Darkest Night - Smoke And Mirrors Part 55

Oh. Well, that sounded significantly better than Tony's going because we don't want to endanger anyone more significant.

Stop being such a whiny a.s.s, he told himself.

But my arm hurts.

Deal with it. You're still the only one who can do this.

". . . and Zev's going because Tony looks like s.h.i.t and I'm not sure he can make it up the stairs without help," Peter continued. "You . . ." He jabbed a finger toward Amy.". . . are not going. We're all going to sit here and stay out of Tony's way. The last thing he needs on his plate right now is another rescue."

Shoulders slumped. Amy shoved her hands into her pants pockets. "Fine. Whatever."

"So, go!" Peter waved at the door and Tony, who'd been staring at him in astonishment, shuffled forward, feeling good about being appreciated. Feeling good being a relative term and nothing twelve hours of sleep and a kilo of painkillers couldn't fix.

Ca.s.sie and Stephen were waiting in the dining room, held out of the butler's pantry by the line of lipstick symbols on the floor. As Zev pulled the door closed, they rushed forward looking . . . looking as happy as Tony'd ever seen dead people look. Well, except for Henry who was really more undead than dead.

"It worked!" Stephen spun around them faster than mortally possible. "I wrote half and Ca.s.sie wrote half. We put it up between his shoulders and it worked!"

Tony hid a smile. Stephen sounded as though the plan had been his idea from the start. Teenagers. He thanked them after he explained to Zev and Brianna that they were there. No more talking to empty air. "You saved Lee. I'm sure of it."

"No problem. And the thing is gone. There's a whole different feeling in the house now. Different even from when it was asleep. It's still . . . I mean there's still something, but it isn't aware anymore. We're more aware than it is. And we're still us." He took hold of his sister's hands and spun her around. Stopped, settled his head, and grinned. At her. As though she was the only person in his world-which, technically, Tony supposed she was. "We're still here. Together.

Only the bad stuff has changed. And you look awful."

"Yeah. You should see it from this side."

Ca.s.sie seemed happy, laughed with her brother, allowed him to spin her around, but, for the first time, seemed the more reserved of the two.

"You're still replaying," Tony reminded him as they left the dining room.

"True. But we're used to that." Stephen dismissed his reoccurring death with a jaunty smack on his sister's a.s.s. She shot him a look Tony couldn't translate. "Once you're gone and there's no people in the house, it'll happen less and less and then what remains of the thing will probably go to sleep again and we'll be left alone. Not completely alone, because Graham will be here, but left alone. No one bothering us."

"You don't mind being dead?"

"Hey, I guess I'm used to that, too."

"Where are you three going?" Ca.s.sie asked as they reached the stairs. And the way she asked told Tony why she hadn't joined her brother's slightly manic celebration. She knew it wasn't over. "To talk to Creighton Caulfield's son. Ca.s.sie wants to know where we're going," he explained to Zev, grabbing the back of Brianna's pinafore with his good hand. "We're staying together," he told her as she glared up at him. "That means no running off."

"So walk faster!"

The ghosts floated backward in front of them, up the stairs.

Stephen snorted. "Why do you want to talk to Richard? He's not exactly a sparkling conversationalist."

"Creighton Caulfield was a part of the thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt." Tony's arm hurt all the way down to his legs. Both legs.

And his feet. And all ten toes. "Caulfield's dead."

"Yeah, we know. We helped, remember. So you're what, off to offer Richard your condolences?"

The stairs were killing him. "No."

"Then why?" Stephen demanded, impatient with anything getting in the way of his good mood.

Ca.s.sie smoothed down her skirt, her fingers carefully arranging each gather. "He's why we're here." She seemed to be confirming something she'd known for a while even if she'd only just realized she'd known it.

One hand holding his head in place, Stephen spun around toward her. "What are you talking about?"

"Creighton Caulfield's son, Richard, is why we're still here. They . . ." A chill breeze as she gestured. ". . . are going to talk to him about us-about all of us-moving on."

"NO!".

Tony froze. Zev and Brianna went up one more step, half turned, and stopped as well. They might have started back toward him, Tony wasn't sure. His eyes were locked on the ghost. "Stephen . . ."

"We helped you!"

It was like the scene in Scrooge's rooms in A Christmas Carol when Marley's ghost shrieked, and suddenly the slightly comical dead guy looked a lot more dangerous.

"We risked everything to help you and now you're doing this? I knew it! You're trying to destroy us!" Hands outstretched, fingers crooking into translucent claws, Stephen dove toward him.

Tony didn't know if he was going for his throat or about to drive his hands into his chest and squeeze his heart-both cla.s.sic ghost-goes-in-for-the-kill possibilities-but he did discover that under the right conditions-like, oh, threat of imminent death by severely p.i.s.sed ghost-his left arm moved. Hurt like h.e.l.l, but it moved. He smacked his branded palm into the side of Stephen's head, flinging him across the entrance hall. Tried to blink away the fireworks exploding inside his own skull, then positioned himself in front of the other two as Stephen came shrieking back.

Ca.s.sie was there first.

"It's over," she said softly. "We had each other for so much longer than we should have, but it's over."

"NO!" When he tried to go around, she blocked him again.

She glanced back at Tony over her shoulder, her face at such an angle that she looked whole and beautiful. "Go on. I won't let him stop you."

"What's happening?" Brianna demanded.

"Stephen's p.i.s.sed. Ca.s.sie's keeping him from hurting us." Tony grabbed Brianna's free hand and motioned for Zev to start moving again. "We have to get there before the next replay," he explained as they half dragged her up the stairs between them. "The sooner we finish this the better."

