All Seeing Eye

10

“If we do find Charlie, or wherever Charlie’s trying to get through…” Could this be more bizarre? And if I, the resident psychic, thought it was bizarre, then bizarre wasn’t even the word. “What do you plan on doing? I mean, seriously, Hector, that movie wasn’t real, you know. No such thing as proton packs. So who you gonna call?”

Behind the wheel of the generic Ford, Hector snorted, and it was despite himself, I knew. Dead brother aside, the guy was one serious and somber son of a bitch. I’d have labeled him responsible and deadly dull if it weren’t for the occasional flicker of wry humor I saw behind the stoicism. And if not for pieces of Charlie whispering in the back of my thoughts, telling me what Hector had gotten up to in his younger days. Taking out the entire back of their parents’ house with a microwave jury-rigged for a moon flight? Hell, that was truly inspired, if unintentional, destruction right there.

“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” he said dryly. “The team has been working on a way to pull Charlie entirely back to this plane. It’s what he’s attempting now but can’t accomplish. He needs more power. If we can feed it to him on his precise personal energy signature, if we can do that for him, he’ll come through and…” His mouth flattened, and the glint of amusement was gone. “Dissipate,” he finished abruptly. “This level of physical existence can’t support him.”

I propped an elbow on the window frame and watched as a blur of black, white, and green passed by. Cows and fields. Wouldn’t life be easier if that’s all there was to it? Cows and fields. “And then he’ll go on to a better place.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in anything like that.” He turned the wheel, and we jounced down a rutted dirt road. “That you thought we simply stopped existing.”

“Who’s to say not being isn’t better than all this?” I could see a house through the trees, flashes of faded rose brick. “One long nap. Maybe you haven’t taken a really great nap, Allgood, but I have. I’ll take that over fluffy clouds and annoying harp music anytime, thanks.”

He didn’t call me on a philosophy that wasn’t precisely dripping with sunshine and roses. After all, he had a file on my past-on Tess, my mother, that nightmare bastard Boyd. What I’d done. He knew I came by my beliefs honestly. He knew what had made me.

Or unmade me, depending on your point of view.

“This it?” I went on. I rolled down the window, and the cloying smell of honeysuckle drenched the hot air that flooded the car.

“The first,” Hector confirmed. “File’s on top.”

I fished the folder up off the floorboards and paged through it. I was sure I looked ludicrous, thumbing the pages with black gloves that didn’t exactly go with the jeans and green long-sleeved T-shirt I’d packed. That was the thing about the gloves; they went with the whole All Seeing Eye gig but not so much with the casual look of a good old Southern boy. Forgetting about my ego for a moment, I scanned the pages. The house was dated back to the late seventeen hundreds. A man, Jeremiah Farrell, had built it for his wife, Felicity. They’d lived there and multiplied. Damn, and had they multiplied. Thirteen kids in thirteen years. Apparently, they’d also been a robust family, and infant mortality just passed them by. By year fourteen, Mrs. Farrell had either had enough or had flat-out lost her mind. There wasn’t any postpartum depression back in those days; there was only crazy. And sometimes there was pure homicidal mania.

Felicity killed them all. Every last one. But unlike Lizzie, she didn’t stick to an axe. Her husband was a hunting man, as all men were back in the day. She hacked and shot and bludgeoned until the wooden floors coursed with blood, a blood that never came clean. To this day, the floors shone ruby in the light.

Or so the story went.

It was a legend that had lived for hundreds of years. Trouble was, it couldn’t be backed up by any records. There had been a Jeremiah and Felicity Farrell, and they had had several children. That had been confirmed by an old church registry. There could’ve been a murder… or seven or ten. Or they could’ve moved back to the Old Country or out West. It was all lost in the mists of time. Until me.

Great.

We pulled up to the house… or what was left of it. The porch was a sagging disaster area, and the windows and front door were boarded up. I climbed out of the car and glanced askance at the moldering ruin. “Not exactly on the tour of historic houses, I take it.”

“Not quite. They’re working on it, I hear.” As Hector strode through the knee-high weeds, I heard the rustle of a snake heading for the high ground. “Preserving history is an admirable goal.”

“Yeah? I don’t see any historical society lining up to support my ass, and I’m all about history.” I looked up at the second story, which was covered by a creeping wall of poison ivy. “And I’m much better-looking than this heap.”

“A great opportunity missed on their part, I’m sure.” He went to the trunk and pulled out a crowbar. “Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have us inside.”

Ah, that would be hell no.

“I am not going in there, Hector. No way, no how.” I made my way through the weeds to the porch and pulled off a glove. “If fourteen murders actually took place here, I’ll just have to touch a wall to know. I don’t need to be feeling around for phantom blood on the floor. Jesus. You want to see another seizure?”

“I stand corrected.” After leaning the crowbar against the car, he followed me. I’d started to climb up onto the porch, but after a good look at the gaping holes and the warped wood, I headed for the side of the house. It was doubtful the wooden front structure was original to the home, anyway.

