Damn Him to Hell (11 page)

Over my dead body was a very real possibility.

M
y old Max would have hugged and kissed and comforted me as I rocked back and forth in horror. Dane/Max hovered helplessly. We both sensed that we were bad for each other in too many weird ways, and until and unless we figured them out, life would be simpler apart.

Nothing like knowing you can’t have something to make you want it more.

“I blame it on the Zone, Justy,” he said wearily, tucking my hair behind my ear. “There’s some weird stuff going down at Acme. I don’t think blue goo and green clouds are helping whatever’s warping you and everything else down there.”

Max knew about winking statues and crowing
weather vanes because he’d used me as a spy for months, back when he was an environmental activist trying to find a way to shut down Acme. Or maybe it was just to screw up his family’s income. He hadn’t really explained himself to me at the time.

Fortunately, I’m equally closemouthed and hadn’t told him about the real weirdnesses, like Sarah’s shape-shifting or Cora’s snakes. Just as Andre didn’t know for certain about Max. I was Keeper of the Secrets.

“That’s not what Themis says,” I pointed out, digging my fingers into his fancy leather chair rather than reach out for him. “The Zone has nothing to do with my bizarro shit. She says my asteroids are in the seventh house and Saturn is aligned with Mars or some such garbage.” But Max was totally right that Acme was screwing with the neighborhood. I just didn’t want to tell secrets that weren’t mine to reveal.

“Believing in psychic old ladies could be another chemical reaction,” he warned. “I was there when the tanks first spilled. I was between jobs, working in the office. My family wouldn’t let me go back afterward, but I knew the company had been playing with some dangerous new material. We could both be polluted.”

Dangerous new material, like magic elements. Yeah, tell me about it. Magic or a tool of Satan, which would I rather believe? Pink confetti looked like Disney magic to me. Maybe the devil was filming a show-and-tell on How to Destroy a Planet.

“I bet Dane didn’t work down there,” I pointed out. “So who do you want to believe is polluted, him
or you? For all I know, Acme opened a gate to hell.” I didn’t think any environmental scientist in the world could begin to explain the Zone, so I saw no reason to muddy the waters with questions. But I gave him a small bone to chew on. “Paddy says Acme is still experimenting with the new element. Did you know he’s actually sane, or is that a new development?” I cocked my head at him with interest, preferring this topic to my damning hobby.

“With Paddy, it’s hard to tell.” He poured a second glass of whiskey for himself but didn’t immediately drink it. “He’s Dane’s father, Gloria’s only son, but he doesn’t communicate with the family as far as I’m aware. His number isn’t in Dane’s cell phone. Dane’s mother ditched Paddy years ago. Last I heard, she was in France. She’s not in his address book, either.”

Dane/Max shrugged and continued. “Since my—Max’s—grandmother still owns half the firm along with Gloria, she was the one who asked Paddy to hire me, but I’m pretty certain Paddy never contacts the MacNeill side of the family anymore, either.”

The MacNeill side was Max’s side. Paddy’s cousin was Max’s mother. Referring to one’s original self in the third person was a trifle confusing, although it was even weirder for me to hear him refer to Dane that way, since physically, in my eyes, he was now Dane.

“I think I’m too tired for this,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “You have an inside track on the grannies. Why don’t you give them a visit and see if either one spills the family secrets? Let’s blame our predicament on Acme and see how that flows.”

“If we’re going nuts and hearing Dane in flames, it’s Acme’s fault?” he asked with a hint of amusement, almost sounding like my Max. “And you still want to go back to the Zone?”

When he put it that way . . . I stood up and pulled on my jacket. “Yeah. Because even if the people living in the Zone are nuts, they’re nuts in a positive way. They’re good people. I like them a whole lot better than your greedy family. It’s only when Acme steps into the picture that trouble starts. And maybe, just maybe, I’m meant to be there to keep Acme from hurting anyone else.”

