Damn Him to Hell sd-2 Read online

  I’d probably stand a better chance of not joining Satan if I stuck to commandments like “Thou shalt not kill.” My mother hadn’t brought me up in church, but I liked to read, and the Bible had acquired the status of an important, forbidden book in my rebellious youth.

  Once I was upstairs, I heard the helicopter clearly. I’d lived in a lot of places but none of them had ever been a war zone, so I couldn’t distinguish between hovering and taking off.

  Cautiously, hanging on to Milo, I watched out the front window. The big porch prevented me from seeing the sky. Andre and Schwartz could be anywhere, but the warehouse would be their goal. I studied the seemingly vacant block of buildings across the street. Not a sign of life inside.

  I’d been drugged and kidnapped a few months ago. I had no burning desire to put myself in the unpleasant path of danger again by going outside to see more. On the theory that this house had an attic like Pearl’s, I jogged up the stairs, past Tim and Julius’s apartments, to an open door. I stepped into an infirmary more modern than the one in the tunnel—Sleeping Beauty’s abode, I assumed.

  I set Milo down to explore. Not wanting to leave a trail of blood across the pristine floor, I took advantage of the hospital-like facilities. I hastily washed my legs, wincing as I applied alcohol on my way to the balcony.

  Unlike Paddy’s hideaway, this attic was completely finished, with skylights and murals on the walls. Sun flooded in through French doors adorned with lacy curtains. They’d certainly provided Katerina with a happier abode than the usual nursing home.

  With my legs pocked like the victims of a bad razor, I stepped onto the balcony and scrutinized the scene below. Two unmarked white vans rolled down the narrow alley behind the warehouses—did they carry the patients we couldn’t rescue? Milo wrapped himself around my ankles and kept silent watch with me.

  I clenched the rail in alarm at the sight of two figures covertly working their way along the flat roof of an empty store on the far side of the warehouse. I glanced up, but the helicopter was well away.

  If that was Andre and Schwartz, they were prepared to tackle any army left behind.

  I wanted to believe the troops had departed with the helicopter and vans, but I wasn’t willing to wager my life—or Andre’s or Schwartz’s life. If there were soldiers left in the warehouse, I didn’t know them, couldn’t see them, and couldn’t visualize them into another dimension. But I really disliked the idea of Andre being involved in another shoot-out.

  And Paddy and Julius were telling me to keep him from killing anyone. I didn’t know what was with that, but I was on board. No killing. I needed to clear the warehouse of enemy soldiers before anyone got hurt.

  Just as my brain started to create an olfactory bomb of every nasty smell I could recollect, the plate-glass windows and front door of the warehouse burst into the street from the force of camouflaged troops crashing through them. A second later, the building went boom.

  Oh, hell. Oh, shit. Frantically, I switched gears to protective mode. How could I save anyone from a bomb?

  Remembering the pink iceberg I’d created to protect Ernesto, I pictured a safety shield between Schwartz and Andre and the exploding warehouse. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do two things at once. While I tried to protect Andre and Schwartz from erupting bricks and boards, the troops rushed straight across the street—to the house where I was standing.

  I had no idea if the shield trick had worked. All I knew was that Andre and Schwartz had disappeared, and the menacing troops aroused a rage so red that it might explode my skull.

  They’d blown up my friends!

  No more doubt about guilt or innocence. I wanted to crush soldiers. I considered opening up the street to bury the enemy, only the med student and patients were in the tunnel under their feet. I tried imagining a wall dropping down around the house but nothing happened.

  Shit. Not a fine time to learn my limits. Or even understand them.

  Milo tried to shove me toward the door, but I couldn’t run away without trying to defend Andre’s home. This house offered the only other access to the bomb shelter and the patients. I’d already lost four patients, including Leibowitz. I had to protect the others. How did I keep out armed soldiers?

  Before I could summon a solution, Andre reappeared. He crossed the roof of the office building beside the bombed-out warehouse, weapon in hand, working his way toward the front. Thank Saturn or his guardian angels, he was alive! Except he’d see the soldiers in the street any second, and war would ensue.