Clenching my bare hand into a fist for a moment, I sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. If I look like I’m swallowing my tongue, do me a favor and shove me away from the wall. You know, if you’re not too busy taking notes.”

“I have a near-photographic memory,” he countered impassively. “I’ll transcribe them later.”

“Smart-ass,” I muttered. Then, giving up on stalling any further, I stretched out my hand hesitantly, Charlie’s excruciating death still firmly in mind, and touched warm brick.

I saw it.

I saw it all.

Every year. Every day. Every moment.

Love. Hate. Hunger. Warmth. Laughter. Tears. Loss. Abandonment.

Blood.

Death.

But no more so than usual in a house that had lived so long. I dropped my hand and pulled my glove back on. “The only thing Felicity Farrell killed was her husband’s sex drive when she threatened to treat his dick like a chicken neck and give it the chop. And after thirteen kids, who could blame the woman?”

“No violence, then?”

“Not the kind you’re talking about. A few fights. Someone’s granny fell down the stairs and broke her neck, but no murders. Although Lily Ann’s dog ate her sister’s rabbit. I guess the rabbit might call that murder.” I swatted at a deerfly buzzing about my head. “So, one down, how many to go?”

“Too many.” Hector grunted and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Sweat. The man was actually human after all. Someone write that down. Oh, wait, Hector had a near-photographic memory. He could simply remind me later. I ducked the fly again and headed back to the car.

“When do we stop for lunch?” I called over my shoulder. “I’m starving. Not that the yogurt wasn’t a filling breakfast-you really know how to keep your psychics happy.”

“I believe I liked it better when you were sullen and silent.” Hector moved past me and got behind the wheel.

“As opposed to?” I drawled, slamming the car door shut after I slid into the passenger seat.

“Sullen and sarcastic.”

• • •

Lunch was a long time coming. We went through two more ancient houses and a feed store and finally ended up at a cave. The houses had come up dry, and the feed store had been host to one murder, though not the massacre legend had painted. And apparently, that was not enough violence to make it a target for Charlie. The cave, Hector promised, was the last one before we ate, and I was holding him to it. No food, no mojo.

“We’re here.”

I wasn’t dozing, not really, but the voice was jarring nonetheless. Too many winding Georgia roads, too much hot sun through the windows. I last remembered a spill of rotten fruit along an orchard we’d passed. Red, gold, and brown, the peaches had rolled free of a wicker basket. As pictures went, it was sad in a way, wistful, but it was beautiful, too.

“Where’s here?” I muttered, rubbing tired eyes. “The hole in the ground?”

“Yes, Carlson Caverns. Sawney Beane’s American summer home.” Hector stared through the windshield, and his mouth twitched minutely, which I’d come to recognize as his version of a scowl. “Tourists. Look at all the tourists.”

It was more than a few. There were dozens of people milling about the gravel parking lot in front of the path that, per the huge sign, led to the cavern.

“What are you, a vacation Grinch?” I yawned. “And who the hell is Sawney Beane?” The name actually sounded vaguely familiar, but I was tired and starving and not in the mood to chase the thought around my weary brain.

He checked his watch, decided the tourists weren’t going to dematerialize to suit him, and turned to address my question. “He was head of a legendary family of cannibals. The Beane clan supposedly lived in a Scottish cave in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Sawney and his highly incestuous family killed thousands of innocent travelers, dragged their bodies back to their cave, hung them on hooks, and ate them.” His pale eyes considered me. “Did I already say supposedly?”

“Yeah, you did.”

Note to self: avoid Scotland. Avoid it like the fucking plague. The hell with supposedly; better safe than sorry was my rule.

“You’re not telling me this place is the equivalent? Because, Allgood, guess what? I really don’t want to hear that.” I made no move to get out of the car, although I sincerely doubted that Georgian cannibals had once roamed the area. I was simply tired and cranky as hell. Rubbing dry, tired eyes, I grabbed the last folder and opened it. After scanning the two pages, I thought about fighting the impulse to roll my eyes. I didn’t fight it long or hard. “I can’t believe we dragged our asses all the way here for this crap. It’s right up there with the Headless Horseman or, hell, the Great Pumpkin.”

“I never figured you for a Charlie Brown fan, Jackson.”

“Oh, shut up, would ya?” I complained, my drawl thicker with weariness. “Bottom line is you don’t need a psychic to vet this one. It’s pure bullshit. Historical bullshit, maybe, but still bullshit. Not to mention a total waste of my time.” As the entire damn day had been. “I’m beat.” I pulled the lever on the side of the seat and dropped it into the reclining position. “Bring me back a rock. I’ll read it, and then we can finally grab some lunch.”

A large hand reached across me, opened the door, and gave me a firm shove out. I didn’t fall on my ass; the force of the push had been very carefully calculated on Hector’s part in consideration of the fact that I’d just that morning crawled out of a hospital bed. The effort didn’t stop me from giving him a poisonous glare.

“Is that your way of saying ‘or we could walk to the cave’?”

“You are a psychic, aren’t you?” Hector closed his door, checked his watch again, and added, “Let’s go buy a ticket.”

