Chapter Text
* * *
The blonde barista’s mouth went slack-jawed as she stared at the spot behind Shireen for way too long. It was an expression Shireen had seen before. It meant that the barista could see him. That indicated that the barista was a sensitive (or possibly under the influence, but Shireen liked to give people the benefit of the doubt). Also—and Shireen could have predicted this coming from a mile away—the barista wasn’t paying attention to the coffee anymore and now it was starting to pour out the top of the cup.
“Fuck!”
In swooped the manager. “Cerenna, what did I tell you before about your language?”
The barista was backing away and pointing. “What in the seven hells is that?”
Unfortunately for Cerenna, the manager was neither a sensitive nor drunk nor high. “What is what?” she snapped before facing Shireen and adopting an apologetic voice. “I’m very sorry, miss.”
Shireen deliberately turned around and jumped. “Oh my gods.”
“You see it too?” Cerenna seemed glad to have the confirmation that she was not, in fact, crazy.
“See what?” the manager asked, baffled.
Shireen glared at him and he had the grace to fade just enough so that the color came back into the blonde barista’s face. Meanwhile one of the other baristas filled her order.
“What?” The manager was craning her neck and looking very confused.
“Is that mine?” Shireen grabbed the coffee which hopefully would make her feel less logy. “That was the weirdest thing I have ever seen.” It was a lie. What she had witnessed while doing her laundry earlier that morning had been the weirdest thing she’d ever seen, and unless Crownlands Paranormal Investigations could help, Shireen had the feeling things were only going to get a lot stranger.
She didn’t hold the door open for him. Patchface knew better than to materialize when she was out of the building.
* * *
To get to Dragonstone from King’s Landing you had two choices. You could fly to Maidenpool and rent a car until you got to Rook’s Rest and then you took a ship to the island. Alternatively, you could fly to Harrenhal and make two connecting flights, the last of which was a prop plane.
The first option was cheaper. The second was faster.
Asha was equally unsurprised and pissed when Davos and Melisandre decided on the former. Even though they’d picked up more jobs since the case at the yuppie hotel, thanks in no small part to the publicity they’d received, money was still pretty tight. In theory, the new cases should have made everything much better. The problem was, since the job at The Crossing, the tension was getting worse with every day.
So naturally they were on a trip that put them together in close quarters for the better part of a day and a half. And it was just her luck that she was stuck on a fucking ship.
“But you grew up on Pyke,” Sam said for the fifth time.
Asha lifted her head from between her knees.
“I mean your ancestors practically lived at sea. They were reavers, ironborn.”
“Sam?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “Why don’t you go take your history lessons to someone who cares?”
He got that hurt, puppy dog expression on his face, but he made no move to leave.
“If you do not get the fuck out of here I am going to puke all over your fancy green shirt that your grifter friends, fucking Robb and Margaery Tyrell Stark, got you for lying like a rug on the TV news.”
Davos clapped him on the shoulder. “Out.”
Sam’s eyes grew even sadder, but he shuffled off.
“Asha, I know you’re upset about Qarl.”
“Qarl is a piece of shit that I am better off without.” She didn’t mention the other piece of shit, Justin Massey and his fucking hair. Both of them with their fucking haircare regimens and their lying mouths could go die as far as she was concerned.
Davos nodded. “And I know you’re not happy about what Sam and Melisandre did at The Crossing, but for the sake of the business, we all need to move past it.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that you’ve forgiven them.”
He didn’t answer her.
“I’m not a crook, Davos. I took this job because even if most of the clients were bat shit crazy, I thought we were on the up and up.”
Davos chewed on his lip. “Melisandre and Sam gave me their word that they wouldn’t be party to any dishonesty ever again.”
And it was clear he believed them—or wanted to believe them. She was about to reply when the contents of her stomach roiled again.
“I scrounged some Dramamine if it’ll help.”
Asha took the bottle of water he offered. “It never has before.” Out of desperation she had just taken two of the pills from Dr. Qyburn. They were old and he was a quack that she hadn’t seen in years because he’d started to skeeve her out, but they were the only thing that worked. It just took a little longer for them to kick in and there were . . . side effects, but right now she did not care. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”
“Will you be up for a briefing? The client wants us out at his place right away.”
