by Raythe Reign
Then there was a burst of air that flowed over his overheated flesh and his eyelids cracked open. He didn’t remember closing them. All he was was the heat and sensation of arousal spiraling so high in him that he feared the top of his head would pop open like a champagne cork.
Maybe I’ll see the clockworks after all.
But then he caught sight of Liam’s wings. He managed a grin that turned into a look of awe as he took in the crystalline feathers. Nothing represented the purity and strength of his brother more than those wings.
With them glittering before him, both of their cocks jerked and he felt Liam’s penis swell against his own. Liam sought his mouth like a starving man and they were kissing, lips and teeth and tongue desperate to delve deeper into one another. So good. So impossibly good.
Cameron arched against Liam as he came. His cum soaked both their bellies and reached as high as his own chin. It felt like magma releasing from him and he had this ridiculous thought that his semen would burn Liam so he thought a single word …
Cold.
Suddenly, a wave of frigid air surrounded not only him, but Liam. The sweat on his body had turned to ice. He could feel it crack and fall down onto the bed as he moved in shock. His lips were stuck to Liam’s like what happens in movies when a little kid sticks his tongue against a metal object in deepest winter. Thankfully, it was easy to break the bond. Cameron’s eyelids flew open and he stared into Liam’s eyes. His brother’s formerly soaked hair was now frozen. Blond icicles. There were ice crystals on Liam’s eyelashes. There was the sparkle of frost on his high cheekbones and along that powerful jaw.
“Cam,” Liam breathed as he caught hold of one Cameron’s hands and both of them looked at it. His breath created white clouds in the air between them.
The skin of his arm was so white that it looked like he was made of snow, but there were swirls of neon blue that ran all the way up to his elbows like tattoos. Cameron stared at these icy designs for long, silent moments, the arousal that should have tipped him into exhausted sleep utterly wiped away and replaced with panic.
Cameron licked his lips and then yelled, “LOKI! GET UP HERE! RIGHT NOW!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: FORWARD
Sheriff Mary Blake regarded the house from her Sheriff’s SUV. Deputy Juan Munoz sat silently beside her. They were parked at the curb, just south of the house’s driveway. Heat snakes rose lazily all around them. The house’s yard was unkempt crushed stone and barrel cacti. Like many people in Holton, the Clementis likely didn’t spend a lot of time outdoors as it was simply too hot. People dashed from air conditioned homes to air conditioned cars to other air conditioned buildings. Even as they sat in the patrol car, they had the engine on and the air conditioning blasting, but Mary swore she could already feel the heat reaching for her with furnace-like fingers.
“This is always the hardest part,” she said to Munoz in a silvery whisper.
He nodded.
“Once we knock on their door, their lives will never be the same,” she continued.
Munoz nodded again.
She remembered when Munoz had shown up at her door with his hat in his hands and grief in his eyes. She had known then that her beloved husband was dead. When Liam died she hadn’t been at home, but at the hospital with a screaming Cameron when Munoz had had to tell her the same fatal news. She had been almost glad that she hadn’t heard of yet another death at the house. She might have had to burn it down and sew the earth with salt, because how much despair could one piece of land take before it truly become uninhabitable?
She knew that Munoz wouldn’t ask if he would like him to handle telling the family the news that their son, Jason, was dead. Jason Clementi. That was the name that had come back when they had run the boy’s fingerprints. His fingerprints were in the system due to a push by the local government to have all children printed in case of … well, in case of just this.
So the Clementis loved their son enough to do that yet hadn’t reported him missing. Dr. Eva Green, the medical examiner, believed the boy had been dead for at least 24 hours and who knew how long ago he had been gone. If the copycat was true to form then it would have at least been two days ago maybe even three.
So why didn’t you file a missing person’s report? Why aren’t you screaming that your son is missing at the top of your lungs to any media that will listen? Why aren’t you putting out Facebook posts begging people to tell you Jason’s whereabouts? Why aren’t you doing the old-fashioned thing and stapling up flyers on every telephone pole and bulletin board? Why does your house look like a black blight upon the landscape?
