Chills, page 18
“I wouldn’t put anything past your government, love. Or any government, at that.”
“Me neither. Anyway, I guess it’s a moot point, because the NSA program returned all kinds of errors, giving me words from various Native American tribes, Aramaic, Latin, Sumerian, Egyptian. So then I got the two programs to run it together—a little trick of the trade—and all of a sudden, it just kind of came together. The programs started translating it all into one language—the only language, aside from the original language of the stars, so to speak, that the human tongue can evoke the same power with. It’s the only language, evidently, that the portal-closing spells can be performed in. Want to take a guess what language that is?”
“Astound me, love.”
“It’s Gaelic. Irish Gaelic, to be specific. Please tell me you know it.”
Teagan whistled. Finally, a language he understood, and a part of this whole process that he felt he could contribute to. “You’re serious? Gaelic.”
She nodded. Her expression was hopeful, excited. “We’ve nailed this, Reece, but it comes down to one thing—you pronouncing and understanding Gaelic. It has to be exact, and not parroted. You have to truly understand what you’re saying and how to say it.”
“Well, then consider it nailed. I grew up with the language. Me grandparents made sure I could speak it as fluently as English.”
She smiled, the warmth of her relief almost palpable. It made him happy to please her.
“Great! Okay, we’ll have to make some preparations.... It’ll take a little time, but . . .” She was already pacing with her cell phone, ostensibly texting the good news to Jack and Morris. “But then we can close the door and end this.”
“Close it forever?”
Kathy gave him a pained quarter-smile. “Well, probably not . . . Nothing’s forever, is it?”
Reece looked into her eyes and in that moment, when they were held by each other’s gaze, he saw that she both believed that and hated that she believed it.
“Some few things are,” he said, and he meant it.
“Maybe that’s true,” she said softly, then turned back to the computer. She minimized the document she’d shown him and waiting in its place was another document, this time in Gaelic:
Coimeádaí na geataí, Máistir na Doirse agus Eochracha
Iarraimid ort a dhúnadh ar a bhfuil d’oscail
Sliocht a barra agus faoi ghlas suas ar an mbealach rúnda . . .
Teagan understood it, all right, if not the references made. Roughly translated, it meant:
Keeper of gates, Master of Doors and Keys
We implore you to close what has been opened
To bar passage and lock up the secret way....
“First, we should sleep. We have to wait for the day–experiences, thoughts, alcohol, food, everything—to work its way out of our systems. You know, clear minds and bodies and all that. Then there are a few things we’ll need to gather, a few things to set up. . . . I’ll set the alarm for, say”—she checked the clock in the bottom corner of her computer—”eleven p.m.? That’ll give us six hours. Then we can get to work.”
“Sounds good to me. I’m beat.”
“Okay. I’m going to use the bathroom. Be right back.” She padded off with a little wobble toward the bathroom. Teagan made his way to the bedroom but hesitated by the bed, hovering over his coat. Should he leave? Drive back home for those six hours and meet up with her again? He looked out her bedroom window. He’d been drinking, too, and the snow had blown up in a thick drift against the doors of his car. He turned his gaze to her front door, thinking about the break-in, thinking about little Gracie carved up and bagged on a picnic table in a nightmare snowfall of early June. Maybe Kathy wasn’t afraid and maybe she didn’t need him there, but the kind of man he wanted her to see, the kind of man he wanted to be, wouldn’t leave her alone in that apartment on a night like that.
“Stay,” she said from behind him as if in answer to his thoughts. He turned and let out a low whistle of appreciation. She had stripped down to a white tank top and panties and made her way across the room to sit next to his coat on the bed. Her eyes shone, and he could tell by her expression that she knew he wanted her. She smelled lightly like flowers and summer breezes and vodka. She was so beautiful.
