Living With the Dead (Otherworld 9)

Again, Hope had to agree. The property was swarming with armed men - cops or Cabal, she wasn't sure. Add the rifle-toting kumpania members, and she wasn't setting foot outside this bunker until someone granted her safe passage.

As for what they were in, bunker was the word that came to mind, but as she passed through the entryway into the main room, she had a vision... of a playground, the one she and Karl had been standing outside only hours ago. That's what this looked like: a day care, all bright colors and plush furniture. A TV flashed now - silent cartoons. There was even a crib pushed against the wall. Why would there be - ?

" 'dele?"

"It's okay, sweetie," Adele said. "That's Hope. Oh, you like her, do you? You like pretty girls." Her voice was light, but a hard note crept into it, and the look she shot Hope was dagger-sharp.

Hope sidestepped to see around Adele. There was a boy in the chair and, for one jolting moment, she thought it was Colm. But it was a distorted view, as if the angle was skewed, something not quite right.

"Come meet Thom," Adele said. "I think he likes you." Her lips curved, but there was too much snarl in it to be mistaken for a smile.

As Hope moved forward she tried not to stare. The boy in the chair wasn't much older than Colm, with the same blue eyes and red hair, but his head was slightly oversized and misshapen, with plastic tubes running out of it - shunts, she realized.

Thom watched Hope. There was a keenness in his eyes, a probing curiosity.

Adele walked over, her arms going around his neck, lips to his bulging forehead.

"Yep, this is Thom. The proud daddy. Aren't you, sweetie?"

She snuggled against him, her breasts rubbing his face. When Adele had named her baby's father and called him "retarded," Hope had assumed she was lying, trying to shock the kumpania into outrage so she could escape. Now she saw the truth. Adele had seduced not only a fifteen-year-old boy, but his mentally handicapped brother, an act as horrific as molesting a child.

Adele pulled back, but not before squeezing his crotch. "You gave me a wonderful gift, didn't you, sweetie? One that will make my fortune." She looked at Hope. "When I told Irving I was carrying the child of a seer, I swear the old man got a hard-on just thinking about it."

"Seer?" Hope forced the word past her revulsion.

"Powerful clairvoyants who can project visions to others. Irving had heard stories about them - that's all most people hear, stories. But here they are, and Thom is the most valuable of them all."

"Them?"

Adele waved at the room and walked to a cupboard, taking down a bottle. Hope turned, slowly. Her gaze moved past the flashing TV to another chair, a recliner this time. In it, a hairless man stared vacantly at the cartoon.

"That's Melvin. Veggie Boy." Adele tapped her head. "No one's home. He's practically useless, but he's Niko's son, so they have to keep him alive."

Hope stepped sideways to see what Adele was doing. Filling a syringe.

Hope's hand tightened on her lowered gun. "What's that?"

"A sedative for Thom. He has a wicked temper. When the kumpania or the Cabal starts banging on that door, things will get ugly. I don't want him upset."

"When they do show up, let me do the talking. I'll negotiate - "

"With what?" Her look dripped disdain. "I'll do the talking. I know what we've got in here, and how to use it to our advantage."

"Adele, we - "

A noise behind Hope. A rustling. From the crib.

She'd forgotten the crib. Her knees locked, brain ordering her to stay where she was, not to look, that it wouldn't do any good.

And what good would it do to not look? Cover her eyes, plug her ears and whistle past the cemetery? When she got out, she had to do something about this, which meant she had to take the story back to the council. The full story.

Hope stepped to the crib, and a scream congealed in her throat. It wasn't a baby. It wasn't even human. It couldn't be. A doll. A prank.

Adele's plan to shock Hope, distract her so she could get her gun.

It moved.

Hope's scream escaped in a strangled yelp.