Chapter Seven – Jack
Chapter Seven
Jack
I drove up to Mark’s suburb and parked far away from his house at eleven.
I had a feeling someone would tow Betsy before I got back to her, but I bet the local guys here knew how to not fuck up older cars, and I wanted to get the lay of the land on my way in.
This neighborhood of mansions were all carefully built so that the houses were invisible to one another.
Mark’s particular one was in a ruggedly dramatic spot, with desert on one side that didn’t worry me—and dramatic hills on one side, that did.
The wind was blowing the wrong direction for me to scent anything, but with Zach’s blood on board, I was sure I could feel eyes.
I walked up the sandstone stairs to the palatial front doors and stood, waiting to be let in, knowing I was clearly visible on any number of security cameras. The door opened, revealing Paco inside. He gave me a companionable nod.
“This place is being watched,” I told him.
“I know. I don’t have to be like you to feel it.” He set his jaw. “We’ve got three cars ready in the garage.”
Because whichever car wound up heading to the bunker might get followed. “Good idea.”
“I am a professional,” he said.
“And…speaking of?” I tried to lead him.
“You’re the first one,” he told me.
“And you don’t even have to be here,” Angela said, holding a duffle bag, trotting down the immense stairs.
“I came to help.”
“I don’t want you putting yourself in danger for me, Jack.” Her beautiful lips were pulled into a frown.
I ignored her. “Does the name Jonah ring any bells for you?”
“No—why?” Her frown turned deeper, and she raked her free hand through her blonde hair. “Just stop trying to help me, please, for your own sake.”
“What, just because the last time I did got you assaulted by a vampire stripper?” I quipped, and then saw Rabbit coming down the stairs after her. “Oh, man, ha,ha—I mean,” I started sputtering, trying to play it off.
“That’s a bad joke, Jack,” she said, giving me a glare. “Don’t listen to him, baby,” she said, as Rabbit reached her side. “And I’m serious—go home.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you with them alone. Besides, it’s not like I’m missing any work.”
“Incoming,” Paco said, having gotten a cue from his ear.
The doorbell rang, and he went to open it, letting in a disheveled looking—well, I didn’t know who.
Or what. They looked like a cross between the cowardly lion and the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, come to life—a thing of fur and straw and brightly colored patches, walking with an odd herky-jerky mobility.
I moved to put myself between it and Angela instinctively, and found Paco already there.
“What are you?” I demanded, knowing the thing was strange.
“He’s my decoy,” said an unfamiliar voice from behind all of us, as the door closed. We whirled and found a man there, beard and all, only he was dressed like a woman, with a corset and a skirt under long flowing robes. Behind him, Mark had his gun out, and cocked.
“How the fuck did you get into my house?”
The man sighed. “I’m Merlin, the Mixed Up Magician. You’ve seen my billboards on the Fifteen? Or the One-Fifty-Nine?” He looked at the zombie-walking stuffed animal and waved his hand—it fell to the floor with a solid thump. “I don’t particularly want the Pack looking for me later, either.”
“I have seen your billboards,” Paco admitted, tilting his head. “And your show—I guarded a client there—you were funny.”
The magician bowed to him. “Thank you! I didn’t get best comedy-magician act of two-thousand-nineteen for nothing, even if the rest of you are apparently heathens.”
“If you can transport yourself inside places, why did you even need that thing?” I touched the creature that’d lurched through the door with a booted toe.
“Because that,” he said, while pointing, “smells like my greatest rival. And I will never, ever, pass up an opportunity to throw that man under a bus.” He set his shoulders and looked around. “Now, shall we begin?”
“Mom?” Rabbit asked, a squeak.
“I’ll explain later. I promise,” Angela said and soothed his hair.
“I’m just here to do a magic show, little one,” he said, and then began rummaging around in Mark’s living room.
Mark kept his gun out and trained on the magician. The magician seemed unconcerned—I doubted mere bullets would do anything to him.
