Shade of Pale (13 page)

George got the sense that this case was going to be like that. That somehow justice would be meted out. It seemed like destiny. And he was going to be there.

Front and center.

George listened to the city night, as alive as a jungle. Feeling the killer out there like a magnetic field.

He closed his eyes and let the tension pass out of him.

These evils shall not triumph
.

CHAPTER TEN

“No word from Cathy, I take it,” Will Howard asked.

Jukes ran a hand through his hair, something he'd been doing too much lately. With Cathy gone and Loomis dead, Jukes was having trouble keeping up a decent front to the world. Will watched while he chugged down his beer and promptly ordered another.

Jukes stifled a burp and looked hard at Will. “Nothing. I don't mind telling you, I'm really worried.”

Will Howard put his hand on Jukes's shoulder. “Listen, buddy; I don't have any answers. I don't want to upset you either; I'm your friend, OK?” He took a swig of his beer. “But you've got to consider the most likely possibilities. This guy was once her boyfriend. She may still have feelings for him, however ill-advised. I don't think you should rule that out. Can you say, for a fact, that she was kidnapped?”

Jukes thought about it; his eyes flickered downward. “I guess I can't. I don't know for sure what happened when I was lying there on the floor. Cathy's a very complex person; I suppose she could've had a change of heart. Still … after the beating that Bobby gave her … I don't know.”

“It might be possible that she chose to go with him,” Will said.

Jukes shrugged. “Yeah, I guess anything's possible.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “At this rate, I won't have any hair left by the end of the week,” he mumbled.

“Don't let it eat you.”

Jukes shook his head slowly. “You go along for years, thinking everything is just fine, your life's all nice and tidy, then wham! Something like this comes along and kicks you right in the butt.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, quietly slugging away at their beers.

Suddenly Jukes spoke. His tone of voice had changed. “I talked to Jones today. He took me to this Irish bookstore in the village, the Turf-Cutter's Enchantment. I came across something interesting. Here, take a look at these.” He handed Will the poems by Killian. “These are from a collection called
Song of the Banshee
, by Brendan Killian, the other guy that died like Loomis. I think you should read them. Will, I … I don't know what to think.”

Will read the poems once, then, without saying anything, read them all a second time. Jukes drained his glass, caught the bartender's attention without speaking, and raised two fingers. The waiter brought another round.

Will looked uneasy. “Jesus Christ. This is spooky.”

Jukes nodded. “
Spooky
was the word I would have used.”

Will put the poems down and looked into Jukes's face. “Did you ever contact Fiona Rice over at Columbia?”

Jukes nodded.

“So? What did you think?”

Jukes suppressed a smile. “I think she's wonderful.”

Will slapped his knee, delighted. “See? What did I tell you. She's perfect! I knew you'd like her. So?”

“So, what?”

“So, tell me everything. How did she like you? Did you hit it off?”

Jukes blushed. “Yeah, I think so. But mostly we talked about the Banshee.”

“Did you make another date with her?”

Jukes's face froze. “It didn't occur to me.”

Will Howard rolled his eyes. “You're hopeless. You still have her number?”

Jukes nodded. “But like I said, we mostly talked about the Banshee.”

Will sighed. “All right. What does she say about it?”

Jukes repeated what Fiona had told him. When he was finished, he looked away.

Will picked up his beer and took a small sip, then, at second thought, took a huge swig.

Jukes drew a deep breath and spoke quietly, so no one else at the bar could hear. “You know, Will, she acts like this thing really exists.”

“Doesn't sound like the same Fiona Rice I know. The one I know is as rational as the AMA.”

Jukes cleared his throat. His tie, already loosened, was pulled further askew. He looked straight ahead, at their reflection in the mirror behind the bar.

“Hear me out. I know this sounds crazy. But it's possible that something extraordinary is happening here that we don't understand, something that defies logic. How do you explain the fact that Loomis and Killian were ripped in half, just like Ulick Burke in 1504?”

Will looked around, checking to see if anyone had overheard them. “Do you know what you're saying?” he asked.