  Shit and triple shit. The rage factor decreased enough for me to think again. How did I keep a lunatic from killing everyone in sight? I was operating on overload. Adrenaline coursed through my system like a hallucinogenic drug.

  Justice. Concentrating so hard that I forgot I was a sitting target out here on the balcony, I shouted to the Universe, “In the name of Saturn, I command justice against thugs who blew up a building and attacked the injured. The punishment for such harm . . .”

  I didn’t finish the sentence aloud but visualized the penalty. I was feeling mean, but the only image forming in my mind was that of big bad soldiers pushing baby strollers with screaming toddlers, changing dirty diapers, and singing incessant nursery rhymes for a week.

  Damn, Clancy, is that the best you can do? I could almost hear Andre’s voice in my head. But it wasn’t easy balancing the scales of justice and trying to save lives—and maybe Andre’s soul—at the same time.

  The acrid stench of the explosion still burned in my nasal passages and stung my eyes, but I grabbed the rail and watched the street for a miracle.

  Andre released a hail of automatic fire from his position on the roof. I hadn’t visualized stopping Andre. Damn.

  The troops in the street looked startled, broke ranks, and ran like rabbits—to a nursery school somewhere, if there was any justice in the world. Let them nurture instead of destroy for a few days.

  Thank you, Saturn.

  The red-rage juice drained out of me. Sliding to the floor, I couldn’t even look up to see if Andre had left bodies in the street.

  12

  It wasn’t quite noon yet on my day off, and I was completely wiped already.

  Milo licked my face but I didn’t have the energy to view whatever chaos Andre had generated on the street. I wanted to wish myself into a quiet law library, but I was pretty sure now that the red-rage juice provided the energy for my visualizations and I couldn’t wish myself anywhere without it.

  Lying on the balcony, watching smoke drift by, I realized that if I’d made copies of the case the judge was working on, I could have taken the file over to the university law library today and worked on it on my own.

  Back in the good old days, that’s exactly what I would have done. I’m goal-oriented.

  But my mind was apparently being controlled by a planet. Or Satan. Or insanity. Depending on the day of the week, maybe. I no longer thought like my old self. I thought like the Avenger of Justice or some other dingbat instead of a type-A legal beagle.

  Maybe Max was right. Maybe I needed to move out of the Zone and its environs.

  I was thinking of taking a nice nap when I heard voices in the attic. Invisibility would be a neat trick if I could pull it off. Maybe I’d ask Tim for pointers.

  “Schwartz is the law,” Andre shouted. “He’s gone off to write a report, a freaking report, when Acme just blew up my warehouse and sent armed troops after my fucking family! The line was drawn and Gloria crossed it.”

  “We’re not hurt. Calm down and be sensible. Where’s Tim? Did he get out of the warehouse?”

  I recognized Julius’s soothing murmur. I also recognized that Andre had reached a plane beyond reason. I waited to hear about Tim. If Tim had been hurt, I’d probably go all red-ragey again, but I just didn’t have it in me otherwise. I lay on the balcony and clung to mellow.

  “The kid’s not stupid,” Andre yelled at his father. “He sneaked out and bashed one of the van drivers. He drove off with t
wo of the old guys, but the other van got away with our people. Do you want to be responsible for whatever the hell they’re doing to them up there in that frigging Frankenstein lab?”

  Well, I could say the same about Julius’s infirmary and Paddy’s weird attic, but admittedly, neither of them had gassed a neighborhood and gone to extreme lengths to hide the fact that their chemicals had knocked people comatose.

  Tim was safe. He hadn’t been dragged into Acme’s dungeon. No one was shooting at us. My mellow stayed mellow. I wondered if Tim had rescued the van with Leibowitz inside and if he’d done it while invisible. Not having to worry about him, I could breathe again. Andre’s curses weren’t all in English. I amused myself by making up translations. Vaca was cow, wasn’t it? Cow-fornicating bastards?

  “I’m just asking you to wait, clear your head,” Julius said. “Check on your businesses. See if anyone is feeling any effects from the gas. Don’t do anything hasty until you’ve had time to cool down.”

