Called by Midnight, page 13
Samael ignored the question, his demeanor brusque. “I have information that I know you’ll want to hear, brother.”
Ahriman’s face wore a closed expression. “I know any information from you will come at a hefty price. But whether that price is worth paying remains to be seen. What is it you want in exchange?”
“It’s a small thing. Something you won’t miss.” He turned, and for the first time, Hollie saw that his eyes were disturbing, the pupils red like a deep merlot. Or blood. Just like blood. She trembled under the weight of his gaze, knowing that even Maz himself was afraid of the Angel of Death. “I want the human female.”
Dallon let out a strangled sound and shot to his feet. “That isn’t fair! We had a bargain, Ahriman and I! You can’t come along and scoop up the prize after the deal has been done!”
“I know all about your deal, imp,” Samael said dismissively. “And I’ll offer you the same one. Give me the human, and I’ll release you from your bonds.”
The imp froze. His eyes narrowed, his expression unconvinced. “I know better than to trust you. You don’t have a habit of keeping your word.”
Samael put a hand on his chest, a pained expression on his face. “Oh, Dallon. You wound me.” Hollie could tell it was all for show, that Samael gave no thought to the imp’s opinion of him. She didn’t blame Dallon for being suspicious.
Ahriman crossed his arms over his chest. “This is highly irregular,” he said stiffly, reminding Hollie of some aristocrat complaining to his servants about a late Sunday supper. “Would you care to tell me why you’ve barged in here intending to steal my newest acquisition?”
A thread of temper showed itself on Samael’s face. “The entire multiverse does not revolve around your blasted collection, brother. There are more important things to worry about.”
“Says the man who spends every waking hour sticking his metaphorical hand up the backside of a multitude of minions to use them like puppets carrying out your obscure machinations.” Ahriman’s brows lowered, his tone stiff. Hollie could tell that there was little love lost between the brothers. I suppose princes are just like everyone else when it comes to sibling rivalries.
“At least my actions have effects. You’re basically still playing with dolls.” Samael gave his brother a sharp smile to match his cutting barb.
“I knew there was a reason I no longer invited you over for dinner,” Ahriman said in a superior tone. “You’re too busy cutting into everyone else’s plates instead of minding your own. You always were too greedy for your own good.”
“How big is your collection, again?” Samael mused, stroking his chin. “I heard you recently added an addition to your palace complex that is larger than the original bunker you started with all those millennia ago. All for your collection of dollies.”
Hollie was beginning to feel as if she were watching a tennis match. The brothers lobbed insult after insult at one another, and as they talked, her anxiety ebbed. In the last several hours, she’d been tortured, kidnapped twice, and bitten by a vampire. At a certain point, one reaches their maximum level of terror, and the longer they undergo it, the less it affects them. She was becoming desensitized to the chaos.
Yawning again, she started to consider slinking off to find a place to catch a nap. It seemed something was holding up her rescue from Maz, but her confidence wasn’t wavering. He’d get her eventually. What’s the rush? she thought. It sounds like these guys can go on all night trading insults. I haven’t seen anything like this since middle school.
She sat down heavily on the dais step, stretching out her legs and letting out a sigh of relief. It felt like she’d been crouching for ages. Her gaze scanned the ruins around her, and she wondered idly at her chances of finding an old cushion to lie down on.
“Enough,” she heard Samael roar, the word echoing over the ruined city and to the foothills beyond. “Despite what you may think of me, dear brother,” he said, his once cool tone now overheated, “I came here in good faith with information to share.”
“‘Sharing’ implies that you’re giving it away,” Ahriman pointed out. “But you want something in exchange. Something for which demand has recently increased.”
“You’ll see why I can’t let you have her for your collection. This is more important than some underling’s girlfriend.”
“Then tell us,” Ahriman said, his expression haughty, as if he were just waiting for the next opportunity to roast his sibling. “What is this all-important information that you think is going to make me give up this bidding war that I’m engaging in purely to spite you?”
“Have you spoken to our sister lately?”
Samael’s question hung in the air between them. Hollie noticed the color draining out of the other prince’s face. Ahriman looked like he’d swallowed something that disagreed with him. “Our sister? Why would you ask me that?”
“This human female is tied up in something having to do with our sister. How long has it been since we’ve even heard rumblings of her presence, let alone caught a glimpse of her?” Samael’s expression was serious, his eyes glowing with intensity.
“I don’t believe it,” Ahriman said, his temper fully visible on his face. “This is just another one of your deceptions. One of your tricks.”
“I saw her with my own eyes, brother.” Samael’s voice was soft but filled with intensity. “She is back.”
“Prove it,” Ahriman snarled. “You saw her? Where? When were you in the same room with her?”
“I wasn’t,” Samael admitted, then pointed at Hollie. “But she was.”
Ahriman’s golden eyes swung in her direction. “What would our sister want with a human?” He shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.” He turned back to Samael. “You said you saw her with your own eyes. How could you accomplish that without being in the same room with her?”
“Let’s say I caught her reflection,” he replied, hurrying past the point. “The fact remains: The human is tangled up in our sister’s dealings, and for that reason, she cannot become a part of your little menagerie.”