He smiled, just taking her in for a moment, then sat down beside her. “Kathy, I—”
“In fact, stay here, in bed. With me. Sex, sleep, the whole deal.” Her voice was soft with booze and a tenuous, vulnerable honesty that made Teagan’s love for her well up inside him. It also made him noticeably hard, and he shifted uncomfortably next to her on the bed.
“There is nothing I would rather do more, love,” he said huskily, touching her cheek, “than spend the next six hours making love to you. Believe that. But . . . you’re a bit in the numbs, love, and you don’t need some horny, lovesick Brit, also scuttered himself, giving you any reason not to trust him. I’d like your respect, if nothing else.”
“Lovesick?” It was almost a whisper.
“Aye,” he replied, just as softly. “Good night, Katherine. I’ll lock up the flat.” He kissed the top of her head before getting up, then turned out the light on her night table, which left her in the soft glow of moonlight from the window. She snuggled under the covers, her eyelids already closing. A small, uncharacteristically content smile hung on her lips.
At the door to her bedroom, he paused, looking back at her. She was watching him sleepily, that smile still there.
He smiled back. “I’ll take you up on that acid death swill you try to pass off as coffee later tonight, though, if you’re keen. I’ll see you at eleven, will I?”
“I’ll see you then,” she murmured.
Teagan turned to go when he heard his name. He looked back, and when he met her gaze, there was a surprisingly serious and sober look in her eyes, as if in that moment, her will had sublimated the vodka inside her. She might have been drunk, but a part of her was all there, meaning everything she’d said, remembering it all, taking in everything between them.
“Thank you.”
He winked at her. “Any time, love. Any time.”
Teagan made his way to the front door, which he promptly locked, before looking back at the bedroom. She was in there, beyond the small, dark door. So much of his body wanted to be back in that room with her, lying next to her in the cool darkness. Any other bird in his past he would have shagged without thinking too heavily about it, but none of them had ever come close to stirring him like Kathy. The thing was, it wasn’t just the sex with her that he wanted in that bedroom, even though that was a part of it. That was a big part of it, the ache in his crotch reminded him. It was also the intimacy with her, a kindred soul. Lovesick? Oh fuck yes, Kathy m ’girl. That had been the truest thing he’d said to anyone in a long time; he loved her.
He really loved her.
There were so many inexplicably cruel, dirty, ugly things about the world, and a part of his mind argued that he had nothing to feel bad about in enjoying beauty and solace when it was offered to him.
What happened between them was the right thing, all the right words, but the wrong time. He wasn’t worried about awkwardness or regret, and didn’t believe this one chance to be close to her would be the only one. They had been honest with each other with no avoidance and no walls, and neither of them were the types to deny the significance of that. Kathy had her demons, but dishonesty, to herself or anyone else, was not a part of her survival mode. And, Teagan flattered himself to think, neither was it a part of his.
He supposed he’d left that bedroom because it meant something to him that she continue to think him a decent, honorable man, a man who took his moments with her seriously. There weren’t many women he’d known, his own mum included, who held the simple, frank, unconditional belief that Teagan was a good man, not the way Kathy did. It was one of the reasons he loved her, and it was one of those things he wasn’t willing to risk damaging or losing altogether. He needed that from her as much as he wanted sex with her. Kathy didn’t trust people in general, and men in particular. Whatever had happened to her in the past, it had hollowed out a part of her that had never quite grown back. Until he knew what that missing part was, he didn’t want to take the chance of ripping it open further. He didn’t think he could abide her disappointment in him.
When he checked in on her, she was asleep, her hair streaming across the pillow, her fists clenched as she dreamed. She mumbled something about finger bones and turned over, fists still clenched. He went back out into the den, made sure he’d relocked the front door, tucked his gun under one of the couch’s throw pillows, picked up a blanket from a folded pile in a basket by an armchair, and lay down on the couch. Teagan wanted to get to sleep before his resolve crumbled altogether. And for the first time in a long time, he fell peacefully asleep. His dreams, though, took a decidedly sharp downturn pretty quickly after.
It started with the snow.
