Unsympathetic Magic - Laura Resnick [141]
“What a tactless question. Especially when your tone implies you already know the answer.”
There were still people in the building. I would scream for help. I was opening my mouth to do so when my throat closed. I gasped for air, unable to breathe.
Catherine pulled her hand out of her desk drawer. I saw that she was holding a tiny little doll, crudely fashioned out of wax. Her fist squeezed its legs into immobility while her thumb and forefinger pinched its throat. Gasping futilely for air, I saw that the doll had a few strands of brown hair—my hair—on its little wax head.
There was also a Star of David drawn crudely on the doll’s stomach. I thought that was in questionable taste, and I wanted to say so—but I couldn’t speak.
“I made a second one,” Catherine said. “I believe in being prepared. It’s an essential ingredient for success.”
She let go of the poppet’s throat. Able to breathe again, I inhaled for a scream. Before the air could leave my lungs, Catherine banged the wax doll’s head against the desk, and I blacked out.
24
When I regained consciousness, I was in the park, it was nighttime, and I was being carried by four zombies.
I had somehow wound up in Frank Johnson’s nightmare.
But unlike Frank, my legs were bound, as well as my hands. I supposed Catherine had learned her lesson after the one that got away.
I felt guilty about Frank’s near death experience at Biko’s hands as I realized that Catherine had known all along where he lived, but she had left him alone—until I started meddling and got Lopez to ask probing questions about him. Before that, Catherine had evidently considered Frank too minimal a threat to expend her attention on.
And what exactly did she need her attention for, anyhow? Where was all this leading us?
I had a horrible feeling I was about to find out. My body tilted at a precarious angle, and the zombies started ascending stairs. Moving carefully, since I didn’t want them to drop me at this juncture, I looked around and confirmed my suspicion. We were on the crumbling stone steps leading up to the old watchtower. Whatever had excited Nelli the night she had come here, it must have had something to do with this—the smell of zombies on these stairs.
The zombies held me aloft, high overhead, as we ascended. I remained very still, since they didn’t seem exactly steady on their feet, and I didn’t think I’d survive a tumble down these stairs. I practiced breathing evenly, grateful that I could breathe, and wondered how long I had been unconscious.
I guessed a few hours at least. It was nighttime now, the sky pitch-black overhead. The city must still be in the grip of the blackout; the park was completely dark, and as we rose higher through the trees, I could see that the surrounding buildings were also completely dark.
Whatever Catherine was planning, she evidently needed complete darkness for it. She didn’t want to be seen.
That didn’t seem very promising from my perspective.
The moonless, starless sky was a raging sea of thunder and lightning. The noise stampeded through my aching head, and the flashing light was disorienting, making me dizzy as I was carried backward and at an uncomfortable angle up to the forgotten nineteenth-century watchtower atop this steep, isolated hill in the middle of Harlem.
We were in Manhattan, a densely populated borough! Surely I should be able to get someone’s attention.
As soon as we reached the comparative safety of the broad stone plaza, I made my move. My hands had been tied in front of me, rather than behind. Now I lifted them to remove the gag from my mouth, and I screamed as loudly as I could. Then my heart sank as I realized that no one would hear me over the noise of the thunder. There was no one else in this park, and the surrounding houses and apartments were all too far away. Even without the competition of the thunder, I doubted anyone would hear me.
Nonetheless, I screamed again.
“Would you stop that?” Catherine’s voice snapped at me. “I told them to gag you! What happ—oh, for God’s sake!”
I was roughly yanked