Creatures of Want and Ruin

by Molly Tanzer

  “That’s true,” said Aaron. “Well . . . if you say it’s a demon at least that makes some sense. I thought I was going crazy when those fires just appeared out of nowhere.”

  “I thought I was at first too,” Ellie said, “and I didn’t want to believe it—any of it—but there have been other things, too. You know that article in the paper, the one about the party where it was allegedly some bad liquor that made people go crazy . . .”

  “I think calling ‘The Prying Eye’ an article is generous,” said SJ acidly, “but sure, go on . . .”

  “Obviously that wasn’t your stuff. I got it elsewhere. From the people who just burned down your shack, actually. I didn’t know that at the time; I just thought it was some moonshine. And I drank some; it didn’t affect me that way. But it seems to affect others . . . gives them visions and things.”

  “Visions of what?” asked Aaron.

  “They see Long Island being destroyed by . . . by the same sort of mushrooms that just . . .” She took a moment to breathe, not wanting to say aloud Lester’s name, while Aaron explained to SJ what had happened to Lester’s body, and then continued. “Apparently this demon wants to remake this island into something other than what it is, for reasons none of us really understand. Our working theory—as much as it works at all—is that it’s using a local group to . . .” She trailed off.

  SJ and Aaron exchanged a look after too long a moment had passed without Ellie continuing. “Ellie?” asked SJ.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said. “I just realized where we need to go.”

  Ellie wasn’t completely sure where Officer Jones lived; she just knew it was north of Grace Court, on Bennett Place. If they headed out that way, she assumed they’d see his truck outside. The idea of getting there—stealing through the streets of Amityville at this hour of the night, with Aaron and SJ in tow . . . Likely no one would see them or raise any alarms, but recently, Amityville hadn’t felt like the safe place it had always been.

  Then again, had Amityville ever really been that safe of a place? Would SJ and Aaron have ever felt comfortable running around after dark here in the center of town, where the houses were closer together than the trees and the eyes peering out of windows might not assume that two black people had any business being in the area? Long before Hunter, there had been the mindset that had made his message resonate so strongly. Ellie felt ashamed that she’d never thought about it before.

  But wasn’t the arc of the universe supposed to bend toward justice? She’d read that in school, where she’d sat beside black students . . . and yet, the three of them were stealing along dark streets late at night, years later, after one of those former students had just had her business burned to the ground by hateful bigots.

  The only encouraging part about any of this was that they might be up against a demon, but its servants were mere men. Men could be killed, as they’d just proved—and Rocky had said that demons needed people in order to work their will in the world.

  Stop the people; stop the demon.

  “So . . . where are we going?” SJ asked again as they reached the boatyard.

  “Officer Jones’s house,” said Ellie as she killed her boat’s engine.

  “Oh, hell no,” said SJ. “I’m not going to some cop’s house in the middle of the night; I don’t care who or what’s trying to destroy the world. I can’t help if I get my ass shot before I have a chance to say ‘Hello, Officer, how are you this fine evening.’” She said this last in such an accurate imitation of a snooty white person that Ellie actually laughed.

  “Jones is all right,” she assured SJ, sobering at the thought of talking to him, telling him all that had happened, including what had happened to her brother. “I promise he’s not like that.”

  SJ frowned. “Didn’t you say one of the men who blew up my house was a cop?”

  “Yes—but that’s exactly why Jones has been investigating this on his own,” said Ellie.

  “Doesn’t seem like he’s been doing too good a job of it,” muttered SJ.

  Ellie didn’t want to get into an argument. “I understand why you don’t trust him, but I hope you trust me enough to know I wouldn’t take you somewhere you’d be shot on sight. I really think he’s the best chance we’ve got right now. He’ll believe us, take us seriously, plus he knows first aid,” she said, her eyes drifting to SJ’s side.

  “All right, all right,” said SJ. “Let’s go, then.”

