Tennessee Night (The 8th Jack Nightingale Novel)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘That would be the eighteen missed calls then,’ said Nightingale. ‘And I thought you didn’t care.’

  ‘Spare me the English humour,’ said Parker. ‘Answer the question. Where the Hell are you?’

  ‘Out of town. What’s the panic? I thought you were suspended.’

  ‘I’m unsuspended. The place is going crazy, we had another one.’

  ‘Another kid dead?’

  ‘Don’t you watch TV? Just like you called it last night, ten-year old girl called Kaitlyn Jones lit herself on fire in the entrance to the National Civil Liberties Museum. Another one, and another public place so everyone gets to hear about it. A guard saw her talking on her mobile phone outside, then she apparently poured lighter fuel over herself, walked inside and flicked a lighter. The guard was badly burnt, but he’ll make it. The girl died at the scene.’

  Nightingale sighed and closed his eyes. This was no fault of his, except that he hadn’t been able to stop it. Parker kept talking. ‘Now you named her last night, said she was on your mysterious list. It’s time to stop pussy-footing around. I want you down at headquarters within the hour, and I want to know who you got that list from, and then I want to talk to them.’

  ‘Sorry, Bonnie,’ said Nightingale. ‘Can’t be done at the moment. I’m out of town. There are still some names on that list I need to try to save. Talking of which, where’s Emma?’

  ‘She’s with her grandmother. Two thousand miles away. I just got through talking with her, she looks fine.’

  A warning bell seemed to go off in Nightingale’s head. ‘You said she looks fine? You saw her?’

  ‘Sure, video call. FaceTime. Welcome to the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘What’s your problem?’

  ‘That might be how the children are contacted. Look, Bonnie, this is vital, Get on to the grandmother. Tell her no more video calls while the girl’s there. And she needs to take away her mobile phone, tablet, laptop and anything else in the house that’s capable of receiving a video call.’

  ‘Are you nuts? Emma will get withdrawal symptoms without her phone.’

  ‘She might get a lot worse than that if you let her use it. Just do it. And when you’ve done it, see if you can check Kaitlyn Jones’s phone records, see where her last call came from. And the rest of the kids, check if they received a video call, a Skype call or FaceTime or WhatsApp or anything similar on their phones or computers, just before what happened happened.’

  ‘You are nuts. That’s eight sets of grieving parents I would need to upset all over again. Can’t be done.’

  ‘It needs to be done, Bonnie. I think I know what you’ll find.’

  Nightingale cut the connection and turned the phone off. Joshua had always assured him that the phone was completely untraceable by normal police methods, and Nightingale hoped he was right. The last thing he needed was a posse of police cruisers showing up at the Nashville house.

  He went back inside to find Wainwright, and tracked him down to the kitchen by the smell of food. The freezer held a huge store of meals in plastic containers, which someone must have worked very hard to prepare, and Wainwright had just removed two from the big microwave oven that stood on the black granite worktop. The kitchen was another study in white, with just the black tops and handles providing a contrast. There was an island breakfast bar, with four stools grouped round it, and Wainwright carried the two containers to it and set them down.

  ‘Guess we’ll save on washing plates and take it straight from the plastic,’ Wainwright said. ‘What’s it to be, chilli and rice, or tagliatelle alla carbonara?’

  ‘I’ll take the chilli,’ said Nightingale, ‘I was never much good at eating that long Italian stuff. Too messy. I doubt I’ll taste much anyway, but we need to eat.’

  ‘Guess we’ll do without the wine.’

  ‘Be better to avoid alcohol from now on.’

  ‘Just when I needed it most,’ said Wainwright, gripping his fork so hard that it started to bend.

  CHAPTER 53

  Dudák sat and watched the Memphis news channel on the widescreen television that hung on the wall. It was still showing the scenes from the Civil Rights Museum suicide that morning, with the victim identified as ten-year-old Kaitlyn Jones now that her parents had been informed. In one of the shots, Dudák was visible, but by then there were so many people milling around that nobody had taken any notice.

