Worse Angels

by Laird Barron

  The absolute worst part of this whole deal? My rational side understood the score. A squamous collection of sublimated impulses and fears had metastasized as a thunderhead of evil to hector my subconscious. There was nothing I could do. Refusing to stay put, the interior darkness began to whisper and cajole during waking hours too.

  * * *

  ■■■

  Shadows of tree branches flowed across the ceiling of Meg’s bedroom. She thumped in the shower. She’d already ushered her son, Devlin, off to school and was prepping for a shift at the library. Minerva lay at the foot of the bed, twitching in her sleep as she gave chase to dream animals. Perhaps moa birds.

  Normally some light calisthenics would be in order, and a few rounds at the striking post when I returned to my cabin. Sweat popped onto my forehead at the notion. I lurched into the kitchen and fixed a pot of coffee and waited for the myriad aches and pains to subside. Longer every morning. My left hand, dropper of water glasses, trembled as I poured. Death wasn’t even bothering to sneak up anymore—it ambled near with a cheerful whistle.

  The house was cold. Meg walked in, sat next to me in a bathrobe, hair piled high in a towel, and placed her hand over mine—the traitorous one. There was much I wanted to say that I didn’t.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I didn’t realize anything was.”

  I appreciated that she tactfully neglected to mention that my hungover self reeked of booze.

  “You’re giving off the furrowed-brow, heavy-lies-the-crown vibe,” she said.

  “You know me; I brood.”

  “No reason to brood. You’ve done a hero’s work. Honest to God good-versus-evil shit.”

  We were going to skip right over my dubious influence on Devlin for the second conversation in a row and that suited me fine. Or it would rear from the bushes like a furious T. rex at an inopportune (for me) moment. That was also fine since it was later.

  “Am I in the good-versus-evil business?” I lowered my voice for melodramatic emphasis.

  She ignored it.

  “Always were. These days you get to be on the right side, sometimes.”

  “Can a man be bloodthirsty and civilized?”

  “Do you mean, can a human being be a walking contradiction? Can he or she possess more than one side?”

  “Which side is real?”

  “Only a rube would ever fall into the trap of thinking any of them are. Your hang-up is you’ve got imposter syndrome. I’m a thug, not a REAL detective! I’m no Marlowe! Neither high intellect, charm, nor finesse are requisites to cracking cases. On the balance, I’d say that going on rampages and scaring the shit out of people works like magic. Face it, sweetie, some of the best detectives were thugs.”

  “Loving the pep talk, dear.”

  “The pop psychology question we used to get—if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? Different question, same idea. If you were a hero—ancient hero, not a superhero—what kind would you be?”

  “Not the nice kind.” I was intrigued by mythological figures. Why would a former assassin be obsessed with that crowd? Because Jason, Achilles, Tane, and Thor wore black hats when necessary. Hitmen of the gods.

  “Definitely not the nice kind,” she said. “Not one from Devlin’s comic books or the sanitized version you get in school. His class is reading capsule tales from Norse myth, wouldn’t you know? Those are the fake renditions. The knockoff versions. You’re the old, Homeric original who wore animal skins and the skins of your enemies and bone and bronze. The kind the gods bestow power and terrible destinies on, and then laugh.”

  “Baby—”

  “They solved problems with brute force and the point of a spear.”

  “Honey—”

  “No powers, only the attitude and the destiny. Yeah, sweetheart, you’re a hero. The worst kind. You know what happens to heroes.”

  “Actually, I’m thinking about Lionel.” I wasn’t going to admit that death gods and curses were on my mind or that she’d struck half a dozen nerves.

  “There’s a ball of yarn.”

  “He rescued a possum stuck under his porch. Now he bunks with a pet possum.”

  “Where? What?”

  “We think a raccoon beat its ass. Missing an eye and an ear. He nursed it somewhat back to health.”

  “Sure to wow the floozies he drags home,” she said. “Possums aren’t my bag. Yeah, yeah, God’s creatures and whatever. I’ve only seen dead ones. Maybe that’s it. Hard to bond with roadkill.”

  “Understandable. I think Patroclus Possum may be his new character test for dates.”

  “How does that work? The possum doesn’t approve, no banging?”

