Дж. Хатчинс - Personal Effects - Dark Art

I did, and told her so. Rachael didn’t believe in the Dark Man as I did; she hadn’t heard its skitter-slide, hadn’t felt its icy breath on her neck, hadn’t seen. She didn’t understand… but that didn’t make her wrong. No, she was absolutely right. I never tried to explain. I abandoned her and Lucas, fueled by obsession and a need, a primal, seemingly-cellular need, to see it done.

I was more like my father—and Richard Drake—than I’d ever imagined.

“I love you, geek goddess,” I said.

“I love you back, hottie artist,” Rachael replied. “You’re in the doghouse, but at least you’re loved.”

I smiled. “I’ll take it.”

“And now the bad news,” she said. “Your dad called Lucas last night after he tried to reach you. He’s pulling Drake out of The Brink.”

I stiffened… and winced. “He’s what?”

“He’s leveraging yesterday’s accident as a reason to transfer Drake.”

“Emilio…” I muttered. “He’s probably doing it to bolster his case. Literally. Get Drake out of The Brink, make him out to be a violent psychotic, get him away from me. ‘Conflict of interest’ no more.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he wants to protect you. We don’t know, but he told Luc that he’s bulldozing through whatever red tape to make it happen. He’s on a tear, Z, calling in big favors. It’s happening today, and there’s apparently nothing you or Brinkvale can do about it. At noon, Drake is gone… and it’s over.”

“Over,” I said. I glanced at my satchel resting in the passenger seat. There was a letter and two photographs inside—things Drake had consciously—or unconsciously—wanted me to find. Why?

“Dunno.”

“What was that?” Rachael asked.

I looked back to the road ahead. A green exit sign rose on the horizon: Claytonville.

“I don’t think it’s over, Rache,” I said. “Answers. I need answers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

A wave of guilt, thick and sickening, passed over me. I couldn’t tell her about Uncle Henry. That was black, soul-wracking family history. I didn’t believe the revelation would fundamentally change the way she saw me, felt about me… but it would damn my father in her eyes. And my late grandmother, who had gone along with the plan. And then the secret would fester between us, with Lucas oblivious, intangibly damaging us, all three of us. It wasn’t a fair burden to share.

It didn’t feel right to tell her. But it wasn’t right to not tell her.

“Do you trust me?” I asked.

“Don’t answer my question with a question, damn it. I said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’”

I cringed.

“I found some things at the Drake house—a letter from the CIA, a photo of the Russian. I don’t know what they mean, baby. I don’t know what to do. But I know that Drake didn’t kill those people, and he doesn’t deserve whatever Hell my dad’s got planned for him. I… I know… I know someone who might be able to help me. I need to talk to him. And then I have to go to The Brink.”

“Who’s ‘him?’” she asked.

And here it was, in the most honest terms I could muster:

“An… an old friend. Someone who believes in the Dark Man.”

Silence.

“You’re not going to tell me any more, are you?” she asked.

“I will, if we’re on the edge,” I said. And despite the misery that would come, I would. “Are we?”

She sighed. “What’s with you, Zach? Are you trying to ruin us? Didn’t we just cover this?”

“That’s why I’m telling you what I can. That’s why I’m asking if you trust me.”

“You know I trust you.”

“Then can you live with not knowing? At least for right now?”

“Damn it, that’s not fair and you know it.”

I was rushing toward the exit for Claytonville. I reached for the turn signal out of habit—preposterous, considering the Saturn was the sole car on this stretch of blacktop—but pulled my hand away. This, this moment, was important.

No. This was the most important moment.

“I know,” I whispered.

“You’re so in the red, kiddo,” Rachael said. “Go. Go do your thing and come home safe. We’ll fight and then we’ll fuck and you’ll cook dinner for the next month. And maybe, when we’re both ready, you can tell me about this. Deal?”

I loved her more than anything right then. I truly did.

My fingers flipped the turn signal. I merged left.

“Deal.”

I shambled through Claytonville’s atrophied limestone halls like the bloodied, filth-covered zombie I undoubtedly resembled. Even this prison’s most jaded corrections officers performed bug-eyed double takes at the sight of me: one part of my brain thought I should be proud of that; it was hard to shock the guards in a facility that housed homicidal lost causes—who now happened to be cleaner and better-dressed than me.

The last time I was here, I’d trembled with dread, anxiety, anger and a need… a need to know. Now, I was too broken, too spent, to feel any of those things. I’d been through an emotional atomsmasher. I needed a friend who understood.

“Lemme guess,” said the barrel-chested guard as we walked toward the visitor’s room. He looked me over and winked. “I should see the other guy. Right?”

I grunted. “I was the other guy.”

“Ouch.”

“Brother, I’ve got ’ouch’ on speed dial.”

The rusted door screeched open and in I stepped, alone again in the wide room with its row of semi-private nooks, panes of floor-to-ceiling shatterproof glass, and security cameras. I moaned as I sat, again reminding myself of a George Romero movie refugee. The ghostly reflection staring back at me in the glass was—sweet Christmas—worse than I imagined.

Walking dead , pardner. Brainnnns.

“Hush,” I hissed.

And, like two days ago, a fire-alarm bell trilled for a moment… and then my uncle emerged from the open door beyond the glass. The same guard followed him. Henry sat down across from me. The guard announced that we had ten minutes, and stepped backward, watching us.

Henry gazed at me, his gray eyebrows furrowed with concern. His face did not twist in revulsion as the others’ had; I supposed he’d seen worse during his twenty years here.

“What happened?” he asked.

“The path found me,” I deadpanned.

Henry’s bearded face crinkled into a slight smile. He started to speak again, but I waved my hand: It’s cool, we’re cool, let me finish.

“The man the newspapers call Martin Grace drew a map that sent me to his son’s home,” I said. “I was sent there to find something. His son did… well, he did this. ” I shrugged, self-conscious. I remembered the cameras, and didn’t want to incriminate myself any more than I already had. “I fought back, took him down. But I did the right thing. Called 911 from the pay phone in the lobby. I think he’ll be okay.”

“They’re resourceful when they’re curious,” Henry said. “Trace it back here, check with visitor logs.”

I nodded. “And if the county lush cares to press charges, I’ll happily take my licks. But I don’t think he’ll do that. He’s like his father; it’s just not in him to heal. He’s lost enough already.”

I leaned forward and stared into his blue eyes.

“I saw it.”

Henry’s face was solemn. “I can tell. You don’t fall into the black and come away completely whole.” He raised his finger, as if to explain. The charms on his bracelet jingled. “I don’t mean physically. There’s a very large, sometimes very frightening, world just beside—and beneath and above—this one. That world scraped against you, Zach. It changes you. Like it changed you twenty years ago.”