  “If I don’t act now, the storm troopers will be back. Do you want to move Mom out of here? Put her in a nursing home somewhere?”

  The silence was telling.

  “I rest my case.”

  The snapping of locks and slamming of cabinet doors followed.

  I waited for Andre to notice me through the French doors, but he apparently really was in his own world. I glanced up and saw Julius standing in front of me—deliberately?

  “You can’t confront Gloria,” Julius said firmly. “Acme provided your scholarships at her behest.”

  Yup, deliberately. He was telling me where Andre was headed. Andre had told me once that his father had once worked with the Vanderventers. Pretty closely, apparently, if Gloria had provided Andre with a scholarship.

  Julius was protecting Granny Vanderventer. Or Andre. I wasn’t sure Gloria needed or deserved his friendship. But going after Gloria wasn’t smart.

  Controlling stockholder of Acme Chemical, Gloria Vanderventer had bloodthirsty goons out the wazoo, I knew from personal experience. They killed first and asked questions later. I figured the rotting corpses of her enemies composted her rose gardens. Or maybe since Dane’s departure, she’d taken up knitting baby booties.

  I stretched out and annoyed myself by wondering if I’d killed anyone today, and if I’d be rewarded in the morning. But I’d avoided damning people to hell, so maybe not. My, my. I yawned. Milo settled on my tummy. Now that I’d publicly blown up my boyfriend and sent him to hell, unseen deaths were reasonably anticlimactic. Or so I’d like to believe.

  Andre slammed out of the attic. Julius followed. I could stroll on home, check my e-mail. I really needed to figure out how to find Themis one of these days. My mother’s friends could have responded about body dumping by now.

  I knew I wouldn’t do any of the above. Really, I was too predictable.

  I needed food if I was going to take the next step. Waiting until both sets of angry feet pounded down the stairs, I dragged myself off the balcony. Milo tagged along at my heels. Noticing a stout canvas tote bag hanging on the back of the door, I appropriated it. Milo needed a larger mode of transportation. I dropped him in. He poked his head out.

  “I don’t like war,” I told him conversationally. “Do you think I could wish for peace on earth? Visualize ammunition melting?”

  He gave a kitty snort. Yeah, that was my thought, too. My brain was too fuzzed to even picture the sandwich I intended to make. Maybe those old gurus got it right by living the hermit life on top of mountains where they could concentrate without interference. Unfortunately, I’m not much into masochism.

  Besides, from what I’d learned so far, I needed a personal connection before I could zap someone. I’d wanted to find the invisible thief so badly, the Universe had to throw Tim at me or I’d probably have exploded. All my other visualizations had been of a similar category—highly emotional and directly related to me and mine. Imagining impersonal warehouses around the world full of melting bullets was simply beyond my capacity. Achieving world peace would probably require blowing up the planet.

  Maybe the Why me? question was answered by Because I’m rational. But for how long?

  Sirens were screaming down the street by the time we reached Julius’s kitchen. The outside world tended to ignore the Zone, but an explosion had probably tripped a few seismic waves. I found Tim in the kitchen with a sub bun in hand, loading on every piece of processed meat and cheese he could locate in the refrigerator. I took tomatoes out of a hanging basket and sliced them onto his chemically enhanced protein bomb. He shot me a nasty glare, but he needed veggies. I added some basil leaves and lettuce. Andre kept his father’s kitchen well stocked. A pity Julius had never learned to cook.

  Tim slathered on mayonnaise. I added mustard and bean sprouts and cut the bun in half. He took his half and peeled off all the veggies.

  “You’ll get scurvy and rickets if you don’t eat your fruits and vegetables,” I warned. “Your hair will fall out. Your bones will crumble.”

  “Bunny Bread builds strong bones and muscles,” he countered, but he slapped one tomato back on before biting off a chunk bigger than he was.

  “I told Andre only to buy his father brown bread. You’re eating whole grains. Want to go for a bike ride?” I nibbled my sandwich. It needed onions, but I didn’t have time to peel them.

  “Can I drive?” He knew I owned a Harley and didn’t mean a Schwinn.

