Suicide Kings, page 12
Chapter 11
“If you are yanking my chain, so help me I will fucking destroy you,” Amanda says, pulling away from Gabriela. Gabriela puts her hand lightly on her shoulder and Amanda’s energy goes way down.
“What did you see?” Gabriela says.
“There’s something—and I’ll admit I could be wrong here, but I don’t think I am—tethered to the body that I’m pretty sure is his soul.”
I describe the thread and the shimmer around the body. How the architecture of the house exists both here and on the other side. “It just keeps going. I assume all the way to the edge of this world. I don’t know how far that is, so I didn’t want to do anything else until I talked to you.”
“Why do you think he’s alive?” Amanda says.
“He’s not,” I say. “He’s just not dead. His soul is still anchored here. I touched the thread—”
“That was stupid,” Gabriela says.
“The hell else am I supposed to do with it? Anyway, when I did, I connected with him. He recognized me. Didn’t talk, but I got a lot of images, emotions. He is pissed. Not at me, but at whoever pulled this shit. I wouldn’t call it communication as such. Point is, he’s aware of what’s happened and he hasn’t moved on. Something’s got him stuck.”
I sit down in one of the chairs. Slowly. Everything hurts, my shoulder, all the bruises and cuts I got from the fight with Otto, my back after that blast blew me across the lawn. I keep this shit up, I’ll die sooner than I did the last time.
“So we can bring him back,” Amanda says.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think so. I doubt it’ll be easy. Mostly because of how long he’s been dead.”
I don’t tell Amanda that he’s terrified for her. A raw blast of fear that swept through me. Flashes of what his family’s done before, all that he’s lost over the years. After seeing that, I’m terrified for her, too.
“Is he in pain?” Amanda says.
“I didn’t get any sense of that. Trapped, though he doesn’t know exactly where or how. But—and this is why I think we have a chance of bringing him back—it’s somewhere physical. I got a sense of a place. Where, I don’t know. Could be next door, could be the other side of the moon. But if it’s a place, we can find it.”
“How stable do you think the connection is?” Gabriela says.
“I’ve got no way to tell. But if what hit me when I touched the thread is an indication of its power, I don’t think it’s going anywhere any time soon.”
Amanda stands up. “Okay. Let’s go see where this thing goes.”
“Unh uh,” Gabriela says. “You can barely stand. You need sleep. We all need sleep. And he needs more bandaging up.”
“But—”
“You can’t do anything if you can’t think straight,” Gabriela says.
“First, though, we need to get the body into a freezer,” I say.
“I took care of it,” Amanda says. “I stopped time in the room. I didn’t know I could do it until I wanted to do it.”
“You what?”
“Yeah, turns out I can stop time,” she says. Nervous laugh, bordering on hysterical. “Maybe only on the estate. I don’t really know. But I can’t seem to wind it backward.”
“Did this kind of thing happen to you when you became Mictlantecuhtli?” Gabriela says.
“Finding out I could do something only when I needed to do it? Yeah. Gets old after a while.”
“That’s what this feels like,” Amanda says. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Nothing for right now,” Gabriela says. “Go to bed. The shit’s not really hitting the fan for another day at least. We all get sleep, figure out a game plan, go from there. And the two of you can compare notes.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I need sleep,” Amanda says. “I can’t. I can’t think.”
“Before you pass out, you mind opening a hole back into my bedroom so I can do the same?” I say. “The two of you have a lot of work to do. No point in me getting in your way.”
Both of them stare at me like I’ve just started talking in ancient Nahuatl, which actually happens from time to time.
“I’ll talk to him,” Gabriela says to Amanda. “We’ll see you in the morning.” Amanda nods and leaves the two of us alone.
“I’d really rather not have to drive all the way to Venice,” I say.
“The hell is your problem?”
“My problem? My problem is that I’m doing what I said I was doing. Not getting involved.”
“She needs help.”
“And I’ve helped out plenty already,” I say.
“So you’re just gonna walk away from this? Right now, we’re the only two people on the fucking planet in a position to help her, and you just want to hang her out to dry?”
“No,” I say. “I’m doing exactly the opposite. In case you haven’t been paying attention over the last several years, whenever I get involved in something, the Shit Fairy comes for a prolonged visit. I like Amanda. I want to help Amanda. The best thing I can do to help Amanda is not be here.”
“How fucking arrogant can you be?”
“Excuse me?”
“None of this is about you,” Gabriela says.
“You think I’m arrogant because I’m aware of how toxic I am for her to be around?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do. Being a god’s rubbed off on you. You think you’re the most important person in the room. All fucking high and mighty. Hell, you won’t even answer my calls.”
“Is that what this is about?”
“It was an example,” she says, but she looks away when she says it. “What makes you think you being here is worse than leaving?”
“I don’t even know who the fuck I am,” I say. “I’m not sure I can trust myself, what makes you think you can?” Confusion crawls onto Gabriela’s face and camps out there.
“What?” she says.
“You haven’t figured this out, yet? Why I haven’t been talking to you? You’re the one got me in this mess and it never occurred to you. Here’s a hint. What am I? Huh? Tell me.”