“Can I get two fingers of rye?” he asked, shaking an empty glass.
“Why, for a spell?” Mark asked.
“No, because I’ve been sober for twelve hours. It’s really starting to drag.”
Mark looked over, gave all of us accusing stares, and then put his gun away to bartend.
“So that’s the magician?” Angela asked.
“Seems like it,” I said.
“I’ve never met a magician before. I thought all magicians were men,” Rabbit said, with the forthrightness of the young.
“Don’t I look masculine to you?” the magician asked, sashaying up, his beard a stark contrast to his skirt.
Rabbit’s brows pulled into a frown. “I’m not sure.”
“Well, that’s the point. There’s a hell of a lot more magic at the edges of this world, then smack dab in its boring center. As a werewolf, I thought you would know, no?”
Angela’s eyes about bugged out of her head. “He’s teasing, Rabbit.”
“Rabbit, eh?” The magician’s kohl lined eyes gave him a knowing look. “I get it. Naming your child the thing you wanted them to be. My parents named me Charles. It didn’t work.”
“So—the ceremony?” I prompted. The bunker would be ready soon, and I’d feel a hell of a lot better once Angela and Rabbit were inside it.
“I’ve already begun. Can you feel the change?”
“The only thing I can sense is an increase in the overall levels of awkwardness in this room,” Mark said, returning with a drink to press into the magician’s hand. Merlin took it, slammed it, and then made the glass disappear.
“That’s part of it,” he explained. “If you’re going to be a thing you haven’t been before—it’s going to hurt a little. Change always makes people anxious.” Then Merlin licked all his fingertips and reached out to touch Rabbit’s face in a complicated pattern.
“Mom?” Rabbit’s voice rose.
“Shh,” the magician answered instead.
“Mom, Buster doesn’t like this!”
Angela didn’t like it either—I readied myself to hold her back. “Just a little longer, baby,” she promised.
There was a sensation in the room, of ratcheting tension.
I felt it, Angela felt it—I could even see recognition in Paco and Mark.
And then the magician stepped back, hands still frozen in the position they’d been holding on Rabbit.
He walked across the room, arms out, like he was shooing someone away, then bent over and replaced his hands on the decoy’s head.
The decoy twitched and spasmed, shrinking in size and in height, until it was about a seven year old boy’s dimensions.
“There,” the magician said, when they were finished.
Angela leaned over, and breathed in Rabbit’s hair. “He’s…different. It worked!”
One of Merlin’s eyebrows rose imperiously. “Of course. You’re up next, Mama.” He wiped his fingers off on the front of his dress, and then began licking them again.
I tried to read Angela’s face as the magician lay his hands on her. She wasn’t as still as Rabbit had been—it seemed like it was hurting her more, even though she didn’t make a sound.
“Angie?” Mark asked, looming near in concern.
“I’m fighting the silver here,” the magician grunted in explanation. “Years and years of silver abuse—she’s like some sort of poison addict.”
Angela’s face flushed red then gray-blue, and the magician staggered back.
This time you could see what he held—an almost perfect representation of Angela, like the finest sheer silver cloth in his hands.
Merlin walked it over to the decoy and let it drop, where it covered the thing like a shroud before disappearing.
Angela sagged. I caught her without thinking, and after that, breathed her in. The change was subtle—but there. I took another long inhale, of her neck and her hair—and looked up to find Mark giving me a death glare.
“And with that, I’m done,” the magician announced.
“It worked?” Paco asked.
“Yeah,” Angela whispered. She leaned into me for a moment longer, then caught herself, moving to stand on her own.
“I was told to give these to you, once the ceremony was performed,” Merlin said, handing a slip of paper to me.
I flipped it over and found the coordinates to the bunker.
Then Merlin walked over to the original decoy and nudged it with a high-heeled toe.
The creature lurched up, like a Rabbit-sized animatronic doll, with the addition of a stubby tail.
