Sorrows turn, p.2
Sorrow's Turn, page 2
He huffed. “All I know is that this ain’t natural. And when something ain’t natural, lots of bad can happen.”
I ground my teeth together. It wasn’t like we could take Lucy to a doctor. It was not what any of us needed right now. Not to mention the kid was in pain and I didn’t know how to fix it. “We’d better look into what a fleshing rod actually does.”
“Guess so,” Tabby replied.
Chapter Two
TIME IS ON MY SIDE
NOW, THE PROBLEM was—where the hell to get information about the damn thing. No way was I going to get another Ouija board after what happened the last time. No way in Hell. It wasn’t like I could call up the Devil and ask him questions. I did not want to go down that road. Part of me did think it would be kind of cool if I could send him an email, but I didn’t even want to think about the possibility of demonic computer viruses.
I also didn’t want to have to explain to my neighbors the bands of birds acting weird when I destroyed it, either. No sense in imagining the same thing wouldn’t happen here that happened in Arizona. There wasn’t any reason at all that brand of weird wouldn’t stir up again. Thank God I didn’t live in a development. Somehow, I don’t think me and an HOA would get along well.
I booted up my big computer, finished all the updates I missed, and started reading. Sadly, typing “fleshing rod” into a search engine only brought up a bunch of pictures of giant penises. That was something I could have gone without seeing. I was going to need to buy stock in brain bleach.
I was up a shit creek without a paddle. There were only so many options open for me now. And I was left with a pretty damn unsavory one—trying to find a person who was a true practitioner of the so-called Dark Arts. Where I would find that? Who knew.
“Here,” I heard Tabby say.
I glanced up. She was holding a steaming mug toward me.
“I’m sunk,” I said. She might as well know.
“Sunk how?”
“You don’t even want to see what I’ve been looking at.” In fact, if I had to look at it again I was going to need a stiff drink. Stiff. Heh.
She laughed. “Anything useful?”
“Not a thing. That’s why I’m stuck.” The information I needed was probably hidden in some ancient tome somewhere.
She sat down at the table beside me and threw her hair over her shoulder. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not yet.” I didn’t want to unload all of my fears onto her. It wasn’t necessary. Especially since I didn’t exactly know what I was talking about yet. My brain was latching onto random shit to worry about.
“Well, we still need to go to the store, or do you want me to do it?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t accomplishing anything anyway. I might as well get off my ass and do something. “No, I’ll go. Keep an eye on Lucy. Maybe I’ll come up with an awesome idea.”
“It would be different if she’d just gotten sick or something.”
I nodded. If it wasn’t for Doc’s reaction, I would be thinking it was the flu or something. But his comments about the unnatural made me definitely feel it was not an illness. And, well, Lucy wasn’t actually supposed to have a body to begin with. She already had one. “Tell me about it. Not with the way Doc is acting; that isn’t it at all.”
“I know.”
I grabbed my car keys from the dining room table. “We need to return that rental car.”
Tabby sighed. “Okay. I’ll follow you—keep Lucy in the car with me. We can get rid of that thing and then you can drop us back by the house.”
“That works.” Plus that way someone living had their eyes on Lucy. I wasn’t too sure what else we could do. Maybe she’d get over whatever this was.
#
It didn’t take long to drop off the car. Luckily, there wasn’t any damage to it. They still stuck me with the drop off fee, but I’d been expecting that. Now we could go about our business and not have to deal with anything left over from Arizona. At least, anything physical anyway. The rest of it was a work in progress.
Lucy still looked horrible. Her skin appeared waxy, like it was fake, and she seemed to get paler by the minute. And she wasn’t talking. At all. I think that bothered me most. Hell, it wasn’t even demonic Lucy. This was something new. Usually, she would at least chuckle at stuff Tabby and I said, but there was nothing. The silence seemed so wrong.
I dropped the horde back at the house. I paused before turning off the car. Then, I glanced over at Tabby. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Okay. Be careful,” Tabby replied.
