The Edge Of The Cemetery (7 page)

I was so exhausted, I went straight to bed and slept solidly until 4 a.m., when I woke with a start, sensing someone was in my apartment.

I kept a baseball bat under my bed for protection. Our building was extremely secure, but the habit had rolled over from my first city apartment, where we had a midnight break-in. I started to reach for the bat when I realized my intruder was GG. She was standing near the window, and when she noticed I was awake, a slight smile graced her ghostly face.

As GG had indicated the morning before, she came when I needed her, and God knew we needed her now.

“The boy and his demon?” I asked. She nodded. “We have to find them…can you help?” She frowned. “You're not sure you can find them?” She nodded again. “Do you know if this kid is working with the demon or if the demon is controlling the kid?” She frowned again. It's always difficult talking to someone who can't talk back. I tried another question. “Do you know why he's doing this? Is it to kill ghost killers?”

She nodded vigorously, then changed her mind and shook her head; we were getting nowhere fast.

I exhaled lightly in an attempt to hide my frustration. “Let's try one question at a time. Do you know why he's doing this?” She nodded.

“But he's not trying to kill ghost killers?” She pointed at me. “Okay, he's trying to kill me?” She sort of nodded and shook her head at the same time, and I remembered the night in Marin, when the man tried to grab Billy, so I asked, “Are they trying to kidnap us?” She did that nod/shake thing again and I took a deep breath, “All right, are they trying to kidnap one of us, and maybe kill the other?”

If a ghost could sigh, that's what GG did. I could see her apparitional chest rise with a ghostly inhale and her mouth open slightly as she exhaled nothing at all.

Finally I said, “It's okay, GG. Phil and Aris are working on it, but try and stay close. We may need your help when we find the kid and his demon.” She nodded sadly and faded away.

I fell back against my pillow and slept restlessly for the next couple of hours, finally crawling out from under the covers at 6:15. My first instinct was to call Billy and tell her about GG's visit, but Billy wasn't an early riser, and waking her up could be life-threatening to yours truly. I decided to make some breakfast and try and catch a tennis game at Lafayette Park.

I love early mornings in the city when most people are still at home and the streets are empty, but I especially love Lafayette Park, with its open green spaces and large swaths of trees. It's one of those inner-city treasures…eleven acres atop a hill that allows the visitor to enjoy incredible city and bay views. As if that wasn't enough, it has first come, first serve tennis courts, and I frequent those as often as possible, usually catching a game with my friend Greg, who religiously shows up every morning between six and eight to play. Greg and I had been playing together for years. He always gave me a run for my money, and once in a while I beat him. We played for a little over an hour…he destroyed me as usual, but the workout was good and I was ready to face the day with a clear head.

When I approached the courtyard entrance to my building, I was hit with two things simultaneously, both involving Billy. The first was that she was out of bed and outside…it was almost eight…normal for most people, but an un-Godly hour according to her. The second was a sense of déjà vu.

I saw Billy, not as she was right now, but as she was when I'd first met her. It was several months ago, this ghost killing business was new to me, and at the time I seemed to live in a perpetual state of confusion and fear. That particular day I'd made the mistake of visiting the house of Frederick Vokkel, where I'd had an unpleasant experience with Edgar. In those days, I didn't know that Vokkel was Billy's estranged and insane grandfather; in fact, I didn't know Billy at all.

She was sitting on the bench in our front courtyard, disheveled from the road and wearing lightly tinted round-rimmed glasses, which I initially mistook for the typical glasses the ghosts and demons always wore. When I realized she wasn't a ghost, I asked her why she was there, received a sarcastic reply, and being that I was exhausted from my experience with Edgar, I wasn't in the mood. After a few minutes of not-so-pleasant back and forth, she told me she was there to visit her aunt, Justine Wilkinson. Since Justine had told me she had no family—an omission she later apologized for—things got worse from there, and I almost called the police on Billy.