“I—”
“You don’t know, either. I’m a slice of soul carved off a god who used to be a man and dumped into a secondhand body, all to take out an asshole djinn. That’s it. That’s the only reason I exist.”
“That’s not true,” she says.
“Horseshit. If I wasn’t the only one who could put him down, you wouldn’t have fucking kidnapped me, taken me away from everything I was meant to be, meant to do, the souls that are mine to care for, and leave me stranded here in this chunk of walking meat. Do you even understand what you’ve done to me? Do you?”
“Okay,” she says, with an eerie sort of calm like she’s talking down a psycho off a ledge. Her hands are up, palms out. “Okay.”
That’s when I realize that I’m looming over her, that I’ve been screaming at her. That my voice changed as I screamed. I know my eyes have gone black. I see a crack in the floor where I’m standing.
She looks a little nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look that way. She’s probably right to be. I sit back down, breathing so fast I’m almost hyperventilating.
“Hey, you’re all right,” she says. “Take a deep breath. In, hold it, then out. Good. Are you feeling okay?”
“Just tired,” I say. “It’s been a long day.” I try to will my eyes back to normal, but it’s not working.
“You’re my friend,” she says.
“What?”
“You asked me what you are,” Gabriela says. “You’re my friend.”
“You sure about that?”
* * *
—
I take a bedroom between Gabriela’s and Amanda’s. It’s very posh. Four-poster bed, its own bathroom, walk-in closet, the works. I doubt I’ll be awake long enough to appreciate it.
My shoulder is throbbing. I find more cuts. Gabriela offers to help me, but doesn’t push when I tell her I don’t want to be around her right now.
My right arm is in no shape to handle anything delicate, like stitches. Huh. I wonder. I use the blood spell to clot the cuts and it works. That’s handy. I’m still probably going to have to get them looked at, but for now not bleeding is good enough.
I debate taking more Adderall. I’m probably still out there waiting to ambush me in my dreams. Ultimately, I don’t bother. I’m not sure it would keep me awake at this point.
I wanted to hurt Gabriela. Something I haven’t wanted to do since we first met, and even that was reluctantly; she thought I was somebody else and tried to kill me, so, of course, I reciprocated. We ended up calling it a draw and celebrated our newfound camaraderie and bruises with shots of tequila until a bunch of Russians showed up and things really went to shit.
But tonight, I wanted to kill her. Didn’t I? It feels vague. Like the anger is a distant thing. Any other time I can’t imagine wanting to hurt her. But I’m not entirely me, am I?
She’s sort of right about Mictlantecuhtli rubbing off on me. Only it feels like it’s the other way around, like I’m a rock scratching against a boulder. I don’t have his power, or I do, just a tiny piece of it.
The problem is the memories. Thousands of years of memories washing in like a storm surge. How many years of Eric Carter’s memories are there? How much of Eric Carter is really in here? Is it enough to say that’s who I am and leave it at that? Is it that easy?
I’m too tired to answer existential questions. If I dream and I throw myself down a hole again, I don’t remember it.
* * *
—
I wake feeling just as raw as I did earlier, but at least I got some sleep. My arm’s feeling better, relatively speaking, so that’s a plus. Or at least it’s more mobile than it was last night. When I go to get dressed I find my clothes are washed, ironed, and pressed, and I wonder if this is something the house did on its own or something Amanda had the house do.
I had a room much like this pocket universe at the ghost version of the torn-down Ambassador Hotel. Every time I’d leave and come back there’d be clean laundry hung up in the closets. Man, I miss that place.
I get dressed and stand at the threshold. I need to decide what I’m going to do before I walk through that door. I know that this isn’t the choice my dreams are demanding, but it feels almost as important.
Amanda needs help. Attila made a good point when he asked me to attend the conclave. She needs allies. Gabriela’s a good one to have.
I’m not convinced that I am.
Fuck it. Let’s do this. Worst case, I kill all her family and go home.
I step out of my room and the house has shifted again. I’m still between Amanda’s and Gabriela’s rooms, but now there’s a small kitchen with a dinette set at the end of the hall. Both of them are eating. Neither of them looks particularly happy.
“Not sure if it was you or the house that did it, but thanks for the dry cleaning.” I grab a mug off the counter and pour a cup of coffee.
“Yeah, no problem,” Amanda says. “Um. About last night. Thanks for taking on Otto. I really appreciate it. It was a lot, I know. If you want to leave, it’s okay. I understand.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say. “Except to get some other clothes to wear, run a couple errands. The conclave starts tonight? Or tomorrow night? It lasts until Sunday, right?” Gabriela’s looking at me like I’m a bug under a microscope. Probably wondering when I’m going to snap and go all death god on her again.
“Uh, tomorrow,” Amanda says, surprised. “Yeah, it ends Sunday. Most business happens on Saturday, but with Dad . . . how he is, I don’t know how it will go. They’ll start to show up tomorrow afternoon. We have cocktails and pretend to catch up with each other like we care, followed by an informal dinner outside. There’s a formal dinner Saturday night. Do you have a tuxedo?”
