“I haven’t seen anyone,” said Amber.
Running footsteps behind her.
“We’ve found her skirt! She has to be around here!”
The cop dragged Amber to the patrol car. “You’re sure you haven’t seen anyone?”
“A naked red girl?” Amber asked. “I haven’t, I swear.”
“Goddammit!” the cop said, releasing her. “Get outta here. Go on, move it!”
Amber nodded, hurried past them, and left them in her wake.
She got back to the motel and let herself into the room. It was dark. She went to the bathroom, got changed into a loose T-shirt and shorts. Careful not to bump into anything, she navigated her way back to her bed and climbed in. She lay there, her eyes growing accustomed to the gloom even as the tears started to roll.
“You awake?” she whispered.
A moment of quiet in the dark, when she could have been all alone in here.
Then, “Yep.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was a dick. I didn’t mean to be. I didn’t want to be.”
“You’re under a lot of pressure.”
“Doesn’t make it any better,” she said. They were both talking softly, like there was a third person in the room they were trying not to disturb. “And you were right. I didn’t want to deal with all those horrible feelings and so I shifted. When I’m her, it’s easier.”
“I know.”
Amber turned her head to him, but all she saw was a dark shape on the dark bed. “I don’t know what to do, Milo.”
“You’re doing fine.”
“I’m not, though. I’m really not. I’m doing terribly. My friends are dead. Kelly might be dead by now, for all we know. Clarissa too.”
“I don’t know about Clarissa,” said Milo, “but your parents won’t kill Kelly. Not yet. This is too important for that.”
“I’m screwing this whole thing up,” Amber said. “I’m hurting people. I hurt a lot of people tonight.”
“Did they have it coming?”
“Only some of them,” she said. “And even then … even then, I don’t know.”
“Regret is a tool, Amber. It’s there to help you. It sticks in your head and you can’t get rid of it. You can forget about it for a while, fool yourself into thinking you’re over it, but it’ll come back with a single thought, a single memory, and it’ll be sharper than ever. You’ve got to learn to use it. It’s a tool and it’s there for a purpose.”
“To make sure you never do it again?”
“To make you a better person,” he said. “You’re going to keep making mistakes. You might even keep hurting people. And every regret becomes another sharp spike, digging into your brain, reordering you, changing the way you do things. Don’t be afraid of it, Amber. It’s there to help.”
“I … I don’t want to shift again. Not for a while.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, I’ll do it if I have to, but … but I’d really rather not.”
“Then I’ll do my best to make sure you’re not put in that position,” said Milo. “Go to sleep now. We have to deal with Abigail tomorrow. You’re going to need your wits about you.”
She turned over, pulled the covers up.
“Goodnight,” Amber said softly.
Milo muttered something, and that was it.
AMBER DIDN’T DREAM THAT night.
She woke the next morning and showered while Milo went to get them some coffee and bagels. She looked at herself in the mirror. When she was like this, her legs weren’t long and her muscles weren’t toned and her face wasn’t beautiful … but it’d do. It’d all do. It wasn’t really that bad, she supposed. If Kelly liked it, that was good enough for Amber.
Rescue Kelly. Deliver parents. Cheat Astaroth.
She dried off and got dressed and waited for Milo. She sat very still, apart from her leg. That bounced. Milo came back, but by then she’d lost her appetite. They put their bags in the trunk and got in the Charger, drove the few minutes to The Dark Stair.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
Amber thought for a moment. “Down,” she said.
He nodded, and said nothing more about it.
They got out of the car, walked in off the street and took the stairs down. The darkness drank them in and still they went down, until finally the gloom lifted and they passed through, into the light. At midday, the bar was quiet, but, just like in the boring Westerns that Milo watched, it went even quieter with their arrival. Everyone turned and stared as Amber descended the last few steps, Milo behind her. She got to the bottom and looked around, and then Milo moved, quickly and without fuss, intercepting a lunge from one of the bar’s patrons. Amber saw the flash of a knife and then the patron’s face hit the wall and Milo was standing over him, calmly appraising the rest of The Dark Stair’s clientele.
“We’re looking for Abigail,” Amber said, hoping her voice wouldn’t crack.
“Here I am,” said the little blonde girl in the pretty dress, waving to them from a table at the back. They walked over. No one else lunged out at Amber.
“Please excuse the stares,” Abigail said when they sat down. “It’s not often we get a Demon’s representative gracing our establishment. Usually, when that happens, people start dying.”
“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” said Amber. “I need your help.”
“Well, of course you do,” Abigail said with a small giggle. “Everyone does, sooner or later.”
“We want to trap a Demon,” said Milo. “Chain him up for transport. Can you help us?”
Abigail didn’t answer right away. “Are you sure that’s what you want to do? You don’t want to find someone or locate some—”
“We want chains that will hold Astaroth,” Amber said. “Just like the chains that hold Naberius.”
“I see.”
“Can you help us?”
Abigail smiled prettily. “It’s not really a question of can I, my dear. It’s a question of will I, and for what price?”
“Will you?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll have to think about it some more, but … No, I just thought about it some more and it’s still looking unlikely.”