She could feel the meds starting to kick in because her stomach was no longer lurching. “Yeah.”
“This sounds like it’s going to be . . .”
“Weird,” Asha finished. She had read all the notes and she had to agree with Davos. “Very fucking weird.”
* * *
Melisandre missed driving with Davos. Davos claimed he had forgiven her, but that was plainly not true because here she was being driven up to the client’s home by Sam. Sam was a clever young man, but he was terrible behind the wheel and he would persist in talking when she wanted quiet.
“—Black stone dating back to over a thousand years—”
She switched on the radio and persisted punching buttons until she located WPR. There, now Sam would fall silent.
. . . not experienced it. But it’s real. As I was dressing for breakfast one morning, B, who is four years old, came to my room and asked me why I’d called him. I told him I’d not called him, that I’d not been in his room. With big and startled eyes he said, ‘Who was it, then, that called me?
Melisandre knew she’d heard this before, but before she could recall precisely, Sam turned the volume down and kept on talking.
She tried to tune him out by focusing on the file. Stannis Baratheon, retired dot-com millionaire (the information Asha had found put his age at fifty-three) was their client. His daughter, Shireen, was in her twenties and currently living with him while she attended university. Neither had a history of mental illness and they had been at their current address on and off for the past fifteen years without experiencing any paranormal activity.
“—filled with history and—”
The incident log was meticulous, but sparse in content. Usually their clients included every detail. Davos had commented that Mr. Baratheon had a “just the facts” approach to reportage.
“—Asha is still mad at us.”
She was, but Melisandre was less concerned with the good opinion of Asha Greyjoy than she was with that of Davos Seaworth. She had a calling, a mission as it were, and the respect of others was meaningless.
Except it wasn’t.
She’d never known how much his respect had mattered until she lost it.
After the initial blow-up, Davos had calmed down long enough to lecture her at length about how intentionally corroborating a false account of paranormal activity—to the news media, no less—had damaged the integrity of their business. Until she realized it was pointless, Melisandre endeavored to make him see reason. There was a big picture to consider, a greater good. The client had not been cheated. What did it really matter?
“—It’s just a shirt. Margaery said it brought out my—”
The argument had fizzled out after a few days. By nature, Davos was not prone to prolonged fits of ill temper, but something was not quite right. He found ways to avoid being around her. When they went out to see clients, he always arranged for Sam to drive with her. It bothered her more than it should have. There had been a routine. They’d even liked the same radio stations. But now . . . now Davos was no longer as invested in the business, in future clients, in anything really that had to do with Crownlands Paranormal Investigations. Davos came to the office. He did all the things he normally did, but he wasn’t . . . present.
“—doesn’t know anything about heirloom vegetables, especially not onions. I don’t see how Davos can make a career out of it.”
Melisandre’s attention snapped back to Sam.
“It must just be a pipe dream. Davos would never leave the business . . . would he?”
* * *
Davos was glad he had taken the minivan keys away from Asha. She had mellowed out since getting off the ship, but she was worrying him. She’d taken something for the seasickness, but whatever it was it was making her very loopy.
With big and startled eyes he said, ‘Who was it, then, that called me? Who made that pounding noise?’
"I told him it was undoubtedly the wind rattling his window. ‘No,’ he said, ‘It was not that. It was somebody that called me. Who was it?’ And so on he talked, insisting that he’d been called and for me to explain who it had been.”
Davos was getting into the story, when Asha reached over to pet his head.
“That is what a man’s hair should feel like.”
He began scanning the side of the road for a Starbucks or a Tim Horton’s. Some place where he could get her a gallon of espresso and maybe sober her up.
“ . . . are held down in their beds by unseen figures. Beds shake. Their plants die. They and their children feel weak and they have no . . .”
“Oh, fuck that,” she said. “Who needs talk radio?”
Davos did not consider ‘This Westerosi Life’ talk radio. He’d heard the episode before, but it had been a good one.
