Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (27 page)

He hesitated, and the fingers of his right hand tapped the ends of his red hair like he was playing the piano. “Let’s see, where was I? Oh, yes. So I live in Texas. Or I used to. I’m only River and Neely’s half brother, to be frank. Different mothers. Pa, he didn’t have much use for me. He paid the bills, and came to town once in a while, on account of some Redding oil interests in Abilene, and to get himself a bit of Texas honey. Until Ma up and went deranged, that is. But the last time he came, we had a strange talk.William Redding II,he’s as cold as ice in hell, so when he tells me about a glow, and starts asking me questions, questions about my thoughts coming true, and making people do things just by thinking them . . .well.I paid attention.” 

I snapped my head around, trying to spot River, or Neely, or Luke.
Someone
. Where were they? Had the red boy already gotten to them?
Oh, god
— 

“Pay attention, Violet.” Brodie’s voice was harsh, suddenly, his words fast. “I don’t like to be ignored. Eyes on mine.
Eyes on mine
.” 

I put my eyes on his.Brodie’s eyes were green and narrow and mad-mad-mad and I felt that I would go mad too if I stared into his eyes for much longer, and I wanted to squirm but I didn’t. I clenched my fists and didn’t look away. 

“There, that’s better,” Brodie said, his voice slow and languid again. “So, a few months ago, I was using my little knife on Sophie, and, well, I tried making her do something.With my mind.It had never worked before.I’d been trying it, off and on, since Pa and I had our chat. But it worked then. Oh, hell, did it work then. So much for saving yourself, darling Sophie. I took it from you, and you were happy to give it, oh yes you were.” 

He opened his mouth and licked his bottom lip. 

“Sunshine,” I whispered. “What did you do to Sunshine?” 

He shrugged, his narrow shoulders disappearing into his red hair. “Nothing. She flashed those bosoms at me, white and fine as a bucket of fresh cream, peeking out of the top of that whore-red dress. So I asked her where you were, and she said you were walking toward town with the orphan brat. I followed her back home, and met her parents. And they met my little knife. I’m pretty quick with the thing. You’ll be surprised. I knifed both their skinny wrists before they were done offering me tea. And then I found you ten minutes later, and Jack brought us both to the body. I’m pretty quiet, when I need to be. You didn’t hear a thing.” 

Tears were running down my face now. They were slipping out the corners of my eyes and leaving a wet trail down my neck.River wasn’t the Devil.He had never been the Devil.The red boy standing before me with his scraper was the true Devil. In the flesh. I knew it like I knew the smell of paint drying on a canvas. I knew it like I knew the feel of my own heartbeat in my chest. 

“But . . . but Sunshine’s dad hit her in the head with a bat. A
bat
.” There was a high, pleading sort of sound in my voice. I hated it.“She’s hurt—” 

“Way to go, Papa Sam.” Brodie stuck his thumbs inside the pockets of his jeans and then let his gaze slide down my body.“Want to know a secret,Violet?” 

I shook my head. 

“Oh, yes, you do. I, Brodie Redding, have been in this nowhere shit town for three days. I can tell by your face that you’re surprised,Violet. As was I—I track down one brother and the other shows up too. Of course, both are too stupid to notice I’m here. If there is anyone more tedious than you and River, with your glow talk and your kissing, it’s Neely.Always fighting,like a damn savage.This whole trip has been dull from one end to the other. I had to burn a witch on the way here, just to stop me from blowing my brains out with boredom.” 

Brodie smiled, as if he liked thinking on that. “But back to the point, Vi. I’ve been watching you. You and River and Jack and Luke and the rat girl.Eating pizza.Painting. Sleeping. Oh, yes, ma’am. All the windows in the guesthouse are wide open and three feet off the ground,and I’ve been in and out of Citizen Kane more times than I can count.I’ve seen it all.Heard it all.Has it never occurred to you to lock the Citizen’s doors once in a while? I’ve been coming and going as I please these last few days. It was too damn easy.And easy things bore me.I’m bored.Bored, Violet.” 

“It was you,” I whispered. “The laughing in the attic. The bully. River didn’t forget. He didn’t do it, just like he said.” I felt dirty and exposed and weak with fear and I just wanted to go back to bed and wake up,
except that it wasn’t a nightmare. Sunshine was really hurt and the boy was really dead and everything was going to get a whole lot worse than it already was.
 

