Silencing Eve (19 page)

Doane’s lips tightened. “And I’d throw you into the fire after him.”

“Would you? But then your plans to make Zander suffer by killing me would be ruined. Not that he would suffer anyway.” She looked at him. Questions. Find out as much as she could. “Where are you going?”

“I have to make sure that everything is ready and in place.”

“In place? Where is this nuke?”

“It’s safe.” He looked away from her as he straightened the reconstruction on the table. “I don’t have to worry about it. It’s quite safe.”

He was being evasive. Why? “Safe from what? Where is it?” Her gaze narrowed on his face. “If you’re not afraid I’m going to escape from you, why won’t you tell me?”

“You don’t need to know. You’ll find out soon enough.”

A sudden, bizarre thought occurred to her. “Why, you don’t know, do you?” she asked softly. “Your wonderful Kevin didn’t trust you enough to tell you. All this time, you’ve been stringing Venable along and making him think he’d eventually be able to get that info from you, and you never had it.”

“That’s not true,” he said harshly. “My Kevin did trust me. He just died before he could tell me where he stashed those nuclear devices. But I’ll still be able to do it. I just have to talk to a few of Kevin’s contacts here, and we’ll be able to find it.”

She laughed. “Who? His al-Qaeda buddies evidently weren’t able to find those bombs in the last five years. Why should they be able to tell you now? Maybe no one knows where they are.”

“Someone knows,” he said curtly. “Kevin knew. And Kevin wanted me to know. He told me he put it all in his journal. But the message was so well hidden that I couldn’t understand it. I went through the journal a dozen times, but I still couldn’t see what Kevin wanted me to see. So I hid it away until I could spend more time on it.” He added harshly, “Last week, I told Blick to go back to the house to get it and bring it to me when I was afraid things weren’t going so well. But the fool had the journal taken away from him by your friend, Kendra Michaels.”

“Good for Kendra,” Eve said. “And now no journal and no nukes. You’d better take me to Vancouver and go back to plan one, Doane. Two deaths instead of millions.”

“The bombs are still where Kevin put them. Your Kendra won’t be able to figure out their location from the journal any more than I could.” He added sourly, “But there’s another way I can find out where they are.”

“How? By communing with Kevin? I don’t think so.”

“There’s another way,” he repeated.

“I think Kevin lied to you and just wanted to soothe your ego. He didn’t trust you, and he didn’t want to give up the chance to go down in demonic history if you failed him.”

“I haven’t failed him. Everyone else has failed him, but I’ve stood strong and steady.” He looked at the skull on the table. “Even Blick failed you, Kevin. But we took care that he didn’t get a second chance.” He reached in his pocket. “And I’m not going to give you a second chance either, Eve.” He pulled out a hypodermic. “I have to be gone a few hours, and I’m not going to have you becoming troublesome. I think you need a nice long sleep after our trip.” He rolled up her sleeve. “And there will be no opportunity of throwing my Kevin into the fire even if you managed to get free.”

“You appear to like to use drugs.” Eve felt the prick of the needle on her arm. “You must have become used to them to lure Kevin’s victims into his web.”

He shook his head. “He didn’t like them drugged. That’s why I had to use all my skill and persuasion to get them to come with me. I told you, I can be very persuasive.”

And Eve knew that to be true. At first, his kind, trustworthy face and gentle manner had made even Eve believe they mirrored an equally trustworthy soul. “I still find it hard to understand how you could do that just because Kevin—” She broke off. “You must not have any conscience at all, Doane.”

“Kevin says conscience is overrated. He needed release. I gave it to him. Everyone who knew Kevin ended up giving him whatever he wanted. He was special. That’s how it should be.” He bent to look into her eyes. “You’re getting drowsy, aren’t you? I’ll be able to leave you soon.”

She was getting drowsy. The room was swimming around her. “Leave me now. I don’t want to—have to look at you any—longer.”

“Not yet. I want to be quite sure.” He leaned back against the table. “You’ll give Kevin what he wants, too, Eve.” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Your blood, your life … your Bonnie.”

“He can have two—out of three. He’ll never have … Bonnie.”

