“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Cree?”
“I’m a commodities broker. I got tired of the harsh winters up north and decided to sell my share of the business to my partner and relocate down here.”
“So you were just unwinding at the Turnbridge party is that it?” Jackson probed. “Letting your hair down, so to speak?” He flicked a disapproving glance over Syn’s long hair and the silver hoop in his left ear.
“I think I overdid it, Sheriff. I believe I came unwound that night.” Syntian laughed. He shook his head. “I haven’t been drunk since my college days and I don’t think I’ll try it again any time soon.”
“Hung over, were you?”
“Bent over,” Syntian answered. “I became up close and personally acquainted with the toilet Sunday morning.”
“You live out at the old Herndon place.” It was more an accusation that a statement.
“Yes, I do.”
“You live out there by yourself?”
Syntian nodded. “I haven’t had time to hire a staff yet. Why?”
“I was just wondering if you wasn’t afraid to be out there all by your lonesome,” Jackson remarked. “What with most folks in Santa Rosa County thinking the place’s haunted.”
Syntian laughed. “So I’ve been told. But I don’t think Jesup Herndon is going to bother me.”
“And why’s that?” Jackson asked, curious about the strange look that had flitted quickly across the other man’s face.
“I’d be more likely to scare him.”
The Sheriff found himself thinking the same thing. He looked down at his note pad for the too direct gaze of Syntian Cree’s umber eyes made him uncomfortable. “Are you seeing the Fowler girl?”
A look of surprise crossed Cree’s face. “Lauren?” As the Sheriff looked up at him, Syntian shook his head. “No, I’m not, but it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”
“How’s that?” Jackson asked, wondering what the man could possibly see in Maxine Fowler’s old maid daughter.
Syntian grinned ruefully. “The lady seems to be immune to my charms.”
“To my knowledge, she ain’t never had a date,” the Sheriff informed him.
A glimmer of dislike passed over Syntian’s face. “And I would imagine the entire town would have known if she had.”
Jackson didn’t pick up on either the insult or the tone with which it had been spoken. “I’d imagine so.” He closed his note pad, stuck his pen through the top of the spiral binding then shoved pad and pen into his raincoat pocket. “I might have a few more questions for you, Mr. Cree. You aren’t planning on leaving town any time soon, are you?”
Syntian schooled his face into confusion. “No. Am I a suspect in these attacks, Sheriff Jackson?”
Wiley Jackson shrugged, his lower lip thrusting out and arching down. “You’re new in town. We don’t know you, yet. I’d have been remiss if I hadn’t questioned you.”
“I see.” Syntian dropped the words like a stone. He let his face set in insult. “Will there be anything else?”
Wiley Jackson shook his head, understanding that he had just made a life-long enemy of the man before him. He wondered why that worried him more than it should have.
“Then, may I go?”
“Yeah.”
Syntian nodded curtly and pushed his way through the door into the storm outside. The Sheriff watched him get into the expensive foreign job parked at the curb and pull away.
“Sheriff?”
Jackson turned to find the Fowler girl looking at him with fearful eyes. “How’s Lou?” he asked, passing his attention over the drably-dressed woman, pondering once more how a man of such sophistication and obvious breeding as Syntian Cree could find anything interesting in her.
“She’s washing her face.” Lauren had overheard the Sheriff’s questioning of Syntian Cree. “Mr. Cree really isn’t a suspect, is he?”
If Wiley Jackson was surprised by the admonishing tone in the woman’s voice, he didn’t let it show. “Every man in this town is a suspect until I know he had nothing to do with this mess.”
“But surely you couldn’t think Mr. Cree capable of such a thing.”
“What do you know about him, Miss Fowler? Do you know where he came from? Who his friends were? If he’s married, divorced, widowed?” He let his gaze slide insultingly over the woman. “For all you know, he could have a wife in every state.”
As the black Porsche sped down Stewart Street, the shift ground as the angry hand clutching it pushed the stick too fast to accommodate the clutch. A hiss of rage filled the silence in the sports car as the Sheriff’s words intruded into Syntian Cree’s consciousness.
