by Fiore, L. A.
“I met someone important. Someone I think can help me.”
As soon as the words were out, I was surprised I said them, even more surprised that I felt I needed protection but I did. Increasingly, I was feeling the need to escape. Mouse’s head turned to me like he was really listening.
“I may have looked nuts. I was talking to a voice in my head while with the sheriff, but they expect me to be nuts. I am locked away after all.”
I reached under the mattress for the little parcel. Unwrapping the old fabric exposed a stone that I knew now was called a tiger’s eye. Unlike the deputy’s, this one was shaped differently and had an etching on the stone. I had no recollection of receiving it, but I had it when I arrived here all those years ago.
“It’s for protection. Someone gave me this, thought to protect me, but I don’t know who.” I played with the stone as I recalled the conversation with the sheriff. “I was able to talk to them a little about real stuff. I’m glad I read that book.”
My words played back in my head. What book? I didn’t remember reading one, but clearly I had. A book on New Orleans, why wouldn’t I remember that? Dr. Ellis’ behavior had been bizarre. I never sensed duplicity in him before, but he was not what he seemed. He knew more than he was saying, knew more about me. He was determined to keep that from me, and I wanted to know why. I needed to know why because even not understanding what was happening, I believed I was in a game I didn’t even know I was playing. It was time I started.
I climbed into bed and drifted into sleep with my hand clutching the tiger’s eye.
They fed me only at night and only white food. They anointed me with some kind of oil, every morning. A smell hung in the air…woodsy, like the forest. An altar was set up in their living room. Candles lit for whatever deity they worshipped.
I was dressed in a black gown, and my hair had been brushed. I was sitting in my room…waiting. He was coming for me. I heard him, the heavy footfalls, the door to my room opened. A sickly sweet scent filled my nose and made me gag. A strange mark was on the floor in the living room, a star with a circle around it. The next thing I remembered was standing on the street outside of the small house watching as it burned.
The sirens came, the police and fire department, but I stood so still watching the fire and the creatures that moved within it. Why didn’t anyone else see them? I rubbed at my arm and the claw marks that burned and bled.
A woman appeared not far from me, her shrill voice pulled my attention as she pointed a finger accusingly at me. “She started it,” she shrieked as she pulled her daughter against her in a protective gesture.
I heard them howl in pain, but I didn’t move, waited until the screaming stopped.
In the emergency room, a woman was wheeled in right after me. She was very pregnant. If the baby was born today, we would share a birthday. I just turned ten; I felt older.
A woman entered the room I was in. She was the person who had brought me to the hospital, the one in the ambulance. Unlike everyone else, she didn’t cross herself. Her eyes weren’t wide in fear. “I need to take some pictures then we’ll clean them up.”
“What’s going to happen to me?” I asked.
“Nothing you didn’t already foresee.”
What did that mean? When I was afraid, really afraid, I could make things happen. I was terrified. The lights flickered. The nurse looked up at the lights. “There’s no storm tonight.” The tray on the other side of the room flew across it. She didn’t even look.
“You might want to control that.” Her matter of fact statement surprised me. Her eyes met mine.
“I can’t,” I confessed.
“You will.”
She took pictures of my wounds and bandaged my arm. Before she left, she pressed something into my hand. “You’ll be fine, sweetheart. You’ll see.”
I hated seeing her walk away. She was a stranger, but she’d been kind to me. I was alone again. I heard a baby cry and looked up at the clock. It was still the summer solstice. I offered a wish for that baby that he or she knew a better life than the one I had.
The tile was cold against my bare feet as I walked down the hall holding a folded blanket. Faces peered out from the windows in the doors as we passed. I felt the madness, the fear, the anger…my own body shaking with it. I didn’t belong here. A man walked with me, a doctor.
