“Aunt Vicky?” More silence.
Pretty good phone skills for a two-year-old. “Can you put Mommy back on?” I could hear him breathing, with those thick breaths that follow a child’s crying bout. “Give Mommy the phone now, Justin, okay?” No response. How did you make a toddler give up the phone? I had an idea. “Say bye-bye now, Justin.”
“Bye-bye!” he shouted. I was right—he’d been waiting for his exit line. Hey, I wasn’t so bad with kids myself. At a distance, of course.
Gwen got back on the line. “Ugh,” she said. “The handset is all sticky with cookie dough. Not to mention my entire kitchen.” She sighed. “I guess our homemade Halloween cookies will be the kind you get at the bakery.”
“Speaking of Halloween, did you work things out with Maria? About her costume?”
Gwen sighed. “How on earth did you manage to get on television, Vic? Now that you’re a celebrity, there’s no way Maria’s giving up that costume. She’s told everyone in the neighborhood you’re her aunt.” The line hissed as she caught her breath. “Not that that’s a bad thing. You know I don’t mean that. It’s just—”
“Don’t worry, Gwen. I know what you mean.” And part of what she meant, even though she’d never admit it to my face, was that she’d rather the neighbors didn’t know her sister was a monster who jumped into interspecies bar fights. Oh, well. I loved her anyway. “Hopefully CNN will get sick of that story soon. Kane tried to sign me up for a truckload of interviews, but I’m not doing any. Once they get tired of playing that damn tape, I’ll be off the air for good.”
“Good. Uh, good for you, I mean. It must be awful to have reporters hounding you.”
“It’s a pain, yeah, but they’ll give up sooner or later. It’s a good thing most norms are too scared to venture into Deadtown. Otherwise I’d have reporters camped out on my doorstep. But who wants a campsite crawling with zombies, right?”
Gwen didn’t respond. She held the typical norm beliefs about Deadtown and had never liked that I lived there. She’d never been to my apartment or met Juliet. I’d tried to explain that the PA zone was the only place where I felt normal, but she didn’t get it. She preferred to think I lived here because state laws required it.
“So anyway,” I said, “why’d you call earlier?”
“Oh, right. The kids and I are coming into Boston on Saturday, and I was hoping you could meet us for lunch.”
“You coming in for the parade?” Over the past couple of years, Boston’s Halloween parade had become one of the largest in the country. And why not, since we had the most monsters living openly here. The parade was a free-for-all with norms dressing up and reveling in the streets, like Mardi Gras with a spooky theme. And this year, the zombies wanted in on the fun, applying for a group permit to march. No way the mayor would allow that. But Kane—A twinge of guilt hit me as I realized I never asked him how his appeal had gone.
“The parade?” Gwen was saying. “Lord, no. I don’t want to try to keep track of the kids in all that craziness. Plus Nick has a business dinner we have to attend, so I’ve got to be home by five to get dressed.”
Good, I thought. I didn’t want my sister’s family in Boston after dark with a Hellion on the loose.
“So how about it, Vicky? Can you do lunch?”
“Sure. I’d love to.” We decided to meet at noon at a pizza place in Quincy Market. The area would be crammed with tourists, but it would also be fun for the kids. Suddenly, Gwen let out a shriek.
“Oh, no! Zack let the dog in, and now she’s getting into the pumpkin mess. Lady, no!” Barking and high-pitched kids’ shouts resounded in the background. “Oh, God,” Gwen said into the phone, “she’s tracking it into the living room. Gotta go. Bye!” She hung up.
I held the phone, feeling uneasy. It seemed like a bad idea for Gwen and the kids to come to Boston with the Destroyer threatening to demolish the city. But I was worrying too much. Demons are restricted to the demonic plane during daylight, and the Santini clan would be out of the danger zone long before dark. Plus, I had the feeling that lunch was a peace offering from Gwen. She’d think I was snubbing her if I suggested we make it another time—like the day after I’d sent the Hellion back to Hell.
I hit the Talk button for a dial tone. Should I call Daniel next? The butterflies started dancing a ballet in my stomach, and I chickened out, calling the potential client instead. The phone rang several times. I was about to hang up when she answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Mrs. . . .” I squinted at my own lousy handwriting. “Mrs. Williams?”
“Who is this?” Her voice sounded suspicious, or maybe a little nervous.
“My name is Victory Vaughn. I’m returning your call.”
