Текст книги "A Devil in the Details"

Автор книги: K. A. Stewart

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

With a quick clench of my hand, I snapped the mirror in half.

The screech behind me was almost deafening. I turned in time to see the nasty thing scuttle under the CD tower. “Come here, you little bastard!” I dove after it.

The mirror trick would work for only so long, and when the Scrap was done being startled, it’d fade back across again. I had to kill it before it got away . . . and before my coworkers got back.

It scurried out the back of the tower as I reached in from the front, and it made a break for the front of the store. I scrambled after it, throwing a novelty pillow ahead of it to startle it back away from the door. The cushion knocked an earring display off a shelf with a crash, and the demonic dust mop reversed direction in midscuttle, darting beneath a rack of T-shirts.

I slid to my knees to reach under there, only to find it gone. Dammit! Had it already faded back across? At the last possible second, I heard a low rattle above me. I jerked my head back as the Scrap dropped down from its hiding place in the shirts, jaws clacking viciously.

As ridiculous as the thing looked, the poison in its teeth wasn’t anything to laugh at. The venom splattered across the back of my hand and instantly burned like all holy hell. I backpedaled fast, scrubbing my hand on my jeans and upending the rack. The vermin charged at me for all of about two feet, screeching at the top of its demonic little lungs, then ducked away under another shelf again.

“Okay, that’s it!” I grabbed a shirt hook off the wall and went fishing. Lying on my stomach on the floor, I could just see the light reflected off its knobby legs, and I poked and prodded with the long hook until I hit something squishy. The thing came boiling out of its hiding place like a little hair ball of fury, snapping and snarling at my face. I don’t think I’ve ever jumped to my feet so fast in my life.

I managed to stomp down on one spindly leg, but before I could feel any kind of triumph, it just snapped the appendage off and limped for the door on three clawed hands. “No you don’t!” Heedless of the venomous bite, I flung myself on it, pinning it under my chest. The thing squirmed and howled through clenched fangs, unable to open its mouth with me on top of it. “Now you’re mine, Creepy.”

Careful to keep the body pinned, I got to my knees. The fur was bristly and greasy under my hands, and I felt my stomach churn. “Done with you now.” The squealing was cut off as I plunged the letter opener through the body with a sickening crunch. The remaining legs twitched and spasmed before finally succumbing.

The door binged cheerfully, marking the return of my coworkers. Kristyn stared at me, and I realized belatedly how it probably looked. The rack of shirts was overturned, the earrings were scattered all over the floor, and one of the CD towers was on its side. And there I was, with a letter opener driven an inch into the linoleum, the telltale remains of the demon parasite already dissolved into nothingness.

The question was plain on her face, and I finally just had to shrug. “Cockroach. Really big cockroach.”

I’m not sure whether she believed me.

14

Around eleven, no doubt still a bit worried about my destructive jaunt through the store, Kristyn strongly suggested that I get myself home to my wife, although her language was slightly more colorful.

“You sure? I can stay, walk you to your car.” It was dark, but the nightlife at Sierra Vista was in full swing. She wouldn’t be alone, and that’s what bothered me. Even though I’d disposed of the little parasite, there was worse out there.

“Chris can walk me out. Go home.” She tucked a lock of purple-pink hair behind her ear and gave me that look. “What’d you get your mom for her birthday?”

Oh crap. I hadn’t even thought of that, today. It must have shown on my face, because she laughed at me. “Wal-Mart’s open. Go across the street and buy something. Perfume or a pretty necklace or something.”

The Wal-Mart was a garish beacon of light, its own little island of fluorescent-lit commerce in the night. You find the weirdest people shopping in the middle of the night—people like me.

It seemed wrong to be shopping for a birthday present when the world around me was going nuts. Still, it wasn’t my mom’s fault I was up to my eyeballs in insanity.

I wandered into the perfume aisle and was immediately flabbergasted. I had no idea what kind of perfume my mother liked. I couldn’t even tell you what Mira wore, only that she always smelled like strawberries. There were boxes with movie stars’ faces on them, things with names I couldn’t pronounce, and something I was almost positive belonged in the smelling salts family of aromas. And why on earth did some of the tiniest bottles cost like fifty bucks? I beat a hasty retreat.

You might think, charging the fees I do, that a fifty-dollar bottle of perfume wouldn’t be so intimidating. But when you figure I spent two weeks in the hospital after my last gig for the president, a week of that in ICU, and the insurance company was still rejecting my claims, you see how that fee disappears pretty quick. That’s why I work at It between clients. Those paychecks help us scrape by.

The jewelry counter was no better. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a diamond and a piece of cut glass.

