Race the Darkness (15 page)

Xander's heart jackknifed inside his chest. Queen's words echoed through his brain—
Mark of the Beast.
The wording seemed too close to be random. But coincidences did occasionally happen.

“You think I'm no threat? Because of my scars? My scars are what make me a threat.” Actually, the lightning strike had caused his supercharged hearing. The scars were just the lightning's version of saying, “I was here.”

Your scars are your punishment.

O-k-ay. They were having a one-sided conversation—Xander's side—and this guy acted as if that were completely normal. Someone had stepped over the loony line. The guy had to be off his psych meds. Xander would bet if they searched, they'd find a history of Simon Smith being in and out of the nuthouse. Better alert Crazyland—one of their residents had escaped.

Another coincidence: Queen was just as fruitcake nutty.

Xander picked up his pen lying across the legal pad and wrote in big, bold letters: YOU'RE MENTAL. When he looked up, Simon's gaze was still fixated on Xander's face. He held the paper up covering his scars, forcing Simon Smith to see his words.

I'm not crazy. I'm the only one who knows what's really going on.

“Yeah? I don't think you do know what's going on.”

“Is this a joke?” The words came from the other side of the two-way mirror. “Your guy is talking to his damned self.”

Should have known there'd be an interruption. Xander turned in his seat to face the mirror. “No talking, or I'm walking. And you can waste hundreds of man-hours trying to get the answers I can provide in five minutes. Choice is yours.”

“How can he hear—” A scuffling sound on the other side of the mirror, then the sound of something that sounded suspiciously like a body thudding into the wall. “I was just asking—” A door in the observation room opened and then closed, and Xander heard the guy panting in the hallway like a greyhound after a race.

“All clear. No more interruptions,” Kent said from the other side of the mirror.

“Thanks, man.” As soon as the words left Xander's mouth, he realized they'd probably just had the friendliest exchange of their lives. He turned back to Simon Smith. “How do you know Queen?”

“She the one I took down?” Simon's voice sounded as rough as his appearance. His beard was such a thick mat that Xander couldn't see the guy's lips moving. It was like conversing with a mangy mannequin.
She was a brunette. Wasn't such a pretty doe when I got done with her.

“You
took down
”—the guy spoke as if the woman he killed was a game animal to be shot and field dressed and hung on the wall—“Courtney Miller. I'm not asking about her. I'm asking about Queen. How do you know her?”

“She a brunette?”
All the brunettes act like they're queens. They're all bad. I can't tolerate their sound.

It was off the Queen topic, but Xander couldn't stop the question from popping out of his mouth. “What do you mean ‘their sound'?”

The guy remained life-sized-dummy still, but Xander heard his heart rate speed up and the intake of his breathing go quick and shallow. So Simon Smith didn't worry about being caught or accused; he worried about the way a brunette
sounded
?

Their high-pitch sound makes me hard. They do it to torture me. But I'm not letting them get away with it anymore. I'm going to take them all down.

Xander scribbled on his notepad the essence of what the guy just thought, then sat back in his seat. When he had said Queen's name, the guy's mind would've automatically locked on to something concerning her if he'd actually known the woman.

There was one more route to explore.

“You know anything about two women being held hostage in a trailer?”

“They brunettes?”
I hope they—

“You know anyone named Isleen Walker?” At least Isleen wasn't a brunette.

She a brunette?

“This is getting old. You ever been out on County Road 103?”

Where's that?

The guy knew nothing about Isleen, Queen, or even the road the trailer was on. Xander shoved back from the table and headed for the door. “Good luck in prison. The brunettes are going to love you.”

* * *

The awful whiteness surrounded Isleen—oppressive and claustrophobic. She turned in a circle looking for an escape. Nothing but infinite white. Panic frosted the edges of her mind, but she wasn't going to let it take hold. This time she was going to be logical instead of scared out of her wits.

White like this wasn't a place. No, the world and everything in it didn't just turn white. Something else was going on. A thought flared across her brain. Dissociation. The white and those moments where she was stuck inside her body—maybe she was dissociating. Could she be severing the connection between her mind and her body? It was possible. Gran had tried to teach her how to do that, how to find a safe place inside her head while Queen did terrible things to Isleen's body. But Isleen had never found such a place. Until now, it seemed.

The brightness shimmered, dappled, turned muddy and then dark and darker, until the environment was completely colored in shades of pewter and onyx. Her eyes adjusted slowly, the images in front of them gaining distinction by degree.

It was nighttime and she stood at Gran's bedside. Gran's gaze was fixed out the window on the lawn and shadowy woods beyond. Where was Alex? Where was the nurse? Someone should be with her. Gran looked so alone, so absolutely alone, that Isleen's heart cracked.

“Gran, I'm here.” Only the words didn't come out—just bounced around inside her head. “Gran.” She tried again. No sound.

Doom crawled over her skin like the hairy feet of a thousand roaches. She'd lost control of her body and was stuck inside her mind, looking out the window of her eyes, helpless to speak, to blink, to move.

She heard the quiet tread of footsteps on the wooden floor, but couldn't turn her head to see their source.

Sinister energy wavered in the air; she could practically taste evil on her tongue. Something terrible was about to happen. To Gran.

Isleen's heart tightened into a hard lump, bracing for a blow, then banged around her chest, beating, pounding, searching for escape—a way to save Gran.

No, no, no. The words pounded through her blood. She wanted to fight, tried to fight, but couldn't move. Her body was no longer under her command, and all her words and thoughts and feelings were less than useless.

A man moved to stand on the opposite side of the bed and completely ignored Isleen. He moved with the assuredness of someone on a mission, his steps never faltering, never cautious. His hair shined bright—almost the color of pearl. His features were oddly pleasant and almost familiar. He didn't possess the look of a villain. He looked like someone's mild-mannered father. And then she noticed the chunky gold cross hanging askew around his neck and the square of white in his collar. A church collar—a priest's collar. Relief released her from fear's grasp.

