Desolation (6 page)

“The motel is not very busy,” Kenneth said.

“I’m not surprised.”

“I can let you stay,” Kenneth decided, “but only until Wednesday. On Wednesday you must leave. We are fully booked up for Wednesday.”

Amber frowned. “How?”

“I’m sorry?” said Kenneth.

“How has anyone been able to book for Wednesday, since you don’t take reservations over the phone and you don’t have a website?”

“A long-standing arrangement,” said Kenneth. “You must be gone by ten o’clock on Wednesday morning.”

“I guess we could stay at a bed and breakfast,” said Milo.

“You misunderstand,” Kenneth said. “You must leave our town. On Wednesday we have our festival.”

“I like festivals,” said Amber.

“It is a private festival,” Kenneth said. “For invited townsfolk only. You must leave by ten in the morning.”

At no stage did Amber think Kenneth was joking, and yet she waited for the punchline all the same. When it didn’t come, Milo spoke up.

“Sure,” he said. “That’s fine.”

Kenneth hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay,” he said.

“Of course we should,” Amber assured him. “We’ll be gone by the time the festival starts – it’s all good. We totally understand. Today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday and then we move on. You got it. How long does the festival last?”

“One night.”

“Then how about we come back on Thursday?”

“Thursday and Friday are for clean-up.”

“Then Saturday,” Amber said, smiling. “If we leave and come back for the weekend, would that be okay?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. We’ll do that. So put us down for four nights now, and then Saturday. If we like it here, we might even stay longer.”

Kenneth nodded. “Very well. Welcome to the Dowall Motel. This is a family business.”

Amber gave another smile. “Well, okay then.”

Kenneth showed Amber to her room, and Milo dropped off her bag and followed Kenneth to his. Amber shut her door. The room was old-fashioned but clean, and smelled of fresh air and green trees. It had a fireplace that wasn’t to be lit and a good-sized bed. It had a bathroom with a bathtub and a window that looked out over the town. It was a good room. A fine room.

Amber stood at the window. From here, she could almost see the road they had come in on, the one with the sign. That would be the road the Hounds would use. They were anywhere between ten and fifteen hours away, but it took Amber a long time to stop watching for their arrival.

V
IRGIL FOUND THE NUMBER
scrawled in an address book that had slipped down the back of a file cabinet. He tried to ignore the other names – seeing them brought pangs of recognition and regret – but despite himself he glanced through them. Here was Erik Estrada’s number. Good kid, that Erik. Burt Reynolds. Lynda Carter. Ah, Lynda Carter. Robert Culp. Farrah Fawcett’s number was here. He’d never managed to get with Farrah because of his (strained) friendship with Lee Majors – but he’d wanted to. Oh my, how he’d wanted to.

Then he found the number he was looking for, and he took out his ridiculous phone and eventually figured out how to make a call.

It was answered by a woman who told him the person he was looking for no longer lived there. She went off for a few minutes, eventually coming back with another number. He called that, and it was answered by a man who gave him the number of a retirement home. Virgil rang the home, gave them the name, and waited.

“Yeah?”

The voice on the other end sounded old, frail and ill-tempered.

“Javier?” said Virgil.

“Yeah?”

“It’s Virgil. Virgil Abernathy.”

There was a silence, and then,

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why? Why’re you calling? Why the hell’re you calling me? It’s been forty years and now you’re calling me and I want to know why, goddammit. If you’re calling to apologise, you’re about forty years too damn late.”

Virgil frowned. “Why would I be apologising?”

“You’re the one calling me!” Javier shouted. “You’re the one calling and now you have the, the, the
nerve
to ask
why
you’re calling? I’m the one asking why! I ask, you answer!”

“Javier, I really think we’re getting our wires crossed here …”

“Dementia, is it?” Javier said. “You know that you owe me an apology, but you can’t remember why, is that it? Y’know something? I’m glad. I’m glad your mind is leaving you. Couldn’t happen to a nicer fella.”

“My mind is fine, Javier, but to be honest you’re starting to irritate me here.”

Javier hooted down the phone. “Oh, is that right?
Oh, is that right?
”

“I just called to check on you,” said Virgil. “I’ve been thinking about the old days a lot and I saw someone last night who could have been your double from back then, someone who I would have
sworn
was you if I hadn’t known what age you were. I’m calling to ask if you have a son or a grandson and if they’re anywhere close to Desolation Hill.”

“I don’t know where that is,” said Javier, “but it sounds like just the place you deserve to be.”

“Do you have anyone in your family that looks just like you did forty years ago, or not?”

“No!” Javier yelled. “I don’t have
any
children, you dirty, lying, treacherous sonofabitch! I never had children and I never got married! The only woman in the world I ever loved looked at me like I was a joke and it was all your fault!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Darleen!”

Virgil frowned. “Who?”

“Darleen! Darleen Hickman!”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“The wardrobe lady on set,” Javier said, anger biting at his words. “I fell in love with her and you knew it. There was a future there. A possibility. But you couldn’t let that happen, could you? You couldn’t stand the thought of any pretty girl being with anyone but you, the
star
of the show
.”

“What is it you think I did, Javier?”

“You know damn well what you did. You gave me that nickname.”

“What nickname?”