"But it's you and me against everyone else!" Stephen's protests followed them up to the second floor-lost, disbelieving, and painfully young. "You and me, Ca.s.s! It can't be over! We did what he wanted! Why is he doing this to us?"

"He's doing this for us. It's time to move on to someplace better."

"You don't know what you're talking about! Get out of my way, I have to stop . . ."

As the door to Mason's dressing room closed and cut off the argument, Tony hoped Ca.s.sie was right. He could be sending them to h.e.l.l for all he knew. Did he have the right to choose for them?

"They chose when they agreed to help in the bas.e.m.e.nt," Zev said quietly. "They decided to risk moving on no matter what might happen to them."

"How did you . . ."

He smiled and shook his head. "When you feel something strongly-like, say, guilt-it's all over your face."

Brianna nodded agreement.

"Not just when I'm thinking about Lee?"

"All the time."

"Well, that's . . . embarra.s.sing."

Zev nodded. "Most of the time, yeah. Come on." He held the lantern up and led the way to the bathroom, pausing on the threshold to let Brianna push past.

Tony stopped beside him and peered into the small room. "Where is he?" He squinted along the line of Brianna's pointing finger. There was something . . . something too big for the s.p.a.ce between the toilet and the corner shower unit.

A shape. A shadow. No. Gone.

"You really can't see him?" Zev murmured.

"I really can't." Then, "Can you see him?" "No. It's just that Brianna can and you can see everything else, so . . ." The music director shrugged. "Seems strange."

"As compared to what?"

"Good point."

He could hear a snuffling sound, but he couldn't see . . .

"Stop seeing the bathroom."

"What?"

Squatting by the shower in the boneless way of small children and elderly Asian men, Brianna rolled her eyes. "Stop seeing the bathroom," she repeated.

He took a step into the room. "How do I do that?"

The look she shot him suggested he was stupider than she'd ever suspected. "Pretend it's not there."

Right. Sure. He could play let's pretend. Let's pretend he didn't still wake up aching for the feel of teeth meeting through his skin. Let's pretend Lee had kissed him in the butler's pantry because he'd wanted to, not because of some weird mix of guilt and being possessed. Let's pretend that the something between the toilet and the tub had plenty of room because neither toilet nor tub were there.

Actually, he sucked at let's pretend.

"Tony?"

And he didn't want to know what was showing on his face. A raised hand to answer Zev's question and another step into the room. No toilet. No shower. Focus on the something between them. Just the something.

He might suck at let's pretend, but he aced obsession.

Brianna was talking to Caulfield's son, so Caulfield's son was obviously there . . .

. . . sitting on the floor, leaning against the side of a big old wardrobe that filled the corner where the shower . . .

The scene wavered.

. . . that filled the far corner of the dingy room. The walls were gray, the floor some kind of early industrial tile, and if he'd had a cigarette, the smell would have reminded him of nights spent crouched in doorways on the Yonge Street strip. Hard to forget the smell of old urine walked on by expensive shoes.

Blond, blue-eyed, and somewhere between twelve and twenty, Richard Caulfield had Down's syndrome. Tony was no expert, but he'd known people with Down's syndrome and this didn't look like it was that severe a case. Certainly not lock-the-kid-in-a-room severe. Still, in a hundred years he supposed the definition of severe changed and, not to forget, he'd already determined that Creighton Caulfield was bugf.u.c.k. Evil and bugf.u.c.k.

Bare feet peeking out from under a white-and-blue-striped nightshirt, Richard hugged his knees, rocked, and cried.

Every now and then, he wiped his nose on the fabric stretched over his knees. That explained the snuffling sound.

Brianna, crouched in front of him, was telling him about what had been happening down in the butler's pantry. ". . . and like Ashes keeps falling asleep because she's a total loser until Mason, he's the actor I told you about, he stopped being a spaz and they untied him and then she was all over him again and the real creepy bit is that he seems to like it now."

Ashley's adoration would act like an anchor, redefining Mason's unpossessed self. Mouse had his viewfinder. Mason had a fan. Kate had her temper. And Lee, who'd been through so much more, Lee probably had a whole lot of therapy to look forward to.

"Get down." Brianna's voice cut through his reflections. "You're too tall and you scare him."

So Tony crouched. "Hey, Richard."

Richard tried to push back farther into the s.p.a.ce.

"It's okay." He held out his hand, expecting Richard to cringe away, not expecting a grab that flipped stubby fingers through his with no contact. The wail of despair brought tears to his own eyes.

"What's wrong?" Brianna demanded.

Tony wasn't sure if she was asking him or Richard, but he answered anyway. "He's lonely. He's been alone up here for a long time." Resting one knee on the floor, he glanced down at the throbbing pattern on his left palm, cupped his left elbow with his right hand, and lifted. The fingers of his left hand brushed the warm, damp skin of Richard's cheek, trailed down, and were suddenly clutched so tightly that he literally saw stars.

"Easy," he gasped. Richard seemed to understand. The pressure eased off a bit. Most of the stars faded. "Good. Thank you."

"Ank ou."

"Hey, you can talk!"

"Risherd Cawfud."

"That's your name!" Brianna punched Tony. "That's his name!"

"No hit!"

To Tony's surprise she looked abashed at Richard's protest. "Sorry."

"S'okay. Richard . . ."

"Risherd Cawfud."

"Right. Richard . . ."

"Risherd Cawfud."

Okay. Rewrite and try again. "You don't need to be afraid anymore." New tears. And a tighter grip.

"OW!".

Richard cringed back but continued to cling to Tony's hand. "Shurry. Shurry! No hit!"