He frowned dubiously. I knew I couldn’t ask Max for more help. He was a senator who needed to keep his job.

“You just keep your bimbos from blackmailing you, and I’ll try to keep your family from killing you—again.” I stood on my toes and kissed his handsome cheek, enjoying his solid masculinity in the only way I could. “You’re a good man, Charlie Brown. Talk to the old harpies. Tell them the anesthesia from taking out the bullet messed with your memory and see what they tell you. Let me know if you learn anything, and I’ll return the favor.”

He let me go, although I could tell by his fisted hands that he was having difficulty keeping them off me. Old habits die hard.

•   •   •

If driving home with the wind in my face was my idea of a Saturday night date, I decided I was better off staying in with Milo.

I’d spent a few miserable weeks the previous May dodging Vanderventer’s security goons. The habit was almost ingrained by now, especially after seeing Dane in person, so to speak. I didn’t take a direct route back to my place. I steered the bike down dark alleys and waited for traffic to flow by. I didn’t spy any tails.

Out of curiosity, I swung the bike behind the empty warehouse across from the town house where I made my bed. I knew a locked chain-link fence protected the entrance to Andre’s lair, but I couldn’t just waltz up to his front door at midnight and expect entrance.

I wanted company, and I wasn’t above climbing a chain-link just to see what happened. Unlike Acme’s goons, Andre probably wouldn’t shoot me on sight.

I really should have gone home to Milo, but it was freaking Saturday night. I’d had a bad day and had spent the evening nobly resisting a hottie, and I was hornier than hell. Bad phrasing, but I wasn’t in the mood to edit my thoughts.

To my surprise, the fence lock opened when I yanked at it. I shoved the gate open a few feet, rolled my bike through, and, keeping an eye on the shadows, closed it again. With Dane’s evilness gone, I shouldn’t have needed to be afraid, but caution had been my motto for long enough to become habit.

My headlight beam caught Andre leaning against the wall of the loading dock, appearing for all the world as if he’d just stepped out of a 1920s speakeasy for a smoke. Except Andre didn’t smoke. So what was he doing out here?

He’d apparently showered off the glitter at some
point and donned a loose pale blue shirt and dark trousers. If he’d had a fedora and a coat swung over his shoulder, we’d have had the setting for a film noir.

“Don’t you ever lock your gates?” I chirped, parking the Harley and switching off its light.

“Not when I know you’ll just climb over. Did you get your senator boyfriend out of our hair?” He sounded more bleak than snarky.

Andre owned the world. He had no reason to be gloomy. I climbed up to the dock beside him, leaned against the wall, and admired the few stars visible above the roof lines. They say misery loves company.

“Dane has his own troubles. He doesn’t have time for us these days. And no, I don’t tell him what goes down here any more than I’ll tell you what he’s dealing with. Is there a reason we’re standing outside?”

“Because you won’t go to bed with me?” he asked, back to the usual snark.

“I’m thinking of becoming a nun,” I taunted. “In Clancy’s world, sex is too complicated, especially when the men are sneaky, deceptive, lying bastards.”

“My parents are very much married,” he said gravely.

“Your parents didn’t give you the name Legrande,” I countered. Were we just doing our usual boy/girl dance here, or was he offering more? Given the mood I was in, I needed more.

“True.” He caught my elbow and opened the door to the warehouse before I could react. “We’re not equipped to deal with nearly a dozen comatose patients.
We need to send them where Acme can’t find them.”

“None of them are coming around?” The news was bad, but at least the subject was safer than anything personal. Although his strong grip on my arm didn’t ease the hormone dance.

“See for yourself.” He led me back to the room that had been cleared for the patients.

I gazed at the array of cots in dismay. Thank goodness it was September and not too hot or cold. I doubted the hundred-year-old warehouse was insulated or thermostatically controlled. It certainly wasn’t sanitary.

Tim was sweeping the floor with a long broom and raising puffs of dust. He’d placed a vase of flowers near Nancy Rose’s cot, which nearly broke my hard heart.