“This is also yours—it’ll smell like the boy did until dawn, so do with it as you see fit.
” After that, he wandered off, not away, but deeper into Mark’s house.
“Where are you going?” Mark demanded without following.
“It turns out I phase best through wine cellars! Especially ones with expensive bottles of wine!” Merlin shouted back.
Instead of a response and instead of shooting anything, Mark just ran his hands through his hair. I admired his restraint, as Paco took charge.
“Three cars,” Paco said, taking the addresses from me. “One with Rabbit, one with Angela and that thing, and the third one as a lure.”
Angela knelt down and started digging through her bags to give the decoy some of Rabbit’s clothes. Rabbit knelt down beside the thing and poked it. The thing tried to poke him back. “You two are guarding Rabbit,” she announced, looking over at Paco and I, as she tugged pants onto the monster.
Paco nodded, and I said, “That’s why I came.”
“And me?” Mark asked.
Angela shook her head, as she stood up again. “You’re out. Because I love you. Please.”
I watched him inhale to fight her and stepped in. “Everyone knows you mean well, Mark. And I know you’re rich as fuck. But this—this isn’t your game. I promise you, if you get any deeper into it, you’ll die.”
He pulled himself up to his full height in front of me, everything in his bearing full of threat. “I’m supposed to take life advice from the person who doesn’t have one?”
In all of our other encounters, I’d always pulled back, trying to respect Angela’s choices and Mark’s space.
But this time I held my own, occupying more space like I might just before fighting, and when I spoke I let a little of the hunger through.
I knew it made me sound more ominous. “Just because I’m dead, doesn’t mean I’m wrong. ”
He didn’t back down, and his voice went cold. “You let anything happen to her and I don’t care how undead you are, I will hunt you down and make you pay.”
“You’re a man of your word. I would expect nothing less.”
He surveyed all of us with a disapproving shake of his head. “This way to the garage.”
Angela followed Rabbit to our car, pressing his head to her stomach. “You be safe, Rabbit. You do what these men tell you, okay? Especially Jack.” She knelt down to be on his level. “And if anything bad happens—you run.”
“Where are you going?” Rabbit wasn’t scared—I got the sense that he liked adventure—but he was confused.
“To the same place you are, sweetheart.”
“Then why aren’t we in the same car?”
“It’s complicated.” She kissed him. “But I love you. And you’re going to be safe, all right?”
He nodded back at her, for her sake, even though there was no way either of them could know. “I love you Momma.”
“I love you too.” Her eyes on him were wide, as though she were drinking him in. “I’ll see you soon.” Paco gently grabbed him, and guided him into the back of the car as she looked to me.
“Anything you want to say, I already know,” I told her.
She nodded briefly, then rose up on her toes to kiss my cheek. She didn’t shock me this time, but the action did, it was unexpected and it caught my sated hunger off guard, so I could appreciate it as a man might and it took my breath away.
“Here,” I said, coming back down from the surprise. I leaned down and pulled the silver knife out of my boot. “Just in case.”
“Thanks,” she said, taking it carefully.
After that, after the door to our car was closed, she returned to Mark and kissed him—the kind of kiss that was so intense you felt like you had to look away from it, even though you wanted to watch.
He held her head gently afterward and whispered something until she nodded, and got into her own car.
Mark walked up before the garage doors opened and knocked on the back passenger-side. Paco rolled the window down and spoke first. “I suspect this terminates my service to you.”
“Not as long as you keep them safe. Report back when you can.”
“If I can,” Paco corrected, because he wouldn’t do anything to sabotage Angela’s future freedom for my sake. All that was in me wanted to reach over and squeeze his hand.
“Fair enough,” Mark said, and nodded. He nodded to the other car as well, and inside the darkly tinted windows, I thought that I could see Angela wave.
Paco tapped his radio. “Roll out,” he said, and the doors lifted, letting all three cars out into the night.