered, and I fell through the floor.
I fell about ten feet and struck a tiled floor. My knees jarred, and I rolled to the side. It hurt, but I’d managed not to twist my ankle.
I rolled against something soft. It was a big, soft pile of sheets and bedcovers, and I missed it by two feet. There was a smear of red blood on several of the sheets, and it took me a second to realize that it had come from me. My hands were covered in blood.
I was in a laundry room. Three big industrial washers and dryers stood against the outside wall. There were no windows.
“Sweet sainted Mary!” A tiny old woman with a thick brogue stared at me. I stood and ran past her toward the door.
“Keep away from the hole,” I told her. “Men with guns are going to be coming through in a moment.”
I ran past the dryers and saw that they ran on natural gas. I stopped. The gas line joined the machines at the top. I yanked open the dryer doors, shutting off the flames. Then I traced the gas line along the ceiling to where it disappeared into the wall. There was a shutoff valve there. I cut it out.
The old woman gaped at me.
“Gosh,” I said to her. “You have a gas leak. Better tell those boys upstairs with the guns.”
I saw shadows move in the space above the hole. I turned and ran through the double doors. The old woman was shouting something, but I didn’t know who she was shouting at. I just hoped she had the sense to pull the fire alarm.
I recognized this hallway. Beyond the opposite wall was the little restaurant where Phyllis had drugged me. I ran toward the stairs. I would rather have avoided the casino, but that didn’t seem possible.
Two men came up the stairs. One of them was Floyd. He pointed at me with his bandaged hands, and the guy next to him lifted his weapon.
I ducked to the side as the gun boomed. I didn’t feel the bullet hit me, but there wasn’t a lot of cover in the hallway.
There was a door next to me. I yanked it open and dove inside. Another shot boomed, and something tugged at my pant leg. I didn’t feel any pain.
I was in a linen closet. Neat stacks of folded sheets lined the walls around me. I pulled the door shut, and the darkness gave my animal brain a moment’s comfort, tricking it into thinking I was hiding.
I knew the wall in front of me led to the outside world, but it was also three stories from the ground. I wouldn’t make that jump.
I lay down and cut another hole in the floor. This time, I angled the ghost knife outward so that it wouldn’t catch.
Gunshots tore through the closet door. The sound was terrifyingly close, and splinters rained down on my back. I cursed and resisted the urge to draw Cabot’s gun and shoot back. That would be a losing game for me.
I finished the cut, and the section of floor fell away. At the same moment, the fire alarm went off.
I looked down through the hole. As I’d hoped, I was just above the mezzanine. I slipped through the hole and landed on one of the poker tables.
The fire alarm was clanging loudly, and everyone stood around and looked at one another. No one wanted to be the first to head for the exit. Hadn’t they heard the gunshots?
I jumped off the table, pushing aside a man in a UPS uniform who had a nice stack of chips beside him. I glanced over at the long flight of stairs. Rev. Wilson, still without his shirt, led several men toward the exit. They were carrying Bobby, Tiffany, and the dead chubby guy and walked straight across the floor in full view.
I turned toward the exit I’d seen earlier. There was one man standing there. He wasn’t looking at me and didn’t seem to have seen me come through the hole in the ceiling. I rushed toward him, taking out Cabot’s gun to get his attention.
When he did turn toward me, he looked unhappy. For a second I thought he would jump the rail.
“Hold still,” I snapped at him. “Give me your gun.”
He gave me his .38. Henstrick must have bought them in bulk. “Hey, man—”
“Shut up and get these people out of the building. There’s a gas leak. Hurry!”
I pushed past him and went through the doorway. The night was no darker than it had been two minutes ago. I started down the metal stairs, just as exposed as I was before, but as I’d hoped, there were no shots. The trip was shorter, too.
It would have been nice to lose myself in a crowd of people fleeing the fire alarm, but the patrons were too slow and I wasn’t going to wait around for them. I ran along the back of the building, away from the gate. I needed a vehicle to get away, and a remote to open the fence. I could cut my way through the fence or the wall, but fleeing on foot would be suicide.
I ran around the building and spotted the sport van, still parked in the same spot. The gate was closed. They’d open it for the ambulance and fire truck, but I didn’t want to wait. I sprinted for the van, cut a hole in the driver’s window, and unlocked it.
Someone shouted, “There he is!”
Cynthia’s Escalade backed toward me. “Get in!” she yelled, and the passenger door swung open.
I looked back at the minivan. The remote sat on the dashboard. I grabbed it and jumped into the open Escalade.
