by Shaun Meeks
“I just want you to trust that I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to go in all Leeroy Jenkins. I’ll follow your lead. You just need to make sure you don’t do anything stupid and teach me wrong. Sound good?”
I nodded.
How was I supposed to argue with any of what she’d said?
After that, we pulled up to the church and I reached to the back seat to grab the bag Godfrey had given me. First thing I pulled from it was a pair of gloves, similar to mine. They looked to be made out of soft leather, though I knew by the texture they were made of nothing from this planet, just as mine weren’t. Usually, these spellbound gloves were made of the skins of a Kern, an Atzii, or a Veek. These were the most common creatures used, as they already held their own kinds of magic in them. The creatures didn’t die when they gave their skins; they simply shed them as needed, a bit like molting.
I handed the gloves to Rouge and she inspected them.
“Are these like yours?”
“Yeah. They have spells cast into them, and contain different kinds of counter curses and magic. You use them to sort of freeze any spirit, monster, or demon you touch. It acts like a paralyzer of sorts.”
“Wow. I have to admit, this is kind of cool. What else do I get?”
I passed her the Safferite Blue, a Buern; a circle of rope used to look through for monsters that devour light, and a Klask, a jar with a small, liquid-based bug inside it. I told her if she shook the jar a bit, the Klask inside would let out a high pitch sound that only demons can hear, and they don’t like it.
“So it won’t affect you, or anything other than a demon?” she asked and looked into the jar as the Klask moved from solid to a crystal blue water shaped bug.
“Want to try it out and see if I lose my marbles?”
She shook it, winced a bit as she did, but then looked at me and shrugged. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Good thing you’re not a demon,” I laughed.
I took out a few more items, including the Azzeen Staff, more Firma Pitch, and my own gloves. My Tincher was already on my belt. I tossed the remaining items that I wasn’t sure I’d need in the back seat, and then took a deep breath.
“Well, I guess this is it. You ready?” I asked her, and she looked more excited than I felt.
“I’ve never been more ready, Dillon! Let’s get rambling!”
The church looked the same as it did the last time I’d been inside. We used the loose piece of plywood, pushed it aside and climbed in through the darkness. I pulled my small LED flashlight out to light my way; Rouge used her cellphone, having it out and lit before me.
“It stinks in here,” she whispered, and it did. Same as before. There was the dust, the lingering remains of the fire, and just that smell an unlived-in, unaired space gets after a while. “Where should we check first?”
“The symbols I found are in the back area, where the offices and rectory of sorts were. The rest are in the basement.”
“Yeah, but I already said some of those I know as band logos.”
“I know, but it’s a place to start. Come on. And keep your ears, eyes, and nose open.”
“Nose?”
“You can smell these things, most times at least, especially if they’re coming through a gate.”
We moved to the back office area and I saw others had been in there since my last visit. Empty beer and liquor bottles were scattered about, and two boxes of pizza with pieces in them that had dried up and began to curl in on themselves. Probably kids from one of the local high schools broke in and had a little skid party here. Whenever I go into abandoned buildings, this kind of stuff is common. Urban explorers, teens wanting to feel rebellious, and on a rare occasion, an actual homeless person might be found squatting there. I hadn’t found any signs of partiers the last time, but if they had just been cleaning up after themselves, or Chance was sending a caretaker in before he died, it made me question the graffiti even more than when Rouge had pointed out the fact that one of them was a logo.
“This looks like a romantic place to have a candlelight dinner. How come you never bring me to places like this?” Rouge asked sarcastically, and nudged one of the boxes of pizza with her foot.
When she did, she jumped back as something dark and wrapped in shadows sped across the room and disappeared out the door we’d just walked through. Bingo!
I pulled my Tincher out, and turned to pursue, but Rouge grabbed my arm and pulled me back with surprising strength.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and went to follow.
“It was a rat, Dill. Just a nasty-ass rodent.”
Of course it was. Nothing was that easy, especially not as of late.
We walked through the office area and found nothing. We check the private and public washrooms, and other than some horrid smells, we found nothing. Our next stop was the basement. I warned her about the weak, water-damaged stairs. I explained that it must’ve been from the sprinklers when the fire happened, and helped her get down without an issue.
“That smoky smell is real strong here. Is this where the main fire happened?”
“As far as I can tell, yeah. Never read a police report, but that window there is missing,” I said, pointing to the one I’d checked before. Then I showed here the remains of the beds and cots. “This must’ve been where they were sleeping when it came in. They wouldn’t have had a chance to get out.”
“This is so depressing. I’ve never been to anywhere like this before. I mean, I visited a place where someone died, but not where someone was murdered.”
“Aside from all the stuff that happened in Innisfil,” I corrected, surprised she’d forgotten all that mess.
“You know what I mean,” she scoffed, but I didn’t. “This is different. This was done by people. Not monsters, or demons, or ghosts; people killing people. I think it’s different, even if you don’t.
