Spiritwalk (8 page)

Blue laughed. “No. I’m trying to run down a guy—name of Chance. Runs with the Dragon.”

Judy nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen him around. Slick-looking guy. He’s always got that big ape with him.”

“Joey.”

“Gives me the creeps, that guy.”

“Know where I can find them?”

Judy gave him a hard look. “Thought you were finished messing around with the Dragon, Blue.”

“Who’s saying I’m messing around? I just want to find a guy.”

“Sure. But your eyes say it’s ass-kicking time when you do.”

“So what’s it to you?”

Judy held up her hands between them. “Hey, back down, big boy. This is me. Judy. Your friend, remember?”

“They snatched a girl—right in front of the House, Judy. I’ve got to get her back. I’ve been running around the better part of the afternoon trying to get a line on him and come up with zip-all.”

“You tried the Dragons themselves?”

Blue shook his head. “I’m not exactly on their list of favorite people.”

Judy started to walk back into her garage. Opening a small icebox, she tossed Blue a beer, then took one out herself. Popping the can open, she took a long swig.

“I needed that,” she said. She closed her toolbox and sat down on its lid. “Let me think a minute.”

She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. Blue sat down on an upended crate across from her and worked on his own beer while he waited. After a few minutes Judy sat up again. Her gaze settled on him.

“They’ve got a place in Quebec,” she said finally. “Up around Saint-François-de-Masham. Be a good place to take someone you’d snatched.”

Saint-François-de-Masham, Blue thought. Up on Highway 366. To reach it, you had to go up old Highway 105 past Old Chelsea. That had to be the place.

“Could you tell me how to get out to the farm?” he asked. “I’ve heard of the place, now that you’ve mentioned it, but I’ve never been out there.”

“I’ll draw you a map,” Judy said. She took the stub of a pencil out of her back pocket and, ripping the label off an oil container, started to draw on the back of it.

“Judy,” Blue said when she was done. “You’re a dream.” He folded the map and put it in his pocket, then gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, before he went for his bike.

“Hey!” Judy cried. When Blue turned, she was rubbing her forehead with a greasy hand. “Watch that smooching stuff, buster.”

Blue grinned as he got back on the Harley. “Put it on my tab,” he called back.

“You don’t have a tab,” Judy told him, but he’d already kicked his bike into life so he couldn’t hear her. “Don’t let the bastards catch you on their home turf,” she added as he drove away. She watched him go down the street with a frown. Then, sighing, she finished her beer and went back to work on the Norton.

7

Emma couldn’t stay in the Postman’s Room with the computer. The way it talked like a real person just gave her the creeps. She wandered down the long halls of Tamson House, feeling like she’d gotten lost in a fun house. The halls and rooms just went on and on, as if there were no end to them. Finally she couldn’t take it anymore. Making her way downstairs, she ran to the first door she saw. She tried to fling it open, but it wouldn’t budge. Fiddling with the lock didn’t help either.

Trapped.

The weight of the House around her, the sheer strangeness of it all made her panic—but it was a strange sort of panic. Her head was filled with a welter of confusion, but at the same time a part of her mind had her logically walking down the hall, trying door after door. By the tenth one, she looked around for something to throw through a window. A large vase was close at hand. She picked it up, approached the casement with the vase upraised, and then things just got weirder.

The air moved around her, swirling like a wind, pushing her back from the window. She tried to throw the vase as she was forced back, but the thrust of the air pushed it aside with a strong gust. It shattered on the floor of the hallway, shards spraying around her. She flung up her hands to protect herself, then stopped when she held them up against the light. She turned to look behind her. No shadow.

“Oh, Jesus....”

The lights in the hallway began to flicker and she heard a distant beeping sound. Backing away from the mess she’d made, she returned slowly to the Postman’s Room, following the computer’s high-pitched signal. When she reached the room, she stayed by the door, staring at the machine.

“Please,” she said. “Just let me go.”

Words appeared on the screen. She was determined not to go closer to read them, but after long moments she knew she might as well. She sure wasn’t going anywhere. Crossing the room, she sat down by the keyboard. WE ONLY WANT TO HELP YOU, the message said.

“I don’t want any part of this,” she told it.

THIS IS NOT SOMETHING WE BEGAN, Jamie replied.

