“I really can’t discuss it, Mr. Gardenier.”
We’d had a couple of dinners and drinks batting this case back and forth. He’d called me Chad. Now it was Mr. Gardenier. Which means he suspected I was involved somehow.
“Okay, Don. I’m not involved. Period. I’m busy as shit in New Orleans trying to keep a lid on this hellhole. MCB is crawling up my ass and running some secret-squirrel investigation. The job of the MCB is lying and smearing people. That’s their entire job. So you can either take my word that I’m not a culprit or take the word of some supposedly sworn agent who spends his entire career wiping his ass with the Constitution. Just one question. What’s it going to take for me to get this off my back?”
“I really can’t say. Is there anything else?”
“Will solving it for you do it?” I said. “I’ve got shitloads of other things to do, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll just let the citizens of New Orleans die to hold your hand for you!”
“What part of ‘I can’t talk about this’ is unclear?” Grant said. “You’re a God-damned suspect, Chad!”
“How? Not. In. The. Same. State.”
“MCB was clear. They have you pegged as part of the ring. I don’t know where they got their information from.”
“Well, then they are fucking wrong, okay?” I snarled. “Okay, fine. Get it. I’m a suspect. I am guilty until proven innocent. That’s how the MCB works. Hell, that’s how I work. Now I just have to find out why I’m a suspect so I can clear my name. Which is impossible if nobody will tell me why I’m a suspect! I get it, can’t talk about it. Fine. I’ll call you when you can talk to me again. Bye.”
Except at some point during that he had hung up on me.
* * *
Oh, this was bad.
MCB had identified me as being part of a ring that kidnapped little girls to be used as human sacrifices. In most cases killing their entire families using necromancy and necromantic entities like wights and revenants.
There were two possibilities: Either MCB was doing this to deliberately smear me or they actually thought I was involved. Either way, my name was Mud. If it was a hit job, MCB could go right on saying they had evidence but it was part of an ongoing investigation.
MCB seriously needed an Inspector General.
If they really thought I was involved, knew it for anywhere close to a fact, I’d already be in a basement somewhere either being put down, or undergoing “hostile interrogation.” That didn’t mean they didn’t consider me a suspect. They could be letting me roam free to see where I led. Or they could not have quite enough proof. Or they were going to garrote me the minute I walked out the door.
Or they knew I wasn’t involved and picked the worst possible case to smear me with.
Why me? More interestingly, why Thornton? Why ask people about my relationship to Thornton?
I had tried to forget I’d ever had a brother. Thornton was an unmitigated bully growing up. Seriously, horribly abusive. One of those guys who could get away with it from being just so pathological that nobody could see the evil. It was easier to never think about him.
But two…entities had mentioned him. One was when I was dead in heaven. Pete had said…What was it? It was years ago and while I was dead. “Your brother is headed in the direction of evil.” Something like that. I wouldn’t say “headed” so much as “got it down” based on growing up with him.
But Queen Shalana had mentioned him as well while I was taking the Harper’s Challenge. “Your brother is of another faction.”
The government grouped Unearthly Forces into different “factions.” God was, from the POV of people like my mother, simply one faction of Outworld Entities. I doubted Thornton had found Jesus. Fey wasn’t a possibility because the Queen had said “another” faction. The two cases where the Dark Masters came up both involved necromancy. Necromancy was Old Ones’ magic. Not everyone dabbling in that worked directly for the Old Ones, but they went hand in hand.
So was Thornton involved in some necromantic cult?
A call to Ray confirmed that the Church of the Sepulcher had turned up on MHI’s radar before. Only the full name was the Church of the Unholy Sepulcher. A sepulcher was a holding place for the sacramental items during the Easter celebration but it referred to the Old French and Latin for a tomb. So…Church of the Unholy Tomb. Satan worshippers? On the other hand, an unholy tomb was simply a tomb that contained something unholy. Or in which something unholy was trapped or buried.