  They slipped through the streets of Amityville as the moon sank low. It wasn’t a long walk—nothing was too far away in their little village—but the dark shadows and the specter of what they’d seen made the half-mile seem a lot longer. The last few minutes were the worst, as Ellie peered at every house on Bennett before she finally spied Jones’s familiar pickup and sighed in relief.

  “We’re here,” she whispered.

  “Goody,” muttered SJ.

  Ellie pleaded with SJ with her eyes; SJ shrugged in annoyance and went to wait in the gloom beneath a spreading oak with Aaron as Ellie went up to the door. She knocked softly, her heart seeming louder than her gentle taps, but when that brought no response she knocked properly.

  Jones answered the door in slacks but no shirt, looking extremely confused. He held a lit candle in a candlestick, like Wee Willie Winkie; the light made her eyes water as she tried not to stare at his hairy chest.

  “Ellie?” He rubbed at his eyes. “Have you been in another fight?”

  “Yeah.” She looked up and down the street. “I have friends with me. We need shelter, and one of them is hurt. Can we come in?”

  “Of course.” He stood aside; Ellie motioned to Aaron and SJ. “You’re all welcome here. I did a bit of field medicine when I was in the service. Who needs patching up?”

  “Me,” said SJ, with less than her usual surliness. She seemed pleased by their polite reception. “I got stabbed.”

  “I’ve stitched up a friend once or twice . . . but not recently. Still, let me take a look. I’ll be honest if I think we need to get you to a doctor.”

  At the word “doctor,” Ellie’s strength left her and she slumped against the cool wall of Jones’s little house. The sensation the word evoked in her was intense and raw and dangerous. She tried to distract herself by looking around while Aaron explained to Jones much of what had happened.

  It was funny—Jones didn’t seem like the sentimental type, or religious, and yet there was a dusty-looking statue of the Virgin Mary on a shelf, and old photos hung everywhere, many of short, brown-skinned, dark-haired people beneath tropical trees. She spied a picture of two people standing outside a Catholic church—the man tall and pale, in the dress uniform of a military man; the woman short and darker, in an elaborate wedding dress.

  It was uncomfortable being in Jones’s house—observing his life beyond him being a cop on the take who would flirt with her a little sometimes. There was nothing embarrassing, per se—his house was tidy enough, and clean, but it was just so strange to think about him living here, sitting on his sofa reading a book, bringing a girl back here for lovemaking, or cooking himself a solitary dinner. Well, it didn’t look like he did much of that, given the terracotta pot perched on a windowsill, containing what had once been oregano but was now little more than a fossil.

  “I think I can clean this up for you and stitch it,” he said, retreating into another room to get a kit, “but you should have it looked at. In fact, I’m surprised you came here; shouldn’t Lester be better able to— Wait, what’s happened?”

  Ellie wasn’t in Jones’s line of sight; it must have been something about Aaron’s and SJ’s expressions that alerted Jones to the situation. Ellie closed her eyes and merely listened as they explained more, with Jones making exclamations here and there.

  She heard a creak as he walked over to her. “Ellie,” he said softly. “You don’t have to look at me . . . you don’t have to speak . . . but I’m sorry.”

  Ellie nodded, fighting back tears she wouldn’t let fall. Jones
didn’t try to touch her; she was at least grateful for that; he just pressed his own handkerchief into her hands and let her be.

  “You did the right thing, coming here,” he said thoughtfully, his voice farther away; he had rejoined SJ and Aaron. “It will be helpful, especially when it gets out that a cop’s been killed. I bet it was Ellsworth . . .” Jones trailed off for a few moments, then said, “The biggest problem now is figuring out what they’ll do next, especially if the plan is, well, destroying the island. And frankly, we still don’t know for sure that Hunter is behind all of this. All we have is circumstantial evidence.”

  This annoyed Ellie. “It’s circumstantial that those creeps in the woods called me ‘daughter of the island’?”

  “That’s basically the definition of it. An odd turn of phrase isn’t proof,” said Jones. “It could be a coincidence.”