  The journalists were now beginning to link the recent spate of child-suicides, particularly the ones that had happened in public places - the station, the Crystal Grove and now the Museum. Some diligent reporter had also added in the death of Timmy Williams, who had walked under a truck, especially since the reporter who’d written the story for the Herald had also committed suicide. Nobody, so far, was calling Julia Smith’s shooting a suicide, though it was getting mentions as another unusual death of a child. The police were not currently commenting on the speculation.

  Dudák listened with interest, then smiled contentedly. The feeding had been good here in the last few days, with the prospect of a few more yet to come. The police could do nothing, the only risk had come from the intended victims of the plan, but removing the Fisher girl early had negated any threat from them. The death of the parents was not Dudák’s work, and there was no feeding to be had from it, but neither did it cause any regret or sympathy. It needed to be done, as part of the pledge.

  Despite the high quality of the feeding, Dudák was not enjoying being controlled in this way, but it had been the price of freedom. Once this was over, the list was complete, and the task fulfilled, Dudák intended to move to another city, and resume feeding in a much less public way. In this modern world, communication was far too rapid for the old ways to continue. There would be no more Pied Piper mass disappearances.

  Dudák muted the television and listened for any sound from the bedroom, but the Fisher girl slept peacefully. She had shown no fear when told to leave her parents’ home and go with Dudák. The hypnotic influence over children was strong enough to overcome all resistance, when directed fully. No need for the old prop of the pipe these days. The passage of time meant little to Dudák, but the world had changed greatly in eight hundred years. Adapting had not proved difficult, especially with the knowledge and memories of the new shell to call on.

  It was 10pm now, and there was nothing to be done for twelve hours. Dudák had eaten and imbibed water, since it was necessary to keep the shell in working order. It could be maintained by sheer force of will, as had happened during the centuries of imprisonment, but it was effort that distracted from other things. Dudák turned off the television, sat upright in the armchair, and stared straight ahead for the next twelve hours.

  The child slept on, unaware of the horrors that had taken place around her, and those which awaited her. She would not wake until Dudák roused her and gave her the final instructions of her short life.

  CHAPTER 54

  Nightingale lit the two small blue candles that stood on either side of the solid crystal ball in the middle of the coffee table in the sitting room. He’d showered again, and was wearing a new white bathrobe that Wainwright had provided from a store in what he’d described as the ‘Robing Room’.

  Wainwright himself was sitting opposite, also freshly showered and robed.

  They had decided to perform the ritual in the sitting room to keep the vibrations well away from the summoning.

  ‘You sure you prefer me to do this?’ asked Nightingale. ‘You’re more experienced.’

  ‘Could be,’ said Wainwright, ‘but I haven’t had chance to recharge my crystal since I flew back from Haiti, and besides, I’m too heavily invested in this. You’ll need to concentrate fully, and my mind’s too full of finding Naomi, and seeing her...’

  ‘Probably right,’ said Nightingale.

  ‘You going to be okay with this, Jack? Two rituals inside a couple of hours is a hell of a strain.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Nighti
ngale, ‘after summoning Proserpine, this is just a walk in the park.’

  Nightingale sprinkled herbs from a brass bowl into the flame of each candle, and they burned with blue smoke. He made a small pile of lemon twigs in the bowl. He put the two items he’d taken from Naomi’s bedroom, the crucifix and the bible, on top of the pile, and added more twigs. The candles continued to burn steadily, and Nightingale nodded to Wainwright to turn off the room lights, so the only illumination now came from the twin flames. Nightingale spoke three sentences in a long-dead language. He had learned them by heart years ago in Mrs. Steadman’s shop. He had no idea what they might mean, but they had always worked for this ritual. Nightingale lit the lemon twigs with his lighter, watching as the flames burnt all round the book and crucifix, without seeming to harm them at all.