I must have been making security nervous, because two uniformed guards found a place near me to stop and have a rather loud conversation. That, I’m used to. In the heart of the Midwest, anyone the least bit different is always the first suspect.

The appliance section boggled my mind. There were things to dice, gadgets to juice, doohickeys to puree. I just shook my head and moved on. I firmly believe that our ancestors got by with fire and a stick. It’s good enough for me.

When in doubt, hit electronics. At least there, I was more in my element. Was there a movie she might like? She had a camera, so how about a new case for it? Twice, I started to dial Mira, then snapped my phone shut. If I woke her up this late for shopping advice, I’d be sleeping on the couch for a month.

I found about twenty things I wanted for myself, but nothing for my mother. And I was running out of time. There were only two shopping days left before the party.

A small part of me was absolutely incredulous that I was still thinking of going to a party at a time like this. Men were dead. Something could be stalking me, or someone like me, at this very moment. The thought made the skin crawl across my shoulders as it tried to creep away from the imaginary eyes boring into my back.

No . . . wait. I could feel eyes on me. No doubt, the security guards were just waiting for me to stuff a big-screen television into my pants and walk out. A cautious glance around revealed no brown uniforms in sight. Then I wondered why in the hell I was being so careful. I wasn’t actually doing anything wrong.

Turning to scan the area around me, I saw no one. Wonderful. Next, the nice young men in clean white coats will come to take me away. Unless you counted the store security cameras, no one was watching me. Sadly, the itch between my shoulders refused to acknowledge my superior logic. I was getting damn tired of this continual and irrational certainty that I was not alone in the universe.

Maybe shopping tonight was a bad idea. I’d come back tomorrow when the sun was shining brightly. (No, I am not afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of the things in the dark.)

I meandered my way out through the various aisles, still halfheartedly hoping that something would jump off the shelves with the tag MOM’S PRESENT already attached. No such luck, but as I rounded the corner to head toward the front, I caught sight of someone dark ducking into another aisle. There is a distinct difference between someone walking down an aisle and someone trying not to be seen, and that was it right there.

Three long strides took me to that aisle, but there was no one there. Deep breath, Jess. Your imagination is getting the better of you. My hand clenched at my hip where my sword should be, and I muttered unpleasant things to myself. Right now, if I had another Scrap demon on me, I was screwed. My mirror was spent, and there was no way I was asking Mira to craft another—not this week, and maybe not ever. She was spending too much of herself, casting spells on my behalf. My only defense would be getting into the house, safe behind Mira’s wards.

You know the old saying, right? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. At the other end of the walkway, out of sight, something toppled over with a crash. I darted to the end to see a pile of metal cake pans rolling drunkenly around the floor. One of them wobbled to a stop against my boot. Running footsteps echoed down the linoleum aisle to my left, and I was off in pursuit.

My mysterious stalker rounded another end cap in time for me to see the back of a black hooded sweatshirt and one fleeing sneaker. It was a tall figure, lean and moving quickly. The chase took us down the picture frame aisle, and there were footsteps behind us now.

“You there, stop!” Security didn’t like our playing tag through the store, evidently.

Normally, I am a law-abiding citizen, but at that exact moment, I was more interested in who had been following me than in stopping. And face it—rent-a-cops don’t exactly count as the law. At least, that’s what I’d say when I felt guilty later.

A walkie-talkie tweeted, and I heard a panting voice say, “I need backup in housewares!” Backup? Are you kidding me? A tinny announcement blared from the intercom overhead. “Code forty-seven in housewares. Code forty-seven in housewares.” Well, now I knew what a code 47 was.

We didn’t stay in housewares long. He was leading me out toward lawn and garden, and since I didn’t think he had a sudden urge to fertilize his lawn, there was probably a rear exit there. In and out of aisles and clothing racks we ran, my stalker toppling displays into my path to slow me down. I hurdled a tower of scattered DVDs easily, but the security guards were having a harder time of it. I could hear them huffing and puffing behind me as several more joined the chase.

It occurred to me in a moment of perfect absurdity that this was the second retail establishment I’d destroyed in as many hours. If I hadn’t been running so hard, I might have spared the breath to laugh.

I probably could have outrun security indefinitely, except for one thing. I rounded the office supplies end cap and saw the WET FLOOR sign a split second before I hit the damp linoleum. I went skidding, arms pin-wheeling for balance. Yeah, it wasn’t my most graceful moment. We’ll just pretend that didn’t happen, all right?

Ahead of me, my quarry met the same fate and crashed into a rack of greeting cards. Wrapping paper and ribbons went flying in a colorful explosion, and a piñata shaped like an ogre bounced off my head with a soft crunch. One trampled card played a garbled version of “Happy Birthday” as it died.