Jesus, a tuxedo? What is wrong with these people? “I can get one,” I say.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll have Bigsby get you new clothes. Just let him know what you need.”
“Handy. So what’s our play here?”
“Hang on,” Gabriela says. “What happened?” The confusion on Amanda’s face tells me Gabriela didn’t mention any of last night to her.
“Gabriela and I had a heated discussion last night,” I say to Amanda. “On what my plans were. I wasn’t expecting to stick around. Now I am.”
“Thank you,” she says.
“You’re welcome,” I say. To Gabriela, “Don’t ask.” I’m not sure I could give her an honest answer.
“I won’t.”
“What are we tackling first?”
“My dad,” Amanda says.
“The family,” says Gabriela at the same time.
“How about I deal with your dad,” I say. “So far I’m the only one who can see what’s happened and I don’t know what either of you could do to help me just yet.”
“The family then,” Gabriela says. “Christ. Where do we start?”
“Who gains the most from Attila dying?” I say.
“Me,” Amanda says. “I’m the head of the family now. I can’t believe that. And there’s so much . . . new in my head. I don’t know what to look at first. You said this happened to you when you went to Mictlan. How do I deal with this?”
“Something like it, yeah,” I say. “Still happens. Not as much anymore. Something that helped was to ignore as much as I could. If I needed to know something, I just knew it. Like it’s all off-stage waiting to jump in when I need it.”
“But it’s so loud,” she says. She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. “I just want to scream.”
“I’d recommend not doing that while there’s anything breakable nearby for a little while. I did that the first day. Turned half of Chicunamictlan into a crater.”
“I—Oh, god. That might actually happen. I stopped time. How did I even do that? What else can I do? It’s, ugh. I need it to stop.”
I kneel in front of her, take her hands in mine. “Breathe,” I say. “Slowly. Big inhale, count to four, exhale. Good. Does anything physically hurt?”
“No. Sort of. I have a headache.”
“Bad?”
“Just noticeable.”
“Okay, good. It means you’re probably not going to explode. Think back to when your magic first manifested. Everyone’s a little overwhelmed when that happens. This is the same thing, only bigger. You have the power. The power does not have you. Say it.”
“I have the power,” she says. “The power doesn’t have me.”
“Good. Say it again.” We do a couple rounds of this and her breathing eases.
“How do you feel?”
“Clearer.”
“Whenever this happens, remember you control it. Not the other way around.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem,” I say. “Been there. What do we know about who’s coming?”
“I think we can put everyone into two broad categories,” Gabriela says. “Those who will try to kill Amanda and those who will try to manipulate her.”
“That Venn Diagram’s a circle,” I say.
“Yeah, but which one each of them tries first is going to tell us a lot. It might help us narrow down who did this to Attila.”
“Otto and Hans will try to kill me,” Amanda says. “They’re blunt instruments. They won’t care what it would do to the family or anyone else. I don’t think they have anything to do with what happened to my dad. They’re not smart enough. And Helga and my dad were close. Close enough that I think she wouldn’t try to do something like this. She could pull it off, but it’s not her style. She’s a manipulator.”
“I don’t think we should discount her just yet,” I say. “Hans’s no talent kid is coming, too, right? The one they were hoping to make you marry.”
“Tobias, yeah.”
“Attila dies,” I say, “and Amanda gets the inheritance. So whoever did it either wasn’t part of the family, which I seriously doubt, or they’re dead now, because the curse would have killed them. And I seriously doubt that too. Something’s not adding up here.”
“Jonathan?” Gabriela says.
“The lawyer? Enh. Attila told me something about him not being competent at anything other than law. It’s possible, but it doesn’t feel like it’s him.”
I’m missing something about what happened to Attila and how Amanda got the inheritance. It comes together like solving a Rubik’s Cube and I think I understand at least some of how this happened.
“How does this sound?” I say. “Attila’s soul gets pulled out of his body. His body dies, the inheritance triggers. But since his soul is still tethered here, the curse doesn’t register it as death, and doesn’t kill whoever did it.”
“It sounds terrifying,” Amanda says. “The fact that direct murder isn’t an option is the only thing that’s kept this family alive. If that’s possible—”
“Then Otto and Hans definitely didn’t do it,” Gabriela says, steering Amanda away from thinking too hard about the ramifications.
“But it makes Helga a lot more likely,” I say.
“How?” Amanda says. “If I die, the inheritance goes to Liam as next in line. How does that benefit her?” Then it hits her. “Then she tries to manipulate me into marrying Tobias. He’s my first cousin. I hate this family so much.”
“If she manages it, she gets a direct line to you,” Gabriela says. “Okay, yeah. Let’s keep her on the list for now.”
I sit down at the table. Give me something to beat up, kill, banish, call bad names. But this shit? Not my forte.
“You all right?” Gabriela says. “Are you wincing at the coffee or the fucked-up shoulder?”
“Coffee’s fine. I’m a mess. But that’s nothing new. What about the kid himself? Does he have much control over his situation?”