She asked all of this to the ranch-style home with a low overhanging roof. There was a small porch in the front with a single lawn chair sitting out there unoccupied. The blinds were all drawn, which was not unusual as it kept out the sun’s glare and helped keep the heat out, but Mary could not help feeling that the house itself was closing its eyes so it couldn’t see.
But can’t see what? What doesn’t the house want to see? That Jason is dead?
There were no more facts to be gained out here and she knew that she was stalling the inevitable confrontation with the Clementis. She knew there would be grief, but would it be real or imagined? Perhaps one of Jason’s parents or both of them had killed the boy. Dr. Green had confirmed evidence of sexual assault. Perhaps Jason’s father or stepfather or his mother’s boyfriend had molested him, Jason had threatened to tell and so they had killed him then they had decided to make it look like a Desert Killer crime.
So they carved Norse gods names in his flesh? The names of my sons?
Mary mentally shook herself. That didn’t make sense. No, this wasn’t a crime of opportunism. This was planned meticulously by someone with a mind twisted even beyond that of a molester. She unbuckled her seatbelt, hearing the shushing sound it made as it retracted, and turned off the SUV’s engine. It was stunningly quiet after the hiss of the air-conditioning and the purr of the engine.
“Let’s go in,” she said to Munoz and winced at how loud her voice was in the quiet.
She popped open the SUV’s door and stepped out onto the pavement. She felt the heat radiating up into her shoes. The silence she’d experienced in the vehicle was even more profound outside. It was as if the very air were holding its breath. She glanced around at the other homes and saw no one outside, no nosy neighbors peering out their blinds, no kids’ laughing or yelling as they disregarded the heat. Silence.
The sound of Munoz’s door clunking shut had her jumping. She hid it by smoothing a hand down the front of her uniform.
Got to get a hold of myself.
She had not felt right since finding Jason’s body that morning and it wasn’t just because investigating a child’s murder – or any murder – was disturbing and it wasn’t just because this was a Desert Killer copycat murder and it wasn’t just that this brought up terrible memories of Liam’s death and Cameron’s hurt body and soul. There was something more to this that had her sixth sense screaming at her that she was in danger and needed to run, run, run.
But she was the sheriff. Others might run. She might yell at them to run herself. But she would remain, gun drawn, covering their escape from whatever it was that stalked Holton.
She took a shallow breath of the fiery air, hitched her gun belt up and walked around the front of the SUV. Munoz waited for her to reach him before the two of them walked together up the driveway and then the small concrete walk to the porch and the front door. It was slightly cooler under the overhang of the roof. Mary took off her mirrored sunglasses and her hat. She managed to smooth her hair down. She glanced over at Munoz. He, too, had taken his hat off. She paused. He surprised her when he knocked on the worn painted door. She felt a wave of relief that he had done it, but she promised herself she wouldn’t stall any longer and make Munoz act in her stead.
They stood there, shifting from foot to foot, as they waited for someone to come to the door. Mary concentrated on listening to the creak of
floorboards, which would have indicated that someone was coming. But the silence continued. She knocked this time, louder, before Munoz had to. There was this pause as if someone was listening to them, too, wondering if they stayed silent would the sheriff and deputy go away. Mary turned her head to the left towards the blinds, half expecting to see two of them parted and a pair of eyes looking back at her, but there was no one. Then she turned back to the door and took a half step back while reaching for her gun.
It was open.
She hadn’t heard it open. There hadn’t even been the rush of air as the seal was broken. And a man was standing in the doorway. He wasn’t a large man, but about five foot six inches with mousy brown hair and the same blue eyes that Jason had. He was wearing a pair of khaki pants and an unremarkable plaid shirt.
