A Dream Of Stone And Shadow Part 9

"Emma," Charlie said. "This is Agatha. She's going to help you."

Aggie reached out her hand and waited for the girl to come to her. She knew Emma would; the variations of all probable futures were quite certain on that, but Aggie did not want to push. The girl had been pushed enough by adults and strangers.

Emma studied her face with grave intent, and took Aggie's hand. Her skin was cool and damp, but Aggie drew her from the darkness and tried not to show her surprise when the child wrapped her arms around her hips and hugged her tight.

"Thank you," the child murmured, and Aggie bent down and picked her up.

She was lighter than she looked; frail, almost. Her breath whistled in Aggie's ear. She smelled like cement, mold, decay.

Charlie stood unmoving, watching. Featureless and smooth, like a warrior wrapped in black cloth, head to foot. Aggie pushed her mind and saw a room with sand and blood, sand and statues, b.l.o.o.d.y stone, with bits of flesh hanging in threads and chunks, draped on wings.

She swayed and Charlie said, "No, don't. I don't want you to see."

"Charlie?" Emma asked, and he reached out to touch her face. The little girl closed her eyes and buried her face against Aggie's neck.

Later, she said to him, and then remembered his words, his kiss. There would be no later.

Where's your body? Aggie asked him as she carried Emma away from the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Agatha." His voice was quiet, right in her ear. Maybe they were talking mind to mind.

You tell me, Charlie.

"There's nothing you can do."

You let me be the judge of that.

"No. I won't risk you getting hurt." She wanted to kill him for saying that, and he said, "I'm already dead."

Again, not what she wanted to hear.

Quinn was still in the living room. He had pulled some tapes from the shelves, and had a folder full of photographs spread on the table. Aggie glimpsed flesh in those, and looked away-she did not want Emma to see any of that. Amiri prowled around the room, tail lashing the air. The little girl stiffened when she saw him, and Aggie whispered, "It's okay. He's a good cat."

"Are you guys ready?" Aggie asked, and Quinn nodded. His face was hard, eyes too bright- -and then a shift-Quinn screaming at her to run, run, get out- "They're coming," Aggie said.

"They're already here," Charlie corrected. Aggie went to the window and peered outside. She saw Mrs. Kreer and her son opening the trunk of their car. Caught sight of a rifle.

"Armed?" Quinn asked, and Aggie thought of those tire tracks she had left in the tall gra.s.s.

"Oh, yeah."

Quinn shook his head. "These people are too hardcore. Most in this business are cowards. They run. They lay low. They don't fight. Not like this, anyway. So they see a car out there. Maybe we're not in it, but that's no call for violence. They can't know for certain we're inside their home or that we're here to bust them."

"Logic doesn't matter, Quinn. They have something big to lose, not to mention they're a lot crazier than your average insane person. Shooting someone isn't going to mean much." Not when they had already killed Emma's mother, and maybe others over the years.

"It's worse than that," Charlie added, in a hard voice that sent chills up her spine. "They're not entirely human."

Everyone turned to look at him. Emma scrunched tighter against Aggie.

"You want to run that past me again?" she asked, slow.

"They've got demon in them," he said, and it was suddenly hard to hear him because he got quiet, like the air was too heavy for words.

Emma shrank in Aggie's arms; Aggie wanted to shrivel up alongside her. "Charlie. What, exactly, does that mean for us?"

"I don't know," he said. "But it's bad. It also explains why I haven't been able to read their thoughts."

"Aw, h.e.l.l." Quinn clicked the safety off his gun. "Aggie, go to the back of the house and call the police. Charlie and Amiri, go with her. I'll take care of this."

"Quinn-" she said, and went blind as she saw blood run from his heart, his throat-and in another future-and in another-another- "They'll kill you," she hissed. "I see it. Come with us, right now."

"No," he said, and gave her a hard look. "Fate is just probabilities. I'll take my chances."

The porch steps creaked. Emma whimpered. Aggie hugged her tight and turned down the hall to the kitchen. She felt Amiri at her back. Charlie appeared in front of her, a shadow running. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone, but before she could begin dialing, a gunshot rang out behind her. Charlie blinked out of sight.

Amiri growled, using his body to push Aggie against the wall. She listened hard; ahead of her, she heard a creak. Mouth dry, she set Emma gently on the floor and held her finger up to the girl's mouth. Emma nodded gravely. Aggie looked at Amiri, gesturing with her chin. The shape-shifter blinked once and leaned protectively against the little girl. Safe. The probabilities were safe. Aggie put away her phone and reached for her gun.

