The Hollow - Sign Of Seven 2 Part 18

"I particularly like the Bettie Page wall clock." Cybil gestured toward it.

"You know Bettie Page?" Gage wanted to know.

"Know of, certainly. The fifties pinup sensation who became a cult icon, partially due to being the target of a Senate investigation-read witch hunt in my opinion-on p.o.r.n."

"Cybil met her." Quinn lifted her soda, sipped.

Gage peered over his drink. "Get out."

"I helped research the script for the biopic that came out a couple of years ago. She was lovely, inside and out. Are you a fan, Mr. Turner?"

"Yeah, actually, I am." He took a sip of club soda as he studied Cybil.

"You've got a lot of unusual avenues in there."

She smiled her slow, feline smile. "I love to travel."

When the band came back, two of its members stopped by the table.

"Want to jam one, O'Dell?"

"You guys are doing fine without me."

"You play?" Cybil poked him in the shoulder.

"Family requirement."

"Then go jam one, O'Dell." Now she gave him a push. "We insist."

"I'm drinking here."

"Don't make us cause a scene. We're capable. Q?"

"Oh yeah. Fox," she said. "Fox. Fox. Fox." Letting her voice rise a bit on each repet.i.tion.

"Okay. Okay."

When he rose, Quinn put her fingers between her lips and whistled.

"Control your girl."

"Can't." Cal only grinned. "I like 'em wild."

Shaking his head, Fox lifted a guitar from its stand, held a brief conference with the band as he slung the strap over his shoulder.

Cybil leaned over to Layla. "Why are guitar players so s.e.xy?"

"I think it's the hands." His certainly seemed to know what they were doing as he turned, tapped out the time, then led with a complex riff.

"Show-off," Gage muttered, and made Cybil laugh.

He went with "Lay Down Sally," an obvious crowd pleaser. Layla had to admit it had a tingle working in her when he leaned into the mike and added vocals.

He looked the part, didn't he? she thought. Faded jeans over narrow hips, feet planted in run-down work boots, s.h.a.ggy hair around a handsome face. And when those tiger eyes, full of fun, latched on hers, the tingle went right up to the top of the scale.

Cybil scooted over until her lips were a half inch from Layla's ear.

"He's really good."

"Yeah, d.a.m.n it. I think I'm in trouble."

"Right this minute? I wish I was." With another laugh, she leaned back while the song ended, and the bar erupted with applause.

Fox was already shaking his head, taking off the strap.

"Come on," Cybil called out. "Encore."

He kept shaking his head as he came back to the table. "I do more than one in a row, they have to pry the guitar out of my greedy hands."

"Why aren't you a rock star instead of a lawyer?" Layla asked him.

"Rock starring's too much work." The music pumped out again as he leaned close to her. "I resisted the more obvious Clapton. How many guys have hit you with 'Layla' over the years?"

"Pretty much all of them."

"That's what I figured. I've got this individualist streak. Never go for the obvious."

Oh yeah, she thought when he grinned at her. She was definitely in trouble.

CHAPTER Ten

THE RAIN HUNG AROUND, IRRITATINGLY, INTO the kind of gloomy, windswept morning where sleeping in was mandatory. Or would've been, Fox thought as he shut his apartment door behind him, if a guy didn't have demon research on his Sunday morning schedule.

Despite the damp, he opted to walk the handful of blocks to Layla's.

Like juggling, walking was thinking time. Apparently the other residents of the Hollow didn't share his view or had nothing much to think about.

Cars crammed nose to a.s.s at the curb outside Ma's Pantry and Coffee Talk, winds.h.i.+elds running, b.u.mpers dripping. And inside, he mused, people would be tucking into the breakfast special, getting their coffee topped off, complaining about the windy rain.

From across the street, he eyeballed the new door on the bookstore and thought, Nice job, Dad. As Layla had done, he studied the Going Out of Business sign on the gift shop. Nothing to be done about that. Another business would move in. Jim Hawkins would find another tenant who'd slap fresh paint on the walls and fill the place with whatevers. A Grand Opening sign would go up; customers would wander in to check it all out. Through the transition, people would still be eating the breakfast special, sleeping in on a rainy Sunday morning, or nagging their kids to get dressed for church.

But things would change. This time, when the Seven came around, they'd be more than ready for the Big Evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d. They'd do more than mop up the blood, put out the fires, lock up the deranged until the madness pa.s.sed.

They had to do more.

Meanwhile, they'd do the work, look for answers. They'd had fun the night before, he mused. Hanging out, letting music and conversation wash away a long, hard day. Progress had been made during that day.

He could feel all of them taking a step toward something.

So while he might not be sleeping in or tucking into the breakfast special at Ma's, he'd spend the day with friends, and the woman he wanted for his lover, working toward making sure others in the Hollow could keep right on doing the everyday, even during the week of July seventh, every seventh year.

He made the turn at the Square, hands in the kangaroo pockets of his hooded sweats.h.i.+rt, head ducked down in the rain.

He glanced up idly as he heard the squeal of brakes on wet pavement.

Fox recognized Block Kholer's truck, and thought, s.h.i.+t, even before Block slammed out of it.

"You little son of a b.i.t.c.h." Now, as Block strode forward, ham-sized hands fisted, size fourteen Wolverines slapping the pavement, Fox thought: s.h.i.+t.

"You're going to want to step back, Block, and calm down." They'd known each other since high school, so Fox's hopes of Block doing either were slim. As tempers went, Block's was fairly mild-but once Block worked up a head of steam, somebody was going to get pounded.

Since he sincerely didn't want it to be him, Fox tuned in and managed to evade the first swing.