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I don’t know what it is we’re talking about.”

There was another silence, and then, “The Goat-molester.”

Virgil’s laugh was as loud as it was unexpected, and he immediately felt bad. “Oh right, yeah. That. Uh … and that damaged your relationship with the wardrobe lady?”

“
Darleen
,” said Javier. “And of course it did. Everyone was laughing at me behind my back. Nobody took me seriously from that moment on. She had feelings for me – real, actual feelings – but how could she look at me in the same way once she’d lost all respect for me?”

“I’m … I’m really sorry, Javier. I’d forgotten all about that.”

“I hadn’t,” said Javier bitterly. “That ruined my life, Abernathy. Ruined it. And it’s all your fault.”

“I’m sorry,” said Virgil. “I am genuinely sorry, Javier, I really am. I had no idea it would cause you such hardship. The only thing I can say is that it wasn’t done with any degree of maliciousness. It wasn’t personal.”

“It felt personal.”

“And I regret that. I do. Please accept my apology.”

“You know what?” Javier said. “I don’t. I’ve been waiting forty years for you to say sorry, and now that you have, it means nothing to me. You were a sonofabitch then and you’re a sonofabitch now. I hope you do get dementia. I hope you get dementia and you die a slow, horrible death.”

“Right,” said Virgil. “Well, in my defence—”

“Your defence can go to hell.”

“In my defence,” Virgil persisted, “and taking all things into account, with the benefit of hindsight and whatnot, I don’t know … maybe you shouldn’t have molested that goat.”

Javier hung up.

S
OMEONE KNOCKED ON HER
door and Amber woke immediately and went to spring out of bed. As she was moving, she realised two things. The first was that she had shifted during the night and was now in full demon mode. The second was that she was about to put her full weight on to her left hand, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The pain hit her like an electric shock. She pulled her hands into her chest, rolled off the bed, and landed on her feet in a crouch, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out.

That knock again. It was calm. Unhurried. No urgency to it.

Amber waited for the worst of the pain to pass, then straightened, and moved slowly to the door. “Who is it?” she called.

“Me,” said Milo.

“Anyone else with you?”

“No.”

She gripped the key between her palms and turned it, and the lock clicked and she stepped back as Milo opened the door.

He saw the look on her face and frowned. “Hurting?”

“A little. I’ll take the painkillers.”

“You shift when you were sleeping?”

“Yeah. You?”

He nodded. He was clean-shaven and his eyes were calm – the benefits of a good night’s rest. “I’m going to head out to the edge of town,” he said, “keep watch for the Hounds.”

“Let me get dressed.”

“No need. I’m just going to be sitting there. You take a look around, see what’s what. If we
can
hide out here, it’d be nice to know what the town has to offer.”

Amber frowned. “You mean … we’re going to be apart? During the daytime?”

“Is that okay with you?”

“Sure. It’s just … I haven’t been alone in the daytime for … a while.”

“You’ll adjust.”

“What do I do?”

“Whatever you want. Go for a walk. Have some breakfast. Relax. It’ll come back to you. Oh, and …” He pointed to her face.

“What?”

“You can’t go out horned up.”

“Oh yeah. Sure.”

He nodded, and walked off, and Amber closed the door behind him and locked it again. Then she looked around and wondered what the hell she was going to do.

She swallowed some painkillers and brushed her teeth and peed, and as she was peeing she looked at the tub and tried to remember the last time she’d had a real bath. She filled the tub and added in all kinds of crazy liquids until the bubbles nearly spilled out on to the floor. Then she took off her clothes and climbed in, one long red leg at a time. Bracing her bandaged palms on the tub’s edge, she lowered herself into the water, gasping, until her ass touched the bottom. She laughed, then, and sank further, until the hot water was up to her chin.

“Oh, this is nice,” she muttered to the room.

She closed her eyes, breathing in the steam, letting it clear her head of any residual sleepiness. It had been so long since she’d been able to relax, to think of anything other than the chase. Even now, there was a part of her that was still on edge – but it was a small part, and she could have easily drowned it out if she’d been so inclined.

But of course she didn’t. Just because Gregory Buxton had vanished from the Hounds’ radar when he was in this town didn’t mean she would, too. And even if she did, so what? The Hounds would still be able to ride on in here and search. They didn’t need supernatural powers to find her – they just needed eyes.

So she kept that edge, the part of herself that remained wary, and she let it bite at her thoughts and burrow into her head. That edge had helped keep her alive after Imelda had died. After Glen. After her parents.

She wondered about them, where they were, what they were doing.
How
they were doing. She felt a curious mix of satisfaction that she’d fouled up her parents’ plans, that she’d forced them to go on the run with Grant and Kirsty Van der Valk, that Astaroth was almost as pissed with them as he was with her … but also concern. That part puzzled Amber. She didn’t care about them. They had bred her to be killed and eaten, just like they had her brother and sister whom she had never known. She was not concerned for their well-being.

She was definitely, definitely not. She was almost sure of that.

Thoughts of her parents irritated her, but there was only one other person she could think about that would banish them to the back of her mind, and that was Glen. She only thought about him when she was in demon form. Her heart was harder when she was like this, better able to cope with what had happened to him. With who he was now. What he’d turned into.