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.“Detective?”“She said the vines did it.She said the vines are coming for us all.”There is just enough sarcastic bite in the detective’s tone to suggest he’s repeating these words the way he might repeat the ravings of a homeless woman who accosted him on his way into his favorite watering hole.But he’s still repeating them, and that fact alone renders Blake speechless for a moment.“Is that all she said?” Blake asks.“Yep.Fifteen hours we held her.and that was the only thing she said the whole time.But she said it the whole time.”Then Blake hears the dial tone, and he feels something deep within his bones that he can only describe as a shudder.It returns him to a childlike state of conviction that darkness itself is a substance with the power to rise up around the edges of any place and claim it with the sudden finality of a whale’s mouth closing over a drift of plankton.More frightening to him than Caitlin’s slap earlier that evening, the phantom after-burn of which Blake can still feel across his jaw, is Granger’s willingness to share information pivotal to an unfolding PR nightmare for his department.He was warning you, Blake realizes.That’s why he asked you if you were going back to Spring House anytime soon.He may not believe there’s something out there.But he believes Jane Percival believed it.The detective was scared, and in Blake’s experience with cops, that meant he should be scared too.Nova answers her cell phone right at the moment when Blake fears he’s about to get sent to her voice mail.“Where are you?” he asks.“Hello to you too,” she says.“Where are you?” he repeats.“Calm down, Blake.I’m in Baton Rouge.”“School?”“In the morning.Right now.research.”“Research?”“Yep.” But that’s all she says.“Meet me in Gonzales.It’s halfway.”“Now?”“Jane Percival killed herself tonight.If you want to hear what she said before she did it, meet me in Gonzales.Then you can tell me about your research.”“Gonzales.I’m not sure I like this game.”“I’ll come to you if you want.” The way he says it, it is either a desperate concession or a veiled threat.She apparently doesn’t want to risk it.“All right, all right.Gonzales it is.What, like, a.gas station?”“There’s a Waffle House.”“A Waffle House.I thought the gays liked to eat at nice places.”“Commander’s Palace isn’t open this late, OK? So.Waffle House?”“Yeah huh.”Blake is about to hang up when a thought strikes him.“Nova.Where’s your father?”“With my aunt in the Seventh Ward.”“Good.”16Caitlin has returned to the solarium in darkness, where the blossom’s white petals are still visible in the branch-filtered glow from the streetlight on the nearby corner.The flower no longer gives off the loamy scent that knocked her out of her body and into a tortured fragment of Spring House’s secret history.But perhaps she’s standing too far away; perhaps if she leans in a little farther, its filaments will once more grow erect and more of its secrets will penetrate her fevered mind.Out of the corner of her eye, she can see a shadow dart down the side of the house below.Her first thought is that it must be Blake.That he’s come back to snatch the flower now that he thinks she’s asleep.But if he’s going to break in, he’ll have to do it the messy, old-fashioned way.After he left, Caitlin tested the key to make sure he’d returned the right one, and then she’d cast the house in darkness with the press of a single master switch next to the back door.For a while, she’d sat on the stool just inside the foyer, listening to the clatter of passing streetcars and briefly paralyzed by the realization that her encounter with forces from beyond this world hadn’t rendered her immune to the guilt and remorse her old friend could stir in her by just cocking his head to one side [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.“Detective?”“She said the vines did it.She said the vines are coming for us all.”There is just enough sarcastic bite in the detective’s tone to suggest he’s repeating these words the way he might repeat the ravings of a homeless woman who accosted him on his way into his favorite watering hole.But he’s still repeating them, and that fact alone renders Blake speechless for a moment.“Is that all she said?” Blake asks.“Yep.Fifteen hours we held her.and that was the only thing she said the whole time.But she said it the whole time.”Then Blake hears the dial tone, and he feels something deep within his bones that he can only describe as a shudder.It returns him to a childlike state of conviction that darkness itself is a substance with the power to rise up around the edges of any place and claim it with the sudden finality of a whale’s mouth closing over a drift of plankton.More frightening to him than Caitlin’s slap earlier that evening, the phantom after-burn of which Blake can still feel across his jaw, is Granger’s willingness to share information pivotal to an unfolding PR nightmare for his department.He was warning you, Blake realizes.That’s why he asked you if you were going back to Spring House anytime soon.He may not believe there’s something out there.But he believes Jane Percival believed it.The detective was scared, and in Blake’s experience with cops, that meant he should be scared too.Nova answers her cell phone right at the moment when Blake fears he’s about to get sent to her voice mail.“Where are you?” he asks.“Hello to you too,” she says.“Where are you?” he repeats.“Calm down, Blake.I’m in Baton Rouge.”“School?”“In the morning.Right now.research.”“Research?”“Yep.” But that’s all she says.“Meet me in Gonzales.It’s halfway.”“Now?”“Jane Percival killed herself tonight.If you want to hear what she said before she did it, meet me in Gonzales.Then you can tell me about your research.”“Gonzales.I’m not sure I like this game.”“I’ll come to you if you want.” The way he says it, it is either a desperate concession or a veiled threat.She apparently doesn’t want to risk it.“All right, all right.Gonzales it is.What, like, a.gas station?”“There’s a Waffle House.”“A Waffle House.I thought the gays liked to eat at nice places.”“Commander’s Palace isn’t open this late, OK? So.Waffle House?”“Yeah huh.”Blake is about to hang up when a thought strikes him.“Nova.Where’s your father?”“With my aunt in the Seventh Ward.”“Good.”16Caitlin has returned to the solarium in darkness, where the blossom’s white petals are still visible in the branch-filtered glow from the streetlight on the nearby corner.The flower no longer gives off the loamy scent that knocked her out of her body and into a tortured fragment of Spring House’s secret history.But perhaps she’s standing too far away; perhaps if she leans in a little farther, its filaments will once more grow erect and more of its secrets will penetrate her fevered mind.Out of the corner of her eye, she can see a shadow dart down the side of the house below.Her first thought is that it must be Blake.That he’s come back to snatch the flower now that he thinks she’s asleep.But if he’s going to break in, he’ll have to do it the messy, old-fashioned way.After he left, Caitlin tested the key to make sure he’d returned the right one, and then she’d cast the house in darkness with the press of a single master switch next to the back door.For a while, she’d sat on the stool just inside the foyer, listening to the clatter of passing streetcars and briefly paralyzed by the realization that her encounter with forces from beyond this world hadn’t rendered her immune to the guilt and remorse her old friend could stir in her by just cocking his head to one side [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]