Billy had always been a loner, and after college she had decided to travel the world solo, killing ghosts. Her personality, in part, was due to that nomadic existence, but now I thought it was more like a habit she couldn't quite shake. She smiled a lot more these days, and she was without a doubt a happier person. Perhaps that was because she finally had a permanent place to call home, and she was surrounded by people that loved her. I smiled at the memory…it sometimes amazed me that we'd become as close as we were in such a short time.

This morning she was sitting on the same bench in the courtyard, wearing calf-length spandex jogging pants and a tank top. Her skin glistened from the sweat she'd worked up on her run. Her forearms were perched on her knees and her head was lowered, her breathing still labored as she cooled down. I sat next to her and leaned back enough to rest against the building.

“How was your run? No inattentive texters to rescue today?” I asked teasingly.

I expected to get a rise out of her, or at least a grouchy response due to the hour of the day, but instead, she quietly said, “Fine.”

“GG stopped by last night.” I thought that would perk her up a little…I was wrong.

“And?” she replied blandly. I regaled her with our ghostly conversation. “Figures.” Her tone was apathetic.

The intensity of the last thirty-six hours had dumped quite a bit on us, and the confirmation that someone and something was trying to kill us should have brought on a more impassioned response. Something else was bothering her—I just wasn't sure what it was.

“What's going on, Billy?” I asked tentatively.

Billy's chest hitched slightly as she exhaled, and when I looked over at her, her eyes were moist. Billy didn't bother with too many human emotions, and the only other time I'd seen her cry was after she'd killed her grandfather. Although, I thought those were tears of relief and finality…these tears were full of anguish. Her hands moved to the edge of the bench and tightened to the point that her knuckles whitened, then she released her grip and moved them to her lap.

“She has this power…over me…she can reduce me to nothing, to the sniveling little brat she gave to Vokkel. I…I won't do that again. I won't let
her
do that to me….” A tear ran down her cheek.

Sometimes I felt like Billy's big brother, which was odd since I was an only child and didn't have any brothering experience, but occasionally that's what she invoked in me, and I suddenly had the urge to comfort her. I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her close. She let me, and that bothered me. This wasn't my Billy…it was the one that her mother had left behind all those years ago, and I wanted my brazen, obnoxious green-eyed monster back.

I suddenly felt horrible that I'd been too tired last night to realize the impact Julie's unwelcome visit would have on Billy. I couldn't imagine the life she'd lived, not knowing her father and being traded to an evil man for money. I knew Justine had done everything she could to give Billy the love she didn't get from her parents, but maybe it wasn't enough.

“Well, you don't have to see her again, it's that simple. She'll finish cleaning out his house and his money and she'll move on.”

Her chest hitched again but the tears were gone, and I decided to push forward using her annoying version of encouragement. “Come on, Billy, put your big-girl pants on. We've got bigger fish to fry with this kid and his demon!”

She stiffened and began to pull away, but not before she elbowed me in my ribs. My bruising had already reached the final stages of healing and I was hardly sore now, but I doubled over dramatically and said, “Keep that up and you're on your own.” When I looked over at her she was smiling…well, more like smirking, but that was good enough for me.

We went back to our respective apartments with the intention of getting cleaned up from our workouts. As we left the elevator, she said, “When you hear from Phil, call me immediately.” I nodded and headed to my front door.

While I was in the shower I made two decisions; call Phil for an update, and Google Julie Wilkinson. The latter was plain old curiosity, the former necessity.

“Hey Phil,” I said when he answered his phone.

“Hey man, how ya feeling this morning?”

“Much better. How are you?” He sounded amped up, probably on copious amounts of coffee or some other caffeinated beverage. “What's new? Any word on the kid?”

“I'm good, man. Listen, I was just gonna send you and Billy a text. Aris wants us all to meet at Lincoln Way in about two hours. Can you two be there?”

“I guess. What's going on?”