My room was at the end of the hall. There was just a bed and a little desk and a toilet. I stepped into the room, the door closed with a loud thud, the lock turned into place. I looked around at the white walls, the window that sat too high up on the wall for me to see out of, and felt hopelessness move through me. I didn’t understand any of it, but I knew enough to know I was considered a lost cause. I was only ten and already the world had given up on me. I wanted to cry; I felt the tears burning the back of my eyes, but I didn’t. Instead, I sat on the edge of the bed still holding the blanket and wondered why I’d been born at all.
I jerked awake, my breathing coming out in pants. My hand shook as I opened it to see the stone. The nurse had given it to me. Who was she? How did she know I would need it? Dr. Ellis really had been there from the beginning. I sought the moon and the calm, but the clouds were too thick.
What the sheriff hunted was what had hunted me. We were linked. I needed to remember.
Dr. Nelson typed at his invisible typewriter. It was a long shot, but I wondered if he could help me, had a feeling he had before. I visited him every day, wasn’t sure why I did, but without fail, we carried on the same conversation day in and day out. It was part of his routine and mine.
I paced his room, biting my thumbnail as I tried to figure out the best way to approach him with this. Glancing at him, lost in his head, I decided point blank was the best tactic. “Is there a way to restore someone’s memories?”
“I’ve been working on treatments, not the mainstream I grant you, but I have found success with some of my patients.”
I’d heard this before. Maybe this wasn’t going to work.
“We have to work up to that. The strain on the mind could snap it. It has to be done lovingly. Carefully or what one is trying to save one could kill.”
I dropped down in the chair. This was foolish. How could he possibly help me? His mind was gone. Was I just being silly? Was the fear I was in danger only in my head? Was I allowing my illness to control me? That would be Dr. Ellis’ diagnosis. I let fantasy have too much control, but I couldn’t stop the nagging sensation that my subconscious was trying to tell me something, and I needed to listen.
I watched him; the same sentences left his mouth…like a broken record. It was the same every day, the routine of his illness, but it was identical. Every word, every gesture…how was it so precise? Restlessness filled me, an edginess. I couldn’t explain it, didn’t know what it was, but I knew I was running out of time. Dr. Nelson, poor man, he couldn’t help me. He’d lost his battle. I decided to leave the man in peace.
“Good bye, Dr. Nelson.” I turned for the door. His next words stopped me cold.
“I have a cocktail, it clears the mind…yellow label.”
I spun back to him, but he was typing away just like usual. Was it possible he had been helping me all along? Maybe this was nuts, no it was nuts, but what did I have to lose? I kissed him right on the lips. “Thank you.”
His response, “I have an article for Medical Weekly to write.”
So focused on how I was going to get the drug from Dr. Ellis’ office, if it even existed. I didn’t appreciate how quiet the hall was, but slowly it penetrated…it was eerily quiet. I rubbed at the tingle at my nape; it didn’t ease. My heart sped up when I sensed I wasn’t alone. My sixth sense was going crazy, warning that I was in trouble. I felt genuine malice reaching across the distance to me. I ran, straight to my room, and slammed the door closed; the lock was on the outside, so I shoved my chair under the handle. My breath was coming out in pants; I felt my pulse pounding all over my body. I stared at the small square piece of
glass in the door as I slowly backed away from it. Goosebumps rose on my skin, the room went cold at the dark emotions that nearly suffocated me. My lungs hurt from my attempt to draw air into them. A shift in the air a second before yellow eyes peered through the window. I screamed and stumbled backward, hitting the wall and sliding down it. As quickly as they appeared, they were gone, but their ugly lingered. I didn’t move, my body shaking uncontrollably. Mouse appeared and crawled into my lap.
One thing was growing more and more clear. Things were definitely not what they seemed.
12
Josiah
I resisted the urge to pinch myself or even shoot myself in the foot because I was looking right at it, and still, I questioned what I was seeing. I glanced around the room, but my look of bewilderment matched those around me. It was too bizarre to be real, but it was real, as real as me standing here. Esther had it under some kind of spell. I had it cuffed to the gurney just in case. Henry Werth had turned into something right out of a nightmare.
