Red Right Hand Page 14

  Daniel looked down, his hands shaking. He took a swaying step back.

  I reached toward him. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, still looking down. “I’m okay. I’m all right.” His voice buzzed tightly. He looked up at me. His eyes widened, and he jerked toward me. “Charlie, look out!”

  The words were barely out of his mouth when jagged, sharp pain cut from the back of my skull to my eyeballs in a black-red bolt.

  31

  DONNIE ZITO STOOD over me, an ugly look on his ugly face.

  He clutched a small, mean revolver in his hand like a captured rattlesnake. A thick droplet of blood—my blood—hung under the snub-nosed barrel from where he’d pistol-whipped me. It swayed like a pendulum, threatening to break and fall as the pistol swung between me and Daniel.

  “Somebody better tell me what the fuck is going on, and they better start telling me right fucking now,” Donnie said.

  The only answer he got was Brad Curson’s moan of pain.

  Donnie shook the gun, slinging the droplet free. My eyes lost it as it tumbled through space. He scowled. “Do I look like someone who is fucking around right now? You, chickie”—he pointed the gun at me—“answer the fucking question.”

  I looked at him. The dark, ugly thing curled inside me again, and I realized something with the cold, hard clarity of universal truth. Something so fundamental that it shifted reality around me and, I knew, would alter my every interaction great and small for the rest of my life.

  I realized that Donnie Zito could kill me, but he would never be able to hurt me again.

  The thought made magick hum from the center of my chest and run tingling down to the Mark incised in my palm.

  I got to my feet.

  “I made a wish, Donnie. I made a wish and turned your friend Tyler inside out.”

  He stepped back. “My friend Tyler?” Beefy eyebrows pulled together. His eyes darted inside their pockets of flesh, moving around the room. They came back to me narrowed and lit with suspicion. “Wait a fuggin minute. Is this Tyler Woods’s room?”

  I nodded. A sinister grin pulled at the corners of my lips. I felt a little buzzy, a little disconnected. I felt invulnerable.

  “I ain’t seen Tyler since…” He looked me up and down. Sweat rolled from his hairline, zigzagging down his jowls. “Wait a minute…” His eyes narrowed. “Does that mean you’re…”

  I nodded.

  He thrust the gun at me again. “You need to explain how the hell I got here. I was at a club in LA. How the fuck did I get in Tyler’s bedroom?” Fear stink wafted off him. I could smell it, metallic and sour, mixed with the salt of his sweat. It made my head swim. I breathed it in deeply, and magick flared inside me, brushing against the inside of my rib cage, sweeping upward and clearing my head.

  “I told you, Donnie. I made a wish.” I raised my hand, my right hand, and held it out to him. It pulsed, the symbol cut there glowing with malevolent red energy. I took a step toward him and smiled. “I’m magick.”

  “You’re a crazy bitch, is what you are.”

  “I am what you made me, Donnie.”

  The dark, ugly thing spoke in my mind. My hand fell to the Knife of Abraham, still tucked through my belt. Slowly pulling it out, I took a step toward him. The iron blade was dark, but the point still gleamed wicked sharp. I smiled. “I am the angel of vengeance come to collect what’s owed.”

  I felt Daniel move behind me. I didn’t turn, my eyes pinned on Donnie Zito.

  Daniel’s voice spoke. “Charlie, are you sure this is a good idea?”

  I ignored him and took another step. Donnie Zito moved back.

  “Careful, Donnie.” I pointed the knife at him. The magick inside me spilled out of my Mark, trickling and sparking off the iron blade. “You’re going to step in Tyler if you don’t watch out.” I giggled, and it cut through the room, sending chills up my own spine. Donnie flinched.

  He jerked and looked down, his booted foot squelching in the soaked carpet. He shouted and danced to get out of it. I turned, keeping him in my sight. The gun in his hand swung toward me, his face dark with anger and fear.

  “Bitch, I’m gonna gut-shoot you if you don’t get me out of here.”

  “You can’t hurt me, Donnie.”

  His lip curled into a snarl, pulling up as though he’d been fish-hooked. “I hurt you before. I hurt you real good.” His voice dropped into a mean, intimate tone. “I still think about it when I whack off.”