“Pete got back late last night, and he's got some stuff to report. I found some stuff too that I think might tie into all of this.”

“Okay. Well, things got interesting last night when Billy and I got home.” I told him about Julie's visit, her accusation about the burglary, and the other thing that had been bothering me since our encounter with her.

“How'd she know what really went down? I mean, the only people that survived our little scrimmage, besides our people, were those poor bums we saved, and possibly Edgar….” I let that hang out there for a second.

I'd fantasized that Edgar was fatally injured that day in the abandoned auto garage and had simply found a sewer to crawl into until death took him, but deep down inside, I knew that was just a pipedream. Our people would never mention that day to outsiders, and the bums wouldn't remember enough and didn't really see much anyway, because Vokkel had them drugged almost to the point of unconsciousness. And let's not forget, Julie knew about the papers we'd liberated from Vokkel's house. I didn't think she was close enough to her father to be aware of his work, but I could be wrong.

Phil sighed. “Sorry man, but we all knew that Edgar probably survived, and I don't think we should discount him as Julie's source of information.”

“Yeah, I know, but there's another possibility we need to consider. I think we need to see if Caleb is around. He could have known about the notes and journals, and he sure as hell knew things were going from bad to worse between me, Billy, and Vokkel. He could have easily told Julie we killed him, or at least had something to do with it.”

“Yeah, not a bad idea. I'll run it past Aris.”

“Good idea, Phil. Ah…one more thing.” I hesitated. “GG made an appearance last night, and when I asked if she knew why the kid was doing this….” I paused again. “She thinks he's out to kidnap one of us and kill the other…at least that's what I think she was trying to say.”

Phil moaned loudly and said, “Not good, my friend. I'll let Aris know about that too. But you two need to be careful, more so than usual, okay?”

“We will, I promise. See you in a couple of hours,” I said, and hung up.

After I texted Billy, I got started on Julie. I entered her name into my search engine, using both Wilkinson and Vokkel. I had no idea where Julie had been living or under what name, so I wasn't that hopeful.

Much to my surprise, there were more hits than I expected…she wasn't keeping a low profile in the least. They were all society page updates about who attended what and with whom. Most of these events were held in the UK and European cities, but a few were in the US, and particularly in San Francisco. So she had been here as recently as last year. One hit caught my eye…a party at a London socialite's house in December of 2014. Julie was in one of the pictures, arm-in-arm with a handsome man. The caption read, “Miss Julie Vokkel, San Francisco shipping heiress and her current love interest, famed Italian attorney, Matteo Surtos.” There was nothing else, but at least now I knew how she was referenced and could narrow down the search perimeters. I typed in “Julie Vokkel” and “San Francisco” and her boyfriend's name.

A few other mentions came up, mostly just noting who she was and that she attended such-and-such event. One picture was interesting though; it was from a Paris tabloid and paparazzi-like in style, and she clearly hadn't known her picture was being taken. The caption read “San Francisco socialite having an intimate coffee with an unknown man, no sign of Surtos”. Julie was sitting at a café table, a serious yet tender look on her face, her body close to the man next to her. The man wore a similar expression, but his posture was stiff and reserved. The picture was dated a few weeks ago. I zoomed in on his face and heard, more than felt, the air leave my lungs in a long whistling breath.

There was no doubt about Billy's resemblance to her mother—the hair color, eyes, and nose, not to mention the body-shape and height, were all from Julie—but there were some things she'd picked up from her unknown father, and I was looking right at them. The sharpness of the chin, the shape of her hairline, even the ears were his.

I leaned back in my chair, not sure what to do. Honestly, I didn't think now was a good time to drop this on Billy, not with everything else going on.

It was pretty easy for me to find Julie on the Internet, and I wondered if Billy had done her own searches. If she had, was it recently, and did she know or at least have her own suspicions as to the identity of the man in the café picture?

