Velveteen (15 page)

Velvet merely shrugged occasionally and stayed her course.

She turned back to find Nick, Quentin, and the twins silhouetted by the harsh glare of the primary crack, their faces faint yellow blurs, making them appear invisible except for the dark clothing they wore, characters from the golden age of cinematic horror.

Nick faced a massive pair of iron doors, intricately laced by the same filigreed locking mechanism as the path to the Shattered Hall. Behind it, she knew, were the Collectors’ access points.

“Keep up!” Luisa called out to him over the wail of the crowd.

At the head of the lines, the intake lecterns lined up twenty
wide, and behind each one, as you might expect, stood a disgruntled social worker. There seemed to be an endless supply of burned-out federal and state employees in purgatory. Word was that declining economies and layoffs had turned some already disgruntled folks into machine-gun-wielding psycho killers.

Velvet couldn’t blame them.

She dreaded this part of her job, because without fail, no matter how many intake workers were away on break, if there was one thing Velvet could count on, it was that Mrs. Sylvia Allerdice wasn’t among them. Velvet used to think that there’d come a day when she’d get lucky and the crotchety old woman would be in the employee cafeteria, complaining about policy or how rude new souls were in that shrill, bitter, and unquestionably monotone voice, instead of on the frontline of intake.

Today was not to be that day.

“Next victim!” the woman called out, beckoning with curt, crooked fingers.

The sound of her voice climbed up Velvet’s spine with grappling hooks. Velvet stabbed her hand between Logan and Quentin—both shook in silent laughter.

“It’s like fate,” Logan muttered, and both of them broke up chuckling.

“Bastards,” she hissed, and she stomped the little boy’s foot and elbowed the taller one in his skinny chest.

She gripped Nick and yanked him forward, pulling him close to her side as they strode the several yards to Mrs. Allerdice’s lectern. “Okay,” she whispered. “Be totally
honest with her. Don’t ask any questions. Oh! And don’t piss her off!”

“What?” he asked, shaking his head nervously as she pushed him ahead of her toward the crinkled, ash-covered skeleton of a woman.

“And whatever you do,” Velvet warned, “don’t cross the yellow line! Go!”

He shuffled forward, placing the points of his wing tips on the urine-colored line drawn in crooked chalk in front of the lectern. She watched as he craned his neck to examine the other lecterns. None of them had what Nick was looking for; Velvet could have told him. Mrs. Allerdice liked her work space just so.

Velvet fell in behind him, but not quick enough to avoid the eagle eyes of the decrepit wench.

“Velveteen,” Mrs. Allerdice rattled, using Velvet’s full name as though she owned a permit to do so.

“Velveteen?” Nick asked softly.

“Never mind.” She prodded him.

“So this is your number fifty-seven.” The woman set her scrutiny on Nick, giving him the old up-and-down look. “Interesting. I never thought I’d see it.”

Velvet jerked her head around Nick’s shoulder. “Thank you?” she queried.

Mrs. Allerdice shrugged, the shoulders of her stiffly pressed blouse rising and lowering like cardboard shelves. She turned her beady eyes back on Nick, her lids crinkling like wadded newsprint. Velvet sighed, relieved to be out of the woman’s sights.

“I suppose we should sort you out.”

“Yes, ma’am?” he said.

“Is that a question?”

Velvet poked the boy in the back. He startled a little but rebounded quickly. “No, I don’t have any questions.”

“That’s good. Let’s keep it that way.”

She vigorously shuffled paper in front of her. Velvet could swear she heard the woman’s bones creaking like ancient floorboards as she worked, her joints twisting on nails rusty enough to give everyone who passed through a stiff case of tetanus. That she was making with the busywork at all was purely for aggravation. There was only one real purpose for the social workers—or in Mrs. Allerdice’s case, antisocial workers—and that was to figure out where new souls would fit in purgatory’s cogs and gears.

Sufficiently satisfied that all her edges lined up, Mrs. Allerdice picked up what looked like a large aluminum knitting needle. She balanced it point down on the edge of the lectern, where it stood perilously on its end, twisting slow pirouettes on the oak top of its own volition, and so intently that a curl of freshly carved wood trailed behind its sharp point.

“Name?” the woman bellowed.

“Nicholas Russell.” His words rushed out in a clipped staccato.

