Lake Silence (The Others #6)(45)

“Do you really need this?”

“Gershwin Jones seems to think I do. He’s the one who asked if I knew any of the special girls.”

A crackling silence. Finally Julian sighed. “Some Intuits have a private information exchange. There’s been talk that some of the special girls are exploring ways to reveal prophecy without their skin being cut.” He smiled grimly. “I know a man who knows a Wolf who knows a girl who might be able to answer a question by reading cards.”

“If you could reach out,” Grimshaw said. “I trust Captain Hargreaves, but Swinn’s involvement raises the question of who else might be connected to this mess.”

“Work out exactly what you want to ask, and I’ll send the question. Might help if I can e-mail the photo of the tie clip too.”

“Thanks. I’ll be back.”

Grimshaw crossed the street and went inside the police station. Osgood was there, reading one of the books he’d purchased at Lettuce Reed.

“Why don’t you do a foot patrol?” Grimshaw said. He pulled out his wallet and handed Osgood a couple of bills. “Pick up some lunch for the two of us while you’re out and about.”

“Yes, sir.” Osgood hesitated. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take some alone time to consider a question.”





CHAPTER 25





Vicki


Firesday, Juin 16

We were trapped in a building. Lots of pipes overhead and exposed steel support beams. Something was in there with us, hunting us. We’d found Dominique Xavier lying in a pool of her own blood, her blank eyes staring at us as we turned and ran, searching for a way out, desperate to escape the monster.

Ineke, Paige, and I fled in the same direction. As I swung around a corner, I heard Paige scream. I turned back, but Ineke shouted, “Run, Vicki, run! Get help!”

Then came a sound that didn’t—couldn’t—come from one of us.

I ran through a maze of rooms—gray metal walls, metal ceiling, wood floor. My heart pounded; my lungs struggled to breathe. Had to get out; had to find help.

The next room had baskets of bright-colored toys filling a row of metal tables—little bits of plastic no bigger than a thumb in the shape of animals. In a world reduced to metallic gray, the colors were startling, unnerving, life-affirming. I picked up a basket—and heard a sound behind me.

I don’t know what it was. It was human-shaped but nothing human. The head rising from a soiled white shirt and thin-striped brown suit looked like papier-maché draped with dirty strips of gauze that settled around its shoulders. Instead of eyes, a pair of black goggles were somehow attached to the gauze—not tight, not like there were straps holding them on to provide some shape to the white lump. It was as if the goggles were its eyes. Several tie clips decorated the lapels of the suit.

I flung the plastic toys out of the basket, scattering them over the floor like wash water. The gauze-headed thing stumbled over the plastic bits, just a moment of unbalance. I dropped the empty basket, grabbed another that was full of the colored toys, and ran, pursued by the terrible thing that was dressed like a businessman but was deadly and monstrous.

I heard a ding, saw the freight elevator’s doors open. If I could get to the elevator, I could get to the ground floor, get out, get help. Paige was hurt—no one screamed that way if they weren’t hurt—and I didn’t know what had happened to Ineke.

I looked back—and it was there, right there, coming toward me. Did I have time to get in the elevator and press the button? Would the elevator doors close before that thing reached them—and me?

I threw the basket at it, but the basket turned into a pillow that bounced off its chest. I leaped into the elevator, slapped at the panel, and pushed the B button. Wrong button! There were bad things in the basement. There were always bad things in the basement. I pushed the button for the ground floor. The gauze-headed thing reached in as the elevator doors began to close. Reached in to grab me, to drag me back into something unspeakable. I flung myself to the side of the compartment, desperate to avoid that touch and . . .

I woke up on the floor next to my bed, my heart pounding and a sharp pain above my left eye, surrounded by a sense of ow and a trickle of something wet.

It took a couple of tries to get to my feet. I wobbled my way to the bathroom, turned on the light, and stared at the blood trickling from the area above the corner of my left eyebrow.

That was so not good, especially when I could see the swelling already starting. I rinsed a washcloth in cold water and applied it to the wound as I studied my face in the mirror. Did my eyes look weird? I didn’t feel like I’d banged my head against anything, but I’d obviously hit something on my way to the floor.

I lowered the washcloth and leaned closer to the mirror. The bleeding had stopped for the moment, revealing a couple of scrapes and a shallow gouge surrounded by swelling and shades of purple.

Wow.

As I dabbed antibiotic ointment on the scrape and covered it with a small bandage, it occurred to me that I would never feel the same when the hero in a story got hit in the face during a fight because faces really object to getting hit or hurt in any way and didn’t hold back when it came to letting you know about it.

Back in the bedroom, I turned on the light and wiped up the drops of blood that had fallen on the floor. The culprit—the square corner of the bedside table—didn’t have any obvious forensic evidence, but I wiped it off anyway.