The tickets were ten bucks apiece. Ten bucks to see a muddy, frigid hole in the ground. Needless to say, I didn’t pay. There was a tour guide, potbellied in shorts, a Carlson Caverns T-shirt, and tube socks. With a booming voice that issued out of a gingery beard, he led the way into the cave. “Carlson Caverns was first discovered in 1771 by an expedition led by…”

I tuned him out. I wasn’t particularly interested in who had been the first unfortunate bastard to trip and fall through the cave entrance while screaming like a banshee. I was interested in lunch, sleep, a whole lot less of Hector, and that was it. And sun… sun would be good. Forget that I’d just been cursing the hot, sweaty grip of it. Standing in a nature-formed grave freezing my ass off made me appreciate a heat that baked you to the bones. Sighing, I shifted from foot to foot and folded my arms against the chill. A little boy standing at his mother’s side looked over at me. About seven, with a baseball cap and a backpack, he grinned cheerfully. An all-American boy, missing front tooth, freckles, skinned knee-and then he flipped me off.

All-American, all right.

Snorting, I looked over at Hector. “I’m starving. Let’s get this over with.”

I stripped off a glove, bent down, and picked up a rock. Freezing. Bored. Paid ten bucks for this? Tourist thoughts, and unsurprising ones at that. I dropped it, took a few steps, and picked up another one. Same thing. I wandered a little farther out toward a side tunnel off the main cavern. Mr. Carlson himself was finally getting to the legend as I walked.

“And in 1864, a Confederate Army deserter holed up here to hide from his unit. Hart Renfrow. Apparently, ole Hart wasn’t right in the head to begin with, because he lived in this Georgia tomb for seven years, just sure as can be that his fellow soldiers were still looking for him, waiting to string him up. And when winters got hard and game was scarce…” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the guide’s mock leer highlighted by a flashlight under the chin. Je- sus. I was glad the ten bucks hadn’t come out of my pocket.

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen, when game was scarce, he ate people. ” His voice sank to a horrified whisper. “Crept over to the outskirts of Carlson City and stole them. Women and children, mainly, but the occasional man. In those days, they thought bears or wolves had gotten the missing, but you and I and Hart Renfrow, we know better.”

He went on, but I’d heard more than enough. What a colossal waste of time. Hector had followed me, and I glared at him over my shoulder as I reached for the stone wall of the tunnel for the last check I was going to bother to make.

“Milk shake and fries, you got it? And I want a huge-ass hot fudge sund-”

The world went away. This world. But there were always other worlds, weren’t there? This one had the stench of boiling flesh hovering on a winter chill, half-skinned naked women hanging from racks lashed together from tree limbs, and bones littering the floor to crunch with every step. Yes, every slow and sure step you took as you prowled closer to the five-year-old girl hiding under her mother’s body. She was screaming for her daddy over and over and over. Screaming and screaming and-

The sun.

I blinked. Blue sky and sun and a warmth that could melt any chill, even that of Carlson Caverns, an atypically bitter Georgia winter, and Hart Renfrow.

“Hunhh,” I mumbled less than coherently. There was more heat under me, intense and so goddamn wonderful I could’ve lain on top of it for the rest of my damn life.

“You with me, Jackson?”

I turned my head slowly to take in Hector’s wary expression. Was I with him? Was I here? Good question.

“She wanted her daddy,” I said blankly as I looked away back to the sky. “Renfrow thought she tasted good. Tender. Went way too fast, though. The little ones always do… always did.” It was like a nightmare now that contact was broken, but not a fresh one-an old one from years and years past. Thank God, except I’d never thank anyone who’d made me see what I had seen.

I sat up to see that I’d been lying on the hood of Hector’s car, just your average overloaded psychic taking in the sun.

Hector wasn’t looking wary any longer, he was looking flat-out worried as hell. Worried about my mental health or about my ability to do the job-it didn’t matter which. In the end, they were one and the same.

“Get a T-shirt, Allgood.” I rubbed my mouth, hoping there was no drool. “What you’re looking for doesn’t get more righteous than this.” Not when you were trolling for massacres, serial killings, and explosions of violence.

“Yes, the eyes rolling back in your head and the Exorcist whispering before I dragged you out gave that away.” He held out a hand to help me down. My glove had been replaced, but I still ignored the offer and slid down on my own. My knees wobbled a bit as I hit the ground, but I locked them in place and managed to stay upright.

“Whispering?” I repeated cautiously. “Me? What was I saying?”

He pulled the car keys from his pocket and looked at them with far more focus than they required. “Little girl.” He shook his head and squared his shoulders. “You were saying, little girl. Come here, little girl. Come here, sugar and spice and everything nice. Come here. And you sounded… hungry.”

I looked back toward the entrance of the cave, past the curious stares of tourists waiting for the next tour, past cars, and beyond the modern world. “He was,” I said simply. “Always hungry. No matter how much he ate, how many he ate. He was always hungry.” I turned my back to it, physically and mentally, to grimace faintly. “Me, on the other hand, I think we can forget lunch.”

