Odd Apocalypse Read online

Page 13


  After Johnny and his bride-to-be left in a snit, we asked Gypsy Mummy the question that the other couple had posed. Into the brass tray slid a card that read YOU ARE DESTINED TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER.

  Stormy framed it behind glass and hung it above her bed, where it remained for a few years. Now it was in a smaller frame on the nightstand in my guest-tower bedroom.

  When I lost Stormy, I never considered destroying the card in anger. I have no anger. I have never raged at man or God about what happened. Sorrow is my legacy from that terrible day, and as well a humbling awareness of my inadequacies, which are beyond counting.

  To keep the sorrow from overwhelming me, I remain focused on the beauty of this world, which is everywhere to be seen in rich variety, from the smallest wildflowers and the iridescent hummingbird that feeds on them to the night sky diamonded with fiery stars.

  And because I am able to see the lingering dead, I know that something lies outside of time, a place to which they belong and to which one day I will go. The prediction of Gypsy Mummy, therefore, has not proved finally wrong; it may yet be fulfilled, and I keep sorrow in check by anticipating the fulfillment of that much-desired destiny.

  Since leaving Pico Mundo, I had taken the fortune-teller’s card with me when I traveled where my intuition propelled me. But for fear of losing it in some moment of desperate action, I didn’t carry it on my person all day, every day.

  Recent events had led me to believe that the evil in Roseland was of an unprecedented nature. Annamaria was a help to me but not a shield, and my chances of surviving until morning didn’t seem to be good. I had no silly notion that as long as Gypsy Mummy’s seven words were in my possession, I would be invulnerable. But I felt, perhaps foolishly, that were I to die and step out of time, the powers that be on the Other Side would feel more obliged to lead me directly to Stormy if I carried with me evidence of the promised destiny.

  I don’t mind being considered foolish. I’m as much a fool as anyone, more so than some, and keeping that truth always in mind prevents me from becoming cocky. Cockiness gets you killed.

  I pried up the fasteners on the back of the frame, removed the rectangle of chipboard, and retrieved the card. I put it in one of the plastic windows in my wallet.

  Otherwise, those windows were empty. I carried no photo of Stormy because I had no need of it. Her face, her smile, her form, the beauty of her graceful hands, her voice were all vivid in my mind, indelible. In memory, she lived and moved and laughed, but all that a photograph could offer was one frozen moment of a life.

  Over my sweater, I put on a sports jacket that I had bought during my shopping trip to town. I wasn’t trying to spiff up my image. A sports jacket provided pockets and concealment.

  As Noah Wolflaw had instructed, I locked the narrow, barred windows and drew shut the draperies. I turned on all the lamps so that much later, when nightfall came, the light leaking around the draperies would suggest that I was in residence.

  After locking my suite of rooms, I climbed the winding stone stairs from the vestibule to the second floor. The knuckles of my right hand chased the door as it swung open before they could quite rap the wood.

  Raphael, the golden retriever we’d rescued in Magic Beach, was lying on the floor, holding a Nylabone in his forepaws, gnawing it with gusto. He thumped his tail in greeting, but the Nylabone was at the moment of greater interest to him than any chest scratch or tummy rub he might get from me.

  Boo was either elsewhere in the suite or had gone out to explore Roseland. As a spirit dog, he could walk through walls if he wished and do any of the usual ghosty things. But I had previously observed that, like any living dog, he had considerable curiosity and enjoyed exploring new places.

  As before, the draperies were closed, and the only light came from two stained-glass lamps. Annamaria sat at the same small dining table. No mugs of tea stood steaming for either her or me.

  Instead, on the table rested a shallow blue bowl eighteen inches in diameter, filled with water, in which floated three enormous white flowers. They were somewhat like magnolia blooms but larger, as big as cantaloupes, lusher, the petals so thick they seemed artificial, as if made of wax.