“Now, Violet. Give River his fair share. I sparked up your Italian pizza boy, it’s true. Once I found that rotting mansion, I knew I had to use it as a setting for some mischief. What a fine place to set someone on fire. And it was all going so well until Neely stuck his nose in, that fist-slinging halfwit. But that dead brat by the tracks was all River’s.Yes,ma’am.Neely was out prowling for the boy, trying to
save
him, the sentimental simpleton. But now we know that the brat was already lying in the ditch, bloody, swollen, and dead as a widow from the waist down.” 

Brodie whistled, low and long. 

He’d been here, the whole time. It was true. He’d been right in front of us, laughing and spying and plotting evil. 

My head was tingling and my throat stung, like I was swallowing smoke. 

He was going to kill me. He was going to kill us. All of us. 

“Why?” was all I said. And then I said it again.
“Why?”
 

Brodie just kept whistling the first few bars of some sad old folksy-sounding song. “Well, should we go see what my brothers are up to?” he said finally. “Hmmm? Don’t shake your head at me, darling. Come on now.” 

I leaped forward. I was going to run. Run to Echo, get help,
just go, Violet, go
— 

And my head jerked. Pain rippled over my scalp. The red boy had grabbed my hair in his fist. He yanked me back to his side. 

“Behave.”
Brodie’s green eyes stared down at me, through me, like they were trying to dig their way into my soul. “You’re going to play a part in this thing I’m planning, whether you like it or not. So you might as well save time and do as you’re told.” 

A scream. Coming from the woods. Jack. He was running and screaming
Let her go let her go
and he came right at us— 

I saw a flash of silver. 

And Jack was down. 

Auburn hair, down in the dirt, blue eyes shut, and a line of blood breaking out across the freckles on his pale cheek. 

H
e dragged me to the guesthouse, one hand pulling me by my shirt, the other clawing through my hair, his thin, hard fingers twitching and jerking until his 
nails drew blood. 

I tried to turn, tried to call out to Jack, but the nails went in harder. 

Brodie opened the door and shoved me through it. The first thing I saw was River, kneeling on the floor of the kitchen. Neely was standing behind him, holding a kitchen knife to his throat.River’s head was back,the edge of the knife pressed into the soft skin near his Adam’s apple,so deep that River’s heartbeat was making the knife quiver slightly. 

The room began to spin. I saw dark spots in the corners of my eyes. I was going to throw up again. And I didn’t want to be sick in front of the red boy.
Don’t be sick, Vi . . .
 

“Neely,” I whispered. “Neely,
stop.
Brodie’s tricking you. He’s got you under a spell. A . . . sparking spell.
Put the knife down
.” 

Neely was bleeding. A thin line of red ran down his left cheek, just like Jack. 

Neely looked at me when I said his name, but his eyes were odd and empty,like Cassie’s,and Sam’s.And Gianni’s. “Violet,”he said,“I caught this outlaw trying to sneak into the Citizen. He was going to kidnap you, take you back to his men, and rape you. He and his posse of thieves and murderers have been causing hell in these parts for years. But I got him good now. Run on over to the prison and get the sheriff, would you? I can’t seem to move my arms. I’ve got to keep the knife at his throat, you see, otherwise it hurts . . .” 

I reached out my hand.“Neely,put the knife down.It’s not an outlaw, it’s River, your brother,
you have to put the knife down
—” 

Brodie grabbed me. Thin fingers wrapped around my wrist,and he jerked my hand back.“Don’t want to do that, darling,” he said, the words crawling out of his mouth as slow as molasses. “The people I spark tend to respond pretty violent if you interrupt them in the act.” 

I screamed,but Brodie didn’t drop my arm.River’s eyes were watching me over the knife.They weren’t empty,like Neely’s.They were alive, and sparkling, as always. 

“Don’t do anything stupid,Vi,”he said.His words made the blade cut deeper into the skin of his neck. Blood began to drip from the wound down onto the collar of his shirt, where it bloomed like a flower. 

I fell. My knees, still muddy from the creek bank, hit the kitchen floor with a loud crack.I moved my head back so I could look up. The ends of my blond hair swished across the black-and-white tiles, and I met Brodie’s eyes. 

“Just undo it,” I said. 

Brodie stared at me. Seconds passed. He breathed in and out. “Your degradation amuses me,” he said at last. And shrugged. 