As it turned out, my body didn’t agree with that notion. I’d been working it steadily today, and psychic exertion was considerably more draining than the physical kind. By the time we reached the diner, I was sweating buckets, and it wasn’t from the heat. Clammy and soaked with cold sweat, I knew my blood sugar had taken a serious dive, and I ripped into the complimentary crackers the second we hit the table. Annie’s Big Fat Fannie was a barbecue joint, but there was enough in the way of side orders there for a vegetarian to get by. Potato salad, macaroni salad, cole slaw, a cheese sandwich, fried biscuits with apple butter, strawberry-rhubarb pie, and pint jars of sweet tea garnished with a frozen slice of peach. As for Annie’s generous fannie, the woman was damn proud of it. Good for her.

She was a whirlwind in the tiny restaurant, bustling from table to table in jeans and a sparkly halter top about thirty years too young for her. She treated the three waitresses like daughters, scolding and praising in one breath. Greeting regulars with hoots of joy and hugs and greeting strangers just the same, she was nothing but grins and sass and good heart. One regular in dirty clothes with a permanent alcohol glaze in his eye was given free food and a hug the same as everyone else. The world needed more Annies.

“You boys doing okay?” She beamed as she wrapped an arm around Hector’s shoulders and squeezed before leaning on the edge of the table. Waist-length platinum-blond hair was teased into a stiff, hairspray-coated, billowing cloud, turning her into a Rapunzel of the Bible Belt. As for her fannie, I wouldn’t say it was fat, but if you were an ass man, there was more than enough to catch your eye. Earlier, I’d seen her catch a few country boys gawking from the counter. She’d turned to slap it briskly in their direction. She’d laughed. “Double helpings, boys, and more than pups the likes of you can handle.”

“Doing good, Miss Annie,” I said politely, sliding a look toward Hector as I wondered how to insinuate that he was a fan of the fannie. From the stone-faced glare I received in return, it was plain to see that he was doing a little mind reading of his own. Letting the opportunity at humiliation go, I added, “Best fried biscuits in Georgia.”

“Damn straight there.” She beamed even brighter behind thick pancake makeup and bright green eye shadow. And before I could anticipate it, she wrapped her hand around my bare wrist as it rested on the table. “What’s with the gloves, cutie-pie? You look like O. J. Simpson.”

“Um. Poison ivy.” I gave her a plastic smile. “Nasty case. Don’t want to give it to anybody.”

“You poor thing. You have the calamine? Nothing works like the calamine, except for an oatmeal bath.” She let go of my wrist to give me the same hug she’d given Hector. “You be sure to do that tonight before bed. Coat up good with oatmeal. It’ll do right by you, you’ll see.” And then she was gone, and my hand flashed out to yank Hector’s plate of barbecue away before he could take a bite.

“What are you doing?” he asked, baffled, already reaching out to pull it back.

“You don’t want to eat it,” I said darkly. “Trust me.”

He let his hand drop and said cautiously, “Do I even want to know why?”

“Probably not.” Annie was over at the counter with an arm around each of those blushing boys and laughing like a loon. It seemed that our good-hearted hostess didn’t like the dogs that ran in the neighborhood. Loud, digging in the garbage, giving those stupid dog grins when she chased them with a broom. No, Miss Annie didn’t like that at all. And if the little shits were stupid enough to come up to you when one hand was filled with food and the other held your old butcher knife, well, it couldn’t be a sin to do what had to be done, right? Worthless creatures. Even God made a mistake once in a while. And waste not, want not.

“Let’s just say Miss Annie is the reason they don’t need an animal shelter in these parts.”

I made my way methodically through the side orders in front of me, only because I doubted I would’ve been able to get up from the table under my own power if I hadn’t. My appetite had taken some serious blows today, no way around it.

Hector, meanwhile, let it alone-the situation, the barbecue, and everything else on his plate-as he turned green. Normal people. They were so damn lucky. I remembered what it was like before I was fourteen, before Tess’s shoe. Ignorance was bliss-one of the oldest cliches around, and it had every right to be. Nothing was more true. Finally, Hector chanced one biscuit, saying wearily, “We’re done for the day. And tomorrow…” He turned his glass jar of tea one way, then the other. “Tomorrow, if our calculations are correct, Charlie will try to come through, somewhere.”

I wondered if it was still Charlie, the way he had been. Intelligence, emotion, memory-was that what was trying to return home, or was it a blind amorphous urge and nothing more? Just a leftover instinct with nothing behind it?

“How will that go?” I asked with reluctant curiosity.

“We’ll have teams at the most logical locations. The ones authenticated and with the highest violence quotient. The higher the latter, the more extensive the ‘fraying.’ The teams will move in if a violence cycle begins to repeat and, hopefully, prevent any further deaths. You’ll have a few of Charlie’s things and see if you can pinpoint it when he does come through. If you can get the location the moment he appears, that team can move in immediately, and we can rush the equipment in.” He exhaled, one corner of his mouth twisting. “Piece of cake, right?”

