We pulled up in front of the house 90 minutes later. The gray Nissan was waiting on the other side of the dead-end street.
Rachel and I sat in our Prius. The sky was dark and the trees cast deep shadows, but I caught a glimpse of the guy’s ponytail. He wasn’t looking directly at us, keeping his face pointed up the street. He didn’t open the door or otherwise react to our arrival.
I had Donald, the handgun, heavy and uncomfortable under my arm. It didn’t look as if I’d need it right now, though. The guy just sat in his car as Rachel and I made our way to the door. I knocked, and Alexander opened it. One eyebrow rose as he looked at Rachel. “You’re expected.”
He led us into the house. I glanced at Rachel. She blinked, as if against a bright sun, even though only candles gave any light, leaving the corners shrouded in darkness. She didn’t say anything, but I could tell she was sensing something strong and menacing.
Alexander took us to the room with the big leather armchair, where Estrella sat a long dress of dark blue, her eyes cool and expectant. “That was fast work. Hello,” she said to Rachel.
“This is Rachel,” I said. “My wife. She helps me out. She’s psychic.”
“Of course you are.” Estrella smiled. “Have you had training? You’re very perceptive. I could feel it from outside.”
“Uh, thanks.” Rachel shifted on her feet, nervous. “No, uh, training. It just sort of happened.”
“And Tom—you brought a gun?” She shook her head, disapproving. “Were you planning on shooting me? I’m not offended, but you should have known that won’t work. Especially here, in this house.”
“No, ma’am.” I felt embarrassed. “But that gray car is outside. I didn’t know how serious they might get if they wanted the—the package.” I held the bag up.
She stared at it, her lips tight. “That’s Holt. He wouldn’t hurt you. Well, his master might try if I didn’t already have the knife and the spoon. The odds would be different. At this point, he actually wants me to have this.” She held out her hand.
I took out the box and handed it over. Estrella set it in her lap and opened it gingerly, as if it might explode in her face. She lifted the fork out, smiling as it gleamed in the candlelight. She held it up in front of her face, and for a moment I thought she was going to lick it.
Then she set it down. “Thank you. Alexander will pay you on your way out.”
I glanced at Rachel, then took a deep breath. “I’d rather have some answers.”
Estrella cocked her head. “Answers to what?”
“Who are you? Why are you trapped here? Who’s in the car outside?”
She smiled. “It’s a long story. Sit down. Have a glass of wine.” She rang a bell on the table next to her, and Alexander appeared. “Some wine, Alexander. Three glasses.”
We sat next to each other on the damask sofa.
“You know something about me. I can tell that.” She pointed at me. “I can see through your eyes. I could read your memory if I wanted to, but it’s enough right now that I know you’ve heard some of my story. There’s too much to tell you everything, and too much I can never tell anyone. Thank, you Alexander.”
The bald servant appeared with a tray. He set glasses in front of Rachel and me, poured the wine, and then poured a glass for Estella. “Will there be anything else, Lady?”
“Not right now. But stay close.” She took a sip. “Ah. Nice. A hint of hickory.”
Rachel and I sipped, too, to be polite. I didn’t taste any hickory.
“So . . .” She set her glass down. “Thirty-two years ago I was a power in this town. The best kind of power—almost invisible. The only people who knew me where the people who counted—the people who needed me. I had respect, I had influence, I had money, although money isn’t that important when you can create or destroy whatever you want.” She smiled. “For example?”
The room suddenly went dark. Just like last night. I reached instinctively for Rachel, but she was gone. I wasn’t even sitting anymore, but gravity didn’t pull me down. I floated in whatever air still existed around me.
Then, a burst of flame. First like a burning match, but it grew, and as it got bigger and wider I saw something inside it. For a moment it was just a dark mass, but then it wiggled forth, out of the flame—a creature, a worm the size of a bear, with a round maw filled with jagged teeth, and antennae questing forward as if searching for prey. It slid through the air, its hide quivering, edging closer to me, inch by inch.
I couldn’t move. The antennae flicked across my forehead. One of them pushed into my mouth. I swung my head, trying to spit it out or bite it off. My arms were locked. My legs were paralyzed. I tried to scream, but I couldn’t even do that. Oh God oh God, what am I doing here? Why did I come here? Why did I bring Rachel? What’s going on—
Then another flash of light returned me to the room. I gasped, looked at Rachel. “Are—are you all right?”
She was staring at me, her face pale as moonlight. “I saw it. I saw you—are you all right?”
I turned to Estrella. “What was that?”
“Just a show. What I’m capable of, without even very much effort. What’s a hundred or a thousand dollars compared to that?”
I caught my breath. “Very impressive. But you’re still stuck in here.”
Rachel elbowed me in the ribs. “Shut up,” she hissed. “So are we.”
