The Dark Communion (The Midnight Defenders) (14 page)

“Take a deep breath.” I took a few steps toward him. “You need to calm down and talk to me. If you try to run, I’m likely to shoot you in the back. Rock salt’s not fatal, but it’ll burn like fuck and make a nasty wound.”

He bent forward, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. He seemed to be listening, and I lowered my guard a little. “It’s not…,” he started to say. He was panting for breath. “It’s…it’s not…”

“Calm down, kid. Tell me what you were doing in that house.”

Wide-eyed, he looked up at me. “That’s my fucking house alarm. It’s my house.” He took a few deep gasps of air. “What? You think I’m doing this?”

“Well, it sure as shit isn’t ghosts.”

“No, it’s not a fucking ghost! It’s…I don’t even know. I was wrong, okay. What people are saying is…oh, fuck. It’s so wrong.”

“Just stop. What is it? Did you see it?”

“Yes, I fucking saw it. Aren’t you listening? It was in my house!!!” He started yelling, and he must have realized it, because he silenced himself quickly and put a hand over his face.

“Alright. Tell me what it is.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Instead, from somewhere behind me, came a long, low wail, not quite a wolf’s howl and not quite a fog horn but some strange marriage of the two. I’d never heard anything like it, and the hair on my arms and neck stood on end.

“It’s coming,” he said in a whimper.

“What is?”

“Bigfoot.” He turned and fumbled his footing, slipped into the grass, caught himself and sprinted toward the back fence like a track runner with stuttering feet.

“Kid!” I yelled, and as I raised Grace to fire, something very heavy and hard struck me in the shoulder, threw me against the barbeque grill. Grace scattered across the lawn.

I saw Geoffrey hop the back fence with some difficulty and disappear into the tree line beyond. Then I turned and faced what hit me. Covered in matted hair and smelling like a wet goat, it looked like an overgrown bear.

I pushed myself from the grill, stood a bit unsteadily, and motioned for it to come closer. “Let’s dance.”

It charged, and I just managed to leap to the side as it hit the grill, scattering brick and mortar and charcoal dust as thick as a swarm of locusts across the patio. I hit the grass with my shoulder, rolled to the side, and found Grace in the lawn. I unfastened the buttstock which doubled as a machete and unsnapped the leather sheath that muzzled the blade, brandishing steel in one hand and aiming the three barrels of my cannon with the other.

The thing pushed itself free of the grill, fumbled with the dented metal cover and tossed it to the side. Then turned to face me. The cloud of dust hung heavy in the air around it. With a snarl of rage and the snort of an angry bull, it charged again.

I fired the flare.

Pop, whistle, crack, and the beast lit up like a gas soaked log. There was a different kind of howl then, more like a yelp, and it turned, leapt the wooden fence in one bound and disappeared into the neighbor’s yard.

I holstered Grace but kept the blade out and ran at the fence. I knew there was no way I’d be able to leap the fence cold, but there was a tool shed a few feet away with a wheelbarrow leaning against its side.

I’m not that skilled or that graceful, so it stands to reason I rely heavily on dumb luck. I took the wheelbarrow in two steps and leapt as hard as I could, pushing off of it just as it began to topple to the side, and my momentum carried me to the roof. I didn’t slow. Instead, I leapt off the roof and prayed I’d clear the fence.

I closed my eyes, felt the ground come up fast underfoot, and rolled forward. As I regained my feet, I opened my eyes and took a quick look around, seeing only an above-ground swimming pool, a trampoline, and a small victory garden.

The creature was gone, but as I approached the pool, hair – black, long, and coarse – was scattered across the surface like loose straw.

It had moved on again, presumably to the next yard. The thing was fast, whatever it was – definitely not Bigfoot, that was certain. I didn’t get attacked by celebrities.

I popped Grace’s chambers, replaced the spent flair and the unused rock salt with buckshot. I reholstered her, and got a running start. I took a leap from the trampoline and cleared the next fence.

The creature wasn’t there either, but the patio had motion-sensitive flood lights and the backyard lit up like a stadium. In the light I saw blood, not a lot, but spots trailed across the grass and across the next fence.

I chased it through several more yards and finally stopped, panting heavily and struggling for breath. I wiped my forehead, realized how badly I was sweating, and swore to myself. I made a mental note to exercise more, maybe get one of those workout machines you see on late night TV ads.

After a few deep breaths, I steadied myself and listened to the night, channeled my inner hunter. I was on the prowl now, and whatever big-boy was, I wasn’t about to let it get away. The wind whistled in the trees, and a big truck growled somewhere in the night. The rest was silence.