“Place of birth?”

“New York City.”

“Place of death?” A smile creased her lips at the question, and her eyes rolled slowly up his body to his face. Velvet placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder to still him, felt his back tense.

“She knows you don’t remember,” Velvet whispered into his ear. “She can tell it without you answering. Just ignore her.”

“What’s that, dear?” Mrs. Allerdice skittered to the side of her lectern to stare holes into Velvet. “Are you being smart?”

“No, ma’am,” Velvet said, and both her eyes and the old woman’s flicked to the metallic instrument teetering atop the wood stand.

“I was going to say …” Mrs. Allerdice’s attention drifted off as she went back to rummaging through the papers, straightening them, rummaging again. Finally she retrieved a folded brochure, which she tossed at Nick. It pegged his shin and dropped onto the floor between his shoes. “Here’s a pamphlet.”

Nick bent to pick it up, revealing Velvet nearly entirely.

Mrs. Allerdice tsked. “Why? Why? Why?” she asked. “Why do you insist on being the one to deliver your extractions, girl? Must you
always
take the credit?”

Velvet felt her fists balling up hard, her stomach twisting in her gut like the timer on a secret bomb. Behind her, she thought she heard Luisa’s gentle urgings to rein it back. But she couldn’t.

“No. That isn’t it, ma’am. With all due respect. A respect you’ve never repaid me, I might add.…”

The woman’s brittle fingers started for the gently twisting rod. Its metal glinted, calling for violence.

Velvet took a breath, steadied herself. Beneath her, Nick started to rise up, and she pressed him back, swallowed, debated, and then continued, shouting, “I wouldn’t dare subject my team to your horribleness!”

“Ah, Christ,” Luisa sighed behind them, clearly addressing Logan and Quentin. “Now she’s done it.”

Mrs. Allerdice snatched the needle from the lectern and, with a rapidity far too unreasonable for her fragile frame, bounded not around the wooden stand but over the top of it. She brought the rod up and slashed the air between them swiftly.

For a second, Velvet didn’t think anything had happened.

She hadn’t felt a thing.

But when Mrs. Allerdice stepped back and smiled warmly, almost maternally, Velvet knew the old witch had hit her mark. Something trickled down her face. Without taking her eyes off her attacker, she reached up and found the memory. It slithered atop her index finger before catching fire in the ether and floating away like one of the ashes from Nurse Antoinette’s cigarette.

“You cut her!” Nick yelled, his posture changing, ready to charge.

Velvet rolled her eyes. The last thing she needed was a champion in her way. The rest of her team knew better than to jump in and rescue her. The repercussions would be massive … or, rather, she wouldn’t speak to them for a week. She clamped her hand around his shoulder and held him to the floor. His struggles were minimal, unnecessary, and altogether unrealistic.

“Don’t,” Velvet insisted. “Not a word.” And then, turning her eyes back to the woman, she said, “Point taken.”

As much as it pained her to admit defeat, she knew better than to react in any other way.

“Well, then,” Mrs. Allerdice said, absolutely beaming
with delight. “Let’s get on with this. Time to sort you out, number fifty-seven!”

“Is that my new name or something?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth as the woman returned to her spot behind the lectern.

Velvet shook her head. “No. It’s nothing. You’re the fifty-seventh soul we’ve extracted. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“That’s exactly right!” Mrs. Allerdice spat, wiping the tip of the needle on the hem of her blouse. “Nothing. Now tell your boy to be good for the assessment, Velveteen. You know how it
spooks
some.” She paused, her lip quivering in anticipation. “Makes ’em run.”

A shiver ran up Velvet’s spine. She quickly shook it off and straightened. “You can get up now, Nick. Just do what she says and we’ll be done here.”

The sooner, the better
, she thought. This extraction had been nothing but trouble from start to finish. Velvet just wanted to get back to the Retrieval dorms, to nestle herself in her bed and sleep like Rip Van Winkle.

And that was exactly her plan.

She nudged him again, and he took to his feet.

“All right, then, Nicholas Russell,” Mrs. Allerdice said. “Give me your palm and do try not to pull away.” She grinned wickedly. “This is going to hurt some.”