Jukes answered with an imperceptible nod of his head.

Jukes's apartment stood dark and cold when he got home, late again. It had been another long and bizarre day. Nothing seemed to make sense anymore. He couldn't get Fiona Rice's last statement out of his mind. People were being split in half in New York City and there was nothing he could do about it. If it were just another serial killer, that would be one thing, but all this Banshee talk was making him uncomfortable.

When it came to the supernatural, Jukes was a clinical skeptic, but now a kernel of doubt had shattered his resolve. He wasn't so sure anymore; he wasn't so sure about anything.

This is the twentieth century, an age of enlightenment. What ancient powers and evil curses could possibly exist now?

He turned on the lights and the dark disappeared. He turned on the heater and waited for his apartment to warm up. It was as simple as that—man's own creations ruled his universe, dispelled the darkness and chased the chill. No magic there, just solid fact. It's dark; you turn on the light. It's cold; you turn on the heater. Where did the Banshee fit in? What switch did you flick to get that?

Facts were the spine of Jukes's world, even when dealing with the nebulous workings of the human brain. He was a professional, he feared nothing, and, at least before this day began, he thought that nothing was beyond his understanding.

But now, after Loomis's death, after Cathy's abduction, after Killian's poems, after Fiona Rice's revelations, what conclusions could he draw? He wasn't so sure.

He checked his messages, hoping to hear Cathy's voice. He half expected to find a message from her saying it was all a mistake, a joke, a put-on, and she'd be right home. Bobby was really just pulling a gag; he didn't mean it. He'd be right over with a six-pack and a good explanation.

The first two messages rolled by, mundane and lengthy; then the unmistakable sound of Cathy's voice jumped out at him.

“Jukey? Jukey, are you there? I'm just calling to let you know I'm all right. I can't talk right now. But … I'm OK, so don't worry. Look; I'll be in touch. I gotta go. Bye.”

Click. The machine turned off.

He rewound and played it several times, his heart pounding. In the background, faintly, he could hear some noise that might have been music. The more he listened, the more he became convinced that it was music, and he imagined that he could even tell what kind—ska. It was very hard to tell from the short piece of tape, but he thought he could hear the distinctive herky-jerky rhythm guitar. And horns. It could be horns.

Years ago, Jukes had gone with a few friends to see some ska bands in the Village. He remembered liking the crazed, speeded-up reggae dance music. The bands all had horn sections and guys with skinny ties and bad haircuts.

Jukes took the tape out of the message recorder and replaced it with a new one. He put the cassette with Cathy's voice on it in his pocket and trudged off to his bedroom.

He looked forward to getting into bed and closing his eyes.

Jukes Wahler never had a problem falling asleep. Now life was turning into one big, fat problem. He doubted sleep would come easily this night.

Even after the beers, his mind raced, twisting itself around his anxieties like a worm on a hook. He kept thinking of Cathy's voice on the tape. And the music.

She must have gone with him voluntarily. Why is Cathy like that?
As a psychiatrist, Jukes felt he should have some idea.

Jukes took another mental trip back to childhood, searching, as always, for the root cause of his anxiety. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and time-traveled back to high school.

He sat at his desk and ran his fingers over the tactile surface of the wood. It was gouged and pitted with graffiti, carved deeply into it with the pointed end of a protractor, the only legal weapon in a student's arsenal in those days. He looked around at the other kids in his class and saw that they were as mean and immature as he remembered. They teased each other mercilessly and were cruel in an unthinking way that only adolescents can be. To Jukes, school life was a constant test, and an everyday struggle to survive in the same world with them.

Them. Why did he care what they thought?

Why was that so damn important?
he wondered
Why is it so significant for people to belong?
His life had improved immeasurably once he'd stopped trying to socialize and became the solitary man he was today.