But Mary’s first thoughts at seeing this man – other than how did he answer the door so silently – was that he was dead. Dead and ought to be buried. For one moment, she saw his cheeks as being caved in, the white cataracts of death covering his eyes and streaks of decay staining his clothes. But dead men don’t stand and look at you. They don’t answer doors.
No, no, no, not this again. I’d can’t afford this now!
She blinked furiously. The sickly taste of madness was on the back of her tongue. She thought of her mother’s wild blonde hair and glittering eyes. She looked at the man in the Clementi house.
Please go away. Please go away ...
The man was very much alive and staring at her and Munoz in a polite, if slightly disinterested manner. She swore though that she could smell death. That sweet sickly odor. She swallowed hard, trying to stop the nausea from squirming up from her stomach.
“Mr. Clementi?” she asked, her voice hoarse and thick as she swallowed down bile. She wasn’t too sick to be unaware of how empty his gaze was.
Your son is missing, Mr. Clementi. Haven’t you noticed?
“Yes,” he said and nothing more.
She heard the jangle of Munoz’s gun belt as he shifted from one foot to the other. Without glancing at her deputy, she knew that he felt the strangeness of this greeting.
“Mr. Clementi, do you have a son named Jason?” she asked, thinking he might be an uncle or a cousin. But even if he was with an eleven year old boy missing wouldn’t he be frantic, too?
“Yes. Has Jason done something?” he asked the last half after a too long pause as if he recognized that just saying “yes” to the authorities without asking why they were standing on his doorstep might be strange.
Or maybe suspicious. But this guy is already raising our radar.
“Perhaps we could come inside and discuss it, Mr. Clementi,” she said smoothly and gestured with her hat towards the cold, air conditioned interior of the house.
Clementi looked behind him as if the rest of the house was new to him as well. He turned back and said, “Sure.”
He shuffled back a few steps, still holding onto the doorknob, and waved a hand vaguely into the darkened interior. Everything in Mary told her not to go into that house. But she could never obey those feelings as sheriff. She had to go forward. Always forward. Forever forward. She sensed Munoz’s unease in entering that place, too, but he would go, too.
She stepped inside and slid past Clementi and into a dark hallway that appeared to lead to the very back of the house. Munoz followed closely after her. Underneath the refrigerated smell of the house there was indeed that sweet reek of rot getting stronger. She glanced back at Munoz. Did he smell it, too? Or was this another hallucination? Munoz’s nose was scrunched up for a moment and his dark brown eyes met her.
Something’s dead in here.
Her earlier thoughts that the Clementis could and then could not have killed their son swung back to could again.
The light from the outside was abruptly cut off as Clementi shut the door behind them. Mary couldn’t see for a moment as her eyes adjusted to the light. When she could, the man was in front of them. Somehow he had managed to pass by her and Munoz without either of them noticing it. Munoz’s hand jumped to his gun. Mary realized that she was half pulling hers out of its holster. She took in another breath and smelled rot again, thin, faint, but very much there. She slid the gun back in, but did not snap the holster lock closed. She might need it.
Doesn’t he smell the evidence of death he’s left here? Or is he so used to it that he doesn’t realize how evident it is to us?
The urge to snap cuffs on the man was large, but the smell could be from a dead animal. If Clementi was innocent and she hauled the man out in handcuffs because of a smell things could go very wrong for the department. She needed the people’s confidence if this investigation would come to a successful conclusion and the man’s invitation would allow them to gather more evidence.
“Come this way.” Clementi gestured for them to follow him down the hallway.
The thud of her heart was telling her to run again. She saw the adrenaline in Munoz’s eyes and in the way his fingers tapped against his thigh. A glance between them communicated for him to be calm, that they were going to investigate. He would follow her lead.
“Is Mrs. Clementi home?” Mary asked as they followed after Clementi’s back. She noticed that she and Munoz’s feet made clunking noises on the wood floor, because Clementi’s didn’t. He walked whisper quiet.
“Oh, yes, Margaret is in the basement,” he said without turning around.