Since he didn’t believe it, either, I wasn’t going to make the effort. “Why doesn’t every team have its own Charlie-busting device? It’d make things a helluva lot easier.”

“It cost three and a half million to build the one we have, and we’re not exactly high on any politician’s funding list.”

Good reason.

Back at headquarters… I’d always wanted to say that as a kid. That’s the way it had always gone in the superhero cartoons or the buddy cop shows. Back at headquarters was where you figured out what you’d learned, regrouped, then went out to kick ass.

At that moment, I couldn’t have kicked anyone’s ass unless they were under four and in the middle of naptime. I eased onto the narrow bed, bit back a groan, and lay back to stare at the ceiling. Meleah had said that I’d have residual muscle soreness from the seizure. She knew her stuff, unfortunately, Meleah did. Meleah, not Dr. Guerrera… and that’s why I ignored Hector’s offer.

“You can stay in the infirmary, Jackson,” he repeated. “There’s plenty of empty beds, not to mention painkillers and muscle relaxants at your fingertips.”

When you move like an eighty-year-old man, apparently people will notice. And while the infirmary was a slightly nicer cage, it was still a cage. I could deal with that, at least for a while, but I didn’t want to deal with seeing Meleah with too-familiar eyes and wondering where Charlie began and I ended.

“I’ll be okay.” I covered my eyes against the buzzing light with a forearm. “Turn that out before you lock me in, would you? It’s like a laser beam from hell.”

“I’m not locking you in.”

I moved my arm enough to give him a disbelieving glance. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Fuck regulations.” Hector showing he was the big dog and Thackery could kiss his ass. “I think your clearance level has gone about as high as it could go now.” His pale eyes were tainted with exhaustion, like dirty ice. “I’m through being an asshole because circumstances dictate it. Charlie wouldn’t be happy with me, and I’m not too happy with myself.” He moved to the door and opened it. “You’ll stay because we can help your sister and because you want to help Charlie, whether you admit that or not.” He shook his head. “Even to yourself. I’ll send Eden with some pills. See you at five.”

Five A.M.? I groaned mentally as he shut the door. It was easier to focus on that than on the grab bag of goodies he’d thrown in my lap. My cage door was open. Of course, Glory was the real cage; they had never needed a locked door to keep me here. But… I looked at it-gray, metal, ugly, and unlocked-and suddenly, I could breathe. The claustrophobia was still there, but knowing that I could open the door anytime lifted it enough to let me breathe without feeling as if I were strangling.

As for the other things, Hector giving me his trust and being so sure that I would’ve stayed regardless if only to help Charlie-as if he thought he knew me now. Knew who I was on the inside. He ignored my snark and was acting more like his brother. Too damn perceptive. I wasn’t comfortable with that. I’d let Abby in. I didn’t think I had room for any others.

Once I was loaded up with Tylenol, muscle relaxants, and more of Eden’s sympathetic pats and anger at my condition, the night passed in a blink, and I was faced with the ugly reality of too-damn-early. There was the smell of eggs and toast under my nose, and I pried up eyelids with a mind of their own and fifty pounds of concrete on their side. At least, it felt that way. I did get them open, though, to see the blurry vision of gray scrambled eggs and limp soggy toast.

“This is a joke,” I mumbled thickly. “A bad joke. Go away.”

“It’s not much to look at, Mr. Eye, I know, but I did bring a cinnamon roll and coffee from the outside world. I hope that will make up for our cafeteria’s failings.”

My eyes widened to fully alert. I’d assumed it was Hector. I must’ve been stupid with sleep; Hector had never smelled like that. She smelled like oranges and cinnamon. When Charlie’s memory didn’t pop up to comment on the change from lemon, I decided either the scent was new or Charlie was beginning to fade. It didn’t matter which, because either one was a good way to start the day. I’d liked Charlie, but it was time for him to go. I couldn’t be his tombstone, eulogy, and life’s history all rolled into one forever.

I sat up and reached immediately for my gloves. After pulling them on, I shoved my hair back and snapped a rubber band around it. “I’ll take the roll and coffee, thanks.”

She aimed gray eyes at the eggs and gave a philosophical sigh. “I’d throw them to the crows, but they won’t touch them, either.” She deposited the tray on the desk and handed me a paper bag fragrant with the smells of butter, icing, and dark roast.

“I didn’t know doctors made house calls anymore, much less with cinnamon rolls.” And a damn fine cinnamon roll it was, too. It was the size of a saucer and dripping with all the things that made life worthwhile-sugar, butter, grease. I had to take my gloves back off to eat it, and it was more than worth the trouble.

“Yes, well, most doctors don’t tend to patients who are being held against their will.” Her lips tightened. “Who are being blackmailed.”

Maybe, like Eden, she was on my side, too. Charlie had nothing to contradict absolute integrity in her. Then again, Charlie had been too good for his own good. And good people are gullible.

“True.” My eyes narrowed as I wiped sticky fingers on a napkin from the bag. “And you think a roll and coffee makes up for that?” She was an amazing woman, and I didn’t need Charlie to tell me so, but that didn’t let her off the hook for all this.