Apparently the med students had divided into shifts. Only a female one was on duty. I had some vague notion that medical residents worked abominable hours, so I was amazed and grateful that any of them found time for us.

Leibowitz lay there like a beached walrus with that ratty mustache. Not a single malevolent twitch from his cot.

I studied Nancy Rose. Mid-fifties would be my guess. Threads of frost in her mousy brown hair, jowls starting to sag, a bit on the plump side. She just seemed to be sleeping. I swallowed a lump in my throat. Tim thought of her as a mother figure. He needed her. I tested her pulse. Beating regularly
as far as I could tell. Could she really be sick already?

The baby doc joined us and read her chart. “High white-blood-cell count, an indication of infection, conceivably cancer. Compromised breathing. Normally, I’d order more blood tests and pictures of her lungs. If her lungs are infected, they could be depriving her brain of oxygen and causing the coma. She probably ought to be hospitalized.”

Damn
. Not good. What about the others?

I counted ten beds in all. Out of their filthy clothes, the homeless patients mostly seemed unshaven and in need of a good barber. And they all appeared old enough to be my great-grandparents. Odd. I knew the homeless encampment contained all ages. Why did only the old ones turn toes-up? “And the others?”

“Minor contusions and lacerations from the fighting,” she said. “A few bad hearts, possibly a diabetes case, the usual ills of age. Lack of insulin in the diabetes case might cause a comatose state. High blood pressure might in others. They all should have tests run.”

I thought about the other half-dozen patients we’d seen at Acme, all similar to these. “Sixteen people in one small area can’t concuss, have strokes, and fall victim to high blood pressure over a span of a few hours.”

“The causes of coma are too numerous to list, but agreed, having sixteen people fall into one in the space of a few hours does suggest external poisoning interfering with blood or oxygen flow. These people
reacted more strongly than others, possibly because some agents strike the elderly and ill harder, possibly for reasons unknown.”

I bit my tongue to prevent a sarcastic
magic
from escaping. Paddy’s euphemism for the new element could start a full-scale panic or turn us into a laughingstock. The latter seemed more likely.

“They need more medical help than we can provide,” the lady doc concluded.

“I know a few people in the medical community,” I admitted. “It’s been years since I’ve talked to some of them, so I make no promises. But if we can ship them out to hospitals in surrounding states, will they be safe from Acme?”

“Tricky, unless your people are willing to lie about where they found them. Only a few of the patients have IDs. They’re all apparently indigent except for Mrs. Rose and Officer Leibowitz.” She checked the florist’s IV. “They’ll be turned away almost anywhere.”

We’d have to take care of Sarah and Sleeping Beauty ourselves. A warehouse was no place for the others. I began mentally listing some of my mother’s more dubious friends. Most of my college buddies knew better than to do anything for me, since I’d gotten them expelled, but I could ask around. I’d spent a year in a hospital. I could summon names.

“They may be fine by morning,” Andre suggested. “But if not, start prioritizing them. We can’t justify keeping them from Acme if we only kill them ourselves.”

The doc nodded and returned to her rounds. Andre
caught my elbow and dragged me on. He had a bad habit of manhandling me, but he knew I could take him down if I objected.

Apparently, we both needed the physical contact for the moment.

“Acme sent street sweepers through the Zone,” he said grimly, clambering down the stairs to the tunnel under the street. He picked up an automatic weapon that had been leaning against the wall.

I glanced warily at the gun. Had he grabbed it when I’d come through the gate? He probably had security alarms and cameras everywhere.

He stopped abruptly to open a door in the wall. The light level was low in here, and to me, a tunnel was a tunnel. I hadn’t considered storage closets.

He shoved the weapon inside, and I caught a glimpse of a whole array of heavy metal before he slammed it again.

Andre had an arsenal prepared for war
. I was trying really hard not to freak. Gun and conspiracy wing nuts who stockpiled weapons against the apocalypse seldom turned out well.