“I guess,” I said, and began moving around the room. “Check for anything along the walls and on the floor. There are some symbols over there, but you might be right about that, so just look for something weird, or off. Something that doesn’t seem like it should be there.”
“Like a door or a gateway?”
“Yes, but not necessarily like you think. It might not look like a hole or some opening. Some of them might look like a puddle on the floor, or they can be an object brought here from another world. You’ll be able to tell if you see it.”
“I hope so.”
We searched the room and by the end of it, found nothing out of the ordinary. I pulled out a golden, curved piece of metal from my jacket pocket, a Zuuar, which looks like a metal opener, and moved it along the walls and floor. The tool will glow brilliantly if it points at something non-human. Rouge asked what it was, and I told her. She came up behind and stayed with me as I followed the line of each of the walls, floor to ceiling.
Not even a flicker.
“You sure it works?” she asked, and I turned it towards us. It glowed more than I’d ever seen it, to the point it was almost blinding. The sheer darkness of the room must’ve made it seem even brighter than normal. “Okay, I get it. Wow! I can barely see now.”
I tucked it back into my pocket and stood in the room, feeling as defeated as I had the first time. I was so sure it would be here. It had to be. It’s always a church. Even when it’s not, a lot of times it’s in a place that used to be a church, or a graveyard. All that typical movie nonsense. It was based somewhere in reality.
“What now?” she asked, and wrapped her arms around me. “I’m guessing this is a bust?”
“It is. And really, I have no idea what to do now. I’m starting to question whether this is what I thought it was. If I’m wrong about this, maybe I’m equally wrong about it being a Beelz, too. But I was so sure it was here. To the point that—”
I stopped talking. Ther
e was noise above us in the main area of the church. I looked up and turned my light off, motioning for Rouge to do the same, but once again she was way ahead of me.
“You think the party squatters are back?” she whispered.
“Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t sure. The footfalls were heavy, not like people sneaking about.
I moved towards the stairs leading up to the main floor, and when I got there, I could see flashlights moving around. I doubted squatters or the homeless would be doing that, which meant urban explorers, or something else.
Rouge took a step towards me, but I held up a finger, not wanting her to make a sound. Until we knew what it was up there, I didn’t want to give ourselves away. I slowed my breathing down so I could hear better, hoping for voices. Usually urban explorers have phones on, or cameras, vlogging themselves to show the world how cool they are, how danger and adventure were their bread and butter. I wasn’t hearing anything, though. Not a sound.
At least not until I was nearly blinded by a light in my eyes.
“Hands where I can see them, buddy!” called a voice behind the beam. I did as I was told, glad I’d tucked my Tincher away, because that sounded like a cop, certainly talked like one. “You alone down there?”
I thought about how to answer that pretty quickly. I could say no, hope Rouge would hide and then hope whoever it was up there would let me walk up on my own and not come down and search the place. But, if it was the police, or the building had security, there’d be little chance of that.
“No,” I admitted, and looked over at Rouge, who gave me her best what the fuck face. I shrugged and tried to smile. “There’s two of us here. You want us to come up?”
“You stay right there. Move, and I swear I’ll put a hole through your head.”
It had to be a cop. Security guards in Canada don’t carry guns.
“Dispatch, this is unit 1120,” he said and he sounded nervous. Why would he be nervous? He had the gun, not me. Then again, he was in a creepy, dark building where three people had been killed.
“Go ahead, unit 1120.”
“I’m going to need additional units at 2340 Dunn Avenue. I have two suspects inside.”
“Ten-four. Any info on them?”
“None at this time. Just send additional units ASAP.”
Well, I seemed to be on a real roll with getting arrested these days.
We were taken to the local police station and put in separate interrogation rooms. I’d told Rouge to keep her mouth shut for the time being. I figured the last thing I needed was for both of us to be locked up in a hospital that was Niagara Falls’ answer to CAMH. I had an idea of what to do to get out of this, but it should be pretty obvious. When I get in trouble, I call for help. This time it would be a call for Detective Winger.
Ten minutes after being sat down in a room that smelled like onion-soaked armpits, the door opened and a man with a sad, long face walked in. He carried a coffee in one hand and a thin file in the other. This wasn’t Winger, or her partner, Korkis. I had no idea who he was, but I was sure he was a cop, too. The cheap dress shirt that showed his undershirt through it, the stress lines on his face, and just the way he carried himself as he walked the short distance to the desk, screamed law enforcement.
He sat down, sipped his drink, and opened the file, scanning whatever was in there. I hoped it was a skin mag, or a comic book since there would be no way the cop who arrested me had already written a report, and I had never been arrested in the Falls. Even if they’d run a background check on me, they’d find nothing, but it would take a lot longer than ten minutes even if there was something to find.
This was Cop Games 101.
