Graveyard Child

chapter thirteen

Darkness had taken the streets. I didn’t have the luxury of my sunglasses to hide behind. All the wounds were going to be clear on my face, and I was just going to have to be okay with that. I sat forward in the driver’s seat with Jay’s headlights behind me. My mind felt like the thinnest part of a whirlpool, spinning too fast and drawn too far down.

“What’s the plan, then?” Ex asked. It was a good question. I ignored it.

“You know what doesn’t make sense?” I said. “Having a massive international empire and then leaving it to someone lock, stock, and barrel without bothering to tell them about it.”

Ahead of us, a police car flew through an intersection, lights flaring on its roof, but without a siren to announce it. My knuckles ached on the wheel. I was hungry, and I needed to pee. Not the kinds of things that were supposed to bother an international demon hunter. I wished that I’d thought to hit the bathroom before we left the house, though.

“Eric’s story is much like your own,” Chogyi Jake said. “Taken under the wing of an older relative. And I have to think the miracles your father talked about were the work of a rider.”

“So there’s two points,” I said. “Inherits fortune from uncle and has a rider on board either pretty young or since, you know, conception. Think that’s enough to define a line for us?”

“Let’s look at the differences too,” Ex said. “He didn’t keep his. Michael spirited him away and brought him back empty. No more miracles.”

“But depression. A sense of loss,” Chogyi Jake said. “Qliphothic.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve heard the term before. Remind me.”

“Shells,” Ex said. “Some riders, once they’ve been in a body, the person’s not there anymore. Or they’re there in some diminished way. There was one guy in San Diego, the rider was a jé-rouge, and when we got it out of him, he wasn’t there. His soul was eaten or transferred to some animal we never found. Lost, anyway. That was an extreme case.”

“It’s always like that to some extent, though,” Chogyi Jake said. I got to West Kellogg and turned right. The streetlights glowed around us, drowning out the stars. “Anyone who has had a rider becomes more vulnerable to other possession later.”

“The filth-lickers hanging out around exorcists and going for the easy prey,” I said.

“Exactly,” Ex said. “So when Michael got the rider out of young Eric, it left him pretty bad off. And then he toddled off to wherever and left Eric hanging open.”

For a moment I saw my mother’s expression again and shuddered. An emptied shell, left on the beach for any crab in need of a place to pick up and use. I wondered what it would feel like, being alone in my own body. It had never been that way for me. I had nothing to compare it to. Only the people I’d known who’d been through it. In New Orleans, Karen Black had collapsed when her rider was cast out, but Joseph Mfume had carried the same beast, and he’d been able to make himself whole. Mostly. Except that he loved the killer after it left him. Longed for it and the sense of peace that it brought him.

No one touched by riders was whole afterward. Even the people who found a way to live with them—a balance that brought rider and horse into a kind of partnership—paid a price for it. You will outgrow me, so we should be ready. The phrase had come up in conversation recently, but I couldn’t remember where. It seemed important at the time—

“You’re speeding,” Chogyi Jake said.

“Thanks,” I said, and let up on the gas. We were almost at the Walmart. The lights in the parking lot rose up higher than the street lamps. Fake holly hung and bright red bells hung from them. I was surprised to see so many people there so long after dark, and then I checked the time. Five thirty. Most folks weren’t even home for dinner yet.

“So Eric had some kind of use for someone who’d been emptied.”

“No,” Ex said. “Just the opposite. Michael had some reason for casting the rider out of Eric, but we don’t know what that was. And Eric didn’t do that to you.”

I hit the signal and slowed, preparing to turn into the parking lot. Behind me, Jay’s blinker started going too. I turned.

“He could have been aiming for it, though,” I said. “The haugsvarmr under Grace Memorial? It could have kicked the Black Sun out of me. It would have, if it had had little more of a chance. Only it couldn’t see me, because . . .”

Because whatever weird thing made me hard to see with magic had left the massive rider blind to me.

“And what would the point be of making qliphoth?” Ex asked. “Why’d Michael do it? Why would Eric do it? What is there to gain from it?”

It didn’t hang together. Not yet. But I was closer than I had been. I was sure of that. There were still pieces missing. Like why the people who’d killed Eric were spiriting away my brother’s pregnant fiancée.

One thing at a time, I told myself. We’ll get there if we just take one thing at a time.

It took me a couple passes to find two parking spaces next to each other, but I managed it. Jay pulled in beside us and killed his engine. He was out of his car before my feet hit the pavement.

“What is this?” he demanded, waving a hand toward the store. “I thought we were going to find Carla!”

“We are,” I said. “We just need some things first.”

Ex and Chogyi Jake both closed their doors. The sound was deep and metallic. Like a jail cell closing.

“Things? Like what things?” Jay said.

“Shotguns,” I said. “And a bathroom.”