  A small brown leather bag lay on the table, next to the crystal ball. It was centuries old, wrinkled and faded in places, but the leather still felt soft and supple as Nightingale picked it up, untied its lace, then took out a pink crystal, the size of a pigeon’s egg, which he held by the chain attached to the gold mounting at one end. He lowered it gently, until it was hanging just six inches above the flames. The pink crystal began to glow, as if there were a strong light inside it, almost as if it were a living thing. Nightingale spoke again in the same ancient language. ‘Asmla oscsub ascihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher.’

  The crystal started to swing round slowly, then moved backwards and forwards regularly, from the south-west to the north-east

  ‘Asmla oscsub ascihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher ‘

  This time the clear crystal ball on the table clouded over with a pink mist and Nightingale repeated the incantation for the final time.

  ‘Asmla oscsub ascihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher. Asmla oscsub ascsihc odsidrept Naomi Fisher ‘

  The Spell Of Propinquity was complete, and the two men watched intently as the spell forged a link between the items and their missing owner. The mist in the crystal began to clear, and a city came into view.

  ‘Memphis,’ breathed Wainwright, recognising it immediately.

  Nightingale said nothing, just concentrated on keeping the swinging crystal centered over the burning twigs and Naomi’s possessions.

  The image in the crystal ball began to focus in now, as if someone were reducing the scale of a map. The two men saw a street, and a patch of grass, though the image was still blurred.

  ‘Closer,’ whispered Wainwright, ‘come on. What the hell...’

  The image of the street was gone, In its place was an indescribable face, Inhuman, with almost no recognisable features, apart from the huge mouth, and saliva-drenched fangs, which roared malevolence and defiance at them. A sheet of black lightning shot from the crystal ball to the centre of the pink crystal, and Nightingale yelled and dropped it as the chain in his hand turned red-hot, and felt like an electrical charge had coursed through it. The table was suddenly shrouded in choking black smoke.

  ‘The window, Joshua,’ shouted Nightingale. ‘Now!’

  Holding a hand over his mouth and nose, Wainwright ran to open the French windows, turned the air-conditioning on, and set the fan to maximum extraction. The smoke began to dissipate, and both men could breath freely again.

  Nightingale surveyed the damage. The crystal ball had cracked into hundreds of small shards that lay scattered all over the coffee table and the white carpet. His crystal was a burnt and carbonated black husk, the chain had snapped apart where it joined the melted setting. The candles had been reduced to stumps of wax and the lemon twigs to ashes. The bible and the crucifix seemed to have survived undamaged.

  Wainwright ran his hand through his hair, and wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his ash-stained robe.

  ‘What the hell just happened, Jack?’

  ‘I have no idea. At a guess, I would say that someone, or something, doesn’t seem to want us to find Naomi.’

  CHAPTER 55

  Wainwright had been nearly frantic with worry and had wanted to drive straight back to Memphis, but Nightingale managed to dissuade him by pointing out that they would have no hope of finding the child if they left. ‘I sort of get the feeling that if Dudák has her, he’s not going to want to have anything happen while she’s hidden away,’ Nightingale had argued. ‘The whole idea of this plan is to cause you as much anguish as possible, so however this is meant to end, we’ll be around for it.’

  ‘That’s really not much consolation, Jack,’ Wainwright had said. ’For a start it’s pure guesswork, for another thing, there’s no way I’m gonna sit on my ass here for another two days on the chance they’re gonna send for me to watch my niece die.’

  ‘I said that’s what their idea is, I didn’t say we’d be going along with it. But we’re only human and we need to get our strength up, we need to eat, drink and sleep.’

  ‘Bullshit. You think I can sleep at a time like this?’

  ‘Neither of us will be any use to Naomi if we don’t. You know you can will yourself to sleep, so do it. And maybe sleep will bring a few answers.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Wainwright.

  ‘With a little luck, I’ll tell you in the morning.’

  ‘I wish I could believe that, Jack. But yeah, you’re right, we need to recharge our batteries. Take any bedroom you like, they’re all ready.’