Cyril was fisting his stone. I didn’t blame him.
“I can’t believe it.” Jasmine looked how I felt. “I’m looking at him, and I don’t believe it.”
We had the advantage, and even being a fucked up advantage, we needed to make the most of it. “What do we know?”
“It is definitely dark magic,” Esther said. She studied the creature before she added, “Spiritually, there is nothing left of the man he was. It’s empty, void inside.”
That was a silver lining, Henry Werth not being trapped.
“I x-rayed it, and despite what it looks like on the outside, it’s very similar to the human physiology,” Jasmine revealed.
“Meaning they can be killed.”
“Yes.” She lifted the clawed hand. “I took measurements, and it is slightly different, but the width between the marks, the angle, the depths…it was definitely a creature like this that killed the McKinnons and Henry.”
“So it’s safe to say its purpose isn’t so much fighting but replicating,” Cyril stated.
Jasmine nodded her head. “That would be my guess.”
“Can you isolate the contagion?”
“I’ve already started.”
“There are other supernatural beings.” Esther’s comment turned everyone’s heads.
“What do you mean?” Jasmine asked.
“There are others you should talk to. I can introduce you,” she offered.
“What kind of other beings?” Jasmine asked then raised her hand. “No. Don’t tell me. I’m still trying to get my head around this. I’ll continue my work, but I can’t keep it here indefinitely. People are already asking questions.”
We couldn’t risk people seeing this. “You’re right. I’ll figure it out.”
Cyril stepped into my office and dropped down across from me. “Nick finished his search on Gary Ellis. On the surface, he is completely on the level.”
It was hard continuing on. After seeing what I’d seen, learning all that I’d learned, I wanted to grab Dahlia and get the fuck out of Dodge. I wanted to return to a time when I didn’t know about what haunted the dark, but I knew now. I was charged with protecting the people of this city, and whatever the hell was happening I knew they needed protecting. It was hard, but I pushed the bizarre to the back burner and worked the case like I would any other.
It had been three days since Misty Vale, and I hadn’t made any headway on the hospital. The more I dug, the less I learned. On the surface, it was legit, but scratch the surface and it fell apart. Nick hadn’t found out anything about the symbol, but it was significant. We had to keep looking. And that thing in the morgue, I was still processing that shit.
I leaned back in my chair, grateful for the distraction, and gave Cyril my full attention. “On the surface, and if you dig a bit?”
“That’s where it gets interesting. He didn’t exist before 1985.”
“What do you mean he didn’t exist before 1985?”
“There is no birth certificate on record for him. There is no driver’s license prior to 1985, no voting records, no medical files. And not just in Louisiana. He doesn’t exist anywhere.”
I resisted the urge to pull a hand through my hair. “There are any number of reasons why someone would change his identity, though none that make a hell of a lot of sense for some random doctor working in a rundown mental hospital. Ellis is linked to a woman who is tied to our case, so I think it is fair to say he’s a part of it too. I’d still like to know where the hell he was prior to 1985.”
“He had pictures of his family in his office. Might be worth paying them a visit,” Cyril suggested.
I didn’t hold out hope, nothing about this case made sense, but to Cyril I said, “Get their address. We’ll go today.”
“Another interesting tidbit, Dr. Ellis worked at New Orleans General for about a decade. Both Kathy and Ivy were born at New Orleans General. Not noteworthy on its own since it is the biggest hospital in the area; however, I referenced births at New Orleans General during a summer solstice dating back to the sixties and guess who worked on every summer solstice from 1985 to 1995?”
“Ellis.” That wasn’t a coincidence. What the fuck was he up to? “What do we know about Ivy Blackwood?”
“That’s where it gets even weirder. There’s nothing on her.”
“What do you mean?”