“Nevroyel wants the human,” Ahriman said, his tone indicating that he was talking to himself as much as them. “She’s come out of hiding for the girl. And yet, here she is, alive and well.” His expression clouded. “Perhaps the human is a trap.”
Hollie’s eyes widened, but she held her tongue. What do they think, that someone’s stuck a bomb inside me?
“Nevroyel was never one to do her business out in the open,” Samael reminded his brother. “She prefers the shadows, speaking in whispers, remaining unseen.”
Nevroyel, Hollie thought after hearing the name a second time and turning it over in her mind. They couldn’t be talking about Nev, could they? Suddenly the pieces fell into place. The way the dark lady had sought out Ahriman, the way she’d called him brother. Despite what Maz thought he knew to be true, it seemed there was a Princess of Darkness after all.
“Perhaps this is all the more reason to place her in my collection. For safe keeping.” Ahriman floated the idea, but Samael was quick to shoot it down. The argument began anew between them, and Hollie rolled her eyes, exhausted by the back and forth.
She stood, stretching her limbs, then started down the steps. “Where do you think you’re going?” Dallon hissed at her, her face a mask of anxiety.
“It sounds like they’re going to be at it for a while,” she replied, not bothering to turn back. “I’m going to find a place to take a nap. Wake me up when they decide which one of them gets to keep me.” Or when Maz comes to rescue me at last.
She half expected Dallon to follow her, to bring her back to the dais and the interminable argument, but he let her go, and soon she was walking through a dilapidated archway and into a small stone chamber that was missing its roof.
“It seems comfortable resting places are in short supply,” Windy said from a few paces behind her. “Perhaps we could find some soft grasses on the outskirts, enough to make a passable bed for you to sleep.”
She smiled at the bot, appreciating his concern. “I’ll just prop myself up against a wall if I have to. I doubt wherever the prince who wins me decides to take me will be any more comfortable than this dump.”
There was a crumbled wall with a hole large enough to walk through in the far wall. She stepped through, then went around the corner, hoping for a space that was clear of debris. Hollie had almost made it through another doorway when a faint blue glow floated out of the wall beside her.
“Hey, kiddo,” a gruff voice said close to her ear.
Hollie’s heart stopped. She froze, turning to take in the floating image of a familiar figure who was smiling at her. “Dad?”
Chapter Nineteen
I MUST BE MORE EXHAUSTED than I thought. Hollie blinked several times, but the blue glowing figure remained. “That’s right,” her father said, floating closer. “It’s so good to see you. It’s been too long.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, and Hollie’s knees went week. Resting her back against a wall, she slid down it, landing on her bottom and still staring up at the phantom figure. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question, young lady. It seems like you’ve taken up with a tough crowd since I saw you last.” He jerked his spectral thumb back in the direction of the dais. “Who are those guys? And why are they fighting over my little girl?”
“It’s a long story,” she admitted. “Sure you have time to hear it?”
“I always have time for you,” he said simply. The glowing blue image crossed its legs and floated an inch from the floor in front of her. “Gosh, I sure have missed you, kiddo.”
“I’ve missed you too, Dad,” she told him, her voice breaking. Before she knew it, she was sobbing. She leaned forward, hoping to fall into her father’s arms, but instead she fell through him, landing hard against the dusty stone floor.
She rolled over and looked up at him. Her father’s face was filled with concern. He reached down to wipe at her tears, but his fingers seemed to go through her. She couldn’t feel his touch, which made her sob all the harder.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” her father said softly. “Please, don’t cry.”
It took some time for her tears to taper off, but Hollie finally caught her breath. Pulling herself back into a sitting position, she shook her head in confusion. “How is this happening? You’re...”
Dead. She didn’t want to say the word, didn’t want to give voice to one of the most terrible truths of her life. But the fact remained, her father was dead and buried. There was no way he could be here, as alive as he had been minus the corporeal form.
“It is a strange property of this realm.” It was Windy who spoke, filling her in. “It is a phenomenon known only to Nyxx, the reconstitution of deceased persons who’d been a part of the visitor’s life. Gresh has theorized that it has something to do with the residual energy that is discharged when a person dies. The atmosphere of this realm somehow channels that energy to animate the deceased’s shade.”
Hollie was so shocked by the appearance of her dead father that she wasn’t comprehending what Windy was telling her. “Are you saying this realm is some sort of afterlife? Souls go here when they die?” Her throat tightened as she looked around the Land of Night and its bleak landscape. “You’re telling me my father is in hell?”
“No, indeed. Philosophers and scientists have not yet agreed on the reality of an ‘afterlife,’ as you call it, but what they can agree on is that Nyxx is more of a ghost world, to borrow from primitive superstitions.” Windy gestured toward the glowing blue version of her father that was currently looking at the bot with amusement.
“Is it some kind of toy?” he asked her, cocking his head. “It’s pretty advanced, isn’t it? Does it run on double D batteries?”
Windy made a series of offended beeps. “A toy?”
Hollie hid her smile and patted the bot on the shoulder affectionately. “He’s not a toy, Dad. He’s a sophisticated thinking machine. A senior floor manager, in fact, in a prestigious scientific workshop.”