The smells of the classroom came back to him, the singular odors of the old school building, and he realized that he'd not smelled them in thirty-five years. In his mind, it was winter, and the ancient heater warmed the room unevenly, like a campfire on a frigid night. Parts of the room were arctic, and other parts were like a sauna. As the decrepit radiator became hot, the layers of school-day life began to bake and give off a myriad of unpleasant odors. Gum, paper wads, spit, paint, puke, glue, pencil shavings, eraser crumbs, and other refuse of academe were activated and reeked like the boiler room in Hell.

For Jukes, who sat next to the wheezing metal dinosaur, it was enough to make him gag sometimes. He hated the smell of the old school building in the winter. It all came flooding back to him as he sat in his apartment decades later, looking back on those days, spying on the past, like a alien voyeur.

His gangly, ungraceful body seemed to attract accidents, constantly bumping his way through the obstacle course of life. The acne cases came and went, usually at their apex during periods of high sexual drama.

And Jukes suffered.

Shadows crept ominously in the corners of his bedroom, hiding nightmares, waiting for him to sleep. He constantly scanned the room, squinting at the darkness. His once secure and comfortable world was now filled with a hideous new uncertainty.

He tossed, searching for a comfortable position. The wind came up outside, and a light rain began to fall. A siren in the distance made him jump. It didn't sound right.… It sounded unreal, even vaguely human. Though he was in the center of the biggest city in the world, he felt as if he were all alone, hundreds of miles from civilization.

He read until his eyes at last grew heavy and he drifted off to sleep with the book lying open on his chest.

He had no way of knowing how long he had been asleep when nature called. It was time to pay for the luxury of those four beers. He lay there with his eyes closed, not wanting to wake up and go to the bathroom, postponing the inevitable. It felt so good, so cozy, in bed.

Jukes cleared his throat and opened his eyes a tiny bit, just enough to realize that he'd left the light on.

As soon as they were open a crack, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

The Banshee stood over him.

He had never been so shocked and afraid in his life. He jumped backward in the bed, hitting the headboard. When he tried to shout, only a dry whisper came out.

Jukes went numb and felt thousands of tiny needles prick his skin as if, suddenly, each goose bump on his body were acutely painful. Every pore on his skin flared open and secreted a dot of moisture. In a twinkling he was bathed in sweat.

The Banshee stared. Her hair undulated in a nonexistent ghostly breeze.

Fear gripped him in its icy hands; it twisted his senses until he thought he might actually hyperventilate.

The Banshee's face swam before him, liquid and changing. Her tears fell and stained the bedcovers faintly red. Jukes's eyes were riveted on hers. He whimpered like a child, afraid to move, more afraid than he had ever been, and more afraid than he could ever have imagined.

At last he found his breath and screamed. He screamed to wake the dead, again and again, sucking air and gasping loudly between shrieks.

He felt the room spinning. The Banshee never moved; she stood over him, statuelike. Her eyes, still dripping tears, drilled into him. He got the distinct impression that she was very old and very powerful. The age he could sense; the power he could feel. She was not just some hopeless spirit, aimlessly haunting the world of the living, but a thinking consciousness with a purpose—she caused change. She was causing Jukes to change.

His world was being stripped bare. Nothing would ever be the same again, now that he knew she existed.

He prayed he was dreaming.

He knew he was; he had to be. These things were impossible; they just couldn't be happening. He was having a nightmare, brought on by the stress of the last few days. That and those crazy poems of Killian's. His subconscious mind was sending him a message—
relax; you're getting too involved.

But it seemed so real. He had never had a dream so real, so vivid. He could taste it, feel it, smell it, and, if he wanted to, touch it.

He blinked and rubbed his eyes, surprised to find that he, too, was crying. The tears came off on his hands like the residue of hysteria. He blinked at them stupidly.

Looking up, he saw her face clearly. She had a face like no other: utterly beautiful, yet ghostly, the features of it howling a tragic lament. He saw the pain there.

He looked closer and his eyes blurred. Her face seemed to swim, shape-shifting, showing a cinematic vision of mental images of her age-old misery. He felt, rather than saw, her eternal damnation and found the tears rapidly welling up in his own eyes again. The rush of emotion from looking at her made him dizzy.