When I knocked on Justine's door to collect Billy, I could tell her mood hadn't improved, so I decided to take the scenic route to Lincoln Way. I headed west to the Great Highway and then south until I hit Lincoln Way. I thought a drive along the Pacific Ocean might cheer her up a bit; it didn't, but I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the parking gods weren't with us and it took a few circles around the block before we found a spot. By the time we got to the front door, Billy was moody
and
slightly agitated. Of course, that was nothing new…she was generally in a perpetual state of moody agitation, so I chastised her teasingly and ordered her to perk up, which almost got me socked. I was saved by the bright and dynamic smile of our host, Eric, as he opened the front door.

Eric was just shy of six-feet tall and well-muscled. He favored dark colors in his wardrobe, which, combined with his deep ebony skin and well-developed physique, created an intimidating appearance. However, when the guy smiled, he could charm the socks off anyone, which was fortunate for me, because the minute Billy caught sight of him, she relaxed and went in for a hug. I shook Eric's hand and followed him into the house.

The main floor consisted of Phil's library, which was at the front of the house. There was also a good size den, and in the back, a kitchen/dining room, which was where Eric was headed. The room was probably the only real upgrade the house had seen. The wall between the two rooms had been removed to make it an open space, and the kitchen itself had been upgraded with all the modern conveniences. Pete, Aris, Phil, and Carol were all seated at the table.

Phil was fidgeting with a pile of leather-bound books and loose sheets of paper, and he smiled enthusiastically when we entered. “Awesome, you guys made it! Grab some coffee and have a seat.”

We did as instructed, and Aris asked, “Mr. Cowell, would you care to begin?”

There was a touch of anger in Pete's voice. “I drove up to the ranch after I talked to the neighbor.” He frowned lightly. “I'm not sure I'd qualify it as a ranch, though…it's more like several overgrown acres and some ramshackle buildings that consist of a house, a barn, a pump house, and a dilapidated shed. The power is still on and there was food in the fridge that was still relatively fresh, so I'm guessing someone was there recently and maybe plans to come back. Two of the three bedrooms were furnished and there were linens on the beds. Calvin, or his house guest, was pretty tidy…hardly any dust on the furniture or floors, so they haven't been away for that long. I found a shopping bag under the bathroom sink with most of the items still in it, including a three-month old receipt from a pharmacy in Valley Springs. The receipt listed antibiotic lotion, bandages, a suture kit, an eight-inch surgical clamp, and a five-inch Kelly clamp…the sorts of things you might need to remove a bullet and dress the wound.” He looked around the room expectantly.

“When I searched the barn, I found a Honda 750 motorcycle with blood on the seat and splattered around the neutral and shoe stand switches. Initially I thought it was the one the neighbor had mentioned, but I had Aris run the plate anyway; it belongs to a guy here in the city. He reported it stolen the day we killed Vokkel. He was in an alley about two blocks from the garage we fought in. Said he was parking the bike when a bald black guy approached him, walloped him over the head, and took the bike and his helmet. By the time he came to, it was over an hour later.” Well, at least that explained how Edgar had gotten away. I'd always wondered how he'd managed to disappear so quickly, especially since we knew he was injured.

Phil glanced over at me and mumbled, “Speak of the devil and the devil doth appear….”

A heavy silence filled the room as all hope that Edgar was dead vanished.

“So we think Edgar is in cahoots with the kid?” I asked, not waiting for an answer. “I guess that would make sense…he'd be pretty pissed that we killed his master and his sister, and based on what we saw of the kid's power and what he's been doing with that demon, Edgar could be using him to exact his revenge.” There were nods all around. “Do we think he's the one that told Julie about what really happened? Or could it have been Caleb?”

Aris answered, “It is certainly possible that Edgar had been in contact with Ms. Vokkel. As of yet, we do not have a cell number for her, so we cannot track her recent calls. As far as Caleb is concerned, Vokkel's acolytes went underground when word of his death spread. We have known his cell phone number for some time and I asked Carol to trace the activity and check his call log. The phone is in Vancouver, and has been since shortly after Vokkel's death. In addition, we have confirmed with our local sources there that Caleb has been seen with much regularity around the city for some time, and we can identify all the numbers he's called or texted in the past three months.”