"Cut it out, Block. I'm Sh.e.l.ley's lawyer, that's reality. If I wasn't, somebody else would be."

"I heard that's not all you are." He swung again, missed again when Fox ducked. "How long you been doing my wife, you c.o.c.ksucker?"

"I've never been with Sh.e.l.ley that way. You know me, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. If you got that tune from Napper, consider who was whistling it."

"I got kicked out of my own G.o.dd.a.m.n house." Block's blue eyes were bright with rage in a wide face stained red with more. "I gotta go into Ma's to get a decent breakfast because of you."

"I wasn't the one with my hand down my sister-in-law's s.h.i.+rt." Talk was his business, Fox reminded himself. Talk him down. So he kept his voice cool and even as he danced back from another punch. "Don't hang this on me, Block, and don't do something now you're going to have to pay for."

"You're going to f.u.c.king pay."

Fox was fast, but Block hadn't lost all the skill he'd owned on the football field back in his day. He didn't punch Fox as much as mow him down. Fox hit the ivy-covered slope of a lawn-and the rocks underneath the drenched ivy-and slid painfully down to the sidewalk with the enraged former defensive tackle on top of him.

Block outweighed him by a good fifty pounds, and most of that was muscle. Pinned, he couldn't avoid the short-armed, bare-knuckled punch to the face, or the punis.h.i.+ng rabbit jabs in his kidneys. Through the vicious pain, the blurred vision, he could see a kind of madness on Block's face that had panic snaking in.

And the thoughts sparking out were every bit as mad and murderous. Fox did the only thing left to him. He fought dirty. He clawed, going for those mad eyes. At Block's howl, he rammed his fist into the exposed throat. Block gagged, choked, and Fox had room to maneuver, to jam his knee between Block's legs. He got in a few punches, aiming for the face and throat.

Run. That single thought bloomed like blood in Fox's mind. But when he tried to roll, crawl, fight his way clear and gain his feet, Block slammed Fox's head against the sidewalk. He felt something inside him break as the steel-toed boot kicked viciously at his side. Then he fought for air as meaty hands closed around his throat.

Die here.

He didn't know if it was Block's thoughts or his own circling in his screaming head. But he knew he was slipping away. His burning lungs couldn't draw air, and his vision was dimmed and doubled. He struggled to push what he had into this man he knew, a man who loved the Red- skins and NASCAR, who was always good for a bad, dirty joke and was a genius with engines. A man stupid enough to cheat on his wife with her sister.

But he couldn't find it. He couldn't find himself or the man who was killing him on the sidewalk a few steps from the Town Square on a rainy Sunday morning.

Then all he could see was red, like a field of blood. All he could see was his own death.

The pressure on his throat released, and the horrible weight on his chest lifted. As he rolled, retching, he thought he heard shouting. But his ears rang like Klaxons, and he spat blood.

"Fox! Fox! O'Dell!"

A face swam in front of his. Fox lay across the sidewalk, the rain blessedly cool on his battered face. He saw a blurred triple image of Chief of Police Wayne Hawbaker.

"Better not move," Wayne told him. "I'll call an ambulance."

Not dead, Fox thought, though the red still swam at the edges of his vision. "No, wait." It croaked out of him, but he managed to sit up. "No ambulance."

"You're hurt pretty bad." He knew his one eye was swollen shut, but he managed to focus the other on Wayne. "I'll be okay. Where the f.u.c.k is Block?"

"Cuffed and locked in the back of my car. Christ, Fox, I had to d.a.m.n near knock him cold to get him off you. What the h.e.l.l was going on here?"

Fox wiped blood from his mouth. "Ask Napper."

"What does he have to do with it?"

"He'd be the one who got Block worked up, making him think I'd been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with Sh.e.l.ley." Fox wheezed in another breath that felt like broken gla.s.s inside his throat. "Never mind, doesn't matter. No law against lying to an idiot, is there?"

Wayne said nothing for a moment. "I'll call down to the firehouse, get the paramedics here to look you over at least."

"I don't need them." As helpless anger, helpless pain churned inside him, Fox braced a bleeding hand on the sidewalk. "I don't want them."

"I'll be taking Block in. I'll need you to come in when you're able, file formal a.s.sault charges."

Fox nodded. Attempted murder was closer to the mark, but a.s.sault would do.

"Let me help you into the front of the car. I'll take you where you want to go."

"Just go on. I can get where I'm going."

Wayne dragged a hand through his wet, graying hair. "Chrissakes, Fox, you want me to leave you on the sidewalk, bleeding?"

Once again, Fox focused his good eye. "You know me, Chief. I heal quick."

Acknowledgment and worry clouded Wayne's eyes. "Let me see you get to your feet. I'm not driving off until I know you can stand and walk."

He managed it, every inch of him screaming. Three broken ribs, Fox thought. He could already feel them trying to heal, and the pain was hideous. "Lock him up. I'll be in when I can."

He limped off, didn't stop until he heard Hawbaker drive away. Then he turned, and stared at the grinning boy standing across the street.

"I'll heal, you f.u.c.ker, and when the time comes, I'll do a lot worse to you." The demon in a child's form laughed. Then it opened its mouth, wide as a cave, and swallowed itself.

By the time Fox made it to the rental house, one of his ribs had healed, and the second was working on it. His loosened teeth were solid again; the most minor of the sc.r.a.pes and cuts had closed.

Should've gone home to finish this up, he realized. But the beating and the agony of the healing left him exhausted and fuzzy-headed. The women would just have to deal with it, he told himself. They'd probably have to deal with worse before it was over.