Then I heard something and spun to my left, saw only solid glass patio doors and darkness, thick and heavy like concrete, beyond. Then I heard it again, unmistakable this time, from inside. The twinkling of breaking glass.

I moved along the rear of the white-sided house, scanned the windows for cracks. Along the side, past the brick chimney and then beside the garage. There was a heavy, intermittent grunting, and as I rounded the corner of the house, I saw that the garage door had been lifted, heaved up and dislocated from its track, hanging crookedly in the cave-like opening.

The inside of the garage was dark, despite the faint glow from the streetlights or the moon. I couldn’t hear the labored breathing anymore, and seeing no movement, I slipped inside, moving along the side of a shiny blue Camry to the rear of the garage. There was a tool bench there, no hammers or anything, but a drawer held candles, a box of matches, and a torch.

I took the light and held it according to my police training, in an overhand grip, and clicked it on. The torchlight revealed only that I was alone, and the blood trail that I had been following wound its way to the other side of the Camry, smeared across the side of the car, and disappeared into the house through a door that remained cracked. I clicked the light off and moved to the door, pushed it quietly open, and braced myself with the machete.

I entered a kitchen. By the soft green glow of the digital stove clock, I could tell it was empty and moved like a ghost through the little tiled room into the dining room, then into the rest of the house.

I clicked the light on as I passed a hallway, shining down its length to reveal an open bathroom and two closed doors. Behind, I heard a savage hiss and spun to face the living room, my beam hitting the creature like a stage performer in a spotlight, its eyes glinting dully back at me.

Neither of us moved, the machete in my hand held defensively. We stared each other down, and I got my first good look at the thing.

It was taller than the room, hunching its shoulders to compensate. The thing was stacked like an NFL linebacker, though its head was proportionately smaller. Its face was hideous, with the mouth of a scorpion and the eyes of a cat, sharp, angular cheek bones and a sallow yellowish hue.

Except for where I had burned it with the flare, its body was covered head to foot in thick, rough black hair. The bald spot on its chest, however, wasn’t red and black and burned like raw, charred flesh would have been, but was instead armored in what looked like alligator scales that glistened and dripped a deep red from several gashes and yellow, puss-filled wounds.

Its feet were huge, clawed like bear feet, with hands equally brutal, fingers ending in dagger-like talons. One held a struggling, orange tabby cat, the fur darker and matted in places. At first, I didn’t know which the blood belonged to, and then I saw a stump of a tail wicking back and forth.

The two plates that covered its mouth parted and pincer-like fangs and rows of shark teeth smiled at me, or seemed to, with orange and white fuzz on its tongue and cords of froth dangling from its lips. The cat continued to hiss and began to claw at the creature’s face.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I breathed.

The thing growled at me, raised the cat above its head and opened its mouth toward it, welcoming it. The blood dripped from the tail-stump across the creature’s chin, the pincers moving back and forth frantically. It felt like a challenge, like this thing was smarter than I had thought. And then, suddenly, I knew what the creature was, despite having never seen one.

I dropped the machete at my feet and quick-drew Grace like a Wild-West gunslinger, pumping off both rounds of buckshot, spraying red like a smashed tomato. Black and orange and white hair fell like downed feathers in a pillow fight, and the creature hissed at me, bellowed angrily, vomited a noise that sounded both like the bleating of a goat and the chirping of a chorus of crickets. Its mouth pincers flared out. Then it turned and leapt through the front windows of the living room.

It bounced into the grass and landed in the street, turned back to me and screamed again before it ran toward the forest.

I turned back to the living room, the dark spots on the walls, the ceiling, fuzz like feathers stuck everywhere, still falling like snow. I bent to the carpet where it had stood and found a digit as thick as a roll of quarters and twice as long, the fingernail at the end as black as pitch.

“Swyftt!” came a mortified voice, and Stone stood in the entrance to the hallway, her fuzzy robe hanging open to reveal a lacy bra and panties. “What the…,” she started to say, but stopped. “Wha…”

I stood and looked at her, said, “Well, it wasn’t Geoffrey.”

She saw the hair that stuck to the walls, littered the sofa and clung to my clothes. “Where is my cat?”

I rubbed my forehead with one hand as I looked around. I blew a piece of hair out of my face and pointed Grace at one of the blots on the wall. “I think there. Mostly.”

“You…you…”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know this was your house.”

“Elliot.” The look she gave me was darker and more sinister than any I’d been given. “You killed my cat!” She bellowed each word in exaggerated emphasis. “You killed Elliot Ness!”