I glanced at Billy, then back to Aris. “Why would Julie want her father's papers and journals though? I thought she kept her distance from all this stuff.”

“We know that she visited her father a few times a year, but what was said between them, or what knowledge she had of his work, is unknown. Perhaps she feels they have monetary value…after all, there are others out there like Vokkel.”

Billy grunted. “That's probably it. She's greedy, so if she thinks they're worth something, she'd want them.” Her shoulders sagged a bit. “That, and I think she just likes to make me miserable, and the missing papers were a good excuse to stop by and grace me with her noxious presence.” Billy did look miserable, so I'd say Julie was succeeding swimmingly.

Carol said, “I did an extensive search on Gail Brelong. She owns the house outright, only works part time but had a decent income, according to her bank account. She's been getting a monthly deposit from an out-of-state corporation since she's lived in Valley Springs, but the deposits stopped a few weeks after Vokkel died.” She punctuated the last statement with raised eyebrows. “Not only that, but the vesting deed for her house shows the same corporation as the grantor…the sale price was a dollar. I was able to peel back the ownership layers of the corporation, and eventually traced it to one of Vokkel's shell companies.”

“Right,” Pete said. “We headed back down the hill to see if the mother was home yet…she wasn't, but we did get a chance to talk to the neighbor some more. He said that the mother pulled Calvin from school after the first grade because he had trouble keeping up and he didn't play nice with the other kids. The neighbor thinks the kid has some sort of intellectual disability. Around the same time, a guy named Sam Smith moved in with the Brelongs. The mother told the neighbor he was an old family friend and she was giving him a room in exchange for tutoring the kid. He thought maybe this Sam guy and the mom had a thing, but he couldn't say for sure. Sam disappeared last year, shortly after the uncle died, but when the neighbor asked the mom about it, she just said he moved out of town. I think we need to figure out who this Sam guy is.”

Pete paused to sip his coffee, and then said, “We waited around for another hour or so. Just as we we're getting ready to call it quits the mother arrived, but she wasn't very cooperative. She said she hasn't seen Calvin in almost a week, but that yes, he could have used her car the other day. She said she's been out of town with friends for the last several days. She did confirm that he spends most of his time at the uncle's property, and does odd jobs up on the mountain to earn money. She was sort of nervous, like she knew something was wrong. I asked her if she had a cell phone number for him…she said she's tried calling it over the last week and just got voicemail, but she gave it to me.” He looked to Carol. “Any luck tracking the phone?”

Carol shook her head. “No go. It's either turned off or the battery is dead. I hacked into the account though. In the last several months he's only made or received calls from his mother.”

Phil was practically bouncing out of his chair, his excitement palpable. Aris nodded at him and he dived in. “Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “so we can definitely connect this Calvin kid to Vokkel. Carol, show them the picture.” She tapped on her tablet and shoved it in our direction. It was a CDL photo of Calvin Brelong, the same kid from the Tenderloin and Marin. I nodded, as did Billy and Pete.