  I had seen these flowers before, on an immense tree that grew outside the place where she had lived for a while in Magic Beach. We had eaten a meal together at a table where three blooms floated in a large shallow bowl like this one.

  Knowing the names of things is a way of paying respect to the beauty of the world that sustains me and keeps my sorrow in check. I know the names of many trees, but not the name of the one from which these flowers came.

  Approaching the table, I said, “Where did you get these?”

  The lamp glow fell upon the flowers, the waxy petals bounced it softly to Annamaria, and this indirection played a trick on the eye, so that it seemed the light on her face shone from within her.

  She smiled and said, “I took them from the tree.”

  “The tree is back in Magic Beach.”

  “The tree is here, Oddie.”

  I had only ever seen one tree with these blooms, the nameless one in Magic Beach, with its great spreading black branches and its eight-lobed leaves.

  “Here in Roseland? I’ve been all over the estate. I haven’t seen anything with these flowers.”

  “Well, it’s here as surely as you are.”

  Less than a week earlier, she had performed a trick with one of these white flowers. A friend of mine, a woman named Blossom, her only audience, had been wonderstruck by it. Now it seemed that she likewise impressed Noah Wolflaw, although the illusion apparently disturbed him in a way it didn’t disturb Blossom.

  “In Magic Beach, you promised to show me something with a flower like this.”

  “And indeed I will. Something that you will remember always.”

  I pulled out the chair in which I had been sitting earlier.

  Before I could settle, she raised a hand to stop me. “Not now.”

  “When?”

  “All things in their time, odd one.”

  “That’s what you said before.”

  “And it’s what I say again. You have a pressing matter to attend to, I believe.”

  “Yeah. I found the one who needs me. A boy who won’t tell me his name. I think he really might be her son … if that makes any sense.”

  Reflections of the blooms in the bowl flowered in her big dark eyes. “You have no time for an explanation, and I don’t need one. Do what you must.”

  Something nuzzled my hand, and I looked down to see that Boo had materialized. He felt as solid to me as any real dog, as all spirits felt to me. His tongue was warm as he licked my fingers, but my hand did not become wet.

  Annamaria said, “And remember what I told you earlier. If you should doubt the justice of your actions, you could die in Roseland. Do not doubt the beauty of your heart.”

  I understood why she counseled me with those words. Mere days earlier, in Magic Beach, I had been caught up in a series of events that required me to kill five people involved in a terrorist plot, one of them a lovely young woman with large pellucid blue eyes. They would have murdered hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, if I had not killed them, and they would have murdered me. But the killing, especially of the woman, even though in self-defense, had left me dark inside and sick of myself.

  That is why I told you at the start that I had recently been in a mood, not as buoyant and quick to find the humor in any moment as I have usually been. That was surely why I dreamed of Auschwitz, too, and worried about dying twice.

  “The boy needs you,” she said.

  After looking one last time at the flowers in the bowl, I went to the door.

  “Young man.” When I glanced at her, she said, “Trust the justice of your actions and come back to me. You are my one protector.”

  The retriever and the white shepherd were staring at me. Neither wagged his tail. Henry Ward Beecher once said, “The dog was created especially for children.
He is the god of frolic.” I agree with that sentiment. But dogs can sometimes give you the most solemn look you will ever see on a human or an animal face, as if occasionally they are able to foretell, as if they see something in your future that they dread on your behalf.

  I stepped out of Annamaria’s suite, pulled the door shut, fished the key from my pocket, and locked her safely inside.

  Twenty-one

  LEAVING THE GUEST TOWER, I REALIZED THAT AMONG the eucalyptuses, as in the oak grove around the Enceladus lawn, no leaves lay on the ground either where the earth was bare or where a sparse grass grew, or on the flagstone path.

  Brooding on that and a great deal more, I made my way to the groundskeeper’s building by a roundabout route that prevented me from being seen by anyone who might be at a window in the main house. By lawns, by wild fields, by the cover of trees, I circled to the north end of the huge estate, always watchful for the mysterious pigs, if pigs they were, as well as for the stallion and his rider.