  Rage crept slowly up my spine, inching along, crawling its way into my brain.

  His smile was an ugly, twisted thing. “Oh yeah. I still think about our time together. I always wanted us to have another date.”

  “It wasn’t a date, you bastard.” The words hurt leaving my mouth.

  “Call it what you want, cupcake. I don’t care. It was good times.”

  I said nothing. The fuse burned.

  Daniel moved. I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Donnie Zito swung the gun around toward him. “Ah, ah, ah … settle down, boy.” Daniel stopped moving, stood glaring. Donnie kept the gun pointed at Daniel but looked at me. “Yes indeed, you were a good piece of ass. Tell you what—you drop that knife or I’m gonna shoot this asshole in the face.”

  Magick sparked like electricity along the metal around my neck, crackling under my chin. It felt as if someone shoved me forward as Ashtoreth’s gift kicked in. My mind jolted, and I was inside Donnie Zito’s mind, seeing what he desired most of all.

  My brain swirled around a dark image of me pinned to the bed, a gun held to my head by a naked, grunting Donnie Zito while Daniel lay bleeding on the floor.

  Everything swirled again, and I blinked, back in my own body. I looked up. Donnie Zito smiled at me. He raised the pistol in his hand and pointed it at Daniel. I felt his desire spike as his finger squeezed the trigger.

  I lunged, slashing with the Aqedah. The blade flashed in my hand, crimson magick trailing in a shower of sparks. It struck deep, slicing through the meat and bone of Donnie Zito’s arm as if it were made of cheese. The gun bucked as it fired, jerking his arm, the blade embedded in it, my hand clenched tight on the handle. Hot blood sprayed in a fine mist across my face, and someone screamed.

  32

  DONNIE ZITO STAGGERED, fat fingers clamped around his bleeding arm in a sorry tourniquet. He crumpled to the floor, landing on the pistol that had fallen from his useless hand. The wound still pumped blood, welling around the exposed bone. It didn’t even look real.

  Dread pinned me there, watching him lie on the floor. I didn’t want to turn. Didn’t want to see Daniel laying dead from a gunshot wound. I couldn’t take seeing that. Looking at a fat rapist bleeding out on the floor was bad enough. Seeing Daniel dead would destroy me.

  I slid the knife back through my belt.

  I didn’t know what else to do with it.

  My ears were shut, the world muffled in the aftermath of the gunshot. I could still hear screaming, but it was far, far away. I wanted to be far, far away. The torc around my neck tingled, and I opened my mouth to wish when something clamped on my arm.

  I turned and found Daniel standing there holding my arm.

  What?

  He said something. I saw his mouth move. He stared at me and said it again, slower, his lips moving wide as he enunciated. Concentrating, I made out: Car zoo smoky.

  What the hell?

  I shook my head. He said it again, leaning in, putting his mouth close to my ear. “Are you okay?”

  Am I okay?

  It took a long second for me to make sense of the question. I was okay, and I wasn’t anywhere close to being okay.

  Wait.

  Daniel wasn’t dead. Wasn’t shot.

  My eyes slid around him. Curson lay on the floor in a slowly widening stain of dark blood. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing.

  Donnie’s bullet had found a home.

  “Charlie?”

  “I’m all right,” I said.

  I’m not, but
what else can I say?

  Relief washed over his face.

  “Who’s screaming?”

  His mouth pulled into a hard line. Lifting his hand, he pointed. I turned. It took me a second to see him pulled in on himself, a spider dropped down a line of silk into an open flame. Bony knees hugged high to his chest, his hand scrabbling at his mouth, trying to stuff his screams back inside.

  I’d forgotten about Jimmy Deets.

  His eyes jumped, flinging themselves around the room from the inside-out man on the floor in front of him, to Donnie Zito’s bleeding bulk, to Brad Curson’s cooling corpse. They flicked up and locked with mine. The longer we stared at each other, the wider his eyes got, until I thought the skin would actually peel away, letting them roll out to bounce across the floor like those crazy balls that come from fifty-cent novelty machines.