“As you know, I found references in Vokkel's research about a subject that fit Calvin's description, and he noted that he'd arranged for the kid's 'tutelage.' So this Sam guy that Pete mentioned might have been hired by Vokkel to keep tabs on the kid and teach him, but I haven't had a chance to see if Vokkel mentions Sam by name yet. Anyway, I did attempt to find references in Vokkel's journals.” A scowl replaced his earlier enthusiasm. “Vokkel's research notes are pretty straightforward, but the journals are a different story entirely. It's almost as if he had dissociative identity disorder…although there's no evidence he actually did have DID….” He paused to take a breath. Phil tended to talk fast and furiously, especially when he was excited. “Regardless, we do know the man was as mad as a hatter, so why not add DID into the mix? The journal entries are like a mish-mash of information jotted down in no particular order…like he had a stack of identical blank books lying around, and grabbed the closest one, filling it with random stuff. There doesn't appear to be any chronology to the entries either. The only way we can even tell that he made the entries on separate occasions is because he tended to use whatever was handy to write with; a red, black, or blue pen, a pencil…he even used a crayon in one entry. There's also varying differences in his handwriting. Sometimes it appears manic, other times it's crisp and methodical, and others, it's printed instead of cursive. And there's one journal that's filled with weird writing and drawings. I think the writing is some form of Latin, but not one I've ever seen. I sent a few pages to a buddy of mine who specializes in languages, especially odd ones and dead ones, but he hasn't gotten back to me yet.”

Billy was very impatient and clearly uninterested in Phil's difficulties in deciphering Vokkel's journals—not that she didn't appreciate his efforts, she just didn't care about the details. She rolled her hand in mid-air, her way of saying “move it along”.

He winked at her and said, “Don't get yourself in a bind there, Billy; I'm getting there.”

Turning to the rest of us, he said, “So here's what I did find. In the research notes, Vokkel refers to 'C1,' 'offspring,' and 'chamber' together. He also mentioned the word 'prophecy.' I remembered seeing those words used in the journals, so I went back and checked them and found an entry that said…,” he grabbed one of the leather-bound books and opened it to a page he had tabbed, “ '
G has appeared to C, the offspring and father are together per the prophecy!
' ” He paused to sip his coffee. “But I can't figure out what the G reference is.”

He shoved the journal aside and picked up another. “In this one he wrote, '
The chamber has been located at the edge of the cemetery.
' ” He flipped to another tab. “And here he wrote '
G/C to become one.
' The problem is, I have no idea what order any of this was written in, so for all I know, there's another C somewhere in his earlier research and this pertains to that person.”

Pete asked, “So basically what you're saying is that this may or may not have something to do with the kid, right?”

Phil's shoulders sagged a bit. “Well yeah, that's what I'm saying, but…,” he shrugged, “he uses C in reference to this stuff, so we can't discount it as important.”

“Perhaps you could continue your research into Vokkel's papers,” Aris said. “In the meantime, I have issued a BOLO for the boy and his motorcycle. I have also issued a BOLO for Edgar, although his ability to sense danger will make him difficult to find, and since he has not been seen since Vokkel's death, I assume he's keeping a very low profile.”

Billy, Phil, and I looked at Aris quizzically, but it was Pete who spoke. “BOLO…it's an acronym for 'be on the lookout.' ”

Billy asked, “Any word on the missing ghost killers?”

Carol replied, “Nothing yet. I checked their phones…they're either dead or off. I put a post on G&G to see if anyone has seen or heard from them.” Ghosts and Ghouls, aka G&G, was a game site designed for thousands of simultaneous players. The Watchers and the ghost killers use it to communicate with each other using a designated message board. What appears as game banter to most is usually some sort of message about what is needed from, or general information to, the ghost killing community.

“All right, so what now?” I asked.

Pete looked at Carol. “Can you try and run this Sam guy down? He might be able to help us find the kid, or at least provide some additional information on him.”

Carol nodded. “I'll get right on it.”

Pete smiled tiredly and stifled a yawn. “I say we take the remainder of the day off and get some rest. We can meet again tomorrow with any updates.”

“Not for this guy,” Phil said heartily. “I'm hitting the sanctum to scour those journals and notes.” A wink. “After all, you're the ghost killing warriors, and you need to be on your best game. I'm just the research dude.”

Eric looked to Phil. “I'll give you a hand if you want. I've got nothing going on today.”

Aris said, “Thank you both.” Turning to Pete, Billy, and me, he continued, “Pete is correct. Please take the remainder of the day and night to rest and relax; the next few days could be quite trying.” And he was right, they would be
very
trying.