If she'd been in control of her body, she would've sagged to the floor in a wet puddle of relief.

With complete affection and tenderness, the priest clasped Gran's hand in both of his. He flinched and tensed as if touching her hurt him in some way, but he didn't let go of Gran. “I have faith the Lord will be merciful.” His voice was a breath, barely even a sound. “I have hope the Lord will forgive.” His eyes shimmered, and tears slipped down his cheeks.

Gran's face transformed with recognition. “Rex.” Excitement lit her voice on the first letter of his name, then dimmed by the last letter.

Gran knew him? Isleen shouldn't be surprised. Gran had an entire life here that Isleen had known nothing about until yesterday.

“Your trials didn't work. The evil never left us, no matter how much we endured.” Gran's words were a horror to Isleen's ears and brought memories of her conversation with Gran to mind.
I destroyed us by trying to save us. And I did this to you. It's all my fault. I'd take it all back.

No-no-no-no-no-no…Gran had to be confused again. She couldn't know what she was saying.

The priest swallowed. “I prayed for release for both of you. But it never happened.”

So the priest was going along with Gran's nonsensical thoughts?

Gran's gaze clung to him. “It's my turn to die, isn't it?”

An icy knife slipped down Isleen's spine, then into her guts, and twisted.

The priest nodded, his face so horribly full of compassion that none of this made sense. Was Isleen hearing things wrong, not understanding?

“It won't hurt. You'll simply go to sleep.” The priest reached into his pants pocket and removed a vial. He lifted the stopper and then reached for Gran's head, propping her up enough to receive his poison. “Open your mouth for me, and it will all be over.”

Move. Move. Move. Stop him. Isleen willed her body to lunge, to grab the poison away before one drop could hit Gran's tongue. She strained, tried run to him, to hit him, tackle him, jump on him. Something—anything—to keep him from killing Gran. Sweat dripped into her eyes, burning and blurring her vision.

But she didn't move.

She just stood there without making a sound and watched. Her vision went watery, her tears warm on her cheeks. She'd never forgive herself for
letting
this happen.

Gran winced as the clear liquid from the vial spilled into her mouth.

“I'm sorry.” The priest's words were muffled with his own bizarre sorrow. “So sorry.” He reached out and tenderly caressed Gran's wrinkled cheek. “For all of it. But it had to be done. Just as this has to be done.”

“Thank you.” Gran's eyes drifted up inside her head. Her lids slid shut, but stalled halfway. As if the scene were playing out like a bizarre slow-motion movie, Isleen watched Gran's jaw slowly, so slowly, fall open in death.

* * *

The truck's headlights blazed across the road, the parallel yellow lines a hypnotic path leading Xander home. About time. The day had gone in the shitter the moment Kent showed up with Camille way back in the morning. After that, there was the hour to get all the paperwork for his new truck completed, then a three-hour drive across the state to visit the trailer and question Simon Smith, then three hours back to question William Goodspeed.

And the only thing he learned was that Isleen had no connection to Simon Smith or William Goodspeed. Which meant she was likely dreaming about the crimes. And researching that kind of shit—dream phenomenon—was the reason Gale and Dad had established the Ohio Institute of Oneirology in the first place.

The carved bear totem at the top of the hill came into view. The thing had stood there for centuries and yet always looked good as new, like someone had just applied fresh coat of lacquer. Xander had passed this carving his entire life and yet somehow had never really
seen
it until a few days ago when he'd been compelled to drive across Ohio to find Isleen. For the majority of his life, he'd consciously ignored the totem because of his father. The thing represented all that was wrong with his dad—that his father believed in some secret legend more than he loved his son.

He saw the bike—flat black paint, skull on the tank—before he saw Lathan. What was the dude's obsession with the totem?

Xander whipped the truck over to the shoulder to get some answers.

Lathan was a statue in the headlights, unmoving as the truck bore down on him, almost like he dared Xander to plow right through him. It reminded him of what he must've looked like standing in front of his truck, holding Isleen's body—primed and ready to confront death head-on—when the crazy bitch tried to mow them down.

The truck skid in the loose gravel before coming to a halt. Xander leaped out of the vehicle.

Lathan just stood there, looking at Xander with flat, expressionless eyes. Paired with the tattoo on his cheek, they made him look like an escapee from a maximum-security prison. Not someone you'd have a friendly chat with in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere.

“Hey, man.” Xander raised his hand in a half wave. “What's going on? Why do you keep stopping here?” His voice was loud compared to the murmurings of night sounds.

Lathan's heart rate tweaked a bit, then settled back to normal. He gave Xander a hard stare. Not an if-looks-could-kill stare, but more of an apologetic look. He didn't say anything. And the frequency connection didn't open. Didn't fucking open.

One of the universal rules of Xander's ability was that when he asked a question, a person's brain couldn't help but answer. He waited. But Lathan gave a big, fat doughnut hole of nothing.

Okay. There was definitely a level of not-normal going on. Not that Xander was the poster boy for normal consultants. Maybe that was the reason he and Lathan were consultants—they
weren't
normal.

Without a word, a wave, or a one-finger salute, the guy turned and walked to his bike.

“What's with the silent treatment?” They weren't besties and about to paint each other's toenails, but Xander had thought they were at least at the level of civil communication.

No response.

“Do you know the story behind this carving?” Xander called. Shit. He half hated himself for being curious about it.

The bike roared to life with a growl of pipes that was both obscene and thrilling to any man with balls. Lathan didn't glance back as he pulled out onto the road and sped off down the hill.