  I shoved the thought out of my mind before it could take hold of the magick that still hummed and vibrated in my veins.

  Daniel touched my arm. “We should maybe get out of here.”

  It was hard to pull my eyes away from Jimmy’s—it felt like they were actually tethered to his—but I did it.

  I sighed, and it took me by surprise, pulling deep from the bottoms of my lungs and rushing clean out my nose. “You’re right. I’ll wish us away.”

  I had started thinking of where in the world we could go when Jimmy Deets stopped screaming and started moving.

  He rolled up on his knees and began crawling toward us. He was thin, so thin I could see every jerk and jut of his shoulder blades, spine, and ribs. In high school he had been in ROTC. He’d been fit and healthy. Looking at him now was like watching a hairless, starved rat crawl to you on its last bit of strength. He scurried around the mess of Tyler Woods and hit his knees at my feet.

  He looked up and I looked down. Splinter-nailed hands reached but didn’t touch me, hovering in front of my waist in supplication. Tears streamed from red-rimmed eyes, racing down hollow cheeks, skimming around the sores in their way.

  His mouth opened then closed, a white gummy substance in the corners of his lips. They opened again, and his voice came out choked. “Please…”

  The word shocked me.

  He swallowed, a tiny sob breaking at the end. “Please…” he repeated.

  “Please what?”

  “Please forgive me.”

  The dark, ugly thing inside me curled up, rubbing against the pity being born, blossoming in my heart.

  His head dropped, muffling his words, but this close I could still hear him. “I am so sorry. I know what we did to you was horrible. I … I can’t imagine what it was like.”

  “No. You can’t.”

  “I can’t stop remembering it.”

  The dark, ugly thing lashed my spine.

  “I bet you can’t.”

  His face flew up, horror painted there. “No! No! Not like that, never like that. God, I wish I could scrub it out of my head. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard. Crank, pills, drinking … but it never works. The memory is always there. I can’t clear it out of my brain.”

  Twist.

  I snarled. “Maybe you should have used a bullet.”

  His head fell. “I tried.” Scrawny shoulders shook with silent sobs. “I couldn’t do it.” His fist beat against his leg. “I was too weak. Just like that night … I couldn’t stand up to Tyler, and you…”

  He choked, an ugly noise shaking his ridged chest like a palsy. “I’m so sorry for what I did, for what I let happen.”

  Ragged fingertips moved to his temples, rubbing in circles. “It’s been horrible. I can’t hold a job. I haven’t ever been able to find someone to love. I live off disability and painting houses.” His fingers curled into fists. They beat on the sides of his head. “I barely sleep, I only eat enough to live, and I’m alone, so damn miserable no one wants to be around me.”

  The dark, ugly thing inside me came out in my voice.

  “I feel really sorry for you. I’m sure it’s been tough.” I fought the urge to spit on him.

  He broke, his spine folding until he huddled, compressed over his knees, rail-thin body shaking as he cried.

  Daniel touched my arm. I looked at him. He ran his fingers through his hair, not looking at me.

  “What?”

  It took him a second to speak. “Listen to me, Charlie. Hear me out. I’m not saying he deserves it, but maybe you should forgive him.”

  “Forgive him?”

  His hands went up between us, warding off the anger in my voice. “Not for his sake, but for yours. I’m watching you right now, and I can feel the anger, the hate … hell, the magick rolling off your skin. I don’t think it’s good for you.”

  I looked at Daniel’s face. The dark, ugly thing curled inside.

  Screw him. He doesn’t know what this animal did to me.

  The look on his face cut through that ugliness. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t pity for me. It wasn’t self-righteousness.

  It was a look of care.

  A look of love.

  It shone in his oh-so-green eyes. He loved me. He asked me to forgive Jimmy Deets because he could see what the anger and hatred were doing to me. The look in his eyes made things clear in a click.

  I could feel the hatred inside me, stoking the fire of the magick, eating away my resistance to its siren call. I could let it go. I could drop that burden.

  I wouldn’t absolve Jimmy Deets of his sin. I wouldn’t make it okay in any way. I would just let go of the anger I was carrying. The rage. The pain.