“To be fair, I was aiming for the Wendigo.” I held up the finger I’d found. “I got part of it.”

“The what?!”

“It was a Wendigo. I should have seen it. The boys in the well had been fed upon, and…no it wouldn’t have been one of the kids. It must have been someone else.”

She gave me such a confused look that I wasn’t sure she was even fully awake. “A Wendigo,” I explained, “is a Native American word for, well, bigfoot, I guess, but more reptilian.”

She was struck dumb. Anger had given up on her, and she just looked defeated. I holstered Grace and stuck the finger in my pocket. Then I walked over and plucked the machete off the floor.

As I stood up, I couldn’t help but notice what she was wearing. “Damn, Nat, look at you. You wear that to bed every night?” She looked down, agitated, and pulled her robe closed in a hurry as I said, “It’s much better than the ducky pants you were wearing earlier.”

“I want you out of my house,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, no problem. I need to get after that thing before I lose its trail, anyway.” I turned to leave and saw what she saw: the destruction of her living room, the missing front windows, the cat-blood paint job across the walls, and the carpet of soft creamsicle fuzz.

“I…I’m sorry,” I said. I felt horrible, I really did. It wasn’t fair to her. “I hope you have homeowner’s insurance.”

“Get out,” she said.

“Right.” I moved to the hole where the front window had been and considered stepping through, but the glass was jagged and the wood around the edges had splinters. I moved back into the room, saw her gaze following me, said, “I’m just gonna take the door then.”

She smiled weakly, annoyed, as I opened it and stepped out onto the porch. “I…uh…I’ll bring your flashlight back…promise.” And I jogged to my car, slipped inside, and drove off after the Wendigo.

.

17

“Who names their cat Elliot Ness?” Nadia asked. We’d just pulled into Toby Emmerich’s neighborhood, and she was cruising slowly through the cars parked along the shoulder, as signs warned “Caution: Kids at Play.”

“He was one of her heroes,” I said. “It’s like naming your goldfish Superman.”

“Nobody does that,” she said with a weird smile.

I shrugged. “No, but from what I understand, her grandfather knew the actual guy. I don’t remember his name, but he was a private eye, back in the early thirties. He was among the eleven that went after Capone.”

When she spotted the house, she slowed, about to park out front in the street. “What are you doing?”

“We’re here.”

“She can’t see me. Circle the block, let me out, and come back.”

She nodded and sped up a little. “So whatever happened to the Wendigo?”

“I didn’t get him right away. He’d been living in the woods for some time, knew the layout better than I did, knew where to hide. Eventually, I caught up with him, took him down with a couple bolo rounds to the knees, and took off his head with my machete.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” I smiled at her.

“Where’d it come from?”

“A farmhand,” I said. “The same farmer that owned the well had taken in a vagrant to help with a few chores but he disappeared more than a month prior. There was no report; the farmer just assumed he’d moved on.”

“So what happened to those missing boys?”

“Like the kid said, they were eaten. Hence the Wendigo.”

She made a face. “Cannibals?”

“It’s dark fucking magic, old as shit.” I was watching the houses pass as I talked. “This is fine,” I said. “Stop here.”

She did, put the car in park, and I opened the door. I looked back at her and said, “I’ll try to be quiet, but whatever you do, keep the bitch out of the kid’s bedroom.”

She nodded, and I closed the door, watched the car drive away and disappear around the corner.

The neighborhood was mostly young families. I knew this from prior visits. This time of day no one was home. No prying eyes watched as I walked to the nearest house and hopped the chain link fence into the backyard. From where I stood, I could see Toby’s house and Janice Hutchinson through the window that overlooked her backyard. She was sitting at the kitchen table, sharing a cup of coffee with the newspaper. Before she noticed me I ducked behind a plastic white play house, watched her through the crack in the closed shutters.

I heard a car drive up and the engine shut off. Then a doorbell chimed. Janice looked up, folded her paper and set it on the table, crossed to the front door.

The moment she turned her back, I leapt up from the playhouse and hopped her fence. Moved past the window, snaked along the side of the house, and found the side door. Locked. I pulled out my little tools and slipped a couple of them into the key hole on the knob and began to methodically fidget. Picking locks, if you have enough experience doing it, is not a difficult task.

Slowly, I turned the knob, pushed the old, wooden door gently, and entered into a crossroad of sorts: a long stairwell leading down into darkness and a much smaller staircase leading up to a door, ajar enough to reveal the kitchen beyond.