Lauren’s chin came up. “I don’t know Mr. Cree well at all, Sheriff. I’ve only spoken to him on a few occasions.”
“Yet he drove you to work this morning,” the Sheriff insinuated, his tone curt. “We have a witness that saw him at your place and you getting in that car of his.”
The Porsche’s tires lurched dangerously on the wet pavement, the rear end of the black car hydroplaning momentarily as the foot on the accelerator pressed down too hard for the road conditions.
“Mr. Cree was kind enough to stop by on his way into town. I don’t have a car, as you know, Sheriff. I would have had to walk two blocks in the rain if he hadn’t thought to stop by for me.”
“Has he asked you out?” Wiley inquired, making the question seem as though he would be astonished if she answered in the affirmative.
The black sports car’s brakes squealed as if they were in horrible pain as the steering wheel spun toward the gravel drive leading to the old Herndon estate and the Porsche was downshifted with careless regard to the finely tuned mechanics of the engine. The rear wheels slid in a short arc as they dug into the red clay of the roadway then were jerked viciously back onto the gravel as the car shot up the long, curving drive.
“I don’t see that my personal life is any concern of yours, Sheriff,” Lauren made herself say.
A short, furious bark of laughter echoed through the murky interior of the Porsche.
Wiley Jackson stared at the woman. He didn’t care for the way she was looking at him. Her face was still. If he hadn’t known her better, he’d have thought she’d developed a bit of backbone, but he shook his head, negating the notion. He reached up and adjusted his hat. “I’d be careful of him, Miss Fowler,” he warned her. “What’s been happening’s been happening to women you work with. Three women been hurt bad and one of ‘em is dead. I don’t think nothing would happen to you.” He smiled snidely. “Or Louvenia,” he added. “But you never know. You don’t know this Yankee boy and I’m just suggesting you watch him careful like. He’s too slick for my liking.” He held her gaze for a moment more, trying to make her look away. When she didn’t, he sniffed and left the store, a faint touch of unease lingering on his mind.
The low-slung black car skidded to a dangerous stop on the semi-circular driveway in front of the old Ante Bellum-style home. The car door was thrust open in a vicious shove and then slammed hard enough to rock the entire body of the Porsche. The front door of the mansion crashed back against its hinges then slammed shut. Angry footsteps echoed hollowly on the parquet floorings until they stopped at what had once been the mansion’s sitting room.
Syntian Cree reached out and flicked on the ornate chandelier hanging from the room’s ceiling. He stood in the doorway, his entire body quivering. He was unmindful of the heavily boarded windows nailed shut with 1 x 12s; paid no attention to the dark tint he had painted the walls and boards. Nor did he notice the deep scarlet flooring beneath his feet. His eyes had searched for, and unerringly found, the bright gold of the design that he had carefully painted in the center of the floor. He moved toward it, lightning and thunder moving over the old house with lethal snaps and booms. He stepped into the direct center of the design and raised his hands to the tempestuous heavens.
“Hear me, Master!” he shouted, his voice trembling with rage. Rain glist
ened on his face. “Hear Your servant!”
A deadly crack of light stair-stepped the heavens and crashed violently into the forest behind the mansion. The air turned chill, stank of sulfur, and the Earth rumbled and throbbed. The wind howled its fury across the house, shaking the very foundations of the old place.
“I come to You seeking vengeance!”
A pine tree in front of the house was cleft top to bottom by a spear of blinding white light. The design in the center of the floor glowed bright, seemed to lift upward from the scarlet-painted floor. Overhead, the chandelier’s lights flickered out and the only source of luminescence on the black walls came from the glow cast by the golden pentagram on the floor.
“Lauren? ”
Lauren turned. “Is there anything I can do, Mrs. Yelverton?”
“I don’t believe we’re going to be having many customers today,” Louvenia said, unable to look at the girl. “I called Mrs. Hellstrom and explained the situation to her. She suggested we close up and go on home.”