SOUTH WATER Street was exactly the worst kind of place to do reconnaissance on an enemy. It was in the middle of a wide residential area, no fences to lurk behind, and not many hedges. Two-lane streets of gray pavement, the cracks filled with black tar. Winter-bare trees lined the street on both sides, bare branches reaching across toward each other like fantastic fingers. There weren’t many cars on the street, so if I parked the SUV close enough for us to see the house from the vision, we’d also catch the local attention like a fire at a preschool. If we parked far enough away that we couldn’t be seen, we also couldn’t see anything. Jay’s car was more nondescript than my massive black apartment on wheels, but it was also the car that Carla would recognize on sight. Given what she’d said in her note, I wasn’t assuming she was going to be on our side. At least not at the start. I might be wrong. The Invisible College might have forced her to write it, and she could be desperately waiting for us to break down the door and pull her away.

I was open for a pleasant surprise, but I wasn’t counting on it.

We wound up parking one street over, near the corner where we were most obscured by the houses. Chogyi Jake and Ex got out to walk around the block, not using any glamours, but trusting to the darkness of the night to obscure their faces. The guns we kept in the backseat. I thought about leaving the engine running so we’d be able to use the heater, but I couldn’t find a way to do that without keeping the running lights on. So we sat in the darkness, Jay and I, while Chogyi Jake and Ex headed out. The cold seemed to press in from the windows, and I folded my hands in under my jacket and watched the traffic pass. Jay shifted nervously in his seat, his hand tapping at his knees, at the door. He sighed often and without seeming to know he was doing it. Eventually I had to talk to him. It was that or let him annoy me to death.

“She’ll be all right.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said.

“They don’t have any reason to hurt her. If they’re after me, she’s no good to them dead.”

“How about hurt?” Jay snapped. “Or taken over by demons?”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Those would suck.”

“I can’t believe you did this to us. I just can’t believe you’d be so selfish.”

I turned to look at him. The heat of our combined breath was fogging the insides of the windows, and he looked like a silhouette of himself in front of privacy glass. A streetlight another street away caught the window behind him, giving him a false halo.

“Guess I don’t see it that way,” I said, then turned back to watching the street. Lights were on in the houses. Men and women going about the rituals of their lives. Getting ready for parties or watching TV or putting the kids to bed. All of it going on while I froze my ass off waiting for the chance to lead a strike on a nest of demon-ridden wizards who probably wanted me dead. Damned selfish of me, all right.

As if he could hear me thinking, Jay tapped his palms on his knees, shook his head, and spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “That was out of line. I’m kind of freaking out here. I just don’t understand all what’s going on. I mean . . .” His voice broke. “I’m supposed to be getting married next week. I’m supposed to be worrying about getting a job that makes enough money and what kind of fucking diaper container to use so we don’t stink up the house and making sure Carla’s not miserable because we’re back here instead of Florida with her family.”

“Well, given our family, Wichita is kind of a hard sell,” I said. “No offense.”

He laughed. It was a small sound, and bitter, but it was more than I’d expected, and I was glad to hear it.

“I sooo didn’t want this,” he said. “Seriously, this wasn’t in the plan.”

“How’d it happen?”

Jay rolled his eyes.

“Well, sometimes when a man and a woman love each other very, very much, they give each other a special kind of hug,” he said. I punched his shoulder.

“Not what I meant. How about . . . I don’t know. How’d you meet her? What’s she like when my bullshit drama’s not jumping through the windows?” I said. And then a moment later, and more plaintively than I’d meant it to sound, “Are you happy?”

A car drove past, blue or brown or black. Between the fogged windows and the night, I couldn’t tell. Something dark. Jay was quiet so long, I thought he wasn’t going to answer. When he did speak, his voice was soft. Almost gentle.

“She’s great. Smart and talented. And beautiful. She got here, and she made friends with everyone at church right away, even though she’s . . . you know.”

“Hispanic and knocked up?”

Jay lowered his head to his hands.

“Yes,” he said. “That.”

“I’m not throwing stones,” I said. “She’s cool with me.”

“Thank you,” he said, laughter in his voice. “I’m glad my crazy sister with her porn star SUV and coat and scary-old-man entourage isn’t freaked out.”

“What’re you talking about, ‘porn star SUV’?”

“It’s a porn star SUV,” he said. “The only things its missing are a wet bar in the dashboard and a bunch of little cameras in the backseat.”

“Shut up,” I said, and punched him again. “How do you know what porn star cars look like anyway? I thought you were all Jesus all the time.”

“You thought that, did you,” he said. “You noticed I’m in a shotgun wedding, right?”

“Fair point,” I said.

“I don’t love her.”