“No,” she responded quietly. “I’m not sure anything would.” Laying warm fingers on my arm, she added, “I am sorry. I know it counts for very little, but I am.”

Behind the words, I saw her. Five years old and standing by the window where the cage hung. Her abuela kept two doves, gray and white with soft pink eyes. They watched the sky through silver bars, and that wasn’t right. No one should be in a cage. Everyone should know freedom. Libertad. Everyone should know the sky. And so she’d opened the window and then the door to the cage, and off they flew, without hesitation. As if they’d been waiting for this moment all their short lives. Meleah had waved in joy until she couldn’t see them anymore. Waved and waved.

I looked blankly at her hand on my arm. “Don’t.”

She removed it instantly, mortified, I could tell by the flush under warm amber skin. “I’m sorry. I forgot. It is inexcusable of me.” Because a good doctor didn’t forget that one patient was a diabetic, and she didn’t forget that another was psychic.

“It’s okay.” I took another bite of the roll. “It’s not an easy thing to remember.” I smiled, ready for a little harmless payback and because, hell, I was curious. “Did your granny bust your ass for letting her birds go?” I raised a hand for a short wave, a simple one-two bend of the fingers. “ Libertad, pequenas palomas.”

Freedom, little doves.

Her mouth opened slightly, and the flush faded. Then, amazingly, she smiled back, her gray eyes warm. “She scolded me quite fiercely, but it was worth it. Of course, the silly birds came back the next day looking for supper.” She gave a gentle shrug. “I did what I could.”

Which is what she was doing now. For Charlie. He was in a cage, the same as I was, the same as the birds, but the door to it was much more difficult to open than when she’d been five. Maybe if we were lucky, both Charlie and I would get our libertad.

Maybe.

I finished up the roll and the coffee just as Hector came through the door. “It’s a party,” I drawled, toasting him with an empty paper cup. “BYOCB, though. Bring your own cinnamon bun.”

Hector was not amused. Tense and on edge behind his usual stone mask, no amusement to be found. “Get dressed, Jackson. We have to get set up at our location.”

“Not the cavern, right?” I demanded with a little tension of my own. I’d had enough of that place-more than enough. Charlie could come through there wearing bells and whistles and dancing a goddamn jig, I didn’t care. I was not going to be there.

“No. I made sure we pulled another site. The last thing I want, Eye, is you gnawing on my shinbone.”

Well, I stood corrected. There was a little humor in Allgood after all. Desperate and dark battlefield humor but humor all the same. “Stringy as hell,” I said, wrinkling my upper lip. “I wouldn’t waste my time.”

Meleah’s smile widened then faded. “Hector? You’ll let me know when something happens, yes? Thackery certainly will not.”

“Of course.” He rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly. “You’re as much a part of this as anyone, no matter what that bastard says.”

Thackery apparently knew everything about winning friends and influencing people-and had tossed that knowledge into the toilet and flushed repeatedly. I definitely wouldn’t be sorry to see the last of that bastard. If I had to take bets on who might murder Charlie, although I was very carefully not thinking about that, he’d top the list.

Meleah, though, and even blackmailing Hector-they weren’t that bad. Good people in a bad situation, I was forced to admit, as much as I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be sympathetic to their situation and them, I just wanted out. Wasn’t that right? I told myself. Wasn’t it? As Meleah left, she raised her own coffee cup to me. “ A la libertad, ” she said solemnly. “To liberty.”

Here was hoping it was that easy, I thought as she closed the door behind her.

Hector eyed me, assessing, but said nothing-at least, not about Meleah. “Get dressed,” he repeated. “We don’t have all day.”

“That statement has Mom written all over it.” I tossed my cup into the garbage can. “You want to remind me to use the bathroom before we go? Maybe tell me to wear clean underwear, too, while you’re at it.”

This time, he said nothing at all, the pale eyes narrowed to slits.

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Sheesh. Do I have time for a shower?”

“No.”

“Great,” I mumbled as I stripped and changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. “If Charlie does show up, he’ll be promptly driven away by my funky stench. There’s a ghostbusting tool Murray and Aykroyd never tried.”

“Actually, you smell like a giant cinnamon bun. Very manly. Now, get your goddamn ass in gear.” There was humor in the words, but his eyes didn’t show it. Why would they? Today was the day he was hoping to take what was left of his brother and end it permanently. It had to be done, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less.

I finished tying my sneakers, put on my gloves, and stood. “Okay. Let’s go save Charlie.”

It wasn’t as cool as, say, let’s go kick some noncorporeal ass, but it was far more true. We might be ending Charlie, but we would be saving him, too, because Hector was right. Charlie would far rather be gone than continue hurting people. The nonexistence of the grave would be vastly preferable. Then again, Charlie believed in life after death

… real life, not the lab-created kind. Funny how someone so brilliant could be so damn naive. And may a heavenly choir of angels sing you to sleep.

Shit.