  The swine scared me, but at least the only horse in Roseland was a spirit. I find horses beautiful and noble and all that, but … One night years earlier, three women on horseback hunted me through the desert around Pico Mundo. They wanted to carve open my skull and take my brain. And their steeds were no less scary than the women.

  I had chanced upon them in the middle of a ceremony that no man was ever meant to see. I thought they were Wiccans, but they despised Wiccans almost as much as they despised reason. According to those three, mere witches were wimps.

  Their ceremony was for the most part so dull that it wasn’t worth a ticket at any price, especially not at the cost of my life. The event was rather like a university women’s society meeting, with a reading of the minutes and a report from the treasurer, except that these three met in the nude, brewed magic-mushroom tea, and structured their get-together around the sacrifice of three plump doves. The poor birds never did anything to anyone but had the misfortune to be symbols of peace, and nothing infuriated those particular women more than the concept of peace.

  They were a nasty trio. And their horses seemed to track me by scent, as if they were half Appaloosa, half bloodhound. The flaring nostrils, the black lips skinned back from big square teeth, the flashing eyes … Consequently, I find movies like Seabiscuit and even Black Beauty to be as disturbing as The Silence of the Lambs.

  The groundskeeper’s building was a sizable two-story stone structure in a shallow, picturesque glen that was sunny in the center and ringed by lacy California pepper trees. The small leaves of the peppers shimmered in a soft breeze of hardly greater force than an infant’s breathing.

  The ground-floor windows were larger than those at the guest tower, but they were barred. The man-size door was locked. Behind three garage doors were evidently vehicles used by the landscapers, wherever they might be. From Henry Lolam during one of my visits to the gatehouse, I had ascertained that Jam Diu occupied an apartment on the second floor, and that there were also rooms on that level for other live-in members of the landscaping staff, though Henry had never quite confirmed that said staff existed.

  Although it might be dangerous to assume that Jam Diu would still be pottering around up near the house, searching for that one hateful dandelion that could destroy the perfection of Roseland, I made the assumption anyway. I boldly tried the front door, but it was locked. The garage bays had power roll-ups and offered no exterior handles for manual operation.

  At the back of the building, I found two doors and a series of barred windows. Kicking in a door might be difficult if a deadbolt was engaged.

  Besides, I was wearing rubber-soled Rockports. If you’re going to go around kicking down doors, you need to wear jackboots or the equivalent, so you don’t wind up lying on the ground with a fracture of the heel bone, sobbing like a baby.

  Matt Damon and Tom Cruise and Liam Neeson and Bruce Willis and other men of their stature have kicked down numerous doors without sustaining the slightest injury to the calcaneus, which is the heel bone. Sometimes they have even done it barefoot. But I do not claim to be as tough as those gentlemen are, nor do I have access to the superlative health-care plan of the Screen Actors Guild.

  On my way across the estate, I had thought hard about Wolflaw’s bewilderment as to why he had asked Annamaria to be his guest—and remembered Henry Lolam and Paulie Sempiterno being equally mystified. If these people harbored secrets that might destroy them, inviting strangers to stay in Roseland was self-destructive.

  Annamaria might have charisma, in the truest sense of the word, and she might inspire in people a desire to assist her, but she was not a voodoo priestess casting spells that could bring her into any inner sanctum where she wished to go. She had told Wolflaw that he had a purpose in bringing her and me to Roseland, and she seemed to have at least some general idea of what that purpose might be, even if it was her curious nature not to share her insight, to be as enigmatic with me as with everyone else.

  Having quietly worked on murder investigations in Pico Mundo with Chief Wyatt Porter, who was like a father to me, I knew that some habitual criminals, especially those who commit violent acts with a perverse edge, want to be caught. Not all of them. Perhaps not even most of them. But some of them. They don’t necessarily know they want to be caught, but they unconsciously follow signature behaviors that link their crimes, taunt the police, and take ever-bigger risks that sooner or later must inevitably bring them down.

