Wildest Dreams Part 17

Blue irises flashed in her b.l.o.o.d.y face. "Quiet father," she warned, "or you'll go first."

She started up the trail. The beach gra.s.s lashed her like long knives, like the deep pain of disappointment and betrayal that sliced her heart.

There was nothing I could do to stop her.

But Whistler could. A cold gust of wind blasted over the waves and the beach, and Whistler welcomed its gray embrace. His bristling cloak flared like a catclaw thicket come to life as he rose on the storm, and he closed on his daughter from above, gathering the cloak around her like a net of midnight, wrapping her in his unforgiving embrace.

Lethe fought him, and the sound was the scream of a hurricane. Bony gullies appeared in Whistler's cloak as she struggled, scratching for freedom, tearing a window in blackness darker than midnight.

The wind tumbled them both. A vein of scarlet spouted from the shroud-Lethe's arm, skinless fingers scrabbling a brutal path to her father's spiked neck. Something spilled from Whistler's wounds, something as dark and s.h.i.+ny as blood, and father and daughter were caught in a twister of it, a razored whirlwind of las.h.i.+ng nettles that sliced the dead deeper than the truth, so much deeper, slas.h.i.+ng a relentless path until the only thing that remained was a tattered black vapor that whipped through the beach gra.s.s like a shadow fleeing the light.

The storm was the master now. It carried father and daughter into the night and past it, leaving behind the beach and the hea.r.s.e and the boxed thing that would never move.

I stood alone in the rain.

I didn't know where Whistler and his daughter had gone. I didn't care.

I only cared about what they had left behind.

The little girl waited for me in Whistler's ruined chapel, still hiding behind that cobwebbed cross. "I knew you'd come back," she said.

"I always keep my promises."

"Then you've got one more promise to keep."

"What's that?"

Circe smiled. "Take me away from here."

Her delicate fingers crossed through the cobwebs without rustling them, but I hardly noticed. I was so happy to see a smile on her face, so happy that she was safe, that I reached out for her hand without thinking.

Our fingertips came together like magnets. Circe's hand pa.s.sed through mine. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

The chill of her fingers sent an ache through my bones. I curled my fingers into a fist. Blood pounded in my hand, but there was no warmth in it.

And there was no warmth in the little girl's eyes. No more. It was gone.

"You lied to me," she said.

"No." I swallowed hard, knowing that it was too late, but going on all the same. "I didn't lie. I didn't mean to-"

Her hand pa.s.sed through mine again, and the coldness froze the lie in my throat.

"It's true," she said. "I'm dead. I'm a ghost."

"I didn't want to hurt you," I explained. "That's why I didn't tell you the truth. That's why I lied."

We sat there in silence. The only sounds were the guttering torch and the girl's sobs, but it seemed I heard the pounding of my heart.

"You shouldn't stay here," I said finally.

"I won't. I'll go back to the bridge."

"That's good."

I took the torch from the wall and started up the stairs. We left the bottle house together and crossed the beach to the trail that led into the woods.

No breadcrumbs there, but we both knew where the trail led. To a special place, a place where the little girl belonged.

I wished I could go there with her.

Circe felt the same way. "Please come with me," she said.

"Not now. There's something I have to do. But I'll be back."

She looked away quickly, but not quickly enough. I saw the doubt in her eyes.

"Don't tell me any more lies," she said. "All I want is the truth."

I nodded.

The truth was all I wanted, too. One woman could give it to me. Her name was Circe Whistler.

PART FOUR:.

I BURY THE LIVING.

I am tied to the stake, and I must stand the course.

-Shakespeare.

King Lear.

Act III, Scene VII.

1.

Cerberus's teeth gleamed in the harsh glow of the hea.r.s.e's headlights.

But I wasn't looking for a bronze dog. I flicked a lever near the steering wheel and the headlights flared to bright, blinding the guards lurking in the shadows near the rear gate of Circe's compound.

Two men with black robes and very large guns. They looked like Spider Ripley's brothers, and maybe they were. Maybe they were waiting for Spider to show up in a big black hea.r.s.e.

The men exchanged glances and a few words, standing there like a couple of bowling pins.

A seven-ten split.

It was an easier pickup then I'd had at the funeral home. I slammed my foot against the gas pedal. Cerberus's bronze teeth savaged the Caddy's left front fender as I clipped the statue. Gunfire pitted the winds.h.i.+eld. But it was too late.

I picked up the spare.

The guards disappeared under the Caddy's front b.u.mper, and I crashed through the electronic gate on whitewalls stained red with blood.

Only a brick footpath on the other side, but it would have to do. The main entrance to Circe Whistler's estate was heavily guarded, with another gate in the way. The odds of making it through that gate alive-and down the winding driveway, and into the mansion itself-were short.