Charlie reappeared beside her. Bone and blood loomed around him, golden sand, a woman with red hair and red lips and a red dress...

There's someone in the kitchen, she told him. Can you distract him?

"I've tried that before," he whispered in her ear. "They don't see me."

Quinn?

"Alive. Tracking."

Taking his chance with fate. Something Aggie needed to do for herself.

She held up her gun and slinked down the hall toward the kitchen. Charlie disappeared, but she knew he was close. Warmth pushed against her ear and he said, "It's the mother. She has an ax. She's waiting by the entrance to the kitchen."

Perfect. Just great.

"You have bullets," Charlie said. "Shoot her and be done with it."

We can't kill them, Aggie said. We do that and we'll just make trouble for ourselves with the law. Not to mention the Kreers might have useful information about other victims, maybe people in their network, if they have one. We have to- But whatever she was going to say died as a high screech cut the air and a body flung itself from the kitchen. Aggie cried out, squeezing off a round into the wall that did nothing to slow the old woman, who swung her whistling ax hard and fast. Details died; all Aggie could register was a blur made of pure fury, a mouth that flashed white and sharp, and she felt Amiri behind her, pushing Emma away as the child cried out a word that was high and sweet and not quite a scream. For a moment the air shimmered-Mrs. Kreer faltered-and Aggie took the chance offered and dove toward the old woman, rushing and rolling past her. She smelled mold, mustiness... and then the air cleared as she entered the kitchen, spinning on her feet.

"Come on," Aggie snarled, goading the old woman. "Come and get me."

Get me, get me. Only me and not the kid. Don't follow Emma.

Mrs. Kreer hesitated, glancing over her shoulder as the tip of Amiri's tail disappeared around the corner in the hall. She began to follow them and Aggie thought, f.u.c.k it all. She aimed her gun at the old woman's leg and pulled the trigger, feeling a grim satisfaction as the bullet slammed through the meat of Mrs. Kreer's thigh, making her stagger, lean against the wall.

But the woman did not fall. She did not drop the ax.

"Oh, s.h.i.t," Aggie muttered, as the old woman turned to face her. For the first time she was able to get a good look at her face. Mrs. Kreer appeared the same as Aggie remembered from her visions; clean and coiffed, with high pale cheeks and a small wrinkled mouth. She wore a black sweater over a white turtleneck. Long embroidered pants ended neatly above her ankles. Mrs. Kreer: ordinary woman, pillar and post and proud mother. Only her eyes gave her away. Aggie had never seen anything quite that cold or black.

"Don't move," Aggie said. "I will shoot you again."

But Mrs. Kreer moved and Aggie was not surprised, because that was what the future held in all its variations-fighting, the old woman fighting like her life depended on the kill-and when Mrs. Kreer brought down the ax, Aggie was ready. She leapt backward, probabilities spinning, calculating the future even as she danced across the kitchen floor, dodging the whirling steel of Mrs. Kreer's weapon. Her palm was sweaty around the gun, but she stayed patient, moving and moving and- The future shifted; Aggie's foot hit the trail of blood dripping from the old woman's leg and the floor disappeared as she went up and up- -and slammed into the ground so hard she stopped breathing.

Mrs. Kreer darted forward, but not before Aggie mustered enough strength to kick out with her feet, catching her in the gut. The old woman made a woofing sound, but collected herself faster than Aggie. Struggling to stand, Aggie saw-wild eyes, swinging blades, screaming and yelling and blood everywhere, blood and meat-but then a gunshot split the air outside the house, she heard a shout-Charlie-and the future changed as she felt his warmth surround her.

He materialized in front of Mrs. Kreer-shadows gathering, swarming like bats to make a body-but the woman showed no indication she saw him. Yet, when she lunged forward to attack Aggie, she pa.s.sed through him and a curious thing happened. Mrs. Kreer swayed. She lost her balance. Her grip around the ax handle loosened. Aggie darted forward. Distracted or ill, the old woman could not defend herself quickly enough and Aggie slammed the b.u.t.t of her gun against that graying head, dropping her to her knees and stunning her long enough to wrench the ax out of her hand. The old woman began to fight back, snarling, but Aggie hit her again in the head, knocking her flat on the ground and immediately stomping on that wounded leg, grinding her heel into the bullet hole, savoring the anger in her heart as she made Mrs. Kreer writhe.

"Agatha." Charlie appeared beside her. "Agatha, stop."

She did not want to, but she understood why she should. She eased up on the old woman, but only for a moment. Aggie reached into her pocket for plastic cuffs and tied the monstrous woman's hands behind her back. Did the same to her feet, arching her like David Yarns, hogtied, ready to be put on the spit and cooked and turned, cook and turned. No running for this one. No more hurting children. Mrs. Kreer's future was done.