I nodded. “I will.”
I got out of the car, walked up to the house, opened the front door, and waited for Tabby to unbuckle Lucy from the car seat and carry her to the house. I opened the front door for her and waited until she and Lucy were safely inside. Then, I closed the door. As soon as I knew everything was okay, I left.
The irony did not escape me that even though I was at a complete and utter loss, I ended up doing something with food. I was starting to think that Tor’s food obsession had somehow rubbed off on me. Lucy’s mother had a real obsession with food. I’m sure a shrink would have a field day with that. Of course, the dude probably wouldn’t believe in exorcism either and that’s where the real trouble would begin.
I pulled into the parking lot of the mega-mart. As usual there was nowhere to park except Timbuktu. At least it wasn’t hot like it had been in Arizona. Spring was still nippy here back East. I had to appreciate the little things. If I didn’t, I would start to get cynical and that wasn’t going to help a damn.
I wandered the aisles without paying too much attention. Stuff landed in the cart almost by osmosis. Needless to say, I was preoccupied by the Lucy problem. Spirits didn’t get sick, did they? Not like that. I mean, Lucy had faded when she expended a lot of energy before, and it was the same way with Doc. But they never seemed to feel ill or in pain. That damn rod had caused us a nest of problems.
And since Lucy already had a body, a real one, my mind could only rest on one thing. Her spirit was rejecting this body. It was not conscious. If it were, Lucy would stop it because it was hurting her. This was completely out of her control.
I didn’t even know what that meant for her. As far as I knew, her real form was still on a machine in Virginia. The Order had directed me to cease trying to contact them. But the Order wasn’t aware of this latest development. At least, I didn’t think they were. Something told me that Lucy would already be with them if that were the case. Their all-seeing eye had limitations.
All of this stuff with spirits and rules was making my head spin. I took my haul out to the car and headed back home. Maybe Tabby would have another idea, but I figured that my suspicion was right. Doc had alluded to this very idea. And if my hunch was correct there was no telling what it meant for Lucy.
When I got home, Lucy was laid out on the couch—breathing heavily. Tabby seemed scared to death with her eyes wide and her hair all messed up. Strands were falling out of her ponytail and whorled around her head like a red cloud.
“I take it she got worse?” I asked. At that moment, I felt completely helpless. I wanted to jump in and save the day, but I knew nothing to fix this.
Tabby nodded. “Doc left to see if he could figure out something.”
I dumped the bags onto the floor and pulled her into my arms. “This sucks.”
“What if the Devil won?” she asked. Her head angled toward me, her eyes brimming with tears.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. The Devil didn’t win. That was the whole point of everything. I sighed. This was not something I wanted to mull over. “I don’t think that’s it. If he had, he’d come and take her and let old Asmodeus have his way. There’s something else afoot here.”
She sighed and leaned her head against my chest. “Could the higher power be calling her home?”
I shook my head. “Keep in mind it was that damn rod that gave her another body in the first place. I think she’s rejecting it.”
Tabby leaned back. “Like some organ transplant?”
“Something like that.”
“What can we do?” Tabby stepped back from me and wiped her hand through her hair.
“Nothing. I don’t think anyone has made anti-rejection medicine for this.” I wished God would tell me what to do, but, as usual, I was left on my own. Shit.
“What about her real body?” Tabby asked.
I sighed. Sometimes, it was helpful to bounce ideas off her, but now it wasn’t helping. Her fears put a voice to my own, and I just wanted to bury my head in the covers upstairs. “Alive as far as I know. I think someone would tell us, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I hope they would. So what do we do?”
I began picking up bags off the floor. “Make her as comfortable as possible.”
I wished I had some light bulb moment, but I had nothing. This was one of those times when I wished that Tabby’s witchery worked like it did on TV, but this was reality.
Tabby sighed. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
I didn’t know if I could either, but I couldn’t tell her that. I needed to buck up and get my shit together. It was time I stopped thinking about myself and my reaction to crap alone. “If you want to, go upstairs until it’s over. I’ll understand.”
