Chapter 20

 

Goodwell splashed Betadine over his palms and screwed his eyes shut in pain as disinfectant dripped from the ends of his fingers into Fitch’s kitchen sink. He’d collected a whole network of tiny cuts during their flight from the police department, and now every one of those cuts was a line of fire beneath the skin.

It was almost enough to distract him from his busted tooth, or the coin-purse opened above his eye. Even if he lived long enough to see a doctor, he’d always carry the memory of the woman in the form of a wicked scar.

Hannah wouldn’t mind. Hannah liked scars.

He dried his hands on a teatowel and returned to the living room, where Fitch was sipping coffee and Chan was doing a series of complicated stretches, touching her toes and twisting in ways better suited to a circus than a safe-house on the edge of a rotten town. “Feels like my legs are about to drop off,” she said. “Hey, Fitch. Got any nail polish?”

Fitch looked like he hadn’t slept at all, his eyes pouched and bruised beneath strings of grey hair. His left hand kept creeping down to the pocket of his coat, despite it being empty. That damn hand with the extra finger. Just looking at it made Goodwell shiver.

“Why would I have nail polish?” Fitch grunted. “You think this place ever had a woman’s touch?”

“Just assumed you might’ve been a man of culture.” Chan inspected her nails and sighed. “I want to go home, Goodwell. I want out.”

“Wish it was that easy. Just because those things aren’t knocking at the door doesn’t mean they aren’t waiting for us to step out.” Goodwell looked to Fitch. He hadn’t mentioned the night terrors, the way Fitch had begged forgiveness in his sleep. Didn’t seem any reason to torture the man over bad dreams. Lord knew he’d had more than a few of his own. “Kept waking up, thinking they’d gotten inside. Eating my goddamn face. I’m so tired it’s getting hard to know what’s real.”

“Used to have a friend who’d tell me what was real,” Fitch mused. “She always knew. If someone was bad, she’d flare up. Now...”

“You mean Mrs Archer?”

“Ha, no. Before her.”

“Who was she, then?”

“Doesn’t matter. Gone now.”

“You were close?”

“Close as any two things can be.” For a moment Fitch stopped, gazing at some point beyond the horizon, hands thrust deep into his pockets. “Not the prettiest lady, but she had a real shine, you know?”

Goodwell could only nod. “I know.”

For a moment the two men stood in silence, neither meeting the other’s eyes, with Chan an uncomfortable third wheel on the sofa. Then Fitch said, “Doesn’t matter. She would’ve wanted me to go solo, you know. Keep kicking in teeth. And on that note, I got something you might want to see.” He downed his coffee, slammed the mug atop the kitchen counter and dragged his way down the basement stairs.

Once he was out of earshot, Chan whispered, “What now?”

Goodwell shrugged. “You think I know?”

“This crazy shit is your department, not mine!”

“Protect the innocent, arrest the assholes, and keep Mrs Archer safe. That’s all the orders I ever got.”

“Why her?” Chan slumped back in her chair, shielding her face from the morning sun. “What’s special about that woman?”

“I don’t know. I was the one who interviewed her after things went bad between her and her husband and I got told to look after her. Feels like a year ago. Her husband, what was his name...” He shook his head. All fading too fast. “If things get messy, you got anyone you need to warn?”

Chan shook her head. “Bachelor life suits me. What about your wife? You said you’d call yesterday.”

“I’m getting around to it.”

“Do it. There’s a phone out in the hall.” Chan waved him off. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna run away.”

“Didn’t say you were.” Even so, he watched Chan from the corner of his eye as he toyed with the heavy ceramic receiver and dialled his home number. The guilt was a heavy, squirming thing in his throat. How could he have forgotten to call? Hannah should’ve been the first thing on his mind. She was his goddamn wife.

Almost like there was something keeping him from running home.

Dialtone. Ten seconds. Finally, a click. “Hannah?”

“Jon and Hannah Goodwell aren’t here right now, but you can-”

Out shopping maybe, or seeing her therapist. She’d been seeing him a lot recently - sometimes Goodwell would return to nothing but a note stuck to the refrigerator, her delicate handwriting saying she’d be back in an hour.

Was more than two visits a week normal? He’d never seen a therapist. He wouldn’t know what to do with one. I’m having problems, doc. My boss is a monster beyond human comprehension and it sends me to kill children, but I swear I’m on the right side, I’ve gotta be, oh and sometimes I think about poverty in Africa and I get depressed?

A beep. He licked his lips, searching for the right words. “Hannah. Things have gotten... busy, here at work. My colleagues might come asking questions.” He stopped, wondering whether anyone besides Hannah would listen to the message. If it’d been the old Snow investigating the triple-murder, sure, but things had changed in the PD hierarchy. Christ, the beast had Snow. Who else was dancing to its tune? The priests? The garbage men? The mayor?

The hiss in his ear reminded him he was still on the phone, answering-machine tape spooling away into silence. He swallowed hard. “Be safe, Hannah. I’ll be back soon.”

His hand trembled as he hung up, but only for a moment.

A footstep behind him. Fitch, carrying a wooden crate stacked high with little white cardboard boxes. “Callin’ family? That’s a risk, you know.”