  Ellie thought, I could just ask Pop, but didn’t say it. He had no reason to tell the truth. Even if his lie about Hunter was a lie of omission, he’d lied . . . lied that his cult was just a church, that Hunter was a simple man with good ideas he respected. She had no idea if killing his own son—if that had indeed been her father—would change him or not.

  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence” is how she summed all this up.

  “I don’t think it is either,” said Jones. “Remember, I was there with you at the rally; I saw what you saw. I’m not doubting you, any of you—even the wilder bits with the masks and the fires and whatnot. But if we’re wrong—if we go after him and it turns out it is a coincidence—how much time will we have wasted if the end of the world really is nigh?”

  Ellie looked to SJ, whose expression had gone from skeptical to considering as Jones spoke.

  “So what do you think we should do?” she asked.

  “I’d say we need to gather our forces,” said Jones. “We need to get everyone who’s with us in one place.”

  “Who else is with us?” asked SJ.

  “Gabriel,” said Aaron.

  Ellie’s stomach rolled over. Aaron seemed so certain, but she wasn’t.

  “We need to give him another chance, Ellie,” said Aaron. She nodded.

  “Let’s head to his place,” said Jones. “My fellow police officers might come here if I don’t show up tomorrow, and I don’t want them finding you. Anyone else?”

  “Fin and Rocky,” said Ellie.

  “Where are they?” asked Jones.

  “Oak Beach.”

  This caused some consternation for a time—everyone seemed to have a different idea of whether Ellie should go now to retrieve Rocky and Fin, or come back to Gabriel’s with them and then go get the others the next morning. Ellie let them argue as she mulled it over in her own mind. On the one hand, she longed to see Gabriel. The memory of his arms made her yearn for his touch, and she hated the idea of SJ, Aaron, and Jones telling him that his friend and almost-brother-in-law had been killed horribly in a way that beggared belief.

  That said, gathering everyone together had to take precedence. Not only that, but there was no guarantee that when they saw each other they’d have the sort of reunion Ellie hoped for . . . It wasn’t like he’d rushed down the porch steps to embrace her the last time she’d shown up at his door.

  “I’m going to Oak Beach,” she said. “I think it’ll be best if we not backtrack. If our goal is putting our heads together, it ought to be with the two people who’ve actually seen this demon’s plans.”

  “Let me finish up with SJ’s side and we can go,” said Jones.

  “There’s no need for me to wait. I can get back to my boat in a jiffy, if you’re all right with it?” she said, looking from SJ to Aaron, who shrugged and nodded, respectively.

  “I’ve no desire to stop you,” said SJ.

  “Be safe, Miss West,” said Jones. “And keep the handkerchief.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Nothing to thank me for, other than the handkerchief—and you can bring it back to me after this is all over with. Laundered, please.”

  It was early enough in the morning that by the time Ellie was heading back across the bay it was a little lighter in the east; by the time she was approaching Rocky’s shack the sky was a bright fiery orange that made Ellie think of that old bayman’s adage her father had taught her: Red sky at night, sailors’ delight; red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Well, she’d take the warning, but she wished all she had to worry about was a storm.

  Given how Fin and Rocky had been looking at one another before she left, Ellie assumed they’d had a nice night together. She wasn’t upset by this; she just didn’t particularly want to walk in on Rocky doing to Fin what he liked to do to her. Too bad; that was a risk she’d just have to take.

  Rocky left the front door unlocked most of the time, and indeed he had done so last night; Ellie eased her way inside and cocked an ear, listening. All was quiet and largely how she’d left it—even the jar of beach plum jelly was sitting where she’d placed it on the kitchen counter. Ellie resigned herself to waking up her friends, but when she stepped on a creaky board she heard a muffled groan from the couch and looked over. There, to Ellie’s surprise, was Fin, snuggled in a blanket, her flaxen hair spilled out over the armrest and a moth-eaten pillow.

  “Ellie?” she asked, blinking in the early-morning shadows. “You came back! I was worried. I waited and waited . . .”

  “You did?” Ellie was amazed by this, until Fin blushed.