  “Let’s not go crazy,” I said. “He rigged a carrier crate setup. Covered it with a floor mat from his Monte Carlo. The possum hides in there and hisses at anybody who gets too close.”

  “It’s like a rehearsal for what he’ll do if a woman ever moves in.”

  “Issue two: He pines for the mercurial heiress.”

  “Hell yeah, he does. I pine for her. She’s smoking hot. She’s brilliant. And rich!”

  “Hence, heiress.”

  “Don’t be a wiseguy.”

  “I see what you did there. He’s hunkered down at the farm and no sign of wanting to ever move on. Fantasies about taking down the cartels don’t count. I’m worried that he’s done. The cabin is his final bunker. Which is fine, it’s his choice. Except, what happens when Virgil and Jade kick the bucket? They’re old as the hills.”

  “Well, you’ve given the future of Lionel Robard some thought,” she said.

  “Whoever takes over the property may not be so kindly disposed to a burnt-out war vet tipping garbage cans and propositioning the lady tourists.”

  “They might not like his varmint either.”

  “What’s the real deal? Headaches? Nightmares?” Meg regarded me with sharpened interest. “Some top-secret bullshit you and Lionel won’t share with the wimminfolk?”

  “A man offered me a job. He’s exorcising demons. The pay is right, though.”

  “This guy a prick?”

  “He is definitely that.”

  “Now, tell me why you’re sitting here under a cloud. The real-real reason.”

  “Money. What else? That stash we recovered from the serial killer . . . Give me a second.” I’d told her a short and severely edited version of the hunt for the beast known by several handles including the Tri-State Killer, and more fancifully, the Croatoan. I admitted to absconding with the bad guy’s nest egg, omitting the fact that Lionel and I ultimately located and disposed of him. Few people were aware of the whole story—a few too many by my reckoning.

  Happily, she’d asked several questions in regard to possible blowback and then let it lie.

  I went into the living room and fetched a duffel bag I’d tossed into the coat closet yesterday en route to the cemetery. I schlepped into the kitchen and dumped the bag’s contents before the love of my life. Roughly a hundred large in tightly bound stacks of C-notes cascaded across that battered tabletop. A couple spilled over and hit the floor. This was a piece of the treasure we hadn’t buried. I’m a believer in the power of spectacle to crystallize one’s thoughts and foster enthusiasm. Well enough to speak of a fortune in the abstract; quite another proposition to witness it in person and be awed.

  “The Croatoan’s hoard,” I said. “A fraction of the hoard.”

  “My God.”

  “Darling, this is where you and your beautiful mind come in.”

  “If I had a tail it’d be wagging.” Meg stared at the money, suspicious and intrigued. “What can I do?”

  “Research. The sonofabitch kept newspaper clippings and names in a journal. Some are decades old. I’m thinking you might give his papers a churn, a clue could surface. Before I can commit to get
ting this money, ah, cleaned, I should figure out where it originated and why a bad man had it socked away in his lair. I have to determine whether it’s the Nibelungen.”

  She leaned over and retrieved a bundle off the tiles, riffling it as one does. Her nose wrinkled as she took in its musky odor. The stink of antiquity and evil. I winced at the notion we’d crossed a threshold—I’d involved her and there were no takebacks.

  “Isaiah Coleridge, you better not have stolen the cursed treasure of the dwarves.”

  “Call me Siegfried.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ted set appointments for the following week with several of Sean Pruitt’s friends and relatives in Horseheads. I planned to call a bunch of other people tangential to the case when I hit town. The Widow Pruitt, who’d reverted to her maiden name of Flanagan, retreated to Northern California shortly after the funeral. Ted’s calls to her bounced, so far.

  The weather promised to hold. I rented an SUV with snow tires anyhow. My museum-curio Ford was hell on gas. Besides, the staff down at the rental agency looked forward to my appearances—big tipper and such. Obviously, their fondness would ebb the day I finally returned a car riddled with bullet holes. Only a matter of time.

  I charted a course south along 209 past Kerhonkson and Ellenville, then west onto 17. The subdivisions of regional New York State are tricky and I hadn’t been around long enough to make heads or tails of the nuances. Some folks considered my destination, Chemung County, to be the western portion of the state. Others huffily insisted the region was properly designated central New York. I’d called Ted to ask her opinion as a lifelong resident.

