Dark to Mortal Eyes (14 page)

The sergeant dropped his head, clasped his hands in back of his neck. “I lost the kid. I was there and tried to stop it, and I failed. The baby disappeared, and that was that. Don’t know if it was a kidnapping or what. Maybe some child-custody thing.”

“But you were just a kid yourself, right? Why are you to blame? I don’t get it.”

“Neither do I. Just one o’ those things I can’t get outta my mind.”

“Does this have anything to do with those fang marks?”

With a sigh, Turney met her questioning eyes. “See, Josee, I’d been up the whole evening with a coupla my school buddies. I’m talkin’ fourth grade here. My mom was gone—that was pretty normal—at some Independence Day party, and we’d gotten into her liquor cabinet. Drunk ourselves silly. I’d once heard my mom’s friends talk about poppin’ pills and stuff, and being a dumb kid, I figured I’d swallow a few aspirin to impress the guys. When I went comatose on ’em, one of them panicked. Called the paramedics. Next thing I knew I was laid up in a hospital bed.”

“Here? This hospital?”

“Ain’t life funny.”

“Where does the baby come in? I’m lost.”

“It was gettin’ late, and my mom was finally on her way. She’d talked to me on the phone. Not a real happy camper, considering the cops had tracked her down and given her flak about leavin’ us kids on our own.”

“Sounds like one or two of my foster homes.”

“If you can survive childhood, you can survive anything.”

“Mm-hmm.” Josee stared into her lap.

“So this lady on the next floor—the nurses were talkin’ about her, saying how she was real pregnant, ready to pop any minute, and they wondered if her baby was okay. They had reason to be concerned. Guess a coupla hours earlier someone had shot at the lady while she was pacing up and down the stairwell. Cops were swarmin’, talking about how a bullet had gone clear through her left hip. Missed the baby by six inches … two inches … a millimeter. Story got better every time they told it. Strange thing was the administrator had found this note on his desk, unsigned, that vowed this lady’s baby wouldn’t live to see the light o’ day. The nurses were abuzz. ‘You hear about the note? Strangest thing. Says to beware of what you cannot see. How spooky is that?’ ”

Josee flinched. In cauda venenum. The canister whipped across her vision.

“That’s messed up,” she said.

“Tell me about it. There are some certifiable sleazeballs roamin’ our streets.”

“Was there a motive? Did the note explain?”

“Not that I know of. I was only going by what I could overhear. My mom still hadn’t showed, so I wandered up a floor, thought I might peek in on this brave lady, see a real-life bullet wound, what have you. I was only nine, okay.”

“I’m listening.”

“There was a cop posted outside her door, drinkin’ a cup o’ joe, reading an Edgar Rice Burroughs book. I told him how I wasn’t much for reading, but I loved the Tarzan series. While he showed me the pictures, I heard a baby’s cry from that room, which just made me even more curious. Silly boy stuff. Always wanted to be a hero ever since I can remember. Before I could weasel my way in there though, the cop and I both heard somethin’ moving down the hall. Turned and saw a doctor’s jacket flutter around the corner, then this silver canister—ring any bells?—came bumpin’ up against our feet. Knocked over the cop’s coffee mug, made a big ol’ mess.”

“Let me guess. It had a skull and crossbones on it.”

“Bingo. Stenciled in black.”

“Any writing?”

“Writing? Not that I recall.”

“The one this morning had
Gift
written across it.”

“Well, this was no gift, let me tell you. Not that I had time to study it real close. Soon as I reached to pick it up, it came alive in my hands.” Turney’s jowls sagged. “I found myself holdin’ on to a monster.”

Josee twisted her eyebrow ring like a dial to calm her nerves.

Turney went on. “I don’t think the cop saw what I saw. Should’ve listened to him in the first place. Might’ve saved myself a lotta trouble. Might’ve saved the baby.”

“What’d he say?”

“He told me to hand it over, said it might be a tear-gas canister, a diversion to get at the woman in the room. That baby was crying again, like it was trying to scream and just couldn’t muster enough sound. And then … 
bam!
Smoke started curlin’ out of the canister, like a living, breathing creature that’d been locked inside. Wrapped around me, gave me the heebie-jeebies. I froze, looked down, and this thing was just staring at me. To this day, I’d testify under oath that it was a snake. And a big one! It was like a stare down before a fight. I’d been boxing at the gym since third grade—to keep me outta trouble, according to my mom—and what with my big arms they were already callin’ me Thunder Turney, like I told ya. Well, I’d never blinked first in a stare down. Never. This time around, though, I lost it, and soon as I showed fear, the thing struck. Hard and fast.”

“And it bit you.”

“You kiddin’ me? Felt like red-hot railroad spikes rammed clear through my arm. My head started spinning, and I dropped like lead. The cop was on the ground beside me, eyes rolled back in his head, coughin’ and spittin’. Later, they said his coffee’d been poisoned, found residue in the mug.”

“But you didn’t drink the coffee. What about you?”

“They said I made it all up. For attention. Pointed to the trouble I’d gotten myself into, fooling around with my mom’s liquor, and discounted everything I tried to tell ’em.”

“What about the scars? They couldn’t explain those away.”

“Sure they could.” Turney pressed his hand over the sergeant stripes on his sleeve. “Chief Braddock was a detective at the time. He said that I must’ve
slipped on the coffee and landed on the cop’s mug, the two ends of that broken handle puncturin’ my arm. ‘End o’ story. No questions asked. Go on with your life, boy.’ Come to think of it, Josee, you might be the first one’s ever heard me all the way through.”

Josee met his gaze. “And this is why the chief mocks you.”

“Any excuse’ll do.”

“Then let it go, Sarge. You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault.”

“Easy to say. Thing is, when I came to, that baby was gone. Some hero, eh?”