Estrella laughed. “Yes, I’m trapped. But not for long.” She looked around the room, as if the walls around us were already slowly edging away from her.
I had to ask: “So what’s the first thing you’re going to do? When you walk out the front door?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, looking into the future. “I’m going far away from here. Don’t worry, you’ll never see me again. I’ve spent too many years in one place to want to stay here one minute longer than I have to.” She opened her eyes. “But first—vengeance.”
Rachel straightened up. “Against who? Why are you trapped here?”
Estrella’s face grew gray. “I did something bad. I admit it. A man—a very old man—wanted someone dead. He was a powerful wizard himself, but he didn’t want any of his magic associated with the deed. And the person he wanted to kill was his daughter.”
She sipped her wine. We left ours alone.
“She was grown—50 years old—and she had her own set of powers. That’s what scared him. He was afraid she had become stronger than him, and was planning to take everything he had. So I had to set a trap. This house—” she lifted her arms. “Was the trap. This fork—” She lifted it. “Was one of three keys. I embedded all the power I could summon in them, and told her to gather them and bring them here. I hid them all across the world, so I had time to construct my perfect trap. Then she brought them here. Then—” Her smile was red and deep. “I killed her.”
She took a deep breath, as if inhaling the wine’s bouquet. “Her magic was strong. I had to rip her to shreds. It took half a year, but when she was finally gone, obliterated, I flung the keys away, without paying attention to where they went, and in a moment I had all the power I was promised. And then the wizard snapped his own trap, and I was imprisoned here, in the trap I made myself.”
The candle glowing next to her flickered, as if a breeze had intruded through a crack in the wall.
“How did you find them? All three?” Rachel asked.
“It took years. At first I was enraged at being trapped here. Then I got used to it, once I realized I could still influence the world outside. So I spent years just doing whatever I wanted. I needed servants, of course, so I found them, and Alexander has been with me longest. Then I got bored.” She stretched her arms over her head. “I wanted to go back the world. But the wizard—he calls himself Artizan—wants me here, so I can’t tell anyone I killed his daughter for him. So no one will know he was afraid to do it himself.”
“So no one comes in or out of here unless you want them to?” I asked.
“Yes. But once I open the door, with these three keys?” Her eyes shimmered. “Then it’s wide open. Both ways. So you’d better get out while you can.” She pointed toward the door.
I wanted to leave right away, but I still had questions. “Wait—what about Luke Valdez?” Rachel bit her lip impatiently beside me. “Why is he here?”
Estrella looked annoyed. “Like I said, I can influence things outside these walls. I couldn’t get the spoon myself, so I had to improvise.”
“By raising the dead? You couldn’t just send an email?”
She giggled. “I was bored. This was more interesting.”
“Could you really restore his soul?” Rachel asked.
Estrella looked away from us, as if ashamed. “I could give him a soul. Of a sort. Not the same, but she wouldn’t know, not for a long time. He might not even know. Souls are complicated.”
I knew that was true. “So what happens to him now?”
She shrugged. “Eventually his body will fail. I won’t be around to keep him sustained. But if his daughter doesn’t care . . .”
“You should at least let his body return to his grave,” Rachel said. “She’d want that.”
Estrella sighed impatiently. “If I have time. Things are going to start happening very fast, very soon. You should leave now.”
She rang the bell, and Alexander was there as if he’d been standing outside the door. “Bring the knife and the spoon, Alexander! We’re ready to leave this place!” Then she giggled. “Knife and spoon—it sounds silly, right? The table setting of the damned.” She drank the last of her wine. “Now go.”
Rachel and I looked at each other and nodded. She took my hand and pulled me out into the hallway.
Alexander bumped into us, carrying two black boxes like the one I’d brought Estrella. “You move fast,” I said, and he barely nodded as he headed into the room.
Then we had to stop. Luke Valdez stood in the hall, between us and the door.
“W-here’s Niki?” His voice was raspy, quivering. “She s-said she’d come back.” He wore jeans and a ripped T-shirt, barefoot. “W-where is she?”
I stared at him, trying to think of an answer. We couldn’t take him with us, but it felt wrong to just abandon him here to whatever fate Estrella would dole out.
Before I could ask Rachel what she thought, though, the house shuddered.
The wallpaper started to rip as the walls on either side buckled, and chunks of plaster from the ceiling dropped down on our shoulders and hair. The hardwood floor shook under our feet as if a subway train was running through the walls.
Then a deafening boom from above rocked the house, like a bomb exploding. Everything tilted, and we slid toward one wall, hitting it hard. Rachel swore; I grunted. Valdez screamed.
Rachel and I ran. The floor seemed to rise up and fall down as we staggered through the hall. I heard Valdez’s ragged breathing behind us. Rachel got to the front door first and shoved it with her shoulder. She stumbled going through, but reached back for me as I staggered forward.
