Bijou Read online

  “And maybe using it himself.”

  “Maybe.” Dad shook his head. “Stay away from Dominique Delphine.” He glanced at Zoe for what I thought might be the very first time. “Keep Zoe with you at all times. Don’t leave her, ever.”

  The same warning had come from Mae. “Why? What does Dominique want with Zoe?” A fear rattled around inside me, threatened to choke my voice.

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll give her a —” and Zoe did a karate kick, learned in the class she insisted on taking. Pride in my daughter stole my voice again.

  For the first time Dad grinned, showing his uneven teeth. “That’ll show her.”

  I pondered my next move. But I had one more question for Dad, first. “Dad, what do you know about Bijou Xtra?”

  His eyes widened slightly, then he tried to mask his surprise. “No one knows anything about it. It’s a myth. Impossible to obtain and make. Not only that, to even think of making it is evil. It is an unbelievably evil deed, to take a living soul.”

  “We think Dominique is trying to do it. She may have already done so.” I didn’t tell him that I got that idea from my convenient eavesdropping episode, but I did tell him my theory that the motorcycle accident might not have killed Hollis Bettencourt, because it was the first time it crossed my mind.

  “He would have survived it. But someone took his soul while he was still alive and a long way from irreversible death.” I looked at Dad’s collection of Bijou; it was just like a setting of perfectly faceted gems.

  Dad noticed me looking. He smiled. “The Family Jewels, I call them.” He smirked as I winced at the bad joke. “Novaks. Over the centuries. It’s a choice we are offered, at the time of death. To become a wraith, like me, and live—if you want to call it that—in Phantom City. Or to become pure soul. Captured in amber.”

  I had heard about this, but dismissed it as family rumor and self-aggrandizement. Novaks are special. Novaks are better than anyone else.

  “What’s the payback?” I turned my back on the “Jewels”, wondering who they were: Grandpa August “Augie” Novak, Great Grandmother Charlotte Novak, author of the family tome? “What’s the advantage of either?”

  Bruce’s capacious form appeared at my side. I had almost forgotten he was here. “Aunt Annie, we have to get going. The River.”

  I didn’t want to leave. As reluctant as I had been to meet with Dad, now that I had, I wanted to stay, to make him tell me what was going on. As I stood staring at him, for the first time, I saw him for what he was. Just a man, trying his best with what he had. A softness filled me, but I shook my head at it. No time. Never enough time.

  “Annie, you should go. Bruce may not be able to get the River to cooperate. You don’t want to be trapped here.” Dad’s voice was crisp, businesslike, as if he were dismissing a student.

  I took a deep shivering breath. “I don’t know how to get back to the river from here.”

  “Jonah can show you.” Going to the door, he called to Jonah, told him what was wanted.

  Jonah’s face lit up. My heart melted, seeing the same expression of love he used to give me in the early days of our relationship. “Sure. I have to talk to you about something, anyway.”

  In the hallway now, I raised my hand. “I don’t want to hear any apologies or excuses. I certainly don’t want to hear how you died, not after that horrifying tale of Justin’s.”

  Jonah gave me a perplexed look, as if he thought I was crazy.

  I turned back. “Bye, Dad. Thanks for checking.”

  Dad looked at me. I couldn’t read his expression, but I hoped he was sorry to see me go. He nodded, and closed his office door. Disappointment settled deep in my chest.

  Jonah folded his arms, looking me over. “I knew the Novaks were weird. This ghost stuff was strange enough. Obsessed with the dead and all that. You and your wanting to help your suffering patients die. I thought it was creepy and morbid. But I had no clue about this other stuff. You never said anything about Bijou.” He gave me a crooked smile. “Of course, I would never have believed it when I was alive.”

  My knees weakened, but I had to stay upright. I nodded at Jonah, half-comprehending his words. I forced my voice into action. “And?”

  “You need to ask Ivy about Hollis’s Bijou. I’m not sure Dominique ended up with it.”

  My legs were nailed to the ground, and I was about to fall to the side and break my feet off at the ankles. I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that my sister and nephew had not only violated the most sacred code of the spirit world we were so privileged to walk in, they had violated the code with a person who was known to us.