  Whatever bizarre business Wolflaw was up to, he might on some profound level be weary of it, feel trapped by it, and want to bring it to an end. But as with any deeply bad habit, stopping the madness could be difficult.

  As I stood there considering whether I should try to break down one of the rear doors to the groundskeeper’s building, I suddenly wondered if Wolflaw, in his unconscious desire to be exposed and stopped, might have literally given me the key to get the job done.

  I tried the guest-tower key, and it turned the deadbolt. The locks in both buildings were keyed alike.

  On the bottom floor were the garages. Of the three bays, two contained vehicles. They were scaled-down, open-bed trucks of the kind landscapers used, but they appeared to be antiques, so old that they had polished-brass fittings, bug-eyed headlights, and fancy wire wheels that no company these days would include on such a utility vehicle. They were in mint condition.

  Open to the garage portion of the structure, a tool-storage area offered shovels and rakes and pickaxes and sickles hung on the wall. They seemed to be as clean as surgical tools.

  In the middle of this space were racks of open shelving around which I walked. All were empty and dust-free.

  Inlaid in the concrete floor were many of the copper rods with the elongated figure eight inscribed in the exposed end.

  Nowhere could I find bags of fertilizer, cans of insecticide, bottles of fungicide, or other gardening supplies.

  I went through the drawers of a storage cabinet, which mostly contained hand tools. I found a hacksaw, which I took, and a packet of spare blades, which I slipped into an inner jacket pocket.

  I also took a screwdriver. It wasn’t as good as a knife, but it could do damage. The handle was wood instead of plastic.

  Although the better Odd Thomas in me rebelled at the very thought of stabbing someone with a screwdriver or any other weapon, I knew from grim experience that, cornered and desperate, I could do to bad men what they wanted to do to me. And bad women. There is in me a darkness that, by darkness challenged, will rise up and have its way. I act in the defense of the innocent, but I sometimes must wonder if I will be innocent in my own heart, or even redeemable, at the end of my strange road.

  The ground floor also contained Mr. Jam Diu’s office. The desk drawers were empty, as was the filing cabinet. In the concrete floor were more of the copper rods.

  Because of the lack of an interior staircase, I used exterior stairs at the east end of the building to climb to the second floor. A hallway served five rooms and one bath in th
e first two-thirds of the building; although they might have been intended as quarters for live-in gardeners back in the day, they were unfurnished.

  At the end of the hall, a door opened into Jam Diu’s efficiency apartment. These immaculate quarters were furnished and decorated almost as sparely as a Zen monk’s cell.

  He had no television but a first-class music system. Although the world might prefer streaming music off the Internet, Jam Diu hung with his CDs. His collection seemed to consist entirely of classics, piano and orchestral, though I spotted one Slim Whitman album that must have been a gift from some misguided soul.

  In the bedroom, as you would expect of any true music lover, a Beretta shotgun and an assault rifle were fixed to the wall with quick-release spring clips. They were loaded. On a set of open shelves were perhaps a hundred boxes of ammunition for the two visible firearms, but also for handguns.

  Apparently Mr. Jam Diu worried about something more aggressive than aphids and bark beetles.

  The pistols and revolvers were in the bottom two drawers of a highboy. So much for the screwdriver. I put it in the back of the lowest drawer and, from the selection of six handguns, I chose a Beretta Px4 Storm. Double-action 9 mm with a four-inch barrel. Seventeen-round magazine.

  He had a spare magazine. I loaded both with copper-jacketed, low-recoil rounds. Through my mind’s eye ran the primate swine in the tall grass, and I dropped a box of twenty rounds in one sports-jacket pocket.