Asha fiddled with the buttons, rejecting first punk rock, then alternative, until finally and unaccountably settling on a station featuring a three-song medley from The 5th Dimension for some guy named Bowen. Two beats behind and with great gusto, she sang along.
Davos stood it as long as he could which was the first stanza of “Up, Up and Away” before switching it off. “No more. Please.”
They drove in merciful silence for a long time.
* * *
Barbrey Dustin loved her sister, but Bethany just didn’t understand. “If I waited for it to stop raining, I would never be able to leave the apartment.”
“Then why are you complaining about it?”
Barbrey was past the stage where logic mattered. She was irritated at everything and everyone. Her head was killing her. It never stopped raining and she knew no one on this miserable island and who better than to bitch to than her sister?
“I still don’t know why you couldn’t find something closer to home. You could have moved in with us.”
“Where? White Harbor?” Barbrey peered out her windows. “Your husband hates me.” She was not over fond of him either.
“Alliser doesn’t hate you,” Bethany objected without much conviction.
At least one knew where one stood with Bethany’s second husband. Alliser Thorne had a transparent way about him. It wasn’t like it had been with Roose, who wore that little smile on his face whether he was pleased or angry.
“Are you still having the headaches?”
She was. Wretched ones that weren’t responding to over-the-counter medication, but still she lied. If she told Bethany, her sister would just use it as yet another excuse for why she should move back home. Northern doctors, Bethany was sure to argue, were far superior to southron ones. Ordinarily Barbrey would agree with her, but she was damned if she was going to admit she’d made a mistake by coming to live on this stormy island in this depressing, creepy apartment building. “I’m fine.” Barbrey wished she could say the same for her houseplants. She’d tried everything and for some strange reason they were dying.
“Why not Moat Cailin then?” Bethany asked, returning to her original argument. “If it rains all the time on Dragonstone . . .”
Barbrey slid open the balcony doors. There was a drizzle, but the wind had died down. “You can’t shovel rain.”
She had wanted an apartment with an ocean view. Instead she had what the realtor optimistically referred to as a “garden view.” The garden still had its fabled pine trees and wild roses, but she had to either go out on the balcony or crane her neck to look down at them. If she gazed straight across, she was treated to ancient stone walls with grim carvings of psychotic-looking dragons.
Her sister turned the discussion to other things, but Barbrey stayed put. It was warm here in the Stormlands. That was another reason for moving south. She was so sick of the cold.
“Did you get Domeric’s latest album?”
Barbrey confirmed she had received the CD. It sat atop a pile of mail on a kitchen chair. She knew she should probably remove the plastic wrapping and play it, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do so yet. As much as Barbrey loved her nephew, but she wasn’t terribly fond of folk music, let alone “acid folk,” whatever that was.
“Roose hasn’t listened to it either,” Bethany commented without rancor. “I’ll email you some of the reviews. That’s what I did for Roose. He has even less of an ear than you.”
She would be damned if she was going to talk about Roose with Bethany. “That’s strange,” she said as she looked over and down.
“What?”
“Two grey minivans pulled up in the apartment parking lot. The people seem . . . odd.” Although given the things she’d been seeing in the halls and the noises she’d been hearing lately, perhaps odd was the wrong word.
“This is how you spend your time? Spying on the neighbors?"
There was a woman in a crimson-red dress and hair that was might as well have been dyed-to-match. It was hard to tell much about the two men with them, but the fat one was trying to corral the other woman, who was wandering around somewhat aimlessly.
“They’re not neighbors.”
“Workers then?” Bethany suggested.
“I know who belongs in this building and who doesn’t. They don’t.” Now they were staring back and forth from the building to the massive walls and gate through which they had driven. Barbrey couldn’t blame them. She had done the same thing the first time she’d arrived. Everyone did.
It was almost too bad Beth had divorced Roose years ago. The wyverns and gargoyles would have appealed to him. They disturbed Barbrey—not that she would ever admit it. There were stairs you could take that took you up and around the walls. She’d attempted the walk only twice.