“We can save each other a lot of time if you just—” I began, but he slammed the file down, shaking the whole desk with the force of the strike, and his sad face transformed into one barely able to contain his rage. I hadn’t been expecting that.
“You think this is about saving time, you junkie-piece-of-shit? You got nothing to tell me that I can’t read in that file there. I know who you are, and I know what you were doing there, so cut the shit!”
Ah! This was bad cop. I knew that routine as well as I knew the rules to Simon Says.
“Detective,” I tried to start again. “I’m sure you have an idea of—”
“You! You don’t talk unless I’m asking you a question, nutbag! You and your junkie girlfriend are in a ton of shit. We know who the two of you are. We’ve been looking for you for a while.”
“You have?”
“Oh, you’re going to play dumb here?”
“No, I just have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He picked up the file again and smiled as he flipped through a few pages. “When was the last time you were in Niagara Falls?”
“A little over two weeks ago.”
“Around the same time as Chance Anderson was murdered?”
“Yeah. I was working for him. When he died, I left. But if you could just—”
“And you came back here last week, right?”
Again he had a smile on his face as though he knew something I didn’t. I wondered if I should just say no, or if I should try and tell him that I’d been in the hospital for the last two weeks. I had no idea if there was actually something in the file that could screw me over, so I decided against full disclosure.
“No, I just came back tonight.”
“And went right back to the scene of your first crime?”
“My first crime?”
“When you burnt the church down, killing three people. Did Chance Anderson figure out what you’d done? Is that why you killed him?”
I sat back in my chair as though I’d been hit. Was this guy really trying to pin both of those crimes on me? Was he really trying to say I was the one who’d come here and burnt Pastor Herb and two of his followers to death, then killed Chance to cover it up? Where would he come up with that? How could he figure that?
“I have no idea what you’re on about. I was never in Niagara Falls when the church was set on fire.”
“Really? Because we have a witness that puts you there.”
“Who?” I asked, unable to hide my shock.
“Yeah, wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Can you call Detective Winger? She was there the day Chance was killed and knows I had nothing to do with any of this. I was helping to investigate the case. I’m not a suspect.”
“Sure you’re not,” he said, and put the folder back down. “You’re as innocent as every single person we bring in here, asshole.”
“Can you just get Winger?”
“She’s not here. She’s on a leave because of you.”
“Because of me? What are you talking about?”
“Keep playing stupid, fuck face, but know this, your goose is cooked. You might’ve gotten away with it, but when you come after one of our own, you’ll see what happens. You’re lucky you’re still in one piece.”
I had no idea what was going on, but I was really starting to freak out quite a bit. Nothing he was saying added up, but it sounded pretty bad. If Winger was here, I was sure she would’ve helped, but he claimed she was on a leave of absence. Why? And what was with the jab about going after one of their own?
“Okay, I think I’d like to know what my charges are,” I told him, worried about what he’d actually say, but I hid it well.
“You know what they are. Think of everything you did, and you tell me what you’re being charged with.”
“The only thing I did wrong was maybe break and enter, though I did have permission from Chance Anderson to go into all his properties before he died, so that won’t stick. I have a contract and everything.”
“As if we’d bring you in on something as simple as a fucking trespass charge. That’s a fine, idiot. Keep going. You should clear your conscious and yo
ur soul. Just tell me what it is you did, and then, maybe we can talk about a deal for you and big red in the other room.”
I hoped they weren’t going at her the same way they were at me. I had no idea what she’d do or say under that kind of attack. I know people will say a lot of things under certain types of pressure, even admitting to things they didn’t do. It wasn’t weakness, or even fear; it was a way the brain tries to cope with stress by providing answers we think our accusers want to hear. I knew Rouge was stubborn, but since she’d never been in a situation like that—as far as I knew—I couldn’t predict her reaction.
“Since I haven’t done anything else close to illegal in your fine city, I can’t imagine what the charges are. But I do know you have yet to tell me what I’m being held for, or even read me my rights. Or maybe I’m not under arrest at all, and I can just leave,” I said, and looked at the handcuffs chaining me to the desk. “No, this looks like I’m under arrest. So, maybe due process, or Canada’s version of it, is needed right now.”
His face darkened and I guessed my lipping off wasn’t helping my case.
Damn it.
“Okay, smart ass,” he said, and pulled out his memo book. “It’s my duty to inform you that you’re under arrest for five counts of homicide, one count of arson, and one count of uttering a death threat. It’s my duty to inform you that you have the right to…”
The rest of his words disintegrated into muffled shadows, words whispered over a vast void. He’d said five counts of murder, but I only knew of four dead. Who was number five? Was it Ms Mittz? Was there someone else I didn’t even meet? And what was the uttering of death threats about? Where was this guy getting his information from? My guess was the same person who’d claimed I was in Niagara Falls the week of the fire at Pastor Herb’s church. Someone or something was trying to turn me into a patsy.