Time froze in that funny way it does, and the two of us stopped there amidst the wreckage and stared at each other. I knew those wide black eyes. “Paulo?”

With a scramble and the chirp of wet sneakers, he was up and gone. Before I could follow, meaty hands laid hold of both arms. “All right, buddy, you’re outta here.”

As they “helped” me to my feet (and I use the word loosely), I eyed both rent-a-cops. It would be so easy to make them release me, especially with the adrenaline pumping through my body. Both were middle-aged and out of shape. One was red faced and gasping for air after the short run, dark sweat stains marring his shirt. A quick twist, and my arms would be freed. Maybe jab the breathless one in the gut, really take him out of the race. But they’d gathered two more friends during the chase, and the extra security guards crossed their arms over their chests as they glowered. Boy, they sure thought they looked intimidating in their rented brown uniforms.

I wasn’t intimidated, but I was practical. Four-to-one was a bad fight no matter how I looked at it. And it wasn’t as if they were bad guys. They’re just doing their job, Jesse. Yeah, dammit, I knew that. It didn’t mean I was happy about it.

I grudgingly allowed myself to be escorted from the store, and the guards waited at the door to be sure I was leaving. No doubt, the news tomorrow would say Wal-Mart security foiled some nefarious terrorist plot.

The parking lot was a ghost town, with only twenty or so cars under the humming lights. Moths and other flying critters darted around the pools of light like little biting fairies, shadowed by the bats that preyed on them.

I accosted the single poor soul who happened to be walking into the store at that moment. “Hey, did you see a Hispanic kid, about my height, come running out this way? Or a blue Ford Escort?” The man shook his head and made haste to put distance between us.

I stood in the parking lot for a long time, watching the darkness beyond the sickly yellow light. Nothing stirred, save the gnats and the bats. And there was no sign of a little blue Ford Escort, though, somehow, I didn’t think Paulo was the type to try and kill me, no matter what tough-guy front he wanted to put up.

Whatever Paulo had been up to, he was gone now. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but the next time I saw him, he and I were going to have a long and heartfelt discussion in the back room. First and foremost on the topic list was the proper way to tail someone. I never would have spotted the little idiot if he hadn’t run in the first place.

Only when I got into my truck did I realize how badly my right leg was throbbing. A wince escaped as I reached down to examine it. Nothing seemed to be grossly out of place (I’m not a doctor, but I visit them a lot!), but the calf muscle was extremely tender to the touch. The fall had done more damage than I’d thought. Maybe I was getting old after all.

Driving a stick shift was going to be interesting. I put the truck in gear and coasted out toward the highway, experimenting with hitting the clutch and accelerator all with my left foot. Damn, damn, damn! My kingdom for cruise control.

It occurred to me, once I was already on the highway, of course, that I still hadn’t gotten my mother a present. I used the opportunity to truly exercise my creativity at cursing. That entertained me for a good ten minutes.

Thankfully, traffic was light at nearly midnight, and there was minimal shifting involved. I started to think I was going to make it home without any undue stress. I should have known better.

I only vaguely noticed the dark car parked on the emergency access road in the median. People left disabled vehicles all over the road all the time, and cops liked to lurk there, waiting for hapless speeders.

The headlights flicked on as I passed, though, and the car pulled onto the highway. That I noticed. “Oh, do not do this now.” The last thing I needed was a ticket. Out of habit, I checked the speedometer, and I was going a nice and sane sixty-five, under the seventy speed limit. I broke out in sudden goose bumps, shivering in a nonexistent chill. That, as well as the car’s never flipping on its cherries and berries, made me certain this was not a cop.

As a test, I stepped into the gas, but all it did was make him work a bit harder to catch me. Paulo, if that’s you, I’m going to pinch your head off. As I watched those headlights loom larger and larger in my rearview mirror, there was no doubt in my mind that this was my mysterious vehicular stalker and he was going to hit me again.

Not if I hit you first. I had had it with being a victim.

The highway ahead of me was a long straight stretch across acres of flat grassland. There were no bridges to fall off; no hills to plow into. Even more important than all that, it was completely empty except for me and my new best friend—just what I needed. I apologized profusely to my soon-to-be-abused truck and took a good grip of the wheel.

(Later, we’ll talk about why this is actually not the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.)

I waited until I could no longer see the headlights over the tailgate of my truck. I braced myself for the coming impact, gritted my teeth against the pain in my leg, and hit the brakes.

