Velveteen (18 page)

The boy stiffened. “So, wait a minute. What do you mean you don’t know where we go when we … dim? You have proof there’s a heaven, right?”

“He’s gonna blow!” Logan shouted, holding his hands over his head to avoid the imaginary shrapnel.

“Shut up, Logan!” Luisa shook her fist at her brother, now up on his knees and examining Nick’s every movement for signs that he’d break down or run screaming for the hall, or any of the other reactions that people have when they find out that their questions about death, when it’s finally upon them, are still answered with more questions. Nick’s eyes were already wild with terror.

“The universe is a strange place, Nick.” Manny whispered in her most soothing tone. She pressed him against the seat back by his shoulder. “Now settle down and listen closely; we’re not going over this again.”

He nodded and chewed at his lips.

“Like I was saying, the universe is much stranger than we knew when we were alive. We don’t even really know if this is
the
purgatory that religious scholars spoke of in the Bible and other texts. We just know this: We continue to exist. We know other things, of course, like that we retain our shapes, our memories, our desires.”

“Obviously.” Velvet stood up and flopped onto the davenport, wrestled with the pillow, fluffed the crap out of it, and finally shoved it behind her head.

Manny gave her the evil eye, only hers was a pretty one, of course. That Velvet was strapped with an afterlife full of comparisons to such a beauty came as absolutely no surprise to her.

“Are you serious with this, Manny?” Velvet fluttered her hand toward Nick, flustered and feeling the exhaustion weighing on her. It was funny how comfortable furniture
triggered the body’s sleep response. “We have more important things to discuss than how the world works. I can give him the rundown later. What about the banshee?”

“The banshee is in a cell downstairs, if I’m not mistaken. You did say the flies took him, didn’t you?”

Velvet crossed her arms against her chest and breathed a haughty, “Yes!”

“Then, we have a moment to be polite and offer a fellow soul the common decency of an explanation for all of this.” She waved her arms about, really amping up in her condescension. “Don’t you think?”

Velvet sighed and turned her face toward the back of the couch.

What is it about this guy that’s got me so messed up?
she wondered. And then it came to her. It was that he was still around. He was, like Mrs. Allerdice had said, her problem. She shot the back of his head a look.
It’s not like he’s all that cute
.

Only he was, and she knew it, and just as she was thinking that, she heard him whisper to the others, “Is Velvet always such a bitch?”

On any other day, she would have gone off like fireworks on the Fourth of July, but today, with Manny breathing down her neck and so much crap going on with the shadowquakes, the revolutionaries, and Bonesaw’s latest victim, she figured it would be best to take the high road and ignore his petty comment.

Luisa didn’t share her resolve. “It comes and goes.”

Logan exploded into laughter.

Velvet seethed. Now they were all ganging up on her. She
shot up from the couch. “I’m only trying to keep us focused on the job at hand. If you all want to make jokes and chitchat, well, then I guess we’ll just wait around for the next shadowquake to hit. Doesn’t matter to me.”

She stomped off toward the French doors that led to the station agent’s balcony. Someone was following. Velvet didn’t need to turn around to recognize that the soft, whispery footsteps were Manny’s.

“It’s not like you to be so selfish,” the woman whispered. “I realize the stress you’re under.”

If only
, Velvet thought. Manny didn’t know the half of it. Try adding a clandestine haunting to the mix.

“I’m sorry, but—” Velvet started.

Manny cut her off. “My primary concern and that of the council is the increasing severity of the shadowquakes. We lost twelve buildings in the Latin Quarter alone, and seven in the Slavic Sector, and you know as well as I that it will be years before we’re able to Salvage enough material from the other side to rebuild, let alone the soul power required.”

“Yeah, that’s gonna be—”

“The cracks are spreading beyond the station,” she cut in, casting a dark gaze on Velvet. “Far beyond.”

Velvet was planning on asking more, but quickly shut her mouth. She hoped that the look on the station agent’s face wasn’t suspicion.

Had someone seen her slip into the hidden passage next to the Paper Aviary? Was she to be accused of haunting? Were they right now building a case against her?