Amber leaned forward. “What would I need to do to get you to help me?”
Abigail sat back. Considered her. “There may be something.”
“Tell me.”
“A problem I’ve been having,” Abigail said. “I’ve already sent someone to take care of it and they have failed, quite spectacularly. I’d say a Demon’s representative, however, would be more than enough to get the job done.”
“I’ll do it.”
Abigail smiled. “That’s it? A promise to do whatever task I set for you? That’s risky, is it not? What if I needed you to deliver to me the livers of ten newborn babies?”
Amber frowned. “Do you?”
“What would I want their livers for? No, I actually need you to do something you might well agree with, morally speaking. I need you to stop a bad man from doing a bad thing to some good people.”
“Who?” Milo asked.
“Simon Cranston,” said Abigail. “Or the ghost of him, anyway. Terrible man. A serial killer, killed upon arrest but risen again. You know, the usual.”
“Who’s he going after?”
“A small community on the outskirts of the city,” Abigail said. “Maple Lake. Nice people, good people. Innocent people. He’s killing them. Well, he’s killing the kids. Teenagers. Why do so many people go after teenagers when they return from the dead? Why can’t they take up a new hobby, like gardening?”
“Tell us about him,” said Milo.
Abigail laughed. “You mean, his motivation? Oh, I don’t know about things like that. He’s crazy and he likes to kill. He does it at night. He’s slow-moving – one of those lurchers, you know? But he’s persistent, and very hard to put down. You’ll have your hands full with him, I dare say.”
“Why do you want him stopped, Abigail?”
/> Abigail blinked her big blue eyes. “Because he’s a bad man, Milo.”
“And what does that have to do with you?”
Abigail sighed. “It’s a job I need doing. I thought you two might be perfect for it, since you get to save some lives along the way. Obviously, if you don’t want to do it, I’m sure I could find you something suitably unsavoury …”
“We’ll stop him,” said Amber. “And, in return, you’ll get us those chains?”
“I’ll have them in two days’ time,” Abigail said. “But I will need Cranston taken care of at once. Do we have a deal?”
“We have a deal,” said Amber.
She found Maple Lake on the map, and they drove there in under an hour. It was a pleasant little community, more affluent than Amber was expecting, and every direction she looked was laden down with the kind of mountainous beauty found mostly in coffee-table photography books and dime-store postcards. They were delayed slightly on their way to the main street by a procession of cars heading to a funeral.
The mood of the town was sombre, which Amber appreciated. The smile the server gave them while they ordered their food was a restrained kind of smile, the sort used to mask pain. Amber gave him one in return.
Amber had the falafel salad while Milo had the Gorgonzola and steak quesadilla. She managed a few mouthfuls before her stomach started to churn.
“Kelly will be okay,” Milo said.
Amber didn’t answer.
She used the restaurant’s Wi-Fi to look up Cranston, and grunted while she read.
“What?” Milo asked.
“Says here Simon Cranston used to perform at children’s parties in his spare time,” she said. “He used to dress up as a clown called Buddy. He gets extra creepy points for that.”
Milo chewed his food. “I don’t think I like clowns,” he said.
She shrugged. “I don’t mind them. I always liked Ronald McDonald, but that might just have been because of the cheeseburgers.” She read on. “He was killed in 1979. Cranston, not Ronald. Shot twice in the chest.”
“And since then he’s been killing his way across America,” said Milo.
Amber tapped the iPad, ran a new search. She read a bit before speaking. “The funeral we passed,” she said, “was for Hailey Rylance. Cause of death not found.”
“It wasn’t murder?”
“Well,” said Amber, “that’s the thing. This article is all about the weird deaths lately. All teenagers the same age, all found dead. No injuries, no trauma … No cause of death. People are thinking it’s poison, or a gas leak somewhere. Lotta people moving out of town, actually.”
“How did Cranston kill?”
She flicked back. “He didn’t have a signature move or anything. Gunshot. Two stabbings. Strangulation. Some bludgeoning.” She looked up. “All things that leave definite marks. You think Abigail got it wrong?”
Milo swallowed the last bite of his meal, then sat back. “I don’t think Abigail gets things wrong,” he said. “If these are the work of Cranston, he may have just altered his MO. Pretty unheard of when you’re dealing with back-from-the-dead psychos, but I guess it’s possible. But something else is going on here. Abigail doesn’t give one single crap about the people in this town.”
“So why did she send us?”
Milo shook his head.
It got dark slowly, like the day was reluctant to give way. Maybe it knew something Amber didn’t. Maybe it knew what was to come. But when it was finally beaten back, and night established its dominance, Amber and Milo began to trawl the streets, looking for a killer.
“Why don’t you like clowns?” she asked as they left the main thoroughfare and headed into the outskirts of town.
“Don’t know,” said Milo.
“Maybe you were attacked by one as a kid.”
“Maybe.”
“You must have seen one, though,” Amber said. “I know you can’t remember anything about your life up until twelve years ago, but surely you’ve encountered a clown or two since then.”
He glanced at her. “You’re talking like encountering clowns is a regular occurrence for most people.”
“I wouldn’t say regular, but … I mean, you’ve seen them on TV and stuff, right?”