Tabby closed her eyes for a minute. “No, I can’t do that to her. It wouldn’t be right.”
“I’ll put this stuff away, then.” I was at a loss as to what else I could do.
“All right.”
#
I brought Tabby in a soda and sat down on the floor beside her. Every so often, she would stroke Lucy’s head. Isaac perched on the back of the sofa, watching intently. The expression on his face was a mix of anger and sadness. I knew exactly how he felt.
Lucy’s breathing was getting more and more labored, and her skin didn’t look quite real anymore. It was starting to take on a plastic quality that reminded me of the creatures in that bad vampire movie based on Matheson’s I Am Legend. I wondered how many times this kid was going to have to experience death. Once had been bad enough.
Suddenly, there was a bang. I jerked up. Doc was standing next to me. He watched Lucy and shook his head.
“Might be better if you didn’t see this,” he said.
I felt like my stomach had fallen down and bounced off my asshole. It wasn’t fucking fair. I glanced up at him. “That bad?”
His eyes went dark and sad. He nodded.
That decided it. I turned my attention to Tabby and tapped her on the shoulder. I wanted to remember Lucy as herself, not as whatever she was going to become in the next few minutes. “Doc is going to care for her now. We need to go.”
Tabby’s eyes flashed. “Go where?”
For once, I wished she wouldn’t question me. And if Doc felt we shouldn’t witness it, it was pretty damn bad. I didn’t want her to have this pain. She needed to learn to trust me once in a while. “Just leave the room. Doc said we’d better not see what’s coming.”
“How dare you,” she said in a hushed voice. “I am not going to leave this little girl.” Her eyes were on fire, and if her powers worked that way, I would be about to find myself melted into a pile of red goo. There was that red-headed temper I knew and loved. But this was not the time for it.
I sighed.
Doc cleared his throat. “Ma’am. Some stuff is better left unseen. I am the doctor, after all.”
She peered at him for a minute, her bravado gone. Then, she stood up. “You really think this is for the best?”
Doc nodded. “Yup.”
Tabby took a shaky breath and grabbed me by the hand. “Come on, Jimmy.”
I hopped off the floor and guided her upstairs to our bedroom. At least we knew Lucy was in good hands. If there was anyone who would want to make her hurt less, it would be Doc. Heck, if he knew of some way to make this painless, he would do it. She was basically his grandchild, after all.
Once we got upstairs, I closed the door to the bedroom behind us and sat her down on the bed. She shook all over.
“None of this should be happening. If it wasn’t for that stupid stick,” she said. She moved her head.
I glanced over at where she was looking. The fleshing rod was still sticking out of her backpack. I had my doubts that the Devil meant for this to happen, but considering who he was, there was no way to know for sure. Still, though, if he meant for it to happen, that would have been against the agreement he had with the big guy upstairs. Or maybe not. Hell, this was confusing.
“Well,” I said. “He did say to be careful with it.” I wasn’t trying to take up for him, but, obviously, putting it in a backpack was not careful enough.
Tabby glared at me. “I’d rather get rid of the fucking thing.”
I sat on the bed beside her. I wasn’t ready to let it go yet. There was some motive the Devil hadn’t revealed as to why he’d given it to her. I wanted to find out the purpose. “I don’t think that would be a good idea. It was given to you for a reason. Best not to mess with that.”
“Well, we’d better figure out a fucking case for that thing. I don’t want any more mistakes.” She hunched over and hugged her knees to her chest.
“Me either.” She was right. There needed to be something to protect people from the effects of it. Otherwise, we may have more mistakes than just what happened with Lucy. And if it kept happening, stuff could get a whole lot worse.
Suddenly, there was an odd howling sound from downstairs.
Tabby let go of her knees and jumped off the bed. I grabbed hold of her arm before she could get very far.
“If Doc wanted us to come down there, he would call for us,” I said.
She glared at me and snatched her arm out of my hand. “I still don’t have to like it.”