A trick of the eye, Barbrey had told herself firmly. The afternoon light had shifted and it had made it seem as if—no, there had been nothing there—absolutely nothing. Stone dragons couldn’t move.
* * *
“Wow.”
As spacy as Asha sounded, Davos had to admit she was right. He’d done a fair amount of traveling in his day, and the scenery here was stunning. To get to Aegon’s Garden Apartments, you drove up a winding road up the side of a dormant volcano. All around were ruins, remnants of black stone walls, behind which you could see more modern-looking houses and businesses.
He navigated the minivan through a grove of incredibly tall pine trees. A discreet sign hanging over an open archway indicated they were at their destination. He slowed down so he could take in the curved walls surrounding the apartment building. There were steps carved into the stone. If he craned his neck out the window, he could see iron railings on top of the wall. “I bet the view is spectacular.”
“Men and their fucking moisturizers.”
Davos stared at her. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Asha gave the thumbs-up sign.
Perhaps he should make her wait in the car. Not for the first time, he wished he was driving with Mel again. For all her drama, she made for a much more restful driving companion. She was also willing to listen to WPR with him.
“That’s ugly as shit,” Asha commented as they caught their first sight of the actual apartment building.
Davos had to concur. After the haunting beauty of the ruins, it was a bit disconcerting to come face to face with an aqua and pink concrete mid-century modern horror. “We’re not here for the décor.”
They met up with Melisandre and Sam, and were buzzed in by their client. He met them at his apartment door.
Stannis Baratheon was a severe-looking man with close-cropped hair and deep blue eyes. He had been hesitant on the phone and when he saw them, he actually seemed as if he might slam the door shut. But then he inhaled, and they went through the formalities
Davos tried to tell himself that the client frowning at his missing fingers was nothing unusual. Most people did that. Hell, at the elementary school, the fourth-grade teacher had actually screamed upon seeing him (although he thought they could put that down to her prophetic dream). But unless Mr. Baratheon had been having visions too, his expression was of outright distrust. It didn’t help that Melisandre had chosen to wear one of her wackier outfits—the red dress that made her look like she was a refugee from Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” video—or that Sam seemed to be perspiring more than usual.
It certainly did not help when Asha greeted the client. “Finally, a man who doesn’t fuck around with his hair.”
Stannis Baratheon was plainly startled and not a little alarmed.
“I bet you don’t even own a comb.” She smiled lazily. “I am so sick of the pretty boys.”
“Asha,” Davos Seaworth hissed.
The client focused on Davos. “Coffee?” he hazarded.
Davos nodded gratefully. “Bit damp out there. I know we’d all welcome something hot.” He eyed Asha. “Strong black coffee sounds like just the ticket.” He glanced around. The client’s apartment was on the spare side, but everything looked very high-end and quite comfortable. The only odd note were the dying philodendrons; Davos had been under the impression that the only thing that would kill those was Clorox.
It may have sounded like just the ticket, but two and a half cups later, all it had done was to make Asha Greyjoy hyper.
“I sense nothing in this apartment,” Melisandre announced.
“Oh, now you sense nothing, you skanky—”
“—ASHA,” Davos barked.
Outright alarm was etched all over Mr. Baratheon’s features.
“Your incident log indicated the events have happened at no specific time,” Melisandre persisted. She had risen and was wandering around the living room.
“They don’t.”
Davos glanced at Asha and then wished he hadn’t. She had a lazy, no, a lecherous smile on her face and she seemed poised to pounce all over the client.
“Your pupils are dilated,” Dr. Tarly said suddenly. “And you’re flushed. Asha, what did you take?”
Now the client would think she was a drug addict. “Sam, we can discuss this later.”
Dr. Tarly ignored Davos and repeated his question. “Asha, what did you take?”
Before she could answer, a young woman let herself in. “Hi, Father. Sorry, I’m—
Both Melisandre and Asha screeched.
* * *
Barbrey heard screams coming from the Baratheon apartment. Cautiously, she went to the door taking the phone with her. She’d been hearing odd sounds lately, but they’d always been faint, like the conversation of people who had turned a corner. These sounded all too close and all too real.