Those are not dead which sleeping lie…
Assume the MCB are actually being heroes. I knew a lot of them, whatever their actions, were more duty-bound than I was. They felt like they were the only people holding the line against the End Times which would, yeah, be worse than New Orleans.
The MCB loathed magic, but I’d heard they kept “consultants” on tap for serious cases. Making a bunch of powerful sacrifices to Old Ones certainly qualified. They’d probably done some sort of reading or scrying. So why would they peg me, Chadwick Gardenier, as being involved in this ring? I wasn’t, I knew that. So assuming this wasn’t a smear campaign, how had they come up with me as a suspect? It had to be my blood relation to Thornton.
I would worry about how to deal with that later. Right now, I needed a plane. I had until sunset, Central time, to get back to work. It was full moon in New Orleans.
I made one last call.
“Remi,” I said. “Have you sent out the dinner invitations yet?”
“No, sir,” Remi said. “I was intending to in tomorrow’s mail.”
“Hold off,” I said. “Something’s come up.”
CHAPTER 4
“God-dammit!” Agent Robinson swore. “Get these people out of here!”
It was just another case of New Orleans street theater. Shamblers had gotten out of Mount Olivet, because a gate had been left open, and trickled up Warrington Drive. As soon as Hoodoo Squad cleared the last of them, people started to flood out of their houses to see what was the matter. Normal primate curiosity.
Which was, apparently, illegal. At least according to MCB.
Agent Robinson was going nuts. He struck me as being the high-strung and emotional type anyway, and it didn’t help there were some citizens out on their yards, or walking up and down the road, checking out the freshly rekilled zombies.
“Good shooting, sir,” I said, examining the head shots.
One gentleman was Mr. Conrad Burrows of 310 Warrington Drive. Fifties, balding, he was carrying a Marlin lever action rifle, probably .30-30 by the looks of it, and wearing a bathrobe. He’d popped a couple shamblers before we had gotten here. The houses on Warrington were mostly solidly built ranch style from the 1960s. All of them had barred windows. It was apparent there’d been no additional casualties in this neighborhood.
“Thank you, son. High compliment coming from Hoodoo Squad,” Mr. Burrows said.
“Will you turn off that stupid light!” Agent Robinson stormed over to me.
“Who’s that asshole?” Mr. Burrows whispered.
“The government man,” I warned.
“Damn it, Gardenier. what were you told about doing this in front of God and everybody?”
“You gotta go where the zombies are, Agent. When’s coroner get here?”
“You’ll be doing this the right way from now on! None of this getting receipts from the Coroner. Just collect tissue samples.”
“One bag of ears, coming up,” I said, pulling out a mesh bag.
“You should just collect brain samples,” Robinson ordered.
“Not my first rodeo. Either one works as you can determine if they are all separate entities. And handing you a bag full of smelly zombie ears, which is perfectly legal and within PUFF requirements, is so much more fun. Care to give me the FINGr now?”
FINGr referred to the Federal Incident Number, General. We had to have that along with the Federal Unearthly Creature Code Number and Confirmation of Kill number to file for the Perpetual Unearthly Forces F
unds bounty. You had to have the COK, the FINGr and the FUCCN to get PUFF’d. Look, I didn’t make up these acronyms, I just had to use them on a daily basis.
“Just get the tissue samples,” Robinson said, “and get your gear off. Incident is over. We don’t want any questions.”
“It’s the full moon. I’ve already got another call,” I said. “And you won’t have any questions here. Maybe one or two new transplants in this neighborhood are unaware of the existence of hoodoo. The long-time locals won’t say a word. Nice thing about New Orleans, most of the residents can answer your questions before you ask them and read their own riot act. Ask Mr. Burrows here if there are any new residents who have to get informed this isn’t something you talk about. You’re done.”
“Do your job and let me do mine,” Robinson growled. “If I had my way, you’d already be in one of those graves.”
That sounded like he was personally offended…Robinson probably knew about the investigation. I took a shot in the dark. “Your scrying was misinterpreted.”
That shot in the dark hit home.
“Who the hell have you been talking to?”