Cynthia gunned the engine. The door swung closed on my ankle. I cursed at the sharp pain and pointed the remote through the windshield. There was only one button. I pressed it.
A gunshot shattered the back window. Cynthia screamed and ducked her head. Out of habit, she slammed on the brakes, but before I could say anything she hit the accelerator. The gate slowly rolled open. The parking lot was long, and whoever was shooting was going to have plenty of time to get a bead on us.
I slid closer to Cynthia and draped my arm over her. With my forearm hanging beside her head and neck, my tattoos would provide her some protection, but not a lot.
A bullet punched through the front of the driver’s side window and snapped a hole in the windshield. Cynthia cried out just a little. The gate slid farther open. I thought it would be wide enough for us to clear, but I wasn’t certain. I saw a woman running toward the opening. Her course put her in line with our bumper. Cynthia eased off the gas pedal, as though she was afraid to hit her. Something struck the back of my chair, passing inches from my ribs.
I slammed my palm on the horn. The blare made the woman look at us with a startled, furious expression, then jump aside.
More glass shattered, and I heard bullets punching holes in the SUV. Cynthia ducked low, barely peeking over the dashboard. She spit out a stream of curses. I would have cursed, too, if I could have unclenched my teeth. Instead I held on to the dashboard, hating guns, hating Phyllis Henstrick, hating Annalise and everyone who had led me into this mess, including myself.
Just as I thought the barrage had gone on too long, and that our luck couldn’t hold anymore, we were through the gate. Cynthia wrenched the wheel to the side and we skidded along the road. The bullets stopped.
An ambulance with flashing lights and blaring sirens raced at us. Cynthia swerved and slammed on the brakes, and the ambulance roared by. I turned around. Through the shattered back window, I could see a few people running through the open gate.
“Oh my God,” Cynthia said, her voice shaky. “Oh my God.”
I still had the remote in my hand. If I pressed it, the ambulance might have trouble getting the injured people out, but Henstrick’s amateur gunmen might be delayed long enough for me to get away. I didn’t press the button.
“Keep it together,” I said. My voice sounded loud in my ears. “Keep going. People are coming through the gates.”
She turned the car and gunned the engine. We roared up the asphalt road, passing the supermarket. Cynthia bared her teeth. She had tears on her cheeks.
There was a red light up ahead. She wasn’t slowing down. “Light! Light!” I shouted. I leaned over and stomped on the brake pedal. The Escalade skidded to a halt.
A woman in a Volvo station wagon loaded with groceries was waiting to pull out of the supermarket lot. She gaped up at the bullet-ridden SUV.
The light changed, and Cynthia eased into the intersection, carefully turning the wheel with shaking hands. She checked her speedometer several times. She drove like it was her first time behind the wheel. The car rattled and clanked.
“What should I do?” she asked me.
“Drive to your house.”
She did. We got out of the car and walked around it. There were two holes in the windshield. I hadn’t noticed the second, even though it must have happened right in front of me.
Three of the bullet holes were clustered low on the driver’s door. Those must have passed under our seats. Four more were sprayed across the back panel, two very close to the back left tire. Someone had tried to shoot it out. There were two more bullet holes in the front fender. Judging by the way her engine had sounded on the way home, I suspected her engine block had gone the way of the dodo.
“You’re bleeding!” Cynthia said. She touched my shoulder blade. I felt a tiny sting. I had no idea how I’d gotten hurt. “Come inside.”
She led me toward her front door. I looked up at the round tower room at the top of the house. Cabot had said that Charles spent all his time at the tower now. I wondered if he was up there, and what I would do if I found him.
Cynthia led me up the stairs to a large bathroom in the back. While I sat on the edge of the tub, she took a box of Band-Aids and a squeeze tube of disinfectant from the medicine cabinet. She took off my jacket, felt the weight in one of the pockets, and reached inside.
“You had a gun the whole time? Why didn’t you shoot back?”
“Someone might have gotten killed.”
We started laughing. It was a release for her, I knew, but my own laughter only increased the pressure building inside of me. I thought about Bobby’s tooth, and the chubby guy lying dead on the floor. I thought about the way Tiffany’s face seemed to give when I hit her. I kept laughing, but the sound of it scared me. I was alive. I wanted to shout the word at the tile ceiling just to hear it bounce around me. Alive.
I clenched my teeth and forced myself to be quiet. I shouldn’t have been laughing, because what ever I was feeling at the moment, it wasn’t happiness. Hammer Bay was full of people doing terrible things for the best reasons. It made me furious. I made me feel dark and low to the ground and ready to kill. This town was making me into something ugly and dangerous. I had to get away, but I knew I couldn’t. Not without setting things right.