I felt the crunch of metal before I heard it. The jarring impact seemed to travel through my steering wheel, up my arms, and into my shoulders, slamming me against my seat belt. The back end of my truck swung around, no matter how I tried to steer out of it, and next thing I knew I was careening into the grassy median. Somewhere in all the bouncing and jouncing, my head met my window with a smack and a spider-web of shattered glass. Stars burst behind my eyes, and I blacked out.

My own voice woke me, which is a really weird sensation even without having just taken a blow to the head.

“Jesse! Jesse, open your damn eyes! You have to wake up!” Someone was pounding on my pillow, which turned out to be the cracked glass of my side window.

I blinked my eyes open, and for a brief moment, I saw a face outside. A blond, with a Mohawk and piercings, staring anxiously through the shattered glass. Axel? The moment I thought it, the face was gone.

My truck wasn’t running, and I hoped she had just stalled out when my foot came off the clutch. Fighting against the grogginess in my head, I threw the door open and stumbled out into the grass. Somehow, I’d wound up facing back in the wrong direction, but at least the truck hadn’t crossed into the oncoming lanes.

Across the southbound lanes, I could see the dark Escort crumpled against the guardrail, steam from the engine billowing through the beam from the one remaining headlight. The night reeked of boiling antifreeze where it spewed all over the asphalt, and the driver’s door was hanging open. I managed to limp across the dark highway, only realizing halfway there that I was unarmed. Oh well. Hopefully, he was in worse shape than I was. “Time to find out who you are, buddy.”

No such luck. The mangled car proved to be totally and completely devoid of life. Sometime during my brief bout with unconsciousness, the bastard got out and ran off. He obviously knew how to bleed, though. The spiderwebbed windshield was smeared with red. It wasn’t enough to be fatal, but he’d have a helluva headache for a week or two.

“God-fucking-dammit!” For good measure, I caved in the back fender with a well-placed kick. Unfortunately, that’s when I remembered that my leg wasn’t even close to sound. What followed was the most colorful one-sided exchange of cursing I’d ever heard, and I’m still proud of what small bits I can remember.

I was still ranting and raving by the side of the road when the highway patrol car pulled up. The trooper got out, training his flashlight right in my eyes. “Sir, is this your vehicle?”

I spent the next hour standing on the side of the highway while two more units showed up to check out the wreck. The Escort had been stolen from Utah two months earlier. That much I got from eavesdropping on the radio chatter. The cops noticed the blood trail, too, following it a few yards down the road where it ended abruptly. It seemed that Evel Knievel had another ride.

I got near the car only once and managed to snatch a crumpled bit of paper from the console before I was shooed away. Sitting on my own tailgate, I inspected it by the flickering blue and red lights.

It was a fast-food receipt, dated a month ago. Not a big deal, except that my home address was scribbled on the back of it. I stuffed it into my pocket before the cops got too curious.

How long had they had that address? And why hadn’t they used it? Something between cold-sweat nausea and immeasurable rage brewed in my gut. If this lunatic had gone anywhere near my family . . . I had to get home.

It took even longer to convince the highway patrol that no, I had not been drinking; no, I did not see where the other driver went; and no, I did not need a hospital. It was the last one that took some fast talking on my part, but finally Officer Allen resigned himself to writing “Refused medical treatment” in his report and let me drive my poor abused baby home. The truck, for her part, still ran like a champ, and as far as I could see the damage to the rear end seemed strictly cosmetic. That’s my girl.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll get you fixed up, I pro m-ise.”

Pretty sure I broke a land speed record getting home, all the while watching every car that came up behind me with a healthy dose of suspicion. Who knew what kind of car he would be driving next?

At home, Mira was blissfully asleep and didn’t see me limp in. If she even suspected I was hurt, I’d be on my way back to Dr. Bridget faster than I could blink, and I didn’t want that. I settled on a plan of distract and evade, if the subject came up. I’d explain the damage to the truck later—somehow.

I knocked back two aspirin, swallowing them dry, and stuck a bag of frozen peas on the giant lump on my head. While I waited for the painkillers to kick in, I hobbled into Mira’s little sanctuary to boot up her computer.

I sank gratefully into Mira’s comfortable desk chair. The room glowed a flickering blue from the monitor, casting bizarre shapes over the walls. I watched the shadows dance, a tiny part of me quite certain that something horrifying lurked in the darkness. Even when you get old enough to know there’s no monster under the bed, there’s always that little voice that asks what if you were wrong. I debated long and hard about flipping on a light, even if I risked waking the family up.

There was nothing in my e– mail, so I logged on to Grapevine. (Well, there was nothing from Viljo, but I did have one advertisement for a dating service and two offers to greatly enlarge my penis. How does any self-respecting person actually hit Send on an e-mail like that?)