Pink lights cascaded in Windy’s dome, and Hollie knew he was pleased. Her father looked puzzled for a moment, but his affability soon returned. “Frank Townson,” he told Windy by way of introduction. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“Windy Buckets,” the bot replied. “As I was saying, this world isn’t so much like a version of Earth’s heaven or hell, or any other realm’s mythological afterlife. Not an entirely understood condition of this planet allows for it to broadcast the memories of a person who has been lost from a visitor’s brain, creating this sort of spectral version of the deceased. It’s merely a projection, insubstantial, and short-lived.”
Her chest felt tight. “How short-lived?” Although it felt strange to see her father again knowing that he was dead, she wasn’t eager to lose him again.
“When you depart, so will the shade,” the bot replied simply. “There is a reason so few choose to visit Nyxx. For one, the deceased person that appears to ‘haunt’ you might not be one that you’d like to see. You don’t get to pick and choose. Not to mention the whole idea of being haunted isn’t something that most people look forward to.”
She couldn’t help but think he was leaving out the worst reason folks avoided the realm. You might be reunited with the person you miss most, but what happens when it’s time to go? You’d essentially be killing them again, making it virtually impossible to want to say goodbye.
Hollie pushed that thought from her mind, knowing that she had no say in when she’d leave, just as she hadn’t had a say in her arrival here. She turned to her father, forcing herself to smile through the pain. “It sure is good to see you again, Dad.”
“You can say that again,” he replied with his customary goofy smile that made her heart ache. “How have you been, kiddo? Keeping busy at the office?”
She didn’t have the heart to tell him about their declining customer base, or her desire to close up shop altogether. “The business is going well. Everything is pretty much the same as you left it.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” he said, surprising her.
“What do you mean, Dad? I thought you’re want me to carry on.”
“If that’s what makes you happy,” he said. “But the business is yours now. It’s all yours. You should change whatever you want. You don’t need to keep things preserved like a museum to an old man who cared more about fishing than premiums.”
The way he looked at her penetrated her feeble defenses, and the tears started to come again, as much as she didn’t want to turn their exchange into a pity party. “It’s been hard, going on without you,” she admitted. “I miss you so much, and walking around the office, or at home, I feel like any minute you’re going to come around the corner and make some lame joke and everything will be like it was. Instead, everything seems so empty.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, moving forward to embrace her but instead floating right through her. With a confused expression, he came back to stand beside her. “I didn’t want to leave you, you know.”
“I know,” she said with a watery sniff. “I just miss you.”
“Well, I’m here now,” he said, his tone soft but jovial. “Let’s catch up while we have a chance. Did the Packers make it to the playoffs this year?”
“Asking the most important questions first, eh?” she said, laughing. Her father started to chuckle, and soon they were both rolling around, suffering under an uncontrollable bout of the giggles.
When the laughter subsided, Frank asked how the town was doing. “Is Wautoma any different without me?” he asked jokingly.
Hollie’s smile slipped. “It’s lonelier,” she said honestly, feeling the tears return to her eyes. She felt like she’d cried enough to fill the lake they’d fish in each year at his funeral, but she was realizing now that grief doesn’t have an expiration date. “To be honest, I’ve been thinking about pulling up stakes and moving on. Maybe to Chicago. Or Milwaukee.”
“The big city, eh?” he replied in a hushed tone. “You should do it.”
“I’m sorry,” she said with a watery smile. “I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just hard to stick around the same old places and not be haunted by your ghost.”
“Aren’t we pesky ghosts annoying? You think you get rid of us by heading off to an exotic locale”—her father threw out his arms to indicate the nighttime world around them—“and yet, here I am, still haunting you.”
“That isn’t what I meant,” Hollie started, afraid she’d offended her father.
“I know it isn’t, honey. I don’t want to be the thing that’s haunting you, but even more, I never wanted to hold you back from living your life. You used to talk about going away to college, about moving away, and I realize now that I discouraged it, even without saying anything. I was being selfish, wanting to keep you around for as long as I could. That isn’t what a parent should do. A parent should want his child to live her best life, with or without him.”
“Dad, I love you,” she said in a weepy voice. “And I wouldn’t trade any of the time we had together for anything.”
“Not even a shiny metal robot?” he asked, gesturing to Windy, who was holding out a handkerchief that he must have pulled out of somewhere.
Hollie laughed. “I don’t know. Mister Buckets here sure comes in handy.” Her father joined her this time when she laughed. Some of the pain she felt at seeing her father again was starting to fade, replaced by the sheer joy of being around him.
There was a rumble from the dais and the sound of raised voices, but Hollie ignored them. She’d fought hard for the little bit of peace she was experiencing here with her father, and she wasn’t going to give it up just because two overgrown boys couldn’t agree on who got to keep the toy they both wanted.
They talked about Wautoma, about their clients and neighbors. About the annual pancake breakfast at the Elk’s Lodge, whether Hollie had taken part in the usual summer rummage sale this year, and if the old drive-in theater on Route 12 had finally shut its doors or not.