  “Doubtful, unless you’ve had lessons.” I headed down the back stairs, still nibbling.

  He didn’t laugh at my bad joke or the grammar correction. “How will I learn if I don’t have a bike?” he complained through a mouthful of bread.

  “You need some driver’s ed first. Maybe there’s a motorcycle school.” Of course, given that he’d just driven off in one of the vans, he already knew the basics. “Where’d you leave the van?” I asked.

  “One of the medics took it away after I delivered the patients,” he said resentfully.

  All the patients were in the tunnel now, not far from Andre’s mother. I got it. The goons would be back and this time, they could blow up the street. Stopping a company with helicopters and troops wouldn’t be easy. Andre was probably right to go for the Gorgon’s head.

  The question was, would Andre behave rationally or just blow Gloria off the map?

  Andre in a rage could terrorize small countries. After being warned all day not to let him kill anyone, I apparently wasn’t the only one fearing for his sanity. I ripped off a bite of sandwich and did my best to act as if I wasn’t panicking.

  Avoiding any lingering results of the explosion—like fire trucks parked in the street or cops looking for witnesses—Tim and I took Andre’s back door and the alley over to Pearl’s fenced-in backyard where I kept my Harley. Max’s Harley. U.S. senators don’t tool around on bikes. His loss.

  I added calling Max to my to-do list. If Dane started showing up anywhere besides his gas appliances, I wanted to know about it. If I had to keep fighting the souls I sent to hell, I’d rather become a hermit.

  “Where are we going?” Tim finally had the smarts to ask.

  “You hid from the goons in the warehouse, didn’t you?” I asked, to confirm my suspicion. “You’re learning to control your little trick?”

  “Sort of,” he said warily, finishing off his sandwich before donning the helmet I handed him. “I went out like a light when that guy tackled me, though.”

  “Disappearing when attacked is an instinctive defense. Disappearing at will and staying invisible is a little more difficult.” I strapped on my helmet and tucked Milo and his canvas bag into the bike’s leather pouch, where he’d be safer.

  This conversation would have had me checking into a mental ward six months ago. Since Max’s death and my emergence as some kind of freak of nature, anything seemed feasible. And the kid needed someone to teach him that he was special, not weird. The Zone had its positive side. I needed to reinforce it.

  “I walked past Leibowitz las
t week without him seeing me,” Tim bragged.

  “You’re scared of Leibowitz. Disappearing when scared is still pretty much a defensive action. Remember the time we visited Senator Vanderventer in the hospital and you pulled his hair? Were you scared then?”

  “You bet your shit I was. You do scary things.” Horny male adolescent climbed on the bike and grabbed the bar instead of the hot babe.

  I do not lack self-esteem. He’d just proved his sexual orientation.

  “And you still haven’t said where we’re going.”

  “Just for a Sunday drive in the country,” I said cheerfully, roaring the bike into action. I didn’t want him getting scared and winking out on me before we got there.

  I didn’t turn the helmet radio on, so Tim couldn’t question me further. I’d taken Sarah with me the last time I’d planned on terrorizing the Vanderventer homestead. That hadn’t worked so well. My latest theory was that Zone inhabitants were survivors because they had an accelerated flight instinct—except the Zone had perverted that instinct into invisibility and shape-shifting instead of running. Sarah had shifted into a chimp the instant Gloria’s guards had turned on us. Tim would go invisible.

  And I’d be left standing all alone. Again.

  Maybe I’d stop and call Max and tell him to give Dane’s granny a visit today. But if Andre was heading in Gloria’s direction, I feared I’d really have more trouble than I could take on. Having Dane/Max and Andre under the same roof might amuse Granny Gloria, up to the point that Andre aimed his toy guns at her grandson. No love lost between those two.

  It was a lovely September day. It would have been nice to linger. A few trees along the mansion-studded roads of Towson were just starting to show color. Maple tree crowns flared with the occasional bright orange and red in the sunlight. Even as I roared down the center lane, I could feel Tim swiveling to take it all in. This was a world of luxury and beauty, just half an hour’s drive from our blighted rusted-metal-and-blacktop environment.