Manny sighed. “We’re certain this is how the souls are escaping. Take the example of this banshee. Banshees aren’t
bred in purgatory. It takes multiple hauntings to produce such a powerful force. And a dark intent.” She turned up her nose.

Velvet nodded absently. She wondered if her own intentions were honorable enough to keep her from going banshee. Maybe she was deluded. She’d certainly been accused of worse psychological issues.

But was it possible that she was villainous simply because she was working toward building up the nerve to climb into her killer’s body and help him commit a little suicide? It seemed like a win-win to Velvet.

A goddamn public service.

She decided to put it out of her mind and follow Manny back into her parlor.

“Of course.” Manny raised her finger. “We have word that others, nonrevolutionaries, are escaping clandestinely. We suspect a rise in generic hauntings.”

Velvet tried to stifle a gasp.

The station agent furrowed a perfectly arched brow. “Oh. Have you heard word of these? Has it become public knowledge?”

Velvet stumbled for the words, wishing she’d never pushed the issue of the shadowquakes and the banshee at all. Rather, she should have let Manny ramble on about the goings-on of purgatory, and Velvet could simply have taken a nap on the comfortable davenport. She could have pressed her cheek into the soft nubby fabric and pretended that her obligations in the daylight weren’t jeopardizing her life there in the City of the Dead.

Their discussion seemed more and more like a trap with
every word the station agent uttered. Velvet opted for brevity.

And lies, of course.

“It’s just that I’m horrified that more people would be doing that kind of thing, particularly with all the shadowquakes. Surely they must know”—as she did—“that even minor hauntings can cause tremblers and shadow clouds.”

“There is no such thing as a minor haunting!” Manny’s teeth were clenched.

“No. No. Of course not. I only meant that the threat of either of those things should be enough to prevent souls from—”

The woman silenced Velvet with a terse wave of her hand. “I know what you meant. But what you need to know, and it would be helpful if you’d spread around this knowledge among your peers, is that the hauntings are creating their own cracks.”

Velvet noticed her knees beginning to shake, and stilled them. Expressions of fear, even one so slight, disgusted her. Surely what Manny was suggesting was just a theory. A ridiculous one at that. Velvet had searched for weeks before discovering the alley crack, and even that had been an accident. She’d merely been looking for a shortcut and had hit a dead end, so to speak.

The idea that she could be causing damage, too, incensed her. She felt the anger coiling around her insides, constricting. Damage came from intent, from dark magic. Velvet’s motives were pure; her actions were just.

Luisa stood up. “You mean here … in the station?”

“No.” Manny cast her gaze toward the darkened window. “They’ve been found outside in the district.”

“Jesus!” Velvet shouted, throwing up her hands. “Don’t we have any spackle?”

The station agent ignored her. “We think this activity may be related to the departure.”

“The revolutionaries?” Velvet was shocked and relieved at the same time. If the revolutionaries were behind the increase in hauntings and thus the shadowquakes, then her work with Bonesaw might not be under scrutiny.

She could only hope.

She’d also prayed that her hauntings had been controlled and quick enough to avoid any repercussions. Velvet was a professional, after all. She could handle it.

Even as she thought the words, she knew she sounded like an addict. Images of drunks sitting around gyms in circles came to mind. Smoke curling up from their cigarettes. Stale doughnuts littering coffee-ring-stained card tables. Addicts.

God, what am I doing?

“Yes. Now, keep that part to yourself, Velvet. We can’t have a panic on our hands, can we?”

“No. Absolutely not.” She glanced over to the sitting area. Luisa and Logan were punching each other over the expanse of Nick’s knees, and he watched their volleys with a pleasant smile, enjoying himself. She looked away. “We’ll finish briefing Nick on purgatory on the way back to the Salvage dorm.”

“Very good,” Manny said, cutting off any further word on the matter. “Good talk as well. Do check on our prisoner
in the Cellar before you leave, won’t you?” Her face changed from pleasant to vicious in a second. “And I do mean for you to interrogate it … ruthlessly.”

A shudder rolled through Velvet.

Not of fear. Of something else entirely.

The Cellar was no fun at all for normal people. In fact, it was pretty horrific, what with all the trapped souls moping about screaming, covered in flies and hatching maggots. But despite her desperate need to get away and relax, the Cellar’s dank horrors called to her.

