Izzie started to object, but the old man raised his hand and motioned toward the window.
“Looks to be coming on night soon,” Jett said, wearily. “And I’m guessing that you two don’t want to be out and about if there’s Ridden on the streets.” He paused, and then gave Izzie a hard look. “And there are Ridden out there again, aren’t there? That’s what this is all about.”
Izzie nodded.
“Yes,” she answered, swallowing hard. “They’re back.”
The old man put his hands on the wheels of his chair, and pushed himself over to where the wooden footlocker sat at the end of the bed.
“You two come on back tomorrow and I’ll give you the rest of it,” he said, straining to reach over and lift the lid of the footlocker. “But before you go, there’s something I suppose you should have.”
He reached into the footlocker and pulled out a battered old cloth-bound journal.
“This was the only one of Freeman’s journals that didn’t go up in that fire,” he said, holding the book out to Izzie. “Might be something in it you can make use of.”
Izzie pushed herself up off the couch and walked over to Jett’s wheelchair. When she took the journal from his hands, she could see that the corners of the cover were scorched black by flames.
“I don’t think I’m long for this world,” the old man went on, breathing heavily. “And there are times when I’m surprised that I’ve lasted as long as I have. But maybe I held on as best I could until someone came along that I could hand the torch off to, just like Charlotte handed it off to me. When I lay my head down to sleep that last time, I’ll go a little easier knowing that there’s somebody left to carry on when I’m gone.”
Izzie stood in front of the old man, holding the journal in both hands, struggling to think what to say.
“I’m sorry, folks,” the orderly called from the hallway, “but I’m going to have to ask you to say your goodbyes and head on out.”
Joyce stood up from the couch and came over to stand beside Izzie.
“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Joyce said, touching Izzie’s elbow lightly.
“Fair enough,” the old man said, and there was something in his tone that made Izzie suspect that he wasn’t sure he’d still be around by then. “But you two best tread carefully, and anybody else that’s mixed up in this, too. That night underneath the Eschaton Center, when I confronted Parrish . . . I wasn’t talking to him, really, but to whatever it was that had hollowed him out and pulled his strings like a puppet. That demon from the Otherworld. It saw me, and it knew me, and it promised me things if I would just walk away and let it be. Power. Wealth. Anything I wanted. But I told him to go to hell, and with one of Freeman’s silver bullets from that Colt .45 I sent him on his way there. And when he went, well, the rest of those Ridden went with him. Now, the time may come when you folks find yourself in that same position. And it might be hard to refuse. But you’ll need to stay strong.”
The orderly cleared his throat noisily in the hallway.
“Just a damned second,” Jett said, raising his voice and shouting toward the open door. Then he turned back and added, quietly enough that only Izzie and Joyce could hear him. “Just know that there’s been many a man and woman faced with that same choice in this city over the years, and those that went along with the darkness caused nothing but pain and misery for the rest of us. You’ve got to be able to look at the shadows and not blink, no matter what the cost is.”
Izzie turned, and started toward the door, but the old man reached out and grabbed hold of her elbow while she was still in reach.
“But you’ve got to be able to see the shadows to know what you’re up against,” he added, an urgent undertone to his voice. “If you can’t see them, you won’t stand a chance. And if you don’t have the knack, you’ll have to figure out some other way.” Izzie nodded slowly.
“I think I have an idea,” she said, laying her hand on top of the old man’s for a moment. “We’ll be careful.”
The old man sighed as he released his hold on her arm and settled back in his wheelchair.
“Best you do. Because it seems to me you’ve got work to do.”
As Izzie followed Joyce to the door and out into the hallway, she remembered the waking dream she’d had of her grandmother telling her much the same thing a few nights before. You got work to do.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Patrick parked his car up the street from the address he’d taken from Regina Jimenez’s phone, which turned out to be a modest single-story bungalow in a somewhat rundown corner of Hyde Park. As he got out, he glanced around at the other houses on the street. The developers who bought up older houses to remodel and then flip on the market hadn’t gotten to this area yet, and many of the people that were out on the street were older retirees walking their dogs, or working-class types heading home from the liquor store. In time, Patrick was sure, the houses would all be outfitted with new porches and pristine new paintjobs, with young professionals parking their electric hybrid cars in the driveways while nannies kept careful eyes on pampered toddlers playing on neatly manicured lawns. That was assuming that some developer didn’t just bulldoze entire blocks and put up overpriced apartment buildings instead, like they’d done out in the Kiev. But either way, the people who lived here now likely wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in just a few years’ time.
Patrick had picked