Of course, Annalise and I were here to kill whoever we had to kill to stop the magic and save the kids in Hammer Bay. I was here to do terrible things for the best of reasons, too. I hated this town, but I knew it was a mirror image of myself.
I didn’t like it. I didn’t have to like it. I was here to be vicious, to beat, kill, or humiliate anyone I had to, and I wasn’t going to stop until all the magic had been expunged from this place and things were set right. And God help me, I was finally ready to do it. I was ready to go as far as I had to go to get the job done.
Cynthia told me to take off my shirt. I did. She dabbed at my shoulder blade with a wad of tissues. “This isn’t bad at all. It’s barely a scratch.” I didn’t answer. “They were terrible shots, weren’t they?”
“Most people are.”
“No one has ever … do you think they knew it was me? Do you think they were trying to shoot me?”
I understood. She probably had the only Escalade in town, and most people would recognize it.
“No,” I told her. “If they had realized it was you, I don’t think they would have shot at us. Henstrick is still loyal to your family. I think they were just all worked up and not thinking straight. In fact, I think you should expect a call and an apology from Henstrick.”
I could feel her rubbing something onto my shoulder blade. It stung. Her hair brushed my shoulder, and goose bumps ran across my back.
“Do you go there often?” I had a hard time keeping the suspicion out of my voice.
“No. After I dropped you off at Uncle Cabot’s office, I didn’t go for a cup of coffee like you said. I didn’t realize how I would feel when I saw you go into that building alone—for me—and I couldn’t just go off and eat a banana muffin or something while you risked your life. So I stayed close just in case. I don’t know what I was going to do, exactly, but I hated feeling like a coward.
“So, I was parked down the street when you came out. I saw those men grab you outside the office, and I recognized Bobby, of course. I followed you to the casino and lost two grand at the blackjack table waiting for you to turn up.”
That made sense, and I was grateful that she’d come for me. “The gun is Cabot’s,” I told her. “He was planning to shoot himself, but I convinced him to get out of town.”
“Thank you,” she said in a quiet voice.
“You saved my life to night.”
“We’re even, then.” She taped a gauze pad onto my shoulder blade. It felt like a big pad, but the scratch didn’t hurt much. I wondered again if her brother was in the house somewhere. She patted my shoulder with a dismissive finality. “All done.”
I stood. She was very close to me, and she seemed so small. Her hands were still trembling. I took her hand and held it in mine. I still felt a sickening rage inside. It took all the self-control I had to touch her gently. “Thank you.”
We held hands for a moment. She felt warm and soft and impossibly fragile. I could have squeezed that hand and broken it to mash. The thought terrified me. I was as gentle as I could be.
She let my hand go, and it fell to my side. She stared up at me. Her brown eyes seemed to have turned black. “What next?” she asked.
“What’s in that round room at the top of the house?”
“That’s my bedroom.”
“Take me there.”
She hesitated for a moment. It was just a moment. She looked up into my eyes, then took my hand and led me to the stairs. I carried my shirt and jacket.
We entered the round room. It was tastefully decorated, I guess, with a lot of muted green pastels. Every surface had at least one candle and, for some reason, a stuffed rabbit.
Charles Hammer wasn’t here. As far as I could tell, he had never been in this room. I was vaguely disappointed as I laid my jacket and shirt on a chair. I was absolutely ready to shoot him dead. I didn’t know if I’d ever find myself feeling so ready to kill someone again.
Cynthia stood a few feet from me. “This is it,” she said, as if waiting to see if I approved of her inner sanctum.
I wasn’t going to kill Charles Hammer today. “Take off your clothes,” I said.
She did. I took mine off at the same time.
I saw what I knew I’d see. She had a tattoo on her shoulder blade right where Cabot had his. She had an iron gate, too.
She knew what had happened to all those kids. What was still happening.
She lunged at me and we kissed. We were wild and desperate. I was still filled with rage, but I tried as hard as I could to keep it from her. I liked her.
Even though she had known all along. She had known. She had known. She had known. She had known. …
We made our way to the bed. It was good to feel alive. It was good to touch someone. It was good to feel like a human animal, to smell and taste and hear and see someone close.
She responded to me more powerfully than any woman ever had before, but I could not stop thinking about those dead children, about the flames, about the pale, gray worms, and that she knew all about it. It made me furious and sick at the same moment that we were grasping at life.
When my own release finally came, my mind was full of images of murder, and there was no pleasure in it at all.