“I had to.”

“Wasn’t sayin’ otherwise. But sometimes you get to thinking if this’d be easier alone. Having a buddy always messes you up. Watch their back instead of your own and you end up in a ditch. Or they turn out to be something else...” He rattled the box at Goodwell. “You’re gonna like this.”

Goodwell followed Fitch into the living room, where he dumped the crate with a heavy thunk. “Take what you need. If it’ll get Kim back safe...”

Goodwell swore under his breath as he peered into the boxes. Ammunition, thousands if not tens of thousands of rounds, jumbled together in shimmering piles of brass. Thirty-ought-six rifle rounds and snub .45 ACP cartridges, the wicked bulk of the 7.62 NATO round like miniature tank-shells and 9mm Parabellums all mixed into one big mess like a crate of deadly LEGOs. “Where the hell did you-”

“Friend of a friend. Owned a shooting range out back of George Hill. All gone now, but I salvaged this before you people shut the place down.”

“Enough for an army.” Chan whistled as she dug her hands into the crate, rounds sieving between her fingers. “Were you carrying when they brought you in?”

“Never owned a gun,” Fitch grunted. “You think I’d be throwing pipe bombs at laundromats if I had that sort of firepower? No, just the bullets. Don’t know why I kept them. Maybe I’m sentimental. Take what you need and burn the rest.”

Despite the holes in the bungalow’s roof, the rounds had somehow stayed dry. Goodwell picked out a handful that looked the right calibre for their stolen service pistol. “You might’ve saved our asses, Fitch.”

“Anything you need. Found this, too.” Fitch tossed a little red bottle underarm to Chan, who snatched it out of the air. “Don’t know who left it here, but if you want it...”

Chan held the tiny bottle up to the light. Nail polish the colour of cherries, or old blood. “Where was it? Is it Mrs Archer’s?”

“Naw, she never came here. Might’ve belonged to an old friend.”

“Why’re you so hooked on her, anyway? You and Kimberly, were you ever...” Goodwell cocked his head. “An item?”

“Nothing like that. I just gotta help her. She’s one hell of a lady. Only one of us that’s gonna make it out of here clean. Only one of us who deserves it.” Fitch looked away, suddenly bashful. “Gonna take a shower. There’s crackers in the pantry if you want breakfast. Oh, and some old boots in the closet you can borrow. More comfortable than those flip-flops.”

He turned away without another word. A door slammed. The clank of hot water pipes shuddering in the walls was louder than the drumming of rain. Chan was already applying nail polish with long, careful strokes. Her nails were beaten to shit thanks to the mad rush out of the Rustwood PD, not to mention their arrest outside the Balkan Circle, but she still painted them reverently.

A little ritual, Goodwell figured. Everyone needed one. Some soldiers turned their underwear backward before battle. Some kissed their crucifixes. Others painted their nails.

Might’ve belonged to an old friend, Fitch said. Something the voice had told him many days before reverberated in his memory. Tell her she is not the first. Tell her the other is dead. Her friend killed his first companion without love or mercy in his heart.

His Queen might’ve been lying, trying to pull Mrs Archer away from her new, dangerous friend. Or maybe...

“Karen,” he whispered.

Chan looked up as she painted her last pinkie nail. “Yeah?”

“Load that pistol.”

 

* * *

 

The woman in bug-eye sunglasses dug her nails into her palms hard enough to draw blood. The pain was distant, dulled, but enough to force her to her feet.

The agony of being cut open and sewn back together had already faded. Even violated, her body did the job it was built for. But it was exhausted, wrung thin, in need of sleep and meat. The things scrabbling inside her mourned their lost sister. They begged her for justice.

“Soon.” Her voice came out like a concrete scrape. “I’ll get them both. Soon.”

The barrier shimmered before her like a heat-mirage rising from the polished wooden boards of the old asylum dorm. Invisible from the outside, but she could just see it from the inside. A caul thrown across the world. She’d figured out how they’d done it: so simple it made her want to scream. A blood circle, consecrated in the name of the true Queen, either on the floor below or painted on the roof tiles. A servant of the false Queen would’ve had no power over her, but if Gull had the same blessings as her master...

The barrier swallowed sound. She could feel the asylum creaking around her but not hear it. The tap tap tap of rain on the roof was a distant murmur. She couldn’t feel her Queen. The warm, comforting presence of her creator had been wiped away.

Maybe that was why they hadn’t come for her yet. The New Queen couldn’t feel her either. They didn’t know where to look.

She was isolated. Shielded.

She could think.

She could remember.

It was a dangerous idea. Tempting, too. Even delicious. It’d been so long since she’d thought about her old name without the New Queen looking over her shoulder. The fear of that ice-pain closing around her temples, crushing her skull, the pain too great to bear. Now, in the circle, she could close her eyes and think of distant times.

Just shapes in the fog. A hand closing around hers. Lips tickling as they brushed her earlobe. A whispered name...

Darling.

She couldn’t recall the voice. A man, perhaps. Someone close enough to trust. Yes, she’d loved him, and he’d called her darling.