  “I mean, I was awake the whole time . . .” Ellie snorted, in spite of everything. “Where were you?

  “Fin, we need to talk. A lot has happened. Last night . . .” Dizzy, Ellie sat down beside Fin. It was all finally catching up to her. But this was no time to feel sad, or tired, so Ellie haltingly related the events of her night.

  “I only met him once, but he seemed very kind,” said Fin, her voice thick. “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how it feels.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” said Ellie.

  As she continued, Rocky came down in his pajamas. He usually couldn’t function without a cup of coffee, but Ellie’s talk of Lester being consumed by or absorbed into one of those awful mushrooms woke him up quickly enough.

  “That certainly sounds like some sort of component of a greater ritual,” he said thoughtfully.

  That. Ellie felt more than a little annoyed to hear her brother’s death referred to in such a way. Probably Rocky didn’t mean anything by it, so she let it slide.

  “There must be something to it—something connected with the demon,” Rocky continued. “Your policeman friend said there were disappearances before this last attack. Is that right?”

  “A few that we know of.”

  “Hmm, yes. Difficult to say, then, when the next incident will be.”

  “Incident!” Ellie couldn’t help herself this time. “This wasn’t an incident. This was a calculated attack. A murder.”

  “Yes, of course it was, I just—”

  Ellie stood. “No matter what it was, in the end, I came here to bring you both back with me. We’re all meeting at Gabriel’s house to strategize and figure out how best to stop them before the next incident.”

  “Of course,” said Fin, immediately on her feet. “Let me just go get my things together. I don’t have much.”

  Rocky, however, said nothing. Both women turned to look at him, but he remained in his chair. He looked very serious.

  “This isn’t my fight,” he said, and the heavy silence that followed felt strange in the bright morning light.

  “Not your fight?” It was Fin who spoke first, to Ellie’s surprise. “What do you mean? This is your home.”

  “It is where I live,” said Rocky diplomatically.

  “How can you say that? I’ve not lived here long enough to write one poem about Long Island, much less give a talk at a local library about writing a whole book of them. I thought you loved this place! Your poetry made me want to see it before I’d even come to visit . . . and once I di
d, it was my guidebook. How can you have written all that you did about this island and yet not want to step up and help it now that you have the chance?”

  “I’m sure it’s difficult for you to understand, but—”

  “You know more about demons and diabolists than any of us,” said Ellie, but he would not meet her eyes as she spoke to him. “We need you. Please come.”

  “No.” He stood, shaking his head. “I came here to retreat from the world; it doesn’t agree with me. When I’m out there, I’m lost. I can’t go back.”

  “You can’t retreat from the world forever,” argued Ellie. “No one can. Looking away from something doesn’t make it disappear. I’m learning that the hard way right now.”

  She was speaking from her heart now, but she could tell from Rocky’s body language that she wasn’t getting through to him.

  “These people—the ones who killed my brother and burned down my friend’s house—they’re not the same as your family back in England. From what you told me, your family seemed content to live their lives without bothering anybody. These characters, they’re not interested minding their own business.” She was pleading with him now. “No one other than us knows what they’re up to. If we won’t help, who will?”

  Rocky stood up. “All I can do is wish you good luck, Ellie.”

  “All you can do?” She finally raised her voice. “Rocky, who’s to say it will stop with Long Island? You might not be safe here! You might die with everyone else—and even if you don’t, what will you do? What will you do without the ferry?”

  He didn’t reply. He just left the room. He didn’t even look back.

  Ellie’s anger erupted out of her in the form of one word.

  “Coward!” she screamed after him.

  “Ellie,” said Fin, taking her hand and squeezing it, “let’s go.”

  “He’s a coward!” she said, suddenly painfully aware that this was simply Rocky’s way, and had always been. For a long time she had believed his aloofness was a result of his artistic nature; his dizzy ignorance of reality had seemed necessary, something that allowed him to create. Now she saw him for what he was: someone who took what he wanted while giving as little as possible. She was astonished that she hadn’t been able to recognize it before.