Part 50 (1/2)
”That's not French,” Saleen muttered as he set the can of paint on the counter and turned to follow Sorge and the sound tech out of the room.
”Me, I'm a man of many talents,” the DP said as the door closed.
Tony drained the last of the sugar water and slid off the counter. ”Okay. Open the paint can and then put it outside the door in the kitchen. Amy, wait by the can. When the guys get back with the cleaner, Zev and Adam and Mouse get ready to meet me by the bas.e.m.e.nt door. Wait until you hear me coming down the back stairs and then move. Delays will be . .
.” He could feel sweat dribbling down his sides. ”. . . not good. Make sure the spray bottle is on a tight, hard spray- all we have to do is cut through the blood pattern, break it up. We don't have to completely erase it. The rest of you . . . If this goes completely to h.e.l.l, the pattern on the floor will keep anything from coming in; you'll have the laptop and the candles for light and all you have to do is stick it out until morning.”
”What if Caulfield sucks you in?” Amy asked.
”You die and I spend eternity as part of a three for one that even our writers would consider over the top, where the other two parts are a hundred-year-old naked h.o.m.ophobe and evil waxy buildup.”
Amy's smile came nowhere near her eyes. ”Dead sounds better.”
”Yeah, no s.h.i.+t.”
Tony went upstairs while Lucy Lewis killed her coworker and waited by the second-floor bathroom while she hanged herself. When the only light on the floor came from the lantern in his hand and Karl started crying again, he went into the room.
”Ca.s.sie? Stephen?”
He didn't know where they'd been for the last-impossible to tell exactly how long since he'd seen them, without a watch and only the very subjective replays to determine the pa.s.sage of time, but it had been a while.
”Guys? I need to talk to you. It's important.”
Nothing. Big white empty bathroom.
He sighed and crossed to the mirror. Not so empty anymore. Not so white. The mirror showed Ca.s.sie and Stephen sitting on the edge of the tub and the walls covered in splashes and sprays and dribbles of blood. Too much blood for a double murder? Even considering that head wounds bled like crazy? Maybe every replay left its mark. And wasn't that depressing.
”Guys, I can see your reflection. I know you're there.”
They were looking at him. But only in the mirror. Ca.s.sie looked sad. Stephen stubborn.
Fine.
”The thing in the bas.e.m.e.nt wants me to join it, and it's holding Lee hostage to make me. I think we can beat it if one of you two helps me to save Lee.”
Ca.s.sie glanced away. Stephen lifted his sister's hand off his leg and wound their fingers together. He couldn't have said ”Mine.” more obviously if he'd said it out loud.
Tony counted time by his heartbeat. He had to convince them before the next replay started. Before their replay started.
”If I can't save Lee . . .” Try again. ”If Lee dies, I die with him. You guys are dead. You have to admit that alive is better. Together and alive. Because, him and me, we won't be together if we're dead.” Yeah. That was articulate-not!
Entirely possible all that sugar water had been a bad idea as he couldn't seem to maintain a coherent thought. Time to pull the big guns. Time to use the magic word . . .
”Please.”
”If we help you, it'll know we have more than the existence it allows us.”
He turned. Ca.s.sie sat alone on the tub, the fingers of her right hand, the fingers wrapped around her brother's hand, fading into nothing. Her single eye locked on his face, willing him to understand.
”If it knows we're awake and aware . . .”
”It'll kill us again.” Stephen was there now. ”It'll take away the little bit of life we have. Is that what you want?
Because we're dead, we don't count for as much as the living?”
Yes.
No.
d.a.m.n.
”If you're dead, then what you have isn't life, is it?”
Stephen's eyes narrowed and when he rose, he looked menacing for the first time that night. ”Get out.”
Remembering what a glancing touch against his shoulder had felt like, Tony backed toward the door both hands raised. ”I'm sorry!” ”Not good enough.” Then he jerked to a stop, his head dislodging.
Ca.s.sie stood, still holding her brother's hand, his arm stretched tautly between them. ”He's right, Stephen. What we have isn't life.”
”All right, not life.” He settled his head. ”But we have each other and we can't risk losing that. I can't risk losing that!
Can you?”
”We don't know that we will. But if we don't help, we know that Lee will die?”
She'd made it a question. Tony answered with a nod. ”It hasn't noticed you yet, right?”
”Because we've been staying in our place.” Stephen spat the words at him. ”Here. Together.”
”You were walking around earlier and it didn't notice you.”
”Before it was awake!”
”And after.”
”We were lucky. We can feel it. We can tell that it's awake. It has to be able to do the same.”
”Why?”
Stephen frowned. ”What?”
”Why does it have to be able to do what you can do? It can't move around, you can. It can't communicate without possessing someone's a.s.s, you can.”
”How does it communicate with someone's a.s.s?”
Tony's turn to frown. ”That's not what I meant, I meant. . .”