Our location turned out to be an old mill. Lassie could’ve told us those were never good places to hang out. Trouble was bound to pop up-it was the law.

It was nice, though. Weeping willows bowing over a chuckling creek. The silver wood and stone of the mill was like a pool of moonlight at odds with the bright morning sun. I tossed a rock into the water with my left hand. In my right, I held Charlie’s key chain. When the time came, I’d strip my glove off and try to track Charlie, try to get the jump on him by at least a few seconds, give the team at the chosen location a heads-up.

Our location didn’t have the big guns this time. The equipment had been taken to the place with the highest body count: the cavern. It was considered the most likely place with the highest amount of “fraying.” When I asked Hector why he hadn’t gone there with that team, he hadn’t responded, unless you consider jaw clenching a response. Thackery. The son of a bitch had a lot of power, maybe enough to get Hector thrown off the project. It was the only thing that explained Hector’s presence behind me at the stream and made Thackery seem more suspicious-keeping Charlie’s brother at arm’s length from Charlie was what a murderer would do.

“It’s time,” he said quietly. “Ten minutes until ETE.” I looked over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows questioningly. “Sorry. Estimated time of ether-disruption.”

“Scientists.” I snorted. “Geeks.”

“Supergeek, actually, and proud of it,” he corrected, and tapped his watch. “Jackson…”

No more putting it off. Taking a deep breath, I transferred the keys to my other hand, stripped off the right glove, and then cradled the hunk of metal again, this time against bare skin. The mill was already verified; now it was time to read Charlie. There were the usual bits and pieces of him floating about in the keys. Driving for groceries. Taking Meleah’s puppies to the vet for shots. Cruising in the rain with Elvis wailing about wild horses and hound dogs. The flotsam and jetsam of daily life. The normal results of a reading. Unconsciously, I relaxed and enjoyed the warm weight of a puppy in my lap and the sounds of the King shaking the speakers.

Then it started.

At first, it was almost indistinguishable from the backdrop of the memories. It was just another emotion. Lost. I’m lost. It was so faint and muted that I expected to see Charlie pull a map from the glove compartment. Just a mild annoyance. Maybe he’d stop at a gas station and ask for directions.

It was because I forgot. For a moment, I forgot what had happened the day before at the caverns. The talent was banged up a bit thanks to reliving Charlie’s death, bent but not broken. Emotions were hazy TV viewing instead of living 3-D, and Charlie wasn’t feeling the kind of lost that a map could do a damn thing about.

Trees. Water.

How do I get in?

Where’s the door?

Where’s the door?

Where is me?

Where, where, where, where, where, where…

“Shit,” I muttered, shoving the keys into my pocket and looking around wildly. As if I’d be able to see anything.

“What?” Hector demanded.

“He’s here,” I said instantly. “He’s looking for a way in. He’s lost. He’s looking for a way home. He’s looking here.”

Hector was on his cell phone immediately, but the caverns were easily an hour away. They’d never get there in time. I started toward the mill at a run to warn the others. We had a team of six: Hector, me, and four others. And one of us was about to get real ornery real quick.

The mill didn’t have the history Carlson Caverns did, but it wasn’t all kittens and frigging rainbows, either. Hundreds of years before the phrase “going postal” was around, there’d been a similar one in these parts: “gristed.” Or, to be more precise, “done got himself gristed.” This one hadn’t been a legend needing my confirmation. This had been in the papers of the day. One of the mill workers, I had no idea what his name had been, had flat lost his mind, tossed his coworkers off the roof, then chopped up their bodies with an axe and fed the pieces down the hopper to be milled, a.k.a. gristed. By the time someone found out what had happened, whatshisname-really, what the hell was his name? — was chopping off pieces of himself to feed to the hungry mill.

There were no axes here, though. That was a good thing. It’s hard to chop up people without the proper tools, any homicidal maniac could tell you that. Reasonable, logical, but it didn’t stop the screaming from starting.

I hesitated for a split second, then ran on. How bad could it be? Three of them were scientists loaded down with their geeky equipment. The remaining guy was a soldier, but he was unarmed as a safety measure. Everyone was. Not even a penknife among us.

And yet the screaming went on.

As I continued toward the mill, I could hear the grass-muffled pounding of Allgood’s feet behind me. He pulled even with me as the first person was thrown off the roof. I skidded to a stop and could feel my jaw slacken as the man tumbled through the air, white-coated arms windmilling and mouth stretched wide in a scream. He hit the ground with a highly unpleasant thump and a bounce. He was still twitching, though, when he came to rest; the fall was only a little more than two stories. I liked to think that was an excuse for what I said next, but it probably wasn’t.

“Geeks falling out of the sky. If that’s not a sign of the Apocalypse, I don’t know what is,” I said, awed.

Hector swore and ran into the mill. I didn’t follow, not yet. Instead, I shaded my eyes and peered at the roof, because a little information goes a long way toward not having to realize firsthand that you can’t fly. I didn’t know for sure who was up there-I tended to label the scientists as geeks one, two, and three and the soldier as goon one. Geeks and goons didn’t need names-or so I’d thought. This was geek number two on the roof and unfortunate geek number three on the ground. The guy on the roof doing the tossing, his name was… Damn. His name was… Bob, I pried out of my brain, triumphant.