Valdez crashed into the side of the door as we jumped across the porch onto the grass. Rachel rolled and hopped up, breathing hard, and turned back to look at the house.
The roof was blowing away, as if a tornado was rising up inside. Shingles flew through the air, spinning like knives, and fiery smoke billowed up like a gray pillar, reaching for the sky.
Then one side of the house caved in, as if someone had swung a huge hammer into it. The ground under us shook, and then a tree root pushed its way up through the dirt like a black tentacle, poking at the air. I looked at Rachel, and we turned for our car.
The guy from the gray Nissan—Holt, Estrella had said—blocked us. He held an axe in his hands, and he looked ready to chop us up if we got too close or tried to flee.
He pointed at the house. “No one leaves alive!”
“We’re not friends with Estrella!” I snapped. “We’re not part of this!”
“No one is innocent where she’s concerned.” He looked past us. “Who’s that?”
Valdez, staggering across the lawn, looked up at him. He tried to speak, but only grunts came from his mouth.
I pulled my jacket open. Rachel jumped back as Holt lurched forward. He started to swing—
Valdez pushed past me and charged at him. The axe caught him in the shoulder, and Valdez fell, screaming.
Holt lifted his axe and brought it down on his skull.
Blood gushed, and Valdez kept screaming until Holt hit him again, cutting through his neck. His body flailed like a fly caught in a web, but he went silent, and in a moment his body went slack.
Rachel darted behind me, but the ground bucked again, and another root shot up from the earth like a spear, jabbing her ankle. Rachel tumbled forward, swearing, hitting the ground on her hands and knees.
Holt grinned and lifted his axe—
I didn’t think. I didn’t have time. I had the pistol in both hands, and I shouted something, but Holt didn’t hear me or didn’t care, and I didn’t have time to warn him again.
I shot him in the chest.
He looked surprised as he dropped the axe. He pressed a hand to his chest, looked at me as if I wasn’t playing fair, and then he topped to the ground. A black tree root pushed from the dirt and start to wrap itself around his neck.
Rachel was next to me. “We’ve got to go.” She put a hand on my arm. “Tom? Let’s go.”
I was staring at the man I’d just killed. Rachel tugged at my arm, and I blinked, fighting down the urge to throw up. “Right.” I put Donald back in my holster, and Rachel led me to the car.
Estrella’s house was burning. More than just burning—it was a pillar of fire and dark smoke, towering into the sky, crackling and booming.
Was Estrella still in there? Battling with her enemy? Had she won? Or were they both still locked in combat, oblivious to the death and destruction around them? Had one of them already destroyed the other, and left for other worlds to wreak havoc in?
I didn’t care. I could think about it tomorrow if I wanted, but right now we needed to flee. I started the car.
The next morning the news was full of an explosion in Hazel Crest. A house had been incinerated, crumbling to ashes. Authorities were speculating about a gas explosion, a giant meth lab, a cache of explosives, or maybe all three. Somehow the fire hadn’t damaged any other residences in the neighborhood. It had consumed itself in a matter of hours until nothing was left to burn, then died without a flicker, leaving only the foundation and a big, black hole.
There was no mention of any dead bodies found in or around the area.
“You okay?” Rachel came into the office with her Wonder Woman coffee mug.
“I’m fine.” I shifted away from the news and took a sip of my own coffee.
She stood over me. “Really?”
I’d never killed anyone before. Well, nothing human. But I’d always knew this day might come, and I’d always known I wouldn’t know how to deal with it.
But Rachel was alive. So that helped. I squeezed her hand. “Are you all right?”
She sighed. “Fine. You saved my life, so, thanks. Again.”
“You wouldn’t have needed saving except for me. Sometimes I think—”
She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Stop it. This is what you do. It’s one of the things I like about you. And I did say ‘for better or worse,” or whatever.”
“One of the things?” I smiled. “What other things?”
“Don’t get me started on the ‘for worse’ part.” She headed for her side of the office.
I looked at my computer. Then my phone buzzed.
Niki Matos. Oh God.
“Mr. Jurgen?” Her voice was quiet, quavering. “I was just wondering—well, I saw all about that fire online, and I thought—what happened?”
I hid a sigh. “I was able to locate the fork she wanted. There were—problems with another wizard. So the fire was caused by their fighting. I’m afraid—I’m sorry to say, your father didn’t get out.” It was a small lie, but I could live with it.
“That wasn’t my father.” Her voice shook. “But—thank you. I just wanted to know. I guess it’s better to know that he—that it’s gone.”
“He’s gone,” I agreed.
Niki thanked me and hung up.
Yeah, Luke Valdez was gone.
I just wondered where Estrella was.
# # #
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