“Everyone,” I said. “Including FBI. And the casting was a misinterpretation, bub.”
“It’s pretty hard to misinterpret that you started the ring, bub!” Robinson shouted. “If we had more than a reading on it, you’d be in the ground where you belong!”
“Whoa, whoa,” Mr. Burrows said, holding up his unarmed hand. “What’s this about?”
“Classified,” Robinson snapped.
“I’m suspected of being seriously involved in a hoodoo ring,” I said. “Other than that, classified. Problem being, I know I’m innocent. These guys clearly want to hang me. And they’re basing my involvement on a bad spell casting.”
“We don’t have bad spellcasters,” Robinson ground out.
“The FBI uses hoodoo?” Mr. Burrows said.
“Your wizards are for shit,” I said, closing the trunk of my car. “There’s twenty hoodoo men and women in this town would turn your wizards’ hair white! Drawing a tarot card or casting the bones isn’t the hard part.” Now I knew what the investigation was based upon. The next thing would be finding out exactly what they’d done. “Anyone can cast dem bones, Agent. The hard part is interpretation. Which is very subject to influence. So if the person asking the questions wants a certain answer, like that I’m involved, they’ll get that answer if it is even vaguely possible. I could be involved because I’ve had contact with the people involved. As in, brushed elbows with them at the mall. That’s all the contact necessary. Which is why castings are never allowed for kill orders. Smart people in your chain of command know that. Even if you don’t. Or as Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘My distinguished colleague has his facts in order but his conclusions are in error.’”
Mr. Burrows let out a bray of laughter at that that had Robinson looking confused.
“Sir, you need to go back into your house,” Robinson snapped, falling back on the MCB’s default tactic of intimidation.
“Make me,” Robinson said. “I got rights, son.”
“They’ll take them away,” I warned. “Generally for good reason. Not in this case, but he’ll spend taxpayer time ruining your life for petty revenge because he can.”
“No,” Robinson ground out. “No, I won’t. Because that is not how I do this. But Mr.…”
“Burrows.”
“You’re not contributing to this conversation,” Robinson said.
“At least he recognized the joke. Look, Agent, I’m not the bad guy. The interpretation of the casting was wrong. If I’m involved it’s because I took out a lich and one of their necromancers in Washington.”
“Alpha and omega is pretty hard to misinterpret, asshole,” Robinson said. “Beginner and ender. You’ve probably already packed it up when you found out we were onto you.”
Alpha and omega? I was going to have to look into that.
“Robinson, how many more girls are going to have to get kidnapped, and how many more families are going to have to die before you quit looking in the wrong direction?”
“That’s terrible,” Burrows said.
“We’re in a terrible business,” I said.
“Gathered that,” Mr. Burrows said. “This a sex thing?”
“Virgin sacrifices,” I said.
“Okay, that’s about enough!” Robinson snapped. “Sir, go back in your house or I’m going to arrest you as a material witness and hold you indefinitely, yes, just to be petty. And, yes, I can do it and get away with it. Gardenier, go collect your tissue samples and keep your damned mouth shut! I don’t know who has been spilling their guts but I’m going to damned well find out!”
Look in a mirror, asshole, I thought.
* * *
The full moon had not been so bad. With the two loup-garou that had been turning unsuspecting people during the off-moon time gone, we’d only had about ten calls a day. Usual mess of little demons, homunculi, undead, what have you. The problem being, MCB thought this was normal and had been their usual dicks. With special emphasis in my case.
A few days later I’d sat down with Earl and Ray III and read them in. Earl was looking wasted as he usually did after the full moon. A few steaks would fix that right up.
“MCB has been asking everyone and their brother about my involvement in the virgin sacrifice ring. Part of that is they’ve got a casting that I’m involved. The ‘alpha and omega.’ I don’t know why or exactly what the casting was, but that puts me squarely in their sights as a suspect. So all my usual political contacts are running for cover.”
“Just like politicians to be useless when you need them,” Earl said.
