What she was saying was kind of true. Her eyes were steady on mine and I felt myself nodding. But still, part of me was in agony, somewhere deep inside. I shook my head slightly and tried to focus. My hand went to the vial of oil in my pocket and I began rubbing it.
Ambrosia frowned at me but then turned her mega-watt smile to Maximus, who was gazing at her like I knew I had been. Jesus, I needed to get a hold of myself.
Ambrosia told us about what happened, and her surprise that it was a white guy. She heard through the police officer that booked the guy that he was completely deranged and had been reported missing from his family a few days ago. Although a few days ago, he was an upstanding family man with no history of mental illness. The cops were also unable to find any traces of bath salts, but they did find a low amount of Datura. The very extract that the Bokors would control their zombies with.
Soon after the nurse came in, wanting to give her another round of antibiotics to heal her wound, and Maximus and I were asked to leave.
"That was weird," he whispered to me as we walked down the hospital halls, looking for Rose and Perry.
"What was? The zombie attack in broad daylight, in a parking lot, by a white upstanding family dude?"
"That," he said slowly, "and also Perry."
"What about her?"
He swung his arms. "I don"t know. It"s like she totally overreacted over nothing."
Was it nothing? And wasn"t this what he wanted?
"Let me deal with her," I told him.
The reception we got at the truck was Antarctic chilly. Rose was being curt with me, and Perry wouldn"t even look my way. To make matters worse, Maximus was insistent that we stop at a crab shack he remembered, an authentic old thing on stilts. The view was terribly romantic as we took a seat on the patio overlooking the rippling bayou, the breeze warm and humid, the fishing boats zipping past in the distance. We ate out of perforated red plastic dishes, our crab and crayfish wrapped in greasy newspaper, drinking beer and sweet tea out of Mason jars. It was such a quintessential Louisiana moment for me, and yet I couldn"t enjoy a single second of it. I fought hard to keep my mind off of Ambrosia and onto Perry, which was something I didn"t want to do. Thinking about Ambrosia was easy, inviting almost, while thinking about Perry made me ache inside. It made my world spin, my hurt spasm, my lungs seize up, my guts freefall. Looking at her, thinking about her, just tore me apart. She was a dream that was seconds from becoming a nightmare, a present that was about to be taken back.
I dealt with it the only way I knew how-I drank myself into a bit of a stupor, hoping to numb the pain, the questions, the answers. When we were dropped off at the B&B, I felt like roaming the streets of the quarter, looking for my next drink, my next way out. I didn"t want to go into our room, I didn"t want to deal with her, with anything. But I had to.
I wasn"t in the room for more than five seconds before Perry slammed it, locked it, and put her hands on my chest and shoved me backward.
"What the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?" she yelled, her eyes up in flames, her voice raw with anger.
I let her push me. I didn"t fight back. I looked at the floor and gathered my strength to know what I had to do. If Perry and I could never be, if being with her would possibly one day hurt her, kill her, I couldn"t do this to the both of us. I couldn"t keep loving her, being with her, not like this.
I was dying inside and she had no idea. I couldn"t let her see. Our world had changed on us and so d.a.m.n fast.
I ignored her violence toward me and sat down on the bed, kicking off my shoes. She came right around in my face.
"Why are you ignoring me? What did I do?"
"Just chill out," I told her, giving her a dirty look. "You made a fool of yourself earlier."
She gasped. Her face flinched like I"d just slapped her. I wanted to cry.
"You a.s.shole! You...oh, how dare you! You were flirting with her right in front of my face. How do you think that makes me feel?"
I shrugged, all forced casualness. "I don"t know. You flip out and get insecure over everything. How am I supposed to know what"s going to set you off?"
She shoved me again, and I reached up and grabbed her wrists, holding them between my fingers.
"Stop hitting me, you"re acting like you"re crazy," I told her.
And now she was crumbling. "What happened to you, Dex? Yesterday we were fine, everything was fine. What happened? What changed?"
"You changed," I said, turning it around. "You need to get over your issues."
Another invisible blow. She nearly keeled over. I knew where I was hurting her because I was hurting there too.
"Issues?"
"Kiddo, we both have them in spades."
"Don"t call me that." Her voice went all steel, cold and sharp.
"What? Kiddo? Perry, I have a whole a.r.s.enal of names here I could call you, but I don"t think you"d like those either."
Her eyes blazed as she leaned forward, getting in my face. "I"m not some kid, I"m your girlfriend, and I"m trying to talk to you."
"You are just a kid!" I yelled back, surprised at how caught up I was getting. I just wanted to push her away, just a bit, just to give me the s.p.a.ce and time and distance to think things through. But now I felt like everything was coming out, all the things I kept to myself. There was no stopping it.
I pushed off the bed and began fumbling in my pockets for the cigarettes. I brought them out, the bag shaking in my hands, until Perry came over and struck them out of my grasp. They scattered on the floor.