He dropped another file on my desk. I flipped it open. “She was born in 1985. The fire when Miss Blackwood was ten landed her in Misty Vale under the care of a man who didn’t exist prior to her birth year, but there is no trial transcript.”
“No trial transcript? How is that possible?” I turned to my computer and pulled up her name. As a minor, she should have been assigned a social worker and a lawyer. Cyril was right though. It wasn’t just the missing trial transcript; there was no record of the transport to the hospital, the written handoff of her care going from the State of Louisiana to her doctors at Misty Vale. There were no medical files. Missing one of these things was cause for concern, missing all of them was downright criminal…or fucking supernatural.
“Where was Miss Blackwood from the time of her birth to the fire?”
“Can’t find anything.”
“He was looking for Ivy Blackwood.”
“Why her?” Cyril asked.
“I don’t know, but he is still treating her. You saw him; he didn’t want us there. He didn’t want us asking questions. And when he tried to get us to leave? What the hell was that? He looked surprised when we didn’t do as he suggested.”
“A Jedi he is not.” Cyril’s attempt at humor was appreciated, but then he followed that with, “There are some who can persuade people through suggestions to do as they will.”
I shouldn’t be surprised to hear that, but it still creeped me the fuck out. “Magic?”
“Dark magic.”
A shiver moved through me. The one we sought practiced dark magic. “Do you think he could be the one responsible for whatever the hell Henry Werth turned into?”
“Ivy did have claw marks; he’s her doctor. I’ll look into it.”
“And there is nothing on Ivy Blackwood from the time of her birth to when she was ten?”
“No. Her mother, a Luna Blackwood, died in childbirth according to the hospital records, but there is no death certificate for her, and her baby vanished from the hospital.”
“Wait, no record of the mom’s death, but there’s a birth certificate for Ivy.”
“Yes.”
“But she vanished and they didn’t file a missing person’s report?”
“No.”
A chill moved through me at another link that tied all of it together. “Nick looked into the LeBlanc house. The LeBlancs owned the house in the mid eighteen hundreds; they were the last known owners. They had a daughter who also just disappeared. Fast-forward a few hundred years, we have Miss Blackwood. Born in 1985, but who doesn’t show up until she’s ten, suffers the same kind of injuries of those
from centuries earlier but lives, then allegedly kills her foster parents and ends up in the care of a man who didn’t exist prior to her birth, a man who I believe was hunting her. Twenty-two years later, people start dying again from the MO of what we now know is a supernatural killer.”
Cyril was ghostly white. I didn’t blame him. I felt sick to the stomach. “And her foster parents?” I asked.
Cyril’s voice wasn’t very strong when he replied, “Not much on them either. The Devanes, Felix and Shelly. It looks like they moved to town right before they took her in.”
“Aren’t there mandatory wait times, background checks?”
“Usually.”
“So they come to town, foster a kid, and later die in a house fire set by that kid?”
“What are you thinking?” Cyril asked.
“Who the hell is Ivy Blackwood? I think before we visit Dr. Ellis’ family, I need to visit my predecessor and find out what he remembers about her case. See if he remembers this Dr. Ellis. Hell, can’t hurt to ask about his experiences with the LeBlanc place.”
“Okay. I’ll keep looking through the files for something we might have—”
A rumbling that shook the walls drowned out the rest of his sentence. “What the fuck is that?” But I was already out of my office. I wasn’t the only one investigating the disturbance. I pushed through the crowd and stepped outside to the sight of motorcycles coming down the street, a whole fuck ton of them.
The lead biker parked in front of Leona’s bar and threw a massive denim clad leg over his hog. He had to be pushing seven feet. His arms were the size of tree trunks. He could probably lift my squad car with little effort. His expression was stone as he scanned the street, his eyes landing on me for a beat or two. Why I got the feeling he was assessing if we were the threat, I couldn’t say. His crew had the same hard look, taking in their surroundings like they were doing recon. They moved in mass to Leona’s, people exited the bar looking at the newcomers in awe and fear.