Nick stretched his hand between them, across the yellow chalk line, almost to Mrs. Allerdice’s lectern, before turning it over and exposing the flesh of his palm. To his credit, Velvet noticed, the boy shook very little. He merely stared straight into his assessor’s eyes as she pinched the end of the
needle and held it aloft, where it sparkled in the gaslight. The woman glared at him. “Are you a brave one, then?”

“We’ll see,” he said.

“Good answer.” She brought the needle down like a praying mantis, skewering Nick’s palm at its center.

“What the hell?” he cried.

“Was that a question?” Mrs. Allerdice asked, twisting the needle deeper.

He sucked in a deep breath and clenched his teeth.

“I didn’t think so.” She withdrew the needle slowly.

Velvet watched intently as the woman drew the wriggling memories close to her eyes, as if to evaluate the ferocity of their struggle, before unhinging her jaw and slipping the nerve endings still firing with life off the tip of the needle and into her mouth.

The rumblings of the station fell away, replaced by an eerie silence. Velvet could sense Quentin and the twins creeping up behind her to get a better look at the spectacle of the assessment in action. Nick stood beside Velvet, cradling his quickly healing hand.

Mrs. Allerdice’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she savored her mouthful, rolling the memories back and forth across her tongue as though critiquing a fine vintage. There were
mmm-hmms
and
ahs
. Note jotting on the many papers before her.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it was over.

The sound rushed back in and the woman gasped, once, twice.

Three times, before settling her eyes, not on Nick to
deliver his sentence, the occupation he’d be fulfilling until, well, whenever, but on Velvet.

“Well, isn’t this interesting?” she asked, delight at play in every bit of her expression.

Velvet knew better than to ask the woman what the hell she was talking about. She bit her tongue instead and waited.

“He’ll be going home with …” She paused. “You.”

“Excuse me.” Velvet was sure she’d misheard. “I thought you just said that Nick would be coming back with me.”

“Oh, yes. That’s exactly what I said. He has Salvage crew written all through his cellular levels. So he’s yours—and, more important—not my problem.”

Mrs. Allerdice laughed thinly and long, her assessment apparently twofold. While she’d been divining Nick’s aptitude, she’d also been pegging Velvet as wanting to get rid of the guy. She cocked her head glibly at Velvet’s plight, enjoying her petty torments.

“I’m sure you’re aware of protocol in these matters.” She winked at Velvet before slapping a table tent atop the lectern and clopping away. Velvet gawped after her, stunned, before turning her eyes back to the little sign.

Sorry about your afterlife.
I’m on break.
Please take a pamphlet.

A
s the rest of her team rushed in to congratulate Nick—peppering him with premature praise and backslapping—Velvet stood aside to take another look at the boy. Had she underestimated him? If she had, it was clearly understandable, considering Nick’s less than stalwart first impression. But Allerdice had seen something in him. And had Velvet felt something, too? Some strange connection that forced her to reevaluate herself and those feelings she barely ever accessed?

Her shoulders sank from the weight of the endless day. Velvet couldn’t even remember the last time she’d slept. Serial killers, shadowquakes, banshees, and new boys, even seriously hot ones, were so freaking tiring. Thinking about Nick straggling along in her wake like a lost puppy for even another hour was exhausting, let alone days or weeks. But what choice did she have? Purgatory’s evilest intake worker
was right. Protocol insisted that Salvage-approved souls be assessed by qualified individuals. The honor of the who, what, and where fell to the Salvage mother.

And anyone who’s held a job knows the old adage, “Shit rolls downhill.” Velvet knew all too well who was at the bottom of that hill—her team—and things were about to get really brown.

“Well,” she sighed. “I guess you better come with us.”

Nick’s face lit up, and she noticed he still favored his lanced hand, despite the fact that it had long since healed itself.

“What does all this even mean?” he asked.

“It means you’re going to be annoying me for a little longer. Now shut up, quit cradling that hand like a Dumpster baby, and follow us. We’ve got an appointment to keep with the station agent.”

She didn’t wait for him to answer—or, more likely, ask more questions. She simply pivoted toward the stairs to Manny’s office in the distance. She could just see them, over the heads of all the new souls, a thin crooked line drawn around the curved walls of the atrium. While Nick had been undergoing his assessment, hundreds of people had added to the logjam, cramming together so tightly that child souls were being hoisted onto adult shoulders so that their memories wouldn’t be crushed out of them like toothpaste from a tube.