Too late, I realized I hadn’t turned the volume down. The same woman’s voice screamed, “I see you!” and I nearly knocked everything off the desk in an attempt to hit the MUTE button in time. Snatching the tumbling speakers before they hit the floor, I froze, waiting to hear Mira get out of bed. I counted five long breaths in silence before I finally concluded she’d slept through it.

Carefully replacing the speakers, I put on the headset, muttering, “Viljo, I am going to strangle you.”

Almost immediately, the webcam window sprang up, the geek in question waving a cheery hello. No one should be that cheery this late at night, even counting the time difference.

“Dude, do you ever sleep?”

“I can sleep when I am dead. And if there is coffee and Red Bull wherever I end up, maybe not even then.”

Even the thought of it made my stomach churn. “How your head has not exploded by now, I will never know.”

“Your words wound me. Right here, in my heart.” He smirked; I could see that much over the grainy feed. “But I, most magnanimous and brilliant Viljo, will ignore your insults and produce the information requested of me.”

He’d found something. He only strutted and preened like that when he was proud of himself. “It’s only been a few hours!”

“More than ample time.”

I had to grin as he flexed his thin arms for the camera. He made me look muscular. “Well, spill it, oh guru of the perpetual signal.”

“Checking Miguel’s phone was easy. I should see if the phone company down there needs a Net security consultant.” He did something with his keyboard, and a window popped up on my screen—a call history, apparently. “Guy’s was a little harder, but really, their ‘secure’ site is laughable.” Another window popped up, and I adjusted them so I could see both at once.

“Okay, what am I looking for here?”

“On Miguel’s, three weeks ago, there is a number with a California area code, 714. See it?”

I located the number in question. Miguel had talked to that number five times in the week leading up to his disappearance. The calls were always inbound, though Miguel never called the number back. “Okay.”

“Now look at Guy’s record, for five weeks ago. The same number is there.”

Sure enough, it was repeated quite a few times there, too, but again, only inbound. “Well, whose number is it?”

Fuzzy Viljo frowned in choppy stages. “That is where things get tricky. I have more digging to do, but right now, it is looking like a prepaid cellular phone.”

“Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe . . . it’s another champion’s number. Who’s the guy out of San Fran. Avery?”

“That is not Avery’s number, nor is it any number that Ivan has used. I have a few more places to poke around before I will know for certain.”

“Well, don’t forget to sleep, man. You’re no good to me passed out over the keyboard.”

His snort came through the headset loud and clear. “As if.”

“G’night, man.”

“Hey! I am not done!”

I halted in the middle of shutting the window down. “What else do you have?”

Viljo’s image held up one finger, indicating for me to wait, and in another moment, more windows popped up on my monitor. “Miguel and Guy have both tried to sign onto the system in the last week. Unsuccessfully.”

“Are you sure?”

“Do you think I would make a mistake like that?” He frowned at me. Great, now I’d offended the little geek. “Both attempts were made within hours. They did not gain access because they failed the security checks. Things Miguel and Guy would not have forgotten. Someone is trying to get in.”

“You’ve had hack attempts before. Amateur stuff, you said.”

“Not like this. It gets weirder. I cannot get an IP address on it.”

We were rapidly descending into that realm of mumbo jumbo where I was definitely out of my element. “And that is . . . not normal?”

“No. All Internet presence has an IP address. You can mask it, or confuse it, but you still have one. This is just . . . vapor. A ghost in the machine.”

“So it’s someone better than you.”

He snorted. “There is no one better than me. I am telling you, something is fucked up here.”

“Well . . . batten down the hatches or whatever it is you do. I’ll let Ivan know.” And, as an afterthought, I asked, “Have you heard from the others?”

“Everyone has checked in except Sveta and the Knights Stuck-up-idus.”

Sveta was in Eastern Europe somewhere. At least, I thought she was. She was the only female champion I was aware of, and that is where my knowledge ended. “I’ll let Ivan know that, too. Get some sleep, Viljo.”

“You, too.”

Two tries to call Ivan resulted in a “Customer has gone beyond the service area” message, and I almost threw my cell across the room in frustration. Dammit. Of all times for the phone service to go down. Why couldn’t Miguel’s family live in a real city, instead of some hole in the mountains?

I did my usual house walk, checking for open locks and windows and rogue Ford Escorts, then crawled into bed beside Mira with a (manly) whimper and did my best to sleep. In my dreams, the Yeti was there, gnawing at my right leg like a starving terrier. It wasn’t the most pleasant of nights.