“You say that, but it means nothing. He already has her, all that’s left is to break her connection with this world. That’s you, Eve. When you die, he takes you both.”

“Then he can’t have me either.” The darkness was weaving in and out around her. “Go away, Doane. Or if you want to stick pins … in me, use the real thing. Your words … are useless. You and Kevin … bluff … only bluff.”

“Are we?” He was suddenly snarling. He jerked her closer to the table and set Kevin’s skull directly in front of her. “Then why are you afraid to look at him? You may not be afraid of me, but you’re afraid of Kevin. And soon you’ll fear both of us.”

He meant when they merged, she thought hazily. When Kevin crossed back and became—

Blue eyes staring at her from the skull only inches away from her.

Cold.

Nausea.

And then the panic.

They were only glass eyeballs, nothing else.

No.

Kevin’s eyes, reaching out for her.

And for Bonnie.

Her chest was tight. She couldn’t breathe. She could feel the perspiration bead her face as she fought the fear.

“Yes, that’s what I wanted,” Doane said softly, his gaze on her face. “I couldn’t do it to you, but Kevin managed, didn’t he? I keep telling you he’s special.” He straightened away from the table. “And now I’ll leave you to him. He’ll be sorry I gave you the shot. He always enjoyed the delicious sharpness of the response to whatever he did.” He paused at the door. “But perhaps you’ll be so afraid that the narcotic won’t take effect, and you’ll have him with you all the time I’m gone. Or maybe he’ll follow you down and bring the nightmare with him. All kinds of interesting possibilities…”

Doane was gone.

But Kevin was here. Eve had carefully mended the ugliness of the burned and blackened skull, but the sight of it was abruptly before her.

Only a memory, she told herself. A memory heightened by the effect of the narcotic Doane had given her. For all she knew, Doane could have given her a hallucinogenic to mentally torture her.

It wasn’t the drug.

It was Kevin.

Hate you. Take you. Take her.

“The hell you will.” Her voice was slurred. “You’re only bone and clay and glass.”

Blue eyes staring …

She closed her own eyes, which were unbearably heavy. “And now I’m going to go to sleep and you … may go back to hell … where you belong.”

Take you.

“No way…”

She could no longer see him, but she could still feel him there.

Frustrated? Good. She was tired of dealing with monsters and filthy perverts who were incomprehensible to ordinary human beings. She just wanted to go away …

*   *   *

“YOU HAVE GONE AWAY.
No one can touch you now, Mama.”

Bonnie?

She opened her eyes, but Kevin’s skull was no longer on the table before her.

Bonnie was sitting in the chair at the end of the table, her right leg tucked beneath her. Same Bugs Bunny T-shirt and jeans, same curly red hair, same beloved, radiant smile.

Oh, God, how Eve had missed that smile.

“And just where have I gone, baby?” she asked shakily.

“You’re still in the cottage, but the drug Doane gave you took you deep enough so that I could break through the barriers Kevin put up. I was able to reach you. I told you that was the only way I’d found to come to you.”

“I’m surprised you were able to get through. This was Kevin’s place, and it’s full of him. It’s as if he’s still here.” She grimaced. “Even that hideous graveyard of driftwood out front. It’s kind of fitting that Doane gave me a drug to knock me out. It’s like that sleeping-beauty tale, only instead of a garden of thorns keeping everyone out, there’s that graveyard of driftwood.”

“I had to work hard on it. This is a bad place.” She suddenly grinned impishly. “But I was even able to get rid of that nasty Kevin’s skull from your mind. I knew you’d be happier if he was gone. And Kevin was perfectly furious at both of us. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Wonderful. But he’s still there?”

“Not as long as you’re asleep. Everything is fine as long as you’re deep under the influence of that narcotic. Doane did us a favor when he gave it to you.”

“I don’t believe that was how it was meant.” Her gaze was running hungrily over her daughter. “But I don’t care. May I say how glad I am to see you. It’s been too long, Bonnie.”

“I did the best I could. Kevin is very strong. But you know that, Mama, he makes you afraid.” She tilted her head. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you afraid.”

“Only for you, Bonnie.”

She nodded gravely. “I know that. Everything for me. That’s how it’s been since I came into your life.”