“Oh! Oh, yes. Thank heavens you called. I can’t tell you, dear, how horrible it’s been.” My heart sank at the eagerness in her voice. She sounded like a sweet old lady, and I was going to have to put her off.
“Mrs. Williams, I’m sorry, but I’m all booked up right now. If you can wait a week—”
“Booked up?”
“Every night, I’m afraid.”“But . . . but I can’t . . .” She started to cry. Damn. I can’t stand hearing sweet old ladies cry.
“Why don’t you tell me a little bit about your situation, Mrs. Williams? Maybe I can help over the phone.”
She let out a wail, making me feel like the kind of person who snatches lollipops away from small children. “That’s impossible. It’s not even here now. Every night, this horrible creature torments me—and you think you can help me over the phone?”
I tried to make my voice soothing. “What’s the creature like? Can you tell me that?”
“It . . . it . . . it’s like it rises through the bed and possesses my body. Terrible pains shoot through my limbs, agonizing, like it’s eating me from the inside out. It’s dreadful, I tell you. Dreadful!” Her voice dissolved in a torrent of tears.
It sounded like a classic Eidolon attack—a guilt demon. That was good news, for her and me both. Eidolons were conjured, unknowingly, by their victims. Although I could fight guilt demons in the normal way, they usually came back in a few weeks. Eidolons were like weeds; you had to go down deep to root them out, or they’d just keep springing up again. The only way to get rid of an Eidolon for good was to purge the guilt that summoned it. And I could do that in daylight, using hypnosis.
I explained all this to Mrs. Williams. Her crying turned into little fluttering sounds of excitement. “You can come today? In an hour—at noon?”
“Actually, I—”
“Oh, you must help me. You simply must. If I have to endure another night of that torment, I’ll . . . I’ll kill myself!”
Great. The suicide card. It was why I was always at a disadvantage when I tried to negotiate with my clients. I sighed.
“All right. Where are you?” She gave me an address in South Boston. “Got it. I’ll see you in an hour. Between now and then, don’t take any kind of stimulant, not even coffee or tea. If you can, play some calming music, sit down, and close your eyes. Take deep breaths. The more relaxed you are when we start the session, the better.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you, dear girl!”
I hung up the phone, suddenly feeling like I could go back to bed and sleep until dusk. Oh, well. I’d just kissed any chance of sleep good-bye. Whether or not the Destroyer showed up at Lucado’s, it was going to be a long night.
I WAS ALMOST READY TO LEAVE TO MEET MRS. WILLIAMS when I decided to call Daniel back. I fought down those dancing butterflies, telling myself I was being silly. Juliet’s assessment of Daniel didn’t mean a thing. This was business.
So how come my heart was pounding so hard as I listened to the phone ring?
“Costello.”
Business, I reminded myself, and put on my professional voice. “This is Vicky Vaughn. I got a message saying that you wanted me to call.”
“Vicky.” There was a smile in his voice. “Thanks for calling back.”
The warmth in his voice flowed through the phone and spread down to my toes. Could Juliet be right? And if she was, how did I feel about that? Thank goodness blushing doesn’t show up over the phone. “My roommate said you called about the witches. Did you meet with them?”
“No, your timing is perfect. I’ve set up a meeting at three. I want you to be there with me.”
Not just be there. Be there with him. Business, I reminded myself again. “A civilian at a police interview? Is that a good idea?”
He gave a soft laugh. “Officially, no. But you know more about demons than anyone in Boston. I’m worried that I won’t ask the right questions if I go on my own.” He paused, and I remembered how he’d paused last night and looked at me with those blue eyes. “Please say yes.”
“Yes.” The word flew out of my mouth. “I mean—”
“Great. Meet me at the station at quarter to three. I really appreciate this, Vicky. Really.”
When I hung up the phone, butterflies were dancing all over the room.
FIFTY MINUTES AND TWO BUS TRANSFERS LATER, I STOOD on a deserted street scratching my head. Somehow, I’d gotten Mrs. Williams’s address wrong. According to the address in my hand, the derelict warehouse in front of me should be Mrs. Williams’s apartment. The building was clearly abandoned. Shattered windows gaped like eyeless sockets, and at one point the roof had caved in. At street level, signs proclaiming DANGER! and KEEP OUT! were plastered across the walls and doors as high as the workers had been able to reach. Across the street was a closed autobody shop, and next to that stood a triple-decker apartment building with boarded-up windows and graffiti scrawled all over.
Not a single little old lady in sight.