I heard the knife crash to the floor behind me.I got up and turned around. Neely was rubbing his eyes. River got to his feet. Slowly. He put one hand to his neck, where the knife had been, and swiped away the blood. Then he reached out and pulled me to my feet.But he didn’t look at me. He didn’t even look at Neely. His eyes were fixed on Brodie. 

“How did you do that?”River asked,and his voice shook. Just a little, but it was enough. River had never lost his cool, not since I’d known him. That was the thing about River. He was calm. Calm as a summer’s day. Calm as a gentle nap in the sun. Even when girls were fainting and men were slitting their throats in front of you. He’d been upset, about thunderstorms and his dead mother, and not knowing he was using the glow on me in his sleep, but he’d never been
scared.
Not like this. 

And if River—
River
—was scared . . . 

“Tell me how you did it.”
River reached out his arm as if to grab Brodie by the collar, but Brodie stepped back out of the way, lightly, on his toes, with his knees bent like a skinny, leering, marionette. 

“What, take my spark back?”Brodie put a hand on his sharp chin and stroked it. “Well, eventually my victims shake off the spark on their own, but it can take hours. Otherwise,I rip the spark out of someone’s head manually, so to speak.Easy as pulling apples off trees,old boy.Why, can’t you?” 

Brodie took his cowboy hat off and set it on the table. He ran a hand through his red hair, and it reminded me so much of River and Neely that my stomach twisted, tight. A bad taste filled my mouth, rotten and evil. 

They really were brothers. 

“I suppose it’s time for introductions,” Brodie continued.“I guess I was being rude. I came in here, cut up Neely, and never once said,
Hello. I’m your brother Brodie
.
Our pa knocked up my mad mother and here we are. Nice to meet you.
I got distracted by that full-figured strumpet who sauntered into the yard. I took off without a word. And then I followed this here Violet and some little brat to a dead body. I meant to come back sooner. As I said. Rude. Here, let’s meet proper like.” Brodie held out his hand. 

River’s eyes went sly.He reached out.My heart jumped and I thought
Here we go,
but Brodie swept his arm back to his side and laughed. “Ha. Not a chance, River. I know how you work. How your glow works. Our papa filled me in, long before I got here and had to listen to the three of you yak and yak about it.You look surprised.Yes,I’ve been prowling around here this whole time, eavesdropping and being bored dead as a doornail. What, still surprised? Didn’t you know you had a brother, River? Didn’t anyone tell you about me? 

“You were supposed to be younger,” Neely said, his voice off and weak and strange.“Dad probably has dozens of half-Redding brats, but they’re only kids. You’re supposed to be a little kid.” 

Brodie laughed, his low hoarse laugh. “That’s right.
Half
-Redding. Kids grow up, Neely. Yes, old Papa Redding couldn’t keep it in his pants. He knocked up my poor mother when she was just seventeen. He met her at one of those rich-ass garden parties the worthless and wealthy like to hold to bore the shit out of themselves. She was barefoot, red hair down to her waist. I dare say he thought she was the craziest little piece of rich Texas trash he’d ever seen. Full of laughter and craving sin. Of course, he didn’t find out until later that my mother’s family has their own curse.” 

Brodie paused. And did his dance again, one hand on his hip, the other in the air, spinning around on one heel of his boot.“We tend to go insane. Down in the dirt, rootin’ tootin’, tear-your-hair-out insane. Ma’s been locked up in the asylum for years now. Ha. Ha. Hahahahahahaha. My grandparents tried to raise me right, but hey, they’re old and I’ve got a lot of energy. It didn’t work out so well.” 

River put his hands on me while Brodie was talking and pushed me behind him. 

“But then our pa showed up,” Brodie went on, “asking me all these questions. And I paid attention.Then I cut up my girlfriend and discover I’m a god. Next thing I know I’m reading a story in the newspaper that was so floor-stompin’ crazy, it spread all the way from the East Coast. A story about some kids seeing the Devil in a cemetery. And I thought . . . hey, that sounds like me. Like my spark.
Shoot
. I jumped a train and here I am. What do you think, River? Are you impressed? You like what you see so far?” 

“It was you, wasn’t it.” Neely was standing still now. Frozen, not breathing, not moving anything, anything at all. “The kids in the park. Texas. The witch burning. The attic. And now you’re here. You’ve found us. So what do you want?”