  By now, Nightingale had pretty much come to the conclusion that the house didn’t belong to Tyrone at all, but had probably been purchased through one of Wainwright’s many shell companies. He wondered how many more places Wainwright owned around the world, and how many of them were so clearly set up for the rituals of the Left-Hand Path.

  The bedroom he chose was about twice the size of his last hotel room, with a massive bathroom complete with a roll-top bath with feet in the shape of a lion’s claws. The king-size bed had grey linen and a black and grey striped counterpane. The fitted wardrobes contained, on one side, a selection of robes covered in polythene and hanging from the rail, and half a dozen sets of pyjamas, still in their plastic bags. The other side held shirts, socks, underwear, jeans, sweaters, suits and jackets. All looking brand new, and in various sizes.

  Against the wall opposite the bathroom door was a fridge, Nightingale opened it and saw that it was well stocked, though there was no Corona. Alcohol wasn’t a great idea under the circumstances but he figured he’d need something to ease him into sleep. He helped himself to a miniature of Glenfiddich and a glass from the tray on top of the fridge. He put his drink down on the nightstand to the right of the bed, then undressed as far as his boxers and slipped between the covers. He lit a final cigarette, sipped the whisky and tried to clear his mind. His body needed sleep, and it was important that he put all his current stress aside. He felt his eyelids growing heavy, so immediately stubbed out the cigarette, finished the drink with a gulp, and lay back on the pillow. He closed his eyes, visualised the colour light blue, and tried to relax every muscle.

  Sleep came quickly, but it seemed only a few minutes later when his eyes opened as if of their own accord. His whole body felt as if it were being tugged towards the ceiling. He recognised the sensation, relaxed and allowed himself to float freely upwards, beyond the house, much more easily and quickly than last time, until he found himself again walking through a light morning mist, over damp grass, towards a familiar figure in black, sitting on a park bench, knitting some long shapeless red garment. This time, most of her silver hair was hidden under a black, woollen cap, and her black dress stretched to her ankles, leaving just the pointed toes of her black boots visible. He sat on the end of her bench, and stared into the greenest eyes he had ever seen. ‘Mrs. Steadman, and this time it really is you.’

  She smiled reassuringly and nodded. ‘Of course it is, Mr. Nightingale. Look at me with your inner eye
, disregard the outward appearance, and you will always know.’

  He nodded. ‘I do know. I don’t know if it’s my inner eye, but there’s no mistake now. I don’t know how I was fooled last time.’

  ‘Oh dear, I have often warned you not to judge by appearances, you know. They can be so deceptive.’

  ‘Someone else told me that, quite recently. I think it’s something I need to work on.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘This time was much easier, because you called me here.’

  ‘Yes, at your inexperienced level, it can be dangerous to come here alone, your dreams and memories can be used against you.’

  ‘They were, and I nearly got lost. But why have you called me here? You said you couldn’t help.’

  She bowed her head, as if ashamed. ‘I know, and I feel rather bad about that. I thought I couldn’t help, yet now I find I must help. And yet there is so little that I can do. Oh dear.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

  ‘Let me try to explain.’ She put down her knitting, put her hands in her lap, and looked him full in the face. ‘It seemed at first that this whole unpleasant episode was being directed against you in revenge for your interference in someone’s affairs. Rather like when the Order Of The Nine Angles wanted revenge on you. Not something which I could be involved in, as it might be thought to be redressing The Balance, and I have no authority in such matters. But now I have learned, from a quite remarkable source that I cannot share with you, that there is far more to it than that. There are forces at work here that must be stopped. As you know, I can only act if the order of things is threatened from outside, and now it seems that it is.’

  Nightingale had no idea who Mrs. Steadman’s ‘remarkable source’ might be, He had always assumed that she knew pretty much everything, but he kept quiet, as she went on.

  ‘What is happening is rather more complex than just that horrible Dudák creature using its power to have children kill themselves, and feed off them.’