I crept forward and peered through the crack. Faint voices, Janice’s louder, said, “Of course, dear, just make yourself comfortable.” “Thank you.” “Something to drink, dear?” “No.” “I’m going to warm my coffee. Excuse me just a moment.”

Janice appeared in the kitchen. Stopped at the round, wooden table, picked up her coffee mug and walked toward where I stood. It was dark in the hallway, but I backed up anyway, pressed against the wall and hoped she didn’t see me.

She hummed something to herself, set her mug down by the coffee pot. She turned and for a moment looked straight at me, smiled. Then I heard the fridge door open and close. Janice returned to the coffee pot with a bottle of creamer in-hand. “Are you sure you don’t want any?” she called into the other room. “I can make a fresh pot.”

A muffled answer and Janice resumed her humming. She put the bottle of creamer back, poured the coffee into her mug and took the cup back into the living room. “Alright,” she said, much quieter this time, further away. “What can I do for the department of child services?”

I pushed the door open and entered the kitchen, moved quickly, stopped by the table to listen. “I just have a few routine questions,” Nadia said. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“Okay,” Janice said. “I’m happy to help in any way, of course.”

I moved around the corner, sneaked a peak into the living room. Nadia faced me, sat up straight in a large armchair, legs folded, hair up. She had one pencil in her hand and another behind her ear, tucked behind wirerimmed glasses that were just for show. Janice sat on the couch, faced Nadia, her back to me. Nadia tried not to look at me, said, “Let’s begin, shall we?”

Taking her cue, I moved down the hallway, to Toby’s bedroom, and entered without reservation, closing the door gently behind me.

Despite his being missing for months, Toby’s room looked like he had gotten up this morning, made his bed and went to school. Not a thing was out of place or packed up, his dirty clothes were spilling out of the hamper between the dresser and closet, the lava lamp on the back of the bed was still bubbling and lit.

For a minute, I felt a little nauseous, if for nothing else than realizing what a fucking nutter Janice Hutchinson actually was. She was one of those mourners, the kind that held on to the past, couldn’t move on, couldn’t face reality. If I went into the attic, I’d probably find her husband’s corpse, dressed in wedding tux, rotting flesh hanging in moldy clumps from his musty skeleton.

Still, she practiced what she preached and held out for Toby’s innocence. Had he run away a thief, he likely wouldn’t return, but if it was something else – and she believed it was – he’d need his room again. She would have it ready for him. Just like he left it.

I looked about the room and reached into my pocket, pulled out what looked like an old Gaelic coin, copper in the center and silver around the edges. It was a little thicker than a normal coin, but had no value.

I set it on the corner of the dresser and started looking around the bedroom, rummaging through drawers in one chest, then the next. As I worked, something occurred to me. Beside him being a runaway, there was another reason I hadn’t grouped Toby in with the others: his age.

Nadia had given me Detective Anderson’s fax, and I pulled it out, scanned down the first page, the second. On average, the missing kids were anywhere from five to ten years old. Toby Emmerich was, what, thirteen. It didn’t make sense.

Or then again, maybe it did. Adam Gables was given friendship.

Most of the other kids lived in stable homes in good neighborhoods. Toby not only lacked a solid home, but had a rap as a thief and a liar. And moving around constantly, I couldn’t imagine him having many friends.

I looked over at the coin on the dresser. Nothing had changed. There wasn’t much time, but I could spare a few minutes to test a theory.

I pulled a second, identical coin from my pocket and held it tightly between thumb and forefinger. Moved over to the closet, opened the door to an avalanche of books and clothes, coats, hockey sticks, and stuffed animals.

My ear perked. Behind me, a fly began to buzz.

I knelt at the closet door and picked up a dirty shoe, the laces tied in knots, and brought it close to my chest for a minute, not interested in footwear so much as looking busy. I stole a glance over my shoulder at the dresser. Although it was fuzzy, I could just make out a dark spot zagging back and forth in the air, slowing and coming to rest on the coin.

I rubbed my fingers together on the disc in my hand as if a genie might pop out of it. Only, I wasn’t after a genie.

When I was sure the fly or gnat, whatever it was, wasn’t going anywhere, I squeezed my coin. The one on the dresser buzzed and rattled and discharged a short, powerful electric current.

Had it been only a bug, it would have popped from the heat and current that the coin gave off. But it wasn’t a bug. I turned in time to see it change, swell.

I let off the trigger and the current subsided. Where the little gnat had perched a moment ago, sat a tiny man.

“Bollocks,” I said. “Nadia was right. Toby Emmerich had himself a Leprechaun.”