She picked up the sheaf of Esmeralda’s letters and flipped through them. “I’ve got to be crazy,” she said. She looked at the screen, the way she would have looked at another person if there’d been one in the room. “How can something I dreamed be real?”

FAERIE HAVE GLAMOURS TO CLOUD PEOPLE’S MINDS, Jamie told her. I BELIEVE THAT WHAT YOU THINK WAS A DREAM ACTUALLY HAPPENED. IT’S ONLY BY THE MACHINATIONS OF YOUR FOE THAT YOU REMEMBER IT AS A DREAM.

“Right,” Emma said. “If I can talk to some Wizard of Oz sentient computer, dreams might as well be real, too.” She looked around the room. “Come on. Own up. There’s something running that computer, but I just can’t see you—right?”

YOU ARE PARTIALLY CORRECT, Jamie replied. I’M NOT PART OF THE COMPUTER. I MERELY USE IT TO COMMUNICATE.

“So where are you hiding?”

There was a long pause; then finally the words I’M NOT HIDING—I AM THE HOUSE ITSELF appeared on the screen.

Emma stared numbly at them. “I had to ask,” she muttered.

I HAVEN’T SEEN ESMERALDA IN A VERY LONG TIME, Jamie went on, obviously intent on taking their communication along a new slant. SHE LIVED HERE FOR ONLY A YEAR OR SO, BUT WE GREW VERY CLOSE IN THAT TIME. I’VE OFTEN THOUGHT OF HER, HOPING SHE WOULD COME BACK ONE DAY....

Jesus, Emma thought, rubbing her face. This was all she needed: a nostalgic computer.

HOW IS SHE?

“We haven’t really kept in touch,” Emma said. “That card was the first I’d heard form her in ages.”

WAS THERE AN ADDRESS ON THE CARD OR ITS ENVELOPE?

Emma nodded her head, then remembered what it was she was talking to. “Just a Post Office box number,” she said aloud.

TOO BAD. IF WE COULD CONTACT HER... The cursor paused for a moment, before continuing on across the screen. IT’S POSSIBLE THAT SHE KNOWS MORE THAN COULD HELP US, BUT SENDING A LETTER WOULD TAKE TOO LONG.

“The box is in London, anyway,” Emma said.

ONTARIO?

“No. England. It’s not much help, I guess.”

The screen stayed blank for a long time then and Emma began to be afraid that whatever it was that was communicating to her had gone away. The computer gave her the creeps, but even it was better company than being all alone in this place.

“So,” she said. “How’d you... ah... end up being a house?”

What an insane question. But it was an insane situation.

THAT’S A LONG AND NOT ALTOGETHER PLEASANT STORY, Jamie replied after a moment or so.

“We’ve got lots of time. At least, it doesn’t look like I’m going anywhere.”

“Think again.”

Emma jumped at the sound of the voice, turning in her chair as though she’d been shot.

“Jesus!” she cried when she saw Blue in the doorway. “You scared me half to death.”

She’d never even heard him come in. He stood there with a black leather jacket on over his T-shirt. There was a set of binoculars around his neck and he held a shotgun in one hand.

“I know where they’ve got her.”

“You do? Where?”

“Up around where you live. The Dragon’s got a farm up in the Gatineaus. It’s the only place they could’ve taken her.”

“Are you going there now?”

Blue nodded.

“Are you taking me?”

“Are you game?” he asked. “I’ve got the feeling you should be there. I mean, if you and Button are two halves of the same person...”

He frowned and Emma was pleased to see that the whole concept bothered him as well. Then she wondered just what had gone on between her other half and him.

“Well, it just makes sense for you to come,” Blue added. “But if you don’t feel you can handle it...”

Emma stood up quickly. “Let’s go before you change your mind,” she said. “I’m going batty in here.”

The computer beeped loudly before they could leave the room. Blue crossed over to read the. message on its screen. WHY ARE YOU TAKING THAT SHOTGUN?

“Come on, Jamie. You think they’re just going to hand her over if I ask them nicely?”

THE LAST TIME-

Blue cut the words off before they could flow across the screen. “I know what happened the last time.” In the Otherworld. When he’d gone berserk fighting those creatures. He still couldn’t handle the way the violence had come back to him so easily. Like it’d never gone away. “Maybe this is just what I am, Jamie,” he said after a moment. “Maybe what I know best is violence and the shit that goes with it.”

YOU USED TO WORK ON GENTLER ARTS. YOU AND SARA. YOU TAUGHT HER AS MUCH AS SHE TAUGHT YOU.