He said it so easily, his voice so calm, so conversational. The words hung in the air between us, implications trailing out behind them. He was going to have a wife, a baby, a home, a life. Decades stretching out before him sharing his days and nights with a woman he seemed to like. I wanted to say something comforting and wise. Something that would make his situation better, or if not better, at least better than that. I put my hand on his.

“What about you?” he said. “The blond guy. He’s in love with you, isn’t he?”

“He thinks he is,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s even true. That issue’s got a lot of complexity in it.”

“Because of the angel inside you?”

I opened my mouth, closed it again. This wasn’t a conversation I’d been planning to have. Ever. With anyone.

“Sort of,” I said, feeling my way around the syllables like they might have sharp edges. “She’s not an angel, though. Or a demon either.”

“So what is she, then?”

“She’s what I’ve got to work with,” I said. “And it makes Ex a little scared for me.”

“And the other guy? The Asian?”

“He’s harder to unease,” I said.

“Do you love them?”

I ran a hand through my hair.

“I have an unhealthy thing for Ex,” I said. “By which I mean, I think it’s probably a bad idea and I’m probably reacting to a bunch of things besides him. But it’s there. Chogyi Jake’s . . .”

“Like a brother?” he asked, a smile in his voice.

“More like a mom, actually,” I said. “He’s just so nurturing all the time. I mean, it sounds kind of creepy when I say it out loud, but it’s actually really nice.”

“So they’re your family now.” There wasn’t any rancor in the question. No outrage at the idea that I might have made a family different from the one I’d been born into. I sat with it for a few seconds. Ex. Chogyi Jake. Aubrey. Kim.

“I guess so,” I said. “I guess they are.”

“And are you going to church at all?”

“I’m not,” I said.

I looked out the side window. The house nearest us had its Christmas lights on still, a half dozen bright colors blinking on and off. Inside, the blue flicker of a television danced like a fire.

“I wish you would.”

“It’s not really who I am these days,” I said. “Maybe later. When things have calmed down a little.”

“I’d appreciate it,” he said. “It was hard when you left. There were a lot of things that got thrown into the air. Plans had to change.”

“Mostly plans about what college I’d get my ‘MRS’ degree from,” I said.

“Well, that too,” he said.

“Yeah? So which plans were you thinking of?”

Jay shrugged.

“I always pictured you being around, is all. Mom and Dad are going to get old. They’ll get sick and need us to take care of them, and I figured it would be the three of us together. You and me and Curt. And, you know, I figured your kids and mine would be going to Sunday school together. Or, you know, at least Christmas services. When you stepped out of the picture, it blew everything up.”

“I didn’t mean it to,” I said. “I just . . . I needed to go, you know?”

“I do,” Jay said. “I know exactly. I remember when Mom called me and told me that you’d gone to Arizona even though Dad said you couldn’t. Honestly, the first thing I thought was She can’t do that—can I? But by then I was almost done with my degree, and after I had that . . . well, I could go anywhere.”

“So you went to Florida because I went to Arizona?”

“I don’t know if I’d say that,” he said. “But part of what made me think I could go out in the world was that you already did it. Only, it didn’t work out all that well, did it? I mean, here we both are.”

Something shifted on the sidewalk about half a block down. I tried to wipe the steam from the inside of the windshield, but it was already half frozen, so instead I scraped it with my fingernails, tiny white threads of frost falling to the dashboard. Chogyi Jake and Ex. I rolled down the window, and Ex stepped up.

“Got them,” Ex said. “The place is about a block and a half down on the east side of the street. There’s a truck in the front, and I’m pretty sure they’ve got the motorcycles in the back. I’m only seeing Rhodes and the woman. Idéa Smith. If Martinez is there, he’s not near a window.”

Chogyi Jake opened the rear door. By the dome light, he started gathering the four new shotguns.

“And Carla?” Jay said. “Is she there? Did you see her?”

“Didn’t,” Ex admitted. “But we weren’t getting too close. They have wards on the place. When we come in, they’re going to know it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Here’s the plan. Chogyi Jake and I will head for the front and see if we can pull them out to the street. You and Jay get his car parked on the next street over and come in at the back. If they try to get her out, you can grab her. If they don’t, you can go in after her. Invoke Calling Malkuth so the magic’s not as effective, and then use the guns if you need them.”

“ ‘Calling Malkuth’?” Jay asked, his brows furrowed.

“Special kind of prayer,” Ex said. “And once we have her, where do we go?”

“Airport and out of town,” I said. “Wherever the first flight’s going.”

“Wait,” Jay said. “What about—”

“It’s on my dime,” I said. “If you’re not here, I’ve got one less thing to worry about.”

“And you?” Ex asked.

“There’re some things only your enemies know about you,” I said. “I’m going to try to distract them and get them to talk to me. Maybe get something useful out of them before it all goes down.”

“You know they have guns too,” Ex said, scowling.

“Didn’t say it was going to be easy,” I said.