The man from across the hall had opened his too. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Barbrey hesitated. “Should we call 911?”
“Viserys, what’s going on?” A young woman joined him.
They looked like they belonged in a Lord of the Rings movie, possibly cast as elves, Barbrey thought. “The screaming stopped.”
“Still it’s weird,” Viserys of the silver hair and the violet eyes said. “Should we call just to be safe?”
Barbrey was starting to dial when the door opened.
A woman with dirty-blonde hair and tight jeans ran out. “It’s a fucking clown! With face tattoos! First the ship, now the clown! It’s too much, Davos.”
“Asha, calm down.” Davos, whoever he was, looked respectable enough if you ignored the fact that he was missing the fingertips from his right hand.
“No, I will not calm the fuck down. It’s got blood on its lips!”
Barbrey exchanged uneasy glances with the people in the apartment across the hall.
“Uh, what’s going on?” Viserys asked.
“What’s going on is that kid has a fucking clown singing about anemones under the sea and starfish soup,” Asha ranted before turning to stare at him. “You have stupid hair.”
Barbrey privately agreed with her, but wondered if this was really the time.
“Sorry about this,” Davos told them apologetically. “Asha, come back in. She said he won’t hurt you—whatever it is.”
Asha allowed herself to be coaxed back in.
“Okay, that,” the girl with the long silver hair said, “That was very weird.”
* * *
Now that the shock was over, Melisandre was surprised to realize how disconcerted she still was. She’d seen things all of her life: spirits who didn’t know they were dead, demons, past events, sometimes things that yet were to come, but this was the first time she had ever seen anything like Patchface.
What was even stranger was that Asha saw him too.
Shireen wasn’t surprised. “People can sometimes.”
“Under what circumstances?” Sam had out the camera and the audio equipment. This was normally mostly Asha’s job, but she was watching Patchface warily from the corner of the room. Somehow she’d acquired a carving knife and whenever the clown ambled her way, she would raise it.
“Well, if you’re a sensitive like uh, Melisandre? Did I get that right? They can see him or if . . . well . . .”
“Those who are intoxicated or high see it too,” Stannis Baratheon interjected with a disgusted look at Asha.
Davos was going through Asha’s bag. “She said she took something for the seasickness. It must have made her . . .”
“Under the sea no one wears hats. I know. I know . . .”
Asha waved the carving knife at the clown. “No one wears hats? ‘Under the sea no one wears hats’?”
The client, Davos, and Sam stared at her. Melisandre noticed that the young woman did not. “You can hear him and see him too.”
Shireen nodded. “Oh, yes.”
“Why wasn’t this included in the incident log?” Melisandre shook her head at the omission. “And what else does he say?”
“I think they’re songs. Patchface would never bring harm to anyone.”
Davos scratched his forehead. “You were the one who called us initially, right?”
“Well, yes.” Shireen smiled at Patchface. “But I shouldn’t have done that. He’s my friend.”
“His lips are dripping with your blood, kid.”
Everyone turned to Asha.
She pointed at nowhere in particular. “Shit, there are skulls there too.”
Melisandre frowned. She reached out with her mind and then she screamed again.
* * *
There were only two things keeping Stannis from bodily removing the Crownlands Paranormal Investigations team: Davos Seaworth and the rapidly worsening situation with Shireen.
Mr. Seaworth had radiated calm. Not only had he managed to retrieve the carving knife from Asha Greyjoy, he had also wrested the pill bottle from her, which he then handed off to Dr. Tarly. After that, he calmed down the woman in the extraordinary red dress and directed them to escort their stoned colleague to the hotel.
He repeated the explanation, vouched for the Greyjoy woman’s character, and offered to bow out.
Perhaps there were three things. Stannis hesitated as he recalled the words Asha Greyjoy had uttered. They brought to mind an earlier incident.
“‘Under the sea no one wears hats?’” Robert roared. “What in the seven hells?”
“Robert, I said you could stay, but I must rescind my offer if you’re going to start drinking again.”
“There’s a clown with a tattooed face dancing around Shireen! Can’t you see it, Stannis?”