“Uh, hey, Bob,” I called up. “Can you just, I don’t know, not throw anyone else off the roof for a minute and listen up?”

A cloud crossed the sun, blocking the glare, and I could suddenly see him perfectly. Raging eyes, saliva cascading over his chin, and his mouth twisted in a hoarse scream. Because he was the one screaming. Without a second’s pause, it went on and on and on. It was the kind that rips throats to bloody shreds and minds to the very same. The worst part was that I didn’t know if it came from Bob himself or the recording playing in him. It reminded me of an old commercial: Is it live or is it Memorex?

But he didn’t stop or listen. He bent and dragged another form into sight. The goon. I could see blood in the blond hair. Bob hadn’t been able to find an axe, but he’d found something to use to whack his coworkers over the head. A length of wood, maybe. It seemed that when the recording loop within him couldn’t reenact the event exactly, it stuck with the spirit of it: death. Lots and lots of death.

Bob grunted as he moved the soldier over the peak of the roof. Grunted, screamed, grunted, screamed some more. Insanity incarnate. I’d only seen one thing in my life more disturbing than this.

A well and a drowned little girl.

Tasting bile, I tried to hold on to the casual tone. “Bob…” No. That wasn’t who he was now. Jim, Joshua… what the fuck had been that guy’s name in the file I’d skimmed?

“Jacob!” I said triumphantly. “Jacob, I know you can hear me. I need you to listen to me, okay?”

Jacob Messersmith was long dead and had nothing to do with this current mess, but a certain pattern etched into the fabric of reality didn’t know that. The energy, alien and trespassing, flowed along that pattern like water filling an empty riverbed-it brought to the pattern a very limited facsimile of life. An imitation of it. But imitations don’t always know that about themselves. Computer programs are a good example. Jacob didn’t know that he didn’t exist, and Jacob recognized his name.

The screaming stopped. He stared at me, his hands tangled in the dark green T-shirt of the soldier, one heave away from moving forward with his task. “Jacob.” He said it in a voice thick and gravelly. It sounded as if his throat was choked with stones and blood, and it was as far from human as you could get. “Ja-cob.”

But that made sense, because he wasn’t human, was he? He wasn’t even a he. It was nothing… nothing that thought it was something.

“Jacob, you look like you’re having a bad day. Want to talk about it?” That was me, a shrink to a paranormal rerun. It didn’t get much more screwed up than that. I wasn’t even sure I could talk to a pattern. Did it have enough information imprinted in those violent moments to be able to respond beyond killing? Was there an imprint of Jacob’s mind-set, his emotions and thoughts? Or only his actions?

“Jacob,” I repeated when the doughy face stared down at me blankly. “What’s going on? What’d these guys do to piss you off?”

“Jacob.” There was blood on his lips-from the screaming, I thought. “Jacob.” The limp form of the soldier bobbled in his grip. “ Gott. Gott tells Jacob. Gott erklarte mir. God tells me. They are against me. They plot. They would murder. They are demons. God tells Jacob to be his right hand. To smite the fallen ones.”

Great-not just an animate pattern but an animate, schizophrenic pattern. I had no hopes of reasoning with him. How do you reason with a DVR player? I could only hope to distract him, to make the disk skip, so to speak, to give Hector-

And there he was. On the roof behind Jacob-Bob. He’d left the scientist part behind, and now he was all soldier, loose and tense all in one.

“Jacob,” I called again hurriedly. “Demons. Tell me about the demons.”

“The fallen ones. Gott says smite the fallen ones,” he mumbled, the blood streaking his chin as he hefted the unconscious soldier. “ Gott took their demon wings. They can no longer fly. They can only fall.” And with a horrible smile, he started to toss the soldier.

But Hector got there first. With an arm around Bob’s windpipe, he choked him out, quickly and ruthlessly. With his other hand, he caught the soldier before he tumbled over the edge of the roof. Which was good for me. It saved the awkward decision of do you try to catch the poor bastard or do your damnedest to avoid being hit by his falling body. Instead, I was able to check the guy already on the ground. Both of his legs were bent at brutally ugly angles, but he was still breathing, and, considering, that definitely put him in the “came out ahead” column for the day.

Then I went into the mill to look for geek number one. I found him in seconds. The blood on Jacob’s mouth hadn’t been from the screaming after all.

Christ.

It took several minutes for us to get the geek and the goon off the roof, our feet slipping and sliding on dangerously decayed wood. As we grunted and yanked at the limp bodies, Hector said, “Charlie?”

“Jesus, I’ve been busy, okay?” I muttered, but I dug my still-naked hand in my pocket and closed them around metal. Dogs, Elvis, rain…

Nothing else.

“He’s gone,” I answered. “Sorry.” And I was.

Although, truthfully, the rest of us seemed to do much better when Charlie wasn’t around.