"You think I"m just a kid?" she screeched.
"You"re twenty-three."
"So what?" she spat out. "I was twenty-two when we met. You knew that about me. What changed?"
"You"re not ready for this with me."
"Ready for what? For you flirting blatantly with women right in front of me? For you turning off like a light switch, ignoring me, pulling out of this relationship before it even got started?"
The madness was taking over, the rush of rage saturating my veins. I whirled around and screamed at her, "You won"t even tell me you love me! Don"t you dare say I"m turning off like a light switch, because I have been the only one who"s been on since this thing began. You"re the one who has been holding back. You"re the one who lets me bleed out in front of you!"
Her lips snapped shut, her face going white. She stepped away from me, facing the wall, her head down. I was breathing hard, wishing I hadn"t gotten so deep, wishing that I could take her in my arms and make all of this go away. But that wouldn"t stop the hurt that would follow. The future that would crumble. We had no other choice.
"I need time," she whispered, her words breaking.
I swallowed painfully, trying to keep my own tears at bay. I took in a deep breath, shaking out my arms, hoping my feelings would go out with it.
I put on a fake smile and said, "Well, guess what, baby, now you have all the time in the world."
Her whole body shook from my words, as if they were metal knives I"d driven into her body. I realized I was holding my breath, my lungs screaming for air.
She slowly turned her head to look at me. She looked beyond devastated. Beyond hurt. Beyond everything I never dreamed of doing to her. I was so close to losing her and I was so close to keeping her.
"Fine," she said hoa.r.s.ely. "I understand. I"m going to go get another room for myself here."
"Good idea," I said. The words just came. I regretted each of them.
She walked toward the door, trying to keep her head up, trying to keep from collapsing. She was trying to be strong, to be proud, to know what was going on and to know what she was going to do next.
She paused near the door, and I swore if she decided to stay, I"d tell her everything. I"d burden her with my burden if only not to do this to each other, to not make each other bleed.
You"ve f.u.c.ked up again, Perry told herself, her thoughts coming through loud and clear. You have the only person you ever wanted and you f.u.c.ked it up again because you can never let yourself be happy. Dex will never take you back after this, and you"ll never know what it"s like to love him while he loves you.
Her self-loathing for herself hurt me down to the bones. She stared at me for a few moments, maybe hoping she could voice what she was thinking, maybe hoping that I would say something too. Two stubborn people clinging on to what they believed was right. She felt she never deserved me. I felt she didn"t deserve to suffer.
I"m doing this because I love you, I thought, hoping to G.o.d that maybe she could hear me.
But she just walked out the door and closed it behind her. I collapsed to the ground, a ruin in her wake.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
I woke up again in the middle of night, feeling like Perry was shaking me awake, whispering my name in my ear. But when I came to and sat up slowly, I realized I was alone. Perry had gotten her stuff and moved down to a room on the first floor. I didn"t have her anymore. I had n.o.body.
I glanced at the radio alarm clock in the room. It was 3AM. I wasn"t surprised at all. The room was pitch black; even the light from the street wasn"t reaching through the curtains that hung there on the French doors like dead weight. All the furniture in the room sat there, hunched over like big black beasts, waiting for me to move, to say something.
The door to the bathroom slowly creaked open. I heard the shower curtain inside being moved along the bar, the metal rungs squeaking.
I sat up straighter and looked at the clock again. 3:01. Time was pa.s.sing. I pinched the inside of my forearm to see if it hurt, to see if it was a dream or not. It did hurt. My heart hurt even more. The memories of the fight between Perry and I came flooding back. I did the thing I never thought I"d do-I hurt her on purpose. It didn"t matter that it was for her greater good or my greater good because there just couldn"t be any good in it. The pain was there, just below the threshold, threatening to bring me under. I pushed her away and I would continue to push her away until I knew she could be saved, until I knew she"d get the future she deserved, not the one that I couldn"t give her.
It was because I was so lost in my misery, in my chest-stabbing despair, that I knew I wasn"t dreaming. And I was so wrapped up in my own pain, my own horror, that the current one before me didn"t seem to matter that much.
That was until the bathroom door swung open fully and a giant motherf.u.c.king black python came slithering out of it, heading straight for my bed.
f.u.c.k. That was a new one.
I held my breath, wondering if I should scream, wondering how much I was seeing was real and how much was magic. How much was my mind and how much was the beyond. The gigantic inky black snake disappeared under the bed and I tensed up, waiting, knowing it wouldn"t just go to sleep under there.
f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k, f.u.c.k.
"Li Grand Zombi," a French-accented voice said from the bathroom. I looked up to see my mother climbing out of the mirror and balancing on the sink, before stepping awkwardly to the ground. She moved with unpredictable jerkiness, as if she wasn"t used to the body she was in. She was no longer in the mirror. She was free.
I wished I was wearing Depends.
The bed beneath me moved ever so slightly. I got into a crouch, ready to spring off it and run if I needed to.