  “Well, boss, that’s an interesting question. Whoops . . . Someone on the other line.” The dial tone buzzed.

  A three-hour drive into cow country, taking it easy. Strong winds buffeted the car after I crossed over into Binghamton and paralleled the Susquehanna River past a string of towns—Endicott, Apalachin, and Owego—through Hoopers Valley, and onward. Winter, but not-quite-winter; yellow and brown pastoral vistas patched with ice, like an embalmed corpse of a landscape. Cold to the touch and ready for a permanent shroud of snow. The terrain mellowed the farther west I rolled along the Allegheny Plateau; mountains ceded to long, hilly valleys, scattered forests, and plains. Here was the core of the Southern Tier, bucolic territory bordering Pennsylvania. Breadbasket and erstwhile Christian heartland of the entire state. The Burned-over District, as certain writers of history books would have it known. Lands of the False Revival might be another nickname. None of that concerned me beyond the ticking of a box and filing the data into the niche of my brain captivated by useless trivia.

  * * *

  ■■■

  Midafternoon found me in the Chemung River Valley, following the Chemung River, a muddy tributary of the Susquehanna, toward Elmira. Cruising due north, Elmira segues to Elmira Heights and the Heights bleed into Horseheads, which is composed of Horseheads proper, Horseheads Village, and Horseheads North. Twenty thousand citizens dwelling in a mix of modern box and clapboard houses. Neighborhoods are green in the summer and downright postcard-worthy in the fall around Halloween. I felt a pang of sadness to have missed the last of the red and yellow foliage, scruffy lawns, fake cobwebs, and ghosts and jack-o’-lanterns. Christianity and the old gods dance hip-to-hip during the witching season, particularly in historical fossils such as Horseheads. The discomfort this engenders among the upright is a revelation to behold. Contemporary mores erode tradition, year by year. The spiritual blood of puritans and pagans slows to a trickle, yet the ancient heart thumps feebly, not quite dead, only dreaming.

  The town was named for the herd of sick and injured packhorses slaughtered upon General John Sullivan’s return from his triumphant campaign in the north against the Iroquois Nations in 1779. Natives lined the road with the skulls. Over two centuries later, they referred to the area as the Valley of the Horses’ Heads. Picturesque as it was, the region’s history depressed me. I already missed the Catskills, which was no picnic either.

  Past downtown congestion and rural-fied urban sprawl, hilly farmland spread toward the horizon. I pressed in a westerly direction, proceeding across a vale of retail lots and the regional airport, toward the outskirts of Big Flats, turning north at the last moment. Forest closed in and traffic dissipated. The stripped canopy made a latticework of the fading sunlight. I sailed into gloom.

  Sooner or later, the winding secondary roads would’ve delivered me to Sugar Hill State Forest or the Finger Lakes. Instead, I took an unmarked access lane. Fresh, clean pavement for a mile, straight as a Roman street, then the lane quickly degenerated into a shabbily patched stretch of potholes and swells. Trees thinned and the road broke onto a man-made prairie that butted against a distant line of bluffs and tall timber. NO TRESPASSING signs were posted every hundred yards. A hawk roosted atop a lamppost, ignoring my car, its gaze fixed northward. I passed lattice transmission towers. There were electrical substations in the area. Had the collider been completed, its energy needs would’ve rivaled that of a large city.

  Electric fencing topped with barbed wire blocked forward progress. More placards covered the double gate, each sign warning unauthorized visitors to turn back. A blue metal billboard with white lettering announced this complex to be THE JEFFERS LARGE PARTICLE COLLIDER LABORATORY. Oh, and KEEP OUT. I left the car idling as I walked around the gatehouse, snapping pictures with my cell phone. The gatehouse was silent, its windows grimy. Past the gate lay a secondary fence, then clusters of metal-and-concrete buildings done in beige and gray. I noted an aircraft hangar and a control tower. A windsock snapped in the breeze atop a pole at the near end of a paved runway. Dried weeds and tufts of dead grass thrust upward among cracks in the tarmac.