  Not that it was any more acceptable to commit this hideous crime with any human being. Zoe clung to me, and I forced myself to stay upright, so as not to bring her down with me.

  "Mom, what’s the matter?" I heard her voice from far away, and it brought me to my senses. Jonah was still speaking to me.

  As he led us outside, it was difficult to hear him, and it took me a moment to understand that a wind was rising and with it, the eerie wails of ghosts in distress. He went on, "Your family is no match for those Delphines. You have to convince Ivy to give it up."

  Dominique Delphine. Wind iced my skin; its sharp fingers probed under my jacket. Bruce was walking toward us with a pace faster than I expected.

  We had to get out of here. I knew something bad would happen if we didn’t. I had to get Zoe out of here before she turned into a block of ice.

  I nodded at Jonah. "I’d guessed as much. But Jonah, have you heard rumors about the half-dead or zombies or anything wandering around without souls? Like, their souls were taken from people who were not going to die?”

  Squinting at me, Jonah shook his head. “No, but I’ll find out.”

  “Be careful.” I wondered why I was warning him. But there might be worse things that could happen to the dead, even after they were dead.

  Bruce was gesturing wildly toward us. Jonah nodded, started toward him. I followed.

  “I heard barking, close by.” Bruce’s eyes were wide, his pupils dilated with more than mushrooms, undoubtedly fear. “I think Cerberus got bored with Pepper and is on the way to throw us out.”

  Jonah took Zoe by the hand and began to run along the square. “C’mon,” he shouted. “I know another way to the river!”

  “Damn!” I followed him, Bruce beside me. We ran along a boulevard toward a rising hill awash with houses twisted with strange white vines. A stairway wound up through them, and up this we went.

  I knew we had stayed too long. I wanted to ask Dad more about Bijou Xtra, how I might deal with it. Where did the shells of the beings whose souls were stolen reside? A rising anger that I had to hear this news, had stayed too long in the City, now was in trouble not only with Cerberus but with all the layers of heaven began to focus itself on the one person I could easily blame. “Damn Ivy!”

  Zoe glanced back at me as we ran up the stairs. I shook my head at her stiffly and she took my warning not to ask. Besides, I was getting out of breath. The stairs seemed endless, reaching to the sky,

  As we ran, I noticed the crazy structures dropping away one by one as the milky sky enveloped us. We ran along a stairway suspended in mid-air; below the patchy clown-work of the City stretched unevenly over the skin of hell.

  I didn’t want to see where Jonah was leading us, to see that the stairway ended abruptly in a void. Meekly I followed, also avoiding to look down. From below, the sounds of barking and shouting floated up to us.

  Poor Pepper, I worried. I hoped she was all right.

  The stairway straightened and became a skybridge, and we followed this over the town. I didn’t recall seeing this structure criss-crossing the City when we entered, but the dwellings shifted about as if they were ghosts of residences torn down in the living world.

  “Oh shit,” I heard Jonah say under his breath. He began to run faster, pulling Zoe. Bruce panted roughly behind me. I was in good shape, being an obsessive cyclist
. But Bruce and Zoe could not keep up this pace for long.

  “Jonah, slow down! Zoe is getting tired.”

  Cursing again, Jonah stopped. He looked at me over Zoe’s head. “We have to get off this bridge.” He pointed over my left shoulder.

  I looked into the milky, black-specked sky. The stars continued their lazy dance and in the silence around us, the shouting below faded and a cold wind whispered.

  “What, I don’t see—”

  Jonah gripped my arm and pointed again. In the midst of the floating black stars, three slightly larger shapes moved swiftly in an organized line. And growing larger by the moment. As I squinted, I thought I could see wings.

  “Harpies.” Jonah leaned down and picked up Zoe. “We have to get off the bridge.”

  Turning, throwing Zoe over his shoulder, he ran and I wasted no time following. Which illustrious and paranoid ancestor did I have to thank for thinking up hideous over-sized winged women? I had seen various renditions of these beings with bird-of-pray talons, women’s heads and a persistent loathing of the living. This could not be good.