“No, you don’t.”
#
It felt like hours. Tabby and I sat on the bed, gaping at the wall. TV would have reminded us too much of Lucy, and we weren’t doing all that great a job of talking to each other, so staring at the wall it was. At least then we weren’t fighting. I didn’t bother looking at the clock. It would have made me more uneasy. Better I didn’t know how much time had passed. It would only make my frustration and fear worse.
Finally, after what seemed like a very long time, Doc popped in.
“You all can come downstairs now. But just to warn ya, there’s some weird afoot.” His face was almost unreadable. None of the earlier sadness remained. Just a matter-of-fact expression.
“Is Lucy okay?” Tabby asked.
He nodded. “Better. Going to take her a little bit to adapt.” He glowered at the rod in the backpack. “Better get that thing out of reach.”
“We’re way ahead of you. But for now….” I hopped up, walked across the room, and grabbed the rod from the backpack. Why it had no effect on me, I didn’t know. Maybe because my soul was connected to my body? Of course, it didn’t do anything to Tabby either when she touched it. It had to be the spirit. It was called a fleshing rod, after all. Jesus, I needed a manual.
I shoved it on the shelf in the top of my closet. At least it was out of the way of prying eyes, and, hopefully, that would prevent Lucy from even thinking to look in the closet for it. Though I suspected that she probably would never touch the damn thing again. ‘There. That should do for now.”
“And later?” Doc asked.
I sighed. Sometimes, it seemed like nothing I ever did was good enough. “Tabby and I are working on that.”
We headed downstairs. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this wasn’t so different from when it all began at Sorrow’s Point. We were trying to get the demon out of her then and it hadn’t all gone well. I felt the creepy-crawlies dancing up and down my spine. Something was off. I smelled something bad…like rotten meat.
I took the lead. No sense in making Tabby see things if they were truly awful. I tried not to psych myself out. I drew in a deep breath, stepped off the staircase, and peered into the living room. At first, nothing seemed amiss. I saw Lucy in spirit form standing very still. She was back in her little white dress. That was okay. More normal than not. But then my eyes drifted downward and I saw it. A pile of skin lay on the floor. She had been wearing a meat suit. Blood and mucus pooled around the little pile of skin. It was sad, disgusting, and…wrong. I forced myself not to gag.
“Is it bad?” Tabby asked.
I closed my eyes and didn’t answer. This was going to take some doing. I didn’t want to make it seem like a walk in the park, but I had to think of the kid’s feelings too. This wasn’t Lucy’s fault. I needed to be strong for her. I stilled and then stepped forward. “It could be a lot worse.”
I focused on Lucy. “Are you okay?”
Lucy shifted her head toward me very slowly. Her mouth quivered as if she were about to cry. I opened my arms. Her little spirit body rushed to me. I felt a bit of coldness. I reached up and tried to pat her head, but my hand passed right through her. This sucked. “I’m sorry, honey.”
I could hear her sobs, but no wetness emerged. Nothing. Poor thing. It was one of those times when something so cruel happened that you never would have even imagined or thought about it, unless you’d seen it with your own eyes.
“You’ve still got us,” Tabby said from in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed that she’d come over. I smiled at her.
Lucy glared at her. “Don’t let that happen to me again.”
Chapter Three
EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORN
NEEDLESS TO SAY, our day was shot. Boxes littered the place. Tabby and I hadn’t had the chance to unpack yet. I sent Tabby and Doc upstairs with Lucy to keep her occupied while I got rid of the mess. No sense in traumatizing the kid more than she already had been.
Isaac was trotting around the mess, being ever so careful not to step in any of the goo. That would have been yet one more disaster to add to the list. Yeah, gooey, bloody kitty pawprints all over the house. Yuck.
“Thanks for the help,” I said to him.
He chirped back at me, seemed to glare in fact, which gave me the impression that he would roll his eyes at me if he could. Then, he turned his tail and walked into the kitchen. I could almost swear that animal was reincarnated from someone. Jesus.