Being murdered changes a girl. It can turn the peppiest cheerleader into a bitter hissing crone and an already morose lover of art films and blue-black hair dye and combat boots into a violence junkie.

Interrogations always took her mind off the maelstrom of crap she dealt with. It was the action, the hands-on quality of the work. It was a distraction, and Velvet needed those even more than usual, now with the added problem of Bonesaw’s new victim weighing heavily on her shoulders. Madame Despot had been an awesome diversion, as had Nick to no small extent, if she were to be honest. But neither could occupy her mind like a nice brutal questioning.

“Oh, look at that face,” Manny said, misreading her—a rare mistake on the station agent’s part. “It’s not that bad. Used to do that job all the time back when I was body thievin’. It felt like sort of an honor. There’s the key.”

There was that, too.

Velvet glanced at the kidney-shaped writing desk in the corner, with its mirrored drawers and elegant cushioned
chair. She thought it must be French. There are plenty of antiques in purgatory. Anything that people lose interest in becomes marked for Salvage. If the council could only work out electricity, the place would be loaded with VCRs, she was certain.

“Now run on and get it, and I’ll say goodbye to your team.”

“You know I have this, right?” Velvet promised.

“I hope so. For all our sakes.”

Velvet jogged for the desk and pulled the glass knob of the top drawer gently. Inside, skeleton keys cut in various profiles and hues were strung on ribbon, grosgrain in Easter colors and velvets in jewel tones, but what dazzled her most were the baubles that hung from the key loops—charms and glass beads, tiny skulls carved from human bone, sometimes pearls. She dug through them until she found the right combination of charms and ribbon.

The key was gray and mottled, oxidized from both age and the trip to the City of the Dead; its looped end circled a strip of black velvet, a dangle of obsidian beads as dark as night, and a shiny silver skull, eyes sunken and seeking, yet more alive than anything else around her. Velvet slipped the ribbon over her head and straightened the key against the front of her shirt. Just as she was about to slide the drawer shut, a glint of light caught on something shiny in the very back. She reached in and pulled out the tack that secured a key she’d never seen before to the back wall of the drawer. It was as light as air and lacquered a deep crimson. The scrollwork at its pinch point reminded her of Victorian lace.

“Is this one new?” she asked, lifting it up for Manny.

The station agent stormed across the room, her gown cutting grooves into the thin layer of dust on the floor. Snatching the key from Velvet’s hand, Manny glared at the tiny artifact for a second and then turned her fury on Velvet.

“Don’t be nosy, Velvet. It doesn’t suit you.”

“But I …,” she began.

Manny leaned in close, her jaw as tense as knuckles in a fist, her eyes blazing. “You have a job to do, girl. I suggest you do it.”

With that, the woman turned and slipped away, never once looking up from the little red key.

Damn
, Velvet thought. She’d never seen Manny lose her temper like that before. Even through some of their toughest cases, the station agent always managed to present herself as calm and direct. That key must open more than a few tumblers and gears.

A whole lot more.

A
s Velvet closed the door to Manny’s office, she noticed Nick staring at the atrium’s glass ceiling. She joined him where he stood at the high railing. Below them, the crowd had thinned a bit and the bustle mimicked the purposeful machinations of an ant colony, lines ticking along.

She glanced skyward. Nick was watching the traveling souls, their trailing arcs of light like comets, portents, reminders that Velvet, Nick, and the rest were trapped in a world of remainders. They were ghosts that didn’t really fit into either heaven or hell, if those were even actual places.

“Don’t look at them. It’ll only depress you, and you’re really doing very well,” Velvet said.

He smiled thinly, and Velvet imagined what it would be like to pat his hand, to grip it. Would he look at her then, as she had seen him do on the stairs?

So intently.

Did she want him to? She was beginning to think she didn’t know what she wanted, but one thing was for sure, purgatory was sorely lacking in the mood-stabilizing medication department.

Instead of patting Nick’s hand, or reacting with any of the many possibilities of comforting gestures, she crossed to a smaller door at the end of the landing, opened it, and beckoned the boy to follow her.