  Aerial photographs provided by Adeyemi’s lawyer revealed that this glacial basin extended many miles east and west. Light forest and meadows covered much of the area. Records indicated that necessary tracts of private farmland were purchased via eminent domain. Contractors had bulldozed multiple zones for surface infrastructure. Blueprints meticulously detailed a circuit of particle acceleration tunnels that lay one hundred and eighty feet belowground; dug by giant diesel bores, leaving much of the forest undisturbed. Regarding a composite architectural image of the collider track, it circumscribed a broken ring, a great reversed crescent moon. Most of the track was completed, concrete poured and internal sheathing tube installed; everything except for the laying of directional magnets. Shaft 40 was dead center in the rough, unfinished section of the circuit—several miles of dirt tunnels and wasted potential.

  Studying the blueprints sparked an instant of recognition, and I clicked to a gruesome artifact among the Sean Pruitt case files. The autopsy photos weren’t for the squeamish. One revealed a tattoo on his right outer shoulder; a stylized sketch of the unfinished supercollider track done as a transistor-board ouroboros with a gap between its jaws and stinger tail. Weird. Weirder yet, both the collider track and the ouroboros tat reminded me of another image that I couldn’t quite pin down. Something I’d seen in passing or a fragment of a dream.

  The purpose of my mission was to reconnoiter the facilities from afar, not that I expected to gather significant intelligence. I’d mildly hoped for the jackpot of a bored security guard or maintenance worker; somebody to flash my PI license at and slip a few bucks for a quick tour. No luck and I didn’t feel like waiting. I suspected it might be a while, or forever, judging by the neglect on display. Breaking and entering was another possibility; I tabled the option. Assuming law enforcement did its job, what would I uncover that the CSI team hadn’t?

  Also, the property gave me the creeps. A spooky thing happened to reinforce my negative perception—on cue, the SUV engine died. One second it was humming, and the next, conked out. I turned the key and the starter wouldn’t even spark. Dead across the dashboard panel. My cell went wonky, cycling on and off with no bars. It was an unpleasant moment. I tried the ke
y one last time and the engine turned over and I was saved.

  Haunted Horseheads! Rolled off the tongue with less menace than the reality.

  The drive back to town blurred. My attention was repeatedly drawn to the rearview mirror. I experienced a “watched” feeling I’d sometimes picked up on in the Alaskan boonies. That very real sense the land itself wants you gone. Her immune system too reacts to perceived threats by sending agents after you—wolves, bears, blizzards, men deranged by cabin fever, anything handy. What kind of antibodies did this part of the country have at its disposal? Mate a genius locus with a partially constructed supercollider and gods only knew the result. Call me ridiculous and superstitious. I’ve said the occult isn’t my bag, not by that name, anyhow. Nonetheless, after the shit I’d seen pursuing the Croatoan, let’s just say my definitions of the possible were malleable. Argue with the Native Americans who named and ordered the local spirits and lamented the toxic consequences of European incursions. In Alaska, when natives die on the sea ice or go missing upon the tundra, it’s occasionally attributed to the malign activity of entities that were here long before men. Who’s to say otherwise? Not the mysterious dead. Not me.

  I leaned on the pedal. The premonition that the cab of the SUV would shear off, and my head with it, receded as miles passed. Slithered into the tar of my hindbrain and curled up to wait.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I parked in the rear lot of the Hotel Roan, a Victorian mansion reincarnated to its current state in the 1960s. Everything begins as something else. Plants, animals, people. Even architecture progresses from pupae to imago. The hotel sat back from a quiet street a block west of Newtown Creek. Oak trees scraped the building. The lobby was intimate—a drawing room and bar to the right; an equally modest dining room to the left. The type of accommodations where one would be forced to practically sit in his or her date’s lap. Oil paintings of General Sullivan, and the original owner of the mansion, Jedidiah Lark, hung over the reception desk. Paneled windows framed by white drapes let in the muted sunset. I took the stairs to the top, noting that the building indeed possessed the air of a sprawling home rather than a hotel. The kid version of me would’ve searched for dumbwaiters and secret passages. All the joint needed was a plucky heroine in a nightgown stumbling around by the light of a candelabrum.