In the dream, Teagan was standing in the center of a familiar pub in Cork. He was looking up at the raftered ceiling, watching with vague interest as snowflakes materialized and fell on him from above. He was aware that the well-worn, wooden bar, well-loved by its patrons, had a row of full shot glasses along its length, but the stools in front of each were empty. Likewise, the booths that lined the other walls of the pub were unoccupied as well. The door blowing open drew his attention to it. The dark opening let in cold air, but no one stood in the doorway. When the door closed, the howl of the wind sounded as if it were trapped inside with him.
As dream-knowledge goes, Teagan knew something had come through the door, but he couldn’t see it. It was the throat that voiced the banshee wail of the wind; its fingers drew almost painfully cold lines across the backs of his shoulders and his neck, setting his hairs on end and making him shiver. He looked to the bar and noticed with horror that the shot glasses, in which he had presumed the dark liquid was whiskey, now contained a much darker, thicker substance.
The light from the electric wall sconces dimmed and the temperature dropped noticeably. The light above the bar, though, grew brighter.
Suddenly, a shot glass flew off the bar and shattered against the wall above the booth behind him. He flinched, turning to see the dark thick liquid splattered in a deep crimson starburst over an old-fashioned map of the county. There were little hard-looking white bits sprinkled in with the red, but Teagan had no desire to get close enough to identify them.
Immediately another shot glass flew off the bar, smashing into the divider between two booths. A spray of glass and liquid (blood, oh Lord in Heaven, it’s blood) pelted his shirt. That close, a reek reminiscent of something gone bad in the frozen foods aisle at the grocer’s flooded his nose and throat and turned his stomach.
Three more glasses sailed off the bar in quick succession. He flinched again as one grazed his ear and another crashed near his foot. The splashes of blood were everywhere.
He chanced looking up at the bar to see the silvery flicker of an inhuman outline. It was making its way down the bar, kicking at the remaining shot glasses. One broke against the bar itself and the back splash of blood painted a more definitive form.
Teagan couldn’t move. He looked down and saw that a sheet of ice on the pub floor had formed jagged twists up his legs that held him in place. He struggled to free himself, but the ice was too thick. The cold of it seeped unpleasantly through his pants and onto his skin.
The thing on the counter flickered and materialized. Teagan could only stare at it, an appalled, sick feeling feeding into the limbs of his body along with the cold. The thing had many faces melded together, frozen in their expressions of shock and horror, or in the distorted shrieking of some last few terrified moments. In each of these faces, the eyes moved independently, seeking him out, following his limited movements.
Beneath the bulk of varied countenances was a stumpy trunk, but the two pairs of legs beneath rippled with muscle beneath colorless, scaly skin. The legs ended in wide, flat feet whose shiny black claws arced out and up. Above the hip sockets of those legs were two human-looking arms and hands, though the skin held the pallor of a corpse. These arms were raised so that the palms were facing up and forward, and embedded in the center of each was a thin-lipped mouth. The mouths opened, and a strong winter wind howled around him.
Teagan crouched slowly, as well as he was able, to try to chip at the ice, but dream-gravity prevented him. The thing hopped off the bar and began creeping toward him. He began to struggle in earnest, but the cold from the ice bands around his legs had reached his thighs. Below his waist, everything felt fragile, pins-and-needles sensitive. He thought he probably wouldn’t have been able to run even if his legs were free.
Still, he kept struggling, and when the thing lunged at his face, he screamed.
Teagan jerked awake on Kathy’s couch. It took a few seconds to bring the waking world into focus, but as he became more aware of his surroundings, a bad feeling knocked painfully around his head.
There was frost on the coffee table in front of him. He ran a finger along it, collecting the tiny ice crystals. He looked around, his breath puffing ahead of him in little white clouds. The couch had a layer of frost as well, and his blanket had grown stiff with infused ice. He shoved it aside and sat up. All around Kathy’s apartment, the winter outside had found its way in. Icicles hung from the shades of her lamps and the blades of the ceiling fan above him. The windows were opaque with cataracts of ice. The laptop on the desk lay encased in ice. The hardwood floors were glittering sheets of black ice.