Chapter Six.

Quinn was alive. Despite all the variable futures that had him bleeding or hurt or screaming, he was alive. Lucky man. When he entered through the back door off the kitchen, Aggie had her back turned. All she heard was a creak, a step. Scary. She spun and almost shot him.

"Bang, bang," she said. She put down her gun, clicking the safety back on. "That scared me. You okay?"

"Better than I was three minutes ago. Kid is down. I got him tied up in the backyard."

"Tough?"

"Not really, though there was a moment or two." Quinn tapped his head. "Luckily for me, I have magic bullets."

Telekinetic bullets. Aggie smiled.

Beside her, Charlie drifted down to the ground and crouched over Mrs. Kreer. The woman's eyes were open, staring. Aggie did not like to look at that cold gaze; there was something alien about it, distant. It gave her the creeps, made her stomach turn. What could compel a person do such things to a child? It was inexplicable, and she thought about what Charlie had said. That Mrs. Kreer was part demon.

"Yes," he said softly. "I can see it in her now. I was not looking before. It's very weak, though. Just a trace. That would be enough, though, to influence her behavior."

"I thought you said those things were gone from the earth."

"I thought they were. Some... must have remained. Evolved, perhaps. I only recognize this much out of instinct."

Quinn stirred. "Are you talking about the 'D' word?"

"Yeah," Aggie said. "Though it's bulls.h.i.t, giving them an excuse for all the things they did."

"No," Charlie said. "I'm not saying that."

"No?" Aggie wished he had a face. She wasn't even sure why he floated around in a human body. Be a cloud, she thought. A bird.

And then, Don't leave me.

"Aggie," he began, but she shook her head.

"You say Kreer and her boy have some demon in them? I'll buy it. But who's to say I don't have some demon in me, too? I might even have more than them. Maybe seeing the future isn't just some freak of nature, but a freak of some ancestor. But you don't see me out murdering and molesting."

Charlie stirred. "I believe we already had this conversation, and I'll admit I was wrong. Some choices are products of nothing but pure nature, Agatha. Maybe some people are born wrong."

Aggie wanted to disagree-wanted to so badly because it was principle, the building block of her life that fate was built upon variations, variables, all playing each other to mix new futures and ways of being. Choice, choosing well, creating a good life that was a product of small moments...

But to be faced with the possibility that destiny might be inescapable-that the future was already written in only one way, with one outcome-and to have that outcome be so dark and destructive...

It scared her. Because if people could be born whose only purpose was to hurt others, then what did that say for the future?

"That there are also those who are born to do good," Charlie said quietly.

A nice thought, but Aggie was not convinced. She did not want to be convinced of the alternative to choice, to free will. Aggie looked down upon the old woman, who stared at her, mouth pursed, a fine shudder racing through her body. Maybe she realized the s.h.i.t she was in; maybe she was angry or scared or just plain cold. Aggie steeled herself and kneeled. Bent close.

"You look so ordinary," she whispered. "But you're rotten on the inside, and you chose to be that way. Maybe you do have some bad mojo in your blood, maybe you got a bigger darkness in your heart than some, but I won't let you rest your laurels on that. You dug your own grave, Mrs. Kreer. You buried your own heart."

"My son," said the old woman. "What have you done with him?"

"Not nearly enough," Quinn spoke up. "But I can change that, if you like."

Mrs. Kreer sucked in her breath, making a hissing sound that sent chills up Aggie's back.

"Right," she said, standing. "I need some air."

There was a scuffling sound from the hall; Amiri emerged from the shadows. Emma had her hand on his back, buried in his fur. Charlie appeared before them in an instant, blocking her view of Mrs. Kreer. Aggie joined him and swept the girl up in her arms. Carrying her down the hall and out the front door into the sunlight. Emma covered her eyes.

Aggie felt warmth on her back, another kind of sun, and Charlie said, "I need to go soon."

"You said that a while ago."

"And I've had far more time here than I should have. It won't last."

Aggie carried Emma down to the rental car and placed her in the backseat. Quinn joined them and said, "Amiri is standing guard on the big bad momma. I'm going to head out back and check on her sp.a.w.n."

Aggie dug into her pocket and pulled out her phone. Tossed it to him. "Police still haven't been called. Be sure to warn them about the spike sticks."

"I'll take care of it," he said, and walked away, dialing as he went.

Charlie kneeled in front of Emma. He touched her small hands.

"You were very brave," he said to the girl. "I am so proud of you."

"My mommy," Emma said.