Darklands (Deadtown #4)

“Park?” Justin paused in his banging.

“Later, honey,” Gwen said. He dropped the hammer and went back to the toy basket.

I considered. Monday was a whole weekend away—a weekend when anything might happen. “I’d love to.” Assuming Pryce doesn’t manage to kill me first. “Around eleven okay?”

“Perfect.” Gwen scooped up the hammer and set it on the table.

I turned to Mom. “How long are you staying?”

“That’s open-ended right now.” She glanced at Gwen. “We’ll see how things go.”

Gwen left to pick up Zack, and Mom got down on the floor to play with Justin. I climbed the stairs to say good-bye to Maria. When I knocked on her bedroom door, there was no answer.

After a couple more knocks, I tried the knob; the door was unlocked. I opened it far enough to stick my head inside. “Maria?” Still no answer. Her room was empty. I made a quick check of the other rooms but didn’t find her.

Back downstairs, I told Mom I’d see her on Monday and accepted one of Justin’s trademark soggy kisses. Outside, Maria leaned against my car. For a moment, I thought she was going to try to hitch a ride back to Deadtown. She’d already tried running away to Deadtown once, and that hadn’t worked out so well.

I opened my mouth to remind her of that, but she spoke first. “How come you never answer when I try that dream-phone thing?”

“If I don’t answer, it’s because I’m not asleep. I’m usually at work while you’re in bed.” Mab could sense a dream-phone call when she was awake, but I didn’t have that skill.

“There should be some kind of voice mail.”

I smiled. “I was thinking the same thing not long ago. But there is regular voice mail. You can always leave me a message that way.”

“Did Mom tell you about ‘family day’ on Monday?” Maria’s voice oozed sarcasm on the words family day.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Promise you’ll come.”

“I’ll do my best. I have a job tomorrow night.”

“No, you have to promise.” She gripped my arm with both her hands. “Aunt Vicky, you don’t know what it’s been like around here. I need somebody who’s on my side.”

“Maria, everyone is on your side. Me, Grandma, your mom—”

“Promise.”

“Okay. I promise.” When I said the magic word, Maria threw her arms around me in a tight hug. I patted her shoulder. “But you have to promise me something, too.” She pulled back, her eyes wary. “Promise me that between now and then you’ll be nice to Grandma, and you’ll at least try to get along with your mom. Can you do that?”

She bit her lip, then nodded. “I’m happy to see Grandma,” she admitted. “But I don’t want them to gang up on me.”

“That’s not why Grandma is here—you can trust me on that, okay?”

Another nod.

“Good. I’ve got to go home now, but you can start working on your side of the bargain. Something tells me you didn’t get a chance to welcome Grandma, right?”

“I didn’t know she was coming. When I saw her, I thought…I don’t know what I thought. I ran outside and got on my bike because I needed to burn off some energy.”

I tried not to smile at her repeat of her mother’s phrase. It was one of Gwen’s favorites. “Well, now’s a good chance to start over.”

“She’s not mad?”

“No, she’s not mad. Your grandmother understands a lot more than you think she does.”

I gave Maria a kiss on the cheek, and she went into the garage. I heard her call, “Grandma?” as she opened the kitchen door. With any luck, the truce in my sister’s household would hold for a couple of days.

As I drove back toward Boston, Butterfly stayed quiet in my gut. That was surprising, since I’d made my niece a promise I wasn’t at all sure I could keep. Pryce was out there somewhere, with his kettle full of demons. He’d attacked me twice in two days and would probably try again before the door to the Darklands opened at the full moon.

“Family day” was only a few days away, but it might as well be at the far side of eternity.

13

GETTING A COUPLE OF HOURS OF SLEEP HERE, A FEW MORE hours there is not an ideal way to let the body rest, but sometimes it’s the best I can do. After a mug of warm milk to help me relax—the “magical sleeping potion” Mom used to give me as a child—I set my alarm, crawled into bed, and did my best to let my mind go blank. It was still afternoon, too early to do battle with Butterfly, so I turned away from guilty or anxious thoughts. I didn’t have to worry, though. I was so tired I sank into immediate, dreamless sleep. Nothing troubled me until the alarm jolted me awake, way sooner than seemed possible.