“Yes,” said Milo, “on all those clown shows they have.”
“So you’re saying you’ve managed to avoid all clowns, even pictures of clowns, for twelve years?”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Amber. It’s a gift.”
“And what if Cranston is dressed as a clown?”
“Why would he be?”
“Because it’s creepy as hell,” she said, “and it’s just the kind of thing someone like him would do.”
“Well,” said Milo, “let’s hope he isn’t.”
“Let’s hope,” Amber echoed, then lurched back in her seat as the Charger’s headlights lit up the seven-foot clown walking across the road.
“HOLY SHIT!” SHE CRIED, and Milo slammed his foot on the brake.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“The frikkin’ clown!”
“Ah no,” said Milo. “Where is he?”
“Where is he?” she screeched. “He’s right there!”
The clown reached the other side of the road and disappeared into the bushes.
“Where?” said Milo, looking around.
She grabbed his arm. “You seriously didn’t see him? He was right in front of us! He crossed the road right in front of us!”
Milo’s eyes narrowed. “Have you taken any more of Astaroth’s blood?”
She stared. “I am not hallucinating.”
“I was looking right in front of us, Amber. I didn’t see a thing. What’d he look like?”
“Huge. Seven feet tall.”
“Seven feet?”
“At least.”
“What was he wearing?”
“A clown costume, Milo! He was wearing a clown costume! That’s how I knew he was a clown! It’s Buddy! It’s the clown Cranston dressed up as!”
“And how do you explain you seeing something that I don’t?”
“It … I didn’t hallucinate. That’s not what …” Amber frowned. “Jesus.” Then she shook her head. “No. I can always tell when I’m hallucinating. There’s a difference.”
“It’s been happening a lot?”
“Never mind that,” she snapped, and jumped out of the car, ran across to the bushes and plunged in. Beyond the initial mass of sharp twigs and leaves there was a trail. Amber hurried along. It took her behind a row of houses. She watched the hulking mass of the clown as he ambled towards a park area.
Milo caught up with her, his gun in his hand. “Okay, if he isn’t a hallucination, then where did he go?”
She pointed. “He’s right there.”
“Where? At the trees?”
“No. Jesus, Milo, he’s at the fence post.”
Milo frowned. “That fence post?”
“You don’t see him?”
“I don’t.”
It wasn’t a hallucination. It wasn’t.
They started running, covering the distance quickly. Amber steered Milo wide, and stopped ahead of Buddy the clown. The clown kept coming, his dull eyes not even focusing on them. Milo stepped into his path.
“Be careful,” she said. “He’s right there.”
Milo raised the gun – and Buddy the clown just walked straight through him.
“Oh,” said Amber.
“What?” Milo asked.
“He passed through you. You didn’t feel anything?”
“Not a thing.”
Amber stopped retreating. “Maybe … Jesus. Maybe I am hallucinating.”
“How much has it been happening?”
“A few times. But usually it’s my brother, or … or me … Never a frikkin’ clown,” she said, and Buddy hit her so hard he sent her rolling in the grass.
Milo ran over as Amber groaned, and Buddy walked on by.
“You okay?” Milo
asked, helping her sit up. “What happened?”
“He hit me,” Amber said, the wind knocked out of her. “Told you it … wasn’t a frikkin’… hallucination.”
“I just saw you fly backwards like you were on strings,” said Milo. “You sure you’re okay? Maybe you should shift.”
“Not yet,” she said. “Only when I need to.”
“Amber—”
“Only when I need to,” she said, and got up, ignoring the pain. She watched Buddy walk on. “So only I can see him,” she said, “and only I can touch him. That’s hardly fair.”
She followed him, and Milo followed her, and they strode through the park.
“Ever heard about anything like this before?” Amber asked.
Milo shook his head. He took a silencer from his jacket and screwed it on to his gun. “I might not be able to touch him, but maybe my bullets can. Where is he?”
Amber took his arm and they jogged up behind the clown. “Right in front of you.”
Milo held his gun out.
“Little higher,” said Amber. He raised it until it was pointing right at the back of Buddy’s head. “There. Shoot.”
The silenced pistol barked and nothing happened.
“Did he fall down?” Milo asked.
“Still walking.”
“You try it,” he said, passing her the gun.
She frowned, feeling the weight of the weapon, then raised it and fired. The bullet tore through Buddy’s skull, but instead of a jet of blood there was a small plume of dust, and Buddy didn’t even break his stride.
“The bullet hit him that time,” she said, “it just didn’t bother him all that much. What do we do? How do we stop him?”
“You don’t,” said a boy, emerging from behind a tree. “I do.”
He was sixteen or thereabouts, a good-looking guy in a checked shirt and ripped jeans, and he held an old-fashioned revolver in his hands.
“That won’t do any good!” Amber shouted. “Guns don’t work!”
“This one will,” the boy said, and fired.
Buddy jerked back.
The boy fired again, emptying the gun and driving Buddy back. When the last bullet hit, he toppled over and lay still.
“What’s happening?” Milo asked. “Where is he?”
“On the ground,” said Amber. She looked at the boy. “How did you do that?”