Lauren’s heart sank. Outside, the storm was raging, the rain lashing against the windows with heavy sheets of fury. Lightning was cracking overhead so loud it was hard to hear the older woman speaking. Now and again, the lights in the shop flickered, threatened to go out. It was only a matter of time before Gulf Power cast them into darkness.
“I suppose you’re right.” Lauren glanced out the window and saw nothing for the heavy downpour of rain.
“I’ll drive you home,” Louvenia suggested, a bit surprised by her offer. She looked up to see the young woman staring at her. “You’ll never get Horace McBride to send a cab out in this mess.” She was intently embarrassed by her offer and beginning to regret it. The last thing she had wanted to do was offer the girl a ride, but it wouldn’t have been Christian not to do so.
“I...I would appreciate it very much, Mrs. Yelverton,” Lauren assured her. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Just go get your purse,” Louvenia grumbled. “I want to get the hell out of here before the lights go off.”
Once inside the musky interior of Louvenia Yelverton’s Lumina, Lauren was quiet, afraid to speak, for the older woman’s lips were pressed tightly together as she backed out of her parking slot beside the store. Lauren knew her manager could barely see through the windshield for it had already fogged and was running thickly with pummeling water.
“I don’t remember ever seeing such a nasty storm this time of year,” Louvenia remarked as she pulled cautiously out onto the street.
“I hope this isn’t a warning that we’re going to have a bad hurricane season,” Lauren answered, feeling she had to make some comment. “All this talk about El Niño makes you wonder.”
“Yes, it certainly does,” Louvenia said. She glanced at her passenger. The girl was sitting so rigidly in the seat, pressed tightly up against the door, it seemed almost as though she were trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. The older woman looked at the road, a momentary nudge of pity making her hands tighten on the steering wheel. “You live in that little blue cottage next to the Black’s, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lauren leaned forward, trying to peer out of the windshield. “I don’t have a driveway.”
“If I remember rightly, you have a screened porch, don’t you?”
Lauren looked at her. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Then it won’t hurt if I pull up into your yard and let you out there at the door,” Louvenia said.
“You don’t have to,” Lauren told her. “I can get off at the curb.”
“Nonsense,” the older woman snapped. “No use in you getting soaked running up to the door.” She put her turn signal on since she had no idea if anyone was in front or behind her. Not every one was as diligent as she was at putting on their headlights when it rained.
Lauren didn’t know what to say as the Lumina bumped over the shallow curb and drove slowly into her front yard, Louvenia angling it as close to the front of the cottage as the azalea bushes along the flowerbed would allow. She put her hand on the door. “Thank you, Mrs. Yelverton. I really do appreciate this.”
Louvenia waved a dismissive hand. “It was the least I could do.” She glanced at the girl. Lauren was pushing down on the door’s handle. “Lauren?” she asked. When the girl looked back at her, Louvenia Yelverton’s eyebrows met over her hawk-like nose. “Lock your doors tonight.” She was acutely embarrassed over her remark, especially at the look of astonishment settled over the younger woman’s face. “Well,” she sputtered, “we don’t know about this man, now, do we? He’s attacked three of us at the store. Who knows? He might even be watching one of us right this minute!”
Fear entered Lauren’s face. “You don’t really think that, do you, Mrs. Yelverton?”
Louvenia Yelverton’s gaze shifted from her employee. “I don’t know what to think, but Inez swears some man attacked her that night and Karla was sodomized. And Beth was...” she stopped, shuddering, then turned to the girl beside her. “Just lock your doors and don’t let anyone in you don’t know.” She shook her head. “Don’t let anyone in! Wiley said Beth and Karla had to have known the man who attacked them. You might know him, too.”
Lauren nodded, her mouth dry. “And you be careful, too, Miss Louvenia.”
Louvenia looked at the girl, seeing the gentle look that she and the others had always thought was meekness. For the first time in the years she had known Lauren Fowler, Louvenia knew it wasn’t meekness but courtesy and kindness. “Go on,” Louvenia said gruffly. “It’s let up a bit.”