I hit Snooze and turned over, pulling my comforter closer around me, my body reaching for another few minutes of rest. Just five minutes more…

Kane.

The thought zapped me like a Taser, jolting me awake. I had to meet Kane and explain why I couldn’t be with him this weekend. After that, I’d drive back to Purgatory Chasm and stake out the Devil’s Coffin. This was not going to be a fun night.

No “five minutes more” for me. I threw aside my warm covers and felt around on the floor with my feet until I found my slippers.

In the shower, I realized that I didn’t feel all slime-covered, like I had earlier. Maybe Tina’s technique was working. Or maybe old Butterfly had wised up and slithered back to the demon plane.

I toweled off and pulled on jeans and a sweater. Kane wouldn’t expect me to dress up for our date, but I scraped the mud off my hiking boots as best I could, so I wouldn’t look like I’d tramped through a swamp to get to Creature Comforts.

Juliet was at her usual station on the living room sofa, flipping through television channels with preternatural speed, making me feel a bit seasick. She turned off the TV and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “I’m bored,” she pouted.

I gestured toward the untouched stack of boxes heaped in the corner. “You could see how that magic egg-scrambler works.”

“Please. I’m not that bored.” She stretched, twisting left, then right. She picked up the remote, looked at it, and put it down again. “But I am bored.”

“Must be nice,” I countered. “I could stand a little boredom.”

“That’s because you’re not cooped up in this apartment. It’s beginning to feel a bit too much like the Capulet family tomb. That’s one thing Shakespeare got right: ‘Shall I not, then, be stifled in the vault, / to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in / and there die strangled…?’” She pressed a hand to her forehead and sighed as dramatically as any amateur actress playing her role in a community theater production.

“I take it you’re not going out to interrogate Colwyn tonight?”

“No. Even worse, I’ve been assigned a new pair of Goons. My boys got in trouble because we didn’t come straight back here last night. It wasn’t really a detour; Creature Comforts is practically my second home. And I don’t see why it’s against the rules for me to take a tiny little sip of one of my keepers. He was willing; it’s not like I ambushed him.”

“You snacked on one of your Goon Squad guards?”

Juliet licked her lips and smiled.

“The human one, I hope.”

“Brad.” She sighed. “Such a tasty man. Military background, he told me. Did you notice how big and brawny he was? It’s been far too long since I had a meal like that. Mmm. It was like a nice, juicy porterhouse, after all that limp bologna they’ve been delivering.”

I didn’t know how to answer that. It didn’t matter, though, because Juliet wasn’t finished. “Is there a Craigslist category for Ugly? Because that’s how I think they find my meals.”

“Sorry you’re bored,” I said, “but I can’t entertain you. I’m meeting Kane.”

“What time is it?”

“Almost nine. I have to leave in a few minutes.”

Juliet heaved another sigh. “Over an hour to go before they deliver dinner. And I’m famished.” She slumped on the sofa. Then she brightened. “How about you bring me back some take-out?”

“Why do I think you’re not talking about a bucket of fried chicken?”

“You’re going to Creature Comforts. They know me there. I’m sure some little puppy would be happy to follow you home.”

“I’m not coming home.”

“Oh. So you get to spend the night having fun at Kane’s place, and I sit here alone. And hungry. Well, that just sucks. Or doesn’t—and that’s the problem.” She didn’t even crack a smile at her joke, and that showed how unhappy she was. Maybe it was all that Shakespeare, but puns (especially bad ones) are Juliet’s favorite form of humor.

“No fun for me tonight. I’m working.”

“I thought all your clients have canceled.”

“It’s not a paying job. I got a tip on a place where Pryce might show up.” I briefly explained about the Devil’s Coffin. “Did Colwyn ever mention the place?”

She shook her head. “A portal to the Darklands, you say? Colwyn has spent centuries trying to stay out of the realm of the dead. If he knows about your Devil’s Coffin, it’s only to avoid it.”

“Well, that’s where I’ll be tonight. I’m going to stake it out.”

“I get it. You’re a fighter, not a lover. You sound like Hotspur in Henry the Fourth: ‘This is no world / to play with maumets and to tilt with lips. / We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns!’”

I wasn’t sure what she was saying, but everything from “Hotspur” onward sounded dirty. The only dirty thing I’d be doing tonight would be lying in the mud, and I told her so.