  I could see no end to the skybridge. Behind I thought I could hear high-pitched cries, a blend of an eagle’s scream and a woman’s laugh. It was very unsettling.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Bruce lagging behind us by several paces. Slowing, I knew that Jonah, even though he was a ghost, was also a father, and wouldn’t let anything happen to Zoe. The three shapes in the sky were clearer now, growing larger with each wing-beat. And they were huge, wider than any single-engine Cessna.

  Jonah shouted, but I couldn’t make out the words. Bruce was nearly stumbling, and I could see his face red with pain as he tried to breathe. I stopped and waited.

  The birds were very close, but not as big as I thought they were. In the ever-changing perspective of the sky I could not well judge their exact size. There were three of them, and close, coming from my right as I faced them and a little below us. I glanced behind me and saw Jonah and Zoe descending a stairway, marking the end of the skybridge.

  Bruce nearly fell. I ran toward him, grabbed his sweatshirt, and tugged him behind me. I could hear the murmur of air through wing feathers, and the soft grunt of their breaths as the harpies grew near. They had us now. Two juicy living morsels of flesh.

  I ran as fast as I could, dragging Bruce, my shoulders cringing, waiting for the first bite of claw to tear through my skin.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Harpies

  I didn’t stop running as I waited for the talons of hell to fall. Panting hoarsely behind me, adrenalin pumping enough vigor into his legs, Bruce kept up with me. Although a Bijou-stealer deserved to be shredded alive by ravening harpies, it wasn’t Bruce’s fault his mother was a scumbag.

  But a strange knowledge dawned in me as we fled along the skybridge. The expected talons did not stab my shoulders. I grabbed a furtive look behind me, and saw one a few feet from me, her wings creating a warm wind. My pace slowed as I stared.

  Not at a hideous hag, but the face of a beautiful woman returned my glance. And she smiled. The famed multiple droopy dried up breasts were not in evidence, but instead two full, firm ones swung from her chest. Her wings were velvety brown, and even though I could see her cruel, blue-tinged talons, they hung curled beneath her. She paced us along the skybridge, and just beyond her, another Harpy flew near, her hair blazing red, and I could see a lovely heart-shaped face.

  Reaching the end of the bridge, I stopped. Bruce nearly toppled into me, and gave me a shocked look. Before us stairs descended, and I could see at the bottom far below on the river beach, two small figures looking up. Zoe and Jonah had made it. To add to my joy in seeing them, I could just make out Pepper circling around their feet.

  I somehow knew these beings meant us no harm. Bruce stood on the first step down, ready to bolt, but obviously astonished at three Harpies hovering around us; especially their breasts, which were quite voluptuous.

  The blond one lifted her wings and landed with on the bridge. The span sagged with her weight. Her talons gripping either rail, her beautiful head stood a good ten feet above us. She reminded me of Elle Macpherson. Folding her wings, she gave us a nod and began to speak.

  Her voice sounded most human-like. But she blinked one of her huge blue eyes in a distinctly bird-like fashion.

  "Why do you run from us? We came to help you get back."

  "I’m sorry, but we didn’t know who you were." I bowed a little, as it seemed the appropriate thing to do.

  "The ghosts fear us because we help the living." She smiled at her sisters. "They think we are Harpies."

  The other two giggled. I felt as if I had met three models at a New York nightclub. Echoing up from the shore below, I could hear Zoe calling. From their perspective, it probably looked as if we were about to be eaten alive.

  “You are a ghost guide. I have seen you before,” the Elle-one said.

  “Yes, but I’ve never been here before. At least, not since I was a child.” I wondered what she could possibly mean.

  She shrugged, her wings making a swishing noise like taffeta skirts. “Whatever. But you’ve stayed here too long. It’s not healthy for the living to linger in Hell.”

  You can say that again, I thought, but I simply nodded, agreeing. She waited, silent, and so did I, uncertain how to end an interview with three huge female raptors.

  She said, “You might as well get on.”

  She must have recognized my confusion as I stared numbly at her, wondering what she meant.

  “Climb on my back. We’re going to fly you across the river.”