  In the drawers were simple, premium-leather, double-thick, concealed-carry, belt-slider holsters custom to each of the handguns, with a built-in spare magazine carrier. My belt threaded easily through the eyelets, and in two minutes, the loaded 9 mm was on my hip, under my jacket.

 

    Breathless Read onlineBreathlessLightning Read onlineLightningThe Taking Read onlineThe TakingThe Door to December Read onlineThe Door to DecemberOdd Thomas Read onlineOdd ThomasMidnight Read onlineMidnightWhispers Read onlineWhispersOdd Interlude #2 Read onlineOdd Interlude #2The Mask Read onlineThe MaskWatchers Read onlineWatchersBy the Light of the Moon Read onlineBy the Light of the MoonNight Chills Read onlineNight ChillsBrother Odd Read onlineBrother OddFalse Memory Read onlineFalse MemoryThe Darkest Evening of the Year Read onlineThe Darkest Evening of the YearLife Expectancy Read onlineLife ExpectancyThe Good Guy Read onlineThe Good GuyHideaway Read onlineHideawayInnocence Read onlineInnocenceYour Heart Belongs to Me Read onlineYour Heart Belongs to MeForever Odd Read onlineForever OddIntensity Read onlineIntensitySaint Odd Read onlineSaint OddDragon Tears Read onlineDragon TearsThe Husband Read onlineThe HusbandFinal Hour Read onlineFinal HourDemon Seed Read onlineDemon SeedCity of Night Read onlineCity of NightFrom the Corner of His Eye Read onlineFrom the Corner of His EyeA Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog Read onlineA Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful DogSeize the Night Read onlineSeize the NightWinter Moon Read onlineWinter MoonStrange Highways Read onlineStrange HighwaysThe Silent Corner Read onlineThe Silent CornerTwilight Eyes Read onlineTwilight EyesVelocity Read onlineVelocityThe Bad Place Read onlineThe Bad PlaceCold Fire Read onlineCold FireThe Whispering Room Read onlineThe Whispering RoomRicochet Joe Read onlineRicochet JoeThe Crooked Staircase Read onlineThe Crooked StaircaseTick Tock Read onlineTick TockThe Face Read onlineThe FaceSole Survivor Read onlineSole SurvivorStrangers Read onlineStrangersDeeply Odd Read onlineDeeply OddOdd Interlude #3 Read onlineOdd Interlude #3The Vision Read onlineThe VisionPhantoms Read onlinePhantomsProdigal Son Read onlineProdigal SonOdd Hours Read onlineOdd HoursLast Light Read onlineLast LightFear Nothing Read onlineFear NothingOdd Interlude #1 Read onlineOdd Interlude #1One Door Away From Heaven Read onlineOne Door Away From HeavenKoontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder Read onlineKoontz, Dean R. - Mr. MurderThe City Read onlineThe CityThe Dead Town Read onlineThe Dead TownThe Voice of the Night Read onlineThe Voice of the NightDark Rivers of the Heart Read onlineDark Rivers of the HeartThe Key to Midnight Read onlineThe Key to MidnightLost Souls Read onlineLost SoulsOdd Thomas: You Are Destined To Be Together Forever Read onlineOdd Thomas: You Are Destined To Be Together ForeverOdd Apocalypse Read onlineOdd ApocalypseIcebound Read onlineIceboundThe Book of Counted Sorrows Read onlineThe Book of Counted SorrowsThe Neighbor Read onlineThe NeighborAshley Bell Read onlineAshley BellSanta's Twin Read onlineSanta's TwinDead and Alive Read onlineDead and AliveThe Eyes of Darkness Read onlineThe Eyes of DarknessThe Odd Thomas Series 4-Book Bundle Read onlineThe Odd Thomas Series 4-Book BundleWriting Popular Fiction Read onlineWriting Popular FictionCity of Night f-2 Read onlineCity of Night f-2Dean