"Li Grand Zombi," my mother said again, stepping forward. In the blackness I could only make out the paleness of her taut face, the darkness of her hair and eyes. I couldn"t even be sure that she had eyes. "The Great Serpent."
"What do you want from me?" I asked, but my words came out in a shaking whisper, the air from my breath freezing into a cloud.
"It travels between both worlds, from the Kalunga to here, through the layers, through the Veil, just like me," she continued. Her voice had grown lower and lower with each word she spoke until it was something entirely inhuman. "Together, we will bring you back."
From the corner of my eye I could see the shiny black head of the python appear over the edge of the mattress, its long forked tongue slithering in and out.
I dared to look the woman in the eye as she came closer still. I dared to eke out the words, "You are not my mother. I don"t know who you are."
She smiled, black teeth. "I was your mother. Then she died. But I am a part of you."
The mattress began to sink under the python"s weight as it undulated across the bed. Now if I were to make a run for it, I"d have to jump over its body.
"How long did you have possession of her?" I asked the creature that wasn"t my mother.
She shook her head. "I was always there. I am in you." She took another jagged step until she was at the foot of the bed. I could have sworn the shape of her head was expanding, that protrusions were rising out of her temples, a growing monster in the dark. Every single cell in my body told me to look away, to get away while I could. This wasn"t my mother. This wasn"t any one thing. This was evil incarnate and it had come for me. She extended an arm out to me and instead of pale, wrinkled skin, I could see short, dense fur. Her fingernails were now talons. "Come with us. Come to where you belong."
This couldn"t be happening. This couldn"t be happening. This couldn"t be happening. This all had to be in my head, in my sick f.u.c.king head full of my sick f.u.c.king problems. I wasn"t on medication. I didn"t have that wall between reality and the world beyond. Nothing was being kept out anymore.
I shut my eyes, closing them so tight I saw red stars and dots behind them, and though about what Maryse had told me. The energies shared and exchanged can cause ripples, holes in the fabric of the Veil, and where there are holes, bad things can get out.
There were two bad things in the room with me, two bad things that had gotten out. Me and Perry together had produced so much pleasure and love and comfort and bliss, and all the while our radiance was letting the bad things in. The universe had to balance things, didn"t it? How dare it just let two long-suffering people be happy for once.
I kept my eyes shut and chanted to myself, "You aren"t real, you"re in my head, you"re not real, you"re in my head," but the truth was I didn"t know if I believed that anymore. For all I knew, everything could be real from here on out.
Even so, it was like my chanting, my concentration, had caused the energy in the room to shift. It felt like the room had grown still. It felt like the weight on the mattress had lifted. I couldn"t hear the snake"s tongue or breathing. I couldn"t hear the rustle of my mother"s nightgown. I heard only my heart, threatening to explode, my lungs wheezing from exertion.
I sucked in my breath for strength and prepared to open my eyes, hoping I"d see an empty room as it was before. I willed for the nightmare to be over, to be alone, to be safe, to see nothing at all.
I opened my eyes.
She was right there.
My mother"s demon face, inches from mine. She had no eyes, just cavernous black holes, and skin that scaled like a lizard"s. Her mouth was stuck open, a tiny red snake coming out of it in place of her tongue. Though her face was frozen in vile horror, she was laughing and screaming just inches away from me, sounds from another time and another place, sounds that reached through my ears and pierced my very human soul. There was nothing else inside me except fear and terror like I"d never known before.
The snake in her mouth came out for me, slowly, two yellow slits for eyes. It said, "I always wanted a grandson."
And that"s when I finally screamed. I screamed b.l.o.o.d.y murder and tried to gather the strength to run out of the room.
In seconds, the door busted open and the light went on. It was a wild-eyed Maximus, staring at me in panic.
"What happened?" he asked, just in time to see the end of Li Grand Zombi"s tail slither into the bathroom like a tapered black slug. The demonic ent.i.ty of my mother had already disappeared with the light.
"Holy f.u.c.k!" he exclaimed, once he spotted the snake. He didn"t run away though, he marched in, peering at the snake as the black tail completely disappeared around the bathroom door. He looked at me, motioning for me to stay put and asked, "Are you okay?"
"Do I look okay?" I asked, my body rapidly growing cold and starting to shake. "Go after it, but be careful."
He looked around for something st.u.r.dy and picked up an old lady-type vase, as if he was going to knock out the python by throwing ceramics on its head. This wasn"t a caper film.
Armed with it, he went inside the bathroom and flicked on the lights. I heard him say, "Huh," and heard the opening and closing of cabinets and the toilet seat before he came back out.
"There"s nothing in there," he said, putting the vase back down on the end table.
"But you did see the snake."
"I wish I hadn"t." He suppressed a shiver. "What was it doing? What happened? I thought I heard voices in here, and just as I was about to fall back asleep, I heard you scream like...Jesus, Dex..."