  “My daughter—”

  “Don’t worry,” said the blonde as she hopped up into the air, flew around and under the bridge, and hovered next to the rail so I could board her, sort of like getting into a row boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Only it was not water below us, but 150 feet of open, deadly air. Gravity still functioned in a Newtonian way, here in Phantom City.

  She didn’t wait for me to see how Bruce was going to manage, but when I did have a chance to look back, as we circled down toward the beach, he was on the back of the redhead, the one with the biggest boobs.

  The third Harpy, which was the only way to think about them, as they hadn’t told me their true nature, landed on the beach a few feet from Zoe and Jonah. My bird circled lower, and after explaining the situation to Jonah, he relinquished his hold on his daughter, and allowed her to climb on the Harpy’s back. This Harpy plucked Pepper up in her talon. My dog fortunately remained surprised and calm and didn’t try to bite her captor.

  I could only wave to Jonah as the birds sped us across the river to the dark Wood on the far side. But I watched him until I could see him no more, a black speck on a strand of pearly shore, his backdrop the towers and spires of Phantom City. I wanted to see him again, wondering if the loneliness of the dead must be a long-lasting heartache just as it was for the living.

  By the time we got back to Ivy’s, heat blanketed us; after the bone-chilling cold of hell, it felt like walking into a sauna. On the patio, Ivy lounged like a Pharaoh’s daughter on the chaise.

  Bruce yanked off his sweat shirt, grabbed a can of Coke and downed it in one gulp. Zoe hugged Pepper, and ran into the house, probably to use the bathroom, which is what I also had to do. We had spent a couple hours in Hell, but here, only moments had gone by. Our father was right when he told us time travelers age at different rates depending on how fast they travel. I felt years older, weary, achy, and Ivy looked years younger, sensuous, sexy.

  Pulling off my fleece jacket, I stared at Ivy. She must have seen something in my face, because she sat up a little straighter.

  “How did it go? Did you find the baby?” Her voice was higher pitched than normal.

  I didn’t answer her. I looked over at Bruce, who was leaving the patio, heading most likely for something to eat. “Bruce, would you bring me my cell phone? It’s on the kitchen counter.”

  I hoped the battery was
charged. Meekly he brought me the cell phone, a slice of pizza in his other hand, his face sober with curiosity. The mushrooms must have worn off.

  “Annie, what did you find out?” Ivy asked me, her voice careful, but pleasant.

  Ignoring her, I scrolled through the saved numbers, found the one I wanted, and dialed. I got the answering machine.

  “Hi Sawyer, this is Annie. I have another favor to ask you. Call me, OK?” and I gave him my cell number.

  “So what happened, dammit?” This was a far more natural tone for Ivy.

  Sliding off my running shoes, remembering how glad I was that I had worn them, I leaned back in the chaise lounge. “You got any bottled water? Is all you drink around here beer and Coke?”

  Ivy lifted her chin at Bruce, who stared at her for a moment, then realized he was supposed to bring me water. Without protest he vanished into the house again and returned with a glass. It tasted like iodine.

  I looked at my sister. The years were back in her face, and an irritated glint shone from her eyes. This was the Ivy I knew and loved.

  “I didn’t find the baby, but I did find Dad.” Sipping my iodine, I stretched my ankles. Annie’s jaw moved slightly.

  I told her about our search for Justin Nash’s name in the Book of Innocents. As I spoke, I could see her coming to the same conclusion Dad and I did about why Justin wasn’t around.

  “Dominique.” Ivy whispered the name, as if she was afraid the woman was hiding behind the trees.

  It sickened me to think of it. “She killed that little boy. She sometimes visited Mae when she was babysitting. But odd that her being there never came up in the inquest and trial.” Leaning back in the S-chair, I gazed up at the grape leaves curling overhead. Ivy was silent, spinning her rings.

  She said, “What are you going to do now?”

  Shrugging, I gazed at her. “Not sure. Sawyer thought we should try to find Jeff Nash.”

  Ivy nodded distractedly. I expected her to object, tell me what I already knew: that the man would not talk to us, even if we could find him.