Lauren smiled, thanked the older woman again, and then pushed the door open. She shut it carefully getting soaked for her effort then ran up the short flight of steps to the safety of her porch. She turned and waved before going inside.
In the dark confines of his mansion, Syntian Cree looked up from where he knelt, exhausted and weak on the floor, and cocked his ear for the whispered words that came to him like a bolt from the heavens.
“Be careful, Lauren,” he heard Louvenia Yelverton say.
Tiredly, he pushed to his feet, staggering under the weight of his conjuring. He ran a hand over his sweaty face and wiped it down his wet jeans. His weakened body quivered with fatigue and for a moment he saw bright bursts of lights at the periphery of his vision. Yet he sent out his thoughts: searching, gathering, evaluating, and the replay of the last ten minutes came back to him in a wavering vision.
He heard the older woman offering her assistance to the younger.
He watched her take Lauren home.
He heard the admonitions.
Then he smiled grimly, closing his eyes for a moment to the strain of the last half hour. Slowly he made his way to the door of the room and closed it behind him, locking it. On weaving feet, he made his way into the front parlor and sank to the sofa, stretching out on its length. The older woman’s face flashed before him.
“You just earned yourself a brownie point or two, Agnes Louvenia Yelverton,” he promised as his exhaustion reached out to claim him.
Chapter Six
Louvenia Yelverton turned over in the bed, frowning at her husband’s loud snoring. She stared up at the ceiling. The storm had lessened somewhat, but even now, at midnight, the rain still pelted the windows and drummed unceasingly on the roof. Reed’s hitching blast of nerve-grating sound made her toss the covers back and get up. She slid her feet into the bedroom slippers lying by her bed and reached for the peignoir draped over the footboard. Swinging it around her shoulders, she padded from the bedroom she had shared with her husband for forty years and walked down the hall toward the kitchen.
The walls lit now and again with an eerie white glow as the lightning outside flashed. The ghostly light cast the furniture of the den into relief, making it jump and pulse toward her, as she passed from the cozy comfort of the room and pushed through bat wing doors into her dark kitchen. She reached for the light switch, but a soft voice stilled her hand.
“Do not turn on
the light, Louvenia.”
Louvenia Yelverton did not cry out; she didn’t cringe away from the soft footfalls that sounded to her right. She turned to face the ebony shape that came toward her, waiting patiently.
“That was a good thing you did this afternoon, Louvenia.”
She nodded at the low, deep words.
“You saved yourself from needless pain.”
She nodded again, agreeing with the soft words.
“But you still have to be punished for all the times when you were not so kind to my lady.”
Louvenia did not feel fear. She did not feel the least amount of alarm. She could not really see the dark shape at her side, but she could sense the immense power flowing through it. But still she did not feel particularly anxious even as a heavy weight settled on her slim shoulder.
“I am going to grant you an experience few women have ever been given, Louvenia,” the gentle voice told her.
She smiled as she listened to the hypnotic voice that seduced her. Her head turned slightly to one side in mild curiosity.
“What you will see, you will never describe to another living soul,” the soothing voice commanded.
Louvenia Yelverton sighed. The heaviness of her shoulder lessened, as though a powerful hand had been removed. The absence of the weight made her sad.
“Remember me, Louvenia. Let the sight of me etch itself into your soul. And as you do, know that it is my revenge for the suffering you caused my lady.”
Louvenia’s vision flickered, focused, traveled upward into the hidden face of the being beside her. She felt his presence, his power, and the intensity of his passion. Lightning flared outside and the shadow of the dark shape before her leapt across the ceiling, pulsed, loomed above her, and in the glare of the light, she saw his eyes first and her own went wide in fear.
“Look upon me, Louvenia,” he demanded; his voice was neither gentle nor soft. “Behold the unforgiving retribution you have earned in this lifetime. Behold the face of the NightWind!”
NightWind 1st Book: HellWind Trilogy Page 7