“Gary’s doing his best but because we’re closely connected he’s in the crosshairs, too. The rest are, yeah, playing CYA. Problem being, MCB’s going to be all over my ass until I prove my innocence. And probably even then ’cause you can’t really disprove a negative. Part I don’t get is my brother’s name is involved as well. I haven’t been able to get anything on why, there. But right now it’s a whisper campaign and I’m losing. Any thoughts?”
“Pick a country without extradition.”
“Not helping, Earl. Do you know what sort of casting it is based upon, Chad?” Ray asked.
“No. I tossed out a couple of possibles and nobody bit. I think if MCB was sure of my involvement, I’d be in the ground. I know Robinson wants to put me there.”
“We can try to reverse engineer it,” Ray said. “Figure out what they were casting for. Possibly use the ‘alpha and omega’ prophecy and see where it leads. We’d need a good caster.”
“Magic always comes back to bite you in the ass,” Earl replied.
“Sometimes you’ve got to fight fire with fire, Earl,” Ray said, not sharing his superior’s biases. “We’d need a good caster, somebody with legit skills.”
“We’re in New Orleans. Throw a rock. I know some good White casters,” I said. “White as in faction, not race.”
“You find someone strong enough, they’ll be able to figure out how the MCB came to their conclusions, and then we can get ahead of them.” Ray seemed to love the idea.
“I’m telling you, kids. Magic is a crutch. Hunters should only use it when there’s no other choice. Trinkets and simple enchantments are bad enough, and even those let you down when you start to count on them. You’ve got it in your head that magic is an easy way out, but it’s always got a cost,” Earl said.
“Magic is just a terrible description for fundamental forces we simply don’t understand well,” Ray insisted. “It should just be another tool in our tool box. We use dangerous tools all the time—bombs, guns, no problem. The key is understanding how to use them safely. Magic is no different.”
“Bullshit. Guns and bombs don’t corrupt your soul and drive you insane.”
“Earl, you’re hung up on this superstitious, old-fashioned prejudice—” Ray said.
“Which I earned the hard way. T
here ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”
It felt like they’d had this argument a few times already.
“Okay. Table that idea for now. Second point,” I said. “Oxford and Rigby turned up a possible for our basement boogie.”
“Which is?” Ray asked.
I brought out the papers Dr. Rigby had faxed to my house and laid them out. “There was an ethnologist in what is now Ghana who stumbled upon a powerful houdoun priest. The priest, whose primary power was over the undead, would sacrifice slaves to a large wormlike entity.”
Ray was quickly scanning over the materials as Earl sort of leafed through them. “Sounds like a minion creation of the Old Ones.”
“Shoggoth maybe?” Earl asked.
“White, gray, green,” I said. “So, no. And appeared to continue underground. Wormlike.”
“This is a new one to me,” Ray said, frowning. “And I’ve never seen the symbol.”
The symbol felt pretty blasphemous in itself. One of those things that even in a fax oozed evil. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the worm.
“They didn’t write that either. Supposedly fungus grew in that shape. What isn’t clear is how to get it to come out,” I said. “There are no details on that.”
“Holy water,” Earl said.
“Why holy water?” Ray asked.
“Just a hunch based on that symbol,” Earl said. “Assholes like to summon things like this: ‘Please come forth, O Great Worm!’ Then it comes out and eats the sacrifice and gives power. Pour some holy water on this and it’ll come out ready to kill whatever just burned the hell out of its sign.”
“I thought you’d never seen this,” I said.
“Never seen this in particular. Worms and such coming out of the ground. But I’ve seen things like it. And if that don’t work, try something else. The important thing is you offend it somehow.”
“Gotta find the symbol first,” Ray said.
“Got a dozen places to look,” I replied.
* * *
4030 Eagle Street was the first place I’d run into the basement boogie. The house was a single-story ranch in Holly Grove near the New Orleans country club. Decent neighborhood but had the standard New Orleans locked-down-tight-with-bars thing going. Barred windows and doors in New Orleans were for more than keeping out burglars.
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