“That’s how all parents feel, baby. It goes with the territory.”

“But now you should think about yourself, Mama. Let me fight for myself.”

Eve went still. “And is it a fight with Kevin? Not some kind of spiritual suppression or—”

“Of course, it’s a fight,” Bonnie said bluntly. “Forget all those big, fancy religious or psychological ideas. There’s nothing but evil about Kevin. He’s … full of silences. I don’t know what a demon is like, but he may show us if he’s allowed to survive. He somehow managed to slip over the line, and now he won’t go back.” She paused. “He wants to cross another line.”

“I know,” Eve whispered.

Bonnie nodded. “I thought you did. So you have to fight him, too.” She added, “But we can beat him. We have to do it.”

She remembered something Bonnie had said. “Full of silences,” Eve repeated slowly. “What do you mean?”

“He … smothers … everything. I don’t know how he does it. Maybe it’s something he brought with him.” She bit down on her lower lip. “But it’s … bad. Terrible. Final.”

“Final … I don’t understand.”

“The soul goes on. Most of the time there’s a chance for redemption, a new start. But with Kevin, I sense only silence from his victims. Nothing beyond. No second chance.”

“Those children he killed?”

“Silence.”

“Dear God.”

“But if Kevin is destroyed, perhaps the silence would be lifted.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. We can only hope and pray. But we can’t let him silence anyone else. He mustn’t kill again. For him, silence is the ultimate power, far above the act of murder.”

Millions dead in a nuclear holocaust.

“We have to stop it.” Bonnie’s gaze was on her face, reading her thoughts. “Not only the deaths but what might come after.”

“You worry about the afterward. Saving lives is enough for me to be concerned about at the moment.”

Bonnie smiled. “You’ll worry about everything. Present, future, afterward. I know you, Mama.”

“One crisis at a time. Doane is my primary crisis.” She made a face. “Or maybe it’s Kevin. I get confused when I think about them these days.”

“It will get clearer,” Bonnie said soberly. “Because they’re getting closer to each other all the time. Can’t you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“Kevin hates you. He wants to silence you.”

“Silence.” Eve had never realized how chilling that word could be. The ultimate power, Bonnie had said. “I’m sure he has a similar desire where you’re concerned.”

“It’s different with me. He blames you. You’re standing in his way. You have to be very careful.”

Eve suddenly chuckled. “Bonnie, I’m tied up, captive of a homicidal maniac who’s threatening to blow me up along with half of Seattle. And you’re telling me to be careful?”

“Sorry.” Bonnie giggled. “Sometimes I forget the present when I get absorbed in what’s going to happen.” A smile was still lingering. “But I’m glad that I made you laugh. I love to hear you laugh, and you don’t do enough of it. I wish you were always smiling.”

“I’m not the type. The people who know me would think I was having a breakdown if I went around grinning.” Eve’s smile faded. “But you make me smile. You always did. From the moment you were born, you filled every day with love and laughter. When you were gone, I couldn’t find it again. I just like you to be here near me.”

“I’m always near you,” Bonnie said gently.

“I know, but I want to see you, dammit.” She shook her head. “It’s okay. I swore I wouldn’t complain. You’re busy saving the afterworld.” She grimaced. “That makes you sound like a superhero. Now that is funny when I look at you in that Bugs Bunny T-shirt.”

“You like me in this T-shirt. It makes you remember me the way I was before I left you.”

“Yes, it does.” Bonnie had told Eve that after she had passed over that she could not remain the child she had been. The way she spoke, the wisdom, the maturity, had at first shocked Eve. No longer. Bonnie’s soul was the same, and that was all that was important to her. She asked curiously, “Could you change how you look to me?”

“I don’t know. I think so. But it’s not important if you’re happy with me like this.” Her smile was loving. “It’s all about you, Mama.”

“No, it’s not. You just want to keep me from joining you too soon. I’m trying, Bonnie. I know that Joe would feel as lost as I did when you were taken. I don’t want him to hurt like that.” She added wearily, “But I’m so tired of being without you, baby. Sometimes I think I’d be forgiven if I just let it happen.”