Koontz's Frankenstein 4-Book Bundle Read onlineDean Koontz's Frankenstein 4-Book BundleWhat the Night Knows: A Novel Read onlineWhat the Night Knows: A NovelDemon Child Read onlineDemon ChildStarblood Read onlineStarbloodSurrounded mt-2 Read onlineSurrounded mt-2Odd Interlude #3 (An Odd Thomas Story) Read onlineOdd Interlude #3 (An Odd Thomas Story)Odd Interlude Read onlineOdd InterludeThe Odd Thomas Series 7-Book Bundle Read onlineThe Odd Thomas Series 7-Book BundleThe City: A Novel Read onlineThe City: A NovelDeeply Odd ot-7 Read onlineDeeply Odd ot-7Odd Interlude #1 (An Odd Thomas Story) Read onlineOdd Interlude #1 (An Odd Thomas Story)The House of Thunder Read onlineThe House of ThunderOdd Interlude ot-5 Read onlineOdd Interlude ot-5Fear That Man Read onlineFear That ManOdd Is on Our Side Read onlineOdd Is on Our SideRelentless Read onlineRelentlessA Big Little Life Read onlineA Big Little LifeHanging On Read onlineHanging OnThe Forbidden Door Read onlineThe Forbidden DoorDragonfly Read onlineDragonflyThe Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense Read onlineThe Moonlit Mind: A Tale of SuspenseFinal Hour (Novella) Read onlineFinal Hour (Novella)The Odd Thomas Series 4-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd Hours Read onlineThe Odd Thomas Series 4-Book Bundle: Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Brother Odd, Odd HoursOdd Interlude (Complete) Read onlineOdd Interlude (Complete)The Funhouse Read onlineThe Funhouse77 Shadow Street Read online77 Shadow StreetWhat the Night Knows Read onlineWhat the Night KnowsDeeply Odd: An Odd Thomas Novel Read onlineDeeply Odd: An Odd Thomas NovelThe Servants of Twilight Read onlineThe Servants of TwilightStar quest Read onlineStar questFrankenstein Dead and Alive: A Novel Read onlineFrankenstein Dead and Alive: A NovelChase Read onlineChaseEyes of Darkness Read onlineEyes of DarknessThe Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense (Kindle Single) Read onlineThe Moonlit Mind: A Tale of Suspense (Kindle Single)Sussurri Read onlineSussurriThe Moonlit Mind (Novella) Read onlineThe Moonlit Mind (Novella)Frankenstein: Lost Souls - A Novel Read onlineFrankenstein: Lost Souls - A NovelRicochet Joe [Kindle in Motion] (Kindle Single) Read onlineRicochet Joe [Kindle in Motion] (Kindle Single)Innocence: A Novel Read onlineInnocence: A NovelBeastchild Read onlineBeastchildA Darkness in My Soul Read onlineA Darkness in My SoulOddkins: A Fable for All Ages Read onlineOddkins: A Fable for All AgesThe Frankenstein Series 5-Book Bundle Read onlineThe Frankenstein Series 5-Book BundleFrankenstein - City of Night Read onlineFrankenstein - City of NightShadowfires Read onlineShadowfiresLast Light (Novella) Read onlineLast Light (Novella)Frankenstein - Prodigal Son Read onlineFrankenstein - Prodigal SonTicktock Read onlineTicktockDance with the Devil Read onlineDance with the DevilYou Are Destined to Be Together Forever (Short Story) Read onlineYou Are Destined to Be Together Forever (Short Story)The Moonlit Mind (Novella): A Tale of Suspense Read onlineThe Moonlit Mind (Novella): A Tale of SuspenseDarkness Under the Sun Read onlineDarkness Under the SunDark Of The Woods Read onlineDark Of The WoodsDean Koontz's Frankenstein Read onlineDean Koontz's FrankensteinFrankenstein Read onlineFrankensteinThe Face of Fear Read onlineThe Face of FearChildren of the Storm Read onlineChildren of the StormMr. Murder Read onlineMr. Murder