Blue could almost hear Jamie’s voice as the words touched the screen. It would be gently reprimanding.

“I’m not giving up one for the other,” Blue said softly. “And Sara’s not here anymore.” Was that another of his problems? he wondered as the words left his mouth. Did he feel that he’d been deserted—first by Jamie, then by Sara and Sally? Or did he feel he’d driven them away?

DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO, Jamie replied.

Blue nodded, hearing the regret that would have been there if Jamie could speak. He turned slowly away. “Come on,” he said to Emma. “How did you get here?” he added as he led the way to the garage.

“I drove.”

“You’re parked on Patterson?”

She nodded.

“Okay. We’ll get my bike and I’ll drop you off at your car. Then you can follow me out. Can you take this with you in the car?” He handed her the shotgun. “I won’t get ten blocks with it on the bike—cops’ll stop me, sure as shit.”

She took it gingerly.

“This could get rough,” he warned her.

She swallowed thickly. “I guess... I guess that’s just sinking in.” The weapon was heavy in her hand. “What are you planning to do?”

“Did you ever hear the legend of St. George?” Blue asked her.

Emma nodded.

“Well, that’s you and me, Emma. We’re going up against a Dragon—just like he did.”

8

Judy took the Norton out for a spin when she was finished working on it. When she got back, she readjusted the carburetor until it was finally running as smoothly as she wanted it to. Shutting off the engine, she went to get herself a beer. As she was popping the tab, she thought about Blue’s visit.

The Dragon. Snatched some girl. And wouldn’t you know that Blue’d have to go out like some knight in greasy armor to get her back.

“Aw shit, Blue,” she muttered.

Putting down the beer, she went over to the wall and picked up the phone.

Four

1

The room they put Button in was on the second floor of the farmhouse. It had a bed with crumpled dirty sheets and an old blanket, and a window that was painted shut, overlooking the backyard. Past the yard were fields with the Gatineau Mountains rising up green behind them. The floor was a litter of cigarette butts, beer cans and other trash.

Joey shoved her into the room, then slammed and locked the door. Button staggered, arms pinwheeling for balance. When she came up against a wall, she leaned against it for a long moment and caught her breath. She took in her surroundings distastefully, then made for the window. Clearing a space on the floor in front of it, she knelt down and stared out at the freedom of the fields and mountains that couldn’t be hers. She leaned her arms on the windowsill, her head on her arms, and the afternoon passed.

What made the waiting hardest was not knowing what her captors meant to do with her. At least they weren’t last night’s creatures, she thought. No. They were bikers. Maybe that was worse. She was still flushed from the remarks of the men downstairs who had greeted her arrival with whoops and catcalls; the sleazy women, with their cold appraising eyes.

But thinking of bikers brought Blue to mind. With no past to retreat to, she went over and over her memories of the little time she’d spent with him in that big strange house he was looking after. Sometimes she half-expected to hear him come roaring up to the farmhouse on his bike to rescue her—just like he had last night—but then she’d realize that he didn’t even know where she’d been taken. He might even think that she’d just taken off.

She wondered if she’d ever known anybody like him before. God, it was hard to have nothing to connect her to the rest of the world. The world was there inside her—knowledge of everything from current events and history to how to make her way around Ottawa. But it was impersonal. Like something she’d read about, not places she’d actually been. She could call the city up, street by street, but not where she fit into it.

Maybe she was married and had kids, though that didn’t feel right. Even having a boyfriend didn’t feel right. So did she just live on her own? What did she do for a living? And what in God’s name did these men want with her?

She twisted the bottom of her sweatshirt in her hands, then looked down at it. Even it wasn’t hers. She hadn’t wanted to put on her dirty blouse this morning, so she’d poked about in the closet of the room Blue had left her in until she’d found something she liked. It was comfortable. She probably liked casual clothes. She—

“Oh, Blue,” she said softly. “I wish you’d come get me.”

She put her head back down on her arms and stared listlessly out the window. The afternoon passed, time dragging like a cloud’s slow movement on a windless day. But then she heard footsteps on the stairs, her door being unlocked, and everything started to move in a confusing blur again.

“Okay, babe,” Chance said from the doorway. Joey loomed up behind him, a feral glitter in his eyes that gave his dull features a frightening cast. “Time to get this show on the road.”