I needed a direct route, like the one I'd used at the funeral home. This was it. Past braided vines and ferns and orchids and hanging fuchsias, Cadillac hea.r.s.e on brick staircase, Detroit steel screaming against wrought iron railings, fenders kicking up sparks that rained down on the dark winds.h.i.+eld like dying fireflies.

Hi-beams splashed black water. The swimming pool was just ahead. I cut the wheel sharply, tires digging through a patch of orchids like four wild dogs, and the hea.r.s.e went into a power slide.

Driven by too much weight. I'd misjudged badly, and all I could do was bail.

Shoulder first, I landed hard in the churned earth. The Cadillac rushed on without me. I didn't have time to watch it go. Flaring taillights painted my hands the darkest red as I pawed the soil, trying to get up.

A quick glance beyond the taillights as I rose.

Men sprinted around the side of Circe's mansion, drawing guns as they ran.

I was almost up, but almost wasn't going to cut it.

The hea.r.s.e hit the water with a thunderous slap.

A curtain of water rose from the pool, and Circe's guards were lost behind it.

Just another second and I'd have my feet under me.

Gunfire ripped through the wall of water.

My right foot slipped on a pulped orchid and I dropped to one knee.

Water splashed down on me, pasting lank white hair to my shoulders.

Flashlight beams seared my face like lightning strikes. Circe's men recognized me. The first one whispered a prayer. The second dropped to his knees.

The third squinted at me. Raised his pistol. Said, "Wait one f.u.c.king minute-"

I shot number three twice in the chest. He fell forward as I rose, pistols bucking in my hands while I cut down his companions.

The guards' guns clattered against the cement. Two splashes in the pool. Two dead men bobbing like Halloween apples.

A white arc of light pierced the deep water. A sinking flashlight. I watched it hit bottom.

Four more guards turned the corner of the house. For a second, they thought they knew who I was. A second was all I needed. I killed them where they stood.

Ghosts stumbled into the woods, and writhed on the cement patio, and swam like drowning things in the black water of Circe's swimming pool.

I ignored the spirits of the dead. Moving fast, I scavenged a couple of pistols from the fallen guards, along with extra ammunition. Then I tossed a deckchair through one of the gla.s.s doors and entered Circe's mansion.

So far, I'd been lucky. The guards at the gate had hesitated when they saw the hea.r.s.e, thinking that I might be Spider Ripley. Their counterparts at the pool had hesitated for another reason-they thought that I was a dead man reborn.

I had only fooled Circe's men for a moment, but in that moment they had mistaken me for her father. Not that I looked like Diabolos Whistler. But I was wearing his double's face.

I'd carved it off the undertaker's skull before leaving the Owl's Roost Mortuary, and now I wore it like a monster mask. Long white hair hanging halfway down my back, my mouth surrounded by a dead man's bristling goatee-the horrible disguise wouldn't fool anyone with 20/20 vision and an ounce of sense, but it was enough to freeze a true believer's circuits for just a second.

That second was all I needed to get the upper hand.

I sucked a breath through the undertaker's dead lips as I crossed the dining room. I was sure that Circe was in the house-the property wouldn't have been so heavily guarded if she had pulled up stakes and run. And Circe Whistler wasn't the kind to run.

Inside the mansion, silence hung heavy in the air. No frightened voices, no bodyguards shouting orders. If any guards remained, they weren't showing themselves.

If they were here, I'd take them the way I took the others. I was sure of that. I had two pistols, extra ammunition clips in my pockets, and a K-bar knife jammed under my belt. As long as I could hide behind a dead man's face, as long as I could count on a single moment of hesitation, the odds were on my side.

Pistols gripped tightly in my hands, I stepped into the long shadows of the living room. I paused as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. The large windows that faced the Pacific came into view. Leaden clouds above a black horizon, silhouetting furniture...and a bonsai tree on a low table...and a spiked wrought iron staircase twisting upwards.

Upstairs...that was where I wanted to go.

A staccato slash of raindrops rattled against the windows.

I drew a deep breath.

Held it in silence...lost it with a single sound. A scrabbling of claws near the bonsai tree. A throaty growl as a black shadow launched itself in my direction.

Fangs ripped across my shoulder, chewing a path to my throat.

The guard dog drove me back into the dining room.

My pistols thundered, and three .45 slugs ripped the Doberman apart, and the dog hit the dining table in sections.

A wet red fire raged over my right shoulder. The dog's teeth had torn flesh and muscle, and I was bleeding badly.

But I couldn't slow down. I hurried through the doorway, toward the spiked, twisting staircase.