Chapter 38
Gray reached Marley and bent over her. He found a pulse in her neck. With his heart pounding, he turned her onto her back.
Relief was short-lived. She looked bloodless and her flesh felt so cold it was hard. Her fisted hands pressed into her chest.
“Nat,” he yelled, struggling out of his jacket. “I need the blanket from your kit. And anything else warm.”
In seconds Nat skidded into the room. He looked from Gray to Marley and pulled his T-shirt over his head. He tossed it at Gray and ran out.
Gray pulled his own shirt over Marley’s head, drew Nat’s on top and wrapped his jacket over everything. Marley’s eyelids flickered. She looked at him, but her eyes rolled to one side.
“Don’t you die on me,” he said, shaking her. “I won’t let you die. Don’t try it.” He grabbed and held her against him, sat on the edge of the couch and chafed her back hard. He pulled the T-shirts down as far as they would go which, given her size, was knee-level. Wrapped against his naked chest she sent a deep chill all the way to his heart.
“Hey, hey,” he murmured. To warm her hands he forced her fists beneath his arms. “Stay awake. Nat’s gone for a blanket. I’ll get you thawed out and you’ll feel better.”
Her lips moved, but she didn’t speak.
Nat pounded in and skidded to a halt beside Gray and Marley. He threw down an old plaid blanket, then snapped open the silver sheet from his kit. The thing wanted to float rather than be wrapped around her.
“Rub her arms and legs,” Gray said, and they worked, side-by-side, pulling first one, then another limb free of the cocoon they had wrapped her in.
She began to shake, a steady, rhythmic shuddering from head to foot. Her eyes were wide-open now.
“You’re going to be okay,” Nat said. “We’d better call 911.”
“No.” Marley croaked out the word. “I can’t do that. Don’t try to make me.”
Gray could feel her panic. “Okay, okay. Calm down.”
“I won’t go,” Marley said.
“You don’t have to,” Gray said. He had been warned to take care of her himself and he wouldn’t fail.
Nat kept rubbing an arm. “Let’s get her home, then,” he said. “She’d be better off in bed. It wouldn’t take too long to get her there.”
Marley shook her head, no. She pulled away and sat on the couch with her hands clasped between her knees. “I can’t go there.” She hung her head forward.
“Just let us get you home,” Gray said. He massaged her shoulders and held her face in his hands. “Being in your own bed will feel good, Marley.”
“No,” she said through chattering teeth. “I’ve got things to do. I can’t go home.”
She extended one fist and unfurled the fingers. A scrap of torn black fabric lay bunched in her palm.
Nat moved closer to look. “Is it from someone’s clothing?”
“Mine. In the warehouse…that thing, the creature tore my sleeve and he must have kept this. Tonight…here, he gave it back. He was letting me know he’s the one who took Pearl Brite.”
“He was letting you know he can find you, too,” Gray murmured.
Nat opened the space blanket bag and held it out. “Drop that in here,” he said.
Marley did as he asked and turned her face into Gray’s shoulder.
He met Nat’s eyes and the other man made a motion with his head, offering to leave. Gray nodded.
“I’d better get back,” Nat said. “But I need to know where you’ll be.”
“We can’t stay here,” Gray said. Marley still seemed as cold as ever.
“My family would try to stop me,” she said and Gray knew what she meant. “Only because they love me and want to look after me,” she added quickly.
“I’ll take you to my place,” he told her. He wanted time alone with her to go over not just the case, but what was happening to him. While he had waited for her outside this room—after the voices had faded, he had felt and visualized things he must understand and he needed to talk to Marley about them. “Gus will get the wrong idea when he sees you, but why not give him that pleasure?”
Nat laughed, but Marley’s expression remained dull.
“Is it okay to go to Gus and my place, Marley?” Gray said.
She nodded and put her mouth near his ear. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to be, but I am.”
Rather than answer, he picked her up and carried her to the front door where Nat let them all out.
The night had turned heavy with the promise of another storm. A thick layer of tight warmth pressed in and the air was still. Gray hurried to put Marley in his car and as soon as the door was shut he walked around, passing Nat on the way.
“This isn’t my first time with this kind of stuff,” Nat said, looking straight into Gray’s face. “Do you understand what I mean?”
“I think so.” He didn’t want to be the first to reveal that he put a lot of credence in areas not readily accepted by all.
“Before I met Wazoo, I thought it was all bunk. It’s not. There’s a lot we can’t see or touch, but it’s there. I feel we’re close to breaking this case.”
“I don’t disagree. But I have to look out for Marley. She’s very vulnerable.”
“I know,” Nat said. He gave a lopsided smile. “Now you know what it feels like to…Ah, hell. What it feels like to love someone with a side you can only guess at.”
“Maybe.” He wasn’t giving everything away.
“They get so deep under your skin, you can’t dig them out.”
“So why aren’t you doing something about being with Wazoo all the time?” Gray felt Nat had opened the door to the question.
“What makes you think I’m not trying?” Nat said and got into his Corvette. He waited until Gray left the property with Marley.
When she opened her eyes, Marley stared into complete darkness for a moment. Lightning pierced windows and slashed across a room where she lay on a bed covered with a mound of blankets.
She lay very still, afraid to move even her head.
Then she heard breathing.
The covers were pulled tight across her. Someone was lying beside her on top of the blankets.
Dull pain throbbed from her temples to meet over her eyes. The side of her head felt raw.
The face of a young, beautiful black woman hovered inches above her and Marley barely stopped herself from crying out. High, rounded cheekbones, liquid-black eyes with an Asian slant, full lips parted a little to show perfect teeth, and brows that winged away. Hair pulled smoothly back and fastened at the crown and the most perfect skin completed a stunning woman who looked at Marley with a desperate plea in her eyes.
Marley couldn’t speak.
Thunder rolled, quite close, and wherever she was, the building shook. Within moments lightning struck again. She should be hot under all the many covers, Marley thought, yet she was so cold.
“Tell me what you want,” Marley said at last, forcing the words past a dry tongue and lips. “How can I help you?”
“I want to.” Panic overwhelmed Marley. Of course, this was the cottage in Faubourg Marigny where Gray and his father lived. How could this vision come to her like this? She was always called by the Ushers and guided where she was to go, the way she was drawn through the portal that appeared in the red dollhouse.