“Who knows what went on? Least you’re still around. This morning that thing would’ve killed Scooter if I hadn’t jumped in. It was out for blood, I’m convinced.”

“Whoa now, Josee. You don’t think it was you that saved him, do you?”

“I must’ve done something. I was out there all alone.”

“Were you?”

“I guess. No, not exactly. But if I hadn’t—”

“Hadn’t what? You gonna try telling me you fought it off with your smarts and bravery? Or your good looks? No, it was the same thing that saved me: prayer. From down the hall, this nurse rushed right to me and hit her knees. Can still hear her cryin’ out, ‘Deliver him, Lord. He’s one of yours. Oh, please keep him safe in your arms.’ ”

“Well, glad it helped. Just not sure I buy into that stuff anymore.”

“Not exactly somethin’ you buy into. When it’s real, it’s free.”

“For a small monthly donation.”

Turney’s gaze tipped her way, a scale weighing its verdict. “Okay then, what stopped that serpent inches from your face? Soon as you called out, it froze. Ain’t that what you told me? Sounds to me like an answer to prayer.”

“I don’t know, Sarge. Everything happened so fast.”

“Whoo boy, now it’s gettin’ deep in here. Up to your eyeballs in excuses.”

“Just not sure what to think. I used to be, you know, hard-core into all that stuff. That was a long time ago.”

“Afraid to trust again. I know just how ya feel. Never too late to turn back, you know?” He leaned forward with his elbows on his table. “You mind if I set aside my position here for a moment to tell you a verse I read? From the Bible?”

“If it makes you feel better.”

“Well, it says”—Turney cleared his throat—”says we’re allowed to make U-turns every now and then, says God’s mercies are new every morning.” He let his words trail away as though they’d caught even him by surprise. “Anyhow, that’s the way I read it. Only tellin’ you as a friend, you understand.”

“We’re friends now?”

“Just sharing what’s been a comfort to me. See, about three years ago I lost someone close to me … my fiancée. Be three years on the eighth of November.”

Josee slunk in her chair, struck by how myopic her own misery had become—childhood garbage, teenage scars, the horror of today. She wasn’t the only one carrying unseen weights. “Sorry,” she said. “Man, must’ve been a nightmare for you.”

“I’m still working, still breathing. You move on. A day at a time.”

“Dang, we’re quite a pair, aren’t we?” She tried to produce a chuckle, but thoughts of the thicket slithered down her back and clamped around her waist. She could see that canister’s frosty black grin. The table began to wobble beneath her elbows. The lights flickered.

“Whoa, now.” Turney’s hand was on her arm. “You all right? Guess it’d be best if I just kept my mouth shut, what with all you’ve been through today.”

Josee pushed herself up. His hand—this man’s hand—was warm, strong. Her instincts told her to take off, yet an inward echo of her childhood vows told her it was time to identify the threat, time to stand firm. Through her skull, the morning’s images swarmed in an attempt to smother her belief. She drew her fists to her chest, tried to hold herself together.

“Please, Sarge,” she implored, “tell me more of your story. I want to hear it.”

“Josee, you are one tough woman.”

So much for her gallant facade. Although she tried to dam the flood of her fear and emotion, she felt the color in her eyes stir into liquid motion until it seemed to be spilling across the white table toward Sergeant Turney. Caught in the current, her words washed forth. “Sarge, I know this sounds crazy, but
what do I do? That thing, that creature, whatever it is—it’s gonna come back for me. I can feel it. I don’t know why it came after me and Scooter. Just seems like everything’s hit the fan at once. It’s not like me to fall apart like this, to turn to someone else like I’m some charity case, to blabber on and on like an idiot, but please … I need your help.”

“S’all right, kiddo. Been hopin’ you would ask.”

It was late afternoon when Chief Braddock escorted Josee to the refuge of a nurses’ lounge. Turney had been dispatched, and, as promised, the chief had taken her to see Scooter. Despite the doctors’ confidence that they had nullified the poison before it became fatal, they remained tight-lipped as to its cause. Scoot was groggy. An IV was hooked to his arm. Still, with gauze covering half his face, he gave a faint smile when she entered the room.

Their meeting was short. Anticlimactic. He needed his rest.

At least he’s still here. I thought you were a goner, Scoot
.

In the lounge, Josee burrowed through her bedroll for her art case. She ignored the droning of the water fountain’s condenser and the snoring from the nurse on the love seat. Time to draw. To drain the poison. Others often mistook her sketches as dark fantasies; they failed to understand her need to excise the gloom from her mind.

Her pencil emptied shapes onto paper. Serpentine contours. Beads of blood on twisted thorns. Tilted initials … ICV. In burnt sienna, she covered the letters with reptilian scales. Set fangs over them.

Then she shredded the paper and cast the accursed images into the garbage.

Beware of what you cannot see
?

It was the things she had seen that frightened her. Behind her pupils, deep within her retinas, something had shifted so that realms invisible had become real. Battles … and evil’s face … Scooter’s body landing on the ground, fresh sustenance. Words to another poem began to form. Not now, maybe later.

She spent the next twenty minutes reorganizing her bedroll, folding and stuffing in her mildewed clothing. She rolled her art supplies in a brushed-cotton
blanket. Pushed down the frypan and tin utensils. Finally, from a Ziploc bag, she extracted her birth certificate. Her umbilical cord. A lifeline. So what if her friends mocked this bureaucratic waste of paper? To her, it was a symbol. She was connected by blood, by genes and DNA, to a woman named Kara Addison. Today’s plan had been to reunite. Okay, so that had gone down the flusher, but tomorrow they’d make it happen.

Don’t bail on me, please. Wherever you are, Kara, I hope you’re okay
.

She found herself praying for her mother’s safety while she tucked the document back into the bag and zipped it tight.