Teagan slipped on his shoes, ran a hand through his hair, and stood up. The hallway was slippery, but he managed to get to Kathy’s door without falling on his ass. When he tried turning the knob, though, it wouldn’t budge. He leaned down and peered through the keyhole, but could see nothing. From the tinkling of ice when he jiggled the handle, he figured the ice had frozen it shut.
Not wanting to alarm Kathy before he needed to, he slipped and slid back down the hallway to the kitchen. He was pretty sure Kathy had a stove pilot lighter in one of the drawers, and he thought he might be able to use it to melt some of the ice. In the kitchen, the ice covered most of the counters and hung stiffly from the cabinets in long-toothed icicles. Most of the drawers were frozen shut, but he managed, between pours of vodka and some chipping away with a pocket knife, to unstick the drawer he thought contained the lighter. He forced it open and rifled through the kitchen utensils until he found what he needed, then went back to Kathy’s door. The ice in the lock had formed a tiny cascade down the front of the door. Teagan clicked on the lighter and held it cautiously to the lock for a few seconds, then tried picking away at the ice with his pocket knife. He repeated the process, lighter then knife, a few times before trying the knob again. On the third attempt, the doorknob moved in his hand, and with a small victory sound, he opened the door.
Inside her bedroom, it was snowing.
He was relieved to find Kathy in her bed, sleeping peacefully; as he’d worked the lock, he’d been gnawed at by the idea, possibly left over from his nightmare, that she would somehow be gone, or that, if present, she’d be hurt or worse. She appeared to be okay, although her bed had grown a sizable crust of ice around it that reached up with icy tendrils to grip her blanket. She stirred, seemingly aware someone else was in the room and, in the next moment, was awake and aware and trying to sit up. The blanket held her down.
“Reece?” She looked confused. “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s like this all over your flat, love. Come, let me get you out of there.” He skated to the side of her bed and the two of them worked at pulling the fibers of the blanket free of the ice. Teagan used the knife to cut away strips of cloth, and they had nearly gotten her free when they heard a growl from the den.
Both paused and held their breaths a moment.
“What the hell was that?” Kathy whispered.
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. He helped her out of bed and, glancing down at her underwear, handed her the pocket knife. She nodded her thanks and took little leaps over the accumulated snow on the floor to get to her closet. Her feet were bare, and she hopped painfully from one foot to the other as she chipped away at the ice that sealed her closet door shut. He followed her over there, picking at the chunks of ice with his fingers. They were cold enough to stick to his skin, but with some effort, the two of them finally managed to pry the door open.
As she slipped on a pair of jeans and winter boots from the closet, Teagan drew his gun and went to stand guard by the bedroom door. He peered out into the hallway, listening. In the room beyond, he heard something bang into the coffee table, grunt, and move across the floorboards toward the hall kitchen.
She joined him by the door, her own gun drawn, and together, they crept to the end of the hall and peered around the corner.
In the den, a thing that looked like a cross between an albino monkey and an anglerfish was limping around the coffee table. It flickered like an old 8mm bit of film, sometimes there and sometimes only partially there. Teagan was no expert, but from the way the thing was moving and the spiky, rough-looking blue patches along the left side of its head and body, he assumed the thing was injured. How it had gotten into Kathy’s apartment, Teagan hadn’t a clue. But there it was, a caged and injured animal, in pain and probably very pissed off.
Which made it very dangerous.
Without a sound, he aimed at the thing’s head, but felt Kathy’s hand on his arm. She shook her head and motioned at the kitchen lighter he’d shoved in his back pocket, the one he’d used to melt the ice in the lock on her bedroom door. Then she mouthed out, Paint thinner under the sink in the kitchen. Accelerant.