Shireen was sitting on the sectional amiably chatting to something he could neither see nor hear.
“Father, you must not worry. Patchface is my friend. He would not hurt me.”
Stannis had turned to Davos. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Seaworth. Tomorrow morning at 9:00?”
The morning after, everyone was a great deal calmer. Asha Greyjoy, aside from looking exhausted and wan, mumbled an apology. “That’s what I get for taking meds from a doctor who operated from inside of a hardware store. It’s just it’s the only thing that ever helps with the seasickness. I . . . uh . . . did I touch you?”
“You were very taken with my hair,” Stannis managed, feeling himself redden.
“Fu—sorry, it won’t happen again.”
Davos Seaworth took control. “As your daughter is out getting coffee, perhaps we can get your take on the situation. We have your incident log and your emails, but it appears you left a few things off.”
Stannis thought this was a sound approach. “I believe the first date on the log is correct. We lived here for years before that, though. But these incidents . . . it started with a storm. It was brutal. The power went out. There was talk of evacuation, but it finally started to die down. Shireen had fallen asleep. I was standing by the window watching the sea when she woke up screaming. She said she saw a clown dancing around and trying to juggle. Shireen was terrified of him—Patchface—in the beginning.”
Melisandre leaned forward. “And you, yourself, saw nothing?”
“I couldn’t see this clown at all. I assumed it was just a nightmare. She used to have night terrors as a child. I saw . . .”
They were all waiting.
“It was a trick of the light,” Stannis said defensively.
Dr. Tarly prompted, “What was?”
“It was quite odd. I was watching the sea and for a moment, I thought I saw a ship—a wooden ship sinking into the water.” He wondered if he should mention the incidents in the hallway. “I have heard . . . a few things.”
They waited.
“Two or three times . . . I’ve been coming up the hallway from the elevator and I’ve heard . . . snatches of conversation, but when I turn around there’s no one there. And once I thought I saw someone up out of the corner of my eye.” He pointed to the short passage between the living room and the bedrooms, before continuing, “going into Shireen’s room. But when I got up to check, there was no sign of them.”
Dr. Tarly scribbled this down. “Them?”
“A woman in a white longish dress.”
“Why are the ghostly women always in white gowns?” Asha Greyjoy grumbled.
Stannis could have done without her tone which combined both skepticism and derision. “The . . . apparition wore modern attire.”
They wrote this down and asked him more questions.
Stannis answered them as best he could, swallowing his irritation when more than a few of the queries covered material with which he had already provided them. The pounding headache he’d been battling was not helping.
“Your log indicated that at first your daughter only reported seeing this clown on the grounds and in the building.”
“Yes. Her mother and I were thought that it was a symptom of a mental illness at first.” He saw the question forming on Dr. Tarly’s face. “I’m divorced, but I’m on good terms with Shireen’s mother. She was as concerned as I was. That was why I contacted you initially, when we found out Shireen had engaged your services. We thought she was suffering hallucinations.”
“But then that was ruled out?”
“Not exactly,” Stannis hedged. Other than Patchface, Shireen was asymptomatic, but visual and auditory hallucinations were fairly significant symptoms. “One day, Shireen and I were down in the parking lot when the neighbor’s cleaning woman started screaming. She could see Patchface, you see. There were a few other ‘witnesses.’ Their descriptions of him and what he said matched Shireen’s. It’s all in the incident log.” Stannis waited, but Dr. Tarly merely nodded, so he continued. “And then Shireen started seeing Patchface outside of the grounds.”
Mr. Seaworth leaned forward. “That’s when you asked us to come out the first time.”
“Not precisely.” Stannis took a deep breath. “My brother saw him. He’s an alcoholic. Individuals under the influence can see this Patchface.”
Asha Greyjoy groaned.
“He said much the same thing as you did,” Stannis told her. “The song you heard? ‘Under the sea no one wears hats’? He heard those words too.”
“Might we talk to your brother?” Dr. Tarly inquired. “He might have seen or heard something that could be enlightening.”