The hallway ended in an eat-in kitchen. The cabinets were about ten years out of date and the countertop was cracked in places. There was a cheery little table by a window though where the family likely took their meals. He gestured for them to sit down, but both of them shook their heads. Mary did not want to be seated in this house.
“Why don’t you call Margaret up here,” Mary suggested.
Clementi gave her this little smile as if she’d suggested something quite amusing and pleasing. “Oh, I don’t think she’d come.”
“I’m sorry?” Munoz asked, speaking for the first time. “Why won’t your wife come up here?”
“She’s doing laundry,” Clementi answered after a moment. “She doesn’t like being interrupted.”
“I think she’ll want to hear this. It’s about Jason … like we said,” Mary reminded him gently. How could any mother be doing laundry when her child was missing?
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to –”
“I’ll get her,” Munoz offered. That was actually brilliant as it would allow him to check out the rest of the house with the owners’ consent. Maybe find where that smell was coming from.
“Well … I suppose that would be all right. It’s your funeral after all!” Clementi gave this wide smile that made his face seem almost rubbery. “The door to the basement is right there.”
He pointed to a closed door. Munoz went over to it and opened the door. There was a light on at the very bottom of a set of stairs. The smell of rot seemed to grow greater and Mary’s hand tightened on her pistol’s handle. Was Mrs. Clementi dead down there? Or was she frantically scrubbing up the remains of her son’s death from the basement floor? Munoz gave her a tight smile as he started down the stairs calling out for Mrs. Clementi. The door shut behind him, which had Mary lurching towards it, but Clementi waved her off.
“Won’t stay open. Always shuts by itself,” he said with a shrug of his thin shoulders.
Mary normally would have waited to discuss matters with Clementi until his wife was present, but this wasn’t a normal case, these weren’t normal people, not normal at all.
“So when did you last see your son, Mr. Clementi?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. He comes and goes as he pleases now that school is out,” he said, totally unconcerned. “Would you like something to drink? Or to eat? Margaret is always telling me that I’m not hospitable enough.”
Mary would take nothing from this man to eat or drink. She felt the whole house was contaminated with his wrongness.
“No, I’m fine,” she answered with a tight s
mile. “Did you notice if Jason was here last night?”
She knew that Jason couldn’t have been. He was dead last night. But what type of parents didn’t know if their eleven year old son didn’t come home to sleep?
“I expect he was,” Clementi said with another one of those helpless shrugs as if it was just beyond him.
“He wasn’t, Mr. Clementi,” her voice dropped an octave, becoming gruff.
“He wasn’t?” Clementi’s eyebrows rose.
“No, he wasn’t. Was he here the night before last?” she demanded to know.
“I would say yes, but you look like you would say no.” He was about to shrug again and Mary wanted to punch him. Something must have shown in her eyes because his shoulders dropped back into place after rising only half an inch.
“Why don’t you know?” she asked.
“Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” he asked hopefully.
“No. Why don’t you know whether your son has been home for the last two nights? Maybe three nights?” Her eyes bored into his.
“Does it really matter where he was in the past? It’s where he is now that matters, isn’t it?” Clementi pointed out helpfully. “The past is over and done. Can’t go back. Must go forward.”
Mary jerked at those words. It mirrored her own thoughts about how as sheriff she had no choice but to go forward into places that no one would want to go.
“Where do you think Jason is now?”
“I really have no idea! Aren’t you going to tell me? That is why you’re here, isn’t it?” He leaned towards her as if eager to know.
Doesn’t he realize that a sheriff asking him about his son is not good?
Unease corkscrewed through her. This was wrong, wrong, wrong. She couldn’t risk glancing at the basement door as her gaze had to remain fixed on Clementi. While it was taking longer than she thought it should for Munoz to find Mrs. Clementi he might be searching the basement before he approached the mother. The house was silent though. There was no hum of a washing machine or dryer. A trickle of sweat went down Mary’s spine and she shifted uncomfortably.