The floor creaked below her, wooden boards blistering in the wake of the blood circle. The drumming of rain grew louder. Was that the barrier weakening? Yes, surely, the blood circle was drying, and as blood dried, power faded.

She touched the barrier. An electric snap bullwhipped down her arm, slamming into her shoulder and clacking her teeth together. Still painful, but yes, it was growing weak. Less a wall than a net. All she had to do was push...

She threw herself against the barrier. It knocked her back, seared the bare skin of her forearms. She clenched her jaw and forced herself to walk, hands held out before her.

For one blinding moment it was like stepping through napalm flame. The circle baked her from the inside, blackened the flesh of her palms, send the things living inside her skittering for safety in the hollows of her bowels. Then she was through, panting on the floor, smoke wending upward from the ruins of her bare feet.

She panted, even though she hadn’t had lungs in many months. Her fingernails gouged tracks from the polished boards. She closed her eyes, forcing the things that squirmed in her sockets to retreat as she clenched and shivered.

“Son of a bitch.”

She had to use the scattered furniture to lever herself to her feet. The pain usually faded so quickly but this time the agony had been baked into her pores. The circle had marked her. A tattoo of her vulnerability across every inch of skin.

Worse was the hollow sensation in her chest where they’d sliced her open. One of many, yes - they bred with each other to fill the space, expanding inside the cavity to fill every spare nook and crack. She wouldn’t be weak for long. But to have let something so precious escape, to let the enemy rip it out of her...

“Half-woman.”

She spun, clutching at the ragged remains of her jacket in a sad attempt at keeping her dignity. The emissary, the thing in the black rainslicker, stood in the auditorium doorway. It was shrouded in steam, rainwater turning to vapour on its skin. Hands carved from mahogany clenched by its sides. The pit of its throat - if that was its throat, everything beneath the hood of the rainslicker kept shifting, running like wax - seemed to drink the light from the air. It was a blackness you could fall into, darkness you could lose yourself in.

She turned away, doing her best to hide the pain on her face. “You took your time.”

Its voice was a serpent slither, the lashing of a whip around tender flesh. “The Queen had need of me. How long have they been gone?”

“Only a few minutes. I can catch them.”

“You shouldn’t have to catch them. You had them both.”

“They bound me. Her companion, Gull, he’s got real power. Not just parlour tricks. He’s got Archer under his control.”

“You should’ve cut his throat and dragged her back without hands or feet. You don’t hate enough.” The thing in the rainslicker had no face that she could see, nothing but squirming blackness beneath the hood, but she was sure it was sneering. “Pathetic.”

She could’ve slid the bone-blades from her wrists and slashed the rainslicker thing in half, but that strength would be better spent elsewhere. “You could’ve come earlier.”

“Other things to deal with. The detectives, Goodwell and Chan. They escaped.”

“Fitch too?” The silence told her all she needed to know. “Slippery, isn’t he?”

“You’re a fool. You should have killed him when you had the chance.”

“Who the hell are you to talk to me like that? What are you, anyway? Where the fuck is your face?”

She lunged for the emissary’s hood, but it danced back, out of her reach. “The New Queen wants her. The Queen wants all of them. It’s time to end this world, and she can’t do it without the Archer woman. Bring her back alive. The others... do what you will.” A smile... or maybe just a trick of the light... shimmered beneath the hood. “This is your last chance, half-woman. Our Majesty will not tolerate any more mistakes.”

“Wait.” She forced herself to stand, biting back a cry at the agony of standing on burned feet. It was only pain, and pain could be pushed away. Not really her legs, anyway. She could disconnect if she wanted. “Why aren’t you chasing her if she’s so important?“

“I have my orders. The Queen knows best.” The thing in the rainslicker marched to the doors, not looking back. “Bring her in alive.”

Other shapes lingered in the doorway. Police officers, the men she’d plucked and hollowed and turned to her own purpose. They were different, somehow. In the day she’d been gone, something had changed in the way they stood, the way they grinned. Too many teeth. They hunched like animals set to pounce.

The emissary had played with her puppets. So much work gone into making them pliant, obedient, and now they’d been turned into attack dogs. Useless for anything but hunting and tearing.

Puppet of skin. The Queen’s tool.

She pushed the blasphemy away. Her moment of privacy in the blood-circle was over. Even here, the Queen could hear.

I hope you are just a puppet.

That moment, when the Archer woman had met her eyes. There’d been real sympathy there, the sort you couldn’t fake. Like she’d been watching some dumb animal squirming with its leg caught in a trap, wondering if it was right to put her out of her misery with a bullet to the base of the neck.

She’d wanted to scream, to grab Archer by the shoulders and shake her, howling I’m me, I’m real! But she’d known even then, as she’d slammed against the walls of Gull’s blood-circle, that it was a lie. She was only what the Queen wanted her to be, and nothing more. Just like Archer thought she was so special, so invulnerable, until Gull had locked her joints and pressed her to the floor and let the Queen’s littlest servant claw a path down her throat. All of them, built and used and discarded.

Darling.

She pressed that name down, crushed it into the furthest spaces of her mind where the Queen wouldn’t see. A secret to call her own.

She hoped.