“You’ll have to wait, Dr. Tarly. Robert checked himself into a rehab hospital to dry out. He’s still in isolation.”
Melisandre waved this away as being of no importance. “When did your daughter become more comfortable with the clown’s presence?”
“Not long after that. Almost overnight, Shireen told me there was no problem—that he was her friend and would never hurt her. She talks to him almost exclusively now.” Stannis hesitated before continuing, “Shireen has been acting more oddly too. She has always referred to me as ‘Dad.’ When she was little, she called me ‘Daddy.’ Now Shireen only calls me ‘Father.’”
Melisandre drew herself up. It was evident she found what he was saying alarming. Stannis couldn’t blame her. He found it alarming too.
“I believe that brings you up to date.” He looked at each of them in turn. “What is your next course of action?”
They all glanced at Melisandre.
“Next,” she said, “I deal with this Patchface.”
* * *
Daenerys stood on the balcony staring out to the Narrow Sea. It was raining again and the smoky black clouds on the horizon suggested that she would not be out here for long. It never seemed to stop raining in the Stormlands, but although this wasn’t the typical weather she’d experienced here, she was rather enjoying the breeze caressing her through her thin silk dress and the ocean and the moment. The throbbing in her temples had abated and she was finally starting to relax.
And then she heard the screaming again.
Viserys had his headphones on and his eyes closed while he listened to one of Rhaegar’s old albums. He might be napping. She would never admit this aloud, but she privately thought that their late brother’s music was only slightly less sleep-inducing than that of his arch-rival, Yanni.
Once again, she opened the doors to stare straight into the eyes of the neighbor from across the hall. Daenerys now knew this was Barbrey Dustin—a surreptitious peep at the mailbox in the lobby corresponding to her apartment number had told her so.
“Those people are here again,” Mrs. Dustin told her. “The strange ones who came in the minivans with the rental plates.”
“Should we call someone?” The screaming seemed to have stopped and there could be issues if she was seen to be involved with the police. Daenerys knew, though, to whom Mrs. Dustin referred. She’d seen them in the parking lot yesterday.
Mrs. Dustin stared at Stannis Baratheon’s apartment door for mere seconds before marching to it. She rapped sharply.
When no one answered, she called out, “What’s going on?”
A minute later, Stannis Baratheon, the brother of the man who had destroyed Daenerys’ father, opened the door. He stepped out, carefully pulling it shut behind him. He addressed them with weary irritation, “I apologize for the disturbance.”
“We heard screaming.”
“There is no cause for alarm.”
He sounded so calm that Daenerys half believed him, but as soon as the last word was out of his mouth, the screaming started again.
Daenerys knew he was divorced. There was a daughter in her early twenties who lived with him—Shireen Baratheon—she knew from the reports the private investigator had done. “Then who’s that?”
He was backing up.
“Answer her or we call the police,” Mrs. Dustin demanded.
Before Stannis Baratheon could answer, the heavyset man with the pit stains, who yesterday Daenerys had seen trying to calm down the strung-out woman who had been yelling about clowns with blood, came out. “Mr. Baratheon? Melisandre is ready for you now.”
“Tell them,” Stannis Baratheon ordered.
“What?”
“Tell them for what I am needed, Dr. Tarly.”
Dr. Tarly stared at him.
Involuntarily, Daenerys and Mrs. Dustin stepped forward. Through the open door, they could see Shireen Baratheon being held down by the guy with the beard and the now sober woman. She was struggling and yelling.
“911,” Mrs. Dustin said with grim determination.
Daenerys gaped. “Do you see that?”
In the dark the dead are dancing.
Mrs. Dustin pushed closer. “Oh my gods.”
“It’s a fool, in motley,” Stannis Baratheon said in an awed voice. “It’s not really a clown at all.”
“Seven hells,” Dr. Tarly whispered. “We can all see it?”
Barbrey Dustin had a complexion nearly as pale as Daenerys’, but she was beyond sheet white now. “What is that?”
Stannis Baratheon regained control. With quiet dignity he said, “If you will excuse me, I am needed for the exorcism.”
* * *