  I could be free.

  Not healed, but closer.

  “Stand up,” I said to Jimmy. He looked up at me, scrambled to his feet, and stood in front of me.

  I took a deep breath. My heart pounded in my chest. It throbbed at the edges of my vision, making the room seem darker.

  Jimmy looked at me expectantly, fear on his face.

  I couldn’t do this.

  Not after what he did.

  My head hurt. The room grew darker still.

  Daniel’s fingers found my shoulder. I could feel the strength and support in his soft, reassuring touch.

  “I…”

  The words stuck in my throat.

  I swallowed and tried again.

  “I forgive you.”

  The air in the room grew thick like syrup.

  A smile broke Jimmy’s face open, fresh tears streaming. “Thank you. Thank you. I don’t deserve it.”

  The room dimmed as though a lamp had been turned off. A shadow moved behind Jimmy. It swirled and coalesced then strode over, a naked sword in its red right hand.

  Daniel saw it too. “What the…?” was all he had a chance to say.

  The sword rose then fell like lightning, splitting Jimmy Deets from the crown of his head to the bottom of his crotch. He stood there, a shocked look on his face until his left knee buckled and both halves of him fell apart.

  “No one gets to harm my Acolyte.” The Man in Black stepped through the bloody mist, dropping the sword into the eldritch depths of his coat. “Not even ten years ago.”

  33

  MY HAND SLID across the mirror, wiping away condensation in a smear. The shower ran behind me, hot water rolling steam into the bathroom. My bathroom. I stared at my reflection.

  I look like shit.

  A fine layer of grime covered my face, turning my eyes into black holes. My eyes are dark—it’s part of my heritage—but now they looked painted, Cimmerian circles around both as though I’d been awake for days. The skin over the right one was discolored. It hurt to touch, a deep soreness under my fingers. It also felt mushy, swollen.

  It’s from when your face got slammed into the door.

  All the way back at the beginning of this night. God, that felt like weeks ago, but it had only been a few hours.

  Damn.

  I turned my head slowly. I didn’t want to, but I had to. I looked at my right ear.

  It wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. It looked a li
ttle weird, but I couldn’t really see it. Using a finger, I moved the hair curling over the top rim of cartilage. The curl of hair was stiff, hard with dried blood that cracked and crumbled under my touch. It stuck to the torn flesh like a hard-packed bandage. I took a deep breath and pulled it away.

  It didn’t hurt—I couldn’t feel it at all because of whatever Nyarlathotep had done earlier—but I still had to grab the sink to keep from falling down.

  My ear was ruined.

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled together my resolve and looked again.

  The ear looked perfectly normal on the bottom half. The lobe still curved delicately to my jaw, and it still bore the diamond earring given to me by my dad as a graduation present. But the top half … the top half was destroyed. It had been torn into four jagged sections, and a piece was missing. I could see white cartilage in the rips. It didn’t look like an ear. It looked like mangled meat.

  How will you explain what happened when people see this?

  This would be out there, out where the world would see it forever. Maybe a doctor could fix it, but I couldn’t afford that. What would I do? Wear scarves or hats? Grow my hair out?

  The thought made my stomach hurt.

  I had short hair.

  I’d cut it short the day I got out of the hospital and had kept it short since. The thought of growing it long tripped the ugly old feelings. It dragged my mind off my ear and shoved it toward what had happened earlier.

  I’d killed someone earlier.

  No. You killed three people.

  Mason, Donnie Zito, and Tyler Woods.

  Brad Curson and Jimmy Deets were dead because of me too. I hadn’t stuck a knife in them or used magick … I still couldn’t believe I used magick at all … to turn them INSIDE OUT.

  That thought made my stomach lurch. I bent at the waist, aiming for the trashcan, but nothing came up. I stood there, bent over, with the room spinning lazily. The air grew hot, the shower steaming up the tiny bathroom. That didn’t help.

  Pull it together.

  Reaching deep inside, I forced my mind to think clearly. I stepped outside myself so I could look at the feelings inside me without being caught up in them. It was a trick I had learned on my own, and I could only do it by myself when I was someplace safe.